We all went to sleep after Jihyo slapped Nayeon and stormed off. Jeongyeon said it was better to let her cool off and put everything on hold until morning. Before sleeping, though, Jeongyeon told me about what she planned on doing the next day.

We were going to the mountain that we could see from our camp. She told me there was a specific town at the peak that some other players had promised to be the best area to train. Jeongyeon wanted to teach me about navigating the menus while we made our way there, too, using all the time we had effectively. She learned that I only knew the basic controls, so she planned on showing me some moves as well. All of this would benefit me in my final battle with Mina.

She dismissed herself and entered the tent she was going to share with Jihyo before getting ready to start the first watch. I was put in a separate tent with Nayeon but hardly slept at all, as she kept crying and complaining that it wasn't fair that she had to sleep in a different tent. She really wanted to apologize to Jihyo and make up with her, but the girl in question wanted absolutely nothing to do with Nayeon, at least for the night.

I gave up trying to sleep when I saw the sun begin to peek through the horizon. I left a whining Nayeon by herself and sat on the grass. I watched the sun slowly rise, glad it remained a unique and breathtaking experience, even if it was within a game. It was crazy to see that the developers of the game could almost flawlessly recreate such a marvelous event.

“Hey,” someone said behind me. I turned to see that it was Jeongyeon.

“Oh, hey, good morning. Has your watch not ended yet?”

“I'm not affected by The Phenomenon,” she said. “Only players who are affected need to sleep. Did you sleep well? Or nah?”

“Nah. Nayeon cried too much for me to rest. Either way, I can tell these blankets and pillows weren't designed by the developers to be felt at all. They feel like straw. I decided the morning would be better spent watching the sunrise than being uncomfortable any longer.”

Jeongyeon sat down next to me. “That . Sorry about that Nayeon, by the way. She looks like she's tough, but she needs constant attention from us. This must've hurt her a lot, but you know how it is. Jihyo took it the hardest out of the two of us. I had to talk her out of breaking up with Nayeon because I didn't want to end it with her, so she decided to stay in the relationship and make Nayeon make up for it somehow. Maybe… maybe it’s not really all that healthy for me to force Jihyo to continue dating Nayeon, but I love both of them and I told her that it would just make things awkward if we all weren't together.”

Scratching her head, she changed the subject.

“Y’know, I really thought it would be too hard to accurately capture the reds, oranges and yellows of the sunrise but I was wrong. Technology has gotten so advanced that it's almost impossible for me to differentiate between the real world sunrise and this in-game one.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding solemnly. “Kinda scary, kinda cool, huh?”

“Well, it's more cool than anything. At least, to me. Then again, I guess I'm enjoying things more because I don't feel The Phenomenon. It's just you three.” Jeongyeon patted my leg, I guess trying to comfort me as much as she could. “You guys don't really have time to look up at the sky and appreciate everything when you're looking down at the ground, constantly on the lookout for things that can hurt you.”

“Yeah. Gotta survive and all that.”

Jeongyeon nodded. “Indeed. Anyway, I should go wake the other two. We have a mountain to climb, so it’s better we get going now so we reach the peak ASAP.”

She excused herself and left. I began to gather all of my guild’s things, helping them pack since I owned nothing but the clothes on my back and the pan flute from the previous day.

While I sorted everything, Jihyo managed to sneak up behind me, so when I turned around to check out what the shuffling was, I was stunned to see her directly behind me.

“Holy , Jihyo!” was all I could muster. Of course I was spooked because I hadn’t expected to see her, but she was also wearing a set of heavy-looking armor.

She grinned at me and did a quick spin to show me all of her outfit.

“I figured you'd be surprised by my outfit, which is why I snuck up on you. Yesterday you asked me what my class was but I didn't get to tell you. Well, here's your answer!”

She looked like she expected me to know what it was, with her arms outstretched and all, but her armor hinted at absolutely nothing.

She clicked her tongue. “I forgot you don't know much. My bad. Uh, I'm a Warrior, or as I prefer to call it, a warlord. Do you know what those are?”

I shook my head, still trying to wrap my head around Jihyo looking like a badass, which was not what I had expected at all. I thought she'd be a cute-fairy-healing kind of player. Not...whatever a warlord was.

“Warlords are, in other words, generals or commanders that excel in up-close combat, planning out battle tactics and strategies, and buffing the soldiers they're in charge of.”

“Oh,” I whispered, imagining Jihyo leading a giant army into battle and cheering them on. “So, wait, I don't think I fully understand your class. What's ‘buffing’?”

Nayeon appeared out of nowhere and answered my question. “It's a perk that many classes have where they can temporarily boost an ally in one way or another. For example, Jihyo can automatically emit an aura that regenerates our health, but only during a fight. It's pretty cool.”

Thankful for the explanation, I turned to Jihyo for confirmation that the info was true.

Jihyo had put on a neutral expression and turned her back on Nayeon, making it clear she was still not over her betrayal. Over her shoulder, she muttered "Go away."

Jeongyeon cleared and shouldered a bag. “Let's get going, yeah? We don't have time to fight amongst each other right now. We have to go and help Chaeyoung level up. Thanks for explaining to her what a warlord is, Nayeon. And Jihyo, don't ignore Nayeon. She's the one we have to consult when we check the map, since she’s got more sections of it than the two of us combined, and ignoring her will only complicate things.”

After closing her eyes and probably talking herself out of punching Jeongyeon, Jihyo stiffly approached Nayeon and, with a plastic smile, asked her to pull out her map and tell us in which direction we should start walking.

Nayeon seemed to be satisfied with this, as she grinned and did what Jihyo asked. She oriented herself according to the compass in her hand and pointed a bit to the east. “That way is where the footpath we’re going to take is at. It starts at the base of the mountain, on the side that's facing us, and it's going to go up, all around the mountain. It’s not a very tall one, so this trip can't possibly take longer than, say, half a day or so.”

Jeongyeon motioned for Jihyo to walk ahead of us, as she was the leader of the guild, and we set off.

“So,” I began, wanting to sate my curiosity, “why does Nayeon have more of the map than everyone else? I imagine that to obtain more areas of the map, you have to walk around and discover them. That part’s pretty obvious. I just think it’s kinda weird that she’s explored more of the world than you guys.”

Jeongyeon pursed her lips. “Ah, well, you know that when a player starts, they're dropped off at a random location, right? Part of that had to do with it. We all joined the same server but spawned in different areas. We didn't stop until we found each other, which thankfully didn't take too long. You also know that when a player dies, they respawn in an entirely new and random area of Mwong-Mi. That's the name of the fictional continent within the game, just in case you didn't know.”

I walked in silence for a bit. This was new information for me. “I...honestly didn't even know that this place had a name. Mwong-Mi, was it?”

Jeongyeon nodded and continued. “Well, Nayeon has died once. It was seriously one of the most gruesome deaths I’ve seen in this game so far. We had just started playing when it happened. We stupidly decided to explore a cave that we knew was beyond our level. She fell into a trap that smashed her head and crushed her body. Thank god The Phenomenon hadn't started yet or else...”

Next to me, Nayeon shivered.

“She died, obviously, and spawned in a completely new area.. But, when you officially join a guild, you can just set a locator on your map that will lead you to them if you turn it on. That's what the arrow above your head does, among other things."

I looked up at the arrow above my head, the same blue one I noticed when I first entered the game.

"We had already started the 3Mix guild by then, since it was one of our first moves, and saved our game a couple times, so all she did was turn the locator on and start her search for us. Nayeon moved faster on her own, since she didn't have much equipment. She had to travel through desert and rainforest biomes just to be able to find us again, but since Jihyo and I searched for her too, it took only three in-game days to meet up again. That's how she got a lot of the map. I'd say she has about 30% of it right now, while Jihyo and I have less than 5%.”

I stared at Nayeon, both horrified and impressed by the story.

Nayeon grinned and shrugged, obviously loving the attention. “I mean… It was pretty bad, yeah. The whole Phenomenon thing made it worse since I got into a lot of fights with enemies. I would go to sleep beaten and bruised every night. Once I even got attacked at night, which , but I didn't have much on me, so they finished quickly.”

“Wooow,” I said, comparing her experiences with mine. I found myself sympathizing with her, since I had a pretty good idea of what she felt like during those moments. It was a bit different, but I was also thrown into a whole new world with hardly any knowledge of how it worked.

Nayeon quickly checked her map to make sure we were still on track. “Mmm but what you've been through is worse. I'd already been playing for a while. I was used to the controls. They're usually similar throughout most games. X to interact, Start to pause, R1 to attack and so on, with small differences every now and then. Easy to memorize. But you've never played a game. You had to start from zero.” Nayeon shook her head. “If I were you, I would have died more than just once in the time you've been here. You're a badass, Chaeyoung.”

I looked at Jihyo and Jeongyeon. They both nodded. It made my heart melt a little. It was nice to be praised for something that I had zero confidence in.

“You've got the potential to be one of the best players in this guild,” Jeongyeon said. “If you're this good at surviving with barely any knowledge of how this game works, then I bet you're gonna be a pro gamer once you get the hang of everything.”

“You think so?”

“I totally do. So let's get to training you so you can kick some .”

I felt a surge of confidence. Surely they weren't just giving me empty praises. Maybe I could really meet– or even exceed– their expectations.

For the next hour, Jeongyeon walked along with me and taught me how to use every menu in the game. I learned that there were separate pages for magic spells, special moves and quests. She taught me how to switch between them seamlessly. If I ever got into a battle, this would come in handy. Entering a menu did not pause the game, so knowing my way through them all would allow me to do what I needed and get back to focusing on the battle.

“Okay, so, let's say you're fighting an enemy.” Jeongyeon pulled out a knife and pointed it at me. “You're hurt, and you need to choose a healing spell. Now, since spells aren't a physical thing, you can't just pull them out from your backpack, like you can with potions. You have to manually choose them in the Spells menu. That's gonna take some time to do, unless they're in your shortcuts. But bear with me. Let's pretend the healing spell isn't in your shortcut. If you're in the middle of fighting a huge snake, you're hurt and you need healing, you can’t waste any time. Knowing how to navigate the menus will help make this no big deal. If you're in and out in no time, you have an advantage over the AI enemies and possibly other players that can't do that.”

I rubbed my chin. This seemed like such a pointless skill to have at first, but when she explained it to me, I could see how mastering it could be rewarding.

Jeongyeon stopped walking. Jihyo and Nayeon did the same, but Jeongyeon waved them away.

“Keep walking, it's ok. I'm just going to make sure Chaeyoung memorized what I taught her! We’ll catch up soon!”

Jihyo didn't look sure about it, but waved it off anyway. Nayeon just followed her like a puppy.

Jeongyeon grinned at me. It made me uneasy. Something bad was about to happen, I could feel it. A smile like that could only mean she was about to wreck me.

“Wh-what's with that grin..? What are you planning?”

“I'm going to need you to lose some health points, or HP, to see if you really did pay attention.”

“What? Lose HP? Are you crazy? I'm trying to keep my HP, thank you very much. I'd rather not get hurt at all. Isn't there another way to test me? Like, for example, simply asking me to quickly switch between menus on command?”

Jeongyeon shook her head, her grin slowly fading. “I don't want to hurt you, but I wanna see how quick you can find the inventory menu and heal yourself with the basic healing spell everyone is given at the start of the game. A bar appears when you use magic and you can watch it drain as you do, so I could maybe get an idea of what your class is, just based on the base MP you have. You know, like mages will definitely have more MP than fighting classes most of the time. If it takes you a while to drain it all, then we can assume the class the randomizer gave you uses tons of magic, and we can eliminate some candidates.”

I wanted to fight it, but it's not like Jeongyeon was going to make me lose all of my health points. She'd probably just hurt me enough to take 5 of those away.

“Turn around,” Jeongyeon said, making a spinning motion with her fingers. “I don't want to look at you when I do it, or else I'll feel too guilty.”

“Ah… okay, I guess.” I turned around and tightly shut my eyes.

“I'm gonna throw a small rock at your head. So expect that, ok? Then when you take the damage, quickly restore them, yeah?”

Nodding, I gave her a thumbs up. I braced myself for the sting.

Whack!

I felt Jeongyeon's rock hit my shoulder. It hurt much, much more than I expected and I fell to the ground, still feeling the rock. It felt like it was stuck there. Did Jeongyeon seriously throw it hard enough to do that?

“Dammit, Jeongyeon, I thought you were going to throw it softly!”

I looked up at my HP and was horrified to see that I had lost more than half of it. I was now at 20 HP.

I heard a scream behind me. I turned to see an arrow sticking out of Jeongyeon's stomach.

I reached for the rock in my shoulder and found that it was not a rock, but an arrow as well. Confused, I looked at Jeongyeon. She was bleeding like crazy, but she was pulling up the spells menu as calmly as she could.

A second arrow whizzed past and struck Jeongyeon’s hand.

She screeched and doubled over, clutching her bleeding hand.

I looked everywhere around me. I needed to find where the threat was coming from. I didn't know what I was going to do once I found them, but I'd take it one step at a time. First I needed to spot them.

My shoulder throbbed as I searched the area around us. It was useless, though, as there was nothing to hide behind for miles. No trees, bushes or rocks to find cover and shoot arrows from.

“Nayeon! Jihyo!” I shouted, hoping they hadn’t gotten too far. “Help! Jeongyeon is bleeding!”

Jeongyeon coughed up blood and shook her head. “N-no, I’m fine. It’s just a flesh wound…”

“Jeong, you and I both know that that arrow pierced more than just your flesh!” I couldn’t believe this chick was trying to convince me that she was okay when her own eyes betrayed her. The fear in her eyes was proof enough that she had been caught completely off guard and was in more pain than she let on.

Jeongyeon shouted in frustration. “Find the spell and heal yourself,” she said, getting up and wildly searching for the enemy.

I did as I was told, found the menu and slowly restored all of my HP.

It was a little suspicious that they had shot three arrows and stopped. They could have easily continued to bombard us with the projectiles while we were completely helpless. But they did not, and it gave me an unsettling feeling. If they ran out of arrows, that could mean that they were preparing to fight us with something else.

Maybe if the attacker hadn’t started giggling like a maniac, I would never have found her.

She sounded pretty far away but her laughter was so loud that it sounded like she was Jeongyeon’s distance away from me, about one arm’s length.

I pulled the arrow out of my shoulder and had to heal myself once more because of it. Jeongyeon did the same with those that were in her hand and stomach. She cried a bit but she held her screams in and healed herself as well. She took a second to breathe, then, silently, asked me where the giggling was coming from.

I pointed in the direction of the sound. The attacker hadn’t gotten over her laughing fit, so we decided to take advantage of it. We snuck our way to her, surprised to see that she had actually been 90 yards away from us. Was her laugh really that loud?

Once we reached her hiding spot, we noticed she had used a small patch of tallish grass to hide in. She had camouflaged really well into her surroundings, too, using some blind grass to hide under just in case.

She was rolling around on the ground, holding her stomach as she tried to stop laughing. Jeongyeon carefully pulled out her blade and knelt, planning on getting her while she was distracted.

She stopped, though, when we heard the sound of a bowstring being pulled.

“Gotcha,” a second person whispered behind us. "Don't lay a finger on her or I'll let one loose into your skulls."

Jeongyeon and I both reflexively raised our hands in surrender. I turned around and saw that it was a girl as well. She had an intense look on her face, one that told me that any little movement I made would turn me into a shish-kebab in less than a second.

“Hi,” I said, smiling nervously at her. Jeongyeon stared at me, giving me a shut up, you'll get us killed! look. I ignored it and continued talking to the girl with the bow.

“Listen, this was probably set up as a trap. And let me tell you, this was a nice trap. I can't wait to tell people about it. I'll be like ’I got trapped, I got trapped, woo!’ because this was planned out so well!”

The girl narrowed her eyes and slightly lowered her weapon.

I took this as a sign to keep talking.

“I mean, it was genius. Shoot us while we were not expecting an ambush, and if we’re not mortally wounded by that, lure us closer by laughing. Then when we think we’re safe and that we have the upper hand, whoosh in and get us from behind.” I kissed my fingers like a French cook. “Excellent! Never been so delighted to be tricked like this!”

The girl, who's username was DancingMomochine, snorted in derision. “Her laughing wasn't part of the plan. I had to improvise.”

The girl behind us whined. “I'm sorry, Momo… It was just seriously funny to see them looking around trying to find me. They looked ridiculous. I laughed harder when I remembered that they wouldn't find me because I was wearing camo.” She then looked at us and lowered her eyes. “Or, at least, I thought they wouldn't. I honestly didn't know I was laughing so hard.”

The second girl, Momo, huffed and ran a hand through her hair. “They did look pretty stupid…”

Jeongyeon cleared . “Listen, I understand that she ruined your plan and all, whatever, but what are you going to do with us? You've got us under your thumb, so we’ll do whatever you want.”

Momo raised an eyebrow. “Sana, what should we make them do?”

Sana, or NoSanaNoLife as her username said, got up and stood next to her friend.

“Let's make them take us to their camp. We can take all of their stuff there. We’re low on gold right now, so we can sell what they give us.” Sana winked at me and added, “We can take their clothes and weapons too. Totally defenseless.”

My jaw dropped. I thought this girl was an idiot, since she gave herself away by laughing, but it seemed like I was wrong.

Momo rubbed her chin. “I like that plan. Then it would be eight successful camp raids. Let's do that.”

Sana clapped and giggled. “Good! Let's buy more potions with the gold we get!”

Jeongyeon swallowed hard. “W-we don't have a camp, sorry guys. We’re just traveling.”

Absentmindedly, I said “Yeah. We’re traveling right now, so our friends are up ahead.”

Jeongyeon elbowed me really hard and forced a small laugh. “Don't listen to her. She's new to this game and she tends to think of the in-game villagers as friends. What a weirdo, right?”

“Actually,” Sana said, looking at her fingernails, “the short one is right, Momo. I saw them with two other people at first, but it looks like they stopped for a second and split into two groups. The others are a little ahead, maybe a mile or so by now. They look like they're heading for the mountain.”

Momo took the information in. “Okay. Should we just jack the stuff these two have or make them lead us to their friends and take all of it?”

Jeongyeon stood up and pulled out her knife, pointing it at Momo. “I'm not going to lead you to anyone,” she said in a husky voice.

Momo pulled up her bow and pointed it at my friend. “Yes you are. I'm a Level 40 Ranger, specializing in bows. I have the Knockback perk, so one hit and you're sent flying. I can lower your health with a second and third arrow, and kill you with a fourth. It wouldn't be hard. It looks like you're a level 59 Ranger. A nice level, but I see you have a blade. You're not close enough for melee combat. You'd need to run at me with lightning speed, which you probably do have, but you also need enough force behind your stab to do significant damage.”

My jaw dropped again. She knew all that from one glance? She could have been bluffing about the strength of her shots, but there was a chance it was all true. Jeongyeon knew this, since she lowered her blade and scowled at her.

Sana raised her own bow and aimed it at me. “And you! You're extremely low level. Look, Momo, she's level 1. They're no threat.”

Using her bow, Momo motioned for us to start walking. “Let’s go. No tricks, or Sana and I will kill you.”

Jeongyeon looked like she planned on leading them the wrong way, but both of us knew it would be better to do as we were told. We’d figure out what to do once the time came.