The Lightning Swordsman (Book 1)

Reality

1 Month later (U/N) POV

I was running throughout the town, a boss meeting was taking place and Max wanted to attend it. I didn't much care for it, I would prefer levelling up rather than attending a meeting. Max kept on insisting I went, eventually he told me those who don't attend the meeting don't get the location of the dungeon. However, it doesn't matter either way. Why you may ask, well I lost track of time and spent wayyyy too much time grinding.

As I make my way through town I remind myself that Max is gonna be pissed. Finally, I come across an area that looks like it could be used in a play. Like a dumb idiot, I run in saying I'm here and immediately look for a stupid looking blond kid. Finally, my eyes meet his and I stroll up to him, as I walk toward him you can clearly tell he is embarrassed to know me.

"Hey Max I made it" I announce in a whisper

"Yes I'm aware of that" he replies agitated

I flash him a smile but all he does is glare at me.

"You know, I don't recall you being this carefree," he asks

"We're trapped, nothing we can do about so why not enjoy it," I tell him in a dim-witted way "I don't recall you being so uptight"

Max instantly gets mad," unlike you, I have people I want to see" "when you care for others, you find you miss them when you can't see them," Max says as he finishes his outburst.

"That low" I reply with a grim face.

At this point, Max's face tells me he regrets saying what he did. Not only that but now we got other players looking at us too.

"You wanna go?" I ask pointing to my red cursor above my head. I could see their eyes follow my hand and their faces go pale. When one of them was about to tell everyone I have killed players, I drop the red plastic I was holding.

"Just an allusion boy," I say. You can tell one of them was close to laughing, I'm not sure what made him laugh. Then I turn to look at Max and I see why. Max is sitting on the bench with an agitated smile.

"(U/N) if you would just step out of here, it's embarrassing that you know me. So can you just leave before you make a bigger fool of us. I'll fill you in with the details of the raid." Max says

Without a reply, I slowly stroll toward the exit whistling. That was until a katana went flying toward my head, I easily dodged it, but before I leave I give Max one last look. He is still in the position he threw the katana in.

Finally, I exit, I wait until Max gets out to start pestering him about our strategy.

"Don't need to tickle your pickle, we are only backups if something goes wrong. We don't need to fight otherwise. You know if you didn't act the way you did I'm sure our levels could have gotten us a better role in the raid." Max responds

" your the only one tickling a pickle, and what's the point of a game if you don't have fun" I reply

Max just does a face-palm

"But I got it ok I'll be ready for tomorrow," I say acting a little like myself

Max just says sweet and walks away. It's been like this for a while now. The first few days of SAO we mostly stuck together but to gain levels faster we split up when we go grinding. But we always meet back up at the pub. However, that wasn't the case for today. When I arrived at the Nic and Dime pub, I and sat on a chair to wait for Max.