Day 372.

It took three hundred seventy-two days for Pie to buy a countryside house in Lindus on the forty-eighth floor with her guild. Yet it took only one day at the start to realise she had to fight for her life everyday now. Seven days from then to adjust. Fourteen days more to notice she was keeping track of the time.

Days like today makes Pie wonder if SAO is really a dream. If she is going to wake up the next day to find her sister yelling at her so that she can have a turn. Even looking at her reflection in the river feels strange. It's someone's face looking back from the water's surface with her round cheeks, her brown eyes, and her puffed mess of curly black hair. But she never expected that wearing armour, skirts, or even having a sword strapped to her side would become a routine for more than a year. Then again, nobody in SAO did.

"Pie, have you seen Myffii anywhere?"

Glance up, her friend Valget calls out from the stone bridge above. He must've bought some armour today judging from the new steel metal plates over his blue shirt, unlike the old iron ones from before. Blue isn't his colour though, she thinks, not with that bright shade of orange hair at least.

Funny how he used to be a stranger once upon a time.

She shakes her head. "I heard say she was heading to Floria down at the floor below."

A quick "Thanks!" and he sprints across the bridge without a second's glance. Pie can't help but giggle, knowing their friend Myffii was anywhere but Floria. Vancet will forgive her this once though, right?

Inside the wooden walls of a lodge, Valget bursts through the door carrying a large ham and dumping it on the round coffee table sitting to the left side of the room.

"You two are girls, right? So please tell me you have a high enough cooking skill level to roast this thing."

Myffii sits there blushing a bright apple-red behind her purple bangs and long hair while Pie shoots up off her chair and bangs her fist on the table. "And what makes you think we can cook because of that?"

"It's not like my skill level's high enough!"

"But you can't just assume ours are any better just because we're girls!"

"Well excuse me if I'm a little hungry and can't cook this myself."

Myffii soon starts laughing from where she sat, rocking her chair as she does. Vancet and Pie freeze in their stances and stare at her.

"Give it to me," she says softly. "I'll see if I can make something out of it."

Pie raises a brow. "But Myffii, your level's not that much higher than mine, is it?"

"Worth a shot though." Valget soon lets out a cheeky grin. "Thanks Myffii!"

It still shocks her that it's been exactly a year since they all met. Just three beginners who started among a crowd of panicked players in the first floor like everyone else.

As Pie walks along the cobblestone path to the grass field, she still doesn't believe how fast time can go and how much easier it is to talk to strangers here than back home. It never even occurred to her before that she'd someday lead a small guild with close friends whom she never knew before.

Along the dirt path, Pie spots a Frenzy Boar taking an easy walk along the grass near a small cliff closing. She takes out her short sword, slowly creeping towards the boar.

However, she hears grunts coming from a dead end to her left. Pie creeps over only to see a player with a purple ponytail and a red cardigan backed up against the cliff with three boars surrounding her.

Without thinking, Pie leaps at the closest boar and slashes its skin. Red pixels leave a mark where she hit, but its health bar hardly decreases. Then the boar turns around and growls, now crawling towards her.

Soon from behind, another player shoves her aside and knocks the boar back with sword thrust. Pie trips onto the ground, watching as a player twice her size holds up his blade. It soon glows with a blue light before he does another thrust through the boar, and its health bar drains in less than two seconds.

"Use your Sword Skills," the guy yells out at the girl backed against the cliff. "In your menu, look for it!" Then he glances back at her before grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet. "You too, noob."

Soon Pie feels a tap on her shoulder. Flipping around, she sees Myffii rocking back and forth on her feet, hands fumbling behind her back with a slight blush.

"Pie, have you seen Valget anywhere?"

She smirks. "He went to Floria to look for something last time I saw him. Said to tell you to meet him there."

"R-really?" She stutters for a moment, but takes a deep breath. "Wait, looking for something? Like what?"

"Oh don't worry about that." Before Myffii can say anything, Pie turns her shoulders around and faces her towards the opposite direction before giving her a slight push. "Go help him out if you'd like, but he was looking for you too, so you might as well."

Myffii stumbles a bit, glancing back for a moment. Pie only waves, so Myffii smiles, soon running off towards the transport gate. As for Pie, she continues ambling along the road to the grass plains, smirking along the way.

Pie stumbles out of the transport gate in Lindus, tripping onto the stone floor as players in the area stare at her. When she finds Valget, she swears she's going to kill him for taking Myffii and ditching her in a dungeon full of bugs.

Racing through the cobblestone roads, she pulls up her the menu and turns on the tracking map. There they are, two blinking dots laying idle in the middle of an open grass field.

By the time she jogs to the field in the outskirts of Lindus, she spots two players laying on their backs staring up at the sky—Valget and Myffii. Pie does her best to hold back a scream when she listens in on their conversation.

"Pie's not gonna be happy you did that," Myffii says.

"Well duh, it's Pie. But I'm sure it'll be fine." He sighs. "Hey, you ever wonder what your folks are doing back home? If they took us to the hospital and we're laying on beds or something?"

Myffii turns onto her side, facing Valget. "Sometimes. They're probably waiting for us."

"I bet my Ma will start scolding me and ban me from playing ever again."

"At least that mean she cares, right?"

He glances back at her and the both of them stay silent for a while. Soon he stares back up at the sky. "Yeah, probably. Same for your Ma too. They're all waiting for us back there."

Pie doesn't walk any closer to them, instead smiling as she turns around and heads back into town, hands in her pocket. She'll take care of Valget tomorrow, she decides.

Maybe it was a good thing Pie decided to buy SAO that day. Been through a year's worth of fighting. A year's worth of worrying whether she'll survive by the time those in the front lines beat the game. At least she also has a year's worth of memories to enjoy in the meantime.

As for now, Pie imagines what Myffii's and Valget's reactions will be when they see each other in Floria and find out what she did; she bets 5000 Col that Valget will catch on first. Giggling to herself, she decides to start thinking up excuses to tell them later.

Life won't mind if she plays matchmaker for a day, will it?

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Tune4Toons: Whew, first attempt to write with OCs, but I'm aware of the risks of that alone (like some quick edits just made now haha). Just to disclaim, OCs are mine, SAO was amazing but not mine, and this disclaimer ended up in the bottom instead of the top haha. Happy (Belated) Birthday, Loke! I know I'm super late. XD But I hope you and you readers liked it! Cheers!