325 Vol. 6 pt. 11 (1/2)
Ryouta becomes Fenrir and Fenrir opens his eyes. While they may have managed to set up some houses in addition to defenses for them to sleep in, he still finds himself preferring the comfort of a hammock on The Shoebill for resting.
And he also finds the one who came to check on him earlier.
Eva stops in her tracks and gives him half a wave before saying, ”Hey, you're finally awake.”
”Damn it, Todd, you've done it again,” Fenrir says while rolling out of his hammock.
”I got that reference!” Eva shouts, once more revealing that dorky side of hers that loves nerd references.
”Nothing like old memes. Well, I guess it makes sense for people to get references from that game. Even if it's a few generations behind us, it's still popular. You know that people are still making mods for it?”
”Yeah, it's crazy. Have you heard the rumor?”
”About the remaster?”
”Yeah. They're supposedly planning on remastering it again for the latest VR tech.”
”I'm pretty sure it's going to be remastered until humanity is extinct.”
”Then they'll start remastering it for robots.”
”You think robots are still going to be around if we aren't?”
”Yeah. They'll take over.”
”I see. How confident are you in this robot rebellion theory? You're smart, so if you say it's going to happen, it must happen.”
”It's definitely going to happen. What matters is if we survive or not. I give us… a thirty-two point three-three, repeating of course, percent chance of survival.”
”Now that's an ancient meme. I didn't take you for a graverobber.”
”Don't make me give you a fifty DKP minus.”
”I'm going to start thinking you're old enough to be my great grandmother if you keep this up.”
”Hey, you're understanding all of these memes, too.”
”That's because I've spent too much time on the internet. I've done a lot of research into older MMOs, too, so I know more than I probably should about MMOs from the start of the century.”
”Huh. My grandma was a huge gamer back in the day. She even has a shirt that says 'The Original Gamer Gurl,' with a U, on it.”
”How old is she?”
”Eighty-four now.”
”Well, shit. She might actually be the original gamer girl then.”
”Heh, I've thought the same. She was actually in one of the world-first clearing guilds even in her forties.”
”She sounds awesome. Does she still game?”
”Oh, yeah. She plays this game, too.”
”Seriously?”
”Yeah, but she stays over on the other continent. I'm not allowed to go into any more detail than that.”
”You just made her sound really suspicious. Is she actually important?”
”No,” Eva says, staring straight at Fenrir and trying way too hard to not look nor sound suspicious at all.
”Alright then. Keep your secrets.”
”Yes! Nobody else gets all these old references!”
”I haven't watched that trilogy since I was a kid. My dad was obsessed with it and said it was the best movie trilogy in all of history that nothing will ever pass up.”
”He wasn't wrong. Even today, nothing compares to it.”
”I might have to rewatch it sometime.”
”We should totally watch it together. I love watching it. Oh, but we'll have to watch the extended edition of the trilogy.”
”There's an extended edition?”
”We are definitely going to watch it together.”
”I mean, I'm not opposed to it. Oh, back to the reference, I remember that line in particular because I used it all the time as a kid. Whenever my parents wouldn't answer one of my questions for whatever reason, I'd tell them with a smile, 'Alright then. Keep your secrets.' Sometimes, it actually got them to answer me.”
”Yeah, being cute is powerful against parents. I studied my parents when I was a kid to see what they thought the cutest behavior was, and then I copied that whenever I wanted something.”
”You… studied your parents?”
”Yeah. Whenever my mom or dad made an 'aww' sound or smiled when looking at kids, I took mental notes of what the kid was doing or saying at the time, and then wrote it down in my diary. I had a whole section dedicated to the analysis of what my parents found adorable in kids.”
”You started researching pretty young.”
”I was only five.”
”Oh. Five is pretty old to start – you were five! What do you mean only five?! Kids normally don't even know how to read or write yet and you were doing scientific research on your parents and writing down the results!”
”Is it that exciting?”
”You're like Nell but with intelligence instead of money.”
”Don't compare me to other girls. Can't you see that I'm just myself?” Eva asks, knocking Fenrir off balance as she leans forward with a subtle pout.
And then…
She smiles. ”Just kidding. I did lots of research on boys when I was a teenager to figure out what they like.”
”Was – was that one of the things that they liked?”
”No. That was how to guilt trip somebody.”
”That's a pretty scary power.”
”Good, I haven't lost my touch. I used to be in drama.”
”I wouldn't have expected that.”
”And band. And chess.”
”What are you? The queen of nerds?”
”Proudly.”
”What was your favorite?”
”Band.”
”So you were a band nerd.”
”Not that bad, but yeah.”
”What instrument?”
”Trumpet. Were you in any clubs?”
”Yeah. I was the leader of the go-home-as-fast-as-possible-to-play-games club.”
”The others in band always made fun of those types.”
”I don't know how to feel about knowing that band club members made fun of us.”
”To be fair, we made fun of everybody. Band is more vicious than most people realize. My friends in band were way more savage than my friends in drama.”
”And your chess friends?”
”We… don't talk about what happened in chess.”
”I bet there were crazy orgies going on.”
”There were, but I wasn't in any of them.”
”Wait, seriously? Or are you just joking?”
”No, there really were orgies. They did lots of drugs, too.”
”You're making it sound like all of the real bad kids were in the nerdiest clubs.”
”I mean, yeah. That's kind of how it works.”
”Next you're going to tell me that anime club was full of football players and snorting drugs off of hookers' stomachs.”
”Nope. They were a bunch of dweebs who just sat around watching anime and arguing about philosophy or what the age of consent should be.”
”You just made them sound even worse than I always thought they'd be.”
”I miss high school. Those were fun days.”
”I'm sure it was for somebody who probably had notebooks full of information on how to manipulate everybody.”
”That makes me sound worse than I was. I never misbehaved outside of club time and only using my research on people who deserved it. Like, I had one friend who was confessed to as a joke. The guy who did it was a major asshole. So, I made myself look good, flirted with him, and got him to send me dick pics. I sent those to everybody I knew, and then they kept on forwarding them around.”
”I'm pretty sure that breaks several laws.”
”Well, he never reported me because I looked ugly most of the time, so he didn't want anybody knowing he sent me those.”
”You looked ugly?”
”Yeah. Braided hair, big glasses, acne, a bit overweight – I'll admit I looked pretty meh as a teen. The power of makeup and push-up bras was enough to trick any boy, though.”
”You really do have scary powers.”
”I don't even need to use those powers anymore. I left the bad looks in my teenage years and, thanks to the power of science, I don't have to deal with acne anymore. Don't even need to use a push-up bra anymore to get the same look.”
Eva leans slightly over again, positioning herself so that her first romantic interest since she was a teenager gets a perfect view of her chest. She has even modified her equipment so that it is just a bit more revealing than before. Surely, this will work on a man who must love women as much as he does. Plus, with three of his four girlfriends all having relatively nice chests, especially Cassiel and Azalabulia, he must like breasts.
”That's great,” Fenrir says. ”I pretty much look the same as I always have, but older, I guess. I still get pimples every now and then, but they're pretty rare. Nell and Cass Cass make sure to pop them whenever I do get one. Turns out that the jokes online about women loving to pop their boyfriends' pimples is extremely accurate.”
Eva takes a step back and stands up straight. Was he really immune to her technique? She even practiced leaning over in front of a mirror to make herself look as attractive as possible without being too obvious! Everything from the arch of her back to the height of her head relative to her shoulders was calculated!
And then it hits her.
Why would he be affected by a girl subtly trying to show off her body when he has multiple girlfriends who probably show off their bodies to him whenever he wants? The chances are that all he has to do is ask to see them without their clothes on and then they'll do it! Not to mention that he lives with three of them! Why get flustered over a virtual avatar's chest when he has more than enough of the real deal in reality?
Eva realizes that she is going to have to come up with an even greater plan if she wants to make any progress. Fenrir has developed too much of a resistance against her techniques before she has even had an opportunity to use them against him!
What's next?
Act like a shy schoolgirl who is useless without him?
No. His girlfriends are likely already needy enough and she doesn't want to seem like she would cause even more trouble.
What about a cheeky and teasing junior type?
It could work, but with how she has already seen Serra tease him, any cheeky teasing that she attempts would likely be weak in comparison to what he is already used to.
Maybe act cold and disinterested to make him pursue her?
No, that brings her back to the original problem of him already having enough girlfriends that he wouldn't feel the need to chase after any more in the first place. If she wants anything to happen, she needs to be the one to make it happen.
What about going after his girlfriends? After all, if she dates him, she would be dating them as well. Wouldn't winning their approval in the first place be something important for her to do before going after him? Though, recalling her conversation with Cassiel, she already has all of their permission to go after him. But that's all she has. What if she tries to seduce him through seducing them?
Wait, if that worked, wouldn't that make him one of those men into his women being with others? Eva does not mind sharing herself with multiple people in a relationship, but she doesn't want to date somebody who she can only seduce through seducing his girlfriends.
She sighs and runs her hands through her hair.
”Something wrong?” Fenrir asks.
”No. I'm fine,” Eva answers. ”But thanks for asking.”
”Well, if you're ever upset by anything, you're more than welcome to come and talk to me about it. Also—”
”Yeah?”
”When's that movie date?”