Zhou groaned as he saw the glistening 575 encapsulated by the mailbox icon. He'd just logged onto the Oasis, and even within the last second, the number jumped to 578. Shaking his head, he went through his standard procedure of emptying the messages.
As soon as he closed the mailbox, nearby players who noticed his presence began questioning him, which in turn attracted more people to come join the crowd. From what he could gather based on the overlapping yells addressed at him, the big deal seemed to be the quest he had completed with Daito. Somehow, that had spurred an even faster growth of the ever-increasing media attention he'd received since his rise to the leaderboard.
He mumbled something incomprehensible about being busy, trying to dissolve the crowd to no avail. He should've known: simply telling them to leave hadn't worked a single time so far, but he always gave it a try before the probably more impolite method of simply ditching. Alas, it seemed like that would have to be the solution this time as well. Without another word, he gestured in a spiral, notifying the system to exit this world.
Where to go, then? Doubtless, no matter what location he chose, a crowd was bound to form once he appeared. He scrolled through the map, pondering his options. Maybe one of those desolate islands where nothing much went on and, as such, few people were likely to exist there?
Then he discerned the sphere labeled Leaderboard Players — Training Area. He hadn't noticed it before, even after reaching the leaderboard, but to be fair, he spent limited time on the Oasis anyway and it wasn't unlikely that he just hadn't spotted it. It seemed as good a place as any, so he selected it.
The room that appeared seemed to be set up as some kind of gym, befitted with exercise equipment galore. A corner of his lip tipped upward in amusement. Perhaps the people who set this up did have a sense of humor. The gym was empty of players, which made sense: given the select number of people who could enter this place, he doubted any of them hung around in the landing spot long before opting to do some actual training.
Except— he stood to be corrected, as a swordsman in fitted red armor emerged from behind the treadmill.
~~~
"Hey! Sho." Toshiro, who had just been planning on heading out, was a little surprised by Zhou's appearance. He hadn't seen Zhou in the training area before, even after he became a leaderboard player. But he greeted the player nonetheless. "Good to see you. Checking out this place?"
Zhou nodded. Silent as ever, Toshiro supposed.
"It's pretty cool. I mean aside from the gym part. But once you exit the lobby and head down the hall, there are doors that lead to actual training areas. They have lots of options, and they'll switch them out every so often. Right now some of the locations are underseas, forest, desert... those are the ones I can recall off the top of my head."
"Oh, okay, thanks. I came here mainly to get away from the questioners." He smiles, albeit a little sheepishly, but it surprises Toshiro nonetheless.
"Yeah, those." Toshiro chuckles. "I made my escape here pretty recently for the same reason."
"I don't get why they tack onto every last detail I do."
Toshiro shrugs. "I guess our lives interest them more than their own, to some degree. And the news of you taking on a quest with someone when you've never before probably made for some eye-catching headlines."
"Yeah... you know, speaking of, do you want to do another challenge together sometime?" Even as Zhou posed the question, Toshiro was puzzled by the fact that he sounded almost unwilling to. But he didn't dwell on it.
~~~
Zhou didn't know why he blurted out what he did. He usually didn't see much point in working with another person when he could do it alone, and quests weren't much different — other than the one he had accepted by accident. But for some reason, at that moment, he'd imagined that it might be nice to have the luxury of someone helping out, of being a little less alone. And like Daito had said before, they made a pretty good team.
And for some reason, he was just a little bit relieved when Daito grinned his assent.