Arabelle

"Like my wonderful not-boyfriend once said!" -- The small purple-haired girl heaved up her large scythe with a puff of effort. -- "It's called the drops, Arabelle! Drops!"

Bringing it down like one would with an executioner's axe, she chopped another zombie in half. It went and spawned by itself in her range, it definitely had it coming! Why had it been alone anyway? Had they finally exhausted the earth's zombie supply? Or was it going in a regeneration period much like how she had to spend a time out of combat to regain her energy?

Wait.

Gasp.

This couldn't be a coincidence. Every time she regenerated her energy, disregarding the second thread, there were less zombies around to pester them.

Were those two events somehow linked--

She lost the train of thought before she could even go further into it.

"Anyways! Handle your mob," she said with a bit of a dismissive wave. "Event stuff, right? They're all event-limited. While that word might not sound appealing to you, let me add onto that and say all of the equipment being sold are Demonics! And with unique enhancements to boot! Surely, you know what those are, right?"

~~BINGO BOOK

An went and killed her target and once again, Arabelle felt that little glow of pride. The new girl had improved a lot since the start of the event, where she was a bit reckless and mayyybe a tad bit too sensitive and whiny about her failures. And now, she was efficiently cutting down the mobs Arabelle missed in her first round of attacks!

Oh, god, there was another one. 

Rising up from the ground, another foul-looking group of zombies went and joined the ones that just fell. Was there no end to these guys?! In a way, she thought this was a lot worse than the Rain Minion event - at least there, the mobs that went and attacked them were the ones that were already there, making it easier to gauge how much they had left to fight.

This, though?

Practically no end in sight. Maybe it would really even last until morning.

"Hm, only two of the five I think I can finish," Arabelle responded. Her scythe flared with energy and she directed it at the new group of mobs. Ding! sounded the notification bell she had set for herself earlier. "Make that three. An, you should be really close too! Even if we find Shiro-chan, let's keep pushing for your achievement, okay? Trust me, there's a bunch of nice stuff you can get."

~~BINGO BOOK

Well, this was fun.

...She meant that sarcastically.

Now that the two players were here, these pests were spawning in droves. That was fine and all - she felled another group with a chain of swings and blunt-end slams with her scythe, nice and easy, and the fact that she was still in pristine condition even as she fought without her armor equipped spoke volumes of just how strong she was compared to these event trash mobs. She was killing mobs before they could even damage her. A very different experience from the Rain Minion event! Yeah, it was really called something else, but she didn't care, it was forever 'Rain Minion' event in her head. 

But Arabelle did know they came here for an objective. And with these persistent little freaks spawning around them, it was harder to get it going. She would send An to creep a bit closer to the stage and check things out, but...

There was one left alive from her attack. At 1 HP. It was irking her.

"One for you, An!"

~~BINGO BOOK

Oh, that hole. The one that suddenly opened up and caused all this mess in the first place. Might be a decent guess considering An's experience, but here's a bit of a problem: the stage in question was elevated only a mere few inches from the ground. Not too high, or the circus goers would have had to tilt their heads up to very uncomfortable degrees just to see everything that was going on. Most other circuses she knew of didn't even have an elevated stage. 

Whatever. It's not like that NPC had planned to hold an actual circus act or anything.

The point is, there was no way Mishiro would have fallen into a shallow hole and gotten stuck for the entirety of the time they had been looking for her. She voiced this all out to An, as nicely as possible.

"But we have nowhere else to go, so we might as well look into that," Arabelle added. "Hmhm~. It's not like we have much of a choice now that we're here. If it all turned out to be pointless after all, we can go ahead and say that we really tried! ...and the extra kills would be extremely useful."

She was referring to the group that had spawned around them. 

Flames consumed her scythe. She smiled and guided it toward their enemies. One, two spinning sweep attacks, and another entire group of zombies were dead.

~~BINGO BOOK

It was practically right in front of her eyes now. 

Arabelle put on another burst of speed, leaping over a wandering group of zombies, and suddenly dropped down to the ground like a stone. She ducked her head down as the zombie boss's large hand harmlessly passed over her.

Lovely. It had to be at half HP already, but thing had AoE attacks. Just another concern to add to her growing pile.

The small purple-haired girl righted herself slowly. They were right where her friend has disappeared. Where was she...? Arabelle scanned the immediate area, ashen eyes glancing over the wandering groups of undead and the big guy taking up a large portion of the stage. No PMs, and she hadn't caught sight of Mishiro anywhere else earlier; Arabelle had been keeping an eye out. She was absolutely sure her friend was somewhere here. 

Nothing. 

"Interesting theory," Arabelle murmured with a devilish smile. "I'll test it out later! Let's see... I think three should be enough."

Now where to find cute silver-haired, red-eyed players to experiment play with...

"We're fiiine," she insisted. The small purple-haired girl looked over her shoulder and urged An to go a bit faster. She was going at full speed now, even hopping over a practically half-dead zombie on the way. When more mobs groaned and dragged themselves up upon seeing her, she quickly changed course and disappeared behind a line of players. They were now nearing the center stage where the large fight was ongoing, but the horde was thinner on this side. Players were striking down the smaller mobs faster than they spawned to make way for the boss battle. Just a few more bursts and they would make it! "I don't want to stop now, An! So either speed up or I might end up leaving you behind!"

Her eyes burned with determination.

They were going to find their missing teammate.

The dilemma: should she compliment An or should she not? Doing the former had always inevitably jinxed the other girl to fail her next few attacks - and it wasn't just plain superstition either, she had that backed with evidence! Arabelle didn't know, maybe the rapier user was feeling too pressured to keep it up. Most of her misses so far, had been a result of trying too hard. But, there was a counterargument to that which balanced out the scales - if not totally tipped it!

An actually smiled when she received praise.

Friendship ended with Mishiro. An was her new best friend.

Screw it. It's not like An would miss her attacks forever. From what she could observe, the new girl was actually improving.

"Right when I needed it!" the small purple-haired girl said with a smile when bright, expectant crimson eyes landed on her. "I wanted to get out of combat so I can regenerate my energy a bit earlier. From here on, we're going to do our usual and try to avoid fighting the zombies, alright?"

You know you've failed as a senpai when your kouhai - who did not at all seem like the pretentious know-it-all type - schools you on 'Being a Senpai 101.'

"Alright, alright, hold your pitchforks!" Arabelle had sheathed her scythe at her back, so she could now hold up both of her hands in an 'I'm innocent' gesture. "I didn't expect it was actually going to happen! I think I've only met... two people who actually get "drunk" in here so far. Oh, but now that I think about it... one of them was a boy who kind of looked like you. White hair and red eyes and all. Think it's related? Do you have a brother, An?"

Besides, if An had actually gotten too drunk, Arabelle could have just urged her to teleport to another floor or did the teleporting herself.

~~BINGO BOOK

Her remark on SAO's probable reason for lack of an achievement system didn't need any additional comment. 

"Makes sense," she agreed. There were, indeed, certain times when she just wanted to throw her laptop against the wall upon failing to attain an achievement she thought she had worked hard for. Her completionist mentality was not going to apply here though. Just cutting through these mobs to get to their third teammate's last known location should be more than enough to yield her the points she needed to get that lovely Fallen Weapon Voucher, and it wasn't like she was sitting snugly on her soft chair with snacks at a nearby table. No, their lives were actually at risk; one unfortunate move too close to that boss and she was toast. Plus, this was actually physically tiring as hell. "So, usually, how many playthroughs of a game do you do?"

An killed one. The other remained. But, wait... there was another challenger stepping into the ring!

Big mistake, Zombie No. 91.

With a strong blow from her weapon, she knocked the unfortunate creature out of the playing field before it could even make its move.

"Oh, those people? The ones who get drunk out of some Placebo effect instead of any actual influence from the alcohol consumption. You really can't get drunk off the hard drinks here, if you didn't already know.

"It's not a good thing nor a bad thing. It's just a thing I occasionally get curious about."

She mimicked An's previous words with a shrug.

~~BINGO BOOK

"Right? I thought I was the only one who missed that part of RPGs." Oh, achievement sections. By Internet terms, she was more of a completionist. There was nothing more beautiful to her than seeing a fully completed set of achievements but it also followed that what irked her the most was being absolutely unable to complete certain goals. Especially the ones that were locked behind past events she didn't get to join but still somehow appeared in achievement sections of new players anyway. "Once you reach max level, max equipment, that becomes your end goal. I mean, if you don't have any more content to give those types of players, why not just give them something that encourages them to keep repeating already cleared content just to get it? I think it's smart! And it also makes for good bragging rights."

Arabelle deflected an attack.

"Though... SAO doesn't need endgame content. Or anything that encourages us to keep playing."

That's right. The only goal was to clear all one hundred floors and then they would probably be logged out and the game would, presumably, go poof. Much to the relief of most players who would survive, probably. They would never want to see this place again.

"What?" Arabelle laughed. She swiftly dealt another blow to the zombies that came in to take the place of their deceased allies. "I thought it was funny! Besides, I was curious to see if you were one of those people."

~~BINGO BOOK

"Achievements. Completing them gives you points that you can use to buy special items with," she said simply. "If you open your menus and look around the 'quest' sub menu, you'll find an event section. I think... the trigger for it appearing was that entrance fee we paid earlier. I mean, it seemed like a pointless part of the event at first, right? Like, what difference would our experience be from the players who never paid the entrance fee but still encountered the zombies outside the tent?"

What the hell was An thrusting her rapier at? Air?

The only zombie that survived her attack threw a punch at her while her guard was down. She felt its fist whiz past her head, but the other hand grabbed her by the throat. Oh no, you don't. She didn't like being on that receiving end of that fetish, sorry! 

Arabelle flicked it with the hilt of her scythe and the hand around her neck disintegrated. Turning to another group of three drawn in by the fight, she used up the rest of her Sword Art to wipe the two who came closest.

~~BINGO BOOK

"Oh... nothing," the small purple-haired girl hummed innocently. She didn't even expect An would get tipsy; SAO's system did not allow for items to actually have an influence on its players' mentality, but it didn't stop players from getting into a certain state of mind because they believed it would influence them in such a way. Who knows, maybe An unconsciously thought that drinking too much cider would get one drunk. "I did some little scouting around while you were resting earlier, in case you didn't notice. Just the little concession stand right beside us."

And there, she found a very curious thing: special limited items that could be bought with points earned from completing achievements. That was completely new. All their zombie slaying hadn't been completely pointless after all! 

Now put an achievement shop in every grinding hell event after this or we riot.

But An kept talking. Her sweet, flattered smile at the girl's admittance grew dim as the other girl went on. 

'Different.'

"Lovely. I've been ready for a while now. Try not to fall behind!" Arabelle summoned her scythe and looked over her shoulder with a smug smile. "Or hey, you can sit back and enjoy the view. I don't mind either way, but make sure you still try to kill the ones I can't, alright?"

It wasn't long before a group of zombies that had shambled into their path were mowed down by flaming shockwaves from the small reaper's scythe.

~~BINGO BOOK

Since we're nearing the end, let's have a recap, shall we?

The night started off normal. Arabelle remembered leaving the marketplace after seeing through some errands. The specifics weren't worth mentioning, even some parts of the ludic girl's daily life had to be absolutely uninteresting - else she would never be able to distinguish what was fun and what was not. How did that philosophy go again...? There can't be rainbows without the rain, or something. Arabelle didn't particularly care. She remembered the nice peaceful walk back to the teleport plaza. She liked the silence sometimes. Even though she liked being constantly surrounded by noise, she had to know what a lack of noise was so that -- oh, whatever. Moving on.

And then... zombies appeared! Gasp!

No, really. She knocked down a few, wondered why there were hostiles inside the safe zone in the first place, then went running toward its source. And then she found her best friend and picked up a semi-useless but altogether cute and friendly teammate, and they fought against the horde. For... no, she didn't even know how long at this point.

But it definitely wasn't morning yet.

Arabelle's scythe flickered with the reflection of the torchlight as she rose to her feet, holding her weapon behind her with both hands. She was lucky they found a safe place; her event partner desperately needed to rest, even if just for five minutes. In front of them though, the battles endlessly raged and the event boss in the center showed no signs of going down soon. Summoning her inventory, she pulled out an item and took a small bite.

Currently, they were halfway to the spot where they saw their friend disappear.

~~BINGO BOOK

And just like that, An hit a mob, mob regenerates, mobs hit her, An pretty much almost died.

No offense, but at this point, Arabelle thought giving the girl her encouragements was just jinxing her or something. An always seemed to hit a mob better when she kept quiet, and somehow managed to do even worse when she was actively raining her compliments and nice gentle words. That was weird. She thought positive reinforcement always worked! Arabelle was internally screaming as she laughed along sheepishly at her partner's frustration. Understandable. 

Then the rest of the zombies rolled in, filling up the two empty slots.

An at low HP. Arabelle at low energy, but just enough to do another AoE.

Fiiine, I'll do it myself.

God, she was glad she didn't choose this very moment to regenerate her energy out of combat instead.

"Shi-chan..." Arabelle held her scythe in front of her and poured the last of her energy into it. She could literally feel it leaving her bones and manifesting as a green flame around her scythe's blade. Her strength began to wane midway through, but still she pushed on - the flame glowing larger and larger until it practically swallowed up her scythe in a malevolent green inferno. With shortening breath, she spoke out the last words and poured in the last of her strength.

"Eradicate them."

The flames of her inferno raged as she strung along the undead on her deadly dance. It consumed one who dared to get too close to land a blow. She scorched the flesh of another and stabbed her scythe's hilt into the ground, spinning around it so that the other zombie that was advancing met the flames of her scythe instead of the player it had aimed to attack. The last one had a bit of a head on its hands. It hesitated. But Arabelle wasn't about to let a delicious extra kill get away. Her lips pulled up into a cruel smile. She launched herself into the air, pulling the scythe out of the ground along with her, and using its weight to crash the entirety of its flaming blade on the last zombie's head.

Arabelle landed on the ground, exhausted, but not so much that it didn't warrant a stylish flip of her hair as data fragments dispersed around her.

~~BINGO BOOK

Well, they didn't have the time to dwell on that.

Arabelle twirled her scythe in her hands and deflected one of the attacks that came her way while An handled the other. By handling the other, she meant... just deflecting the attack instead of straight out killing it. By the girl's expression though, that had been a mistake. Heck. Arabelle looked up at her energy values - still at a high enough value that she can regenerate enough for another AoE if she downed her last energy drink.

So she did. Deflecting another attack from the mob at full HP,  the small purple-haired girl didn't make any move forward but instead grabbed her last energy drink from the inventory and popped off its cover. Keeping her eyes on the mobs around them, she tipped her head back and drank the entire disgusting thing in one gulp. Whew, finally! No more energy drinks after this! She sure as hell wasn't buying any more, no matter how useful they were.

"I'm giving you another chance, An! Go after that one, I'm going to try for another AoE to wipe out the rest!"

~~BINGO BOOK

Crawling up once again from the depths of hell. Somehow, they were still moving. Somehow, there was still a part of them that drove them forward - chasing after the one thing the darkness in their mind allowed them to know. But in their clouded mind, the smallest hints of rationality that still remained spoke: something was wrong. They had lived and died twice now. The first, they no longer remembered. Not their name, nor the town they lived in, nor the family they held dear. By the time the second came, they were just one of many. Designed to maim and kill, driven by their insatiable thirst for the life they would never have. They remembered racing forward. Sinking their teeth into anything that smelled alive. Oh, that didn't matter after all; it's not like their organs were still functioning to digest anything they ate. Truth be told, they could have continued "living" without eating a thing. Pointless actions for a pointless existence. 

But it was their only existence. And Death had ripped it from them once again. Tore them to pieces. Malicious green flames - burning them from inside out. Wailing in pain. Cursing the Heavens. If this was the only World to return to, they shall rather have never left Hell. 

And then they woke up.

There was only one thing to do--

--Arabelle cleaved another zombie in half and tilted her head.

"Huh, that's weird. These guys are kind of hard to distinguish from each other, but I just got the feeling I saw that one before."

Oh well. Humming happily to herself, the small scythe-wielder went and killed the rest.

~~BINGO BOOK

"Ara, ara? That's a bold accusation to level at your superior," hummed the scythe-wielder. She fended off a mob before it could get too close and noticed An's HP had returned to full. Lovely. She was off babysitting duty - for some part, anyway. At least she didn't have to think of keeping them away from An too much. The girl should be able to handle herself at full HP, even against a group. "Don't worry, I'll tell you soon enough. How about using it as motivation to get through these mobs?"

Another set of reinforcements. Another swing of her scythe. How many had they cut down so far...? These guys honestly seemed as if there was no end to them.

Again, one remained - having been just far enough to react quickly to the attack coming at it. "Oh, don't go for that guy though. Just saying in case you got a bit too motivated."

~~BINGO BOOK

"For both of my scythes, yes. For Mishiro's axe, no. The second one was bought from the weapons another player-ran shop had in stock. She didn't have any choice on its appearance, or its name, or the weird vanity effect that came with it." Oh, vanity effects. How she wished she had one aside from the typical green flame-like aura that surrounded her weapon whenever she activated a Sword Art, but it would probably just get in the way like Mishiro's does. "If you noticed earlier, it gives off a weird black smoke. That's totally cool and all, but in a small space with low visibility, it starts to pool around you and make everything even worse."

She never thought she would be saying this. But for her weapon, simple practicality was better!

"Hmm... let's save that for later. I'm all fully energized, so let's go!" 

An was making a terribly wrong assumption, but Arabelle decided no harm would come to teasing the other girl for a while. Barging her way through zombies with her partner close behind, the small purple-haired girl only stopped when they were finally surrounded. She checked to see if An was still close by. Then she whirled around and unleashed a flurry of attacks with her renewed strength.

~~BINGO BOOK

That wasn't exactly what she meant, but now that An mentioned it, there were other players here too.

Whoops?

Arabelle could hardly be bothered. As long as they did their job, she wouldn't pay the other teams any more heed than necessary. Of course, the necessary simply entailed keeping well out of their way so they wouldn't crash into each other and keeping an eye on their own mobs so she wouldn't accidentally steal the kills of another team and make more of a mess than this literally godforsaken event had already made.

"If you know of that famous blacksmith who offers discounts to low-leveled players, I took a quest with that guy once. He helped me find a familiar and even gave it a cheesy name." Other than that though... she didn't remember any other details of their interaction other than him jokingly calling her a 'Disney princess.' That had been a bit of a laugh. "Oh, now that I think about it, I promised him another quest. Oh well~. And also, technically, my guild leader is a frontliner." The thought of him brought a small smile to her lips. "Want me to tell your more about him?"

--And right after she praised her, An went and missed her attack and the zombie came forward and tried to snack on her. Lovely. Arabelle was on the verge of literally facepalming. It seems that with everything An did right, she did three things wrong in turn. Nothing personal, An, but the small purple-haired girl was already bored enough as it is and right now, all she wanted was to watch a fun fight.

Watching fights was fun, too! Kind of... when it wasn't a completely one-sided beatdown anyway. She had gotten into the habit when she learned that players dueled each other in the central plaza from time to time. Friendly duels. She had never once seen a duel to the death in the middle of the safezone, but then again, that was sure to draw some intervention from the audience.

Arabelle smiled down at An.

"Why do you think I stood here instead of keeping myself on the ground where it's easier to move...?" 

That's right. Senpai already had that idea in mind, but her contribution was appreciated nonetheless! She surveyed the audience area, found none but there were some parts her height couldn't allow her to peek into, and turned her head to the central stage. Where could a depressed 17-year-old be at this point...?

"It's fine. She'll send me a PM if she gets to safety. My sending her a PM might just be a bother. Don't worry though, An." The small purple-haired girl met her teammate's probably confused gaze with a confident smile. "We're not the only ones here who can help her."

Arabelle was kind of starting to like the taste of cider. There was nothing better than drinking something that tasted good and seeing your HP flow back to full once you're done. It was no foul-tasting energy drink, but it was refreshing in its own right. 

Her teammate didn't have as much of a reaction to being called 'kouhai-chan.' Slight disappointment. She thought that with that reaction to her first remark, she could tease the girl a little bit further. Instead, there was that spark of determination and oh my god, she actually critted against a zombie for once. Arabelle blinked, watching the zombie momentarily stumble back with two slashes across its chest. Then she hopped out of the way when it recovered just as quickly and tried to attack An. Unexpectedly, the girl had gotten away in time and Arabelle observed the rest from atop a plastic chair with a smile.

"That was lovely. Keep it up!"

~~BINGO BOOK

An really was having trouble with these guys, wasn't she...? Ever since they started fighting, the girl had missed most of her attacks and the ones that actually landed triggered off that annoying ability of theirs. She could only attribute the latter to horrible luck on their part and the former... was a bit more complicated.

She would never say this out loud, but she missed the more reliable Mishiro!

Arabelle quickly followed up after her teammate's failed attack. Twirling her scythe, she moved in to cut it down before it could regenerate once again. And that made the second round of baddies! With the horde sufficiently thinned, the two were able to move forward once again. 

Slowly.

The small purple-haired girl had dropped behind An with an innocent smile. "I used up all of my energy on that fight, so you're going to watch over me again. Please take care of me... kouhai-chan~!"

~~~BINGO BOOK

Fighting was fun.

...mostly when it was just Arabelle showing off how good she was. But being good comes with practice and she sometimes had those times while practicing when she would unexpectedly do something that impressed even herself, so she supposed even the parts where she wasn't showing off had its own level of fun too. It had to. She was not the type who did boring, tedious things continuously in hopes of achieving some sort of decent reward in the end. Unless she had been forced into it. And unless the reward was really good. 

"Think about the drops, Arabelle!"

The small purple-haired girl's expression turned dreamy for a second before she was literally slapped back to reality by the one zombie An had been trying to kill since it spawned. How utterly disrespectful. Arabelle ignored the other - it sort of charged at her then fell over or something - and stabbed her scythe's blade through the intrusive zombie's chest.

~~BINGO BOOK

That was a bit of an oopsie~!

Was what ran through Arabelle's mind when she noticed her earlier attack had left one at full HP, while only completely killing one. Oh, darn. And right when she was having all that 'evening the playing field' talk. She realized that An had gotten a bit quiet. That was a bit unusual, the girl usually tried to put in one comment at least - and her embarrassed reactions were the cutest. Almost made her want to try calling her 'kouhai-chan.' "What's up?" She raised a brow at the girl who was eyeing the strongest mob of the bunch. "Ah, don't worry about this guy~. I'll handle him myself. You-- go for the ones that are still weak. That's the drill, yes?"

They'll talk later.

An missed her attack. Which meant she now had three mobs coming at her instead of the two she had been expecting. Oh, hell. Arabelle easily batted away the first two, tried to jump back, only to be stopped by the last zombie sinking its teeth into her arm. Oh, ewwww. "Get off!" She sent her fist sailing at its face and as it reeled backwards, she swung her scythe upwards and cut it in half. The movement allowed for the other two to come in and take a chomp of their own, but she quickly separated herself and jumped back.

~~BINGO BOOK

"It might be better," Arabelle began, wagging her finger in the air like her scary teachers at the boarding school used to. "To ask why first. So, why? I like the new style, that's all! Hmhm~, I think that military uniform's forever been part of my image and I want to change things up a little! Isn't that what most anime characters do in filler arcs? For the fanservice and all that. Oh, but that's not to say that I don't look as good in that uniform. All I'm saying is, a little change from time to time wouldn't hurt.

"Besides..." Arabelle raised her scythe as three more zombies stalked over to fill in for their dead comrades. (Heh.) "These things can barely even damage me. Like... one critical hit has to be around eleven. I feel like this fight's losing its thrill, you know? So, I'm evening out the playing field!"

With a grin, she launched herself straight into the middle of the group once again - sending one flying with her scythe and cleaving her scythe through all but one of the remaining zombies. 

~~BINGO BOOK

"Just as I expected!" Arabelle hummed to herself proudly. They continued moving forward, giving the center stage a wide berth, and keeping out of the others' way as best they can. Still, she didn't let go of the other girl's hand. An could stumble behind or something, Arabelle wasn't about to lose her all of a sudden just because she was too slow. "You have just the right HP to keep a mob's attention on you while I regenerate energy. When you're only facing one though, any more and you're done for. So don't be too scared~. Your senpai has this all under her control."

She would have earlier too, if Mishiro hadn't wandered too far from the group.

And once again, there was a group of zombies they couldn't simply avoid. The small purple-haired girl readied her scythe and let go of An's hand. Momentarily leaving her teammate behind, she cleaved through the creeps with a wide, inflamed swing.

~~BINGO BOOK