Parallel (A Virtual Gamer's Story) [Vol.1 - Vol.4 Complete]

Chapter 7: Jade Yuhi

Suzuki, or rather his alter-ego Razznik, began a strict training regimen in the game. Both Razznik and Suzuki lost themselves in the new things they learned in the game world. Suzuki practiced the skills Razznik learned from Zytra in the real world and applied them in street fights to hone his skills. Razznik, in the meantime, sought out powerful opponents to train him and sharpen his skills in combat.

Of all the skills in Zytra, the hardest for Razznik to manually train was the Archery skill, because it was the skill with the most assistance from the game system. Worse yet, the archery dojos lacked the same level of ground-up training methods other classes had. This was most likely because most people who chose Archery did not have any actual interest in Archery itself and just wanted an easy method to attack from afar.

To remedy this, Suzuki joined the archery club in high school. As fate would have it, this was where Suzuki first encountered the girl who would later lead the army against Razznik: Adachi Ayumi, a.k.a. Aileera.

The mere thought of the 'Archery Princess' jolted Suzuki out of his reverie. Suzuki shook his head as he recalled the young woman's pride-filled gaze. Ah, he did not want to think about her right now, but he also could not help but wonder if she missed him or not.

Suzuki sighed and walked into the bathroom. He filled the bathtub with water, poured the bubble bath solution, stripped, and then relaxed in the spa-like warm water and rejuvenating foam. This was a luxury he could have had only once in several months (if he was lucky) back at home.

A while later, Suzuki emerged from the bathroom and picked out a white t-shirt and black jeans from the closet. He picked up his Genaco-issued phone from the dresser beside the bed and slipped it into his pocket. Suzuki made a mental note to find out if it was possible to download music onto the device and to buy some headphones.

Suzuki confirmed the date on the phone as the 13th of April, a week after the day he had been kidnapped, and realized he had really spent an entire week indoors without any human contact. Now that he thought about it, Kashi spent three in-game weeks without speaking to a single Summoned.

'People like me are the reason online gamers are ostracized.'

Suzuki shook his head, slipped into a pair of casual slippers by the door and left the room. The hallway was empty, and Suzuki guessed the residents were probably tied up in-game. The opening weeks of any Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) game were tremendously important as players sought to assert dominance with their guilds.

As a primarily single-player kind of person, Suzuki did not care about the early rush. The young man had decided to take a break from gaming, consequences be damned. He took the elevator to the ground floor and stepped out into the warm April sun. He took in a deep breath, then proceeded to take a stroll in no particular direction.

After an hour of aimlessly wandering about the facility, Suzuki came to a conclusion: he needed an alternate means of transport — like a bicycle or something. The facility grounds were just too large, and he would have gotten lost several times were it not for the phone.

"Hey tough guy!" a familiar voice interrupted Suzuki's thoughts.

'She better not be talking to me.' Suzuki looked over his shoulder and recognized the girl who had introduced herself as 'Jade Yuhi' riding up to him on the very thing he had just been thinking about. It was like she was created just to aggravate him.

"It is good to see you again, Yuhi-san," Suzuki greeted politely when she stopped next to him. Jade was quite short, just about reaching his chest.

In reply, Jade made a face like she had eaten a bad oyster. "Blergh. No formal speech, please. Just call me Jade."

"Is that so? Then I won't hold back... Jade." Suzuki somehow made her name sound like it was being dragged across a concrete floor and then crushed in a grinder.