306 Vol. 5 pt. 14 (1/2)

After messaging Azalabulia and Rao over Fiscord, taking a quick bath with Alice, and then getting a snack to eat since he was hungry, Ryouta finally finds himself immersing back into Fantasy Tales Online after almost being tempted into another round of distracting fun with Alice.

He starts wishing that he would have given into his temptations as soon as he gets up and looks around.

The only one not looking disappointed in him right now is Nell since she has also just gotten back in-game.

”I thought you'd be quick,” Cassiel says.

”You said you'd be quick,” Serra says.

”Right? We've been waiting for you to get back for a while,” Eva says just as naturally as his girlfriends. ”Did you forget the whole time dilation thing?”

”I didn't forget,” Fenrir answers. ”I just got distracted.”

”My goodness, my hero. Am I only a distraction to you? Do you not see me and my needs as anything more than a simple distraction to pass the time on?” Nell asks with her usual dramatic flair.

”Were you doing lewd things without me?” Serra asks.

”Well, we did require a shower once we were done doing what we were doing if that answers your question.”

Serra looks at Fenrir and pouts.

”Hey, don't pout at me. Cass and Nell were doing things on their own while we were in here,” he says.

Cassiel and Nell both blush, but Nell smiles whereas Cassiel glares.

”Y-you don't have to tell everybody that!” Cassiel shouts.

Given that Rao and Eva are both present and listening in, Fenrir realizes that he probably made a mistake by calling Cassiel and Nell out like that. Though, he doubts that neither Rao nor Eva care since Rao is looking away and acting like he's not actually listening, and Eva just doesn't seem to care as she is much more interested in Nell's monstrous features.

”Sorry,” Fenrir says.

”And you took forever! Do you know how long we've been waiting?” Cassiel asks.

”Ah, that is partially my fault,” Nell admits. ”Please, do not only punish him for that when I am just as guilty.”

”You could've… you could've invited me to join at least.”

”And me,” Serra says, looking the most annoyed out of everybody.

”Apologies,” Nell says. ”I wished to selfishly enjoy him. I will make sure that everybody is involved the next time!”

While Nell's words seem to cheer up Serra and Cassiel, Azalabulia looks away with a bit of a sad expression showing on her face.

She is still the only member of their relationship not living together with them, and they have never even met her in reality yet.

So, as much as Fenrir just learned not to bring up their private lives when around others not in their relationship, he goes for it in an attempt to cheer her up.

”We'll fly Azawaza down for it next time,” he says. ”Then we can all enjoy each other.”

Azalabulia turns her head back to look at him with reddened cheeks as Nell says, ”That sounds wonderful! Aza, please do let us know when you will have enough time off for a visit that may extend to a few days. All costs will be covered, so all you need to worry about is the time off!”

”A-ah… we – we'll see,” Azalabulia replies.

”Is it always this lovey-dovey?” Eva asks Rao.

”Yeah… you get used to it,” Rao answers.

Now, everybody who is present and dating feels a bit flustered for one reason or another except for Nell who is happy to have her love life in the public.

”Anyways, let's get going,” Fenrir says.

With that, the group loads up into the wagon save for Eva who has decided that she will lead it from the front.

”Are you sure?” Fenrir asks her.

”Hm? Yeah. Flying is fun. Sitting is boring,” Eva answers.

He turns to look at Nell. Despite her also having fin-wings, she doesn't fly often at all.

As if able to read his mind and tell what he is thinking, Nell explains, ”As much as I may enjoy my abilities in this world, I am still much more used to sitting.”

”Hm. Maybe my swimming is why I like flying so much,” Eva says.

”Do you have much experience with swimming?” Nell asks Eva now that the wagon has started on its journey toward the secret passage Eva knows of.

”Yeah. I used to be on the track team, then I was on the swimming team, then I got really into ice skating. Paragliding and skydiving were probably my favorites, but flying in this world feels more like swimming than those.”

”My, you have had quite the experiences! I have always been interested in going skydiving myself. Unfortunately, I never was quite able to overcome the fear of it. As tragic as it is to imagine my parachute not working and falling to the ground, thinking of my loved ones and having my life flash before my eyes as they watch on from the distance, I would rather not actually die.”

”Theoretically, depending on how you land, you could survive any fall. Once you hit terminal velocity, it doesn't really matter how far you're falling. Did you know that the longest fall that anybody has ever survived was over thirty thousand feet? Though, some believe that the story isn't true and that the plane was actually flying lower than the reported height. Either way, people have survived falls from thousands of feet in the sky before. All you have to do is land right and you'll live. You're probably more likely to survive falling out of a plane without a parachute than going down and crashing in one depending on how fast it's going and what angle it crashes into the ground at. Yeah, in either case, it really comes down to the landing. But, a crashing plane has a ton of debris and dangerous objects, fire, explosions… yeah, I would probably jump out of the plane myself if I knew that a plane was going to have a disastrous landing. I would make sure to land on my feet first, then my knees, then my hips, and finally my shoulder or something like that. The force of the impact would get split up that way instead of like, getting turned into jelly if you land horizontally.”

”Ah, that would be wonderful! To survive such a deadly fall after coming to accept that death was hastily approaching, only to survive and be placed in a coma with broken bones throughout your body while your loved ones look on at you with no idea whether you will ever awaken or not… that is just so, so wonderfully tragic.”

”You should try it sometime in this world. One of the first things I did after getting my wings was fly up as high as possible until I physically wasn't able to go any higher, and then I pulled my wings in close, made myself upside down, and then dived! It was really exciting to fall for that long and then I didn't even feel any pain when I smacked into the ground. One of the other scholars who was there watching had the gore stuff enabled and told me that they were finding body chunks everywhere. Every time they thought there was no way they'd find a chunk of my previous life's body as far out as they went, they found one. It was hilarious.”

”I must admit that I am not too much of one for gruesome gore such as that. I prefer the gore to happen while I am still alive rather than as a result of my death. After all, if I am dead, I will not be able to enjoy the tragedy of it!”

”Oh, so you're more of a masochist?”

Nell nods with a smile.

”Hm. In that case, let's see… well, from what I understand, you're already in a relationship so I doubt that you or the others would approve of you going down to that faction at the edge of the world where they're a bunch of deviants into the really messed up stuff. All of the world's worst people end up going down there. It's all ****, torture, gore – then again, they all go there knowing to expect that, so I guess they're having consensual fun in their own way. It's not like the virtual assistants would actually let anything like that happen to you unless you opt into it and are enjoying it. Uh, what else since they're out of the option… you could maybe dip your legs into lava? There's this one swampy place in these mountains which has a bunch of giant leeches which cause extreme pain, uh… hmm. Mental pain or physical pain?”

”A mixture of both, please.”

”I haven't experienced it myself, but there's this one dungeon in the Scholars' records that I was reading about. It's like this really intense horror-themed dungeon with a bunch of eldritch abominations in it. One of them has tentacles to crack your limbs while its magic tortures your mind. It's supposedly a really intense experience. Even the biggest masochists, supposedly, won't go in there with their pain settings above ten percent.”

”A-ah. I see. That… that does sound a bit too intense for me.”

”Oooh, I've got you. So, you're somebody who's more into imagining it and thinking about it instead of actually experiencing it? And, when you do experience it, you don't actually want it that rough?”

”Sadly, as much as I wish I could enjoy going through such extreme punishments, I do not think I would be able to handle it. I am much more gentle than I would like to admit when it comes to my realistic preferences.”

”Hm. Nothing wrong with that. I'm kind of the same. Like, sure, I have fun experimenting with things that usually result in me dying, but that's only because I know for a fact that none of it is real. I'm super careful in real life. Even then, I wouldn't go to that place with all the 'evil' players that I mentioned and I wouldn't dip my legs into lava again.”

”Perhaps I am a little bit curious about my legs with lava. One of the most memorable scenes I have ever seen in a movie is when a grandmother pushed a rowboat through – I believe the water was either acidic or extremely hot, and she died as a result of pushing the rest of her family to safety through the water.”

”Oh, I've seen that movie. I love the classics like that. How do you feel about war movies?”

”Unfortunately, I cannot quite handle watching war movies. I get far too emotionally invested in them and know that I will be crying for a week whenever I recall any heroic deaths that happened in them. There is no greater way to die than for your country.”

”You sound like you'd make a great queen roleplayer.”

Nell smiles and says, ”Then perhaps I must rule a country in this world! I must admit that it does sound like it would be entertaining.”

”It's not that hard, really. All you have to do is build a small settlement and then AI will start traveling and moving in. Then they'll help you build it up to be even bigger, causing more AI to move in, attracting players, attracting even more AI… almost anybody can. That's why there are so many smaller kingdoms and cities inside of the Empire's territory. There are probably a few thousand different kings and queens there who all report to the Empress. The only real problem with setting up a town or city or kingdom or whatever is that you'll like, uhh, what was I going to say… oh, right. You have to be able to defend it or else you'll get conquered. It's pretty easy in the mountains and along this coast, though, since none of the major factions care about this region. Too bad those dwarves can't get over here. They would love these mountains.”

”What is preventing them from getting over here?” Nell asks.

”All those dwarf roleplayers are, of course, at war with the elf roleplayers. The elves basically control the surrounding ocean over on their continent, so the dwarves can't send anybody to settle these mountains since they get immediately caught every time they try leaving the mountains they already live in. If they were to settle even a single settlement in these mountains, though, then they would probably become the most powerful and largest faction in the game. There is so much prime real estate over here for dwarves – or, well, for anybody who wants to dig all day and never see the sun.”

”Ah, right, silly me! I should have known that already for how long I spent over there. I never did get to meet any members of the Conquerors of the Deep.”

”Psst,” Cassiel whispers to Fenrir, ”did they just go from talking about fetishes and torture and all that to politics?”

”Yeah. I don't know what I'm supposed to think of this,” Fenrir whispers back. ”They seem to really be getting along with each other, at least.”

”I have a feeling that they're going to talk forever if we don't do something.”

”Eh. Is it really bad if they do? They're having fun. We might as well let them enjoy the conversation.”

”I mean… I guess it's not bad. I just feel like a third wheel.”

”Don't worry. The rest of us are third wheels, too.”

”Hey… I know this is random, but have you ever seen those cars with two wheels in the back and one in front?”

”Yeah, why?”

”I think they're kind of cool.”

”You're cute.”

”Wh-what's cute about that?”

”Just the fact that you'd randomly whisper to me the fact that you think three-wheeled cars are cute.”

”Shush… there's nothing cute about that.”

”Just take the compliment, my cute girlfriend.”

”Hm-hmph.”

”Here!” Eva announces. ”This is the tunnel. All we have to do is go straight through it and we'll reach the dragons.”

Everybody else looks up at where Eva is looking and… see nothing but the wall of a cliff. There is no tunnel. Only rock.

”Are you sure?” Fenrir asks her.

”Of course! Watch.”

With that, Eva flies straight toward the wall and passes right through it.

She then turns around to pop only her head out of it so she looks like a floating head.

”You coming?” she asks.

”I think it might be hard to get our horses to actually go through the wall,” Fenrir says.

”Just pull them in. They'll stop caring once they realize it's okay.”

”I'll help,” Rao says.

Fenrir and Rao jump off of the wagon and grab the horses by their reigns to pull them toward the hidden entrance.

Naturally, the horses start kicking up dirt and trying to resist as soon as they get close to the wall, but they stop resisting as soon as their heads actually pass through the wall. The rest of their bodies come in without any struggle.

The tunnel itself is beautifully lit for being inside of a mountain without any exposure to outside light sources.

Softly-glowing gems belonging to every color of the rainbow line the walls of the tunnel, giving the path clear illumination as far as the eye can see. In this case, they can see very far as the tunnel has no clear end in sight.

”How long is it going to take to get there through here?” Fenrir asks.

”A few hours. It's a really long tunnel,” Eva answers. ”Which means that there will be plenty of time for you to answer all of my questions! That was the deal, remember?”

”I know. You can start asking me questions as soon as you can stop yourself from talking about painful things and politics.”

”Hmm. You're right, but politics are so fun to talk about. Well, fantasy ones. I have a strict rule of never talking about real-world politics with people over the internet since that's one of the easiest ways to inevitably get into a bunch of annoying drama. Like, if you so much as even subtly imply that you might have a belief, you better be prepared to get everybody piling up on you shouting at you for how wrong and stupid you are. Ugh, it's so annoying. I remember reading this one post online from a couple decades ago where people were saying that it was only their generation doing that and that the next generations probably wouldn't bicker back and forth so much or something like that, but nope. Arguing over politics is never going to end for as long as humanity exists. This is why sometimes I vote that we should just nuke ourselves and be done with it. Can't listen to people arguing about politics if we're all dead.”

”What if there's an afterlife and everybody argues there for the rest of time?”

”Then we'll nuke the afterlife.”

”You can't just use nukes to get out of any situation you don't like.”

”How would you know?”