Reacting quickly, Loran turned around and took up a crude combat stance with the spear. "Who's there?" he said forcefully.

Alexx heard this and readied his fists, taking up a combat stance so naturally it seemed instinctive.

"Wait wait, we don't want trouble!" A male voice called out. Three figures were approaching the camp, all dressed in the same grey starter outfit. The speaker was a rather short young man, a little under 5 feet and the shortest avatar in the clearing. He had olive skin and a splash of freckles across his face. His wavy hair was very dark green and stopped around his ears.

The two young women with him had Asian features and were more or less identical, except for what seemed to be a completely alternating color pallet. NEO had a character creation system that only limited players to a vaguely human shape; one's colors and proportions had very little limitation, and these two girls used a color scheme that could not be seen in reality. One had raven black hair while the other was as white as fresh snow; more strikingly, the black-haired girl had bone-white skin while the other was pitch black. Even their eyes alternated unnaturally, with one having black sclera and the other having white pupils. The dark-haired girl looked at Loran with a determined expression, while her twin stood slightly behind her with a soft smile.

"W-what do you want?" Loran stuttered, lowering his spear, they didn't seem to be sneaking up on them, however, he silently activated [ANALYSE].

[NAME]: Soze

[SPECIES]: Human

[LEVEL]: 0

[STATUS]

     {HP}: ?/?

     {SP}: ?/?

[END]:?

[STR]: 4

[AGI]:?

[DEX]:?

[PER]:?

[SKILLS]

[???]

[NAME]: Yin

[SPECIES]: Human

[LEVEL]: 0

[STATUS]

     {HP}: ?/50

     {SP}: ?/50

[END]: 5

[STR]:?

[AGI]:?

[DEX]:?

[PER]:?

[SKILLS]

[???]

[NAME]: Yang

[SPECIES]: Human

[LEVEL]: 0

[STATUS]

     {HP}: ?/?

     {SP}: ?/?

[END]:?

[STR]:?

[AGI]:?

[DEX]: 4

[PER]:?

[SKILLS]

[???]

'Why isn't it working?' he wondered, 'it worked on Alexx earlier.'

"We saw the smoke coming from your fire," said Soze, hands held up as he entered the clearing, "the sun is starting to set. Mind if we join you?"

"...Alexx, thoughts?" Although he was confused slightly by [ANALYSE] suddenly being useless, the three did just seem to be in the same situation as them.

"Sure, why not," he said, now standing more casually, "strength in numbers and all that, right?"

"Alright," Loran was about to turn around, but remembered his flubbed introduction with Alexx, "I'm Loran and I've already introduced the big guy."

"I'm Soze," the two shook hands as the girls came closer.

"Hello, my name is Yin," the smiling girl said, "and this is my sister Yang."

"Hey," the dark-haired girl was significantly more relaxed now but was still keeping an eye on Loran's spear.

"A-alright then," Loran was slightly thrown off by Yang's glare. He quickly put the spear down before looking around the camp, "we're gonna need more shelters."

Alexx had managed to gather more than enough lumber over the last few hours, and with five of them working, the building went much faster. There were three new shelters built around the campfire by the time the sun was setting. Soze had pointed out that the first shelter was far more elaborate than necessary, showing them a smaller triangular design. Loran realized that this was probably what cost them the bonus from earlier. The shelters netted the group 500 EXP each; Alexx and Loran held back a little to let the others contribute more. By the end Soze, Yin, and Yang were all Level 2, while Loran and Alexx made it to Level 4.

Since they still had some time left before nightfall, Soze grabbed the Fire-Hardened Spear and said he would try to do some fishing. Taking his lead, Loran passed the girls his knife, asking them to make more spears while he looked for more flint. Yin took the knife as Yang began to look through the pile of branches. As for Alexx, he tried to help with making spears, but he just kept breaking them, his STR too high and his DEX too low for the delicate task. He begrudgingly went back to chopping down trees, it was just the most steady source of EXP for him at the moment. Yin, Yang, and Alexx made some small talk while they worked and tried to pull in the others, but they were unsuccessful. Soze was focused on fishing, and Loran only offered a few awkward responses.

As it became too dark to continue working, Soze had caught five decently sized fish that were now cooking around the fire, Loran had found six chunks of Flint, the girls had made a dozen Fire-Hardened Spears each, and Alexx had chopped down four more birch trees.

"So wait, you can just look at our stats now?" Soze asked, taking a bite out of a fish skewer.

"Not really, I can only see one of them for some reason, everything else was question marks," Loran was recounting the events that happened before the others showed up to Soze for a while now. Meanwhile, he was also trying to fashion a branch into an ax handle, his fish skewer was cooling, untouched, next to him. "I could see Alexx's stats fine though."

They had all settled around the campfire for the night. Alexx had practically inhaled his fish and was now massaging his shins. He wasn't damaging himself anymore, but he was feeling very sore so he was probably still close to the limit. Yin was carefully picking at her skewer, clearly off-put by the taste. Yang also didn't seem to be enjoying the fish very much but was very engaged in discussing the game mechanics they had discovered so far.

"Maybe it has something to do with permission," Yang suggested, "you did say he asked to be analyzed."

"Seems correct."

"On the subject of correctness," Yin spoke up, "what precisely is the intended objective of this game?"

"Who knows," Loran said, shrugging.

"Well, I guess we should start by making this place into a base and exploring the woods," said Soze.

"And... is that it?"

Loran was confused by Yin's question. "What do you mean 'is that it?'"

"I'm sorry about her," Yang interjected, "she's never played a video game before today."

"Wait, really?"

"I never saw the appeal," Yin shrugged, "I've utilized a few nature simulations for relaxation but actual games never caught my interest."

Soze turned to Yin and asked, "So, what made you decide to play NEO."

"It was Yang mostly, we're sisters in reality and she has always been far more invested in such activities than me," she admitted, "the two of us haven't had much opportunity to socialize for some time, but my schedule is rather barren right now so when she asked me to join her I saw no reason to refuse."

As Yin explained herself, Loran noticed that Yang's expression had soured, but she quickly returned to normal before he could even think to ask about it. 'Not like I'm that interested in their real lives anyway.'

"I also let her design our characters."

"I was wondering what was up with that," said Soze.

"Do you not like it?" Yin asked.

"I think it looks cool," said Alexx, "kinda demonic with those eyes."

"Th-thank you Alexx," Yin forced out, "it's supposed to be symbolic of yin and yang."

"Hence the names right," asked Loran, "seemed pretty obvious."

"Can you please shut up?" Yang pointedly asked.

"...I thought it was clever..." Yin muttered, feeling dejected.

"...Sorry." 'Really though, your names literally spell it out, how clever did you think it was?' Hoping to change the subject, Loran asked, "but seriously, you've never played a video game before, any at all?"

"I've utilized a few nature simulations for relaxation but actual games never caught my interest, not to be rude but I've always felt like other activities were more worth my time."

"I don't think it's that weird," said Alexx, "I mean, this is my first time playing an RPG, I normally stick to fighting games."

"Well I guess that explains your ridiculous stat distribution," Loran said, shaking his head, "do you honestly think you can handle this place with so little HP?"

Alexx shrugged, saying, "whenever I play fighting games I avoid hits altogether, this can't be too different."

"Aren't fighting games just one on one fights?" asked Yang, "the moment you get surrounded here you'll be screwed. You should start putting points into END."

"Well-"

"Actually," Loran cut Alexx off, "if he has that much experience being a technical fighter then raising AGI would probably be better."

"But-"

"Weren't you the one just criticizing his low HP?" Yang snarked.

"Why are you both-"

"That was before he said this is how he plays games, it would be better to go with what he's more familiar with."

Their argument quickly devolved into a shouting match, soon they had forgotten Alexx entirely and just started debating whether high DPS builds were better than Tank builds.

"Alright kiddos," Soze said, getting between them, "both of you need to cool off."

"Ex-fucking-scuse me, did you just call us 'kiddos' shorty?" Yang asked, amused that the shortest and youngest player was acting like an adult.

"Yang, language," Yin quickly said.

"I- right, sorry," Yang said uncomfortably. "But seriously, I'm not letting a kid talk down to me."

"I'm thirty, actually; and if you two are going to act like twelve-year-olds I guess I'll have to take the lead."

"Oh really," she said, unimpressed.

"I mean, he did know how to build that shelter pretty quick," Loran interjected. He turned to Soze, "I'm guessing you have some kind of survival knowledge?"

"Pretty much, I used to do a lot of extreme camping in real life."

"Extreme camping?" Yang asked skeptically. "So what do you do, roast marshmallows with dynamite?"

"...that sounds awesome..." Alexx muttered, imagining Soze walking out of an explosion like an action movie star with a stick covered in flaming marshmallows.

"Nothing so silly," Soze said, amused by Alexx's remark, "it's basically camping in extremely remote locations with little to no supplies, usually I only took a satellite phone for emergencies."

"So what I'm hearing is you should be in charge," said Loran, beginning to focus more on making his ax again.

"Well, I'm not about to start taking survival advice from a bunch of teenagers that have probably never been anywhere that didn't have cell reception."

Yang clearly wanted to say something in response, but there was nothing to argue so she kept quiet.