Surprise!

If I owned Bofuri, I'd be pleased with my accomplishments.

If I owned SAO, I would have tweaked the characters, especially the girls.

Maple was humming a merry tune as she sauntered through the beautiful forest. She was in great spirits. Her best friend Sally was going to be joining her soon. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be that very day. Despite Sally scoring high enough on their exams to have her parents lift her ban from gaming, she had to make an effort of showing that she was still taking studying seriously. Thus, Maple would have to wait another day before she could get back to her full gaming lifestyle.

So why was Maple in such a good mood?

Simple. Just the thought of playing with Sally tomorrow brought a smile to her face and a spring in her step.

Maple was a rather simple person. She enjoyed the sights and sounds of the beautiful forest. Gentle light filtering through a leafy canopy. The soft clank of her armor every time she took a step. The horde of monsters attacking her from all sides. The pleasant sounds of forest critters going about their way. The sounds of creatures crashing against Maple's new shield and promptly being devoured by it while screaming in terror. The smell of growing wood and forest plants. The odor of poison being constantly wasted on Maple's immune body.

"It's such a beautiful day!" Maple declared, spreading out her arms and swinging her body around. The suddenness of her turn resulted in her shield slamming against every monster surrounding her. With a chorus of deathly wails, the monsters were devoured by her shield, which gave a small burp afterwards.

"Hm?" Maple said, looking around. "I thought I heard something." Seeing nothing, she went back to humming and going about her merry way.

Who was this person who could rip through a horde of monsters without even giving them a passing glance? Maple, a player new to the game of NewWorld Online, a Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, or VRMMORPG for short. Despite being entirely new to games in general, she had managed to go from starter gear straight to a unique armor set in less than a week.

How? You may ask.

She beat a boss monster that normally requires an entire party to beat, and she did it solo.

How? You may ask again.

She ate it.

…

No, I'm serious. She sank her teeth into the boss's flesh and ate enough chunks of it to drain its health to nothing.

She may look unassuming, with her short black hair, small ahoge, and cheerfully innocent expression crafting the perfect image of a cute, harmless little girl. But make no mistake. That black and red armor and shield set were earned through the actions of a deadly, unpredictable fighter. And this was only the start of her journey. With her unique outlook (and a supreme amount of unnatural luck) it was only a matter of time before she got swept up in a series of misadventures that would give her the opportunity to become a monster in human flesh.

Speaking of which, that should be happening right about…

Now.

"What's this?" Maple said suddenly, coming to a stop at the front of a large cave. She had not seen the cave before in this part of the forest, nor had she notice it as she had walked. It was as if the cave had suddenly sprung from the ground in front of her.

Or, she had been only looking around her and not paying attention to where she was going. Take your pick.

The cave entrance was made of smooth, greyish-brown rock. From the light that pierced the entrance of the cave's mouth, Maple could see the tunnel steadily descend downward into an indiscernible abyss of darkness.

"It looks like something scary might be hiding down there." Contrary to her words, Maple was anything but scared. In fact, an excited smile broke out across her face as she stared hungrily into the cave's open maw. Without a second thought, she strolled into the cave. "Maybe I'll find another Hydra," she said as the shadows enveloped her body. "Hopefully it tastes better than the last one."

Had she looked behind her, she would have noticed the light of the forest be mysteriously swallowed up as shadows coalesced around the cavern's opening. However, Maple's attention was fixated in front of her, searching for some form of light. Despite no obvious source of illumination, the cavern was dimly lit enough for her to barely see her way in. Several more steps down into the depths, Maple finally saw small flickering lights lining up against a stone wall.

"Perfect!" she exclaimed as she ran over to the wall. Well, attempted to run.

Maple had decided early into her gaming experience that she hated taking damage. Because of this, she invested all of her initial stats into Vitality, to increase her defenses and take virtually no damage from attacks. Then, as she gained levels, she persisted in dumping every single one of her stat points into Vitality. As a result, her Agility stat was nonexistent. Running, swimming, quick reactions, all of these were impossible due to Maple's unconventional min-maxing strategy.

When Maple finally arrived at the wall, she found a series of evenly spaced torches along the wall. "Maybe these lead to the boss room?" she wondered aloud. Deciding she had nothing better to do, she followed the line of torches, humming happily despite the earie doom and gloom of her surroundings.

"Grraugh!"

"Hm?" Upon hearing a strange, aggressive growl, Maple turned around. Standing behind her were three lumbering monsters. Each of the creatures carried a small axe in one muscular hand. Their bodies were some unholy fusion of a rabbit and a lizard, pumped with enough muscles to make any male jealous. The ears of the monsters stood tall, but their bodies were hunched over as they growled and snarled at Maple.

"Cool!" the girl exclaimed. "What kind of creatures are you?" A quick check on her HUD gave her an answer. "Ruin Kobold Trooper? That's a fancy name. That must mean you're powerful."

The kobolds snarled. They raised their hand axes as they charged forward, their muscular tails lashing in anticipation.

Maple smiled. She planted her shield in front of her as she placed a hand on the sheath she kept strapped to the back of her waist. The sheathe carried a tanto, a blade whose length was too long to be considered a knife but rather short even for a short sword. It was a part of the armor set she got from slaying the Hydra. As Maple had no attack power, the tanto was largely useless for cutting down opponents. However, that was not the only benefit of the blade.

The Ruin Kobold Trooper roared as they jumped forward. A glow covered their hand axes as they activated their sword skills.

Maple was surprised but remained steadfast in her actions. In one motion, she drew her tanto from its sheath and yelled, "Paralyze Shout!"

The glow from the three kobolds' axes dimmed as the monsters crashed to the ground. The huffed and howled, grunted and growled, but no matter how much they strained, they could barely twitch their bodies.

"That worked perfectly!" Maple declared happily, sheathing the blade and holstering it in its usual place. "Now… I could use Hydra, but to be honest, I want to know what you taste like." She stepped towards the nearest Kobold with a hungry expression on her face.

The kobold whimpered. It was unsure if it was programmed to feel any emotion besides rage, but in that moment, it felt like a helpless puppy facing a horrifying creature that words could only fail to describe.

The monster stepped forward, opened its maw, and leaned into the kobold's terrifying face.

Maple gave a small burp as she patted her stomach. The kobolds had tasted surprisingly decent. A bit sour, but they had a very warm flavor that felt strangely filling. The texture was very reminiscent of a combination between fish and chicken.

"Delicious," Maple said with a content sigh. She pulled herself to her feet and picked up her shield. "Time to find some more monsters."

Maple wasn't sure how long she spent wandering the labyrinth she found herself in. The paved stones seemed to go on forever. She guessed that she had taken over a dozen staircases by now, but she still couldn't find the surface.

"I wonder if I'm under some mountain?" she said to herself.

A Kobold jumped from the shadows and struck the back of her head. Maple absentmindedly tapped it with her shield, not even looking back as the monster was ripped into essence and swallowed into her shield.

"Why is there only one type of monster?" she wondered. While the kobolds at first had been very exciting, they had lost their appeal by the fourth floor. She barely bothered to eat them at this point, as the flavor had already worn down on her taste buds.

Another duo of kobolds came rushing at Maple from out of the darkness.

"Paralyze Shout!"

Observing the twitching rabbit-lizards, Maple debated her next move. "This is probably a secret dungeon," she reasoned. "Maybe the reason that there's so many of these kobolds is because they're the key to getting to the boss room. If that's the case…" A grin spread out on her face as she looked down at her two victims. "I shouldn't waste perfectly good food."

A quick meal later, Maple received a notification. "Kobold Eater. Earned by eating 100 kobolds without taking damage. Kobolds take fifty percent extra damage from you and deal half damage to you," she read out loud. A confused frown crossed her face. "That sounds super specific. And it's not as good as Hydra Eater." To someone who's primary role was taking damage, Hydra Eater's immunity to poison and paralysis was invaluable. Damage bonuses against kobolds… less so. At least the damage resistance would come in handy, assuming she found a kobold that could actually harm her in the first place.

"Maybe the boss around here is a kobold?" Maple hazarded a guess. That'd been the only monster type she'd run into, after all. Shrugging, she continued on her merry way, humming an upbeat tune as she went.

Trailing behind the raid party, Kirito heard the sound of a kobold's dying scream echoing from somewhere behind them. This was unusual for two reasons. First, their raid group was the only ones who had any interest of being this deep in the labyrinth. Any player with the skills to be this close to the boss room should have already been with the group.

The second reason was that the sound of the kobold's scream was wrong. Normally they screamed in fury and defiance, like a furious animal that wanted to take down its opponent with it. These kobold screams had the wrong tone. They were chilling, haunting. The shrill notes they reached weren't the furious howls of dying predator, but the tortured screams of prey being eaten alive.

Kirito couldn't help but shiver. Whatever terrifying monster was causing those kobolds to make that horrifying sound, he wanted nothing to do with it.

Bofuri needed some love. As indicated by the genre tags, this story isn't serious. I wanted to make a story for Bofuri, and sending Maple to SAO as a joke felt fitting.

Chapter is short, but that's just so I can use this story as low stress writing and not have to put a lot of time into editing longer chapters.

Like it? Love it? Hate it? (Hopefully not) Curious about what will happen next? Please, leave a review! Remember, reviews are food for a writer's soul!