Book 8: Chapter 8:

The horrible truth was that there was something far worse Fenrir had to deal with on the way to where Mister Smiles spotted the lone End Bringers necromancer.

He had to listen to Pfar and Nyaiko being flirty with each other. Well, not blatantly flirty. It was more like they were obviously interested in each other and occasionally had very subtle teases directed at one another, but neither just went and laid it out there. He wasn’t sure if they actually knew the other liked them or if they were both in on it but too nervous to actually try advancing things.

Even worse was that it was his childhood friend who he felt protective over being flirted with. I honestly never expected myself to feel this way, Fenrir thought to Saya.

“Jealous, onii-wan?” Saya asked.

You know I’m not. It’s just… weird. She’s my childhood friend. Now some guy I barely know is flirting with her. What if he’s a secret axe murderer? What if he kicks babies when nobody’s watching? What if he doesn’t like sweaters?

“Really, onii-wan? What if he doesn’t like sweaters?”

You can’t trust a man who doesn’t like sweaters.

With a sigh, Saya spoke up and asked, “Pfar, do you like sweaters?”

“What?” Pfar asked. “Yeah, I guess? Why?”

“I’m doing a survey for a project and thought now would be a good time. Nyaiko?”

“They’re alright?” Nyaiko answered.

“Smiles?”

Mister Smiles nodded.

“Thanks.”

“Not gonna ask me?” Fenrir asked.

“Everybody knows your addiction to sweaters already, onii-wan. There’s no point in asking the obvious.”

Fenrir stuck his tongue out at her before switching back to his thoughts. Alright. Maybe he’s not a bad person.

“You’re welcome. And… I get how you feel. Seeing them flirt is weird. But I’m happy for them at the same time, especially Nyaiko. She’s moving on.”

Yeah. If this helps her then I’ll support her. I just might have to keep an eye on him to make sure that he’s good enough for her.

“You sound like an overly protective dad. I’m pretty sure Cass Cass would get pissed off if she heard you say that.”

Fenrir sighed. You’re right. I’ll… get over how weird it feels and not involve myself or anything. Unless I see him like, flirting with every woman he sees. Or doing something horrible that she doesn’t know about.

“I think that’s fair. Stay out of it unless you find out she’s in danger, but don’t go out of your way looking for said danger.”

I’ll do my best. Feel free to shout at me if I ever slip up.

“I’ll shout at you even if you don’t.”

And I’ll thank you for the tsundere fanservice if you do.

“Masochistic hentai baka onii-wan.”

Thank you.

After reaching the section of the forest where Mister Smiles spotted the necromancer, she stopped the group and turned to face them. “Almost there,” she said.

“Got it,” Fenrir replied. “Let’s think of a plan before we go any farther. A fight is almost definitely unavoidable if what I’ve heard about them is true, so it’ll be best to have a strategy beforehand. How many zombies did you see?”

“Dozens. At least sixty. Wolves, bears, some humans.” She kept her answers short and simple so that they wouldn’t hear too much of her voice. “Mostly animals.”

“How strong did they look?”

“Usually… the more minions somebody else, tha weaker they are.”

“So, we should be able to handle a few at a time but have to be careful not to get swarmed.”

Mister Smiles nodded.

“Just like a normal zombie game then,” Pfar said. “Ever play The Left Dead?”

“I’ve seen videos of it, but I’ve always been more of an MMO player,” Fenrir answered.

“Ah, it’s great. There’s nothing like taking a machine gun and mowing down a hoard of zombies. Though, I always preferred finding a riot shield and machete to tank them in a doorway while my friends did the gunning.”

“That sounds kind of fun,” Nyaiko spoke up, causing Pfar to blush a little.

“You could play with us sometime! If you uh, want to, I mean. My friends are really cool, so I bet you’d get along with them great.”

Nyaiko shook her head and waved her hands in front of her. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way or anything!”

“No, no, it’s fine. It’s usually just me and two others, but the game supports up to four players, so we have an open slot. And we have no problem teaching somebody the ropes.”

A smile spread across Nyaiko’s face, but she also tried not to look too excited. “Then… sure! If I won’t get in the way, then… it sounds fun.”

“Kill me, onii-wan,” Saya thought to Fenrir.

Same, Fenrir replied. This is so disgusting to me. Want to kill ourselves together?

“Either that or we kill each other at the same time.”

Works for me. As much as Fenrir wanted to interrupt the flirting to spare himself, that was not his intention behind clearing his throat. He really just wanted them to focus on the task at hand. Interrupting their flirting was a bonus. “Saya, you stay in the back for obvious reasons. Pfar and… Nyaiko, you two stay together. Pfar will do the tanking while you,” he looked at Nyaiko, “finish the zombies off. Mister Smiles and Rock, both of you will be with me trying to reach the necromancer.”

“Are you sure Rock should be in the front with you?” Saya asked.

“I don’t want her to be, but I know that she won’t listen if I tell her not to follow me. Isn’t that right?” he asked while looking down at Rock.

Rock happily barked in response.

“Plus they’re zombies. If they try to bite her, they’re going to break their teeth on her which makes them less of a threat to us.”

Saya crouched down to ask Rock, “Are you really okay with being turned into a chewtoy for zombies?”

Rock licked Saya’s face to let her know that she was alright with it.

As disappointing as the answer might have been, that didn’t stop Saya from reaching out and petting the top of Rock’s head.

“Though,” Fenrir said, “it’d be nice if we could hold somebody back as a reserve. Or an ambush. We don’t know if the necromancer is going to have some tricks we’re not expecting, so it’s only right that we keep a trick our two up our own sleeves. Saya, how do you feel about hanging out in the trees?”

“I could, but I’d rather be on the ground with the rest of you,” Saya answered.

“But if you can snipe the necro from a distance, the battle might be over before it can even really begin… but I’d like to take him alive if possible.”

“Ah’ll do it,” Mister Smiles said.

“Are you sure? You’re a melee fighter. I think it’d be better if you stay with us on the ground.”

“Ah’m… more of… an assassin type. It’s just that ah use my fists instead of daggers. I’ll probably be quieter, too. And faster.”

Fenrir looked Mister Smiles over. “Are you confident in that?” She really didn’t look like the type who was good at being sneaky and agile. He knew that she was a great fighter and could be pretty agile when it came to fist fights, but this called for a different type of agility.

Mister Smiles, to prove her point, jumped up onto the tree branch above her from a perfectly normal standing position. Not only did she land with grace on the branch, but she proceeded to move around among the branches while barely making any noise. The branches hardly even moved as she moved around on them as if she barely weighed anything.

“She wins,” Saya said.

“Apparently. Well, it’s not like you can’t try to snipe the necro from the ground,” Fenrir said and then looked up at Mister Smiles. “Alright, stay up there and wait for the signal. I’ll let you know when to strike.”

“Ah can still lead the way from up ‘ere. Watch closely,” Mister Smiles said.

“I guess we’ve got enough of a strategy set then. Anything else depends on how it goes. Everybody ready?” Looking around, there weren’t any complaints about going forward. “Alright, let’s go.”

Hiding among the trees, nearly impossible to spot somehow despite her outfit and size while knowing to look for her, Mister Smiles led the the group the rest of the way toward the necromancer. Those on the ground already developed a new respect for her ability to so effortlessly travel among the trees while being practically invisible to them. She had to have had some skills boosting her stealth since there was nothing that should have been stealthy about her.

Then, when they reached the site of the necromancer, Mister Smiles looked down at Fenrir and nodded before going higher into the trees to completely conceal her presence.

Fenrir still wasn’t completely trusting of her, but she never actually did anything to earn any sort of distrust. Not to mention that she mentioned being a spy to Serra before. If she really had the intent to screw them over, she had more than enough opportunities to do it already.

Unfortunately, while Mister Smiles might have been the unseen, the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the group as an undead wolf with half of its face rotted away appeared in front of them.

Rock immediately got in front of Fenrir to stare down the wolf, barking right back at it once it began barking at them.

“Who’s there?!” shouted a voice in the near distance.

Must be the necromancer, Fenrir thought. “Hey! Your dog got off their leash!”

Pfar and Nyaiko split off to move to the side a bit, but they quickly realized they didn’t have much room to move to.

They were already surrounded.

Saya was able to quickly get up into a tree to get out from the encirclement, but it was already too late for the rest. Fenrir, Rock, Nyaiko, and Pfar found themselves completely surrounded by all manner of undead.

“I think we need to have some team building exercises after this on how to be sneakier,” Fenrir said. “And how to not get surrounded.”

Most of the undead already looked severely injured, so that was good. It meant they wouldn’t be able to fight at their full efficiency. Even if they were brought back from the dead, it didn’t mean all that much if they were so broken that they could hardly move and attack. Of course, there were still enough of them in good shape that they were able to quickly surround the group.

“I’m really getting tired of running zombies. What happened to old school, slow zombies?” Fenrir asked.

“I don’t know,” Pfar answered, “but I wish they’d make a comeback.”

Walking up from behind all the zombies came the man that Mister Smiles told them about. With his hood up this time, all the group got to saw was the black and red robe that he wore with the lower half of his pale face uncovered. “How did you find me?” he asked, standing next to a pile of flesh and bones.

“Well,” Fenrir said, “we were kind of just walking around. Then a zombie dog came out of nowhere and started barking at us. Then you started shouting.”

“As if I would buy that.”

“I’d put a price tag on it if I was trying to sell it.”

“Heh. That wasn’t too bad. Too bad you won’t keep your sense of humor once I turn you into my servant.”

“I’d rather you not. Plus I already have my girlfriends to serve.”

The amused smile of the necromancer turned into an annoyed frown when he heard mention of not just a girlfriend, but girlfriends. “Are you mocking me?”

“Not yet. Want me to start?”

“So much for trying to talk to him first,” Pfar said.

“Who ever said we were going to try that? I just said I want to take him alive.”

“Fair enough.”

“Plus I don’t think he would have surrounded us and already talked about turning us into his servants if he was willing to talk.”

“Good point.”

“Would you shut up already?” the necromancer asked. “No, scratch that. Why even bother? I’ll shut you up myself.” And with that, the undead made their move.

The situation went from relatively calm to pure chaos in an instant.

Fenrir drew the sword that he kept at his side while keeping Rod on standby. He didn’t want to play all his cards yet, plus the sword alone proved effective in killing the undead with ease. There may have been plenty of undead surrounding them, but each one went down with ease. They weren’t a problem as long as they could be killed before the group got overwhelmed. Saya, in the back, helped to make sure that they didn’t get overwhelmed as any undead that snuck up behind one of the others found itself with an arrow through the head.

Pfar and Nyaiko proved to be an effective team, too. While Nyaiko’s personality might have shifted away from jealousy and rage, her fighting style still portrayed her former self as she ruthlessly severed the heads of her enemies. If anything, she was even deadlier than before. Her personality was calmer – more focused. That made her fighting style all the more deadly. However, she was still pretty new to everything. That was where Pfar came in. His shield never allowed a single enemy to touch her. And when he wasn’t protecting her, his own sword made quick work of the undead.

So far, Mister Smiles wasn’t needed at all. The zombies were numerous in number but weak in strength.

Even Rock had no problem dealing with them. Whenever one of the undead was too tall for her to go for their neck, she’d take out their legs to drop them to the ground before ripping their heads off. They weren’t able to harm her at all, either, so she was perfectly safe.

But that was about to change.

“Bone Golem!” the necromancer shouted.

Rising from the pile of flesh and bones near the necromancer was an amalgamation of horror that should never have existed. It took on a humanoid form with two legs and arms, but it lacked a head and each arm was tipped with a deadly weapon. The left arm of the golem had a massive blade of bone that ran from its “fist” up to its shoulder. Meanwhile, the right arm turned into a heavy club made from pure bone. It looked more like a battering ram than an arm.

Without any head nor mouth, the golem made no noise aside from thunderous stomping as it charged toward Fenrir.

Even if Fenrir used Rod, he doubted that he would be able to block an attack from something that massive and powerful looking. Getting out of the way from the incoming attack would be difficult, too, considering that he was surrounded by zombies and trying to get out of the way would throw him into the undead.

“Fen!” Pfar shouted. “Get out of the way!”

Fenrir gritted his teeth. He already knew that he had to move but he didn’t see an easy option for it. Calling in Mister Smiles wouldn’t have much effect either against something that looked like it could easily absorb any physical blows.

The bone golem lowered its shoulder toward Fenrir as it readied its club arm.

Saya shot several arrows into it, but none of them had much effect on the overwhelming monstrosity. Something like fire magic probably would have been effective to light the monster up, but they had nobody capable of that.

I might be able to tank a blow, but I’ll be in trouble after it, Fenrir thought to himself as he tried to prepare as much as possible while still cutting down the zombies around him.

There was the option of turning Rod into chains and using those chains to hook onto one of the above tree branches. He could pull himself to safety that way.

But that would mean abandoning Rock in the middle of a horde of undead with a giant golem. That wasn’t an option.

Just before the golem reached Fenrir… it stopped.

Fenrir wasn’t sure what was going on until he saw the golem turn its body while facing the ground. Looking over the undead as best he could, he saw none other than Rock latched onto the golem’s leg to tug on it and grab its attention.

“Rock! Move!” Fenrir shouted. “Let go and run!”

The golem raised its arm.

Rock refused to abandon her master as much as he refused to abandon her.

The club arm of the golem swung into Rock’s side, hitting her front left leg with the most force.

The blow shattered her leg in an instant and sent cracks rippling throughout the rest of her body. Even so, she refused to let go of the golem’s leg. Her body was only forced away from the leg after the impact broke off a part of her jaw, but the jaw stayed stuck to the golem’s legs due to the rocky fangs embedded inside of its flesh.

Sent crashing through nearly ten undead before finally coming to a stop on the ground near Pfar and Nyaiko, Rock whimpered but immediately tried to stand up again to return to the fight.

“Stay down!” Fenrir shouted at her. “Pfar! Cover her!”

“On it!” Pfar shouted.

“Saya! Keep these bastards off of me while I—”

Fenrir cut himself off when he looked back and saw her.

He never felt such an intense aura from somebody in the game before.

With so much raw, emerald energy swirling around the arrow she had nocked that it produced a windy effect that blew her hair, Saya showed him a face of a woman who was seriously pissed off. The moment she loosed the arrow, it flew past Fenrir with enough speed to break the sound barrier. It punched an explosive hole straight through the core of the golem’s torso.

The golem tried to remain standing after that, but it fell onto its arms instead. It was over for the golem. Even on its arms, it could only stay upright for a few more seconds before collapsing and falling onto its chest. All of the bones and flesh that made up its body began to come undone without any force to keep them together.

“I wanted to save that… but now I regret not firing it sooner,” Saya said, still sounding every bit as pissed off as she looked. Those enraged eyes of hers focused on the necromancer next. “I won’t let you escape for hurting her.”

The necromancer smiled and ran his hand through his hair, pushing his hood away and the bangs off from his forehead. “Who said anything about escaping? You are the ones who won’t be able to escape.”

As if to prove his point, most of the undead, golem excluded, that were already killed rose back up and waited for new orders. They might not have been able to heal themselves, so any that lost limbs still lacked said limbs, but they were still threats on top of all the undead who were in still in good shape.

Fenrir took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. Rock was seriously hurt, but she could regenerate and was pretty resistant to pain. There weren’t any other enemies nearby that posed a threat to her, so he needed to recollect himself. Once he did, he asked, “Too afraid to fight us yourself? I heard you guys were supposed to be scary badasses who loved to fight, but all you’re doing is hiding and letting your pets do the fighting for you.” Of course, he knew that the necromancer was playing exactly as a necromancer was supposed to. If there was anything that he learned from dealing with people on the internet, though, it was that most were far easier to bait than they should have been.

And it looked like Fenrir was right to try and bait the necromancer.

“Then I guess I’ll join the fight,” the necromancer said, tearing his robe off to reveal what was hidden underneath it.

Admittedly, Fenrir had some regrets when he saw that the necromancer was decked out in sleek, black armor from neck to toe. There were also the giant, bloody cleavers strapped to his hips that he took into each of his hands.

“You really thought I had to rely on them? How do you think I killed all of them in the first place?” the necromancer asked, tapping the back of one cleaver against his shoulder as he looked the group over. “Killing your pet first would probably get me the best reactions, but that archer seems like the biggest threat. Guess I’ll chop her up first.”

“Should you really be telling us your plan?” Fenrir asked.

“It’s not like you’ll be able to stop me even if you know it.”

He might be baiting us. Make us think he’ll go after you or Rock and then target somebody else, Fenrir thought to Saya.

But he got no response in return.

Even though Saya technically heard him, she wasn’t allowed to reply nor act off of that information no matter how serious the situation was. Given that she was still based off of Fenrir, though, she was more than capable of coming to that conclusion on her own and readied another arrow.

“Pfar, get Rock and take her back to Saya. Nyaiko, cover him,” Fenrir ordered.

Pfar nodded and got to work, running up to Rock and bashing some of the undead away with his shield before struggling to lift her up.

“What about you?!” Nyaiko shouted at Fenrir.

“I’ll handle him. Saya’s got my back,” Fenrir said and looked back at Saya. “Right?” He expected to hear some sort of teasing response, but she still looked too pissed off for that. Instead, all she did was nod and loose another arrow that tore straight through one undead before getting stuck in the chest of another.

Whatever that explosive skill she used must have been on cooldown, Fenrir figured, since it would have been really nice if she could spam it. That would have made things a lot easier.

Unfortunately, there was no spamming that skill.

And it was time for the necromancer to begin his attack.

Jumping up onto the shoulders of the nearest undead, the necromancer used his own minion as a platform to jump from with his axes readied to strike. It really did look like he was going to go after Saya at all.

Only, while in the air, the necromancer twisted around and aimed his right axe at Nyaiko instead.

“Get down!” Fenrir shouted at Nyaiko as the axe left the necromancer’s hand.

Nyaiko was busy with an undead wolf missing one of its front legs and didn’t know what she was supposed to get down from, leaving her vulnerable to the spinning axe that Fenrir wouldn’t be able to stop in time.

But there was somebody else.

The man who Nyaiko was supposed to be protecting.

Given that Pfar was the closest to her, he took one quick look at the approaching danger and turned to put himself between the axe and Nyaiko, leaving his back facing the danger while still holding Rock in his arms.

The axe embedded itself deep into his back, almost striking his spine.

It was only when he almost fell over, landing on one knee, that Nyaiko realized what was going on. “W-why?” she asked. “I’m supposed to be the one protecting you!”

With a cocky smile, Pfar got back up on his feet and asked, “What kind of tank would I be if I couldn’t handle such a weak attack?”

It was obvious what he was doing. Fenrir really wished that he would save the flirting and trying to look cool for after he got his dog out of danger, but given what he just did, he let Pfar off the hook for the time being.

Besides, if there was anybody to be pissed off at, it was the necromancer.

Holding his hand out toward the axe, the necromancer managed to pull the axe back into his axe without seemingly doing anything. The axe simply flew out from Pfar’s back and into the necromancer’s hand all on its own.

“I’m surprised,” the necromancer said. “Normally, that would have torn right through somebody’s body. You must be stronger than you look.”

“Guess you’re just a weak bitch instead,” Pfar said in response.

Fenrir didn’t expect to see the necromancer’s face cringe as much as it did when he got called a bitch. “What’d you expect from him? Only a little bitch would lie about who he’s going to attack and then not even do it right,” Fenrir said to join in. Just as he hoped, the necromancer looked like he was finally losing his cool. Can always rely on the classics.

“I won’t just cut you down,” the necromancer said. “I’ll turn all of you into my servants!”

“Oooh, so scary,” Pfar shouted. “You couldn’t even kill a single guy with his back turned to you, and the only one of us you’ve hurt is a dog. You’re a weak little bitch.”

“Was that supposed to be roleplay or something?” Fenrir asked the necromancer. “Sorry, but you’re pretty cringe. I know roleplayers way better than you. I’m even dating one.”

Saya joined in next. “Be nice, onii-wan. You’re going to hurt his feelings. It’ll be pretty gross if he starts crying.”

Despite Nyaiko’s former personality, she was the only one who didn’t join in on the trash talking as the necromancer stood still listening with shaking fists wrapped around his axes’ handles. “Shut up!” he shouted. “You’re the ones losing this! You haven’t even touched me yet!”

“Well yeah, because you’ve been cowering in the back,” Fenrir said. “Like a bitch.”

“I said shut up!”

“Really? You’re getting this upset over being called a little bitch? Aren’t you Bitch Bringers supposed to be edgy badasses who troll everybody else? Come on, don’t tell me that somebody as pathetic you is seriously representative of the game’s scariest faction.”

Saya wore a smug smile as she said, “I guess that these kids don’t know what real trolling is like, onii-wan. Sounds like we should put them in their place to teach them what it’s like to really make somebody’s life a living hell.”

“I think you’re right. I wonder how high his pain sensitivity is set to? Eva should be able to hook us up with a nice lava pit to dip him into.”

The roles were opposite from how they started. Instead of Fenrir and the others looking worried while the necromancer watched on with a sadistic smile, it was now the necromancer who took a step back as Fenrir and Saya looked at him with smiles that were truly representative of the Divine Brigade – the smiles of people who wanted nothing more than to torment the player in front of them until he never even thought about playing again.

“Let’s get serious,” Fenrir said, allowing his arms to transform into their more bestial states as Rod turned into the usual chains that wrapped around his forearms. Not that I wasn’t being serious before. If anything, his bestial arms with Rod would have been less effective against zombies than the sword. Good thing the zombies weren’t his target anymore. The necromancer was.

“You can at least be proud that you flipped our switch,” Saya told the necromancer. “It’s rare to get us like this.”

Refusing to stand around any longer, the necromancer forced himself to gather up whatever courage he had left and charged at Fenrir with each of his axes. Saya immediately loosed her arrow toward the necromancer, but he was able to deflect it with one of his axes which sent it flying into one of his undead instead. “I’ll cut through those chains!” he shouted just before reaching Fenrir.

“Don’t underestimate my partner like that!” Fenrir shouted back, raising his arms in front of him to block the incoming attack.

The necromancer proved to be stronger than Fenrir expected, but the axes failed to cut through Rod’s chain. More importantly, the necromancer’s head was left open.

Fenrir thrust his head forward, slamming the top of his head into the necromancer’s face. Once the necromancer backed off, Fenrir saw just how bloodied his nose was. “Alright, me and you. One-on-one. Prove you’re not a little bitch and that you can take down at least a single person all on your own. Nobody will interfere.”

“Fine. Then I’ll chop you up in front of all your friends,” the necromancer threatened.

“Weak. I’ve had somebody find my real address before and threaten to cut my balls off and shove them into my eye sockets. You’ve got to be at least on that level if you want to really threaten me.”

“You’re so damn annoying!”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

Once more, the necromancer charged at Fenrir with each of his axes while the rest of the group focused on taking out all of the undead. Well, the rest of the group save for one of them.

Fenrir managed to block one axe, but the other managed to slice the top of his right thigh open. It wasn’t too deep of a wound, but it did hurt and caused some bleeding.

With the necromancer up close and personal with openings galore, revealing just how inexperienced he was with melee combat, Fenrir took his left hand and grabbed onto the necromancer’s neck. At the same time, Rod uncurled his chain around Fenrir’s left arm to instead join in constricting around the necromancer’s neck while also wrapping around his right arm.

Fenrir then spun the necromancer around so that his back would be against Fenrir’s chest as he held him still as much as possible. “Smiles!” Fenrir shouted.

As the necromancer struggled to break free while barely being able to breathe, a new figure came jumping out from the forest’s canopy to land right in front of the necromancer. The figure’s landing was enough to kick up a large amount of dirt which obstructed the heavy punch dealt to the necromancer’s gut. It was a powerful enough punch to force blood out from the necromancer’s mouth, spitting it onto whoever stood before him.

The dirt soon cleared and revealed an extremely muscular man with a smiling costume head decorated with fresh blood.

In a desperate attempt to free himself, the necromancer tried to swing his left axe behind him at Fenrir. Only, Mister Smiles wasn’t going to let that happen and punched the arm with enough force to bend it backwards with a large cracking sound.

The necromancer’s right arm met a similar fate right after as Mister Smiles guaranteed that both of his arms would be out of use.

As soon as it looked like Mister Smiles was about to take out his legs, Fenrir spoke up to stop her. “Spare them. We’re keeping him alive and he’s going to march himself back with us. He doesn’t deserve getting carried there.”

With a nod, Mister Smiles changed her plan of attack to instead give the necromancer another punch in the gut.

It was only when Fenrir felt the necromancer go limp in his arms that he dropped him to the ground, not wanting to accidentally kill him.

“Fu-fuck you!” the necromancer groaned out. “You said one-on-one!”

“I fight to win, not to be fair,” Fenrir explained. “Also, seriously? You’re from the edgiest and most fucked up faction in the game that prides itself on doing horrible things, and you’re crying that you got tricked? You Bitch Bringers really need the DB to show you how it’s done, don’t you?”

“The – the D—”

A kick in the side of the head prevented the necromancer from finishing his question.

“I expected worse from him,” Fenrir said. “I would have called you in sooner if I knew that was all he had to him. He didn’t even have offensive or defensive magic or anything.”

Mister Smiles shrugged before kicking one of the undead at her side. “Ya should have called me in for the golem.”

“I wanted to be sure that he didn’t have any other tricks planned, plus I thought I’d wait until tanking a blow before calling for you. With how few of us there are, I wasn’t going to risk bringing you in until I absolutely needed to.”

Mister Smiles had no good response to that, so she continued fighting the remaining undead.

“These guys are nothing compared to the serpent’s army, so let’s wrap it up here.”

Mister Smiles nodded.

“You know, I already know how you sound now. You can talk around me.”

Mister Smiles stopped, turned to look at him, looked away, then looked at him for a quick second to say, “Maybe,” before continuing with the undead.

“Good enough. Alright, Saya! Keep an eye on the bitch here. Go for his legs if he tries running.”

“Alright, onii-wan!” Saya shouted back.

Now that he didn’t have to worry about the necromancer anymore, Fenrir was free to help out with the undead extermination.

Once the the last of the undead were nothing but normal corpses scattered around on the ground, Fenrir took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off from his forehead.

The necromancer was still in pain on the ground, all the undead were normal dead instead, and his friends were all in good shape except for Rock who lost a leg and part of her jaw—not that it bothered her at all anymore—and Pfar who was still bleeding from his back. At least he had Nyaiko there to help him stand and walk now that the battle was over.

As soon as Fenrir made sure that Rock was doing alright, he went over to Saya. “Look at you, little miss Divine Brigade member,” he teased, petting the top of her head between her ears. “You sounded just like one of us.”

“I learned from the best, I guess. Besides, don’t forget that I’m still part you. That means I’m part former Divine Brigade member just like you,” Saya said with a light blush on her cheeks.

“You did great. It was pretty hot, too.”

“And… it was pretty nice to see you like that. But I’m worried your girlfriends might be jealous that I saw you like that and they didn’t.”

“I guess they never really did see me go full DB before. Well, we have a prisoner, so maybe they’ll get to see some more of it. Then again, I feel like it might be a better idea to send him over to Spike Port. I think they’re more suited for the task of getting information out of him than I am now. Though,” Fenrir upped the volume of his voice so that their prisoner could hear, “it might be a good idea to let Eva do some experiments with him. I’m sure she’s got all sorts of tests she’d like to run on somebody’s body, and nobody is brave enough to willingly volunteer for that.”

“Oh! That’s a good idea! She’d probably want to see how many organs can be removed while keeping him alive! Maybe she’d want to try replacing his stomach with a boar’s? Or see if she can replace his eyes with a giant spider’s?”

“She’ll turn him into a chimera just like she is. Though, I have a feeling that he’s going to end up looking like some mutated monster instead of a cute monster girl.”

“I hope he’s into that sort of thing. Then again, it’s not like he’s guaranteed to survive. He’s probably too much of a coward to even stay in-game while it’s happening. I bet he’ll ask his assistant to delete his character!” Saya laughed with a hand held over her mouth.

“Imagine being such a bitch that you have to delete your character because you’re salty you lost.” Fenrir joined in on the laughing. “Oh, by the way.” He approached the necromancer, grabbing him by the hair atop his head before throwing him down against the ground. “How high is your pain setting?”

“I – I’m not telling you anything,” the necromancer replied.

That was when Mister Smiles said, “End Bringers are forced to set it to max. They’re not allowed to stay in the faction if it ain’t.”

“Interesting,” Fenrir said. “So, I guess that explains why you chose to play a character that gets to stay away from the fighting most of the time. Because you’re afraid of pain.”

“I’m not!” the necromancer shouted.

“Hey, Pfar, look away, alright?”

Pfar looked confused but listened and turned his head away from what was about to happen.

That was when Fenrir kicked his foot as hard as he possibly could into the necromancer’s crotch. There was enough force in the blow that it slid the necromancer’s body back against the ground by a few feet and caused him to let out a pained scream before curling up on his side in the fetal position.

“Yo,” Pfar said, “did you just…”

“I saw a bug on him. I got it, though,” Fenrir answered before walking up to the necromancer again and grabbing his head one last time. “That was for hurting my dog. If you so much as ever look her way again, I’ll personally force feed you your own cock. Might as well take advantage of the fact that this game let’s us do all sorts of fucked up things, yeah? There’s all sorts of techniques I was never allowed to do in other games but that are possible here.”

The necromancer could barely even speak, but he nodded and said, “I – I – I won’t!”

Fenrir patted the man’s cheek. “Good boy.” With the necromancer dealt with, Fenrir went over to the injured Rock and lifted her up within his arms. “And you’re a good girl!” he praised, his voice completely different from the cold and sadistic tone it had only seconds before. “Yes, who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl?” Knowing Rock, she would appreciate nothing more than him giving her praise just like normal after everything that just happened.

Rock might have been injured, but she didn’t seem to mind at all as her tail whacked against him. And, of course, she was eager to lick all over his face to prove that she was, in fact, the good girl.

“You’re getting kinda heavy. Have you been eating cannon balls again?” The truth was actually the opposite seeing as how she was missing a leg. That made her significantly easier to pick up considering that she was made out of rock.

Rock continued licking his face, clearly ignoring his question.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Alright, let’s get you home. I’ll find a nice bed for you and surround you with the tastiest gems that we can find.”

Rock’s ears perked up at the sound of gems – her favorite treats as of late.

“You have him, Mister Smiles?” Fenrir asked, looking back at her.

Mister Smiles, standing behind the necromancer, looked around for a few moments before nodding.

Looking down at the necromancer, Fenrir ordered, “Get up and walk.”

“Give – give me a minute!” the necromancer groaned out.

“Did I stutter? I said to get up and walk.”

Pissed off but unwilling to refuse and risk further punishment, the necromancer stood up on shaky legs while keeping a hand over his crotch and another over his stomach.

“Seriously, that was just cruel,” Pfar said to Fenrir.

“He hurt my dog. He deserved it,” Fenrir replied.

“I mean, I can’t say I don’t understand, but still. There are some things that will always be too far.”

“Nothing is too far for somebody who hurts dogs.”

“Yeah, but I mean… I’m not trying to put the blame on you, but you are kind of the one who brought her in the first place.”

“What else was I going to do? I told her to stay but she refused.”

Rock looked at Pfar and barked.

“So, she’s allowed to be in fights, but nobody is allowed to hurt her?” Pfar asked.

“Exactly,” Fenrir answered. “Like I said, I fight to win, not to be fair.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“Good. Now, let’s get back before you end up bleeding out.”

“Probably a good idea.”