Dominic's perspective
Natsuki, evidently upset to be the final girl refusing to talk to Monika, seemed stuck between glaring at Yuri for betraying the cause, and Monika for making the cause a thing at all. We're all finally going to discuss some of the important details of our living arrangement.
Monika began. "Well, first things first, let's discuss expenditure. Dominic here is a college student. I imagine his savings will not survive much more of our needs. Thankfully, I can… how do I put this, improve our economic situation."
Sayori stared at her. "What?"
"Well, I can hack into anything really given enough time. I'm sure I could make us a lot of money. We'll need to launder it somehow, but-"
Yuri looks horrified. "We aren't thieves Monika! We've already incurred far too much attention from the local authorities."
"Look, we've got two ways of going about this. Let me fake up some numbers, or see what kind of jobs 4 attractive girls with no formally recognised education can get. I somehow doubt you would prefer the latter option, considering the job market for such a demographic."
Cheeks aflame, Yuri nods. "I… I see. You are correct, such opportunities would be… lacklustre. Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess."
"I'll also provide us all with fake identities. I'm considering doing this in combination with the laundering- I'll pretend to be some wealthy woman from Eastern Europe or something, and bring money in via her."
Sayori and Yuri both look pretty upset.
Sayori spoke up. "You're asking us to commit identity fraud and counterfeit. Is there really no better solution?"
"Afraid not. But thankfully, that's all we really need to discuss that's illegal. Oh, although we will need to be careful, I'm sure the NZ military is-"
She suddenly burst out laughing.
"Oh my God I almost treated the NZ military like a serious threat for a moment. I couldn't quite keep a straight face."
I sigh. "Do you have to make fun of my country's government?"
"Yes, yes I do. Besides, you've insulted your own military in past. Lamb mines ring a bell? Penguin paratroopers?"
"Yeah, in fairness, I did say that… Wait… I said that on Discord, how the hell did you know tha-"
"IN ANY CASE! No, our real enemy is the Five Eyes Alliance. I've done a little digging, and although their security is almost untouchable, it's clear that there is an extremely dangerous group somewhere in the Pacific that we've angered."
Natsuki huffed. "I don't seem to recall US angering them. That was you."
"Oh yes, I do apologise for bringing you into existence. Submit any "I didn't ask to be born" statements into our local complaints box. In any case, we need to keep a low profile, in an attempt to avoid them. Now we should discuss education."
Monika turned to me. "So what was your high school like?"
"Well, I went to St Pats. Which is a good school, but is also males only. And, in spite of what the internet seems to believe of Natsuki, none of you meet that specification."
Natsuki looked at me in horror. "D-Did I hear you correctly? Who the fuck has been spreading rumours about me?! Monika I swear to God if this was you-"
Monika quickly interjected. "No, that wasn't me. The internet made some observations about your reasonably broad shoulders and… underdeveloped female traits… and concluded you were what the internet calls a trap. A guy who dresses up as a woman, and does not inform potential sexual partners, preferring to "trap" them in a relationship with someone who does not have the desired sexual organs. Quite a transphobic term, really, I'm not a fan, but that's what they think you are."
"But I'm not!"
"Welcome to the internet. So in any case, if we can't attend your school, what schools can we attend?"
"I'll pull up a list and discuss them in a minute- first things first, I should explain the system to you. We work under NCEA. I think Monika will need to fake up equivalent documents from some other nation up to Level 2, but some 18 year olds are in Level 3, so that's where you'll go. Unless you guys feel ready for University?"
Yuri and Monika looked to be intrigued, but Sayori and Natsuki violently exclaimed "NO!".
I'll spare you the boring details of how some country most of my readers don't care about designates credits. Suffice to say, by the end of the discussion, Sayori and Natsuki had decided to attend St Mary's College (They weren't interested in the religious elements, but the Catholic schools in NZ are really good, almost private school level at a fraction of the cost.). Yuri and Monika, meanwhile, were excitedly discussing options for University. They had agreed to move the Literature Club meetings to the living room at my house, since they weren't attending the same school anymore. And after a minute of concentration, Monika had added a few digits to my bank account.
With all that mess sorted for now, we decided it was time to relax and do something fun.
"Mario Kart!" Sayori exclaimed happily.
"But you've already played that, don't you want to try something new-"
"MARIO KART!" Sayori shouted at my protests.
"Alright then… If you really want to, I'm not stopping you. But we aren't playing just Mon- Sorry, just Mario Kart. I've got a bunch of other games for you to play. Oh, and Netflix, if any of you are interested in watching anything."
Natsuki asked me for my Netflix and stormed off, to be alone.
The other girls and I play Mario Kart for an hour, followed by Monopoly (Which Monika absolutely dominated in), followed by dragging Sayori away from Mario Kart, followed by some Smash Bros. It had been great fun, and in my peripheral vision I can see Natsuki torn between rightful vengeance and the desire to join in. Sadly, the former wins.
Monika is looking at my PC now. "Hey, you know how you own Civ V?"
"Yes?"
"I've never been able to play a strategy game more complex than chess. Would it be possible for us to play a round?"
"That's going to take in excess of 5 hours. More if Sayori and/or Yuri want to join in."
"We do." Yuri adds.
"We do?" Sayori seems uncertain. "I mean, yeah, of course!"
Monika runs out to the kitchen and comes back with a tray of cupcakes.
"And that was the day I sold my soul for a cupcake." I say.
Monika clearly really likes the inside joke. She almost drops the tray laughing. Sayori laughs along nervously, clearly unsure what's going on. Yuri just shrinks away.
'Fine, fine, we'll play some Civ, but don't expect to finish today."
Yuri and Monka are fine tacticians.
My strategy basically boils down to "focus on science and gold and completely ignore the military until trebuchets".
But while my cities became incredibly powerful, their tactic was completely different. They both went heavily down the military route, and started taking out some of the NPC's civilizations. For a bit I was worried that Yuri was going to take me on (I have literally 0 soldiers) but luckily she was just moving past my civilization.
When I got trebuchets, I came up with a devious scheme. I feigned going off to grab a glass of water.
While out, I said "Hey Monika, I think you broke something while grabbing those cupcakes earlier."
She ran out
"What? What's wrong?"
"Nothing I want to quietly discuss tactics. Yuri's currently in the lead, but she's overextended herself between our two empires. Most of her military is in this overextension, fighting Denmark. What if we cut them off from her main empire, and start taking on her defenceless main cities?"
"A dark scheme. I like it."
Yuri was horrified to suddenly find her seemingly all-powerful Empire under great threat. Her military immediately decided to attack Monika.
She made some progress, but in the meantime Monika and I were decimating the rest of her Empire. She finally agreed to a peace offering, but was left a distant third in points. She was barely ahead of the games AI players.
Thanks to the fact that Yuri was attacking Monika throughout and not me, I'd made the greatest gains- I had an empire comparable in size to Monika's, but with far greater science. It took 200 turns, but I've finally got a commendable lead- WAIT 200 TURNS?
I check the time. 7:20. Probably about time to get some dinner
"Well, it's been a good fun game of Civ, but looking at the time, we'll have to finish it later. I'll go out and grab us some pizza. Sorry for the junk food heavy diet, I'll get some groceries tomorrow."
Just before I leave, the doorbell rings. Huh. I hope it's not one of those guys who keeps trying to convince everyone that his specific version of Jesus is the answer. Those door to door religious solicitors are obnoxious.
I open the door and see someone far too formal and well dressed to be who I feared.
"Hello?"
"Hello… Dominic, is it? We're currently searching for four girls. One has pink hair, one has purple hair, two brunettes. Have you seen them?"
"... N-No siree, haven't encountered them!"
I was never any good at hiding my nerves, and the sudden torrential downpour of sweat from my forehead clearly raised suspicion.
"Mind if I come in?"
