Book 8: Chapter 12:

A couple of days after Fenrir, Serra, and Ilo took out the vessel from the End Bringers, Mister Smiles found herself standing watch over the prisoner like usual. She wasn’t entirely sure why she kept on volunteering for the job. All it involved was standing in front of the door of the building they kept him chained up within while occasionally checking on him to make sure that he wasn’t trying to kill himself or anything. It was a boring and tedious job.

Yet, every single time she saw somebody else on guard duty looking bored out of their mind, she couldn’t help but to offer to take over for them.

Part of her mind told her that she should try doing spy things and gather some secret information from the captured necromancer, but she never even ended up doing that. She cared more about sparing the others from boredom than she did actually doing her job. She also really needed to go back out to the forest to check for a certain friend of hers who had been missing ever since the necromancer first showed up over there. She already went over a couple of times to look for him, but she couldn’t just give up.

I’ll go check on him after I’m done keeping watch, Mister Smiles thought just before somebody came to grab her attention.

“Yo,” Eva said, giving Mister Smiles a friendly salute. “Guard duty again, huh?”

Mister Smiles didn’t expect Eva to come over on her own, but she nodded regardless.

“Everybody appreciates you helping out. Anyways, mind if I get in there? I’ve got some things I want to talk to him about. I might not have another chance like this to talk to somebody from the End Bringers, especially if the plan is to apparently leave them to drown at sea instead of taking as many prisoners as we can.”

Mister Smiles looked behind herself into the prisoner’s room. There technically weren’t any rules about letting people talk to the prisoner. Eva was also one of Fenrir’s girlfriends and thus trustworthy. So, why not? Mister Smiles stepped aside and opened the door for Eva.

“Thanks. I won’t be too long, don’t worry. And I’d appreciate it if you’d come with me.”

With a nod, Mister Smiles waited for Eva to enter the room before joining her and closing the door.

“Hey there, prisoner! You mind having a conversation?” Eva asked the chained necromancer.

“Fuck off,” the necromancer replied. However, once he actually looked Eva over, he gulped and didn’t look nearly as mean as he did just moments prior.

“Come on, don’t be like that. I just want to talk. I swear I’m not here to interrogate you or anything like that.”

“Unless you’re letting me out… I don’t care about what you’re here for.”

“Dude, you have to be bored. Not only are you chained up in a small room with nothing to do, but you’re actually staying immersed for all of it. That makes it sound like you want to roleplay it out. I might not be a roleplayer or anything, but I do like to talk.”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Well, I don’t know. You could always start over with a new character.”

“I put too much work into this one to start from scratch!”

“Then you could always just go and do something in real life until you’re killed or freed.”

The necromancer looked away. “Tch. Yeah, right.”

Eva tilted her head when she heard his response. Her inquisitive mind told her that maybe there was something going on in real life that made him desperate enough to stay immersed even in a captured avatar, or maybe he simply had nothing to do in the real world. Even so, she couldn’t bring herself to feel much pity for him considering that he wanted to interrupt their way of life in the world if Fantasy Tales Online. “Anyways, I just wanted to talk to you about your magic. It sounded pretty cool from what I heard.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Magic. Your magic. It sounds cool.”

“My… my necromancy?”

“Heck yeah. I haven’t met anybody who plays around with necromancy. Animating golems and stuff, sure, but not actually using corpses.”

A slight hint of red actually touched the necromancer’s cheeks as he turned to face Eva. “You serious?”

“Yeah, man. Honestly, I’ve always liked necro and summoner type classes in games. Probably because they were always like, the smartest class, you know? They required the most micro-management and, when it came to lore, they were always the scholars and book nerds, which I could relate to.”

“Ri-right? And… and necromancers are always the misunderstood scholars who everybody shuns! They stay locked in their labs all day, alone and researching. Nobody ever bothers them, either!”

Eva couldn’t relate to that part of it, but she wanted information. “Yeah, I get it. Must be nice. Doing your own thing away from everybody else, never being bothered because they’re not smart enough to understand me. That’d be the life.”

“Right! You get it!” The necromancer leaned forward with a smile that, to Eva’s surprise, actually looked… immature and innocent. “They’re all too stupid to understand us! They laugh at us and make fun of us, but they don’t understand how inferior they are! It’s ironic, isn’t it?!”

“A-ah, yeah, it’s really ironic.” Eva was a bit caught off guard from the man’s sudden excitement, but she did her best to maintain her composure. “But you know, it just means we’re special. They’re all boring and basic. They probably don’t like us because they’re jealous and know they could never understand us.”

“Exactly, exactly! God, I fucking hate the inferior trash that considers us their equals. Especially the ones who act so damn happy all the time. Fucking garbage hypocrites showing off.”

“Yeah. They can uh… be a bit much, sometimes.”

“Sometimes? Try all the fucking time. You know how many people got grossed out when I wanted to be a necromancer? Even though necromancers are one of the strongest things you can be in this world? I can have an entire army of my own! But nooooo. Because this game is too realistic for the garbage, they thought it was creepy that I wanted to use corpses. It’s so fucking stupid. If the game was less realistic they’d be fine with me using cartoon bullshit corpses, but because of how close the graphics are to real life, they think it’s creepy? It’s the exact same thing! Who fucking cares how realistic the graphics are?! They literally handicapped themselves because they didn’t want to play with somebody they thought was a creep! Fuck I hope they get fucking killed. Maybe I’ll go hunt them down myself and do it, then turn their corpses into my newest pets. Yeah, that’d be the perfect fucking punishment for those assholes.”

It was time to get back on topic before Eva was overwhelmed from the edge. “So… how’s your magic work anyways?”

“Huh? Oh. Well, I used to have my own style, but… I switched to EB’s style when I joined since it was more refined. I’m not such an asshole that I won’t admit when somebody does something better like me, like most fucking bitches. Wa-wait, sorry. I uh… when I say bitches, I don’t mean just girls, you know. I – I uh, I mean ev-everybody.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. So, EB’s style? What’s the difference between that and your original style?”

“Well…”

While Eva questioned the necromancer to get as much information about how to perform his necromancy magic out of him as she could, Mister Smiles stood off to the side and took mental notes. The stuff he was saying about necromancy was good information to report… but even more useful was Eva’s technique. Eva was able to get the man talking solely by coming off as genuinely interested in him. She didn’t have to threaten him. Didn’t have to flirt with him. Didn’t have to show him any skin or put on an extra girly voice or anything. All she had to do was talk to him like a friend.

Was that what people meant by the old saying of “good cop, bad cop?” Was this an example of playing the “good cop?” Mister Smiles had no idea, but she did know that the method seemed extremely effective against somebody like the necromancer.

“Huh, that’s interesting,” Eva said. “So… it sounds like the EB style of things relies on emotional power instead of something like magic energy.”

“I guess,” the necromancer replied. “They tell us to stop repressing who we are. They teach us that we can only be truly powerful when we show the world who we really are. No masks. Only the truth. It’s by embracing who we are that we’re able to know we’re better than everybody else. Just look at how many people still hold back even though they’re in this world! They’re hypocrites who play a game to escape from reality, but then they judge others for being themselves! EB doesn’t do that. EB accepts everybody no matter who or what they are.”

“Anything goes with them, huh?”

“Yeah. Anything. Nobody judges – well, the only people we judge are the ones who hold themselves back. The ones who lie to themselves.”

“Sounds pretty hedonistic.”

“Heh, I guess it is. Yeah, we’re hedonists. Why wouldn’t we be? It’s a game! Anybody who’s against that shouldn’t be playing. They should go walk around with cactuses up their asses while bending over backwards for every other asshole they meet in real life. If they can’t handle us treating a game like a game, they don’t deserve to enjoy it. The real world is for hypocrites like them. Leave the virtual world to people who actually understand how it’s fucking supposed to be. What the fuck is the point of judging others and forcing rules on them if none of it’s real? Seriously, what’s the point? Why can’t they just let us be who we want to fucking be in peace?”

Eva was pretty sure that people would be letting them be who they wanted to be in peace if it wasn’t for the fact that they were notorious for attacking others first and unprovoked, but she stayed quiet about that. “I get it. But seriously, emotional energy as a primary fuel for magic… hey, if you’re into research and like being left alone, why didn’t you consider joining the scholars?”

“Fuck the scholars. Pretentious prudes who claim to pursue knowledge while refusing to let people actually chase it. The fuck is the point about claiming to study everything if they don’t even allow you to study everything?”

“Well… basically the only rule they enforce is to get consent before experimenting on others. Aside from that, everything goes.”

“It’s a rule in a fucking video game. They think they’re better than us because they have it. Fuck them. ‘Oooh, you can’t experiment on others if they don’t consent first because you might hurt their feelings in a video game.’ Boo fucking hoo. If they care about consent so much, I hope we capture some of them alive and break them until they’re begging for more. Show them how much of a good time they can have if—”

An electrifying arc of energy traveled from Eva’s thunderbird wing into the necromancer’s body, pulsating throughout him and dropping him to the ground where his muscles contracted and forced him into the fetal position. Eva made sure to keep it going for as long as she could before he might potentially die from it.

It went on long enough that smoke rose from his skin once she was done.

Once it ended, the necromancer opened his eyes and looked up at Eva. What he saw were not the eyes of somebody he thought might be the same – somebody who might even be worthy of calling a friend. Rather, what he saw were the judgmental eyes of somebody who looked at him as if he were lower than an insect.

Eva didn’t even grace him with anything else to say.

“Weird,” Eva said, her attention turned to Mister Smiles. “Did you see that localized lightning strike that somehow materialized in this room?”

Mister Smiles slowly and nervously nodded her head.

“Well, it’s a good thing that consent doesn’t matter, right? I’m sure whatever it struck wouldn’t care that it didn’t consent to it.”

Again, Mister Smiles nodded.

“Anyways, I’m going to go dunk my head into a pool of lava to hopefully forget most of that. A good ol’ brain melting should do the trick, right?”

Mister Smiles wasn’t sure if nodding was the appropriate response to that, but she nodded yet again.

“Keep up the good work!” With that, Eva patted Mister Smiles on the shoulder and left the room.

When Mister Smiles looked down at the electrocuted necromancer, she saw a man who… looked sad, to her surprise. She expected anger. Rage. Hatred. Instead, she saw somebody who looked defeated. Depressed, even. It was hard for her to feel any sympathy for him considering everything she just heard him say, but she found him pitiful. It was clear to her that he was a man full of hate and that said hate was being taken advantage of by people who probably didn’t actually care about him at all. He got himself into a cult that deceived him into thinking they were the only ones who would accept him.

And if anything, Eva just reinforced his beliefs. She reinforced that others were liars who treated him like trash, even if she did think he deserved it in that particular instance.

Was that really the right thing to do?

Was making somebody who already felt like the world was against them suffer going to actually accomplish anything other than make his beliefs even more extreme than they already were?

Mister Smiles didn’t know the answers to these questions, but she did remember to check on the necromancer’s bindings and helped him back up onto the bed before leaving the room. She then stood outside the entrance to the room and thought about everything she heard for the next couple of hours. While guard duty was usually boring and she’d find somebody willing to switch with her after some time, she didn’t mind standing there doing nothing but thinking this time. It wasn’t something she ever really gave serious thought to before.

One thing stuck out to her more than anything else.

The necromancer hated those who wore masks. He might not have meant it literally, but she was both literally and metaphorically wearing a mask. Not just a mask, but an entire body suit dedicated to covering up who she was. If there was anybody who didn’t act like their true self out of everybody that she knew, it was her. The necromancer might have have been not exactly likable, but at least he was being himself. That was something she could respect him for.

Eventually, her time watching the prisoner came to an end when it was finally the moment to transfer him.

“Hey,” Cassiel said, standing with Nell and her entourage of battle maids behind them. “Thanks for watching him. Is he ready to go?”

Mister Smiles nodded and stepped aside.

Nell offered Mister Smiles a polite curtsy and said, “I appreciate you spending so much time watching him. I am sure that it was not a fun job, but I will make sure you are compensated for it!”

Mister Smiles bowed in return and nodded.

“Alright, come on,” Cassiel said after opening the door up. “We’re taking you over to – why does it smell like burnt flesh in here? And you’re all burned up! What happened?”

“Hmm. I do recall Eva saying that she was going to come talk to him earlier,” Nell said.

“Tch. If this was her, she can’t just go and… well, maybe he tried something. I don’t know. Plus we’re sending him to Spike Port anyways. Whatever she did probably won’t compare to them.” Cassiel healed the necromancer back to full health before helping him up and bringing him outside.

Both Cassiel and Nell expected him to gawk at them like he did when they first checked on him earlier in the day, but the necromancer didn’t have it in him. He kept his head low and allowed Cassiel to drag him by his chains wherever she wanted to lead him.

“Maybe they won’t have to break through his resistance after all,” Cassiel said and then looked at Nell. “Ready?”

Nell nodded and followed along. “Ah, wait! I forgot to bring the rules!”

Anastasia, humming to herself like always, stepped forward with a book in hand that was titled, The Rules of Engagement and Ethical Treatment of Prisoners.

“A-ah, thank you.” Just a little bit of red colored Nell’s cheeks. “I should have known that you would not allow me to forget anything.”

Anastasia stepped back to rejoin the other maids and went back to focusing on her humming, her eyes closed. Despite her eyes usually being, or at least looking, closed, she was perhaps the most graceful of the maids and nearly never made mistakes. This was one of those times. Even though she always looked like her eyes were closed, she saw Nell leave behind the book and brought it along.

With book in hand, all but Mister Smiles left for the docks where they would take a ship over to Spike Port and hand the prisoner off to Marija.

That left Mister Smiles alone with only one thing in mind to do.

She returned to the forest where her camp-turned-necromancer’s-base was.

“Hope Bo’s alright,” Mister Smiles said as she walked through the forest, for once with her mask off and instead held under her left arm. “Didn’t see ‘im back durin’ tha fight at all.” She made sure to keep her head on a swivel, mainly looking toward the forest’s canopy.

It was only when she heard the fluttering of wings come from directly behind her that she instantly felt relieved.

Mister Smiles spun around and saw none other than her trusted ally. “Bo!” she shouted, wrapping her arms around the giant vulture. He was nearly as tall as she was!

As for the vulture himself, he didn’t get her any sort of reply other than leaning his head away from her as she hugged him.

“Ah was scared when ah didn’t see ya, Bo! Last thing ah wanted was for ya ta b e turned inta a zombie!”

If the vulture could sigh, he would have right before he pulled himself away from her by slipping down through her arms. He then held out his right wing for her which could only mean one thing.

Mister Smiles reached into dense feathers of his right wing in the usual spot and pulled out a sealed note. “Huh… didn’t expect ‘em to reply since ah’ve barely been sendin’ anythin’ worth replyin’ to back. What’s up?” She broke through the seal which triggered the edges of the parchment to begin burning. The fire was slow enough to give her a chance to read it, however.

And what she read put a look of shock on her face.

“E-eh?! Seriously?! Last warnin’?! Ah haven’t even done anythin’! Ah… wait. Ah haven’t done anythin’… maybe that’s why they’re warnin’ me. Ah, man… if they’d’a waited a few more days ah coulda told ‘em about tha new faction!” Mister Smiles groaned and whined. The last thing of any interest that she reported was the slaying of the serpent. Afterwards, she got so distracted by helping everybody build the new town up, practicing for her duels with Fenrir, and not feeling like making the trip to the forest that she didn’t report anything for a couple of months. “Ah… darn it. Maybe they’ll forgive me once they read about this.”

Mister Smiles dug back into the vulture’s wing, pulling out a blank sheet and pink to write with.

Bo’s feathers made excellent hiding spots.

After writing down everything that Mister Smiles had to report, she tucked the letter back into Bo’s wing and gave his neck a gentle petting. “Good to see that bastard didn’t get ya. Make sure ta have a safe flight back, ya hear?”

Bo rolled his head around as if it was an extremely dramatic form of rolling his eyes before pecking her shoulder and lifting off.

Once the vulture was out of her sight, Mister Smiles slumped down against the nearest tree and sighed.

There may have been a battle against the undead there just days ago, but most of the corpses were gone. Only a few skeletons remained. After all, if the game didn’t accelerate the decomposing of bodies at all, the world would have essentially been one massive mountain of corpses considering how murder happy many players could get.

Of course, corpses that players were actively making use of didn’t decompose as quickly as the rest left all over the place. For example, that monstrous whale brought back to the city was still sitting on the beach. Most of its meat was already carved from it, but everything was else still there creating a not-so-pleasant sight for anybody who felt like relaxing on the sand.

“I guess that’s how you’ve been relaying information,” a familiar voice said, possibly the last possible voice that Mister Smiles wanted to hear.

Mister Smiles scrambled to put her mask back on but ended up dropping it instead. Then, due to the round nature of the mask, it rolled right over to the one who just spoke.

Fenrir bent over and picked up the mask, giving the inside of it a look. “Is this bigger on the inside? I feel like I’m looking into a black hole here.”

Mister Smiles raised her hands as if to reach for the mask, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually get up and go for it. Instead, she sat there on the ground as various whimpers escaped her quivering lips, her hands shaking in the air.

Fenrir found the sight of her so flustered absolutely adorable but, given that he wasn’t all that close to her, he didn’t want to tease her too hard. So, he tossed the mask over to her which she was quick to put on.

Only, she stopped.

Mister Smiles stopped right before the mask finished going over her neck.

“Something wrong?” Fenrir asked.

“Th-this… might be a uh… weird question… but ya ever… wear a mask to hide who ya really are?” Mister Smiles asked, her voice sounding as nervous as she looked.

“My entire avatar is a mask. Trust me, I’m not a hot wolf guy in real life.”

“That’s… that’s different. Ah guess ah – I, I… guess I mean… personality. Ya ever try hidin’ yer – your, personality?”

“Like how you’re trying to hide your accent right now? You can talk like normal. I understand you fine.”

“I – ah – I… it ain’t what I meant… but…”

“If you’re talking about personality… I guess it depends on what you mean by mask.”

Mister Smiles, still holding the mask over her head rather than set it down, tilted her head and the mask at the same time.

“Does it count as a mask if I pretended to be who I wanted to be instead of acted like who I really was?”

“Ah’m… not sure. Yeah, I guess, but I don’t think that sounds bad. But wouldn’t that be yer true self? The person ya pretend to be is who ya want to really be, ain’t it?”

“Now it is, since I’ve put effort into acting the same in real life, but I wouldn’t say it was my true self originally.”

“How come?”

“Well, if somebody wants to get really good at flying planes, that doesn’t mean their true self is an expert pilot. There’s a difference between who you are and who you want to be. You could be a horrible person but genuinely wish you were good. You could be attracted to women but wish you were attracted to men instead. You could be allergic to dogs but wish you weren’t. In all those cases, your true self and who you want to be are completely different. Aren’t they?”

“Huh… ah guess so. Wait. If you – if ya found me out here… a-and with what ya said about relayin’ info…”

“Right. I know you’re a spy.”

“Ah… crap. How long have ya known?”

“A while. Serra told me.”

“She – she did?”

“Please don’t get upset with her. I mean, consider the fact that I’m her boyfriend and that you’re a spy in our territory and I think that she was justified in telling me your secret.”

“I… guess ah can’t complain when I look at it that way.”

“She thinks of you as her friend, so I don’t want to ruin that. But at the same time, we’ve now had two encounters with players from EB and you just so happened to know exactly where the first one was despite being so far from the town. Knowing that you’re a spy, considering all that, I feel like I’d be a failure if I didn’t come and check on you despite believing you are innocent of associating with them.”

“I understand… wait. Di-did you also know about me bein’ a… a girl then?”

“Nope. Only just found that out the other day when you came to talk to me.”

“Seriously? She never told ya?”

“Nope. If she knew, she never once even hinted at it. She only told me what she felt was important to our security.”

Mister Smiles smiled, not that Fenrir was able to see it due to her still awkwardly holding her mask over most of her head. “Wait, if ya knew I was a spy and might be a risk… why’d ya let me the watch the prisoner so much?”

“Because I knew you were a spy. I figured that you’d either release him or kill him if you were working with him. All the other ways of testing you seemed kind of awkward, and I didn’t want to mess up what we had going. You’re still my daily sparring partner, after all.”

Mister Smiles remained perfectly still for a few moments before taking a deep breath and lifting the mask back up and away from her head, setting it on the ground next to her.

Fenrir would have been more impressed by the beauty she was keeping hidden away from everybody had he not already had several beautiful girlfriends. “Is there a reason you were asking about masks?”

“I… guess ah’ve never really… thought about who I am before. Never really thought about who ah want ta be either. But ah won’t bore ya with all that. Besides, I ain’t got much to say on the topic other than ‘at.”

“Well, if you ever do want to talk about it, you’re welcome to bring it up while punching me in the face.” Fenrir took a couple of moments before realizing how that sounded. “I – I mean, you know, during our sparring sessions. Not in like, a masochistic way.”

Mister Smiles chuckled and smiled. “Thanks. But err… about this spy thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t ya worried?”

“Nope.”

“H-how come?”

“Because you’re a really bad spy.”

Mister Smiles felt like an arrow was shot straight through her, even going so far as to almost fall backward. Instead of falling, though, she picked up her mask, shoved it into place over her head, and asked, “Wha-what do ya mean by that?! Ah’ve been doin’ my best!”

“All you do is help everybody out.”

“What if ah was buildin’ up your trust?!”

“You weren’t. At least, that wasn’t your intention. You were just helping because you wanted to.”

“How can ya know that?!”

“Because you asked what if you were trying to build trust.”

Another whimper escaped her muoth.

“There’s also the fact that you easily admitted to being a spy to me. You didn’t even try denying it. Not to mention that you spilled the truth to Serra and didn’t even try manipulating her at all.”

“Ah… ah really am horrible at it, ain’t I?”

“Sorry, but kind of.”

Mister Smiles slumped her shoulders and head. Given the size of her mask, her head’s movements always resulted in pretty dramatic movements. She often looked like she had a bobblehead’s head attached to her. “Did ya come out here just ta make me remember ah’m the worst spy there ever was?”

“Listen, it’s because you’re a bad spy that I don’t care you are one. If you were a good spy who was seriously trying to undermine us, we would have to kill you or kick you out.”

“A-ah…”

Of course, it was always possible that she was actually an amazing spy pretending to be a bad spy, but Fenrir had a gut feeling that wasn’t the case. “I just want to ask you one thing to make sure that we’re all good.”

“Ye-yeah?”

“We’re your friends, right?”

Mister Smiles looked up and nodded without any hesitation.

“Good. Everybody would be upset if you betrayed us or did anything stupid like that. But since you consider us all friends, I’ll believe you wouldn’t do that.”

“A-ah wouldn’t. I ain’t even really doin’ much spy work… ah’m basically a glorified news reporter…”

“Good. Now, there’s one thing that you can do to prove that you’re not going to try and screw us over.”

“Yeah?”

“Go fishing with me.”

Mister Smiles froze as her heart raced. “Ju-just tha two of us?”

Fenrir nodded before stretching his arms out over his head. “I want to get to know you better, so yeah. Besides, the real reason why I followed you all the way out here is to make sure that you’re a trustworthy fishing partner. This has nothing to do with anything but fishing. It’s all fishing related. Yes it is.”

It was a good thing that Mister Smiles put the mask back on. Had she not done that, Fenrir would have seen her grinning like a nervous idiot over the fact that she thought it sounded like he wanted to take her out on a date.

It was also a good thing that she was so nervous and excited about the sound of a fishing date with Fenrir that she didn’t notice how awkward he was about claiming it’s only about fishing.