Disclaimer: Usually, I write out a very specific disclaimer explaining exactly what it is I don't own but once again I find myself not really interested in doing so for this story as it's very tedious. Suffice it to say I own nothing that was created by anyone else and I'm making no money whatsoever from the writing of this FanFiction.

Warnings: Mild to moderate violence, character death, foul language, alternate universe (i.e. kiss HP canon goodbye), angst, drama, starts pre-Hogwarts Era, original Quests, some minor religious themes, child neglect, references to large scale ostracization/shunning of a minor, and who knows what else.

AN1: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.

Chapter Ten: The Last Archer

Sunday, December 29, 2019 5:49 AM
Southern Gate Approach, Tolbana, First Floor

Harry slowed to a stop as he rounded the mountain and got his first view of Tolbana; the last city on the First Floor of Aincrad and the only city on the First Floor that Harry had never visited to date (in either version of the game). Tolbana was pretty much the only remaining part of the First Floor that he had not set foot in bar the Dungeon Labyrinth that led to the First Floor's Boss Monster but Harry didn't actually count that place as part of the floor since it was more of a between two-floors kind of place from what he could tell.

All told, it had only taken him seven weeks and four days to explore the rest of the First Floor.

The nine year old could have reached Tolbana sooner if he hadn't re-explored the same places that he'd explored during the Beta Test and if he hadn't spent most of the last ten days dragging his heels.

After he'd finally been allowed to leave the Black Iron Palace, Harry had only stuck around Hajimari long enough to replace the equipment he'd lost during the fight with the Stinging Salamander and sell off anything he didn't absolutely need (since his Inventory space was now so limited). He'd then rushed off to the Dungeons in an attempt to escape his memories of everything that had happened after he had reached level twenty. Once he thought he'd put enough distance between himself and the Town of Beginnings, he'd purposefully gotten himself lost in the 'wilderness' of the First Floor's various Dungeons in order to distract himself.

It worked, for the most part, but each time he closed his eyes, Harry would have nightmares about what he'd been put through and what he'd learned (most of those nightmares revolving around his death). He'd also had a couple more emotional meltdowns as he struggled with the knowledge that his body had died in the real world while his mind (his soul?) lived on in Aincrad. Towards the end of those ten days, Harry finally found a false sense of peace by choosing to ignore the grim reality of his death and pretending that Aincrad was the only world that existed.

Escapism didn't really solve the underlying issue but Harry was just a nine year old child whose unacknowledged magic had accidentally killed him in its effort to fulfill one of his deepest desires; to have a place to call home.

Once he'd managed to distance himself from those things that were bothering him, Harry had made his way to Tolbana in order to explore the last city on the First Floor; though a large part of him was leery of the crowds that he knew he'd run into once he set foot inside of the First Floor's largest city. He was at least thankful that the majority of Tolbana's population was made up of NPCs since the largest concentration of Players could still be found in Hajimari due to the fact that there were so few (relatively speaking) Players that were actually willing to risk their lives clearing the floors in an attempt to win the game.

Harry hadn't once given any thought to joining those that were attempting to clear the game; he just couldn't stay in Hajimari either though.

It wasn't that he was afraid (not even before his death had he been afraid of the game); he just had no interest in leaving Aincrad. Even in the Beta Test, he hadn't been at all interested in trying to win the game. He'd been far too wrapped up in exploring the world he'd quickly come to view as his home. He knew the other Players weren't content to live in this virtual world though; he'd heard far too many of them complain about how unfair it was that Kayaba had trapped them in what people both in the game and in the real world were now calling the Death Game.

He'd also heard rumors of Players fighting between one another for various reasons and there were times when it seemed like no one but Harry had found any happiness here in the game.

During some of his lowest moments over the past ten days, Harry sometimes wondered if that made him a freak here in this world too. Even if it didn't, he was pretty certain the fact that he'd died but wasn't actually dead would make him one for sure. Living after death was not a normal thing to do, after all. And after living with the Dursleys for eight years, Harry well knew the difference between normal and not normal. Living with the Dursleys had also taught him to keep his mouth shut and keep his secrets to himself lest others punish him for his unnaturalness.

And Harry had good reason to believe that the other Players would punish him if they knew about his dead-not-dead state; far too many people in the game had lost friends for them not to be angry with him for succeeding in returning to the game after his Avatar had shattered when their friends had not. On top of that, Harry was a Beta Tester and Beta Testers were pretty much universally hated now; though Harry wasn't really certain as to why that was. The last two potential reasons for the other Players to turn on him were the fact that he'd kept his created Avatar and the Cheat Code that had unlocked his Menu Glitch (since he didn't have to buy replacements for certain Items now).

So, yeah, Harry had plenty of reasons to avoid the other Players outside of the fact that he didn't really speak Japanese that well (a real life skill that had actually grown rusty over the past few weeks since he spent so much time avoiding the chances he'd been offered to use it – though his ability to read Japanese had certainly improved) and that he'd grown uncomfortable in crowded areas.

Harry wasn't really thinking about his death, the other Players, or the crowds he would soon face though. He was far too busy taking his first look at Tolbana. The very first thing Harry saw of the city was the impressive defensive curtain wall that barricaded the city in between two mountain ranges and protected it from Monsters. The formidable walls were just over three times taller than the height of the drawbridge that protected the only entrance into Tolbana on this side of the valley and Harry felt positively tiny beside it even when he was a good half a mile away from it still.

In some ways, the walls of Tolbana reminded him of the castles that were scattered throughout Great Britain and Harry felt his throat close up on him as he thought about all of the historical castles that he'd once wanted to visit but now will never be able to. He pushed that thought out of his mind a heartbeat later and forced himself to start walking again; there was a 'castle' sitting right in front of him waiting for him to explore its secrets. Tolbana might not be an actual castle and it might not have any historical significance but that didn't mean it wasn't worth exploring!

When Harry finally reached the entrance, he took a minute to stop walking just so he could tip his head back to stare up at the top of the wall and he let out an impressed whistle as he felt even smaller now than he had when he'd first seen the wall from a distance. After admiring the view, Harry crossed over the open drawbridge and passed under the portcullis into Tolbana where he was welcomed into the city by a pair of NPC guards that stood off to either side of the gate. He absently murmured an appropriate reply as his eyes were inevitably drawn to the colossus pillar looming over the city.

The same pillar that Harry knew housed the Dungeon Labyrinth that led up to the Second Floor of Aincrad.

Jerking his eyes away from the monumental structure, Harry let his eyes rove over the nearest buildings. He then picked a random direction (that wouldn't take him straight into the heart of the city where the largest congregation of Players and NPCs would most likely be found since that's the way the other towns had been set up) and began wandering through the streets of Tolbana while there were few Players (or NPCs) out and about the place. He wanted to see as much of the city as he could before he had to put up with the inevitable crowds that would flood the streets.

It would take Harry just over a week to explore and map out the entirety of Tolbana due to the sheer size of the city. And while Tolbana was no where near as colorful as Hajimari, it was still a beautiful city; or so Harry thought.

Wednesday, January 08, 2020 6:09 AM
Outer Wall, Tolbana, First Floor

Harry silently sat on the highest point of Tolbana's curtain wall and watched the sun rise over the valley that spread out from the foot of the wall as he slowly ate his way through a loaf of Black Bread (a specialty Food Item that was only available in Tolbana). It had taken him just over nine days to explore every inch of the city and now that he was done, Harry was feeling rather lost and at loose ends because he didn't know what to do next. He knew there were another ninety-nine floors to explore but that would mean leaving the First Floor – which was home in Harry's mind.

And while he could just continue to wander around on the First Floor, his heart wasn't in it at the moment because he'd already seen everything there was to see on the First Floor. He knew that there were still things he could do on the First Floor aside from explore. There were at least a dozen reoccurring Quests and another dozen one-time Quests that he could take, after all. But Harry had no interest in doing another Quest. Heck, he didn't even want to do the remaining six required Quests that the Fates had set up for him.

Or had it been Kayaba that had created those Quests for him?

This was Kayaba's world, after all.

Did that mean that Kayaba had set those Quests just for him? Did all of those Players that had died since the game's launch get a chance to come back if they somehow agreed to run the Freaky Fates Quests?

No, they didn't. And Harry knew they didn't.

His ability to access the internet through his Player Menu meant that he'd read more than one article on the number of deaths in the real world that had been linked to their NerveGear and through said gear to SAO. The only reason why he'd bothered to read such morbid news articles was in an attempt to find out if his death had been reported as of yet. It hadn't. But he didn't know if that was because he was actually alive and Kayaba was just playing mind games with him for some sick reason or if it was because the Dursleys had hushed it up to keep anyone from linking Harry to them.

He also wouldn't have put it past his aunt and uncle to have secretly buried him in the back garden to avoid a scandal.

It wasn't like there was anyone in Little Whinging that would miss him, after all; so there wasn't anyone that would visit Number Four looking for him. Not even his teachers would notice his long absence since they'd never really noticed his presence in the first place. He doubted Mrs. Figg or her cats had even noticed his disappearance since it wasn't like she had anything to do with him outside of occasionally watching him for his relatives when the Dursleys wished to have a bit of family time away from him and his unwanted presence in their life.

And wasn't that just a painfully depressing thought.

Harry shook his head to shake away the useless thought of his relatives (relatives he was never going to see again if he could help it) and refocused his attention on more pressing (and infinitely more pleasant) thoughts. Such as what he was going to do now that there were no unexplored pockets of wilderness left to see on the First Floor. He supposed he could head into the Labyrinth in order to move up to the Second Floor but he doubted there was really anything left to see or find in the twenty-some floors that made up the Labyrinth.

He also didn't know if setting foot in the Labyrinth would force the Floor Boss to respawn and the last thing he wanted to do was end up facing a Boss Monster. Nor did he think the other Players would be impressed with him if he brought the Floor Boss back after it had taken them so long to find and kill it in the first place. Bad enough he still had to face six more of them on the stupid Fate's Quest thingies that he had to do.

Thinking about the Quests he'd been forced into accepting reminded Harry that he had just over a month left before he needed to complete the next one and he grimaced in response to the reminder. He really didn't want to do another Quest; the first one had been bad enough. He knew he really didn't have much of a choice though. The stupid old hags had made that perfectly clear roughly three weeks ago when they'd pushed him into completing that first one. Harry also hadn't forgotten the implied threat that he wouldn't like it if they had to come here just to force him to do the next one.

"Bugger," Harry halfheartedly complained to the sky as he finished off the last of his bread and scowled out over the valley below him without seeing it.

After another minute, Harry reluctantly took the Snake Key that was supposed to unlock the entrance to the next Quest out from his Inventory that he'd gotten after finishing the first Quest. No matter where he decided to go from here, he was going to have to deal with the next stupid Quest soon; even if that was the last thing he wanted to do. Still, Harry preferred to complete the Quest on his terms rather than wait for the old hags to force their terms on him a second time. And it wasn't like he had anything else to do, not really; though there were plenty of things he wanted to do.

He just… felt lost.

If Harry had been older, he would have realized that the lost feeling was partially due to a good measure of his innocence being stripped away from him by his recent death followed by his encounter with the Fates. Another part of it was due to the way that loss of innocence had tarnished the world that he'd come to view as his true home. And lastly there was the fact that he'd been locked in this world first by Kayaba and then by his decision to force his way back into Aincrad after his death.

So, even though he was free to explore Aincrad to his heart's content, he no longer actually felt as strong of a desire to do so because Aincrad had become a large and overly fancy prison even if he refused to acknowledge that truth.

Harry didn't know that though and so he did his best to ignore those thoughts and feelings that made him feel more than a little uncomfortable in favor of pretending that everything was okay. His decision to head back to Hajimari to face the next Quest before his two month time limit was up also had more to do with him pretending that he had control over his life (or un-life as it was now) than it did on any desire to actually face the next Quest.

Once he decided to start the next Quest before his time limit was up, Harry returned the Key to his Inventory before he checked over the types of Arrows that he had on hand. A frown curled his lips downwards when he realized that he hadn't picked up anything better than the Steel Arrows that he'd picked up around level seventeen. He knew those weren't going to do him any good though. Sure, they'd probably work against any Snake Monsters he ran into (they had on the last Quest, at least) but it had taken him forever to defeat the Boss Monster and Diary with them even if he didn't count the missed or blocked shots.

So, that meant that he needed better Arrows.

And since he hadn't been able to pick up a better Arrow in a Monster Drop in well over a month that meant that he was going to have to buy them from a store or blacksmith.

Letting out a sigh, Harry closed out his Inventory and opened up his map of Tolbana in order to figure out where are all of the NPC stores and smithies were located since he hadn't really paid all that much attention to them when he'd been exploring the city. He then headed for the closest one in order to see what they had for Arrows.

Thursday, January 09, 2020 3:33 PM
Unnamed Road, Outside of Horunka, First Floor

After spending an entire morning trying to hunt down someone (anyone) with Arrows for sale in Tolbana without any success, Harry had left Tolbana in order to check the other towns on the First Floor. There were five potential villages for him to search (not counting Tolbana or Hajimari) and he'd spent all of the previous day's afternoon and evening and most of today traveling between them in order to find an NPC store or smithy with Arrows for sale. So far, he hadn't had any luck and the only two towns that were left for him to check were Horunka and Hajimari.

Harry didn't really think he'd have luck in either town because even if he did find someone selling Arrows, the only Arrows he could expect to find in those particular towns would be of far lower quality than what he had now. That wasn't Harry looking down on the shops in those two towns either; that was just a simple statement of fact – Hajimari and Horunka sold low level, inexpensive equipment and supplies to low level Players with limited funds. His other option was to find a weapon smith that was willing to forge new Arrows for him.

He could, of course, also head up to check the stores in the towns on the higher floors that had been unlocked to date but he didn't know how long that would take since last he heard, the Clearers (the name that had been given to those Players that were actively attempting to beat the game) had defeated the Seventh Floor Boss back on the fifth. That meant that there would be at least six, possibly seven, floors worth of stores that he'd need to search just to find some better Arrows.

And while that almost sounded like fun, Harry knew he'd need better Arrows just to travel between towns on the other floors but he had no way of getting said arrows or there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Harry might not be much of a proper gamer but even he knew that the Monsters would grow progressively stronger, the higher one moved through the floors of Aincrad. Just like the Monsters around Tolbana were almost all stronger than the Monsters around Hajimari; though there were times when he'd sometimes run into Monsters that were far lower or far stronger than the others in the immediate area. There were even times when he ran into Monsters that were in places where they didn't belong; like that one time when he'd been attacked by a coven of Vampire Squirrels in a field.

So, even if he just wanted to move up and explore the Second Floor, he'd need to get himself some better Arrows.

And that brought him back to his current problem; getting his hands on said better Arrows.

Harry scowled at the road in front of him as he made his way to Horunka. It really bothered him that he hadn't been able to find any Arrows for sale in any of the other towns he'd visited. He'd bought Arrows in every single town on the First Floor except Tolbana previously; so, why didn't they have any now? It wasn't like they were just sold out either; there hadn't been any Arrows or Bows on sale; not even the crappy Basic Arrows or Basic Short Bows. Not even the smithies that he had visited had any Bows or Arrows for sale; which was rather weird because they were the ones that made the weapons in the game.

So, why wasn't any one making or selling Bows and Arrows any more?

Harry sometimes worried that his Menu Glitch had spread out to infect other parts of the game and that that was why he couldn't buy any new Arrows. At other times, he worried that the game refused to sell him any more Arrows because he never ran out of Arrows any more because of the Menu Glitch. There were even times that he feared that Kayaba had changed the rules of the game to banish all Arrows in the game just to make it harder for Harry to complete the stupid Quests that the Fates (which he was half convinced were actually Kayaba in disguise) had forced him to take.

Or that the man was trying to force him to kill himself with a sword or other melee weapon.

The nine year old would be forced to put his worries aside just a few minutes later when a small flock of Plains Vultures attacked him out of the blue. The annoying flying pests were dealt with rather easily due to their relatively low levels and it wasn't long after that that Harry finally reached the village of Horunka. He would then spend the rest of the afternoon searching for an NPC store or smithy that was selling Arrows or even an upgraded Bow. A continued lack of success would once again set Harry to worrying about what was going on and what he was going to do if he couldn't buy any better Arrows.

Harry left Horunka some three hours later and the unhappy archer reluctantly headed for Hajimari. He would stop and make camp in a Safe Zone located halfway to his destination when he got tired of running into the stupid Vampire Squirrels that lived in the forest that lined the road between Horunka and Hajimari. After a hot meal of Squirrel Stew, Harry curled up in his Sleeping Bag and stared up at the stars he could just barely see through the canopy of leaves that blocked his view of the nighttime sky until he eventually drifted off to sleep.

Harry would arrive in Hajimari no Machi just after sunrise the next morning and his first destination was the NPC Shop where he'd purchased his first Bow in the Beta Test. The store was off the beaten path (so to speak) and didn't see any where near as many customers as the stores that were found closer to the Central Plaza. Harry hoped the fact that fewer people went to that store would mean that he could buy Arrows there since there would be less of a chance that their stock of Arrows would have been sold out.

The store was closed when Harry arrived and instead of wandering around to kill time, he planted himself on the ground beside the door and ate an orange for breakfast. The reason why he chose to stick around was so that he could be the first one through the door when the store opened for the day. Harry didn't have too long to wait as the store opened promptly at seven o'clock and the store's NPC clerk welcomed him into the store with the warm courtesy he had long since come expect from the NPCs in the game.

As soon as he got a good look around the store, Harry felt his hopes of finding Bows and Arrows for sale start to wither. It wasn't so much the fact that those two items were not on display that had him feeling discouraged; they hadn't exactly been on display the first time he set foot in the shop, after all. No, it was the fact that the variety of Items that the shop had in stock was far more limited than what he remembered it being from previous visits that really bothered him. And the reason it bothered him so much was because this shop was known to sell the less popular weapons and tools.

After a quick check of those items that were tucked away in the back of the shop, Harry nervously approached the clerk at the counter and the moment the man saw him, he asked, "How may I be of service, customer-san?"

"I want buy Arrows," Harry hesitantly answered in broken Japanese. He was rather lucky that the NPC was programmed to respond to key words rather than proper grammar; otherwise he never would have been able to buy or sell anything in the game. In this case, the clerk responded to the words 'buy' and 'Arrows'.

"Sumimasen, customer-san; we don't carry that Item in stock."

"I want buy Short Bow."

"Sumimasen, customer-san; we don't carry that Item in stock."

"I want buy Longbow."

"Sumimasen, customer-san; we don't carry that Item in stock."

Harry hesitated a moment before he requested, "I want buy Crossbow."

"Sumimasen, customer-san; we don't carry that Item in stock."

Harry stared at the NPC for a full minute as he tried to ignore the way his stomach had twisted up in knots in response to hearing the same answers he'd heard from every single NPC clerk he'd approached over the past two days. He then abruptly turned his back on the clerk and stalked out of the store without another word and without acknowledging the clerk's parting response. The scene would be repeated countless times throughout the morning as Harry hit every single NPC owned or run store in Hajimari.

He hit up the NPC owned blacksmiths in the afternoon with the same results. Even worse was the fact that none of the blacksmiths had been willing to make him a new Bow or Arrows either; every single NPC Blacksmith he'd approached had claimed not to know how to make Bows or Arrows. There were also no actual Bowyers or Fletchers to be found in the game and Harry wasn't certain they had ever existed in the first place since he'd never had cause to try and find one during the past two months or even during the Beta Test.

Frustrated and more than a little desperate now, Harry reluctantly turned to the Player owned stores in Hajimari. Sadly, Harry wouldn't have any better luck with the Player Merchants than he'd had with the NPC Merchants. The Merchants he approached were at least polite when they informed him that they couldn't help him. The Blacksmiths he approached, however, were a completely different story when he started seeking them out after he'd failed to find a Player Merchant that sold Arrows.

A few of them just laughed him out of their shops (or stalls). Others derisively just told him to get out of their shops and quit wasting their time. And the rest of them called him names; the nicest of which was a fool. None of them seemed interested in giving him any reasons as to why they wouldn't sell or make him Arrows though and all of them told him he was better off taking up the sword or locking himself up in town. Harry would even be physically ejected from the last smithy he'd tried.

"…out and don't come back! I have no interest in wasting my time or my Skill Slots on a baka who insists on playing around with a kiddie toy instead of using a real weapon!" the blacksmith that had just shoved him out of his shop snarled before he slammed the door in Harry's face and locked up his shop.

Harry's face burned with embarrassment as a number of the Players that had witnessed him getting tossed out of the store laughed at his misfortune. Ducking his head so that he wouldn't have to look at the people making fun of him (their behavior sharply reminding him of his relatives), Harry turned on his heel and made to leave the city in order to find a place where he could sit down and panic in private. He'd barely taken two steps before he crashed into another person and ended up on the ground in a tangle of limbs that only drew more laughter from the crowd.

"Bloody hell!" Harry muttered under his breath as he rolled over and sat up so he could rub at his head where it had struck the ground just seconds earlier.

The blow hadn't really hurt but that wasn't what was really bothering him in the first place; his thoughts still firmly lodged on the fact that no one was willing to make him any Arrows. Harry was drawn out of his thoughts when he heard a groan from beside him and he suddenly recalled that he'd run into someone else. He glanced to his left to find the person he'd bumped into only for his gaze to land on a pair of bare, pale legs topped with white knickers surrounded by a heavy-duty material in dove-gray.

It took several seconds for Harry to realize exactly what he was looking at and when he did, he flushed bright red and snapped his eyes shut as he turned his back to the girl he'd knocked over before he hurriedly stuttered out, "Su…sumi… sumimasen. Sumimasen…"

"It's fine, it was probably my fault anyway; I was too busy gawking in response to seeing you get tossed out of that shop to notice that I was standing right in your way," the girl insisted as she cut off Harry's apology.

Harry didn't really know what to say in response to that so he merely repeated an awkward, "Sumimasen."

"Didn't I just say it wasn't your fault?" the girl huffed and Harry hunched his shoulders around his neck as he heard her moving around behind him for a moment before he practically felt her eyes land on his back.

"Sumimasen."

"Is that all you have to say?"

"Sumi… sumimasen," Harry nervously offered in reply to her question.

To his surprise, the girl laughed in response to his latest apology and Harry tentatively glanced over his shoulder to find the girl facing him as she knelt on the ground with her feet spread out to either side so that she was practically sitting on the street and her hands covering her mouth as she continued to laugh. He was more than a little relieved to note that he could no longer see her underwear (that had been gross and embarrassing!) and he glanced up to see if she was an NPC or a Player only for his eyes to get caught on her bubblegum pink hair.

He'd never seen anyone with hair that color before and he couldn't help but stare at her hair for a long minute before he realized what he was doing and flushed bright red yet again. Feeling rather self conscious over the way he was behaving, Harry quickly turned away from the girl and awkwardly climbed to his feet while being very careful not to look at the girl again lest his staring upset her. He then took two steps away from her to put a little more distance between them and turned his head just enough so that he could see her right foot.

"Sumimasen," Harry repeated one last time before he hurried away.

"Chotto matte!"

Harry attempted to ignore the girl's call only for her to catch up to him a few minutes later and pull him to a stop when she grabbed hold of his left elbow. Pulling his arm free, Harry spun around and glanced down at the girl; his Avatar a good eleven inches taller than the girl's Avatar though he knew that she was probably far older than him (and much taller than his real self) despite the fact that it didn't look that way from everyone else's perspective.

"Why'd that guy throw you out of his shop?"

"I make him angry. He not want make what I want buy," Harry replied as he glanced up from the girl and scowled back in the direction of the most recent smithy he'd just been tossed out of. "No one want make what I want buy."

"No one want make…?" the girl slowly repeated; the sound of her voice drawing Harry's gaze back to her and he found her frowning up at him. "You have a really funny way of speaking."

Harry glanced away from her in embarrassment over his poor Japanese before he muttered, "Sumimasen."

The girl let out a snort of amusement in response to his latest apology before she asked, "Why are you apologizing this time?"

"Because I don't know how to speak Japanese all that well," Harry reluctantly replied in English when it didn't seem like the girl was going to let him slink away without answering her question.

"That only make us even; I not very good speak English either," the girl countered with another laugh before she stuck her hand out and switched back to Japanese as she stated, "My name is Lisbeth."

"I'm Joe," Harry shyly offered in return as he reached up to nervously rub the back of his head; an unconscious move he made in order to avoid shaking her hand. "Joe Bloggs."

Lisbeth dropped her hand a heartbeat later when it was obvious he wasn't going to shake it (though she didn't seem all that bothered by his unintentional snub) before she asked, "So, what was it you've been trying to get someone to make for you?"

Harry scowled as he shifted his gaze back to the darkened window of the blacksmith shop he'd just been kicked out of as his thoughts abruptly returned to his recent inability to get his hands on some better Arrows. He just didn't understand why no one was selling or making Bows and Arrows any more. It wasn't like he was the only archer in the game. He was also pretty certain that he wasn't the only Ranged Fighter in the game. In fact, he knew there was at least one other guy who was a Ranged Fighter. He was a member of that group that the Klein guy he'd spoken to a while back was part of.

"Joe-san…?" Lisbeth prompted when Harry didn't answer her right away.

"Arrows," Harry finally answered as he returned his gaze to the pink haired girl. "No one sell Arrows. No one want make Arrows neither. Not NPC. Not Player."

"You're a Ranged Fighter?" Lisbeth asked with some surprise. "Did you just switch over or something? I could've sworn that the last Ranged Fighter had died or switched over to Melee Fighter by the second week of December because Melee Fighters have a higher base Defense Stat and are far more capable of defending themselves at close range."

"Iie," Harry replied as he shook his head no. "I only fight Bow and Arrows."

"Really? What have you been doing for Arrows for the past month then? I'd heard rumors that Monsters Drops stopped generating Arrows the moment the number of Ranged Fighters dropped below fifty at the beginning of last month. I also know that all of the NPC shops and smithies on the First and Second Floors stopped making and selling projectile weapons around the sixteenth of last month and the Player shops stopped shortly after that. The Third through Seventh Floors shops would've stopped making and selling them within five days of being unlocked due to no one buying them."

"I… I not know that. I not know where buy Arrows if no one sell."

"You could always switch over to Melee Fighter and buy a sword instead."

"No! I not like fight sword. I not good fight sword," Harry countered with another sharp shake of his head. He then reached up to scrub at his face with both hands as he tried to figure out what he was going to do now. After a couple of minutes, he dropped his hands and stared at the girl who'd just told him the bad news as he blurted out, "There has be somewhere, someone able make or sell Arrows. There has be other Ranged Fighter other than I."

"Gomen, Joe-san; I'm pretty certain that you're the last archer in the game – all of the others either died or switched over to the Melee Class after a close call during a fight due to the fact that nearly all of the Monsters in the game are Melee Fighters and Ranged Weapons are pretty useless when fighting Monsters up close or when facing large groups of monsters."

Translations: Japanese to English

Baka – idiot
Chotto matte – wait a minute!
Hajimari no Machi – Starting City or Town of Beginnings
Sumimasen – I'm sorry (formal)

Game Terminology:

Aincrad – An Incarnating Radius (the name of the Castle that is SAO)
Attributes – are the 'inherited' or 'natural' characteristics that all Players, NPCs, & Monsters are given in an RPG game (examples include Strength, Defense, Agility, etc.)
Avatar – the term for a playable character that a player uses during game play
Defense Stat – a Character Attribute that reduces the amount of damage a Player receives when hit with an attack; the higher the Stat, the lower the amount of damage
Dungeon – an area within the game where players can attack or be attacked by Monsters (or other players)
Experience Points – the points earned for each quest completed and each Monster killed
HP – Hit Points: the number of Life Force/Life Points/Health Points a person has
Melee Fighter – a warrior class character that fights up close (usually with hand to hand combat or a hand-held weapon designed for slashing, stabbing, or bashing)
Melee Weapon – a weapon designed for close combat (sword, knife, club, staff, etc)
NPC – Non-Player Character
Ranged Fighter – a warrior class character that fights from a distance
Ranged Weapon – a weapon designed to strike from a distance (bow & arrow, catapult, gun, etc)
XP – Experience Points

Notes:

Bowyer – a person who makes Bows
Fletcher – a person who makes Arrows

On Items and Blacksmiths – Okay, I can see some people complaining about me having the game discontinue selling a weapon or having the other players refuse to help Harry. My reasoning for the former is because most in-game stores don't all sell the same products and the further you go in the game, the less likely you are to see products that were for sale at the start of the game unless you go back to the places you got them. Only, I had projectile weapons discontinued once the number of Players classed as Ranged Fighters dropped below fifty since it seemed like something that Kayaba (and the other game designers) would do to make the game harder.

As for the attitudes of the other Players; I imagined that far too many people would not want to be bogged down making a single type of weapon for a single Player when it would hamper their other Skills (since they have a limited number of Skill Slots available, unlike Harry). Or take up limited space in their Inventories when there was basically no demand for that product. So, they turned Harry away and because he wouldn't have been able to fully understand them or make himself understood, he would have been kicked out of their shops for wasting their time.

And for the record; no, he didn't encounter Agil and if he had, I imagine that Agil would've helped him because that's the kind of person Agil was in canon. Agil wasn't one of the Merchant Players he encountered that day though since the dude was off swinging his ax about somewhere earning money and leveling up so he could resume helping others.

For anyone who wants to complain about the serious lack of ranged players; I will blame it on the hype of the game being called Sword Art Online, far too many people having one too many close calls (like a few of Harry's where he only survived by the skin of his teeth), and the constant fear of dying. So, while being a ranged player in a normal game might be easy to level up and improve, the fact that death in SAO means death for the players would seriously hamper their decision to stick with it out of stubbornness like Harry is doing.

So no, not bashing ranged players or Harry for their choices here. I'm actually speaking from experience as I always died while using the bow in Fable (the Lost Chapters) during a battle against multiple enemies. I'm a melee fighter and I prefer battle axes unless I have magic/mana available and then I like lightning. So yeah, that's why Harry is the Last Archer for this run through of SAO.

AN: Chapter 11 will be posted next Sunday as I've not yet finished the chapters I'm working on for Hunter x in the x Making, Epic Adventure, or Banished Destiny; which are the three stories I'm concentrating on right now. Progress has been slow though as I spent most of the last week or two playing with my camera instead of writing. Doesn't help that none of my muses feel like working, the lazy bums. Ah, well, I'll figure something out here soon.

ANYwho, thanks for reading/reviewing/following/favoriting/etc... Updates as usual are on my author's page though there hasn't been many changes between this month and last month. ~ Jenn