Steel

His relief at the normalcy had begun to revert back to irritation though not enough to make him shout out in annoyance. "I wonder where all these materials are. You'd think they'd be in abundance in this large field. Maybe this world follows some law of resources or something." At this point, he had no idea what he was saying anymore. He just wanted to do something else with his life but he couldn't go about doing that until he got what he came for. "Man, this is boring. Why can't gathering stuff be easy like in normal video games? Or is it just my luck?" He said to himself with a sigh. In normal video games, you found the materials you need all the time. It was all over the place. Maybe he was just in the wrong spot for searching for stuff. "Well, back to the grind I suppose."

ID# 97465

LD: 4 (+ 1) = 5

Materials Found: 5 

"Is it weird that I feel a sense of relief from this?" Steel said to himself as he had yet to find another material after searching for a few more minutes. At the moment, he was actually relaxed contrary to how he was acting earlier in regards to not finding anything. He had already found five of them and that was a decent start. He just required five or so more in order to meet his quota in order to get the equipment he desired. He was aiming for a perfect rank Tier 1 sword and the same rank for armor. His current gear made him look more like a black knight so he had hoped that he could request a more samurai looking appearance. And he wondered if he could get a Chokuto which was basically a katana but one handed. In terms of classification, he supposed it was kind of in the gray area since it was considered a katana but at the same time it was a straight one handed sword.

ID# 97464

LD: 10 (+ 1) = 11

Materials Found: 5 

"And back to not finding any again. The system really loves messing with me." He hadn't gotten his hopes up from finding that last one but he was certain that the Cardinal system was messing with him in some way. If not that, then Kayaba Akihiko. "Wait, what the heck am I thinking..." He was beginning to wonder whether he had gone insane, having begun to curse a computer program of all things. I guess this is what happens when you do something on your own for an extended period of time. He thought to himself as it was more that he was probably beginning to run out of things to say all by himself and began to rely on random thoughts that went through his head in order to prevent him from succumbing to boredom. Going around and searching for materials was boring enough. Doing it without companionship was even worse.

ID# 97462

LD: 3 (+ 1) =4

Materials Found: 5

"And somehow, I manage to find another one of these things. Is the universe of the E rank luck out of balance right now?" He started playing around with the concept of E rank luck as a joke as it wasn't following how it usually was recently. Well, compared to his last gathering quest which took forever to find the amount he had now. This time around, it took him half the time to acquire the same number. "Either my luck is changing or the system just wants to toy with me. I'm putting my money more on the latter cause my luck is still E rank." He said with a bit of a laugh as he continued his search for materials. "Well then, bring it on Cardinal. I won't break down from your mental attacks on me!" He issued a challenge to the system itself which made him wonder what the crap was he doing, talking to thin air and a program that wouldn't respond.

ID# 97458

LD: 16 (+ 1 LD) = 17

Material Acquired! 

Materials Found: 5

"As if I can do crits all the time!" Steel couldn't help but remark in tsukkomi (the straight man in a comedy duo) fashion as he noticed the Mimic come for him again and then he swung at it to shoo it away. Unfortunately, he couldn't land a blow due to being distracted but that attack was more for getting the wooden(?) monster to back off momentarily. He noticed that Reinka looked forward to this couple's meal, whatever it was. Steel had never seen it himself as he normally quested and ate by himself before making that promise to Reinka. And it would have been embarrassing if he ordered it for himself, regardless of his stomach. "If you want that then, we might as well order that couple's meal regardless once we're done here. But for now, let's focus on the battle. It'll make the meal taste all the better after a victory."

ID# 97459

BD: 3

Mimic:
HP: 22/110 
DMG 33

Reinka
HP: 120
Energy: 5/12 

Steel:
HP: 188/220 
Energy: 15/22

Hate:
Steel: 6

Reinka: 4

Though he got hurt, Steel stood steady as now it gave him a clear shot of his target. Regardless of how fast they were, there was no way it could dodge at near point blank range. "Snake Bite!" He exclaimed as he unleashed a powerful attack, letting out each slash with great gusto. At this rate, I'll probably be low on energy myself after approximately 7 more uses of the sword skill. Having my body moved in a way its not used to is tiresome indeed. The sword skills not only made them move in a certain way, they also made them do it at high speed, creating more of a mental burden if anything. However, that should be enough, even without critical damage. He thought to himself, noting the hp of the monster.

"Don't worry, I got potions but according to my calculations, we should be able to kill this thing before I need a potion. Let's do this!" He said with confidence.

ID# 97451

BD: 10

Mimic:
HP: 37/110 (12 Bleed) 
DMG 33

Reinka
HP: 120
Energy: 5/12 

Steel:
HP: 188/220 
Energy: 15/22

Hate:

Steel: 6

Reinka: 3

Aw man, I'm being one upped by my partner and I'm supposed to be the higher leveled one. Steel said with a small smile as Reinka managed to do more damage on top of dealing more damage to the mimic via bleeding later. "I'll just have to make up for it I suppose through spirit! Snake Bite!" He cried out as he slashed at the mimic three times. Though it didn't do as much damage as Reinka's attack, he still managed to keep its attention on him as the mimic had begun to eye Reinka. (though it had no eyes to speak of) "Keep your eyes off of her ugly. Over here!" He taunted the Mimic though it wouldn't actually do anything since he didn't have a taunt skill. "You're running low on stamina right? If you ever need a breather, feel free to fall back for a bit. I'll definitely be able to hold it here." He said to Reinka who seemed to be getting low on energy. "At the very least you might need to lower damage output for a bit. Doing too many skills at once takes a toll after all."

ID# 97446

BD: 8

Mimic:
HP: 64/110 (Bleeding) 
DMG 33

Reinka
HP: 120
Energy: 5/12 

Steel:
HP: 204/220 
Energy: 17/22

Steel flinched as he took damage. That's about 7% damage. It'll take approximately 13 hits to take me down. Even if I land all of my sword skills, I will only be able to deplete the enemy of about 70% of it's HP. The other 30% will have to be done by Reinka. The analytical side of him began running numbers through his head as Reinka landed a blow that paralyzed the monster before telling him to deal more damage. Steel used the same sword skill as usual, Snake Bite, and struck at the monster. He felt really good about the attack and it seemed to show in the extra damage he dealt. 

It was then he noticed that Reinka seemed a bit worried. Thanks to the short luxury of time given due to the stun, Steel was able to give her an apologetic smile. "I guess it's my bad that we have to face this annoying thing since it's based on my level. Sorry about that!" His smile then turned into a confident one. "But regardless, we'll definitely pull through. We're partners who'll stick together through thick and thin aren't we?"

ID# 97430

BD: 9

Mimic:
HP: 85/110 ((PARALYZED)
DMG 33
 

Reinka
HP: 120
Energy: 8/12 

Steel:
HP: 204/220 
Energy: 17/22

Hate:
Steel: 3

Reinka: 1

"That sounds like a sweet story." Steel said with a small smile. "And man, your Dad sure was persistent, being able to keep that up for probably years to slowly work his way into her heart." Steel had begun to form a sense of respect for this man he had yet to meet. "I never found out the details for my parents. Just that they met on one of Dad's business trips." Reinka had opened the chest at this point and had found it was empty, only for it to attack her. Thankfully, she dodged it but it still made him worry as he immediately shifted into battle mode. The mimic was now focused on the lower leveled and less armored Reinka. As the tank, it was his role to change that. "Get away from her you piece of firewood!" He shouted as he used the sword skill Snake Bite to strike at the side of the monster. "That's right, keep your eyes on me!" He was determined to protect Reinka.

That's about 8% damage. My damage output is way too low. I'll run out of stamina at this rate... Steel thought to himself as he began strategizing in his head.

ID# 97422

BD: 8

Party:

Reinka
HP: 120
Energy: 11/12

Steel:
HP: 220
Energy: 19/22

Enemy:

Mimic:
HP: 101/110

"There we go, that's more like my luck." Steel said in response with a small smile on his face. For some reason, he felt a sense of relief even though he hasn't found any more materials for the past couple of minutes. It was kinda like all was right in the world again in his mind. He actually kinda felt unnerved about how he was getting so lucky earlier because of his normally bad E rank luck. Now that his luck was seemingly back to normal, he felt that he could relax for whatever reason. Maybe because of that light Asperger Syndrome side of him that felt like he needed to keep things the way they were. It was weird how that worked. Even he didn't get it sometimes. "Well, once I get my stats up, maybe I'll get used to actually succeeding on a normal basis." He said to himself.

ID# 97331

LD: 8 (+1 LD) = 9

Materials Found: 4

"I'm honestly confused right now." Steel said as he found another material in plain sight. This was his third one in a row. Rather than happiness though, he was more on the side of confused. Normally, his luck would have gone back to normal, and by normal he means crappy, and he should have went back to taking a while till he found another one. But for some odd reason or another, he had found three in a row. The shift in luck almost made him question his own identity as being unlucky was kinda his thing. It's the whole reason why he wanted to be a tank. Well, the first reason was to protect others but the second reason was that he could combine defense with thorns and damage his enemy even if he couldn't land a hit himself. "Well, I guess I just take it and see how my luck goes from here." He said to himself.

ID# 97330

LD: 20 (+1 LD) = 21

Material Acquired! 

Materials Found: 4

"Okay, let's see if I can find another one." Steel said as he continued searching through the bushes. "Let's test my E rank luck again..." He said as he began searching the trees for a bit before going back to scanning the floor and bushes. He just went around and eventually, he found another piece of material. "Well, I'm honestly surprised. I didn't think I would find another one so soon after I found the last one. There's my short burst of luck I suppose. Gotta make sure my hopes aren't up and cool my head.." He kept calming himself down as he knew that like always, his luck wouldn't last long. For now, he should be grateful for his moment of luck and then calm down. He still had a ways to go before he would be done for the day. He had armor and gear to acquire after all.

ID# 97322

LD: 18 (+1 LD) = 19

Material Acquired!

Materials Found: 3

"You know? This really feels like the typical scenario of a Japanese man trying to appease his wife..." Steel said referring back to his current situation. It was similar to some dramas his little sister watched back in the real world where the men were basically under their wives' thumb and the men tried their hardest in trying to please them. While it wasn't exactly like that, he was here because he didn't want Reinka to cry because of worrying about him again. She had really broke down a bit ago before he made his promises with her. His thoughts on the matter almost made him not notice a bit of material nearby if not for his search skill. It was a little hidden. He bent down and picked it up. "Alright, that's another down. And now I got like a bunch more to go." He said to himself as he pocketed the material and continued on his way.

ID# 97320

LD: 14 (+1 LD) = 15

Material Found!

Materials Found: 2

"Gosh darn it, I think I'm on the wrong track." Steel said as he couldn't find any more materials like usual. "Why do I have such lousy luck... This lousy E rank luck...." Steel said with a sigh. He decided to turn around and go back to where he was before. He had ended up wandering a bit far away from where he was originally searching. He was actually wondering how he managed to get this far away. No doubt, this was the result of Steel's lousy luck. Because of that, it seemed that he was in an area where the materials were less likely to be found. Hence why he needed to go back. A few minutes later, he made it back to his original material search location. "Okay then, let's keep this going and try again." He said with a sigh as he continued to search through the bushes once more.

ID# 97317

LD: 2 (+1 LD) = 3

Materials Found: 1

"I knew it. I can't find anything again." Steel said out of disappointment. By now, he had gotten over the short high of finally finding some material. Make that very short high. He knew he wouldn't have much luck even with the search skill so he didn't really let his hopes up in the first place. This is why he needed to increase his stats. While his luck was bad, he could use abilities and items that increased his chances to hit an enemy or find an item in order to make up for it. Or in the case of battle, use stuff like thorns to deal damage to his foes when he got attacked since enemies seemed to be able to land their hits pretty often. "Maybe I should buy a trinket or something in order to increase my searching ability." He said to himself as the small buff from his searching skill didn't seem to help at all. 

ID# 97316

LD: 11 (+1 LD) =12

Materials Found: 1

It took him a while but he had finally found something. He ended up tripping again and he ended up finding the first material of the day. "Finally, I get one, just a million more to go." Steel said with a sigh of relief. At the same time, he had a light groan at how he'd have to spend way more time to find the amount of materials he needed. While not a million like his exaggeration, he had to at least get 10 to 15 more materials. "With my E rank luck, I'm going to have a hard time gathering the rest of them. Especially since I only get one each time. But it's a necessity, both survival wise and for Reinka so I'll put up with it." Steel said with a sigh as he got up and stretched. "Well, onto the next one." He said as he started off for the next material.

ID# 97315

LD: 19 (+1 LD) = 20

Gained 1 Tier 1 Material

Amount of Materials: 1

"It's more of a brain thing. In reality, your brain tells you when your stomach is full right? Eating past your limit causes your stomach to feel pain. This is to prevent you from literally dying from overeating. So we basically keep that here even though we don't have a physical stomach to store said food. I guess in this case, it's to keep you from spending too much money on food. Hahaha." He said with a grin. "Yeah, squid's a common dish here in Japan. Hopefully we can find some here. It tastes pretty good. And with no calories to worry about, we can eat as much as we want here. Let's take advantage of that."

"Your folks were pretty strict on that huh? Almost sounds like the stereotype asian parents..." What Steel was talking about was that the stereotype for asian parents when it came to dating was to ask how much money they made and what their grades were. Despite that being a stereotype, he hadn't actually seen that for himself so he wondered how that came to be. "Well, not like thinking about potential loves is a bad thing."

"Yeah, I've been ready for a while. Let's get ba..." Steel couldn't finish his sentence as he went and tripped over something. When he turned to look, he found a chest. "Well, found another chest."

ID# 97311
LD: 18
Found chest

"Even after calming down, I still can't find a thing..." Steel said with a sigh. He was considering giving up but he had to get enough materials for gear somehow. At the very least, he had to get enough for the gear he needs which he will order from the blacksmith once he's done here. "The things I put up with for my friends.." Steel said as he continued searching.  It would be a win win situation anyway. He'd get better gear out of this, thus increasing his chances of survival, and at the same time, he'd make his partner happy. Or at least not break into a crying fit like when they had last gone on a quest together. Speaking of which, the reason why he was doing this was because he had promised Reinka that he would have this better equipment  by the time they went on their quest together.

ID# 96717

LD 9 (+1 LD) = 10

"I'm getting really sick of this..." Steel said as he could yet again not find a single thing. He was getting rather irritated at how this was going. "Man this is boring..." He said with a low growl as he continued looking for stuff to no avail. He decided to give up momentarily and relax against a tree. This time he wasn't sleeping but he needed to calm down. He was getting worked up to easily. He needed to meditate. That was how he did things back in the real world, especially before a match. He needed to calm his soul to prevent himself from being blinded by his own emotions. Right now, he was beginning to be blinded by his irritation so he had to temporarily remove it from his mind. After a minute or two, he had calmed himself down and stood back up, ready to get back to the gathering. "Let's give this another go I suppose.

ID# 96711

LD: 13 (+ 1 LD) =14

More time had passed, though not too much time, and Steel had let to find anything despite using that search skill. "I think my E rank luck is just way too overpowering. It's making sure to give me a hard time even with skills to back me up..." He said with a sigh. He was already getting tired of this and was beginning to wonder whether this would take all day again. He was hoping he'd get the amount of materials he needed by the time the sun had set. The other thing that made Steel feel like Reinka was acting as his wife was how she wanted him to come home, meaning the inn room they were sharing, at a decent time. Because of this, it wasn't like he had all the time in the world to gather materials. With that in mind, he began to hurry up in his searching, trying to find some stuff. Perhaps he'd find a treasure chest or something.

ID# 96708

LD: 6 (+1 LD) = 7

"My gosh, is this going to be a repeat of that beginner's quest?" Steel said as he had yet to find anything again. He was already beginning to have flashbacks of that quest where he spent all day trying to find materials for that potion, something that also took him multiple tries to finish despite being so simple. "Though combat skills are going to be my focus, I might need to level up my search skill as well..." He was by nature more of a combatant than a non combatant and was even on the front lines before whatever caused him to go inactive, something Steel wasn't even sure what happened, and would rather fight monsters than search for stuff. But important things like gathering materials for new gear made him think otherwise so he had thought to at least level up the searching skill. "Well, let's try again I suppose..."

ID# 96707 results

LD: 9 (+1 LD) = 10

"Although Reinka told me not to go off on my own, I still gotta get materials so I can get better gear. Sometimes, she acts as if she's my wife or something." Steel said as he began searching through floor one to find materials. The girl that had basically become a constant party member was easily scared about him dying and had made him promise to get better gear before calming down. Because he'd rather not see her cry because of him again, he was out here once more, testing his E rank luck. "This time though, I have the Searching skill! This should hopefully make things easier!" He said feeling confident about his chances this time. Unfortunately, even with the skill boosting his chances, he couldn't seem to find anything at first. "E rank luck one, Search skill zero..." Steel said with a sigh as he lost some confidence. He had chosen the search skill for an easier time finding things and for the other functions it could have in the field. But so far, it was failing him.

ID#: 96703

LD: 13 (+ 1 LD from search skill) =14

"Now that I've heard that, I'm more fired up about getting you to enjoy the food here!" Steel said with a grin. "The food here has no calories so eat to your heart's content! Though since you still feel full from eating, you can still get a stomachache from eating too much." He said with a nervous laugh as he remembered when he had tried that himself.

Reinka then went on explaining how she'd act in that situation which sounded kinda admirable although a little scheming. Somehow, this returned back to her tastes in a lover. Girls really like talking about love a lot don't they? Steel couldn't help but think to himself and it kinda showed on his face. Even with the experience of having a little sister, he still didn't get girls sometimes if not almost all the time. 

"Yeah, let's get stronger and get home as fast as we can. Though I'm sure our loved ones are fine." Steel said to reassure her. In the back of his head though, he definitely knew his sister would be fine. Perhaps a bit too much of Takeshi rubbed off on her since last he knew, she had managed to beat back some flirts who were getting rough. "And if that agent tries to burn it all, we'll just have to convince the guy otherwise. As they say, hate the crime not the person. While Kayaba did trap us here, the world itself hasn't done anything wrong to us per say. And has even let us experience it."

"Now then, you all rested up?" He said as he was fine now.

"Not that health food isn't good for you but I'd have a hard time dealing with that sort of diet..." Steel said in response to Reinka's description of her diet. Though to be fair, Japanese diets were already healthy in comparison to places like America so it wouldn't be as a big of a deal if he ate more, especially with how he burned through his calories through training. "Unfortunately, I haven't really eaten Kobe beef all that much. I think I ate it like once or twice. It tastes good but it's way too pricy. My diet was the complete opposite of yours. I had to eat a lot in order to keep up with the amount of calories I burned through training so my family had to be economical about our food." 

"Well, in a way, both days weren't exactly good for the heart..." Steel said as he remembered some of those days. "As you just said, it's a time where you can go all out for the person you like. So there could be normies that have multiple girls vie for his affections and that gets ugly occasionally. Then there's guys who just awkwardly stand there, hoping that they get chocolate that year."

"I'd be willing to go back to a virtual world like this. Despite this incident, I'm sure that they're going to make more games using virtual reality worlds as we speak. This world already has so much to see and experience. Just imagine what sights there'll be in the other worlds?" He said this with excitement in his voice. "That'll be another reason to get out of here. To be able to see what they managed to come up with while we were away. Think they'll have magic this time?" He said with a laugh as SAO would have been a normal RPG if it included magic. "How about we get together after we leave here to decide which one we explore next?"

"Valentines is when the girls give chocolate to guys generally and White Day, which is a month later, is the reverse and the guys get something for the girls." Steel said in response. "White Day aside since that's more a Japan thing, I thought Valentine's Day was international. I'm surprised you don't know about it." It seemed like Reinka was enjoying her chocolate greatly, saying that she may develop a sweet tooth. "I suppose we'll have to get dessert when we eat out tonight." He said with a smile. "At least we can't get cavities here."

"Even before we got stuck in here, they already made a diet program for the nerve gear. It makes sense since eating food here still tricks your brain into thinking you're full though you don't gain a single calorie here." Steel said in response. "I think once we get out of here, you should introduce the program to your friends in theater. I'm under the impression you guys watch every calorie you eat. It doesn't really sound fun. Diet reasons aside, they should try to enjoy food for once. Though that may just be me since I have to eat a ton in order to keep up with the large amount of calories I end up burning through the day."