It takes an hour for them to reach the forest at a walking pace. While having to travel such long distances to get anywhere would be an issue for most games, this method of immersion is able to make use of time dilation. Because of the time dilation, only thirty minutes pass in reality. Time in-game is twice as long as time in reality. So while it still takes time and effort to get anywhere, they have more time to play.

Hunger is already starting to kick in and their bodies don’t have much endurance yet, so they’re already growing tired and grumpy. Well, it’s mainly Bonekraka that is getting grumpy. He is very quick to anger when he’s hungry.

“Hey, Boney, if you beat me in a rock-papers-scissors then I’ll give you all my ships in Eternal Space,” Oleander offers. “If I win, you have to carry me!”

It sounds like a deal that is way too good to be true. If Bonekraka wins, he gets access to ships worth several thousand dollars for free in the other game that they play. If he loses, all he has to do is carry around a brat.

Fenrir knows exactly how this is going to go.

Surely enough, Bonekraka’s inability to reject a gamble results in Oleander climbing up onto his shoulders and being carried around. Fortunately for the deviant boy, no matter how homophobic Bonekraka might be, he always lives up to his word no matter what is now being pressed against the back of his head.

Oleander only climbs off of Bonekraka once they’re inside the forest.

“Alright, let’s meet here later. You guys go play nice and kill things, and I’ll try figuring out some clothes for us. Try not to trigger him too much, Spenc- Oleander,” Fenrir says. Getting used to new names is always one of the more challenging parts of MMOs. Some people take the easy way out and use the same name for everything that they play, but not these three. Each one of them is at least a tiny bit of a roleplayer at heart.

“Aye aye, Cap'n!” Oleader replies, poking Bonekraka in the side which makes him jump. The chase between the two begins once more.

“I swear, they act like an old married couple. One minute they can be sharing drinks to celebrate ganking a bunch of noobs, the next minute and Vikt- Bone, is willing to fly over here to kill him," Fenrir sighs. "How you doing up there, Saya?”

“I’m fine, Onii-chan! Watching your friends interact is funny,” Saya replies.

“It can be. Anyways, time to try and get covered up.”

“Good luck!”

If only it were that easy.

Fenrir looks through the forest for something, anything, that he could use to cover up. His first idea is to go Adam and Eve style by wrapping some leaves around his waist, but there are none large nor durable enough. Sure, he could take some plants and strip them of their fibers to turn them into strings for knitting some clothes like how he’s watched in random videos on the internet, but that would take too long. He wants a quick solution, and it needs to be efficient enough for three people.

And then he sees it. Is it a deus ex machina to save the day? No. In fact, it will probably be the exact opposite – a diabolus ex machina. So, just what is this horrible thing that will ruin the day, or at least ruin his mission?

On the other side of some more trees is the beautiful sight of a large pond decorated only by the fallen leaves from the trees surrounding it. A few forest creatures are at the pond for a drink. There’s a deer, a couple of rabbits and squirrels, and – wait, rabbits? He looks at the nearest one. The thought of killing so many of them that he can instantly kill them just by looking at them enters his head. No, he’s not doing that.

“Such a carebear, Onii-chan,” Saya chimes in but is mentally swatted away.

Fenrir has a better idea than getting clothes. It's not like anybody is going to find him given how massive this world he is, and the fact that he is hidden away in a forest.

He doubts he’d be able to make a proper fishing rod with the materials around him, mainly due to a lack of string for a line, but what he can do is go ancient style and make himself a spear. First, he needs to find a good enough stick.

Fortunately, sticks and being in a forest go hand in hand. He finds one fallen branch that’s about as long as he is tall, snaps off the curved end of it to make it straight, and then picks up a jagged rock to sharpen—

Wait a second, he does have something that he can use as string! It probably wouldn’t be strong enough to use as a fishing line, but it might be good enough to keep a stone-tipped spear held together. Change of priorities. Setting the stick to the side for now, he finds a flat rock with a good point to it and uses the jagged rock to not-so-delicately shape it into as close of a spearhead as he can get it. He then returns to the spear, pulls the end of it in half, and carves out a slot for the spearhead. Now for the string. Testing the sharpness of the spearhead, he uses it to cut off about a foot of his hair. Nobody will notice, probably. He’s got a lot of hair.

Time to finish the spear. He places the stone spearhead into the carved-out slot between the wood, closes the wood around it, and then ties it tightly together with his “string.” This is where he would normally expect to get a popup congratulating him for a new achievement, crafting skill, or recipe unlock. Alas, there is naught but a stone-tipped spear. His stone-tipped spear. It’s simple, it’s ugly, and it has a fifty percent chance of falling apart at any second, but it’s his! He’s provided with a sense of pride and accomplishment far more satisfying than buying loot boxes or simply gathering the right materials and clicking a “craft” button. It’s not just a mental sense of pride that he feels either. It almost feels as if something inside of him just… clicks. Something tells him that were he to try and make a spear again, it would be faster, easier, and turn out better.

“Saya, if players can learn how to do things in-game and get better at doing them, does it apply to real life? I mean, obviously getting stronger in-game wouldn’t make you stronger in real life, but what about learning skills and arts?” Fenrir asks.

“It’s similar to dreaming, Onii-chan. If you can paint beautiful pictures in a dream, that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to paint them when you wake up! And if you can do it in real life, it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to your dreams.”

“How does that even work? I mean, I still know how to do math and everything I normally could in real life. Wouldn’t somebody who’s like a tailor or blacksmith in real life, as uncommon as that is now, have an advantage in-game over people who don’t do that in real life? I mean, I was only able to make this spear because I already knew how to from watching videos outside of the game.”

“Some knowledge transfers over, some doesn’t. Would you like me to read you one of the peer-reviewed studies conducted by scientific institutes regarding this phenomenon while you play, Onii-chan?”

That sounds too boring for whatever he’ll learn from it. “I’m good. Thanks, though. One final question: is there anything stopping people from making stuff like cars and guns?”

“For the sake of gameplay, the overseer won’t allow everything to work that players try making, but if they can do it in a way that is appropriate for a fantasy setting and that she finds acceptable, then maybe somebody will invent something like those!”

“Alright, thanks.”

“No problem, Mr. Twenty Questions!”

Being called that stings a little bit. He knows that he has a bad habit of asking people so many questions that it gets annoying, but he also knows that Saya wouldn’t purposely try hurting him. It was just a tease.

Time to fish! It may not be a proper fishing spear, but he wants something that can effectively double as a weapon. A fishing spear wouldn’t be as good as a stone-tipped spear if he gets attacked by something. He readies his spear and gives a few practice thrusts to prepare himself for the real thing. Once he’s confident, he walks in circles around the pond and… nothing. He sees some fish farther from the edges, but his spear isn’t long enough to reach them. He’s also afraid that stepping into the water might scare them off.

This is when he learns that just because he’s watched a bunch of online videos, it doesn’t mean that he’s going to have any of the skill.

An opportunity approaches! Slowly, a particularly fat fish glides through the water towards the edge. It’s as if he’s being taunted! “Alright, fish, you wish to challenge me? Then I, Fenrir, shall be your foe today! Just come a liiiitttle bit closer… there!” Fenrir thrusts the spear into the water!

Naturally, he completely misses his target. One would think that, from just how badly he missed, the fish must have been using illusionary magic on him to make him believe it was in another position.

But he won’t give up!

Moving to another spot, he keeps on searching until he finds another fish to thrust his spear at! He misses again, and again, and then again. Thirty minutes have passed, he’s attempted to catch seven fish by this point, and every single one has been a miss.

Something feels different now. The next fish that he tries to get, his movements are faster and more precise. It even feels like he’s able to better track the fish and predict where its movements will take it. It feels similar to after he crafted this spear. Is this what it feels like to learn skills? The changes are minor, but they are noticeable.

Alright, another fish – no, not just any fish, but it’s the first one he tried catching! He can tell by the interrupted, blue stripe running along its left side. That, and from how fat it is.

He readies his spear. His eyes are locked onto it like a hunting hound tracking a rabbit. He moves his entire body as he aims his spear rather than just his arm, and he tries predicting where exactly the fish is going to go to aim there rather than its current position. Instead of spouting off more cheesy dialogue, he takes a deep breath and thrusts the spear forward at the end of his exhale!

Success! The spear thrusts right into the fat body of the fish, tearing through its scales and impaling it on the end of the spear!

Fenrir’s tail is excitedly wagging behind him alongside his twitching ears as he lifts the fish out from the water. It’s still flailing around on his spear, but he doubts that it has much life left in it. Wait, what was it that those fishers did to put fish out of their misery in the videos he’s watched? That’s right! He brings the fish down to his free hand, grabs it by the tail to slip it off of the spear, and then smacks it against the nearest rock. It stops flailing.

“You’re so silly, Onii-chan. To worry about so much about a virtual fish suffering – are you sure you don’t mean to be playing a kiddy game? By the way, that was some top-tier dialogue back there,” Saya teases him.

“Real fish or fake fish, I don’t want to let anything suffer. Also, you can’t tease me about what I say when you’re pretending to be a little sister constantly calling me ‘onii-chan.’ You’re way worse than me,” Fenrir teases right back at her.

He walks past the girl and back over to the pond to look for another fish. Now that he’s caught one fish, he wants to catch even more! He’s totally hooked. Well, more like totally speared.

Wait.

He turns around to look back. A petite girl with long, silvery hair and light blue eyes stares at him with an interested expression. The sides of her hair hang down far enough in front of her to cover her modest breasts, but barely. At least she’s standing behind a bush so that he can't see what’s beneath her waist. He’s assuming that she’s just as naked there as she is upstairs.

Somehow, it’s only now when he fully understands that she’s not wearing any clothes despite looking her over a few times.

The poor Fenrir, who really didn’t want to ever make such an unmanly noise again after he first realized he was naked, has now made it again less than two hours later.