[Vol. 10 pt. 14]

Several days after Eva’s attempt to fall into space and Fenrir finally got to see her again. As soon as Eva told him over Fiscord, he made sure to wait outside the main entrance of Nameless for her. Though, because he couldn’t hold his excitement back, he ended up going out and waiting for her earlier than he needed to.

But it all worked out since Eva, not able to contain her own excitement, traveled extra fast to make it back as early as she could.

As soon as Eva’s flying figure was within sight, Fenrir raised his arms and waved for her.

Eva landed just a few feet in front of him and used all of her momentum to tackle him with a hug. She might have failed to knock him over, but she didn’t fail to wrap her arms around him and bury her face against his chest.

“Hey, you’re pretty hot,” Fenrir said. “Want to be one of my girlfriends?”

“You’re pretty hot, too,” Eva replied. “But what do you mean one of your girlfriends? You already have others?”

“Yeah, but they’re all hot, too. We can have a huge orgy together.”

“Wow. That sounds pretty cool. I’m in.”

“Nice. By the way, part of being my girlfriend means letting me grope you whenever I want.”

“That’s asking for a lot, but I can accept that deal.”

Fenrir and Eva laughed together before just staying quiet for a moment, enjoying one another’s presence and comfort.

“Enjoy your time?” Fenrir asked with his arms still around Eva, giving the side of her head a kiss. “Also, I might have to be selfish and ask that you don’t leave us for that long again. We’ve missed you.”

Eva couldn’t help but to smile a little when she heard that. “No promises, but I’ll try. And don’t you have enough girlfriends to keep you busy whenever I’m not around?”

“Yeah, but none of them are you. I need all of you, not just some of you.”

“You really have grown selfish.”

“I know. But back to the other question, did you have fun?”

“Yeah, I did. A ton. I even got to go into space. Kind of”

Fenrir leaned back to look her right in the eyes. “You what?”

“I went into space.”

“You… went into space.”

“Yep. Went into space.”

“You went. Into space.”

“I did, indeed, venture into the great void that is otherwise known as ‘space.’”

“How does that even work?”

“Well…”

It was starting to get cold for Eva as she ascended ever higher into the atmosphere. Breathing was also becoming incredibly difficult, so she figured she at least had to be in the upper troposphere or lower stratosphere. Fortunately, given her previous experiments that involved underwater environments, she was rather good at holding her breath. But she couldn’t hold it forever, so she made sure to boost her speed by tightly hugging her wings against her back to make herself as aerodynamic as possible. The more aerodynamic she was, the faster she would be, the higher she could go before passing out from lack of oxygen.

Of course, it was entirely possible that she could hit an invisible barrier before that could ever happen. Almost every single game had those. Generally, the only ones that didn’t were games with procedurally generated worlds that were “infinite.”

So, Eva wanted to know what she was going to come across first. Death, an invisible barrier, or a place beyond the world that FTO took place on.

There were plenty of possible outcomes, but she had no idea which one of the many it would be.

Then she remembered something important.

She could be looking around to see what she could see rather than just looking straight up.

Once she did, she was able to see everything from Fraydranth’s springs to GG’s village and even Nameless. The world’s curvature also became increasingly obvious at that point, so she could at least confirm that the world was round.

Of course, some would still refuse it even if they saw it themselves, but there was no point in arguing with those who wanted to deny the curvature of a fictional world.

Then, when Eva looked eastward to look at the ocean, she noticed something that there was no recording of on any of the maps.

A chain of islands.

They were far enough out that they would need to be deliberately searched for since it was incredibly unlikely anybody would go that far out enough to discover them while traveling along the coast, but there was undeniably a chain of islands that shouldn’t have existed.

And that triggered her itch for exploration and discovery.

But back to the matter at hand, as soon as the surrounding sky became more dark than blue, she realized she was entering the upper limits of the atmosphere. She figured she had to be in the mesosphere at that point.

Unfortunately, that was when her adventure into space reached the beginning of its end.

Mystic, blue fire surrounded her and began to burn her away. It was a magical fire that, rather than burned her skin, burned her entire being. Pixel by pixel of her body began to crumble into dust, burned by the blue flames until they no longer existed, and not a single piece of her body was spared from it.

It was incredibly painful.

But not as painful as sitting in lava. That was why, despite the extreme amount of pain that likely would have broken anybody else subjected to it, she had no noticeable reaction to it. Her only reaction to anything was one of curiosity to the source of the flames surrounding her.

“And then what?” Fenrir asked.

“Then I died,” Eva answered.

“Just… like that?”

“Yep. I guess the flames reached my heart or brain or something, and then I died. I was still falling, though, even as it burned me away. That leads me to believe that it may be possible to break out into true space after all. The only real issue is protecting yourself against the flames. Or maybe… if I was still alive until it reached my brain, then what if I turn myself into a giant ball of flesh? I could put my brain, heart, and other important organs all in the center of my ball of flesh. Assuming that the flames have a consistent burning speed, they would take longer to get to the point where they actually kill me, giving me more time to get into space.”

“Couldn’t you just… surround yourself with a lot of protection instead of turn yourself into a giant ball of flesh?”

“Ooh. Good idea. Turn myself into a giant ball of flesh and surround myself with multiple layers of protection. Weight wouldn’t be an issue either since being heavier will just make me fall even faster. Well, to some degree. I’m pretty sure there comes a point where being aerodynamic is better than being heavier.”

“Eva.”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t turn yourself into a giant ball of flesh. I don’t want to hear my girlfriend’s voice coming from that.”

“Can I do it as long as it’s out of your sight?”

“That’s fine.”

“Deal.”

“So, about those islands you mentioned.”

Eva perked up as if she just remembered something important. “Oh, right. The islands.”

Fenrir’s tail was already wagging a little with excitement. “Where were they?”

“Eastward. Like, really eastward. It’ll be farther out than we’ve ever sailed in that direction. But the important thing is that they are technically in charted waters. The serpent we killed—it protected the waters even farther east than where I saw the islands, and the Scholars charted basically every inch of water before that point. So, those islands shouldn’t exist. It is both concerning and exciting. Concerning, because they may potentially be artificial islands of some sort. Or perhaps they are actually the backs of giant monsters floating beneath the surface. Exciting, because… everything I just said, but they might also be new islands generated by the overseer with content that nobody else has ever seen before!”

“Hopefully the latter. But if the edgelords have pseudo submarines in the form of tamed monsters, they might also have monsters large enough to serve as mobile islands. Were you able to see anything on them?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Just looked like trees and sand.”

“Could be a disguise. Camouflage. That’s what I would do. Tame a giant sea monster with a back that can be used like an island, decorate it to make it look like a natural island, then have a secret base in the center of it under the trees. Get some cannons, disguise them among the sand. Things like that. It wouldn’t be convincing up close, probably, but it would be convincing enough from a distance. Though, I doubt that’s what’s going on.”

Eva wore a wide smile and looked at Fenrir with loving eyes as she listened to him talk about his own theories. It was rare for him to ever go into detail about theories in the same way that the Scholars would, but she was always glad to listen to him and encourage him whenever he did. “What’s your reasoning for that?” Also, it was kind of hot to see him reference what he would do if he was still playing games like he used to.

“What would the point be? If you put the islands out in the middle of nowhere where nobody will be suspicious of you, then you could use them to bait and trick curious players. But we know to be suspicious of anything around here, and there aren’t that many players in this region anyways. They might get lucky and trick one crew, and then everybody else would be hunting for them. That’s too much setup for too little gain. I mean, I would still do it, but that’s because I had no life and wanted to fuck with people no matter how petty or insignificant it was. Twenty hours of setup for five minutes of trolling was worth it to me.”

Eva took a break from her internal fangirling for a moment to ask him another question as soon as he gave her an opportunity to. She wasn’t about to let him stop theorizing in front of her. “What about using it as a base of operations to launch attacks from?”

“A forward operating base wouldn’t be worth it. It’s too far from their headquarters, wouldn’t have an easy way to resupply, and is too easy for us to reach. And again, as soon as even one crew goes over there to explore, the lie would be exposed and we would wipe them out. Not to mention that they would need a good force to defend it with. If it is something like that, and they were bold enough to bring it all the way up here, then that means it’s a serious threat that is heavily guarded and staffed with enough people to defend against a major assault, which I doubt they would do. It just wouldn’t be worth the time nor effort. If they were capable of setting up a meaningful FOB up here, then we would be in all out war against them.”

“But, isn’t it possible it could be used as a sort of base for their submarines?”

“Why would they bring it all the way up here? That doesn’t make any sense. We know that their submarine monster things are already capable of reaching up here on their own. There’s no need for them to set up an away base or anything for them up here. And even if they did need a base, they would, if they have any logic in their brains, set it up closer to the halfway point between us and them rather than park it right next to us.”

“Then let me ask you this. Is there any situation you can think of where you would do something like that? Like set up a base or trap or something?”

“As a distraction. If I was in their position and wanted to screw with us, I would set up a bunch of distractions and false flag operations. I would try turning the other members of our alliance against us, or us against them, all while harassing us with tiny distractions here and there to keep us on our toes, never giving us a good chance to relax. We would become paranoid of everything, not know who we could trust, and eventually tear ourselves apart, creating a huge opening to be exploited. That was how I used to do things. We were never the biggest group in games, and we always picked on targets way more powerful than us, so we had to play dirty. We never won with straight up fights, so we would never do something like set up an FOB or anything like that. It wasn’t our style. But, setting up an artificial one just to fuck with people was. Make them think you’re trying to build up a strategic presence in one location while you’re actually somewhere else entirely getting ready to attack.”

“So, do you think they might be doing that?”

“Nope. Maybe I’m just full of myself, but I don’t think they’re anywhere close to getting on my level. They’re too incompetent for that. Not to mention their members aren’t loyal enough. Look at how easy it was to turn Lazarus against them.”

“Isn’t it possible he only agreed to be your spy so that he can give you false information?”

“If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s reading people. Give me five minutes with somebody of perfectly normal conversation and I’ll know exactly what they’re like. Perk of spending so much time getting to know so many different people online. People aren’t as unique as they think. It’s like… everybody is made out of building blocks. Sure, the building blocks might be put in different arrangements, but the building blocks themselves are always the same. People are just collections of personality traits that everybody else has, too.”

Eva crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. “Are you saying I’m not unique? That none of us are unique?”

Fenrir immediately shook his head and waved his arms in front of him. “That’s—that’s not what I’m saying! You’re all unique!”

“Yeah? How? You just said we’re not unique, but now you’re saying we are…”

“I—well, you’re… alright. What makes you who you are isn’t unique and can be identified in countless others, but the total sum of all your different parts is unique. Nobody else has the exact same combination of blocks as you.”

Eva stopped her false pouting and smiled. “I was only teasing you, but I do like that answer.”

Fenrir sighed and poked her forehead. “Teasing me like that isn’t nice. I seriously felt bad.”

“You know, if you’re so good at reading people, why weren’t you able to figure out that I was joking?”

“I—well, because. You’re my girlfriend. I’m not in the same mindset whenever I’m talking to you, the others, or even my close friends, as when I’m talking to people to try and figure out what they’re like. I don’t want to have to analyze everything that you say to try and see if you’re deceiving me, you know? I just take everything that all of you say at a hundred percent face value, because I want you all to be honest with me. I mean, there are exceptions like if you’re clearly being sarcastic or doing some tsundere fanservice or something like that, but—you get what I mean.”

Eva couldn’t help but to smile and lean forward to give him a teasing poke against his own forehead. “So, you let your guard down around your girlfriends and friends, huh?”

“Basically.”

“That’s interesting information to know. That means I could totally be a spy for somebody else, and you’ll never suspect me.”

“Gasp. My own girlfriend betraying me and turning out to be a spy. Oh, the plot twist.”

“I mean, to be fair, I kind of already am. Don’t forget I’m still a member of the Scholars, and we share what we learn with everybody back at the headquarters. They technically know everything about us over here, know exactly how the fight against the serpent went down, who is in charge of where, and so on.”

“Did you… really have to tell them about all of that?”

“I’m your girlfriend first. Member of the Hermetic Scholars second. Citizen of Nameless third. But, don’t worry. I didn’t let them know about your submarine plans or anything like that. I’m not going to spoil any serious secrets.”

Fenrir sighed and shrugged. “Well, I guess that’s fine then. I would just appreciate it if you don’t go and tell them all of our secret plans and strategies.”

“To be fair, even if I did, none of them would ever act on them, nor would they let anybody else know. The big guy in charge is an even better judge of character than you. Nothing slips by him. He can figure out your entire personality just by looking at you. He would never recruit anybody who isn’t able to take even the tiniest secret to the grave. Seriously. We have so much dirt on basically every single important person in this game, secrets of empires—you name it. So, honestly, even if they did know about the submarine, it wouldn’t matter. Everybody knows our reputation and trusts us. Some important figures will even let us know their secret plans just to get some input on them from us to make their plans even better. We are a hundred percent neutral, and proud of it!”

“I still don’t want you telling them about the submarine.”

Eva pouted. It was a real pout this time, too. “Fine, fine. Even though I’m bringing back information that might help you make it even better without their permission, because I’m your loving girlfriend who is willing to help you out with that even though I’m supposed to be neutral.”

“You can let them know about the submarine after we use it. Is that better?”

“It is. Besides, it’s not like a submarine is going to be a big deal to them. You’re not the first one to have made one, though the method you’re using is different. But, I’m not allowed to go into any further detail about that.”

“You know, it’s strangely arousing that you actually know all these secrets and aren’t sharing them. It’s like dating a mysterious spy who always knows more than she lets on.”

“Maybe I should dress up in a tight, red dress and wear a big, floppy, red hat?”

Fenrir looked Eva over. “I’m not sure you’d be able to pull that off.”

“Why not?”

“You’re too cute.”

The comment made Eva both blush and pout. Blush, because—well, she suddenly got called cute by the man she loved. Pout, because she was basically just told that she didn’t look hot enough to pull off a sexy spy lady look. “I mean, you’re not wrong, but you could at least say I would look good like that to boost my ego.”

“You know what you could really pull off and look really hot doing?”

Eva’s curiosity was piqued. “Yeah?”

“A scientist. I want to see you with goggles, a white lab coat, and gloves.”

“That would be hot?”

“Yeah. Super sexy. Even better if you’re holding like, a beaker.”

“Holding a beaker would make it even hotter?”

“Honestly, I’m getting horny just thinking about it.”

Eva looked down at his crotch to confirm.

The bulge confirmed his statement as the truth.

Maybe Eva was too cute to pull off the sexy spy look, but at least she could pull off a sexy scientist look. Or… just a normal scientist look, but be sexy regardless.

That was good enough for her.

“So, a sexy scientist and her test subject?” Eva asked, stepping closer and grabbing onto the top of his shirt to pull him closer. “Or maybe you’re not my subject. You’re my ingredient source. I need to extract a certain amount of… fluid from you. For testing purposes, you see.”

“You are so hot right now,” Fenrir said, his cheeks taking on a hint of lustful red. “I’ll happily donate my body, and its fluids, to science.”

“Too bad I don’t have a beaker.”

“I can imagine one.”

“Then, ready for your contribution to the advancement of human technology?”

“That entire sentence was a hundred times hotter than it had any right to be. Also, yes.”

Ace_Arriande

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