Book 2: Chapter 58: Patch 10.0: Something Stupid

“We done causin’ trouble now?” Tabitha asks as she watches Bonekraka finally give up on using his axes to instead just snap his opponent’s neck out of frustration.

“Hopefully,” Fenrir says. He looks at The Shoebill’s bow to see what sort of shape it’s in and is happy to see that it has already repaired itself for the most part after ramming The Steel Tiger. Then he looks at Bonekraka and sees him stripping the bodies of their dead enemies. While such a thing may look and sound horrible to somebody not experienced with video games, to anybody that has ever played a game where looting corpses is a thing, it is completely natural.

Fenrir looks at Alexander’s body. He’s wearing some pretty nice armor, accessories, and there are those two masterfully crafted swords on the floor. There is even a nice, large chest for them to loot sitting in the far end of the room.

“We’ll loot these guys once we’re healed up, then we’ve got to get going,” Fenrir says.

“My hero,” Nell says, “I overheard them talking about meeting up with somebody in the direction they were heading. I do not know if we were close enough, but if they heard the fighting—"

“It’s fine. Olly would warn us if he saw any other ships approaching, so let’s just be quick. Just waiting on somebody to heal me so I can move again.”

Cassiel huffs and crosses her arms but gives in to heal him a second later.

While Fenrir may still be bloodied and bruised, his face no longer looks as disfigured as it was just moments ago.

“I’m curious,” he says, grabbing the chainmail and vest to lift them both up at once.

Cassiel may like his real appearance more, but when she sees Fenrir lifting up his armor and clothes to reveal toned abs – his abs, she still blushes and finds it hard to look away. Nell is there right there beside her nodding her head both out of appreciation and approval.

“Yep, that’s like, three scars there now from being stabbed or impaled,” Fenrir says, wondering why some attacks leave no scars but others do.

“Well, Onii-chan,” Saya chimes in for the first time in a while, “just like with your ear, if you want to keep scars as part of your aesthetics, then you can! So if you have scars then that must mean you think they’re like, cool or something. But if you get a hand chopped off and want to have it back after being healed, you’ll have it back! If you don’t want it back to replace it with a hook or mechanical arm or something, you won’t get it back!”

After mentally thanking Saya for the explanation, Fenrir imagines there being a knight who somehow gets around with no legs nor arms while challenging people to duels. Then, mid-duel, he somehow heals himself to regrow his limbs after his opponent has underestimated him.

Fenrir shakes that thought out of his head.

“Alright, let’s just toss everything into that chest over there and take the whole thing back over to our ship,” he says.

Nell has never killed another player before, so she leaves the looting of corpses to the other four aboard The Steel Tiger. What she does do is pick up Rod and hold onto him for the time being. “Thank you for assisting my hero and I, brave soul,” Nell tells the fishing rod.

She swears that she can see a light red color mixed into the rapid pulses of his shining gem. That light gets even redder when Nell places a single, appreciative kiss on him.

Cassiel notices what’s going on with Nell and Rod and gets jealous. The way that she interprets the situation is that Nell is kissing Fenrir’s Rod, which makes her think of Fenrir’s rod, thus making Cassiel’s face turn bright red and look away. Her jealousy has been replaced by an ashamed feeling for how perverse her mind has grown ever since she started dating Fenrir. First his abs, now his rod, and she still wants to kill herself every time she remembers how easily she submitted during their first time.

“Alright!” Fenrir says, closing the lid of the chest. “I think that’s everything good from these pricks.” He looks over at the captain’s bed. “You respawn where you last slept, right? Guess we should destroy the beds then.”

“Wait a second there, captain. This game doesn’t have a problem heavily punishin’ people for havin’ bad respawn points set, so if we sink this girl but don’t destroy the bed, he and the rest of his crew will be respawnin’ on the bottom of the ocean,” Tabitha explains.

“Change of plans, make sure that all beds are in perfect condition.”

Everybody is in agreement with that order.

“Let’s take the chest and get going.”

Bonekraka tries to lift the chest, but he fails to from just how heavy it is. The lid can’t even completely close from just how overloaded the chest is. However, Tabitha is able to lift it up with ease after strapping her hammer back to her back.

She looks up at the green orc and sticks her tongue out at him.

“Must get stronger. Is stupid being weaker than small girl,” Bonekraka grumbles to himself.

“Fen, how’d you kill that asshole anyways? I couldn’t tell,” Cassiel asks.

“Oh, I choked him to death with Rod,” Fenrir answers.

“You seriously killed him with a fishing rod?”

“Yup.”

“I… don’t know whether to be impressed or feel bad for him from dying such a stupid death. What is wrong with you, you bastard?”

“If it’s stupid but it works then it ain’t stupid.”

“No, it’s definitely still stupid.”

Fenrir smiles and shrugs before bending over to kiss the top of Cassiel’s head, automatically winning the argument for himself.

Rock jumps out of Serra’s arms to check on Fenrir once he and the rest of the crew are back onboard The Shoebill.

“Miss me?” Fenrir asks her.

Rock whines and paws at his legs.

Fenrir picks her up and holds her in front of his face to kiss her on the top of her head, and then she starts licking up all the blood from him. “That’s kind of gross, Rock, but I appreciate the cleaning,” Fenrir says.

“Want me to lick, too?” Serra asks.

“Depends on what you’d be licking.”

The two exchange smiles, proud of their perversion.

“Reverse us out of here, Olly!” Fenrir shouts.

Oleander heads back to the ship’s wheel and does as ordered. Once pulled away, The Steel Tiger lurches downward and begins its descent to the bottom of the ocean.

“Incoming ship!” Oleander shouts.

“Really? One thing after another,” Fenrir groans before rushing to the ship’s stern to look at the latest arrival.

Cassiel, Nell, and Corwin all recognize the symbol on the ship’s flag. It is a holy grail with angelic wings coming from its sides and a pair of crossed swords behind it. “What’s an empire ship doing here?” Cassiel asks.

“That man – Alexander, was working for them. He used to be an angel from what I could gather,” Nell says.

“Tch. That explains how I was recognized.”

“You used to be an angel as well, Cassiel?”

“Yeah, but I quit.”

“So you are a fallen angel of sorts! A fallen angel whom has fallen in love with a wolf and now wishes to take revenge against the holy empire she was once a soldier of!”

Cassiel has been free from Nell’s delusions thus far, but no longer.

Fenrir looks past The Shoebill’s bow and sees The Steel Tiger’s flag still visible above the water. “Guess they’re the friends they mentioned then, and I guess they’re going to see that we just sank their guys,” he says.

“They’re crossin’ us, we’ve gotta get out of here,” Tabitha says.

The empire’s ship positions its portside perpendicular to The Shoebill’s stern. With no cannons nor ballista on the back of The Shoebill, they have no way of defending themselves aside from trying to either sail away or turning to line up their cannons but also giving the enemy a larger target to attack.

“Look!” Corwin shouts, pointing at the cliffs that The Shoebill and The Steel Tiger had to turn around.

“Get below deck, Nell,” Fenrir tells her.

Nell hurries to follow his order when she sees what Corwin has pointed out.

Two ships from both The Free Sailors and The Northern Wardens are coming around the bend and approaching The Shoebill.

Each of the new ships sails up to The Shoebill before turning to reveal their sides to the empire’s ship, and once they are lined up, cannon fire erupts from The Free Sailor’s vessel while the longship's crew of The Northern Wardens throw spears and shoot magic at the empire’s ship.

The combined assault makes short work of the empire’s vessel as cannonballs, spears thrown with extreme force, and magic tear through its hull. It doesn’t even get a chance to fire a single volley of its own cannons before getting sent beneath the waves to join their sunken comrades.