*'Doki'*

The mage and I both face one another, our palms faced outwards as we both used our skills.

His magic, which was in the form of a couple balls of water each the size of my fists, narrowly beat my 'bolt' to the punch since he was stationary unlike me. However, the spread of these balls and their slow space made it easy for me to sidestep, whilst my bind was so sudden that he couldn't react.

As the water splashed against the wall behind me, another group, who were near-ish to where we were, stopped their infighting to pester us with numbers. I was a tad focused on the mage at the point of their attack, but with my speed, surprising to even myself, gave me the time to dodge them regardless.

I made a few sudden movements which completely dodged the four simultaneous swipes made at me. Other assassins in the group who didn't even attack seemed wary of my speed as I started my retaliation. I used this time to take out one of my swords.

One of the three males in the group paused, starting a rather odd and insulting conversation in the middle of the fight, "Pah... Dammit! You're not a healer are you?"

A female chimed in, not needing such a break to insult the previous speaker, "Well duh, idiot. But a succubus, huh? Die!"

Upon saying this, her daggers glowed goldenly and she lunged towards me. However, underestimating my speed, her eyes widened when she saw that I dodged them, but rather than giving up, she attacked once more with still glowing swords.

I ducked under this one, making her barely nick the male behind me. The golden glow disappearing from the daggers, wrapping around the receiver's arm and violently crushed it, before he could complain or even grunt, his body turned to particles.

She clicked her tongue at another miss, and softly groaned as I hit her twice in return.

The rest backed off, probably seeing me what just happened as proof of my speed, since I only used one sword to do that.

Taking out my other sword, I calmly stepped towards those who didn't outright flee but was stopped in my tracks by a whooshing sound coming from my left. In response, I leapt back to watch the fire whiz past me within a second of me doing so.

I spat out the command, "Bind."

Seeing the familiar forest of tentacles engulf half of the room, I focused back on the assassins and pounced upon them. They, who didn't really get the time from that distraction to escape the range or attack further, darted away, attacking the walls with a few killed tentacles being their only response.

Two of them did stay with me as their focus, poising their swords in my direction and sticking their ground. Both matching my next steps with a flurry of swings, of which, all either missed or got countered by my own.

Their sidestepping, matched by few who rejoined the fight, annoyed me, but with my swords, I could do little but block.

Mumbles by some of them made their swords glow, whilst others said similar things to dodge my swings with mad acrobatics. The first didn't do anything since they still missed, but the latter just made me even more annoyed. My blocking didn't falter and my health was about 500, but my time was now spent solely defending rather than doing any attacks, which was rather annoying since I was also on a time-limit.

Soon enough, with a stalemate being reached by the people inside my walls, a crackle of lightning interrupted, coming from behind me. It overwhelmed the grunts, mumbles, and clashes from us, marking the first breach of the walls. Similarly, loud splashes of water and the whistling of wind followed from another direction.

The people who were congregated around me took the chance to flee, each becoming a target of the magic bombarding my walls, and with their absence, I put one of my swords away and starting spamming bolt on the remaining assassins.

My health built up dramatically, even giving me room to attack those caught, further increase this gain. Though, since they initially blocked the mage's attacks, their eventual deaths lead to a sketchy situation.

Instead of going for small, manageable attacks like fireballs, the first mage attacked me with an AOE attack, following it with a water one. I don't know what happened to the other mage, since fleeing from the attacks took priority for me, but as it was loud in their general direction I assumed they were busy over there.

I dodged the flames barely, getting grazed by a stray flame lapping at my heel for about a hundred hp, the water attack I didn't get so lucky, though. It had a higher range and my previous graze both distracted me and removed some of my movement speed.

As it pounded my chest, my health shrank dramatically from over one-thousand to only two-hundred and I was sent flying towards my wall due to it. The impact removed further health, leaving me with 20.

Barely in the fight, another hole opened up behind me, a female tank, whose axe was currently buried in the ground, seemed to be the cause. Without giving her a chance to free it, I struck her left arm, putting me back at over five-hundred health with only that one attack.

I mentally noted this and bound her, swiftly killing her with no hint of a struggle. Given a second's break, I then dismissed the remaining wall of tentacles from sapping even more AP from me.

With actual vision on what everyone was doing, I saw a large group of assassins surrounding one of the mages in a fight that resembled a hurricane sweeping up small pieces of metal, and another group made of mainly tanks surrounding the other

A few minor scuffles happened between individuals as well, however, I chose to intercept the latter group instead, mainly due to the lack of projectiles flooding them. Whilst charging towards the group, I bound three tanks within the time it took me.

By the time I made my first attack on someone in the group, the assassin receiving it knew I was there in spite of my rather ludicrous speed. This didn't matter that much since, except for an initial block, my sword swings and movements outpaced theirs to a massive degree and the more attacks they took, the easier the next was to hit.

Noticing me, the same male assassin from before yelled, "How the heck are you still alive?!"

His question brought me to the attention remaining unbound members of the group, distracting one of them mid-swing of their finishing attack on the mage. They all promptly made me the target of their attacks.

Of these, the only two that actually hit me were tanks. The assassin's blades I blocked, and the rest were closer to hitting other members of the group rather than me. This included more golden glows which almost blinded me in their frequency and brightness, especially when some transferred to others through grazes, crushing, debuffing or outright paralyzing the people hit. Three of four pixelated, adding further to the already obnoxious light pollution that blinded me.

This actually worked in my favor, since I was neither hit, nor attacked by those affected. The few people still bound were now freed, but their presence wasn't that important considering they were tanks with awfully slow attacks which dealt pathetic damage in the first place.

Although I was doing well, it still took a while to whittle the tanks down, and with the remaining assassins actually dodging me, only the mage, who somehow survived, died in the next minute of the chaotic combat.

Even in ten minutes of frantic attacks in the existing clusterfuck, there were still half the people in the group fighting. So long was spent in the fight that some of the tanks even passed out before reaching the red.

Only three more people died in our group before a prompt eventually popped up.

PVP in this room has been turned off.

Please stop your fighting now.

A loud clap dominated the room, snapping most out of their trance like states.

"Ha ha ha... This was certainly more chaotic than we expected. Good job all, but, it seems like someone here forgot to savour their AP. Don't forget, we are technically in a war right now. The real fights could start at any time, so if you used too much, use a damn potion to regain it now," a familiar voice announced. The source of it, the 'tutoring' mage, was glaring at me.

"Ah..." I mumbled, finally realizing why everyone wasn't just spamming their abilities. I checked my current AP, but seeing as it was still over twenty-thousand, I simply shrugged nonchalantly.

"Well, anyway. This was a successful test of your skills, nobody failed so badly that I'd consider kicking them but everyone should have points to improve. With that, dismissed," the pirate tutor added, gesturing to the door we entered from with a relaxed smile.

Most of the others, except for me and maybe some others, bowed in the tutor's direction before heading out. I just headed out, my reaction met with scorn from the tutors and others alike.

The tank was waiting outside, handing everyone a piece of paper that turned out to be our schedule for the foreseeable future and a badge.

For now, the same schedule said 'rest' until six pm... realizing I got the night-shift, I couldn't stop a deep groan from escaping my mouth. After I was satisfied with that, I thought to myself how I was going to spend my free five hours until the shift started. I concluded to head out, get lunch go shopping.

-

Walking to the shopping district, I got bored so explored menus. This included looking at the 'friends' page, which was empty. There didn't seem to be a 'call' option, though, since it might open when I eventually bothered to add someone, I kept it in mind for later.

Then I opened my inventory, and apart from a metric ton of mob drops, nothing spoke out to me. I did have a grand total of eleven-point-five-million gold, but not knowing pricing, I shook that fact off too. None of the other menus I explored offered anything remotely special, even my stats, given that I only leveled op once during that whole session.

Lunch too was dull. Sitting alone and eating some snacks from a random cafe was dull and slightly lonely. At this point, despair kicked in when I realized I was being so social in this... game, another world?

The despair turned to frustration when that question came up, which shocked me far more than I previously was.

-

Moments later I finally shook it off my mind, finishing my 'meal' and heading elsewhere for upgrades. Being the sloth that I am, I entered the first smith I saw.

I was greeted by a drab and mono-toned "Welcome," by the poor sap behind the counter.

Cutting right to the point, I asked, "What kinds of swords do you have?"

The employee droned through the list on the verge of yawning, "Bone, iron, steel... Damascus steel, mithril, and Hell-stone. We have... from mediocre to well-made ranks..."

Not understanding most of the options, I queried the price of a random one, "How much would a mediocre Damascus steel sword cost?"

Yawning loudly, they replied, "Depends on the enchants... Three-point-one... million for a standard one,"

"Two with unbreaking two and sharpness?"

"Eight-point-nine-million..." this was accompanied by yet another yawn.

Knowing it left me with only a fifth of my funds, I accepted in a tone mimicking the clerk's, "Done."

They pointed over to one of the stands and using my analysis skill, I found two matching my criteria and brought them over. Once checked by the almost unconscious clerk, they nodded, handing them back and receiving my money. After counting to make sure, they gave a half-arsed wave and sent me on my way.