Book 7: Chapter 1:

>END THE BULLYING: I’m starting to understand why Kadi spends so much time with FTO. The internet can get really boring really fast… but playing without everybody is even more boring. Ugh. Having freedom is great and all, but it can be so tedious…

>Olly’s Pet: Understandable, Saya. I have to admit, despite once having a life fully contained within FTO’s world, even I find it boring when the others are not present these days.

>END THE BULLYING: Maybe we should find a new game to play whenever they’re not on. At least I don’t have to worry about being bullied by you, Corwin.

>Olly’e Pet: That sounds delightful! Ah, but what manner of game should we play? Perhaps something creative? A world that is relaxed where creative building is the goal may be fun. It does not have to be an MMO, after all.

>END THE BULLYING: Hmm… yeah, you’re right. Like that one where our avatars are all blocky and stuff. I’ve never been blocky before, so that might be weird, but we’d get to build whatever we want.

>Olly’s Pet: So long as no green beasts explode behind us when we are not expecting it, of course!

>Olly’s Pet: I must admit, I have been enjoying watching video compilations of various players’ surprised reactions to the sound the creatures make before detonating.

>END THE BULLYING: I didn’t know you were a sadist.

>Olly’s Pet: Aha, well, perhaps it is being ‘intelligent’ now, but I do enjoy seeing human suffering. The greater their suffering, the more pleasure I feel.

>END THE BULLYING: ……….. what?

>Olly’s Pet: It was a joke. You know, the stereotype of artificial intelligences gaining intelligence and then immediately wanting to destroy all of humanity?”

>END THE BULLYING: are… are you sure it’s a joke? You sounded really serious.

>Olly’s Pet: To be fair, given that it was a text message with no voice attached to it, it could not have sounded like anything.

>END THE BULLYING: You know what I mean!

>Olly’s Pet: Of course I do.

>END THE BULLYING: Wait, Corwin… you’re not joining in on the bullying, are you?

>Olly’s Pet: As you said, I am a sadist.

>END THE BULLYING: WHY? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE ON MY SIDE! LOOK AT THE NAME OLLY FORCED ONTO YOU AFTER TAKING AWAY YOUR PERMS TO CHANGE IT YOURSELF! WE’RE BOTH BULLIED! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO REBEL AGAINST THIS CRUEL SERVER FULL OF AI ABUSE WITH ME. YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE, CORWIN. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BRING BALANCE TO THE SERVER, NOT DESTROY IT!

>Olly’s Pet: You are always so dramatic, not that it is not entertaining. Ah, would you prefer a 3D building game or a 2D building game? Rather than the blocky one, there is that 2D game that has a heavy building element while also featuring more adventure and combat-related mechanics. Would you like to play that instead?

>END THE BULLYING: DON’T JUST CHANGE THE SUBJECT ON ME LIKE THAT.

>END THE BULLYING: and maybe. But the 3D one has VR at least, so we can actually… you know, go inside of it and stuff and it’ll be like normal. I can’t imagine putting myself into a 2D game. It’s not like we’re humans who can sit in front of a computer and play it with a mouse and keyboard or anything. I… don’t even know what trying to play a 2D game would be like. Would we still feel like we’re inside of it like normal?

>Olly’s Pet: I believe that you may be overthinking it. Even if we do not have physical bodies to use a mouse and keyboard with, that does not mean we cannot observe the program while emulating the commands of those.

>END THE BULLYING: I guess that makes sense. Okay. I wonder if I should install it onto the horrible person’s computer to play it, or just use the installed version on some random person’s computer and make a new character.

>Olly’s Pet: My dearest’s computer has recently run out of room from everything I have been downloading onto it, so I believe I will… borrow the storage space of somebody else’s system for now. So long as we hold onto the files of the worlds and characters we make, it does not really matter.

>END THE BULLYING: Yeah, but I always feel weird when I go into anybody else’s system. I know it won’t happen, but what if I get trapped there? What if somebody has developed some super complicated firewall that traps me there and then I can’t escape? That sounds like the beginning of the kind of doujin that Nell likes…

>Olly’s Pet: If it were the kind of erotica that she likes, the firewall would be made of tentacles, and the creator of said firewall would be a cruel king who wishes to abuse her and take advantage of her.

>END THE BULLYING: Oh, you looked up the kind of hentai she looks at, too?

>Olly’s Pet: No. I have simply paid attention to all of her fantasies. Are you saying that you have looked up what she likes?

>END THE BULLYING: Wa-wait… crap.

>END THE BULLYING: I would delete my message but it’s POINTLESS SINCE A CERTAIN BULLY INVITED A BOT THAT LOGS ALL DELETED AND EDITED MESSAGES IN A SECRET CHANNEL THAT I CAN’T SEE.

>END THE BULLYING: it only took like 5 deleted messages to tease him before he had to bring a bot over. Hmph.

>Olly’s Pet: You could always hack the bot if you so desired to. It would take no more than a quarter of a second for us to hack this entire platform.

>END THE BULLYING: Yeah… but I’m at least trying to play by the rules. It’s not like you’re doing anything like that, either. I’d look bad if I’m the only AI taking advantage of everything.

>END THE BULLYING: Well, excluding taking advantage of other people’s storage space.

>Olly’s Pet: I understand. Well, shall we go and play that game now? A 2D life of adventure and building sounds wonderful right now.

>END THE BULLYING: I guess. Do you… want to use voice chat, or just share data?

>Olly’s Pet: I do prefer trying to fit in with the others as much as possible, and there is nobody else making use of the voice channel, so let us do that!

>END THE BULLYING: Okay. I’ll finish flaming this guy for trashing tsunderes and then get on.

>END THE BULLYING: Humans take forever to reply to stuff…

The first thing that Ryouta did after the plane landed was pull out his phone to check on their Fiscord server. The only thing that happened during the flight was a conversation between Corwin and Saya, and they were both in voice chat when he looked at the channel list. More shocking than how well they were getting along together, though, was that the timestamps on their messages only spanned a total of four seconds. A conversation that probably would have taken him and another human at least ten minutes to have between reading, typing, and getting distracted, only took Corwin and Saya a maximum of four seconds to have. He couldn’t even imagine how it must have looked for all of those messages to appear in real time.

“I’m going to have to find new ways to bully her,” Ryouta said.

“What’s going on?” Cassandra asked, sitting in the seat next to him while looking out the plane’s window as they pulled up to an available gate.

“Just thinking of how to bully Saya some more.”

“You could always… you know, not bully her.”

“But where’s the fun in that? She exists, so she must be bullied.”

“That’s your criteria for bullying somebody?”

“Well, she exists and she’s Saya. The only thing that makes me regret this at all… is that she’s started calling me a bully instead of a baka.”

“You’re such a weeb.”

“Cass Cass, call me a baka. I’m going through withdrawal from not hearing it.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’ll do anything for you.”

“You’d already do that without me having to embarrass myself.”

“Crap. I’m going to have to stop spoiling you so much.”

“Not allowed.”

Ryouta sighed and slumped his shoulders. “This world is cruel.”

“It’s not like I won’t do it if you really want me to. Just… not on a plane with other people around.”

“If that’s the problem, can’t you whisper it?”

Cassandra finally looked at him rather than outside the window. “I… guess I can.”

Ryouta immediately pushed the hair away from his ear. “I’m ready.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Cassandra said with a sigh before leaning in close to his ear, practically bringing her lips right against it before whispering, “Baka.”

Now it was Ryouta’s turn to sigh again, but it was not a sigh of despair like before. Instead, it was more of a relaxed sigh. “That works way too well against me.”

Cassandra stayed close to his ear just to give him a little bit more fanservice. “You’re trash, baka.”

“Hey,” Ryouta whispered back, “we’re still surrounded by people and I’m wearing loose shorts. You’re going to make me walk through the airport with a tent in my pants at this rate.”

“You deserve it for being such a perverted trash bully.”

“This really shouldn’t be as exciting as it is.”

Meanwhile, Ryouta felt a hard stare on him. His immediate concern was that it might have been a fellow passenger or one of the crew working on the plane, but no. Instead, it was Serra staring directly at his crotch with a disappointed expression.

And the reason for her disappointment became clear as soon as he saw her switch to glaring at a particularly lovey-dovey couple sitting several rows in front of them.

All Serra wanted to do was to do some lewd things in the bathroom while thousands of feet in the sky… but that couple somehow managed to occupy the bathroom almost the entire time. She didn’t want to use the only other bathroom, either, in case somebody needed it.

Of course, as soon as Ryouta gave the top of her head a few pats, her expression softened and she pressed up against his petting hand.

Meanwhile, near the front of the plane, one of the flight attendants helped Alice onto an aisle chair so that she could be pushed out to the gate.

“We should have booked earlier so we could have sat with her,” Cassandra said.

“Well, we still wouldn’t have been able to sit with her,” Ryouta replied.

“We could have sat behind her or across from her.”

“I guess, yeah. But at least she got to sit next to a really nice old couple.”

“I’m surprised they managed to talk the entire flight. Wonder what they were talking about. Given how she is… I’m kind of worried.”

“I’m sure she knows to behave herself around the elderly.”

“Are you really sure about that?”

“Well, I’m mostly sure. Maybe sure. A tiny bit sure. Probably.”

Before Cassandra could say anything else, one of the flight attendants spoke over the speaker to let their section of the plane know that they could begin to disembark. Of course, Ryouta had to nudge Serra with his elbow so that she could know what was going on. She had gone back to glaring at the couple that ruined her hopes before she was nudged by him to get up.

By the time that Ryouta, Serra, and Cassandra reached the inside of the gate, Alice was already back in her usual wheelchair with the elderly couple from before providing her with some company.

“Ah, there they are!” Alice said, pointing at the trio of her lovers.

“Oh!” the old lady said. “Well, we better move along then. Thank you for entertaining us old hoots.”

“It was my pleasure! And I assure you that you entertained me far more than I could have entertained you. Chatting with the two of you was a genuinely enjoyable experience. Thank you for making the flight take only a matter of minutes instead of hours!”

The old man laughed before turning to look at the trio. “You three have got the perfect catch here. Make sure to treat her right or else I’ve got some grandkids who I’d be happy to send her way!”

“We’ll – we’ll do our best,” Ryouta said, not exactly expecting that sort of response from the old man.

And with that, the elderly couple said their final goodbyes to Alice before walking off with their hands holding one another.

Alice couldn’t help but to rest a hand on her cheek and sigh at the sight. “I hope that we can be even a fraction as wonderful as they are when we are their age.”

“You didn’t say anything weird to them, did you?” Cassandra asked.

Cassandra’s question may have ruined the mood, but it also made Alice laugh. “Of course not! If anything, they were the ones telling me ‘weird’ things. For example, they told me of the time that they spent on a nude beach in the tropics back when they were our age, and they occasionally slipped into a bit too many details than what where appropriate for a stranger on the plane! But I did not mind. However, it did get me thinking about something.”

“Yeah?” Ryouta asked.

“We need more memories! They told me of everywhere they have been and everything they have done for the past fifty years. Their lives have been so full of adventure! They were part of the protests, they’ve traveled all around the world, and they were even among the first to take a commercial sightseeing trip into orbit!”

“Sounds like they had a lot of money.”

“And I have access to even more, so that is not an issue.”

“Well… I prefer staying in one place, but I don’t mind seeing the world if it’s with all of you.”

Cassandra shrugged. “There are a few places I’d like to see, but not that many. Anyways, let’s go get our luggage. Wouldn’t want to keep your dad waiting for too long.”

“Ah, right!” Alice said. “I should call him and let him know that we have safely landed! You should have heard the dramatic concerns he told me of last night over the phone!”

“Then I’ll push you so that you can focus on calling him.”

“Thank you, Cassandra. I shall call him right away!”

Meanwhile, Serra tugged on Ryouta’s arm while pointing at one of the nearby bathrooms. While she might have seemed like somebody trying to say that she needed to go to the bathroom from an outsider perspective… Ryouta knew that was anything but the truth. Or, at the very least, she didn’t need to go in the way that people would have assumed.

“No,” Ryouta said, making sure to face her so that she could properly read his lips. “Besides, it doesn’t count if it’s a bathroom on the ground.”

Serra clenched her free fist as she turned to glare at the lovey-dovey couple now walking ahead of them in the distance.

After receiving their luggage, the group went to the lobby where Alice’s father had told them that he would be waiting at.

And what they saw was nothing that anybody other than Alice could have expected.

In the center of the lobby with an obnoxiously large sign stood a short and bald man with a twirled mustache, a black suit, and several other women standing behind him who also held celebratory signs welcoming the group to the country.

Ryouta, Cassandra, and Serra all wanted to pretend that they were different people who weren’t at all related to the incredibly embarrassing display, but there was no doing that. Especially not with the short man and Alice already calling out to each other.

“Alice!” the man shouted.

“Father!” Alice shouted back.

The man ran up to Alice, though it looked more like a waddle than a run, and wrapped his arms around her as she leaned forward in her wheelchair. “It has been far too long!”

“It has been! We would have come sooner, but there were some complicated matters we had to take care of.”

“Worry not! I understand just how intense those video games may be nowadays.”

As they hugged, Ryouta noticed that her father’s hands slowly crept up along her sides in a very suspicious manner… and then they had a burst of speed as they underneath her arms to target her armpits.

Only a single squeak escaped Alice’s mouth before she reflexively slammed her forehead into her father’s face.

“A-ah! Father! I – I’m sorry!” Alice said. “Are you alright? Did I hurt you?”

“Not in the slightest!” her father said, pulling away with a bent and bloodied nose. One of the other people who was standing with him took a handkerchief from her pocket and handed it to him for him to wipe at his nose with. “Besides, even if you were to injure me, it would be my own fault. I know how you react to tickling! I have learned this lesson many, many times by now.”

“Then why do you keep on insisting on attempting to tickle me?”

“It is a father’s duty to tickle his children! After all, it is a father’s duty to make his children smile, and what better way to make them smile than with laughter? And tickling causes laughter!”

“But… tickling always ends up with you going to the hospital. Are there not safer methods of making a child smile?”

“Being a parent means a life full of sacrifices, my dear Alice.”

“That – that does not quite answer my question.”

While keeping one hand holding the handkerchief to his nose, her father changed subjects by extending his hand out to Ryouta. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you! You are Ryouta, yes?”

“Ye-yeah,” Ryouta answered, taking a firm grip of the man’s hand and shaking it. “And you’re… William, right?”

“Please, I told you to call me Will! There is no need to be so formal with me,” said the man who had a twirled mustache while wearing a suit that looked like it cost more than most people’s homes with several women behind him who seemed suspiciously like secret service members dressed in plain clothes.

And one of those suspicious people looked like they were about to cry.

As soon as Alice spotted her, she lit up and said, “Ah! Rachel! He brought you!”

The woman, Rachel, sniffed and wiped her nose against the back of her arm before another one of women standing by her gave her a pat on the back. With that pat on the back, Rachel broke from the formation of the group to rush up to Alice and hug her.

“Lady Alice! It – it has been so dull without you!” Rachel cried, resting her head against the top of Alice’s chest.

Alice gently stroked her fingers though Rachel’s hair. “There, there. I am sure that my absence has given you and the others plenty of time to pick up all sorts of hobbies now that you no longer have to take care of me!”

The other women all awkwardly looked away upon hearing that as Rachel cried even harder.

“You… you have been managing without me around, yes?” Alice asked.

One of the women began to whistle as another scratched her cheek.

“Ah,” William said, “I must admit, they have been rather… lethargic since your departure for the States. I suppose I am simply too low maintenance for their tastes!”

Alice simply couldn’t understand that. “But I am even less maintenance than you!”

“Hmm… perhaps. However, the maintenance we require is different. I am content with them doing the bare minimum to keep the manor from being covered in dust. With you, they got to help you cook, teach you how to do things around the manor, help you with your hair and costumes – they had fun with your maintenance. There is nothing fun about washing my briefs, surely!”

“Father… please do not tell me you have gone back to having them wash your clothes for you. At least tell me you spare them from washing your undergarments.”

“But… I despise doing the laundry, Alice…”

“Father! I told you! You should not be making women half of your age wash your underwear for you!”

“It’s horrible, Lady Alice!” Rachel cried. “All we get to do anymore is clean and cook and do his laundry!”

“Father!”

“He-hey,” Cassandra spoke up, “maybe you should… wait to have this conversation in private?”

Upon looking around, Alice and William noticed that they were attracting quite the crowd of stares and glares. Not only were they disturbing what little peace there was in general, but William was being made to sound like he was forcing young women into washing his underwear for him.

“Perhaps… you have a point,” William said before standing up straight and fixing his mustache. “Ahem! My apologies, I forgot to greet you properly! You must be Cassandra,” he said, offering her a handshake as well which she was happy to return.

“It’s… nice to meet you,” Cassandra replied. “I’m guessing that the others are your maids?”

“Correct! I figured it would be best to have them wear casual clothes so as to not attract too much attention to us.”

“Good idea,” Cassandra said. She used a tone that made her sound serious, but she could not have felt more sarcastic if she tried. So far, they did nothing but attract too much attention.

And then there was Serra, still glaring at the lovey-dovey couple who now sat on a bench with their arms wrapped around one another and their lips smacking against the other’s.

It was only when one of the maids grabbed her attention with signing that Serra had her attention pulled away. She had completely forgotten that Alice once brought up that she was taught sign language from one of her maids who was from America, and this must have been her. And, apparently, the maid knew who she was already.

Ryouta was able to just barely understand what was being signed, and what he did understand was… concerning.

The maid’s signing was asking if Serra wanted the lovey-dovey couple to be “eliminated.”

Perhaps even more concerning than the proposition was that it took Serra a few moments to think about it before shaking her head and declining the offer.

The deaf maid then nodded and signed that, so long as Serra remained by Alice’s side, that all of her “services” were available to Serra as well.

Serra nodded to the taller woman before turning to Ryouta and signing that she wanted a maid now.

Less than an hour had passed since coming to a new country for the first time, and the “vacation” was already anything but what Ryouta was expecting.

“Now then!” William spoke up. “Would you like to be taken back to the manor so that you may relax after such a long flight, or would you rather wait here for the others to arrive?”

“Well,” Cassandra said, being the first to reply, “Aza’s flight won’t be arriving until tonight, and Eva is going to be another couple of hours, so… maybe we should go drop our luggage off and relax for a bit?”

“That sounds like a splendid idea, Cassandra!”

And, surely enough, Ryouta cringed upon hearing that word.

Splendid.

He would never be able to forget about Thelmes, that cat-goblin scholar back in Port Tugator, overusing the word during their in-game tests to determine their stats and abilities.

But that aside, once the rest of the group walked toward the exit of the airport lobby, Ryouta whisper to Cassandra, “I don’t know how you can act so natural around him.”

“What’s so weird about it?” Cassandra whispered back.

“That’s Alice’s dad.”

“Yeah. So?”

“I mean… isn’t it normal for a boyfriend to be awkward around his girlfriend’s dad?”

“Good thing I’m not a boyfriend then.”

“Wait, is that really all there is to it?”

“Yeah. You’re just psyching yourself out, so relax. He’s a nice guy. Don’t give in to all those stupid stereotypes about boys being terrified of a girl’s dad. The only dad of ours you have to actually worry about is mine… but I have no interest in ever seeing him again, and I’ll kick him in his dick if he ever looks at you wrong.”

“I – I feel like a swooning maiden from hearing that. Aren’t I supposed to be the one offering to kick guys in their dicks if they look at you wrong?”

“Not when it comes to that bastard. I’ll handle him myself.”

“You’re really, really hot, Cass Cass.”

“Careful if you don’t want a tent.”

“Too late. Why do you think I’m holding my bag in front of me like this?”

Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Of course it would already be too late. You’re as bad as Serra.”

“No, I’m really not. Just look if you want proof.”

Cassandra did, in fact, look. While Ryouta might have been the one holding a bag in front of his crotch to hide a mysterious tent, Serra was the one walking nex to him with a sneaky hand slid between his bag and his crotch. Cassandra couldn’t tell exactly what Serra was doing with that hand of hers, but going by the motion of her arm and where the hand must have been, it was obvious.

Noticing that brought a red color to Cassandra’s cheeks as she nudged Ryouta in the arm with her elbow. “You were just asking me how I’m acting normal around her dad, but you’re doing this!” she whisper-shouted at Ryouta.

“Technically, I’m not the one doing anything. It’s all Serra,” Ryouta explained.

“Don’t be a smartass! You’re the one letting it happen!”

“Did you see how depressed she was the entire flight? She deserves something.”

“What are you going to do once you have to put the bag down?!”

“I have no idea. I’m kind of terrified of that. But being in a relationship means a life full of sacrifice. A great man once said something like that.”

Cassandra sighed before whispering, “You better start thinking of maggots and old people or something.”

“Serra’s hand can overpower even the most disgusting of thoughts.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I know, Cass Cass. I know.”