Book 6: Chapter 5:

Most of the tasks that Fenrir and his group have to complete in preparation for the battle are trivial, monotonous and tiring.

Or rather, they would be in reality.

But when in a game, even the dreadfully boring can become fun.

Similar to how the average person would not want to pick up and move to some small time to start a real farm, they love managing virtual farms and can spend many hours of their lives doing so.

There is also the fact that much less knowledge is needed in-game.

When it comes to construction, while having real world experience does help with it such as in Rao’s and Tabitha’s case, most things seem to just work somehow even with no prior knowledge nor experience.

And when they don’t work, either Rao or Tabitha is there to fix things.

Now, with the daily work done, they can return to the real world and relax.

But not before somebody else makes sure to get attention.

“Fenny!” Oleander shouts, tackling Fenrir from behind and almost knocking him over.

Instead, Fenrir stops himself from falling but ends up spinning a bit which brings Oleander spinning with him as he has his arms wrapped around Fenrir’s waist.

“I haven’t seen you in like, hours! How dare you never come and say hi to me!” Oleander continues shouting.

“You’re as needy as a yandere,” Fenrir says, trying to shake Oleander off of him but to no avail.

“Don’t compare me to your weeb things.”

“Alright. I’ll compare you to a furry since you’re a wannabe deer.”

“You’re opening the floodgates if you do that, mister ‘Oh, look at me, I’m a cool and edgy wannabe wolf.’ You must be a massive furry to have such a fluffy tail and ears.”

“You’re right. Let’s not go there.”

“That’s what I thought! You know that there’s no beating me. But there is spanking me.”

“No.”

“That’s okay. I have my Cor for that anyways.”

“I thought you were the sadist?”

“Don’t forget that we’re both switches!”

“Are you talking about me and you or you and Corwin?”

“Me and you! But Corwin is, too. So, all three of us are switches.”

“That’s a lot of switches.”

“You know, I bet your girlfriends would totally be okay with you joining me and Cor sometime. They’ll probably just want to watch in exchange for lending you out!”

“I’m not for lending out.”

“You know it’d be fun. After all, who better to pleasure a man than a man? We know what drives us wild – we know exactly where to touch, how to touch, and—”

“Challenge accepted,” another voice says.

Serra says.

“Crap,” Oleander says. “The one girl who could stand a chance against me…”

“Olly. Challenge accepted,” she repeats.

“Serra, you’re supposed to work with me, not against me!”

“We’ll have a duel to see who can pleasure him more.”

“Hmm. That does involve me getting to—”

“I don’t consent to this,” Fenrir interrupts.

Both Oleander and Serra sigh.

“Fenny, you need to loosen up. Or let me loosen you up,” Oleander says.

Serra snerks while Fenrir finally pries Oleander off from around his waist.

“You two aren’t allowed around each other. I can only handle one of you at a time,” Fenrir says.

They both stick their tongues out at him at the same time.

And now Oleander has noticed Serra’s new look.

“Serra,” Oleander says, his hands on her shoulders.

“Yeah?” she asks.

“You look great! You could totally pass as like a dominatrix pirate!”

“I’m Dread Queen Pirate Serra now.”

“Wasn’t it Dread Pirate Queen Serra?” Fenrir asks.

“Yeah. That.”

“Dread Pirate Queen Dominatrix Serra!” Oleander adds onto it.

“Fuck yeah.”

“Serra! Since when do you swear?”

“Since Fen told me that pirates have to swear to be intimidating.”

“Basically,” Fenrir says.

“Hmm. It doesn’t match you. At all,” Oleander says. “We need to find another way for you to be intimidating. You trying to swear is like that one video edit of the husky puppy saying ‘fuck.’ Actually… that puppy was still more intimidating than you.”

“Then how do I be intimidating?”

“With sex.”

“I like it.”

“Of course you do,” Fenrir interjects.

Oleander and Serra continue their conversation as if Fenrir isn’t standing right next to them.

“By the way! What do you think of my new look?” Oleander asks, hopping back and leaning over to show off his head to Serra.

“Cute,” Serra says with a thumbs-up.

Sitting atop Oleander’s head is a crown of freshly picked flowers.

“Hehe. My and Cor made crowns for each other!” Oleander explains.

“Is that what you were doing instead of working?” Fenrir asks.

“Cor looked so cute in his crown that I ended up playing with him until he passed out,” Oleander says.

“Where is he now?” Serra asks.

“In the flower field that I left him in.”

“You left him there?”

“Yeah, why not? There aren’t any dangerous monsters around. Besides, he looked so cute sleeping in the middle of a bunch of flowers. I’ll bring him back here and put him in bed before I wake, too.”

“You could sleep in the flowers with him.”

“I could. But it’s just so romantic over by all those flowers that I can’t trust myself not to play around even more instead of waking to do what I need to do.”

“You can’t trust yourself anywhere with him.”

“You’re not wrong! But you’re the same with Fenny.”

“Yeah,” Serra says, nodding as she sneakily reaches a couple of fingers towards Fenrir’s ass like an old man wanting to cope a feel.

Fenrir doesn’t even try stopping her from doing it.

He just lets it happen.

Serra takes that as a sign that her hand can squeeze and grope much more than it already is.

Unfortunately for her, trying to take it that far results in her hand getting swatted away.

“So, Olly, we were talking about all meeting up at Nell’s dad’s place across the pond. You down for that? The entire group is invited, so you could bring Corwin, too,” Fenrir says.

“That sounds like a ton of fun! But… I don’t think we’ll be able to go. We’re both really busy. I guess it depends on when it would happen?” Oleander answers.

“We’re thinking soon after the battle or something like that. Think of it as a celebration meetup.”

“Ooh. Hmm. Yeah, sorry. We’re too busy for that, probably. Cor’s got his stuf and I’ve got finals coming up. You’re already going to have to hope that the battle doesn’t happen during one of my school days – or the entire week of finals, really. I’m going to be studying that entire time.”

“That sucks, but alright. Good luck with the finals stuff.”

“You have to wish me luck when it’s time for them, silly Fenny.”

“You’ll take my luck when I feel like giving it to you and you’ll like it.”

“So fierce! Dominate me with your luck, daddy.”

Serra snerks and Fenrir sighs.

“There’s nothing that you two couldn’t pervert,” Fenrir says.

“Just imagine if I was straight – or bi, I guess. I’d totally steal Serra from you and then we’d just have a neverending fuckfest. It would be all sex all the time and we’d always fight each other for who gets what role. It’d be great!” Oleander says.

“Hearing that actually makes me kind of jealous. Thank you for being gay, Olly.”

“Anytime! My gay is always available whenever you need it.”

“Your gay? You make it sound like your sexuality is a commodity.”

“The most valuable commodity that there is!”

“How much money is your gay worth?”

“All of it.”

“Wow. That’s a pretty expensive gay.”

“At this point I think you’re just enjoying getting to refer to gay as a thing.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“That’s okay. It’s kind of like how it’s a ton of fun when people refer to us as ‘the gay.’ It just sounds so silly and cute.”

“It also just sounds better. ‘The gay’ sounds better than ‘the homosexuals.’ And the other option is just no.”

“Ah, the good old Bone option.”

“He had no problem calling you that himself, but if anybody else called you it, they were dead. You two always had a pretty complicated relationship.”

“Could you imagine how he would have acted around Nyaiko?”

“Don’t… don’t make me think of that.”

“He was always kind of protective of you, too. He would have lost it at her trying to cling to you as much as she was!”

“Really?” Serra asks.

“Yup! Bone was fine with you and Cass Cass since he got to know and fight with you both. Plus neither of you acted… well, crazy. Bone really doesn’t like anybody who acts crazy. Probably because his wife is enough crazy for him. When anybody else tried acting crazy around us, he put them in their place.”

“Seeing them fight would have been interesting,” Fenrir says.

“Bone would have destroyed her though.”

“I don’t know about that. Nyaiko killed those other players right after starting the game. I don’t mean to call her crazy myself or anything, but she was definitely unpredictable and dangerous. Bone did good in traditional fights but always struggle with the unpredictable types. Nyaiko would have been unpredictable.”

“I guess. Even if she didn’t have as much experience as him, that’s dangerous in its own way. What’s that one saying? Like… something like how one of the most dangerous opponents a swordsman can fight isn’t somebody else who has trained to fight with a sword, but somebody who has never been trained? Something like that?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard something like that. Basically, if you’re trained and fighting somebody else who has trained, they’re more predictable than somebody with no training. You can’t estimate their movements and reactions and all of that. They might do something completely out of left field.”

“Yeah! And Nyaiko was crazy and inexperienced.”

“No,” Serra says. “She had experience.”

“What kind?”

“Knife fighting. She told me she took classes for it and other fighting stuff.”

“A-ah… I see. When you say other fighting stuff, do you mean like, karate?”

“Yeah. She took a bunch of different classes.”

“How many different fighting styles does she know?”

“I don’t remember but I think at least seven.”

“Oh.”

“That makes a lot more sense now,” Fenrir says.

“She sent me a video once of her disarming her teacher and then holding a practice knife against his throat. She was really cool,” Serra says.

“That sounds both hot and terrifying,” Oleander says.

“Mostly terrifying,” Fenrir says.

“Mostly hot,” Serra says.

“I’m with Serra on this one. If she had a dick then I’d be so turned on right now,” Oleander says.

Him and Serra high-five one another while Fenrir shakes his head.

“You know, I’ve always kind of had a thing for the yandere types, but I’ve read some stories from people online about them. After what happened with Aiko… I looked up people with similar experiences and they usually ended way worse than my situation with Aiko did,” Fenrir says.

“She really wasn’t that bad,” Oleander says. “I think. I don’t know, was she?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to say anything bad about her either. All I can say is that she realized she was wrong and made the right choice, as useless as I felt.”

“You both did the right thing,” Serra says, giving a high-five to Fenrir’s rear.

“My hands are right here if you want to give me a high-five.”

“I know.”

“What if I mean to give you a high-five but smack your chest instead of your hands? Wait, I don’t even need to ask that.”

“I’d like it.”

“Yeah, exactly. I’m stupid for even trying that.”

“But you’re my stupid.”

“And mine!” Oleander says.

“And Nell’s. And Cass Cass’s. And Azawaza’s.”

“That’s all? Not Eva’s yet?”

“He hasn’t made it that far yet.”

Fenrir flicks both of their heads at the same time.

“You don’t even know if anything is going to happen. Just because… every girl who’s joined our group so far has… ended up dating us, that doesn’t mean Eva is, too,” he explains.

“She’s totally going to,” Oleander says.

“Yeah. Definitely,” Serra says.

“You know, it’s possible for me to be just friends with a girl,” Fenrir says.

Serra and Oleander both snerk and look away.

“Hey, I can be. Don’t act like it’s not true. Olly, you saw how many friends I used to have in the Divine Brigade that I was only friends with,” Fenrir says.

“You tried hooking up with all the ones who you got close to. Then they used you. The ones you were only friends with used you to get close to other guys or ended up being guys in real life,” Oleander explains.

“Well… I mean, that’s not wrong, but it’s not entirely right, either.”

“It’s entirely right, Fenny.”

“Come on. You’re making me sound like a womanizer or something.”

“Fen the Womanizer,” Serra says.

“That sounds like the perfect pig to break in as Dread Pirate Queen Serra!” Oleander says.

“Womanizers need trained.”

“Make sure to tie him up and use whips.”

“Candles.”

“Ooh, nice. Yeah, def use candles. Just imagine him covered in candle wax that was dripped all over him.”

“I don’t know what’s worse. You two coming up with fantasies about me to my face, or Nell and her fantasies,” Fenrir says.

“None of it is worse. All of it is good,” Oleander says.

“Yeah, that,” Serra says.

“You’re both degenerates.”

“But we’re your degenerates. Besides, you know that you’re just as degenerate as we are. The only difference is that you keep it private while we’re open about it,” Oleander says.

“Being open about it sucks. It gets you in the mood around others when you can’t do anything. Might as well just save it for later when it can actually be acted on,” Fenrir explains.

“But that gets rid of the fun! Part of the fun is teasing and getting each other excited so that you have something to look forward to until you can barely keep your hands off of each other! Besides, if you really don’t want to wait, you can always just get right to it no matter where you are. It’s just a game, so you can do it whenever you want wherever you want! But don’t try it in real life. If you get caught doing anything in public then you’ll probably, you know, get in trouble and all that.”

“Let’s try it in public. In real life,” Serra says.

“I’m not going to do anything sexual with a deaf girl in public,” Fenrir says. “That’s just asking to get in trouble,” Fenrir replies.

“Sounds fun.”

“No, getting in trouble doesn’t sound fun.”

“Nell will bail you out.”

“That’s not the problem here. That sort of thing would go on a permanent record. Or something.”

“Nell’s dad could bribe them to clean your record.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal and could start an international controversy.”

“Then don’t get us caught.”

“Or we could just be safe and not do anything in public in the first place.”

“No fun.”

“I am fun. I’m just also safe and don’t want to ruin our lives.”

“No fun,” Oleander says, joining Serra.

“You both have screwed up definitions of fun.”

“It’s okay. I’ll go to prison with you,” Serra says. “We can have the same cell.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“And I’ll be there for you when you drop the soap.”

“I… you either know what that means or don’t know what it means. I’m not sure which.”

“It means—”

“Surprise butt sex,” Oleader says.

“That’s one way of saying rape.”

“Oh,” Serra says. “I – I didn’t know it meant that.”

“What did you think it meant?”

“Surprise butt sex but without the rape.”

“Then it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise.”

“Oh. Is that why they call it a surprise?”

“Yes. Did… you not know that?”

“It makes more sense now.”

“You didn’t know why it was called surprise?”

“Yeah.”

“So, now that you know what it actually means, would you still want me to drop the soap?”

“No.”

“Good,” Fenrir says, patting her head over her hat.

“Serra, you might think you’re a fellow perv, but you’re still so innocent sometimes,” Oleander says. “But that’s part of what makes you so great!”

“I’m the best,” Serra says with a satisfied smile as she gets her head patted.

“The bestiest best to ever best,” Fenrir says.

“I’d be jealous but you’re right,” Cassiel says, appearing behind them.

“You should try being jealous!” Nell says, standing next to Cassiel. “Being jealous is wonderful for the imagination. Fantasies fueled by jealousy are some of the greatest!”

“When do you get jealous?”

“Oh, not anymore. I did have moments where I felt jealous at the beginning, but now I am more than happy to share. Those fantasies I had when jealous were so delightful, though.”

“Were you… fantasizing about being cheated on that much?”

“Absolutely!”

“Nell is a cuckqueen,” Oleander says.

“Correct!”

“Man, Fenny. It must be nice to have a girlfriend who would be happy if you cheated on her.”

“Well, I would not like to be cheated on as much as I may fantasize about it. It is all fun and delightful in fantasies, but the real deal is different! I would be truly heartbroken.”

“Both you and Serra talk the talk but are pure when it comes down to it.”

“But is that not what my hero prefers?” Nell asks, looking up at Fenrir. “Innocent and perverse! Is there a better combination?”

“I don’t know if I’d call either of you innocent,” Fenrir says. “Maybe by Olly’s standards, but not by any normal standards.”

“If we’re innocent then what are you?” Serra asks him.

“A beautiful, shining angel of purity and chastity!” Nell answers for him.

Everybody, including Fenrir and Nell, laugh at that.

“Yeah! Like an angel would be as obsessed with hentai as him!” Oleander says.

“And sweaters. I’ve never heard of angels with sweater fetishes,” Cassiel says.

“An angel who gets needy for sex whenever he’s alone with a girl,” Serra says.

“An angelic wolf who frees enslaved girls only to enslave them for his own perverted reasons!” Nell says, interjecting some fiction.

What Oleander, Cassiel, and Serra said are all true, though.

And Fenrir knows it.

“Alright, alright. You caught me. I’m a totally perverted angel,” Fenrir admits. “Should I point out some of your fetishes to make it even?”

Fenrir, once more, should have known better than to try that.

Nobody around cares if they get their fetishes called out.

Well, except for one of them.

“I – I want to say that you’re sleeping on the couch if you do,” Cassiel says, “but… it wouldn’t be fair if I got mad for you doing it after I just did it…”

“Thanks, Cass Cass, but you only brought up something that everybody already knows about. I don’t even try to hide my love for sweaters. It’s not like you told them about anything more private,” Fenrir says.

“Cass Cass,” Oleander says. “Tell us some of the juicy private stuff.”

“I won’t,” Cassiel says. “I wouldn’t like it if he did it to me, so I can’t do it to him.”

“Fenny,” Oleander says. “I hate you right now.”

“Hey, where’d that come from?” Fenrir asks.

“You have such perfect girlfriends! I’m not even attracted to them but I’m still jealous! I want them for myself!”

“Make boy clones of us,” Serra says.

“That gives me a wonderful idea!” Nell says. “Just imagine what it would be like if we had male versions of ourselves. Not only that, but they would all be as attracted to our Fenrir as we are! My hero paired with male versions of us – that would be wonderful, would it not? Just imagine how cute he would be when overwhelmed by their love and passion!”

“I think it’s time we go back to the real world to leave all the fantasy behind,” Fenrir says.

“You are foolish if you think that the real world will prevent my fantasies!”

“I know they won’t stop your fantasies. But, I can tie you up and put tape over your mouth, and you won’t be able to do anything about it.”

“Goodness, my hero! Are you suggesting bondage play? I suppose that it is late enough in the evening for such play!”

“One, no. Two, since when does the time matter?”

“The time never matters when it comes to my fantasies! Well, unless they are time-specific fantasies such as those that take place in the dead of night or the middle of day on a busy street.”

“Speaking of going back to real life, I really should go get Cor and then head off,” Oleander says. “I’ll see you all tomorrow!”

The group says goodbye to Oleander and then turns their attention to one another.

“We should really get going, too. It’s already late. The ferrets still need to have some playtime, too,” Fenrir says.

“We need playtime, too,” Serra says.

“Alright. You can help me play with the ferrets.”

“I didn’t mean that but I’ll accept it.”

“Cassiel, would you like to help me with dinner?” Nell asks.

“I guess. Or we could order more pizza,” Cassiel says.

“You cannot live off of pizza! Have you forgotten what we talked about the other day?”

“He-hey! I – we – w-we didn’t talk about anything. I don’t know wha-what you’re talking about.”

Fenrir and Serra tilt their heads and look at their suspicious girlfriend.

The moment Cassiel notices their eyes on her, she places her hands over her stomach as if to hide something.

Seeing as how they both know she definitely couldn’t be pregnant, there is only one other option for why she would be embarrassed and trying to hide her stomach from them.

“You make it much too obvious,” Nell says.

“Shush! It’s – it’s not like I’ve gained a few pounds or anything! Besides! Even if I did gain some weight then I could lose it with exercise! I’ll – I’ll go on a run or something instead of eat dinner!” Cassiel says.

“No skipping meals,” Fenrir says. “Besides, even if you gained some weight, that’s more for us to love. Just… don’t gain like a hundred pounds.”

“I’d never let myself gain that much weight! Even just gaining ten pounds is way too much!”

Cassiel freezes the instant she realizes that she just slipped up and told them how much weight she has gained lately.

All of the delivery they have been getting has not been kind to her.

And so, she collapses – or rather, her avatar collapses.

Refusing to deal with the shame that she just admitted to, Cassiel has left the game so that she can hurry and go on a run before anybody else wakes from virtual reality.

There is weight to be lost.

For the rest of them, there is dinner to eat and ferrets to play with.