Book 6: Chapter 51:
Book 6: Chapter 51:
Fenrir’s second meeting with Kadi came to an end with a blinding flash of light. When he opened his eyes to see where he was now, he expected to find himself in the usual place with Saya. After all, he was sure that he had died from being crushed by the serpent.
But that was not the case. When he opened his eyes and looked around, what he saw was that he was standing next to the serpent’s corpse as the rest of the players were already all gathered around to cheer and celebrate their victory. Of course, Fenrir still looked himself over and patted himself down just to confirm that he really was all there and not missing anything. As far as he could tell, though, he was completely unharmed. He had even more health than he did before if the fact that his vision wasn’t fading at all was anything to go off of.
“Didn’t I get crushed?” Fenrir asked Saya.
“No, but you should have been. She teleported you to that… place, right before you got crushed. You would have died if it wasn’t for her, so she cheated for you,” Saya answered.
“Something’s missing.”
“What?”
“You didn’t call me onii-wan.”
“I… I can’t right now.”
As much as Fenrir might have wanted to hear those words, he could safely assume why Saya sounded as nervous as she did. She was still in his head and aware of everything that he was thinking, after all. “Nervous?”
“Don’t ask me questions you already know the answer to… onii-wan.”
“But it’s fun. Plus I get to hear you sound all flustered and cute if I talk to you right now.”
“Yeah, yeah. You have a girlfriend approaching at high speeds.”
Fenrir looked around just in time to see what Saya was talking about as Serra came flying at him, horizontal to the ground, with her arms extended. He had no idea how she was flying at him so quickly, but he did catch her and wrap his arms around her while taking a blunt hit to his chest thanks to her head crashing into him.
Serra then looked back at Mister Smiles and gave a thumbs-up, allowing Fenrir to put two and two together to figure out just how Serra was sent flying.
“We thought you died,” Serra said.
“Yeah, well, I figured I did, too,” Fenrir answered.
“What happened?”
“It’s… kind of complicated, so I’ll explain it later. What happened while I was gone?”
Serra tilted her head out of curiosity but helped in the change of topics by answering his question. “Partying time.”
“What about all the monsters on the beach?”
“Died when the boss did.”
“I see. So, I guess it was like some sort of necromancer keeping them all alive. Now that it’s dead, everything that served it has died, too.”
“Can I be a necromancer?”
“I thought you wanted to summon a bunch of cannons to do the fighting for you?”
“I want zombie cannons.”
“I… don’t know how that’d work. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. My dreams will forever be memes.”
“Not all of them, hopefully.”
Serra tilted her head again, this time in the opposite direction that she tilted it in before. “What do you mean?”
“Well – you know. You have other dreams that we can do, right?”
“Like what?”
Fenrir looked away as a light hint of red tinted his cheeks. “Like… get married and have kids and all that?”
“Those aren’t my dreams.”
“O-oh. They’re… they’re not? I mean, that’s—”
“They’re not dreams if I know they’re going to happen in real life. Did it work? I’m trying to be smooth.”
Fenrir let out a relaxed sigh before kissing Serra’s forehead, causing her to smile and shut her eyes. “You have to give me a moment to react before asking if it worked.”
“Oh. I messed up.”
“Nah. How could somebody as perfect as you ever mess anything up?”
Serra opened her eyes to look at Fenrir, only to see that he was the one blushing from the compliment that he gave her. “You’re so cute.”
“Sh-shh… I’m handsome, not cute.”
“You’re both, but right now you’re really cute. And there’s nothing wrong with being cute. I like you best when you’re cute.”
“You keep saying ‘cute’ so much…”
“Because you’re cute. Fen is the cutest. Fen is best girl. Cutest girl.”
“I’m a girl now?”
“You know what I mean. Waifu. You’re a waifu. Best waifu. Cutest waifu.”
“My weebery must be rubbing off onto you.”
“If only your dick rubbed me as much as your weebery does.”
Fenrir opened his eyes at the sudden bluntness of what Serra said before remembering that, if anything, she should be the only person in the universe who doesn’t surprise him when she’s suddenly sexual with zero shame. Rather than question her about what she said, though, they both started to laugh just as the others finally reached them.
“How… how’d you survive?” Cassiel asked.
“What’s wrong, Cass Cass? You sound like you were worried,” Fenrir answered. “Were you that worried that I died inside of a virtual game?”
“Sh-shush. I… fine. I was worried. That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I’ll explain it later, once things have settled down.”
“Well, whatever. I’m just… happy that you’re alive.”
“You’re too cute, Cass Cass.”
“Don’t call me cute,” Cassiel said, causing Fenrir to be hit by a sudden wave of déjà vu. “It just… would have sucked if you were dead and couldn’t celebrate with the rest of us after all of that.”
“She has a point, my hero!” Nell joined in, moving to stand behind Fenrir so that she could wrap her arms around him from behind while leaning around him just enough to still look up at his face. And, since Fenrir was still holding onto Serra, that meant she had wrapped her arms around the smallest of their girlfriends as well. “As heroic as it may be for a king to charge into battle alongside his troops, what is the point of their victory if their liege is slain?”
“You’re talking like I’m some sort of king,” Fenrir said.
“Well, are you not, my hero? You led us to victory, after all.”
“I mean, all I did was organize people and make some friends. Olly did most of the actual battle planning.”
“But you were the charismatic figurehead!”
“Is being a charismatic figurehead all it takes to be king? And I’m not even a charismatic figurehead in the first place.”
“Always the humble one, my hero. Whether you like it or not, you have essentially become the leader of this alliance you have formed.”
“Then it’s time to dissolve the alliance since our goal is done with. I’ve spent enough years leading a group on the internet.”
Eva, after looking back at her tail again to make sure that it was properly regrowing, looked up and said, “You’re probably going to need an alliance even more from now on. People are going to hear about the serpent being defeated, meaning that a ton of people are going to come over here to try and take over. This entire coast makes the perfect staging point for exploring whatever’s out there to the east. Every faction in the game is going to try and take over to build bases of their own here, and I doubt that they’re going to play nice and try to get along. Only the Scholars are like that. They’d rather sign a deal and open one of their branches here under the alliance’s protection. And the Desert Stalkers – well… I don’t think they’d try to take over, but they’d definitely plant a bunch of spies.”
Fenrir looked at Mister Smiles without even thinking about it since he didn’t consider that he wasn’t supposed to know that Mister Smiles was a spy.
And Mister Smiles looked away, proving to be suspicious even though she had no reason to think that the secret was leaked.
“The rest,” Eva continued, “would want to take over.”
“Well, I don’t think the Free Sailors would have a problem with us since I’m friends with Blackstache,” Fenrir said, “but when it comes to Ull and the Northern Wardens… I’m not sure. I… think we’re kind of on good terms?”
“If you’re not sure, those good terms probably won’t be good now that the serpent is dead.”
“Yeah, but they’re also on the far end of the world away from us. It would take them weeks if not months to move an entire fleet over here, and they’d have to make it past all those other groups. I don’t think anybody would let them move a huge fleet through their waters.
“The Augus Empire is the biggest threat,” Cassiel said. “They’re the only ones who can march here.”
“Wasn’t there another faction near the Free Sailors and Augus Empire?”
“Yeah. Indra and the Goddess’ Own. Small island kingdom off the coast over there.”
“I never even hear of them.”
“Because they spend all their time being a bunch of hedonists within their city. Nobody can get into city without breaking through Indra’s magic, and she has the strongest magic in the world. As long as they’re on the defensive, their city, Sumeru, is impossible to conquer. Livia tried. Even Ull tried. Everybody has probably tried attacking that city once and nobody could even put a dent in the barrier around it.”
“Damn my nature. Hearing that just makes me want to try and burn the city to the ground.”
Now, Azalabulia finally spoke up. “Isn’t… the biggest threat now the End Bringers?”
While Fenrir, Serra, and Nell didn’t have much of a reaction to that name, Cassiel and Eva both took a serious turn with their expressions.
“Yeah,” Cassiel answered.
“Now that the serpent is dead… I can’t imagine that they won’t want to come up here,” Eva answered. “It doesn’t help that they’re the closest faction to us.”
“Who are they again?” Fenrir asked. “Wait, are they the ones who are a bunch of edgelords who play the game for the traumatizing content?”
Cassiel nodded. “They’re the worst scumbags you can find. They are genuinely horrible people. I seriously think that the government should monitor everybody who joins their group or something.”
“They’re the smallest faction, but she’s not wrong,” Eva added on. “I don’t like government surveillance or anything, but if there’s anybody to watch, it’s them.”
“Where are they?” Fenrir asked.
“There’s a volcano to the southeast. They set up their base there. Somehow, they’re able to get to and from the volcano without being killed by all the monsters around the island and in the water surrounding it. The other factions have tried to take them out before, but they always suffered significant losses before even reaching the island.”
“Aza, you seem to know about them,” Fenrir said. “Anything you can share?”
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“I – I don’t know that much about them. All I know is that one of their members tried to invite me to their group before. He… he didn’t realize that I was only roleplaying, and then he killed me for being ‘weak.’”
“I see. I already hate them. When can we kill all of them and destroy everything that they’ve ever built?”
“Aren’t we supposed to be celebrating?” Serra asked.
“Wait… how did this get turned into strategy planning?” Fenrir asked.
Nell smiled and poked Fenrir’s side. “My my, my hero! It seems as if you are a natural leader who actually does want to continue being the leader of the alliance!”
“Wait… again. Nell, instead of saying ‘my my,’ try saying, ‘ara ara.’”
“Ara ara, my hero? Like that?”
Fenrir took a deep breath before letting it out as a long, dramatic sigh.
“Well, we all know what that sigh means,” Cassiel said.
Serra nodded. “Fetish revealed.”
With a mischievous smirk on Nell’s face, she hugged Fenrir, and Serra, a bit tighter before asking, “Ara? Have I revealed one of my hero’s desires?”
“Nell… please,” Fenrir whined. “I can’t resist. You’re making me cringe at myself for loving that as much as I do.”
“Ara. There is no need to be ashamed of your desires, my hero. I am more than happy to—”
“Wait.”
“Ara?”
“You. If there’s anybody who should lead this alliance after this, it’s you.”
“A-ara?”
“You’re related to royalty in real life. You were raised in a proper household and taught manners and all that stuff. You’re also the chosen of another of the world’s serpents. I mean, think about it. Who would be more fitting to lead than you?”
“But – but I am not the charismatic one. I am not the one who the other leaders are friends with.”
“I’ll vouch for you.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t want to be a leader, but I don’t object to being an advisor.”
“We-well… we can think about it later, I suppose, though I doubt the others would agree to such a proposition.”
“Oh, we forgot about the Forgotten Conquerors,” Eva said.
“What about them?” Cassiel asked.
“Well… we talked about the other major factions. I thought we might as well bring up the last one.”
“They’re a bunch of drunken dwarves staying under their mountains on the exact opposite side of the world. There’s no point in worrying about them.”
“I guess you’re right. Especially since their under-seafloor highway caved in and was flooded by the ocean. There’s no unflooding that.”
“Their – their what?” Fenrir asked.
“They tried to dig a giant underground tunnel under the seafloor to connect the two continents a while ago, but it was flooded and they gave up.”
“They blamed it on the the Northern Wardens, right?” Cassiel asked.
“Yeah,” Eva answered. “Well, they blamed it on everybody but themselves, but their primary suspects were, and still are, the Northern Wardens. They said that there’s no way they would have made any mistakes on their own, so it had to be sabotage.”
“Dwarves have cannons, right?” Serra asked. She was perfectly content snuggling with Fenrir the entire time while everybody else talked about the serious stuff, but now there was something relevant to her interests.
“Oh, yeah. Huge cannons. You won’t find stronger cannons in the game anywhere else. Flaming cannons, gatling cannons, shotgun cannons, magic cannons – they love that stuff.”
“I wanna meet them.”
“Maybe someday,” Fenrir said. “For now, we’re supposed to be celebrating. Let’s leave all the serious talks and plans for after this. By the way, have any of you seen Corwin and Olly?”
“I did!” Nell answered. “I saw Oleander dragging Corwin off with the usual look of perverted mischeviousness on his face.”
“Oh. It might be a while until they’re done then.”
“Did you need them for something?” Cassiel asked.
“Yeah, kind of. But if they’re not available right now… there’s something else that I can do. If it even works.”
“You’ve been acting all suspicious ever since we found you. Is something wrong?”
“No, no. It’s the opposite of wrong. It’s just… a surprise.” Fenrir looked over at Mister Smiles who, like always, was standing around listening to their conversation. Of course, as far as Fenrir was concerned, Mister Smiles was only doing so to spy on them. “Thanks for the hard work today, Smiles, but do you mind if I have some private time with my girlfriends?”
Mister Smiles nodded and gave a thumbs-up in response. She may have been a spy, but she was a spy who could respect privacy… even if she really wanted to stay with them.
Now, with all of his girlfriends, Fenrir pulled away from the celebration where everybody was drinking, cheering, and trying to carve up the serpent for materials to craft with. Instead of hanging around for that, he led his girlfriends to none other than The Shoebill. What would have been a better spot to do what he wanted to do?
“Is it lewd time?” Serra asked.
“Not yet. That’ll be later,” Fenrir answered. “But… before I do this, let me check on a couple of things.”
While his girlfriends may have had no idea what was happening, somebody did know exactly where this was going. “O-onii-wan… are… you sure?” Saya asked him.
“Of course I’m sure. But will it even work? I mean, you’re my virtual assistant, not an NPC. What’ll happen if I lose you as my virtual assistant?”
“She says it’ll work and I’ll still be your assistant.”
“Wait, you’re talking to her right now?”
“We’re always connected and able to immediately communicate at all times. Besides… like she said before, I am her to some degree. I won’t be separated from her until do it, if you do it.”
“Well, that ‘if’ is just unnecessary. So, you’ll be able to turn into a true AI, be given control of your own body and everything, and still be my virtual assistant? That sounds potentially broken. I mean, aren’t you basically in control of any skills I learn, how they improve, how much damage I take, and all of that?”
“She would still prevent any cheating, so nothing would be different other than having my own body and… well, being real, I guess.”
“For somebody who doesn’t think that they’re real, you sure sound nervous about something.”
“It’s… complicated. But, what about your girlfriends? How are they going to react? I – I mean… we’re… kind of… you know, onii-wan. What if they don’t accept me?”
“That was my next question.” After standing there for a few moments talking to Saya in his head, Fenrir looked back at his girlfriends and asked, “I know I’m not usually the one to intiate this sort of thing, but can my virtual assistant join our relationship?”
Serra was the only one to immediately respond with, “Yeah.” The rest of the women wore various levels of confused expressions on their faces, head tilting optional.
“Huh? What?” Cassiel asked. “We already said you can do stuff with your virtual assistant… if that’s what you mean?”
Fenrir shook his head. “I mean if I bring my virtual assistant to life, giving her an actual body.”
“Is that even possible?”
“It’s not,” Eva answered. “But he looks and sound serious.”
“Let me rephrase my question,” Fenrir said. “If I can bring my virtual assistant to life and give her a body of her own, she doesn’t have to join our relationship right away or anything, and she doesn’t have to join it at all if anybody is uncomfortable. That’s how we’re doing this, right? We only do things with people who we all like and agree on. So, this time around… I’m going to be the one trying to convince the rest of you to accept her instead of it being the other way around.”
Saya’s nervous voice spoke back up to say, “Onii-wan, it’s fine if they don’t. We could just be frie—”
Cassiel shrugged. “If she’s your virtual assistant then she’s part of you, right? Besides… after what I did with Eva, I don’t think I can object.”
“Yeah,” Eva agreed. “Besides, I figured that if I ever joined this relationship that I wouldn’t be the last one to join it.”
“The more the merrier, yes?” Nell asked. “And I, for one, would absolutely love to see what sort of virtual assistant our beloved has created for himself! Perhaps she will be the embodiment of all of his desires.”
Fenrir scratched the side of his head and he could feel that Saya was mentally scratching the side of her head as well.
“A virtual assistant would be like a mini-Fen. The more Fens, the better,” Serra said.
All who was left was Azalabulia. When everybody turned to look at her, she answered, “I – I’ll try my best to get along with her! But… I may be shy… I – I still haven’t completely gotten used to Eva yet… I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Eva said. “We just need to hang out more. I could probably go back to the Scholars’ headquarters and find some ways to improve your explosions if you want.”
Azalabulia looked at Eva with watery eyes. “You – you’re… such a nice person.”
Eva looked at Fenrir to give him a wink and a thumbs-up.
“Well, sounds like you have all of our consent,” Cassiel said to Fenrir. “Besides, even if I wasn’t comfortable with it, I’d give you my permission just to see if you’re not actually screwing with us right now.”
“Hear that, Pupaya?” Fenrir thought to Saya. “Everybody is looking forward to meeting you.”
“Then… are we actually doing this, onii-wan?” Saya asked him. “All I have to do is access the ‘soul’ given to you and it’ll… change me. What if I’m different afterwards? What if I don’t act like I am? What if I don’t like myself?”
“You don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to, but I’m going to be here for you if you do. Besides, Rock and Shogun will finally have somebody to stay with them while the rest of us are sleeping if you do. They’ll support you and be there for you whenever I can’t be. And Corwin, too, once he’s done being lewded by Olly.”
“I want to, I’m just… scared. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s going to be like. I have no idea what it means to be real. Right now, I’m half you, part Kadi, and the rest of me is just code designed by Kadi. If I actually do this, I’ll become… me.”
“Wait, does this mean there won’t be the selfcest factor of you being part me anymore?”
“Onii-wan.”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.”
Saya may have sounded annoyed, but she did giggle after that. “You’re the worst, onii-wan. And besides, maybe I’ll still be influenced by the fact that I used to be part you and will still be your virtual assistant, so I guess there will still be pseudo-selfcest.”
“Good enough for me. Well, whenever you’re ready, Pupaya.”
“Please introduce me to them as Saya instead of that weird nickname.”
“Alright. I promise I will, Saya.”
“Thanks. Well… here I come, I guess.”