A Shaman's First Day. [Closed, Mentor]

[Steel]

“I wonder what to do today?” Steel asked himself as he walked the streets of Londonium. Probably because he went out hunting countless mobs every day for 2 weeks straights, doing that for about 12 hours each day. Not to mention, he was always doing it by himself. It was no wonder the mental exhaustion was starting to catch up to him. And for that reason, Steel decided that a change of pace for a day or two was necessary. "Well, hopefully nothing will go wrong today although god knows how many times I’ve said that and it doesn’t happen." He whispered to himself, remembering all the other times he said this, wondering if he’s jinxed himself already. Right after he said that, he had bumped into someone. When he turned to see who it was, it was a girl and there was a guy that Steel found familiar that was right next to her, presumably her date for the day. "You okay there?" He asked the girl he bumped into as he offered a hand to help her up. As that happened, romantic sparkles came from and put the girl in a slight love sick like trance. This did not go unnoticed by the guy who was her boyfriend and that guy became irritated at Steel. Wait a minute… He began to think in a slight panic.

"What do you think you're doing, hitting on my girl?" The guy said as he got a hold of Steel's collar. It seemed he didn't know about the Courtesan ability or it's just that he was pissed that his date became like that. Not that his rage was completely unreasonable. The guy looked a bit more closely at Steel. "Oh heck no! It’s you again you *******!! How many times do we have to run into each other like this!?!" He exclaimed even more angrily. It was indeed the guy Steel first pissed off back in Stratford and then again later at a different town during the Coconia festival as well as last week. Oh come on!! Give me a break! Steel exclaimed in his mind he was seriously getting sick of this guy.

“Hey, it’s not like I like this sort of situation either!” Steel exclaimed in an annoyed tone. He didn't want to get into a conflict and he knew this wasn't going to get any better from here. He hurriedly turned the skill off, snapping the girl out of her little trance. I hate how this skill acts like a running gag!! Steel exclaimed in his mind before using martial arts to escape his captor's grip and jumped back.

"Sorry about that again!" Steel exclaimed before running off. He hoped that he wouldn't be chased by that guy although he probably would like he did the last two times. This day was already off to a bad start and the Half Alv Swashbuckler hoped that this day wouldn't get any worse. Oh who was he kidding? Steel already knew what was going to happen next.

A few minutes later...

Just as I expected. Steel thought to himself as he continued to run. For some reason, that subclass skill kept turning on to the point that Steel just gave up on turning it off each time. Unfortunately, because of this skill, Steel ran across several similar situations where he accidentally caused a girl to fall into a love sick trance in front of her date and/or boyfriend, causing the said date to chase after him in anger. It didn’t even matter whether they were People of the Land girls or female adventurers. On a side note, the girls affected went back to normal once Steel was over 10 meters away. As he escaped his latest foe, Steel was just getting tired of it. "At this rate, I'll be the enemy to all men and I won't be able to catch a break." Steel said as he panted a little. Although he was more physically fit than most people, he's had to run a lot today so being tired was expected. But mainly, he was mentally tired from all of this. He was partially amazed that nobody has caught him yet. He knew that he had to lie low for at least a while. But how would he do that when he stuck out like a sore thumb being one of the people who didn't have a date and his Courtesan skill wasn't helping either. For once, he couldn't have a low presence, something he took for granted in the past.

After a while, he had found that he had gotten away from his pursuers. Well, at least for now but that would do as a moment of respite for the Swashbuckler. As he looked around to see if he was still being pursued, he noticed a girl who seemed to be panicking. Another one huh? Steel thought to himself. It seemed that the amount of new adventurers who unknowingly got themselves sucked into the game of Elder Tale would find themselves in their avatars body. Being in what was practically a new world and in a new body was the usual cause of panic as usually the body of the avatar didn’t match what they looked like in real life. Some were even a different gender than in real life. Steel was an exception who did not panic in the situation although he would admit that he was surprised but had regained his composure soon after. He didn’t feel as much of discomfort due to the fact he kept his appearance, height and body weight the same as his real life self. After that, he didn’t really know why he didn’t panic back then but it helped when he calmed down other player around him and he helped them get used to the situation using his knowledge as a veteran player from the Japan server. Either way, he couldn’t blame this girl for panicking. This would normally be a scary situation after all. Steel decided to help calm the girl down.

“Calm down now, nothing’s going to get better by panicking.” Steel said as he put his hand on her head. “Breathe in and out for a start to calm down.” Once she had calmed down a little bit, Steel continued on. “You’re probably wondering what’s going on right now right? I’ll explain.” Steel said as he took his hand off of the girl’s head and began to walk around to the front of her. As he did, the Courtesan subclass skill activated again to Steel's unknowing, rather, it was because Steel forgot to turn it off and the romantic looking sparkles came out. When Steel realized this fact, he turned it off in annoyance as he didn't like to manipulate the hearts of others. The only reason why he kept this subclass was because he wanted to find a useful way to use it. After turning it off, he began to properly explain once again. “As of currently, we are in the world of Elder Tale, the world inside the game. However, I don’t know how we all got here. By the way, my name is Steel, what’s your name?” Steel said in a friendly tone as he stuck his hand out for a handshake. After introductions were over with, he felt a sense of familiarity from the girl. She seemed familiar. “Wait a minute, are you Nicole Mason?” He then realized how strange that sounded coming out of nowhere. “Ah, to explain, for close to half a year, you had transferred into my school back in Japan. We were even in the same class during that time. Do you remember me, Takeshi Kurogane? When you had transferred in, our teacher assigned me to help you out with school and the language since I could also speak English fluently. I wouldn’t blame you though if couldn’t remember me too much though since I don’t have too much of a presence.”

Words: 1331

Andromeda

[Andromeda]

[ The Beginning ]

Step one – Where are you? She asked herself in a silent notion. She looked around, the world seemed funny, almost as if it were a different dimension. It was odd to say the least, but none of this was familiar. “Looks like we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” She trailed off quietly. She wasn’t speaking to anyone but herself. She slowly got up off the ground she found herself laying on, and walked around, not recognizing anything. This was actually pretty typical, well, not waking up on the street, but in an unfamiliar home. Nicole was used to moving around a lot, so forgetting that she had moved wasn’t a big shock to her. “Well, step one is a bust.” She murmured, frustrated. However, she carried on through the process anyways, keeping surprisingly calm.

Step two – what are you wearing? As odd as the question was, sometimes looking to see what she was wearing helped jog her memory. Say she was wearing a party dress, that meant she had for some god forsaken reason left the safety of her nice warm room and Netflix for the retarded world of party goers and over did it and must have passed out on the street! Unfortunately, this was not the case. On her body was something she’d never seen before, although it looked oddly familiar. It seemed like it was oddly traditional, like something a native would wear, or a – what’s the word? Shaman? Yeah, maybe one of those. She made her way to one of the buildings, and stared at herself through a window. Even her face looked oddly different. She wasn’t completely sure it was hers. Although it looked highly similar to her actual face, this one seemed off by a few simple details, details that even Nicole herself couldn’t get off the tip of her tongue.

Her hand made her way to face. It feels the same.. she thought lightly. Oh! I know! SMACK!! The loud noise was the sound of her hand making a harsh contact with her face. As cruel as it seemed, it usually told her “dude wake up, you’re asleep,” a lot better than a pinch would. But instead, a slight red mark and a quiet yelp of pain explained the truth of the fact that she was indeed awake, and no amount of pinching or pretending to fall would wake her up from whatever this was.

Step three – last thing you remember? “Okay Nicole, stay calm.” She said quietly, giving herself a small pep talk to stop her anxiety from growing any further and causing a panic attack; that was the last thing she needed right now. Breathe in, breathe out, repeat. She chanted this in her head as she returned to the space in which she first found herself. Sitting down abruptly, she quickly crossed her legs and attempted to put herself in a meditative state, much like she normally would. What was the last thing I remember? She asked herself, replaying the events she remembered last.

*FLASHBACK*

“Hi Daddy.” She her voice was completely stoic, as always. What was the point of emotions? All they did was get in the way.

“Not now, Nicole. I’m busy.” He said, and quickly rushed out of the room with his work. Nicole simply shrugged it off. Her mom then walked into the room, finishing a conversation on the phone.

“Hi Mom.” She said, again stoic, but it was polite to greet people who enter a room.

“What do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?” her mother snapped.

“Sorry.”

And that ended the daily conversations with her parents. She grabbed a banana, her backpack, and headed off to school, as per usual. School past, she was barely noticed at all, the way she liked it. She didn’t want to be bugged by people, there was no point, she would just leave in a few weeks to a month anyways, so it’s whatever. But she was done being lonely, as such, she decided to make a side trip to the game store, and picked up that Elder Tale game that’s been out for ages. Why not? She could be anyone she wanted in a game, she wouldn’t have to hide or pretend. She could just play wherever she wanted too, even if she moved again.

Fast forward to downloading the game, and the new expansion pack. That’s it. That’s all she remembered. So how did she end up here? And that’s when it hit her. This was the avatar she created, for the Elder Tale game. Her head instinctively snapped in the direction of the katana she had equipped herself, and it was of course there. “Does that mean.. I’m in Elder Tale?”

That’s when the panic began, she heard other people saying it now. People were figuring it out. “We’re all stuck in Elder Tale.” Her voice trailed off, as the thought about how it was even possible. Coming up blank, she simply succumbed to the panic attack.

*FAST FORWARD: Few weeks or so?*

Another day, another panic attack. That’s what life had succumbed her to. Nicole – no, <Andromeda>, had lost all meaning to life. What was the point? She couldn’t even die in here, apparently. What about her parents? No, they probably hadn’t even noticed she was gone. But how much time in the real world had past? What if they did notice her absence? What if she was dead? So many thoughts all riled up into a few moments obviously caused a panic attack. She was heaving, trying to force air into her body while she could, because with how this felt, she might never breathe again. But they always felt like that, but still.

That’s when the young lad came to calm her down, username <Steel>. There should have been an initial attraction there, with his courtesan skill activated, but Nic- <Andromeda> was so panicked she couldn’t even think straight. Then he turned it off, and she could finally focus again. He was only being nice, telling her panicking at this point was pointless. If only he knew she couldn’t exactly help it. She wanted to snap.

The imaginary moment played out in her head like a movie.

“What do you know?!” she’d yell, continuing to try forcing air down her throat.

“Hey I’m just trying to help!” he’d give her the ‘grr’ face.

“No, you’re being annoying and intrusive and I can’t breathe and-“ insert Ni- Andromeda’s embarrassing mental break down here.

Aaaand back to reality. She remained silent, and simply listened to his advice, he really was only there to help. She just wished she didn’t feel so defenseless in this kind of state. “I-I-I-I,” she tried to force some kind of wordage out of her system, but simply couldn’t manage. That’s when he said the magic words.

“Wait a minute, are you Nicole Mason?” he had asked. Her eyes almost immediately shot up, and brightened. Someone who knew her name. Someone who didn’t call her Andromeda. A smile started playing at her lips, but she couldn’t force it for long before her panic attack stopped her. Breathe in, breathe out. It was a vicious cycle, really. Her panic attacks happened so often anymore. At least in the real world she could hide and not be noticed.

At the same time he asked if she remembered him, she said his name. “Kurogane Takeshi.” She nodded, her voice breathless in her attempt to find air. It was almost as if she was asthmatic, it was god awful. It was kind of a natural gift of hers, she never forgot a face, or a name of someone who spoke to her, actually participated in her life somehow, even if they forgot her existence when she got home. His name brought back memories. Memories of her speaking the absolute minimum requirement to not be considered rude to the poor lad, simply brushing off his help at times, although she really greatly appreciated it when it was offered. She really just didn’t have the heart to accept it, she would feel as if she owed him, something she couldn’t afford to feel. If she moved and owed someone, the debt would never go paid.

Breathe in, breathe out. She reminded herself, once again.

“I’m sorry..” she offered. Even she wasn’t sure if the apology was because of all the times she didn’t have the courage to get up and say thank you to him, or even acknowledge that he had been really nice to her, or the fact that she was literally breaking down in front of him and couldn’t stop herself. “I’m sorry.. I’m sorry.. so sorry..” she kept mumbling under her breath, she couldn’t even stop it though. As it happened with all panic attacks, she simply couldn’t help herself. It just kept pouring out.

I want to go home. I want to hide in my room, and pretend I don’t exist. I want to curl up in my blankets and read books until I pass out.

[ Ahh, panick attacks. ]

Word Count: 1,507
Notes: dem panic attacks though
Music: -
Tagged: Steel

♡

[Steel]

Oh geez, I think this is only getting worse. Steel thought to himself with a sigh after he tried to get the girl to calm down. Rather than having even a small break from her panic attack, she seemed to instead became even more stressed out from the situation. While she didn’t say anything for a while, Steel could already feel a sense of fear and perhaps even anger emitting from the girl, as if she was mentally trying to shoo him away in her imagination. Also, Steel saw her somewhat strained facial expression and was able to hear her heavy breathing. After he had tried to give out some advice to calm down, the girl was able to calm down a tiny bit but was now having trouble speaking any sort of response to him. Looks like this will take a while. Steel thought with a bit of resignment. He thought of this sort of situation as troublesome but at the same time, he didn’t want to just leave this girl, who just got pulled into another world, behind because he’d feel bad about leaving someone to fend for themselves in such a frightening situation. Steel, for some reason didn’t panic at all when he got transported into the game of Elder Tale, probably due to the fact he set all of his physical parameters to be pretty much the same as his real world self. After that, Steel had no idea why he was able to stay so calm. Unfortunately, not everyone could be the same as proven by the people who got panicked all around him on his first day in the game and the girl in front of him who was currently on her first day. As he observed her a little, he noticed some familiarities which he would call out.

Steel calling the girl by the name that he put together with a face from his past definitely caused a reaction in the said girl. Her eyes shot up and brightened as a smile began to appear on her face before her panic attack kicked in again and she started breathing hard once more. Yup, that’s definitely her. Steel thought to himself after seeing her reaction to the name which confirmed her identity. Steel also recognized how she was panicking the way she was currently as she had done it the past. Back then, it was quite obvious that she was trying to hide her panic attacks, especially during school but on some occasions when Takeshi was with Nicole, she had not been able to hold it in long enough and Takeshi has had to cover for her or help her out so that her panic attacks would not be noticed by everyone else. It was then he remembered how this all started.

The day of Nicole’s arrival….

“As I announced last week, starting today, we’ll be receiving a transfer student into this class.” Takeshi’s homeroom teacher announced to the class of 2-C with the said girl right next to her at the front of the class. Obviously, during this little flashback, the conversations are in Japanese rather than English and are written in English for reading convenience. “Her name is Nicole Mason. Mason-san is from another country and she doesn’t know much Japanese, probably only to a decent conversation level, so I’m expecting you all to treat her well.” After a ‘Yes Ma’am’ from the class, the teacher continued. “By the way, is Kurogane-kun absent today? I haven’t seen him so far today and I had to tell him something.”

“Sensei, I’m right here.” Takeshi said from his seat, making his presence known. Immediately, everyone looked at where Takeshi was and shouts of surprise and shock filled the room. As usual, sometimes Takeshi was not noticed due to his lack of presence or rather the fact that everyone else in the class was more noticeable. When he revealed that he was there when everyone forgot he was there, surprise was unavoidable. It wasn’t like he was alone all the time, isolated or anything like that. He actually had some friends to talk to everyday. It’s just that he doesn’t attract much attention to himself. Well, it was more like he didn’t want too much attention directed towards himself. Anyway, once the class got over the shock which they wondered how they weren’t used to this yet, the teacher decided to continue once more.

“As expected of the Phantom Vice-Captain of the Kendo club.” The teacher said in a bit of a joking tone as a way to calm down. Should a teacher really be using nicknames with students? Takeshi thought to himself in a response to his nickname which was created a while ago due to his status as vice-captain of the kendo team and the whole appearing out of nowhere due to his low presence thing. “Anyway, Kurogane-kun, you’ll be in charge of the transfer student.” The teacher said, ignoring Takeshi’s facial expression.

“Wait, what!?!” Takeshi said in shock. It was quite obvious from his face too. Like how it was expected of other for people to be shocked from Takeshi’s ‘sudden appearances’, it was quite reasonable for Takeshi to be surprised about being handed this job without any prior warning or experience in such a thing. Not to mention, he wasn’t all that good in terms of social ability. “Why me? Shouldn’t this be Sakurai’s, the class representative’s job? Also, wouldn’t a girl be better suited for this role?”

“You’re the only one in this class that can speak English fluently. You’ve been taking English lessons outside of class right?” The teacher replied simply. “That’ll be helpful for when Mason-san doesn’t understand something that she is reading or is being said to her.” The teacher then looked into a small folder. “It also seems that you live close to where she and her family just moved in so I can rely on you to make sure she gets home safe.”

“Do you think I’m some professional body guard or something?” Takeshi said in rebuttal with a slight sigh that held both annoyance and resignment. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get out of this, even if he tried.

“Well, I think people are less likely to attack her if a guy who always carries a bamboo sword everywhere is with her.” The teacher rebutted back, causing Takeshi to become a little embarrassed as he glanced at the said bamboo sword that was propped up right next to his desk.

Also, don’t you think it’s a bit rude to the transfer student to not have her opinion or consent in this decision that clearly involves her? He had kept that thought in his head and had not spoken that out loud. He then decided to look at Nicole for the first time and saw that she didn’t seem to care too much. From what the teacher said, she’s had to move around quite a lot so I’m guessing she doesn’t really mind what’s going on because she’s just going to move again anyway. Takeshi observed.

“Um Sensei, what about practice?” asked one of Takeshi’s classmates who was in the kendo club with him. As the vice-captain, even though there wasn’t a tournament coming up yet, Takeshi should be there to help train the other members of the club. This also applied to the basketball club he was also in as he was a regular on the team.

“It’s fine Takanomiya.” Takeshi said in response. He knew there was no getting out of this so he might as well cool everything down. “I practice a lot at home so it’s not like I’ll fall behind in training. Tell Yasuda-senpai that I won’t be able to attend practice all the time.”

“Okay then, looks like everything is settled!” The homeroom teacher said happily. “Just make sure you don’t do anything dirty if you two are ever alone in a room!” If Takeshi was drinking something, he would have done a spit take at the mindless and in Takeshi’s opinion, stupid teasing from his homeroom teacher.

“What do you think this is? An ecchi manga!?!” Takeshi exclaimed in response. Man, my teacher is just way too weird. Takeshi thought to himself in slight annoyance. With that, Takeshi helped Nicole get up to date with the school work, not that she had real trouble with it as she was an excellent student and she sometimes helped him in a subject. They also walked home together so she’d remember the route. In general, his role was to help her fit into the class. However, that didn’t go too well. Nicole was always trying to brush him off or just said the minimum amount to still be considered polite when there was no need to talk to him. However, there was some progress over time and the two were able to progress to having short conversations at a time along with normal length conversations once in a while before she moved again, a few months after transferring into the class. According to Nicole, this may have been one of places she’s stayed at the longest since she said that usually, she’d normally stay in one school for a few weeks to a month.

Flashback end…

After Steel confirmed that the person before him was in fact Nicole Mason, he then asked whether she remembered him. The way she kept brushing him off back then though, Steel wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t remember him. Nicole actually recognized the swashbuckler and said his name. She then looked as if she too, for a few seconds, was remembering the events from back then. Immediately afterwards though, she began apologizing. Steel wasn’t expecting this at all. In fact, this was the last thing he expected would come out of her mouth after saying his name. To be honest, he was half expecting her to either say something about meeting again or just brushing him off like she did when they were classmates. She instead kept apologizing nonstop. Actually, it seemed more like she couldn’t stop apologizing for some reason. Steel was put off by this because he couldn’t really see a reason nor a need for her to apologize to him, looking as if she were on the verge of tears. Despite how good Steel usually is at reading the emotions of others, when it came to stuff like this, he didn’t really know what to do as he wasn’t as adept at reading people who were like this. It was then he could hear the whispers of some of the people nearby them.

“What did that guy do to that poor girl?” A person of the crowd said to another person.

“What a horrible guy, making a girl cry like that.” Another person said whispered as well.

Several whispers of similar opinion towards the situation that was happening followed afterwards. Steel could tell that all of the whisperers labeled him as the bad guy and Nicole as the victim, making him feel quite uncomfortable. Steel/Takeshi wasn’t the type of person to crave attention, especially from a large group of people. In fact, he tended to stay away from the spotlight which is partially the reason he unconsciously lowers his presence and redirect other’s attention to other people. Steel especially didn’t enjoy so much negative attention directed at him and if it went on any longer, he knew he might break down as well. “Before I ask, we might want to get out of here first. People are staring.” Steel said before grabbing Nicole/Andromeda’s hand and running off away from the crowd. After a while of running, the two of them had reached a street where there weren’t as many people and most likely, nobody here knew about ‘the guy who made a poor girl cry’.

“Well, I think we’ll be safe here. Sorry if I caught you off guard or anything with that.” Steel said as he caught his breath. He then noticed the red mark on her face. “What happened to your face? Let me guess, you thought you were dreaming so you decided to slap yourself across the face to try to wake yourself up. It probably still stings a little right? I’ll heal it up.” He said with a small smile before he raised his hand towards the slightly reddened cheek and activated the skill Heal. Upon activation, Steel’s right hand glowed green as little particles of light came from his hand and went towards her face. Nicole/Andromeda would find that her reddened cheek had returned to normal and the pain was gone. During the spell’s duration, there’d also be a sort of warmth effect. “Hopefully, this helps.” Steel was obviously not a person who would willingly choose a healer class for a character but he chose this spell in his skill list so that he could help with basic healing when needed or help a person feel more comfortable.

“Well, hopefully you’ve calmed down at least a little bit.” Steel asked once the healing spell was finished. His hand had stopped glowing and he put his arm back down. “By the way Nicole, why were you apologizing to me earlier? I can’t think of anything in which you need to apologize to me for.” Even though Nicole had brushed him off quite a bit back when they were classmates, Steel did not feel that there was a reason to blame it on her or anything like that so he could not figure out why she apologized to him since he eliminated that possibility from his mind in the first place.

Words: 2274

Andromeda