The True Endgame

Book 6: Chapter 30:

“So much for that festival,” Fenrir teased to his bipedal, draconic ally.

“Hah, well, I suppose that things have been busy for the both of us,” GG replied. “I do apologize. What was meant to be done beforehand now seems like it will not be done until after.”

“That just means we’ll be celebrating an even bigger victory, doesn’t it? Though, you might have to invite everybody else instead of just my group, too.”

“It will take even longer to prepare for the festival in that case.” A sigh left GG’s maw.

“It hurts me as much as it hurts you. I’ve been looking forward to that hot springs and festival combination ever since we helped out.”

“Fair enough! It only makes sense for a man with as many lovers as you to want to enjoy some hot springs with them.”

“I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t part of the reason.”

As GG and Fenrir walked along the narrow mountain path, Azalabulia and Eva followed close behind.

“Are – are we really going to get to meet the dragon?” Azalabulia asked for the fifth time in approximately ten minutes.

“If all goes well!” GG answered, again.

When it came to finalizing the defense strategy with GG, there was only one thing that Fenrir still needed to accomplish.

Forming an alliance with the dragon. GG and his villagers were strong and powerful pseudo-dragons, yes, but none of them were an actual dragon.

They were going to need an actual dragon if they were going to win against the undersea threat.

“So, even that serpent friend of yours has been heavily wounded, has she?” GG asked Fenrir.

“Yeah. She seems to be taking a while to recover, too,” Fenrir sighed. “I guess that’s what happens when you have a huge health pool. Even daily healing magic hasn’t had too much of an effect. I mean, she’s doing better now, but she’s covered in scars and moves way slower now. We’ve been having to bring her barrels of fish to eat since she can’t go fishing – well, hunting, on her own.”

“How does that work?”

“The barrels?”

GG nodded.

“Fill a barrel up with water and fish. Place the barrel on the riverbank. She leans her head out, places her mouth around the barrel, and tilts her head back so that all the fish and water fall into her mouth.”

“That makes sense. Well, I am glad to hear that she is recovering even if the process is slow.”

“I’m just worried about the next battle. If she’s not fully recovered, I don’t want her fighting at all. It’s too risky for her. If she does fully recover, then I’d still feel guilty about needing her to fight because of what happened to her last time. And if she gets into another underwater battle, there’s no way for us to help her. She needs support somehow.”

“Not even the dragon could help her if it comes to an underwater battle.”

“Yeah. So, whatever happens, we need to find a way to bring those serpents that bullied her into shallow enough water for the rest of us to help out. Fortunately, we do have a plan for that. I have no idea if it’s going to work or not, especially since it’s so last minute, but our main engineer is working on it right now.”

“Oh, was that what Tabitha was working on?” Eva asked.

“Right. We only just came up with the idea before leaving for here.”

“I think it should work… if the materials are strong enough.”

“I don’t think that they’ll be strong enough on their own. That’s why we’ve got a special trick up our sleeves.”

“Like what?”

“We’ve never told you about just our special The Shoebill is, have we?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, all you need to know is that she’s not just some ordinary boat. That girl has some nice history in her, and there’s a lot more to her than meets the eye.”

GG laughed. “You sound like my old man when talking about his antique car! Ah, good times.”

“I should get her some new upgrades soon,” Fenrir said. “Haven’t taken her out nearly as much as I should be. If it wasn’t for wanting to build a city, I’d be going out fishing with her more, but I don’t want to just abandon everything we’ve been working on.”

“I know the feeling. As much as I enjoy staying around here, this is still a game that we are playing. Part of me yearns to go out and explore – to go on grand adventures only possible in this reality. There is so much to see and do in this world, yet I have been restricting myself to this region almost since I have started playing. Well, I suppose that the same can be said about real life. There are less monsters trying to kill us—”

“Yeah, because big oil went out of business,” Eva interjected.

“Never change, Eva. It has been too long since we last had a debate.”

“No offense, but debating you is too tiresome.”

“Fair enough! And no offense taken. I know that you do not mean it as an insult.”

“How… is that not an insult?” Fenrir asked with a tilted head.

“Because,” Eva answered, “when I say he’s too tiresome to debate, I mean he’s too good at playing devil’s advocate. We agree on most things, but he always plays devil’s advocate for the sake of debating, and he makes me have to be really serious to give him the responses that he deserves. It takes too much time and energy to refute him properly. Anything else would be half-assing it, and he doesn’t deserve that.”

“Thank you for the praise,” GG said. “If only my wife were as interested in politics as me. I would not have to look for outlets in-game for all of the discussions I wish to have.”

“Just how good is he?” Fenrir asked Eva.

“Good enough that he could make you doubt climate change even though, you know, our coastal cities have gone underwater, weather is crazy, it’s way hotter now, and that literally every scientist in the world says it would have wiped out civilization in another decade if we didn’t do anything about it.”

“But… you do believe it, right?” Fenrir asked GG.

“Of course. However, for the sake of debate, I will always take whatever side is not being represented. If I truly did not believe it – well, I would hope that somebody forces me to return to school rather than allowing me to spend so much time in games. Then again, the education system would have failed me in the first place, so perhaps that would be pointless.”

“The education system is better than it used to be, but it can still improve,” Azalabulia said, bringing out her teacher voice.

“Anything is better than how it was at the beginning of the century, right? No more standardized testing, teaching kids how to be critical thinkers instead of how to memorize useless info, not putting people into lifetimes of debt for higher education – no matter what flaws the current system might have, anything is better than before.”

“My main problem with it is the application is virtual reality. I teach my students with a whiteboard and marker. No virtual reality headsets are even allowed at my school. The kids probably go home and spend all their time in VR anyways, and we still have no idea what the long-term health effects might be for people who spend the majority of their days in VR, so… it’s something I’d rather avoid.”

“Ah, you are a teacher as well? My mother was one. She was one of the most fervent haters of the old system. She hates the new focus on VR in the classroom, too. Whenever she gets some wine in her, she can talk about it for hours and hours without ever letting up.”

“That’s… relatable.”

“If she ever decides to try this game out, I will make sure that you two meet and are left alone with plenty of wine.”

“Why alone?” Fenrir asked.

“I am not sure if you know this or not, but if you are not a teacher yourself, you are probably better off staying out of any conversation between teachers related to the education system. They are… very passionate. Especially once you get some alcohol in them.”

“He’s right,” Azalabulia said. “We can’t help it.”

“I kind of want to see that now,” Fenrir said. “The only time I’ve ever seen you drunk was when—”

Azalabulia almost pushed Fenrir over as a result of rushing at him to place her hands over his mouth. Despite how rough she was, especially with covering up his mouth, he didn’t mind it in the slightest.

Why?

Because, of course, he got to feel her pressing her chest up against his back during her attempt to censor him.

Then he stuck out his tongue to lick her hand.

Azalabulia made an almost Cassiel-tier squeak before gently smacking at Fenrir’s back with closed fists.

“I was only going to say that I haven’t seen you drunk since we were on The Shoebill,” Fenrir sighed. “Now you’ve made it sound suspicious.”

Azalabulia froze the moment that she realized he was right. She knew that Fenrir wouldn’t have said anything about their sex life around somebody outside of their relationship, so there would have been no suspicion of anything strange had she not tried so desperately to silence him.

Instead, she put a huge spotlight onto what she and Fenrir did on that boat.

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Rather than walk next to Eva with a bit of distance behind Fenrir and GG, Azalabulia refused to leave Fenrir’s back. She kept her head down and walked directly behind Fenrir close enough for his swaying tail to brush against her face every now and then.

It was in this moment that she realized… Fenrir’s tail was incredibly soft – super fluffy.

What was originally staying close to his back out of embarrassment became staying close to his back so that she could have her face repeatedly brushed by his tail. Every pass of his tail against her face made her smile and giggle.

Little did Fenrir know that behind him, his girlfriend was being converted to the side of the fluff addicts. Pretty soon, she would be wanting a body pillow not of him, but of his tail for her to snuggle with at night.

But then Azalabulia realized something else.

If his tail was so fluffy… what about his ears?

Sure, there was his long, fluffy hair that put most animal and monster girls to shame, and it was even fluffier than her own hair that was known for being super fluffy, but what about his ears?

Azalabulia stayed close behind Fenrir as he went onto the next topic with GG. Behind her, Eva watched with curious eyes as Azalabulia stared up at those occasionally twitching ears atop Fenrir’s head.

She needed them. She needed to see just how fluffy they were.

The eyes of a predator were locked onto his ears.

“Do it,” her dark dragon of a virtual assistant said, sitting atop her shoulder and whispering into her ear… but not really. While he did in fact tell her to do it, she could only imagine that he was sitting on her shoulder whispering into her ear.

“Yes, do it,” the even darker dragon of a virtual assistant said, sitting atop her opposing shoulder whispering into her other ear… but not really, again.

Normally, one might expect a devil and an angel – two opposing sides to give conflicting advice.

But Azalabulia received no such advice. Her split-personality virtual assistant was only two dragons, a dark dragon and a darker dragon, and both gave the exact same advice to her at all times. This advice usually included telling her to blow things up. And, of course, they always chanted along with her overly wordy spell chants, but she was the only one who get to hear them being just as chuuni in her head.

Azalabulia grabbed Fenrir’s ears.

Fenrir, all of a sudden, felt his ears under attack and came to a sudden stop. Turning around, he saw Azalabulia standing directly behind him, her hands reached up to grope and fondle his ears, with an almost-melting expression on her face.

“So… so fluffy,” Azalabulia happily sighed.

“Is this… the first time you’re touching my ears?” Fenrir asked, wincing a bit from just how roughly Azalabulia was being.

“I never want to let go…”

“You know that you can touch my ears whenever you want, right?”

“I – I can?!”

“You’re my girlfriend, so yeah.”

“Then – then… y-you can touch any of my whenever you want!” Azalabulia declared, feeling the need to repay his kindness after discovering the true fluffiness of his ears and receiving consent to touch them whenever she wanted.

Of course, she realized just what she implied a couple of seconds after saying it. The new embarrassment alone was enough to bring her hands away from his head so that she could lower her own head once more.

She desperately wanted to wake from virtual reality to go and bury her face in her pillow after drinking a copious amount of wine, but then she wouldn’t get to meet the dragon they were on their way to.

Meeting a dragon was worth any amount of embarrassment that she might have felt.

Fortunately for her, she cheered up almost instantly as soon as Fenrir’s tail brushed against her face again.

Azalabulia decided to hold onto his tail rather than his ears for the rest of the trip to the dragon.

Eventually, they did make it to the dragon. Being carried there by GG and Eva would have made the trip much faster since they could have flown, but it was explained that there were more than a few monsters in that region who specialized in taking down flying monsters for food. The last thing that they wanted to be mistaken for was food for a giant mountain spider that could shoot webs out with enough speed and strength to catch juvenile dragons.

Speaking of juvenile dragons, the closer they got to their destination, the more that they saw. They ran around on the steep cliffs, flew through the air, wrestled with each other, practicing spewing flames – there were dragons everywhere and even the “baby” dragons were as big as Fenrir was.

“I… had no idea this many dragons even existed in this game,” Fenrir said.

“Where do you think they all come from?” GG asked.

“I don’t know. Usually in fantasy settings, you only see a few huge dragons or something and the rest are all either dead or just never brought up.”

“Well, as you can see, that is not the case here. These mountains are home to more dragons than you will ever see in anything else combined, and keep in mind that we are only at the edge of their territory. Deep within the mountains, gargantuan dragons deserving of being a game’s final boss can be found everywhere. Or so I have heard. Less than a handful of players have ever made it that far into the mountains.”

Looking around, their surroundings didn’t look too much different from where GG’s village was. Mountain peaks in the distance, valleys below, dangerous cliffs, sparse vegetation growing from the rocky soil – the only thing that changed was how much wildlife there was. Goats with multiple sets of horns jumped along the cliffs, looking almost as if they were glitching out as they hopped around on cliffs too steep for any human to walk across.

“Unless there’re paths like this leading all the way deep into the mountains… I can’t imagine how anybody would even make it that far,” Fenrir said.

Meanwhile, Azalabulia fangirled behind them at all of the dragons playing, hunting, and flying around.

“There are not. The players who have made it that far into the mountains have not only never returned with their lives, only able to speak of what they saw after dying and respawning, but it took them weeks if not months of travel with no small amount of supplies and masterful survival skills. Once you are deep enough into the mountains, there is no fighting the monsters you find within. There is only hiding. If you are spotted, you are dead.”

“There must be some really amazing rewards in there.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps it has been placed there simply to give the players a challenge. Similar to the world serpents, perhaps they are not meant to be defeated. They are there to encourage players to try, but nobody expects them to ever actually succeed. Many players are inspired by the thought of there being untamed and unexplored land that none have reached yet. The dream of being the first to discover something will never die until all the world serpents and dragons do.”

“Dragons aren’t for killing!” Azalabulia shouted. “They’re for taming and riding into battle! And for petting and learning from! Or fusing and becoming one with them! Like, if a dragon’s heart becomes linked to yours, and then if one of you dies the other one dies, too!”

“Yeah, dragons are better when they’re alive,” Eva said. “But… I do kind of want to try dissecting one. I’m not sure anybody has dissected a dragon before. How big are their hearts? What about their intestines? Would a dragon’s intestines be enough to squeeze inside of?”

“You’re… not into vore, are you?” Fenrir asked Eva.

“No, but aren’t you curious what it would feel like to be wrapped up inside of a dragon’s intenstines?”

“No.”

“N-not really,” Azalabulia agreed with Fenrir.

“You might be on your own with this one,” GG tagged along.

Eva’s only response was a shrug.

“Anyways,” GG said, “here. Once we turn around the corner up there, you’ll have a beautiful view to enjoy.”

“More mountains?” Fenrir asked. “I’m so excited.” He made sure to sound as sarcastic as possible. “Just kidding. Even if it is only more mountains, the mountains around here are beautiful.”

“More everything,” GG answered with a wink.

Fenrir and Azalabulia couldn’t help but to get hyped. Eva already knew what was ahead and she was excited to see how their reactions would compare to hers.

GG then led them around the bend and revealed to them perhaps the most beautiful sight that there was in the world of Fantasy Tales Online.

Rather than just walking around with mountains on all sides… there were still mountains on all sides, but they were in the distance. The mountains in the distance had snow on their peaks and reached far above all of the previous mountains that they had seen in the game. Real world mountains were put to shame by the sheer height of the mountains in the distance, too.

“They get even taller toward the center of the mountains,” GG explained.

As for what was directly before them, down between all of the mountains—

“Dr-dra-dra-dragon! Tha-that – that is – he – she – they – that – tha-that is… a h-h-huge dragon!” Azalabulia mumbled out, so excited that she could barely even speak.

“Yeah, that’s… way, way bigger than I thought,” Fenrir said.

“She’s supposedly small compared to some of the older dragons near the center,” Eva explained, earning a nod from GG to back her up.

Down below, circled by mountains, was a wide-but-sparse forest. Directly in the center of the forest was a great lake of water with smaller pools around it that vented steam.

And partially curled up around that great lake of watrer was a dragon.

While the dragon might not have been as big as a world serpent, she was large enough that her head was as big as a house and her body was of comparable size to most sport stadiums. She was the kind of dragon that was often borderline godlike in size and ability in other games and stories.

Despite being so far away from her still, the dragon opened one of her eyelids to reveal a serpentine eye looking directly at Fenrir’s group. The gaze sent shivers throughout Fenrir’s body while Azalabulia made an assortment of noises that could only be described as “excited Azalabulia sounds.”

The dragon was covered in scales of red and orange that reflected a beautiful shine underneath the sun’s light. Her wings looked large and powerful enough to generate tornados if she really wanted to, her spiked tail could probably cause an earthquake if slapped into the ground, and her long horns could easily impale even the largest of enemies.

“I could definitely fit inside of her intestines,” Eva said.

“You just ruined the moment,” Fenrir sighed. “This is like seeing dinosaurs for the first time, being shocked while pretty and epic music plays in the background, leaning up out of your vehicle to look at some brachiosaurus or something… only for somebody else in the vehicle to say that they could imagine being vored by it.”

“I’m not into vore. I’m into science.”

“But what if it’s the science of being vored?”

“Then… it is a scientist’s duty to uncover the truth.’

“We should have brought Nell. She would understand.”

“No, no she wouldn’t have. She would agree that you should try to be swallowed, but that would only be because she’d think it’s tragic and erotic, not scientific.”

“You can team up with somebody for the same goal even if the intentions are different. All that matters is that the goal is the same.”

“I don’t think it always works that easily.”

“Eh, no big deal.”

“She – she is definitely a big deal! Look at how huge she is!” Azalabulia shouted. “I want to name her Bahamut Two!”

“She already has a name,” GG said.

“Oh… what’s her name?”

“Fraydranth, Guardian of the Springs.”

“Wouldn’t she rather be Bahamut Two, Destroyer of Worlds or something?”

“Does she look like she wants to leave to destroy the world?”

“N-no…”

“Yeah, she looks pretty peaceful down there,” Fenrir said. “I would be too. I don’t think I’d ever want to leave if I lived here.”

With four legs and claws at the tips of her wings, Fraydranth resembled European dragons except for the part where her head was actually somewhat canid in shape rather than serpentine. She even had a couple of visible ears sticking up off of the top of her head. While they were canid in shape, they were still covered in scales without any of the fluff that Fenrir’s own canid ears had.

And then she closed her eyes once more.

“She has granted us permission to enter,” GG said.

“How can you tell?” Fenrir asked.

“She would have roared if she wanted us to leave her alone.”

“I guess that’s a good way of telling. Does she often roar to make people leave her alone?”

“Only when it is that time of the month for her.”

“I don’t know if you’re joking or serious.”

“Oh, I am one hundred percent serious. Every month, some of her scales shed off. This leaves her itchy and irritable.”

“Oh… you mean that kind of time of the month. I thought you were talking about like… something else.”

“You can admit you thought he meant she was on her period,” Eva sighed.

“Ah! No, no,” GG said. “That only happens once every three months. You will hear her roars before you even get this close in that case.”

“Dragon periods sound scary,” Fenrir said.

“Everything about a dragon is supposed to be scary! Even periods!” Azalabulia explained, perhaps taking a bit too much pride in how intimidating a dragon’s menstrual cycle could be.

“Just… as a warning, she can hear us from there,” GG explained. “I suggest not speaking too much of this particular topic.”

Upon paying closer attention, Fenrir could see what looked like a vein popping above one of the dragon’s eyes.

Yeah. He definitely didn’t want to piss off a dragon as big as her, so he forced himself to completely forget the topic that they were having. It never existed and never would exist.

After descending the rocky path of questionable integrity toward the forest, it was only a short walk up to the dragon. Well, short in comparison to how long it took to get there in the first place. They were already walking for about half of a day if not slightly longer.

Being so close revealed two things.

One, the dragon was truly massive. They already saw just how big she was before, but now they realize just how tiny they were as they came up next to her. Two, several small buildings and decorations were set up around the lake and the surrounding pools of steaming water. They looked to be in relatively good shape, too, despite nobody being around to take care of them.

“We send somebody out once a week to clean up and ensure that everything is fine over here,” GG explained. “Fraydranth would come and burn our village down if we did not take good care of her home after she has allowed us to use it for our festivals.”

“Makes sense,” Fenrir said. “So… can she talk?” They were almost right up to her head at this point.

“I don’t know. Can I?” a loud, booming voice asked.

And that voice came from none other than Fraydranth.

The dragon’s eyes were open once more and Fenrir could have sworn that she looked like she was trying to show off a smug smile.

A massive, smug dragon.

That was who Fenrir had to convince to help them in their fight against the undersea threat – against the Eastern serpent and its army.

Fortunately, Azalabulia was too busy squealing, squeaking, and making all sorts of other strange, excited Azalabulia sounds to say anything that might ruin their chances.

It was then that Fenrir realized maybe bringing her wasn’t such a good idea after all. He wanted to bring her because he knew just how much she loved dragons and how upset she would be if he didn’t bring her, but… well, he would just have to have faith in Azalabulia not to do anything that might mess up their chances. After all, what was the worst that she could do?

“My – my – m-my name is Azalabulia! I am the Dar-Darkk Sorceress of Twisted Flames, the Breaker of Re-Reality, and the One Who will Set the World Ablaze, the Wielder of the – of the Cursed Flame of Bahamut, Azawaza – I – I mean, Azalabulia! A-and… I – I – I think you’re really cool and want to learn from you!” Azalabulia shouted up to the dragon.

Fenrir realized that he was worried for nothing. As dragon-obsessed as Azalabulia might have been, there was nothing that she could really do other than embarrass herself. He just had to hope that the dragon wouldn’t mind such a devoted dragon addict.

“Oho? A disciple of Bahamut? I see. His weak flames are naught but the strike of a match compared to my infernos. For it is my flames that shall drench this world in an eternal fire!” Fraydranth declared, standing up to show off her true size by flexing her wings and roaring into the sky.

Fenrir then realized that he was worried for absolutely everything.

Azalabulia might not have ruined their chances at befriending the dragon, but she did something far worse for almost everybody involved.

She revealed that the dragon was a chuuni. A massive, smug, chuuni dragon.