Book 8: Chapter 10:

If a fishing vacation was the objective of the quest given to Fenrir by Kadi, then that was exactly what Fenrir was going to do. And he did. Just later that day, Fenrir decided to start his little vacation by taking The Shoebill out on the water to get some fishing done. It was just going to be him, Rod, and The Shoebill out on the water with no distractions. No fighting. Pure fishing and nothing more.

Only, just before he was about to set sail, a certain one of his girlfriends immersed into the world and made sure to get on board before Fenrir could leave.

That was why, rather than just fishing on his own out at sea, there was a short girl with white hair sprawled out on her back on the deck behind him.

“I don’t want to be horny anymore. I want to be happy,” Serra said as she lay atop The Shoebill’s deck.

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Fenrir replied while watching his line, standing at the edge of The Shoebill’s deck. “One, you always want to be horny. Two, you’re already happy. I think. You are happy, right? I’m not missing you actually being depressed or anything, am I?

“I’m happy, but you can still say you want to be happy while you’re already happy.”

“That’s a good point. Then what’s up with the horny part?”

“I burned out. Too much lewd. Sex isn’t as fun as it used to be.”

“That sounds like a major problem for you.”

“It’s okay. It’ll go back to normal if I go a couple of days without it.”

“You only need to go a couple of days without it, huh?”

“Yeah. A couple of days of safe-for-work mode. I can do this.”

“I’ll believe in you.”

“I won’t.”

“Come on, have some faith in yourself.”

“But it’s me and we’re talking about not doing lewd things. Even if I need a break, I might not let myself have one.”

“You’re starting to sound like an addict. Are you a nymphomaniac?”

“What if I need an intervention?”

“I was thinking more like therapy.”

“That involves leaving the house. Interventions can be done in the house.”

“Sometimes I forget how lazy you are outside of bed.”

“I can be lewd and not lazy outside of bed.”

“Good point. Alright, sometimes I forget how lazy you are outside of sex in general.”

“I forget, too.”

“By the way, how serious are you about this? The whole sex break thing.”

“Oh. I’m just bored of it. It’ll be more fun if I wait a couple of days. Have to charge my lewd battery since it’s almost empty.”

“Didn’t think it was possible for your battery to run out.”

“I should upgrade to an infinite battery.”

But even though Fenrir wasn’t as alone as he planned on being, he still had more than enough peace and quiet as Serra—for the most part—remained quiet. She was simply happy to be with him and didn’t need to do anything other than enjoy the ocean breeze as she watched the sky darken.

The bad news was that Fenrir didn’t get any bites. Either they were in an area devoid of fish or they all already had full stomachs for the day. Whatever it was, it reminded him of how uneventful fishing was in real life to the point where he almost wanted to wonder if the game was somehow bugged since it never took that long before.

After enjoying the silence together for a while, Serra decided to break it by saying, “Hey.”

“Yeah?” Fenrir replied.

“We should go on a date.”

“Sure. Whenever you want.”

“I mean just the two of us.”

“I figured.”

“You did?”

“Well, it’s what I was hoping you meant.”

“Why?”

“Probably the same reason why you brought it up in the first place. So we can spend time with each other instead of having to split our attention up among everybody. Right?”

Serra nodded with just a tiny bit of red on her otherwise pale cheeks. “I didn’t think you’d feel the same way.”

“Why? Don’t think that I get exhausted sometimes from having to juggle my attention between multiple girlfriends?”

“You’re really good at it. I’m always impressed you haven’t gone crazy and left all of us yet.”

“Pfftt. I wouldn’t ever think of that for even a second. But, I do think it’d be nice to have some one-on-one dates with you. And the others, of course. Have to give everybody a fair turn.”

“Yeah, same. I want to go on private dates with each of them, too.”

“Then we should start doing that. Take turns going on private dates with each other until every possible shipping combo has sailed.”

“Heh. I like looking at it that way. Let all the ships sail.”

Apparently, the conversation was what the fish needed since Fenrir finally got a bite. The bad news was that, after a very unimpressive duel with the fish he hooked… it turned out that he caught not a fish, but a particularly heavy clump of seaweed freely floating.

After that, he decided to reclassify the little adventure as a relaxation cruise rather than name it a fishing trip.

And thanks to having somebody else with him, he coud actually talk about what he had on his mind.

“Yeah. I think I’ll let the players at Spike Port do the interrogating,” Fenrir said, bringing the topic up out of seemingly nowhere. “Olly used to be really good at that sort of thing, but I don’t think he’s interested in doing it anymore, either.” He already explained the gist of things to Serra earlier, but he didn’t let her know about any potential plans yet.

“I’ve heard you talk about how scary Olly can be before, but I’ve never seen him act scary,” Serra replied.

“Oh, he used to be terrifying. He was the kind of guy who would wear a bright, happy smile on his face while doing the worst possible thing that a game would let him do. Sometimes, that was stealing a player’s ship and selling it to a junk trader while the player was forced to watch. Other times, for games that simulated pain, he’d used real torture techniques that he found from researching online. He was always the kind of guy who really didn’t care about anything since it was all virtual. As far as he was concerned, because it was just a game, literally anything was allowed without ever feeling guilty about it. And whenever he felt really sadistic, he’d bring in Bone.”

“I… kind of miss Bone. I know he was mean, and I didn’t know him for long, but… I thought he was my friend.”

A long sigh left Fenrir before he looked up toward the sky. “Yeah, I know. Me and Olly are the same. We miss him, but he hasn’t replied to any of our messages, so that’s done with. This is way longer than any of the previous times we fought and ‘broke up.’ The longest it ever was before was a couple of weeks. Now, it’s almost been a year.”

Serra perked up and sat up when she heard that. “It’s almost our one-year anniversary.”

“Huh. You’re right. Though, with how much time we’ve spent together in-game, we’ve probably spent closer to two actual years together.”

“Game time doesn’t count. We’ve almost spent one real year together. What are we doing for our anniversary?”

“No idea. Anything you want to do in particular?”

Serra pouted and crossed her arms over her chest. “You should be more excited.”

“Sorry. There’s just a lot on my mind right now and I never thought I’d get this far.”

“I can’t be lazy and let you do all the work if you don’t think of something.”

“When you put it that way, it makes me feel like you’re only pouting because it means you’ll have to try thinking of something on your own.”

“Exactly.”

Fenrir turned his head around to stick his tongue out at her. Serra responded by sticking her own tongue out at him in response.

“Now that I think about it, we’re going to have to celebrate a lot of anniversaries since only me, you, and Cass Cass started dating at the same time.”

“What if we put all the anniversaries together?”

“I think that would be too lazy.”

“Probably.” Serra sighed. “Girlfriends are too much trouble.”

“I know the feeling.”

“We should all turn into guys. Then we can be lazy and sit around eating pizza while playing games all day and none of us would care.”

“I feel like we already do that without giving everybody a dick.”

“It’d be more fun if we all had dicks. We could duel like they’re swords. Whoever loses has to do the chores.”

“Then you’d be stuck on chore duty all the time.”

“Why?”

“Well, I was thinking that if you all turned into guys… you know, your uh… chest size would probably determine that size. So, Aza would be the biggest, and you’d be the smallest. That probably wouldn’t go your way in duels.”

“Oh. That makes sense. Well… it’s not the size that matters, it’s how you use it. Right?”

“It’s both. Anybody who says it’s only how you use it is in denial of the truth.”

“Dang. Okay. We’ll stay girls.”

“Thank you. I’d probably lose whatever confidence I have in myself if Aza turned into a guy.”

“She’d be like a horse.”

“No thank you. I doubt anybody would appreciate that.”

“I read a story before about a guy who died after having sex with one.”

“Wait… what?”

“I was bored and looking up what’s the biggest size the body can handle. Horse-sized is too much to handle.”

“Alright. Yeah. We’re definitely not letting Aza turn into a guy. Probably shouldn’t let Cass turn into one, either.”

“I think it’d be kind of hot if my organs wouldn’t get crushed.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be trying not to be horny?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“I think you need a hobby. Other than sex.”

“I’ve… always kinda wanted a hobby, but I don’t know what kind.”

“What about playing an instrument?” That was the first suggestion that came to Fenrir’s mind. “I could imagine you playing an electric guitar. Rocking out on the stage while headbanging.” When he didn’t get a response, he turned to look at her to make sure that she was alright.

That was when he saw her staring straight at him with a blank expression on her face.

“Wh-what?” he asked.

“Think about that suggestion,” Serra said.

“I am. You would be a great—… oh. Right.”

Serra broke her blank expression with a smile as she laughed.

“In my defense, even if learning how to play in real life would be… complicated, you could still learn in a fully immersive VR game.”

“I think I want something that doesn’t involve games. We already spend enough time here.”

“That’s fair. Then uh… what about knitting? Or crochet? You’d get to be kind of lazy with those since all you’d have to do is sit in one spot while doing a repetitive task to make clothes and blankets.”

“Ooh… that might work. I’ve seen pictures of crocheted clothes before and I always thought they were really cute.”

“You could crochet sweaters for everybody.”

“You’re going to ruin the sweaters if you want to do what I bet you’re imagining.”

“It’ll wash out. Probably.”

“Heh. So, how do I learn a hobby?”

“I uh… I don’t know. I’ve never tried before. I guess all you have to do is get the supplies and then watch some tutorials online?”

“Hobbies sound complicated.”

“It’ll be good for you. And me.”

“It would probably be years before I could make a sweater.”

“Sweaters are always worth the wait no matter long the wait might be.”

Serra might not have shared the same love for sweaters that Fenrir had for them, but she was still happy to encourage any fetishes that he did have with a smile and nod. “Oh, weren’t you talking about what to do with the prisoner?”

Fenrir sighed, much preferring the topic of sweaters over that. “Yeah.”

“What happens if he quits his character?”

“Then Ka—the overseer would take over. I think that even if the player never immersed again, if the avatar was interrogated, the overseer would simulate the player and give information just like the player would. Only, it would take less effort to get information out of the avatar if the overseer is controlling it. That’s how things are balanced. Sure, the overseer can control avatars whenever the player isn’t immersed, but they’re not as strong or resistant as they normally would be.”

“Then wouldn’t it be smart to wait until you know a player is offline to interrogate them?”

You’re becoming a little strategist, aren’t you?”

Serra smirked. “I’ve learned from the best.”

“If you think we’re the best now, you should have seen us back in the day. Anyways, in theory, you’d be right. It would be best to wait until a player is offline to interrogate them. But I think the overseer is a bit more nuanced than that. She’d know if players are deliberately trying to take advantage of that despite the player being willing to suffer through the interrogation themselves. In that case, I think she’d make it fair to the player and act just as stubborn as as they would without giving up a bit more easily.”

“So it’s only easier if he gives up?”

“I’d bet on it, anyways. I think the overseer is a lot more involved and nuanced when it comes to that sort of thing than most people think. Normally, context doesn’t really matter in a game. The game has strict systems in place that nobody can do anything about. If you’re not online twenty-four-seven, you’re at the mercy of whoever has no life and purposely exploits your schedule. But not here. Just like how there’s no real system of skills and hard numbers for us to track, I don’t think there’s any strict system regarding how offline avatars are treated. There might be some vague guidelines to give an idea of how it works, but nothing set in stone.” Fenrir gave Serra a chance to think about that while switching his attention to a certain somebody else. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, Kadi.

“There is no need for that. If anything, I am overjoyed here that you have come to know me so well. It makes me want to hold you in my arms and pamper you,” Kadi replied.

Being held and pampered usually sounded pretty nice to Fenrir, but something about it just… sounded empty when it came from Kadi. She sounded more like she wanted to treat him as some sort of toy or pet and less like one of his girlfriends who wanted to make him actually feel appreciated.

Saya, Fenrir thought, you’ll always be the best voice in my head.

“Thanks, onii-wan. But if you’re hoping to get me to say I’ll hold you and pamper you, you’re going to have to try harder,” Saya said.

Even though Saya rejected his intentions, he still felt better from hearing the rejection than he did from hearing Kadi’s offer.

“Oh,” Serra said, “what if somebody makes a bunch of characters and keeps on abandoning them to make new ones to have an army of abandoned characters taken over by the overseer?”

That was something Fenrir had thought about a few times before but never really put much effort into since he was sure the overseer would balance it in some way. So, while he didn’t have any sort of official answer regarding that, he did have his theories. “One, the player on their latest avatar would have to somehow convince all of the previous avatars now turned into NPCs to work with them. Two, the overseer would know what the player’s intention is and probably make it nowhere near as effective as one might think. Though… what I’m curious about is – well, it’s a kind of messed up line of thought to follow.”

“What is it?”

“What if a player creates an avatar, abandons it in a place where it would be trapped, and creates a new character to… well, use your imagination to think of what sort of fucked up things could be done.”

“But wouldn’t the avatars act like the players who made them?”

“When the players are offline and while they still own the avatar, sure, but I think the overseer cares a lot less about that sort of thing once an avatar is abandoned.” Any thoughts, Saya?

“The only thing I can think of that might make you feel better is that everything is technically consensual involving NPCs and abandoned avatars since the overseer is in control of all of them and lets what happens… happens. Technically, every single time an NPC is killed, abused, or subjected to anything else horrible, it’s the overseer who is experiencing it, and she allows all of it to happen.”

But she still likes humans. She must be a pretty extreme masochist in that case. Then again, knowing her… she’s probably proud of players every single time they let out their hedonistic desires no matter how fucked up they might be. Even if she’s the one who has to experience playing the victim of their wants. You know, if anything at this point, I want to get ‘souls’ for Rock and Shogun just so that they’re their own beings instead of… well, controlled by Kadi.

“Can you imagine them trying to play other games where they play as humans? Imagine an AI with the intelligence and personality of a dog in a human body with a shotgun surviving against hordes of zombies.”

Rock with a shotgun. That would be pure chaos. Or wait… even better. Shogun with a shotgun. That would be just as chaotic but the names match better. Oh, and seriously, I’m so tired of undead. Make it survival against dinosaurs or something instead.

Before Saya could say anything else, Serra said, “What’s the point of allowing really bad stuff to even happen?”

“To make the game as realistic as possible,” Fenrir answered.

“But it’s just supposed to be a fun game.”

“And some people find the screwed-up stuff fun. But more importantly, I don’t think it’s supposed to be just a fun game. This world is basically meant to be a second, virtual life just as real as the real world. To a more casual gamer, a lot of things probably seem way too controversial to even bother including. But to those of us who have been playing MMOs for years and years always looking for our perfect dream game that we thought we’d never get… FTO is it. Even if I have zero interest in all of the immoral things the game lets us do, as messed up as it might sound, I think the game is better for including it. I want more options, even if I don’t make use of them, but it also… makes everything else more meaningful.”

“How?”

“Well, you know, it’s like… this might be an extreme example, but imagine two different societies. In one society, every single person is good, everybody helps each other, everybody is nice and respectful, and so on. There’s no crime. No pain. No hurting. Nothing. It’s basically a utopia. In the other society, it’s like ours in the real world. There are good and bad people. There’s charity and there’s crime. There’s pleasure and pain. If you compare the good parts of each society, which feels more meaningful? The one where people try to be their best even when faced with the bad, or the one where everybody is good and there’s no need to worry about anything ever going wrong?”

“They’re equal.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. I don’t think one is better just because bad stuff exists, too.”

“I can understand that, but I feel like society where bad things exist makes the good stuff more meaningful.”

“I don’t like thinking of it like that. That’s like thinking love is more meaningful if you’re going to die eventually, but it’s not as big of a deal if you’re immortal.”

“Well… I can kind of agree with that, too. I mean, when you only have a limited amount of time to do things and choose who to spend your life with, that makes all of your choices more important. If you make the wrong choice, that’s potentially years if not decades of time that you’ve wasted that you’ll never be able to make up for before you die. But if you’re immortal, it’s not that big of a deal because you have all the time in the universe. If you go into a coma for fifty years, that’s half of your life gone that was wasted away doing literally nothing. If you go into a coma for fifty years but you’re immortal, then that’s just fifty years out of trillions.”

“I guess. I agree if it’s like a coma where you lose limited time, but I disagree on love stuff. I think all love is equal.”

“I guess you’re even more of a hopeless romantic than I thought I used to be. But I respect that. I think that love is more important and – well, romantic, if you only have a limited time for it, but I also think it’s pretty great to believe in a love that’s just as powerful even if we’re all immortal.”

“Wouldn’t you love me just as much if we were immortal?”

“Of course I would. I’d be nothing but ecastatic to spend the rest of eternity with you and the others.”

“Then isn’t love just as meaningful?”

“To us, it would be.”

“Does it matter if it isn’t to anybody else?”

“Not really.”

“Then it’s just as meaningful. I made you change your mind.”

“Well… I wouldn’t say that my mind is completely changed.”

Serra pouted and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re being stubborn now.”

“No, no, I swear I’m not just trying to be stubborn,” Fenrir was quick to say. “Alright. Another example. Let’s take a book or movie or something. If the characters are immortal and can never die, wouldn’t you be less invested in their love than if they were normal mortals who only had limited time?”

“No. Love is love no matter what the circumstances of it is. The circumstances might make me more invested in something, but that’s different from the love itself.”

“So, you’re looking purely at the romantic feelings instead of everything else around them.”

“Yeah.”

Fenrir sighed and surrendered. “Alright. You win. If that’s how we’re looking at it, then you’re right.”

“Heh. I always win.”

“You should teach me your powers.”

“It’s the power of being cute. And flat.”

“What does flat have anything to do with it?”

“Boobs are power. In order to have big boobs, you have to put your power into them instead of keeping it for yourself. Because mine are small, that means I put less power into growing them which means I have enough power to always be right.” Serra placed her hands on her hips and nodded to go with her explanation. She was clearly proud of her explanation.

“But Aza has the biggest boobs and she’s the strongest out of all of us.”

“Exception.”

“But Cass and Nell are both bigger and pretty powerful, too.”

“But they’re not always right like I am. Eva is the second smallest and she’s right a lot, too. See?”

“Well, Eva is probably the smartest one out of us, so that makes sense except for when we look at Aza again. She’s powerful, smart, and has huge boobs.”

“Still an exception.”

“I see.”

“I wish I had a dick.”

“Where – where’d that come from?”

“Because I’m thinking about Aza now. Her boobs would be more fun if I had a dick.” Serra focused her eyes on Fenrir’s crotch. “Lucky.”

For once, Fenrir got to feel a sense of smug superiority over Serra. “You jealous?”

“Yes. Give me your dick, and not in the usual way. Take it off and give it to me.”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

“Then this world doesn’t actually let us do whatever we want.”

Serra stuck her tongue out at him, so Fenrir stuck his tongue out right back at her in response.

“Thanks, by the way,” Fenrir said.

“For what?” Serra asked.

“The talk. It was nice getting to talk to you about something just between the two of us.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess that’s possible when I’m trying to not be horny.”

“It’s true. You’re usually too thirsty to have serious discussions.”

“I should work on that. But… then it might not be as nice if I do it all the time. I have to stay horny so you don’t get tired of talking to me.”

“So, in other words, you’re saying that the talks mean more when they’re limited?”

“I – wait. I see what you did there.”

“Come on, Serra. Talking with you is fun no matter what the context is. Talking to you like that every single day would be just as meaningful as talking to you like that once a year.”

Serra furrowed her brows at him. “This is abuse.”

“There’s nothing abusive about me using your own beliefs against you.”

“It’s abusing my brain because I can’t think of how to counter you without sounding like a hypocrite.”

“Hey, if I can sound like a hypocrite by using your logic against you, you can sound like a hypocrite by using my logic against me.”

“Oh. Good point. But I’d rather kiss you.”

“I can accept that.”

With little expression on her face, Serra walked up to Fenrir before standing on the tips of her toes with closed eyes to make reaching her easier for him.

Though, instead of leaning over to kiss her, Fenrir set Rod down and placed his hands under her arms to pick her up and hold her right in front of him so that he could kiss her without having to bend over.

As soon as the kiss was over, Serra opened up eyes and wiggled her arms and legs. “I feel like a baby lion.”

“We can do this even better if that’s how you want to feel,” Fenrir said.

“Let’s do it.”

With a nod, Fenrir set Serra back down on the deck, waited for her to turn around so that her back faced him, and then lifted her right back up. Only, this time, he held her as high into the air as he could.

“Thi-this is too high!” Serra said, sounding just the slightest bit panicked.

“Everything the light touches is our ocean!” Fenrir declared.

Serra was less impressed with that and more worried about the height as she wiggled her arms and legs some more.

More importantly, Fenrir noticed that he ended up giving himself a nice view as he basically held her in a way that put her rear right in front of his face. “Nice ass,” he said.

“Y-y-ou can do whatever you want to it after you put me down!”

“Come on, it’s fine. The water is nice and calm. It’s not like—”

“Fen!”

Serra’s voice sounded more panicked than before – more serious.

Fenrir thought that she just meant to seriously ask to be put down, but it was too late for that. The Shoebill crashed into something that rocked the boat with enough force to knock the unexpecting Fenrir off his feet. Careful not to accidentally drop Serra overboard, he held onto her even as he fell and tried to position her so that she’d fall onto him instead of the hard deck.

That was when something truly incredible happened.

Something happened that he had only ever seen in anime, manga, and hentai.

When Fenrir opened his eyes after the fall, he noticed that his vision was full of white as something soft and warm pressed down against his face.

It was a miracle. A degenerate’s dream come true.

A girl fell onto his face crotch first.

Unfortunately for Fenrir, it didn’t last long as Serra was uncharacteristically quick to remove herself from his face.

“You could have stayed there for a bit longer,” Fenrir said.

“I – I’ll sit on your face later. I saw us hit something!” Serra explained.

“It wasn’t just some random wave?”

Serra shook her head and held out a hand to help Fenrir up.

Once Fenrir was up with Serra’s assistance, he looked around to see what they must have crashed into.

He failed to find anything at first.

It was only when Serra pointed behind them that Fenrir saw what they crashed into, and what they must have went right over.

Barely sticking out of the water was the remainder of what used to serve as a boat’s hull. While that wasn’t too concerning on its own since it always could have been a random sea monster that took the boat down, what concerned Fenrir was that the destroyed hull had clear holes shot through it. It was pretty unlikely that a sea monster destroyed a boat in such a way that it would have looked like cannonballs did it.

While such destruction might have been par for the course in the rest of the virtual world where PvP was commonplace, to find such debris in their little slice of the ocean was far more concerning since it could only mean one thing.

And when Fenrir even more debris floated their way, they saw a ruined flag with Catsville’s emblem on it.

“Damn it,” Fenrir said. “I knew that taking a fishing vacation wasn’t going to be as easy as it sounded.”

“What’s wrong?” Serra asked.

“We need to get back as soon as we can. I think there’s an End Bringers ship somewhere up here.”

“Is that bad?”

“Yeah. It is.”

Serra raised a hand to point past Fenrir. “Is that them?”

Fenrir really didn’t want to turn around and look at what she was pointing at, but he knew that he had to.

And when he did, he saw not a ship, but something more akin to a floating fortress on the back of a whale-like monster with two horns sticking out from its head.

To make matters even worse, the fortress was apparently submersible as it sunk beneath the surface of the water with the whale.

“I take that back. This is really bad,” Fenrir said and gulped. “Serra, get on the cannons. I’m going to turn us around and get us back to coast as fast as possible.”

Serra nodded and got to work loading the cannons. Meanwhile, Fenrir return Rod to his waist and rushed to the wheel to turn The Shoebill around and head for home. If their enemy was on the back of a whale, then all he needed to do was get The Shoebill into water too shallow for the whale to swim in.

But before he could panic too much, a reassuring sensation washed over him as he felt a familiar presence rapidly approaching from underneath the water.

The presence was none other than the guardian who always made sure to stay near wherever The Shoebill went.

And if Fenrir had to place his money on this guardian or a horned whale, the guardian would get his money every single time.

“It doesn’t count as fighting if all I do is steer the boat, right?” Fenrir asked himself as Ilo reared her head out from the water to make herself seen. “Change of plans, Serra. You feel like whale hunting?”

“Hunting giant sea monsters is what a pirate does,” Serra answered.

“Don’t forget about stealing all the loot off of its back.”

“Oh, yeah. That, too. I’m ready to plunder their booty.”

“That’s more like it. Just make sure not to hit Ilo.”

“I never miss,” Serra said, flashing Fenrir a quick thumbs-up.

She came a long way since he first met her, and he couldn’t have been more proud of her.