Book 4: Chapter 32: Patch 6.0: Hard Labor

“Morning,” Rao says followed by a loud, exaggerated yawn that lasts just long enough to trigger everybody else on the deck into yawning.

“I,” Fenrir pauses to yawn, “hate you,” he tells Rao.

“Bro, what’d I do? I just immerse and say morning and you’re already hating on me.”

“You made me yawn. I hate when people make me yawn.”

Serra is the last one to try holding back a yawn, but she gives in which then makes Fenrir yawn again from hearing her.

Fenrir looks down at her.

“Do you hate me now?” Serra asks him.

“Of course not,” Fenrir answers.

Serra flashes a smug smile at Rao.

“I don’t like this munchkin, bro. Her smug aura mocks me,” Rao tells me.

“What are you talking about? Serra is never smug. I bet she doesn’t even know what that word means,” Fenrir says, looking down at Serra and seeing a confused, tilted head and expression from her.

Rao narrows his eyes at her.

As soon as Fenrir looks away, that smug smile of Serra’s returns in full force.

“See!” Rao shouts.

Fenrir looks back at Serra and sees another confused expression. “What?” he asks, looking at Rao.

While Fenrir looks at Rao, Serra smiles once again.

Rao finally catches onto what they’re doing. “You both suck,” he groans.

“Bro, what’d I do? I just asked you a question and you’re saying I suck,” Fenrir teases Rao with his own words.

“Seriously suck.”

“That’s Olly’s job.”

Serra snerks and gives Fenrir a thumbs-up before saying, “And mine.”

Rao shakes his head and walks away while Fenrir is left doing a combination of blushing and chuckling. He isn’t sure that he’ll ever get totally used to just how easily Serra can burst out sexual jokes like that. Though, part of what makes him blush is the fact that it’s not just a joke.

Oleander drops The Shoebill’s anchor once they get close to the coast where they have decided to lay the foundations for their future city.

Fenrir realizes a problem with this, though.

“Hey, Olly, it’s alright this time, but I don’t think we can use the anchor anymore after this,” Fenrir tells Oleander.

“What’s up, Fenny? Why?” Oleander asks with a tilted head and twitching ears.

“There’s kind of reef down there. It’s mainly out farther in the water, but it extends into the river here. I remember reading that anchors could do tons of damage to underwater ecosystems, so… I’m just thinking maybe we shouldn’t use the anchor anymore when we’re around here,” Fenrir explains.

“Then we’re going to have to build a dock first that we can tie our girl to it.”

“That’ll be easy,” Tabitha chimes in. “At the very least, I could build a temporary dock within a few hours, and that’ll make transporting goods easier. We won’t have to use the dog boy here to swim everything back and forth.”

“Yeah. We’re building a dock,” Fenrir says.

And so, after transporting the logs off of the boat via Fenrir and Shogun, the crew gets to work obeying Tabitha’s and Rao’s orders to construct some simple docks.

“I’m kind of surprised they’re getting along this well,” Fenrir whispers to Serra.

“Why?” Serra asks.

“Don’t know. Just figured that since they’re both creator types that they might butt heads. Instead… they look really mature and serious.”

Fenrir’s observations are spot on. While Rao and Tabitha may butt heads at times when it comes to socializing since he’s a blunt, perverted fool who’s still learning how to treat women from Fenrir, his seriousness is on par with Tabitha’s when it comes to engineering. They toss ideas back and forth, are comfortable critiquing one another and offering alternatives while taking the other’s comments seriously, and they make up for whatever the other is lacking.

Rao is much more realistic when it comes to engineering. While Tabitha likes to think up crazy ideas just as modifying evil towers into rockets to send into space, Rao sticks to basics and applies those concepts to make Tabitha’s borderline-delusional fantasies more possible.

Rao builds the wheel, and then Tabitha takes that wheel and turns it into a rocket-powered, exploding ball of thermonuclear death. But, without the base wheel being as sturdy and flawless as possible, her fantasy would never work.

Fenrir is truly scared of what these two might be able to accomplish if they were to direct their minds toward something sinister.

It wouldn’t surprise Fenrir if Tabitha is the type of engineer who would want to try and dam the Mediterranean to make Atlantropa, and Rao would probably do it and then want to build a bachelor’s pad in the salted wastes that they create.

“So uh, what’d you and Nell do?” Fenrir whispers another question to Serra.

“Lots of licking and kissing,” Serra answers. “And I had to wash my hands.”

“Feel free to go into more details.”

“No.”

“Why? I’m your boyfriend and you’re my girlfriends. This is uh… very important information to know.”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I recorded it so you can watch it later,” Serra says, looking at her boyfriend with a proud smile.

Fenrir is proud of her, too. “You’re the best,” he says, petting her on the top of her head over her hat.

“I know, but I keep forgetting to show you the video where you were sleeping and I…”

Fenrir gulps and asks, “And you what?”

Serra looks him in the eyes, grabs his hand, and pulls one of his fingers into her mouth to suck on. She sucks on the very tip of his finger before slowly pushing her head farther onto it, taking his finger in until she’s got the entire length in her mouth. Then she slowly – every so slowly, pulls back until the tip of his finger is left right between her lips. She plants a gentle kiss on it before pointing his finger upward so that she can lick all over it from top to bottom, never daring to break eye contact.

Then she pokes his erection through his pants and asks, “Want me to demonstrate with this?” The tips of her fingers trace along his clothed bulge.

Neither of them is aware of a certain Azalabulia peeking at them from the distance, unable to take her eyes off of the erotic site.

She’s also taking notes.

If this is how his girlfriend is treating him, then he must like it, so maybe she should try something like that?

Azalabulia imagines herself holding Fenrir’s hand and sucking on his finger.

Serra might be lewd and know how to use her mouth, but Azalabulia knows that there is one thing that she has which Serra doesn’t have.

Tits.

Azalabulia looks at one of her fingers, then down at her cleavage, and then sticks her finger into her cleavage just to get an idea for how it might work when she potentially tries this on Fenrir.

“The heck are ya doin’ now?” Tabitha asks Azalabulia.

Azalabulia face turns pure red as she hastily pulls her finger out from her cleavage, accidentally smacking herself in the face in the process.

“I – I was… te-testing a new spell!” Azalabulia tries explaining.

“Uh-huh,” Tabitha responds, the disappointed expression on her face piercing Azalabulia’s core. “And what kinda spell can ya do by stickin’ your finger down your chest?”

“I was – I was… it was a spell to…”

“To seduce the wolf captain?”

Azalabulia’s face somehow turns an even darker shade of red as she frantically shakes her head from side to side. “I-I-I d-don-don’t know wh-why yo-you would thi-thi-think tha-that.”

“Ya know, if you want to get to him, all you’ve got to do is go and ask ‘im out. Just be like, ‘oi, dog boy, let’s be degenerates together,’ and he’ll be yours. Probably.”

“Bu-but what if – wh-what if he doesn’t e-even like me ba-back…”

“You a fool? Him and all those girls can’t take their eyes off of you. They look at ya like a pack of hungry wolves staring down an unsuspecting deer.”

Azalabulia’s eyes go wide from the knowledge.

“Ya seriously haven’t noticed?” Tabitha asks.

Azalabulia shakes her head.

“Can’t ya tell whenever somebody’s lookin’ at you all dirty?”

Azalabulia shakes her head even faster.

“No wonder you’re single. You’re naïve and dense as can be if ya haven’t noticed how they all look at ya. They don’t even try to make it subtle!”

“Ah!” Nell says. “What are we discussing?”

Azalabulia jumps around, causing her breasts to bounce in the process thanks to the still-damaged clothes she’s wearing, and looks at Nell with a blushing, shaking head.

“We’re talkin’ about how you, the other shortie, blondie, and the dog all look at this girl like a bunch of perverts,” Tabitha says.

Nell giggles and says, “It is a good thing that Fenrir was already talked to! We came to the conclusion that we would leave the progress up to him and her while we all watch and enjoy!”

“A bunch of sadists.”

Nell giggles and claps her hands together.

“Y-you mean, you…? Yo-you’re fine with… me?” Azalabulia asks Nell.

“Of course!” Nell says. “I could even help you if you would like me to!”

“He-help me?”

Nell excitedly nods her head. “I know of the perfect scenario to make Fenrir yours! He will never be able to resist you.”

Azalabulia is worried, but she agrees to go along with whatever Nell’s plan is.

As for Tabitha, she sighs and gets back to work.