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