Sword art online : Protection

Prolouge

(Kirito's POV)

It was a spring evening, around five months since the start of the Russian roulette that was Sword Art Online. I was romping around a labyrinth about ten floors below the current front line, collecting ingredients for a new weapon. As a beater -- a former beta-tester whose knowledge of the game allowed me to burst out of the gate, earn experience efficiently, and handle the toughest monsters on my own -- the task was yawningly boring. I'd carefully avoided any other adventurers and reached my quota of items in just two hours. As I prepared to leave, I came across a party running in the other direction as a swarm of larger monsters chased them.

Even a solo player like me could tell this was a poorly balanced party. Out of five, only two people were equipped to manage the front line. There was a boy bearing a shield and a mace, and a girl wielding a sword. The others were a thief with daggers, one person with a quarterstaff, and two people with spears. The one with the mace was losing HP, all he could do was to continue backing away from the enemy.

I looked at each of them in turn to check their HP they had enough to make it to the exit, but if they pulled another group of monsters along the way, there was no guarantee of their safety. After a moment of hesitation, I leaped out of the hidden pathway and called out to the man with the staff, who I gauged to be their leader.
"Want some help up there?"

He stared wide-eyed at me for a moment but quickly acquiesced.

"Yes, please. If you feel in danger at any time, go ahead and run for it."

I pulled the sword from my back and called out to the mace-welder to switch, then forced my way to the front of the horde of monsters. It was a pack of armed goblins, the same enemies I'd just been farming repeatedly for the past few hours. If I unleashed my sword skills, I could wipe them out in an instant, and even if I just stood there unresisting, my 'Battle Healing' ability would ensure that I could take a hail of blows without danger for quite some time.
But for an instant, I felt fear --not of the goblins but of the watchful eyes of the people behind me. 

Ordinarily speaking, it was poor form for a high-level player to strut around a lower hunting ground as though he owned the place. Do it for long enough, and someone would hire the big-time guilds to get rid of you, and after they'd hung you out to dry, you were placed on the "bad player" lists in the game's newspapers. As this was an emergency, it seemed like my transgression could be overlooked. However, I was still afraid of that moment when the gratitude in their eyes would turn into disgust at a beater like me.
I limited my sword skills to the most basic I had, taking my time against the goblins. But I had no idea what a horrendous mistake this would lead me to much, much later.