303 Vol. 5 pt. 11 (2/2)
”You're getting a bit faster, and I've noticed you trying to predict my attacks and dodging sooner, so I would say it is,” Fenrir says. ”But, let's switch things up.”
Serra lets out a relieved sigh and sheathes the sword. ”What now?”
”Exercise.”
Serra looks up at him and tilts her head.
”If you want to carry a portable cannon and swing it around, you're going to have to be pretty damn strong. That means you need to exercise more.” He looks at Rock. ”Pick her up.”
Serra and Rock look at each other and tilt their heads in opposite directions.
”Pick her up?” Serra asks.
”Yeah. She's the closest thing we have to a heavy weight to lift unless you want to walk around looking for a big enough boulder to lift.”
Serra and Rock both look at Fenrir.
”It's not nice to call a girl a heavy weight,” Serra tells Fenrir.
Rock barks in agreement but her tail is still wagging anyways.
”That doesn't matter. You still—”
Shogun's barking interrupts them.
Rock instinctively runs to Shogun's side and starts barking in the same direction that he's barking in, but neither Serra nor Fenrir see anything when they look at where they're looking.
Though, Fenrir has discovered something odd.
The wolf part of him is half-tempted to bark as well. Though, it only comes out as a stern glare at the nothingness that Rock and Shogun are staring at.
”What's wrong?” Serra asks.
”Don't know. Maybe something spooked him,” Fenrir answers.
Shogun shakes his head and barks even louder.
”It's kind of scary when animals stare and bark at things you can't see,” Serra says, ”but in an exciting way.”
”You're going to become like Nell if you associate being scared with excitement.”
”The world needs more Nell Nells.”
”You're – wait.”
”What?”
”I saw something.”
”Really?”
”Yeah. It was only in the corner of my eye, but I definitely saw something.”
Fenrir steps forward to place himself between what he saw and Serra.
Rock and Shogun have gone silent and are constantly looking in different directions to watch their surroundings.
”Be ready for anything,” Fenrir tells Serra.
”Like sex?”
”Not that.”
”Then it's not really anything, and that makes it boring.”
”Not even an ocean could quench your thirst.”
”Probably.”
Fenrir takes a deep breath and tries to relax his nerves.
”I have a feeling we're being watched,” he says, ”but I have no idea where from.”
”Where'd you see the thing?”
”It went behind that boulder up on the cliff, but it's got a ton of cover. It's likely moved from there by now.”
”If only I had a cannon to shoot.”
”Yeah, a ranged attack would make me feel a lot better right… wait. Hey!” he shouts at the sleeping party members in the back of the wagon. ”We might be under attack!”
The avatars of Nell, Cassiel, Rao, and Azalabulia get up and form a defensive position around the wagon. Their movements might look natural as they flawlessly copy the owners of the avatars, but each one of them is being temporarily controlled by the overseer and that's obvious going by the hazy look in their eyes.
”I forgot about that,” Serra says.
”Yeah. It's one of the best parts of this game even though we never need to use it – well, until now. But anyways, trust me when I say that having a base attacked while everybody is offline really sucks. At least this way, avatars can fight back even if it's not as effectively as if the actual players were here.”
”Does this mean my avatar can do lewd things to yours while we're offline?”
”I – I don't think so.”
”Boo.”
”Anyways… hey, Azalabulia, fire a spell up at that boulder. Try to make the blast go off in front of it so it blasts the debris away from us.”
Azalabulia's avatar steps in front of the group, raises her staff at the boulder, and fires a draconic blast of energy straight at it.
The blast explodes directly in front of the boulder and sends chunks of it and the surrounding ground flying in every direction, including straight down toward the party. None of the debris hits them, thankfully, but Fenrir has learned that trying to control where a magic explosions sends debris is much more difficult than he thought it would be.
”Agh! Watch where you're firing that thing!” a girl's voice shouts from higher up on the cliff. ”You scared the specimen away!”
Fenrir and Serra look at each other as Rock and Shogun go back to barking.
”Did you hear that?” Fenrir asks.
”Yeah,” Serra answers.
”Gah! I finally found one, too! Do you have any idea how long it took me to find one?! They only come out on full moons when it's not humid or windy and when they're looking for a mate which is only once every few months! So much time spent, only to finally find one, and then have it scared away before my eyes… and you put a hole in my bug net! Agh! Dang it!” the voice rants.
”Maybe we shouldn't have had an AI-controlled Azalabulia randomly blow up a part of the mountain,” Fenrir tells Serra.
”I kinda feel bad. She sounds really upset,” Serra replies.
”Yeah… maybe we should apologize?”
”Why we? You ordered it. I'm just standing here.”
”You're my girlfriend. You're supposed to stand by my side through times like this.”
”You're on your own.”
Fenrir sighs and slumps his shoulders.
”Let's just hope that she's not so upset that she wants to kill us or anything,” he says.
”Good luck.”
With a wish of good luck, Fenrir looks up at where the voice is still coming from. Though, the only noises coming from the voice are those of frustration and whining now.
”Hey! Uh, sorry about that,” he shouts. ”We thought you might have been dangerous and spying on us or something.”
”Why the heck would I be watching some random people?! I didn't even know you were there!” the girl shouts back.
”You didn't hear the barking or anything?”
”I just thought a couple of animals were in heat or something!”
”Well, uh, sorry anyways.”
”You could apologize for a million years and it wouldn't make up for what you've done!”
”Is it really that big of a deal? Can't you just look for it another time and hope you get lucky?”
”Look for it another time? Hope I get lucky? Do you have any idea how many weeks I've been hunting for this specimen to research?!” she shouts, sticking out from behind another boulder on the side of the mountain. It is too dark for them to see anything more than her silhouette, but what they can see of her silhouette tells them that she's got a couple of horns and a wide pair of wings angrily flapping behind her. ”I'm never going to get my promotion if I can't bring one back! Do you know how long I've been stuck here looking for these things? Weeks! Weeks! And just when I finally thought I could get out of here and go back to my lab, you did this to me!”
”She's really talkative,” Serra comments.
”I wonder if Azawaza scolds her students in the same way,” Fenrir says.
”Trismy is never going to trust me to run my own branch if I can't even capture one stupid insect!” the girl continues whining. ”Do you know how many new scholars have been promoted faster than me?!”
Hearing that word, ”scholars,” sends shivers up Fenrir's spine.
”I think this is bad,” Fenrir says. ”I – I think we found another one of those crazy people.”
”Like the goblin things?” Serra asks.
”Yeah. I can't think of any other scholars in this game.”
”They were fun.”
”They didn't make you do a bunch of experiments with fish.”
”But they were nice.”
”Sure, but you can be nice and insane.”
”What do you even have worth protecting that you thought it would be smart to almost blow me up?!” the girl shouts more.
”Our lives?” Fenrir shouts back.
”Insignificant! The pursuit of knowledge always takes precedence!”
”You mean the pursuit of bugs?”
”It's not a bug! It's an insect! There's a difference!” she continues shouting while flying out from behind the boulder, slowly coming down toward Fenrir and the group.
”Alright, alright. The pursuit of insects is more important than our lives. Got it.”
”Do you really?! I don't think you really do understand! You don't – what's that?” she asks, her voice instantly changing from angry to curious.
”What's what?”
Before Fenrir gets an answer, the girl propels herself at full speed straight towards him. Only, rather than attack him, she drops onto her knees in front of him and examines his rod, Rod.
”This flashing gem… is this an Etaíros gem?!” she asks, looking up at Fenrir with her excited, heterochromia eyes. Her right eye may be bright white while her left is a deep red, but each eye has a slitted, black pupil.
”Please be careful with those. I have a bad experience with pointy horns,” he says as her long, sharp, ivory horns come dangerously close to stabbing him in his abdomen.
Just as she has one white eye and one red eye, her ivory horns contrast against her crimson hair.
”Oh, sorry,” she says, leaning in even more which brings her face closer to his waist as she makes sure to keep her head straight. She may have just been shouting and angry with him, but now she's making sure to keep her horns from pointing at him.
”Anyways, yeah. I think that's what it was called before, but I haven't heard that name in a while.”
”What kind of weapon does it turn into? Has it gained a mobile form? Does it talk yet? Can it shift during combat?”
Fenrir takes Rod off of his belt again and brings out Rod's ultimate form.
”A fishing rod?”
”Yep. That's why I've named him Rod.”
”Ooh! So, a fishing rod named Rod and you know that he's a he?”
”Yeah. Can't really do all that other stuff yet, but we talk by having him flash the gem. One pulse for yes, two pulses for no.”
Rod pulses once.
”I see, I see! Can I ask you questions?” she asks.
”Su—”
”I'm talking to Rod.”
Rod pulses twice.
”Aww, why not?” she asks.
Fenrir collapses Rod back into travel mode and places him back on his belt.
”We don't even know who you are,” Fenrir says.
”I'm the one whose life you ruined!” she pouts, now standing up and poking her finger against his chest.
”I didn't ruin your life. I only scared one bu—insect, and I'm sure you'll be able to find it again.”
Meanwhile, the party members who aren't immersed have all gone back to sleeping on the back of the wagon.
”You're lucky I don't light you on fire,” she says.
”Fire magic?”
”Magic? Hah! I am all natural, thank you very much!”
She looks to the side, opens her mouth, and shoots out a stream of flame that lights up their surroundings.
”Oh,” Fenrir says.
”I wanna do that,” Serra says, poking out from behind Fenrir.
Serra's words cause the strange girl to excitedly turn to face her with glimmering eyes. ”Right?!” she says, grabbing Serra's hands and holding them between her own. ”Natural powers are the best! I can breathe fire, I can fly, I can stab people with my horns, I can whip them with my tail, I can nullify magic by transforming my arms, I can cover my skin in hard scales, I can control blood with my left eye and shoot holy rays with my right eye, and—”
”None of that sounds natural at all,” Fenrir interrupts.
”It all totally is!”
”It sounds like a ton of magic.”
”It's not magic if it's part of my body's functions!”
”How can your body do all of that?”
”Easy! You just combine a bunch of different body parts.”
”That doesn't sound very easy.”
”It is once you learn this world's secrets! I'm on a quest to not only start my own branch after I find that specimen that somebody scared away, but to combine as many different abilities as possible into one body! That's why I have this wing from a gryphon and one from a thunderbird! My tail is from a basilisk, my horns are from a dragon, the scales on the backs of my wrists are from a land shark, and my legs are from goats!”
”Goats?”
”Yeah. I thought it'd be good to have goat legs since I'd be spending so much time in mountains.”
Fenrir looks down and confirms that she does, in fact, have goat legs from the knees down.
”So… you're turning your body into one giant hybrid?”
”You've got it!”
”What about your eyes?”
”Vampire,” she points at her left eye, ”and angel,” she points at her right.
Every single explanation is given with a proud smile accompanying it.
”Well, I've learned that there are a whole bunch of things in this world now that I didn't know about before,” Fenrir says.
”Right, right! I want to become as much of a hybrid as possible so that I can use the natural powers of a bunch of different races! Like a blue mage but with my body instead of magic!”
”And how does finding a bug help you with that?”
”Insect! Not a bug! And, because. Trismy said he'd—oh, wait, that's secret.”
”You can't just tell me that something is a secret and then not expect me to be curious.”
A sly smile crawls onto her face as she looks up into Fenrir's eyes.
”Wellll… if you want to know, I might let you know if you help me capture my target,” she says, her thick, serpentine tail sliding from side to side on the ground behind her.
Fenrir sighs and says, ”Sorry. I would, but we've got something else we need to be doing right now.”
”Like?”
”Finding dragons to befriend.”
”Oh. Huh. Just go up—I mean… if you help me find that insect, I might be able to point you to some friendly dragons!”
”You're really obvious when you're trying to manipulate people.”
”I – I am doing no such thing.”
After a sigh, he says, ”Alright. Because I feel guilty about messing your bug hun—”
”Insect.”
”—insect hunt up, I'll help you out if you promise that you'll help us find some dragons.”
”Deal! By the way, what's your name?”
”Fenrir, and this is Serra,” he says and Serra nods.
”Hi,” Serra says.
”Nice to meet you!” the girl tells Serra. ”I'm Eva, apprentice scholar of the Hermetic Scholars!”
Fenrir can't help but to groan upon hearing the name of that organization again.
”Hm? What's with that reaction?” Eva asks.
”Do you know a goblin-cat-thing by the name of Thelmes by any chance?”
”Oh! Thelmy! Yeah, I've seen him at the great library before. We worked together a few times before he got assigned to Port Tugator.”
Fenrir was not scared of Eva before, but he is now.
”Anyways… so how big is this insect that we're looking for?” he asks.
”About this big,” she answers, holding her fingers up with barely any space between them.
”And… what color is it?”
”Grey.”
”So, I'm looking for a tiny, grey insect at night on a mountain covered in grey rocks with millions of places for it to hide?”
”Are you beginning to understand why I was so angry?”
”Yeah. Sorry.”
”By the way, no matter who finds it, all credit goes to me.”