Chapter 101 - Forget me not (1/2)

Verona started to walk away when Major Valen suddenly stood up.

Major Valen saluted and then said loudly, "Miss Verona! I am Major Eugene Valen! I am an officer for the Alliance Military. Due to my rank and the project I am part of, I am unable by court order to say more. I am not a player; I am what you call a NPC."

Verona stopped and turned around "NPC? How is that possible? You seem so human!"

"I am real; every single NPC you see is a real person. I apologize but I am unable to elaborate more and may have already crossed a line just telling you this."

Verona walked up to Major Valen and put her hand on his cheek. "You should've said exactly that, Gene. I wouldn't have minded that or even that you were self-conscious about your name. You are so confident that seeing it give a little bit is endearing to me."

Verona paused and thought to herself before continuing, "Give me time to consider things. I have been set in my ways for so long that it's hard to change and while I know you didn't lie for selfish reasons, it was still a lie and am not sure I want to start a relationship with that. Don't wait around for me though because that would be unfair for both of us. If I see you one day happily with another woman, I will congratulate her for finding a good man."

Major Valen looked down and nodded.

"Miss Verona… if you wish, I can have you sent back to your own base so we don't have to trouble Corporal Wilhelm anymore."

"Hmm, that's very kind of you Gene. I'm guessing that being an NPC has some advantages!"

Major Valen smiled slightly and shrugged.

"Can we do that later then? I want to chat with some of the girls on Gray's team."

Major Valen nodded again and Verona leaned in and kissed him gently on the cheek.

"Thank you, I will message you later." Verona said sweetly as she walked towards the door and waved to Gray before leaving.

Gray got up and returned to the bar while Major Valen stood their alone. Eventually Major Valen came to his senses and walked over to Gray. Gray patted the stool next to him, pulled out two glasses, and poured each of them a glass of whiskey.

Gray took a sip first, scrunched his nose a little due to the taste and slid the other glass over to Major Valen. Major Valen took a sip and made a face similar to Gray.

"Corporal… this tastes like shit…" Major Valen said sullenly.

"Yeah, it does taste like shit…" Gray replied.

No more words were said as the two men silently drank their whiskey.

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Gray was starting to feel tipsy after just one glass since he normally never drinks, but Major Valen seemed fine even after his fourth.

"I'll go back ahead of you sir… and I'm sorry…"

Major Valen nodded and took the bottle of whiskey from Gray, poured himself another glass, and downed most of it quickly.

"I better get back to work as well…" Major Valen put his glass down after a final gulp and left behind Gray.

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Gray looked back at the rec room and felt that it could be used for so much more since only 12 people on the base could use it aside from some of the base staff. He felt it could hold about 50 people in the lounge and bar area. He imagined if he moved some of the seats around and pushed the video arcade systems against the wall they could fit 100 people easily.

"Even if I can get every Diamond-Tier on base to help, we could only bring in 3 people each. Including the 12 Diamond-Tiers, that would make just 48 people." Gray thought to himself.

"I don't think it would be a good idea to bother Major Valen about this now, I'll get everyone else's opinion first."

Gray sent out a quick message to his team, except for Jono since he wasn't a Diamond-Tier, and asked them if they would be free later for a pajama party.

He got a reply fairly quick from the guys.

Caleb said he would be spending the night in the virtual world, Paul said he could come and was just reading in his room, Geoff said he was out with Beth but would make it back in time.

"Huh, I wonder what Caleb is doing in the virtual world… dare I ask?" Gray mused to himself. "Yeah, I think I do!"

Gray sent Caleb a message asking him what he had going on in the virtual world.

Caleb replied after a minute and said, "I fear that my prolonged absence is detrimental to the continuous optimum performance of the various projects I have entrusted to the various AI constructs."

Gray was intelligent enough to understand what he meant and decided to tease Caleb in his reply, "Caleb, just admit that you miss some of them."

Caleb replied, "Fine, I admit I long for some of their company… Tifa, Celeste, Terra, Lulu…"

Gray pictured Caleb surrounding himself with all of these female characters from different F***l F*****y games and had to admit that he would miss them too if they were human. Remembering what Verona told him earlier, Gray thought it would be best to ask Caleb if he could look in to Stephen Seegall while he was over there.

A call finally came in from Caleb. "Gray, messaging is slow, just call next time!"

"Sorry about that, well, can you look in to him for me? Might be more than one of them, but I'm looking for the one that is at the top of Alterra Corporation."

"What for?" Caleb said slightly nervously, he remembered a bit ago when Alterra Corporation gave him a warning not to snoop around things regarding Alterra Online.

"It wouldn't be right for me to tell you why behind her back, but just know that it is very important for myself as well as Yurika and may even affect if she can continue to stay on our team come the start of the war."

"Hmm… works for me, her kill count is higher than any 3 of ours combined so it would be a huge loss to our overall power if we lose her."