marrow [coal]

Confidence wasn’t something of the norm, commonly only rallied up in rare instances for her. Perhaps due to her consecutive number of success in her few lines of quests boasted her ego or were it the few amount of nice individuals that the teen nervously teamed with. Whatever the case was, it was doing wonders for her as the social awkward snowflake was barely starting to defrost, quite an improvement for someone whom was struggling to stand on their two feet the initial moment that had logged in.

A hand rose to the skies, as she examined her- or at least what was portrayed as her hand. The more that she gotten adjusted to this digital body of hers, the more she started to notice the tiny differences between this and her normal body despite setting most of the appearance similar to her own apart from hair and eyes, that which she had an exotic natural pink tone along with a aquamarine set of lenses. Allowing the sunlight to peel through the cracks of her fingers, the hand tightly clenched while her attention laid elsewhere upon hearing the call of a store. A discount? How rare.

Moments after going into the shop, she’d come out with a simple sword and a cloak. Nothing quite extraordinary, but a simple check at their stats allowed her to believe that they would at least be of use to her for a while, least from all the dangers that lurked outside the town. Disappointment wasn’t something that was ridden from her face, the discount appeared to be a sham, at the very least it was something that required a line of quests to obtain and she wasn’t quite willing to figure out which <<NPC>> was needed to start up that whole line for a little discount.

Her curiosity brought her to gradually make her way out of the town, namely due to words that had been spoken to her by a prior quest partner of hers. ‘Maybe I should… see what the fuss is about.’ There was actually a tinge of wonder to how the world outside of the settlement looked, it just she was so bombarded by the sensation of confusion about her first time utilizing virtual reality along with how lost she got within the landscape that the thought hadn’t quite popped up in her head yet.

It was certainly a beauty, the view that was. The pastures looked cleaner than any grass that she had seen in her lifetime, staying in the city most of her life left her foreign to sights of the country. Not to mention the scenery and sky was breath-taking, it was hard to imagine that this was just a bottom floor and not a whole environment itself.

Of course this moment of awareness of her surroundings did allow her to catch notice of a female beside a fence, seeming as if she were waiting for someone along with another near her. Was it a couple, or a party? No, judging by the attire one could assume the other was an <<NPC>> or at least someone quite plain in appearance. A quirked brow was given as Saeko looked at her sword. The woman appeared to look like one of those dangerous types, there was definitely an urge to walk by her and feign ignorance. It could be said to be irony that her very concentration to try and diverge attention from herself resulted her slipping on a misplaced rock. And with a slip, along with a very loud thud almost breaching fall damage, all eyes would be focused to her.

Was she becoming clumsy? It felt as if it was starting to become a tendency for her to always do something stupid the moment that she’s surrounded by one person that she focuses on. If so, it wasn’t something that she was going to ever get used to. “Urgh, it stings.” Even though she hadn’t received damage, it did hurt somewhat and also provided a hit to her pride. Hands pressed against the ground, Saeko heaved her body up from the solid surface, soon coming to stand on her to legs which were shaking a bit from the little impact. The words from the strange didn’t aid her one bit, causing her to lightly hold the tip of her lower lip with her teeth, perhaps wondering if it wasn’t too late to head back into the town and hide her shame. At the very least she had a tool to help her hide her face, flipping the hood of her white cloak over her head, hiding the embarrassed blush that had left it’s temporary imprint upon her cheeks.

The accent was something that didn’t go unnoticed, it was strange- rough almost. Foreign? Kansai? It was unknown to her, but nonetheless she couldn’t help but mentally associate it to a tone some kind of hooligan would speak with, coming to become certainly more nervous as eye contact met between the two. Having the right mind to twist around and make her exit faster than one of those cartoon-ized mice, her step had been halted by a rant started by the <<NPC>>. Blank blinks were formed, turning her head to look at the figure as she heard about the quest before looking at the woman near him. Her heart nudged at her nerves, timidly lifting up her hand and pointing towards the blabbering quest giver with her eyes barely settled upon the ginger. “Uh… are you in need of a t-teammate?”, the words spoken at a tone that almost resembled a whisper.