Book 1: Chapter 7: Patch 2.0: Socializing, Raiding, or Fishing?

Serra stays close behind Fenrir as they walk. He’s worried about hitting her with his tail, so he tries to put some more distance between them, but she always closes the gap. He also catches her staring at it sometimes.

He places himself in her shoes. If he was some normal guy following behind a girl with a dog tail, he would definitely want to try petting it. He would also want to do many other things to her. Many. Other. Things. But since Serra is a girl, or at least pretending to be one, he doubts that she would have such perverse desires.

“Do you want to touch it?” he asks her, stopping in front of her with his head turned back to look at her.

A soft blush spreads across her cheeks as she nods her head. “I know how it feels, so go ahead. I wouldn’t have given myself a tail if the thought of people touching it bothered me. I mean, who doesn’t love petting dogs? Not that I’m a dog or anything,” he looks back ahead of him, “you know what I mean."

Her soft, smaller hands reach out to tentatively stroke his tail. Whereas it was gently swaying before, now it is completely frozen.

It may not feel as good as a headpat or belly rub, but it’s still enough to send shivers up his spine. This pleasurable feeling only grows stronger as her hands run along the length of his tail, gently rubbing it. She even goes so far as to gently nuzzle against it with the side of her face, rubbing his tip against her—

“Alright! I think that’s enough for now,” Fenrir interrupts, excitedly taking himself out of her reach. He’s just happy that she can’t see his face. He is much too red right now.

The rest of the walk has Fenrir making sure that she can’t catch up to his tail.

Reaching where he told his friends to meet up at, he sees Oleander and Bone sitting around a campfire with large slabs of meat stuck inside of it on some sticks.

Oleander is clothed with a few large leaves that seem to have been pasted together somehow. It looks like he’s wearing a short dress made out of leaves, and he's even put a few flowers in his hair. As for Bonekraka, he’s wearing some poor boar’s skin. The boar’s head rests on top of his own, and the rest of its skin hangs down over his back. It looks like some other animal had its fur skinned off to tie around Bonekraka’s waist, but all it really does is hang down and cover his exaggerated green tool. At least they’re somewhat covered up.

Though, Fenrir is curious how Bonekraka was able to skin the animals.

“Fenny!” Oleander is the first to spot Fenrir, shouting out and running up to him. “We’ve been waiting here forever! What took you— oh, who’s she?” he asks, having noticed the girl hiding behind Fenrir. A mischievous grin spreads across his lips. “This is why I can’t leave you alone! I let you out of my sight for just a few minutes and you cheat on me! What does she do for you that I don’t? Is it because I don’t let you ravage my body enough?”

“Hey, stop that before she misunder—” Fenrir tries stopping the teasing boy, but he should know better than to expect that to work.

Oleander makes himself cry and covers his face. “I thought what we had was special! Am I not feminine enough for you? Is it because I always want to be the bottom? I’m sorry for being so selfish!”

Fenrir looks back at Serra. She’s staring up at him with a very, very unimpressed face. Fortunately for Fenrir, she can't keep up the judging expression for long. She breaks and smiles from the amusing Oleander.

Bonekraka grabs Oleander by his antlers and tosses him to the side. Now standing next to Fenrir, she can see just how huge Bonekraka is in comparison. She’s relieved that he’s covered up considering that her eye level is at his crotch. “Who is girl?” he asks.

Fenrir doesn’t know if he should say her name or not. She warned him that she wouldn’t be talking much around them, so if he tells them her name, it would show that she’s talked to him and could make things awkward if she doesn’t talk to them as well. “She found me while I was fishi— I mean, while I was looking for some way to make equipment. I guess I don’t have to feel bad about not making anything for you guys. Looks like you’ve been busy,” Fenrir says, changing the subject.

Seeing the fur and skin Bonekraka is wearing makes him a bit uneasy. Perhaps it’s because of his own canid features that he doesn’t like the idea of somebody wearing dead animals.

“Found boar, turned boar into food and clothes. Looks badass,” Bonekraka explains, a cheesy American accent being used to say badass. He even gives a couple of thumbs-up alongside the accent.

Oleander gets up from where Bonekraka tossed him to, rubbing his head and butt. “Look, Fenny! I want to show off too,” he says, walking to the campfire where a pile of odd-looking plant stems has been gathered. Each of the stems is thick, red, and look fairly durable with few leaves on them. He grabs one of the stems, snaps it in half, and then some thick green liquid drips out of it. A demonstration is performed by him using the liquid to stick together a few leaves to a nearby twig.

Fenrir looks captivated throughout the entire demonstration. “That’s awesome! Where did you find those? It could help us a lot if we gather a bunch of it. Oh, wait,” he looks back to Serra. “Sorry, I haven’t introduced them yet. The big guy here is Bonekraka, and that’s Oleander.”

She gives each of the men a small wave, and they return the gesture.

“We found the boar eating it. I tried it myself, but it’s toothick for me,” Oleander teases. Serra snerks at Oleander’s innuendo, and the boy instantly knows he has a comrade-in-arms for lewd jokes.

Neither Bonekraka nor Fenrir picks up on the perverted bond that was just formed. “I don’t remember seeing anything with stems that red while looking around, so it must be rare. Maybe it’s like truffles and pigs? Pretty hard to find, but they can sense it from a good distance,” Fenrir theorizes.

“You know too much random stuff, Fenny. You must get really bored when neither of us are online.” Bonekraka nods at Oleander’s own theory.

“I can’t deny that, but I won’t admit it either. Anyways, neither of you mind if she tags along with us, right?” Fenrir asks.

Oleander shakes his head. Bonekraka says, “As long as she not like gamer girl, she is fine.”

Serra cringes when she hears the term “gamer girl,” shaking her head to assure the orc that she is anything but. She is well aware of the negative connotations that accompany labeling oneself that.

“Alright! Looks like we’ve got ourselves a fourth party member. So, now what?” Fenrir asks. “I got my cravings out of my system, so what do you guys want to do when you’re done cooking?”

Bonekraka and Oleander both look confused when he mentions cooking. They look at each other. They look at the fire. In a panic, they each rush to the fire to pull their meat out of it.

“Aww, it’s burnt! Why didn’t you remind us sooner, Fenny?” Oleander asks.

Bonekraka tries taking a bite out of the charred meat while flipping Fenrir off with his free hand, and when he accidentally burns his mouth from it, he drops the meat which causes him to flip Fenrir off with both hands.

“Hey, it’s not my fault you two got distracted! Pay better attention next time. Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to leave the kitchen unattended when you’re cooking?” Fenrir scolds them.

They look into the fire with shame. It’s their fault, but they don’t want to have to admit it.

Fenrir jumps with perked ears when he feels something touch his tail. He spins around to see Serra with both of her hands behind her back and looking to the side.

He’s beginning to believe that she may not be as innocent as he thinks she is.

The time waiting for Bonekraka and Oleander to finish their food is spent with Fenrir sharpening his spear using that jagged rock he’s still keeping with him. It may just be some random rock that he found in the forest, but it’s his random rock. Though, he isn’t sure how effective the sharpening actually is. The spearhead is definitely getting more jagged, but is that a good thing? He’ll need to watch and read random things about stone-tipped spears after he wakes.

Serra sits next to him and watches what he’s doing. He can’t help but feel that she’s being suspiciously clingy given how long they’ve known each other for. The last time a girl was this clingy to him right from the start, she ended up gaining his trust, being given an officer position in the guild he ran in one of the older games he played, and then completely cleaned out the guild bank of all its materials and money.

His guildmembers were not happy about that.

They were even unhappier when it happened again no more than two months later.

“Do you want me to try and get you a weapon?” Fenrir asks her.

Serra looks over at his friends and sees that they’re preoccupied with eating and talking. They shouldn’t be able to hear her. “I don’t know. I’m not… really used to playing games like this,” she explains.

“Don’t worry. We’ll find something fun for you to do. You kind of give me a magic user vibe, so maybe something like that?”

Serra shrugs. “Watching you fish was – it was fun. Do I have to fight?”

“Nope. You can do whatever you want in this game, including just living a second life without any of the fighting. It might be hard to avoid sometimes, but I’ll be here to protect you if it ever comes to that.”

…

What did he just say? No, he didn’t just say something so cheesy and overly romantic to a girl that he barely knows. She’s potentially a five-hundred-pound man in his mother’s basement wearing a diaper! Stop! What if she—

“I’ll hold you to that.”

His heart isn’t going to be able to take much more of her.