Third person POV
By 7 p.m., while Koyuki was washing the dishes and utensils at a village public faucet with Roxas, Roxas himself was checking his phone onto Discord in his Writers' Dread Corner server.
ReformedSparks10: Good evening, everyone.
Hai22: Konnichiwa. How's your day?
ReformedSparks10: It's crazy. Me and my friends went on a camping trip here in Mount Tō.
Hai22: Wow, that's nice.
ReformedSparks10: Yup, and here are the things that happened for the whole day:
I purchased a back scabbard for my two swords, Writer's Bolo and Bicol Blade, copying Kirito-kun's style.
Me and a friend of mine grind mobs for XPs, plus a few mangas, origami papers, and manhwas.
Lastly, the Elite Player Evil Asuna ambushed us, and we had to fend her attacks until she retreated.
Hai22: Wow, crazy as hell, man. What level are you now?
ReformedSparks10: Level 32
Hai22: Cool, man. I just became a player shortly after our last chat here. I am now at Level 20.
ReformedSparks10: Nice, progress is progress.
One Korean user, Seoul29, chimed in.
Seoul29: Wait, you said physical manhwa books?
ReformedSparks10: Yup.
Seoul29: Come on!!! This game is nuts.
ReformedSparks10: Like a kilogram of nuts, nuts?
Seoul29: EXACTLY!!! I NEED TO RAID THE FORESTS OUTSIDE HERE IN SEOUL FOR THE MANHWAS!!! THIS GAME IS SO NUTS!!!
ReformedSparks10: Lol. You're loud.
Hai22: Yup, very loud.
Seoul29: Sorry, too excited here.
ReformedSparks10: That's okay. Night to all.
After tucking his phone into his inventory, Roxas carried some of the wet plastic plates for Koyuki as they returned to their campsite in the night.
Later, back at the campsite, at 9:11 p.m., Roxas had a dream. He was back in the void, this time, with Anko. "It's been a while now," he whispered.
But then, Minato and the spirit of Hideyoshi appeared, much to the surprise of the resident writer-strategist and his Bicol-influenced spirit guardian. "Minato-kun?" Roxas said.
While trying to process where they were, Minato and Hideyoshi looked at him and Anko.
"Wait, are you a spirit guardian, too?" Anko's eyes grew to the metaphorical size of plates.
"Yeah, I was this guy's spirit guardian," Hideyoshi, a culinary student, replied while pointing his thumb at Minato.
"Yup!" Minato grinned at Roxas and Anko. "Surprise! I have one now! Now I can do what Taki and Mitsuha did in "Kimi No Na Wa"!"
Roxas chuckled. "Yup, hai, da, buddy, we're now on the same page."
He and the other three then walked to the right, and they arrived at the obsidian wall where original Kirito and his friends were shackled. They were currently reading Roxas's "Beginning from Darkness" story while discussing its prologue and first chapter. "Woah, guys…?" Roxas was stunned, while the hovering Anko called out to Eugeo, "Eugeo-kun!"
"Woah, are they?" Minato was stunned.
Kirito and his friends then looked at them.
"A-Anko-kun…" Eugeo whispered as he remembered his friend before Akihiko unleashed the AI darkness on him.
"Thank goodness you're alright, all of you," Anko said with relief.
"Hi, guys!" Hideyoshi chirped while Minato thought, "Man, that Akihiko-san was a big lunatic…"
"Hey, Kirito-kun, how are you?" Roxas said to Kirito.
"I am okay…" replied Kirito.
"Man, it's my pleasure to meet the author who wrote this strange story!" the loud Klein said.
"Oh, really? Did you read it?" Roxas sat down. "How was it?"
"Cool as hell man!" Klein laughed. "You did a petty revenge on the "Bird Box" movie that had given me nightmares back in 2019."
"Oh, you mean Ro-kun's "Beginning from Darkness"?" Minato responded back.
"Yup, buddy, that story is nuts and cool at the same time. Roxas-kun was really angry at the Echoes of "Bird Box" and the dystopian fiction tropes that he smooshed them into one story after they had killed the humans!"
"Wow, you watched "Bird Box", too?" Roxas asked. "Because back in 2021, I didn't even last 8 minutes into the film and just switched to the "Amazing World of Gumball"."
"Yeah, yeah, the worst decision of my life," Klein sheepishly responded.
"You're absolutely creative at writing stuff, Roxas-kun," Asuna said. "You're like the Filipino version of Dante and Virgil."
"Yup!" Roxas chirped. "What I wrote is nuttier than a kilogram of nuts, guys."
"Absolutely," Agil responded back. "By the way, what kind of nuts are we specifying here?"
"All kinds of nuts!" Roxas chirped again.
Minato, Hideyoshi, and a few others doubled over at that one.
"I think my line will become legendary, won't it?" Minato wheezed hard.
"Probably.." Roxas nodded.
After that, Roxas, Anko, Minato, and Hideyoshi laid down the events of this day: the back scabbard purchase at the village market, the weird hobby-ish mob drops, and how Evil Asuna ambushed Roxas and Eiji in the forest after that. A few minutes later (or lack thereof), silence filled the void.
"Oh, come on…" Kirito moaned, "...if I had managed to dodge Akihiko-san's AI darkness on me, I would've accompanied you and grind mobs for manga! By the way, you wearing a back scabbard for your two swords is cool. I'll give you that."
"Yup, köszönöm!" Roxas chirped as Anko read it as thank you in Hungarian with Roxas's memory files.
"He likes to copy your story, Black Swordsman!" Minato chirped.
"Did Akihiko-san give you guys stuff for you to stay in the game?" Klein asked.
"Maybe, but the more they gave us better stuff," Roxas responded, "the more he basically and unknowingly reminded us of the real world, this world without the game making a mess of things."
"That sounds philosophical," responded Asuna.
"Almost philosophical," Lisbeth chimed in.
"Well, that makes sense, Ro-kun," Minato said to Roxas.
After that, Roxas was wondering about the original Keita here, so he looked around and indeed, the original Keita was beside Sinon. "Oh, hey, Keita-san!" Roxas called out to him.
Keita heard that and looked at him. "Roxas-kun? The one who defeated my evil self on the second floor in the Tower?"
"Yeah, that's me." Roxas smiled.
"Roxas-kun, I remembered apologizing to him endlessly for the past while sobbing," Kirito confessed. "I apologized so much Asuna kicked my stomach and told me to stop because Keita already forgave me ages ago."
"Yeah, you were loud and a crybaby." Klein laughed.
"Wow, man…" Minato felt bad for Kirito.
"Woah, I see then," Roxas responded.
After that, Sinon looked at Roxas and warned, "Hey, Roxas-kun, watch out for my evil self when you wake up. Chances are, she might be lurking in the forest near your campsite. She had a Helcate II sniper rifle."
"What???" Roxas responded while his mind short-circuited on the facts of guns in this game. "Guns with swords and magic?"
Minato's mind also short-circuited by that.
"Sinon-san is an oddball here," Kirito said.
"I see then." Roxas snapped out of it. "Thanks for the info."
And then, not long after, Roxas and Anko disappeared from the void and back to reality through Roxas waking up from his sleep. When Roxas woke up, it was 6:07 a.m. in the morning. Upon getting up, Roxas immediately grabbed his small notepad and jotted down all of the details about that dream to be used as status update of the original heroes and knowledge in his mission in this game.
But then, a sniper shot rang their campsite like a gun shot. Roxas flinched at that, while Minato, Eiji, and the others were jolted awake. When Roxas went outside of his tent, it was Evil Sinon on a tree branch with a predatory smirk at him and a hovering Anko and Sachi. "Good morning, cattle," she purred with a voice dripped with lead.
As Minato and others rushed out of their tents, Roxas said to Evil Sinon, "I knew it. It was you, isn't it?"
"Yes." Evil Sinon giggled. "That's me. Time for your 'morning reflexes'."
She used her admin status to drop a few Level 26 grizzly bears on the camp.
The bears charged at the group as Evil Sinon fired her sniper rifle at Roxas and others.
It was a survival horror, and Roxas and his group had to dodge her attacks and fend off the three bears at the same time. And then, Roxas gets shot by Sinon, only for Anko to heal up the wound fast.
"What?!" Evil Sinon's face contorted.
"Haha, nice try!" Anko taunted.
Roxas quickly slashed one of the three bears, and two pistols were among the loot drops.
Seizing a pearly opportunity, he picked them up and fired back at Evil Sinon. "Take this!"
Evil Sinon dodged that fast and fired desperate shots at Roxas. "Just fucking die!"
But every time, Roxas and Minato take a few shots, regenerate themselves with the power of their spirit guardians.
Shuto and others were astonished to see that Minato also gained a similar ability set as Roxas.
And then, the tables had turned when Minato slashed the third bear and gained an Uzi submachine gun. Thinking how cool it would be with his blade, Minato picked it up and fired back at Sinon. "Take this!"
Because of that, Evil Sinon had no choice but to retreat for now, teleporting away.