Ch 5: Of Moles and Men
Vert gave a forlorn sigh as she sat on Uni's couch while squeezing the stuffing out of her cushions.
After making her escape from Histoire, Vert had made her way to Lastation in the hopes of finding and cuddling Uni. Unfortunately, the mini-Tsundere had been missing from her room when Vert had sneaked in through the window, forcing her to wait for her victim's arrival. After waiting in ambush for nearly an hour though, she had sadly given up the mission as a lost cause as she decided that Uni was apparently spending the night elsewhere.
With her expected source of stress-relief suddenly missing, Vert had been forced to hug the nearby cushions while imagining that they were the CPU Candidate instead. While it did feel nice to have something being smothered within her breasts, it was just not the same without the intense struggling and adorable sounds of protest to accompany it.
This is just sad, her logical side dryly commented within her mind. We're supposed to be the goddess of an entire nation and yet here we are crushing cushions like some kind of angsty teenage girl.
Vert promptly ignored the voice in her head as she simply squeezed the cushions that much tighter.
Silence fell upon the room for the next few minutes before a loud knock suddenly echoed from the presumably locked door.
"Vert!" Noire's irritated voice yelled out. "I know you're in there! My guards saw you climb in through the window! Now get out of Uni's room this instant and explain yourself!"
Not in the mood to deal with this at the moment, Vert just gave a groan and retreated into her mental landscape.
"And here I was hoping for some peace and quiet," she muttered despondently.
Only her logical side paid her any attention when she arrived while her other selves simply went about their own business in the background.
"It's been kind of hard to do any hoping since our idealistic side died," the glasses-wearing persona remarked. "Of course, it's been nice not having to deal with her idiotic ramblings either."
Vert just gave another sigh as she tuned out the furious door bashing and shouting that was occurring in the real world and focused on her own mental conversation. "Didn't we find a temporary replacement for that position? I mean, I'm pretty sure I felt something resembling hope while I was playing my MMO a few days ago."
Logical Vert crossed her arms and gave a sigh of her own. "That was probably Pirate Vert. We told her to take up the idealist position until we got a permanent replacement."
"I have a pirate personality?" Vert asked with a surprised look.
"You had a pirate personality. She got into a fight with your ninja personality a few hours ago and ended up eating a Rasengan to the face. Turns out ninjas are apparently better fighters than pirates are."
As she said this, a Vert wearing an orange jumpsuit suddenly jumped in between them.
"Believe it!" Ninja Vert shouted out before disappearing again in a swirl of leaves.
After a couple seconds of stunned silence, Vert covered her face with both hands and slowly shook her head. "Even I'm starting to question my sanity at this point..."
"I've been doing that since we were born," Logical Vert said with a roll of her eyes.
Eventually, Vert lowered her hands and faced her glasses-wearing self with a tired yet serious look.
"So what do we do now? Do we just keep running for the rest of our lives? Maybe escape to a remote corner of Zero Dimension and start up a new life as a cabbage farmer?"
Logical Vert gave a snort to this. "Don't be stupid. We're not going to abandon our nation just because of one kid."
"Then what? Should we help Chika kill him? I think our dark side knows a guy who can sell us some high-quality weapons and poisons at a discount price."
"No. Just... no."
After a brief bout of silence, Logical Vert spoke up again. "I think we all know what needs to be done. It's hardly my preferred choice either but we're out of options now. The only reasonable thing we can do at this point is to simply take the boy in."
Vert wanted to scream and rage against this idea but even she knew that it was pointless to resist any further. Her one chance of being rid of the boy without resorting to drastic measures had disappeared the moment Histoire sided with him. Now it was all but inevitable that he would be stuck with her.
Seeing the crestfallen look on her main self's face, Logical Vert walked over and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"This is a bitter pill to swallow but it has to be done. Of course, none of us are expecting you to just accept this idea right away. I know you need some time to come to terms with it so why don't you take a couple of days off in the real world to calm down and relax for a bit?"
"And where would I go?" Vert asked in a world-weary voice. "Both the boy and Histoire are probably looking for me as we speak."
Logical Vert lowered her hand and thought about this for a couple of seconds before coming up with an answer. "Maybe you can ask Noire to let you hide here for a couple of days. If you can convince her to keep away any unwanted guests, you can finally have some quality alone-time to yourself."
"And just how in the world would I do that?"
Logical Vert adjusted her glasses so that they were suddenly gleaming despite the lack of any noticeable light source.
"Just leave that to me..."
"About freaking time!" Noire angrily yelled out as the door finally opened with a small click. "You better have a good explanation as to why- SWEET MERCIFUL TWINTAILS!"
The reason for her surprise became obvious as the door fully opened to reveal Vert. The blonde goddess looked like a complete wreck with her hair in utter disarray and her clothes torn in several places. Even more surprisingly though was the fact that her eyes were completely red as if she had been crying up to this point.
While Noire continued to stare at her disheveled image in shock, Vert was busy mentally whining to her other persona.
I can't believe you made me tear up my favorite dress, she complained with a huff.
It's all part of the plan, her logical side dismissed with a mental wave. Besides, we have plenty of spares in our inventory.
But this one was my favorite... Also, was it really necessary to force me to cry by making me remember the Ram and Rom scene from the Conquest Ending?
It was either that or spraying yourself in the face with a can of pepper spray. Now shut up and play your part like we discussed.
Biting back her urge to give a sigh, Vert instead put on the most distraught expression she could come up with as Noire finally found her voice again.
"Vert... what happened? You look... you look terrible."
You think? Logical Vert remarked with a roll of her eyes.
Ignoring the mental commentary, Vert crossed her arms and slowly turned away from her audience.
"I don't want to talk about it," she whispered out in a surprisingly convincing bitter tone.
Just as planned, Noire's curiosity was instantly piqued by this as she quickly forgot all about her previous annoyance.
"What are you talking about?" she asked, her voice growing noticeably more gentle.
Vert had to hold back from sighing at her friend's predictable nature. Instead she simply dragged on the silence for a few more minutes before finally appearing to relent to Noire's questioning gaze.
"I... got into a fight with Histoire," Vert acted out in a guilt-ridden and bitter tone. "Things got... violent. Nepgear and Neptune got involved as well and..."
She trailed off as she let Noire's imagination come up with the rest.
Technically speaking, everything she had just said was true. She did get into a mild argument with Histoire about the boy and the Oracle had definitely gotten violent by throwing a cushion at her face. Even the part about Neptune and Nepgear being involved was completely accurate as they had been there for the entire fiasco. Of course, none of that had anything to do with her current pitiful image but Noire did not need to know that.
Just as Vert had hoped for, Noire looked at her with an extremely worried expression.
"I... I see. Was anyone else hurt?"
"No, I ran away before things escalated too much... If it's all the same to you, can we please not discuss this matter any further? I'd rather not think about it right now."
"I understand. Um... is there anything I can do to help though?"
You know, I feel rather bad about manipulating her like this, Vert thought to herself as she once again paused for dramatic effect in real life.
Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, her logical side bluntly expressed. Just make it up to her by buying her a cake if you feel so guilty about it.
After making a silent apology to Noire and promising to buy her an entire bakery's worth of cakes later on, Vert once again spoke up.
"Can I... stay here until things calm down? I don't want to deal with anyone chasing me down if I went back home."
"Of course," Noire instantly agreed, completely falling for Vert's act. "You can stay as long as you like."
"Also... can you not tell anyone I'm here? I need some time to gather my thoughts."
"I'll be sure to keep your stay here an absolute secret."
"Thank you Noire. By the way, you wouldn't mind if I stayed in this room for the time being would you?"
"Not at all. I'd be happy to let you stay in Uni's- Wait, what?! Why would I ever let you stay inside Uni's room?!"
The somber atmosphere was instantly broken as Noire reverted back to her usual contrary self and glared at Vert.
Why would you ask to stay in Uni's room?! Logical Vert screamed out as her main personality began panicking.
I wanted a room with a decent PC and Uni's was the only choice! Vert tried to explain. There's no way Noire would let us use her own computer and the ones in the rest of the building are too low-end to even run the original 4 Goddesses Online!
Are you serious?! We have a laptop in our inventory for crying out loud! Why do we need a desktop?!
Just because you don't care about high-quality frame rates doesn't mean the rest of us don't!
Logical Vert resisted the urge to kill her other self right then and there. Just shut up and stall for time. I need to figure out a way to salvage this before your idiocy ruins everything.
"I... um... like the view that this room presents," Vert said, her acting skills completely failing her due to her panic. "I thought it'd let me recover from my traumatic fight more quickly."
"Ha! Like I'd ever fall for that!" Noire scoffed. "You just want to raid Uni's underwear drawer, don't you?"
Vert had to spend the next couple seconds engaging in a mental wrestling match as her perverted persona tried to take control of her body.
Alright, I think I figured out what to do, Logical Vert told her once the PerVert had been securely locked up in the darkest corners of their mind. Just bribe Noire with this and we just might be able to pull this off.
After memorizing her lines, Vert gave a mental nod to herself and went back to confront the angry Tsundere.
"Please Noire, I just don't want to move around right now. If you let me stay here, I'll give you a premier pass for the upcoming Leanbox Anime Expo as a token of my appreciation."
"And why should I care about that?" Noire growled out as she crossed her arms.
"Because you'll get the chance to personally meet with the top cosplayers in all of Gamindustri. According to their blogs, some of them are even looking for a new costume designer at the gathering."
The response was faster than a spoonful of pudding disappearing into Neptune's mouth.
"Fine, but only until Uni gets back," Noire said as she tried and failed to mask her excitement. "You're sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag though. There's no way I'm letting you use Uni's bed."
"That's perfectly acceptable with me," Vert responded with a small smile.
"And don't you dare touch any of Uni's clothes!"
Vert had to keep from wincing as PerVert began to violently struggle against her bonds. "I won't touch any of Uni's clothing. You have my word."
Noire still seemed a bit suspicious but eventually passed it off with a small, satisfied nod.
Before the black-haired CPU could leave to fetch a sleeping bag for her guest, Vert asked the question that had been on her mind since arriving there.
"By the way, where exactly is Uni anyways?"
"Oh, she's off at the video game convention in Lowee," Noire casually answered. "That robot ninja guy's been bugging her to go with him for nearly a month and she eventually agreed to tag along."
"And you let her go off with him alone?" Vert asked in genuine surprise. Noire might rarely show it but she was surprisingly overprotective of her younger sister, especially when it came to boys (even if the male in question happened to be a robot).
"Uzume and B-Sha went along with them so there shouldn't be any problems." Noire paused to give a rather evil-looking smile before continuing. "Of course, I also sent K-Sha to keep tabs on the two of them as an added safety measure. I gave her permission to use lethal force if the robot tries anything funny."
Vert could not help but shudder as she suddenly felt an enormous amount of pity for poor Steamax.
Realizing there were no further questions, Noire turned around to finally leave. However, she only took a single step before she stopped to speak up again.
"I probably don't need to say this but don't cause any trouble, alright? The last thing I want to deal with is a bunch of ridiculous nonsense in my own home."
Vert gave a tired sigh as Noire walked away.
"Trust me, I know how that feels. I promise you I won't cause any trouble while I'm here."
Three days later...
"Vert! What's the meaning of this?!"
With a scowl that could have rivaled Histoire's, Noire slammed open the door to Uni's room. What she saw there only served to enrage her further.
"VERT!" Noire yelled as she saw the emerald sea of empty Mountain Dew bottles littering the floor.
The CPU in question seemed completely unaware of her visitor due to the large headset covering her ears as she continued to play 4 Goddesses Online 2 on Uni's computer. Knowing that trying to get her attention by shouting was a futile endeavor, Noire reluctantly waded through the discarded bottles to reach the source of her irritation.
"And she calls herself the 'normal' one of the group," Noire angrily mumbled as she slowly made her way to the computer desk.
Vert, meanwhile, was just about to finish her daily quest of hunting a dozen giant spiders when a sheet of paper was suddenly thrust in front of her face.
"Explain. Now," Noire angrily growled as she glared down at her.
With a sigh, Vert removed her headset and took a closer look at the paper that Noire was imperiously holding out.
"What is this?" she asked in confusion after seeing the gigantic list of numbers written there. "Are you asking me for help with your national budget?"
"This," Noire said through gritted teeth, "is the amount of credits you spent on all the take-out and snacks you ordered during your time here! Credits that you just so happened to charge towards my Basilicom! Seriously, what have you got to say for yourself?!"
Vert found herself at a loss for words as she realized just how much she had actually spent. She knew she had a bad habit of indulging herself with food when she got upset and it clearly showed here.
"Um... I'll pay you back later?" Vert said with a weak smile.
Noire was not amused.
"I let you stay here as a favor and you repay me by trying to bankrupt my nation?!"
"Now, now, don't be dramatic Noire. It's only a couple hundred... billion... credits. If your nation couldn't handle a tiny financial strain like that, then it would have already collapsed ages ago."
"Why you little-!"
"Look, I'm sorry about this," Vert quickly interrupted with a sigh, not wanting to deal with one of Noire's outbursts at the moment. "I just happened to leave my wallet at home and I didn't want to bother you about it. I'll make sure to pay you back as soon as I return to Leanbox."
The apology seemed to cool down Noire's temper just a tiny bit.
"Hmph. And when exactly are you leaving anyways?" she asked as she crossed her arms.
"In a day or two. Hopefully, Histoire will have calmed down by then and we can finally talk things out."
Noire's expression visibly softened at being reminded of Vert's imaginary crisis. "I think you should wait a bit longer for that," she said, her anger fading away into worry. "Histoire called me yesterday to ask if you were here and she still sounded extremely mad. Don't worry though," she added as she saw the fearful look in Vert's eyes, "I told her that I didn't see you."
Vert let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you Noire. You're a real lifesaver."
Noire gave a small smile before her expression turned serious again. "By the way, I also got a call from some weird guy who claimed to be your brother of all things. Do you have any idea what's going on with that?"
Vert paled slightly at this but otherwise managed to keep her face neutral.
"It's probably Neptune trying to prank me for getting into a fight with Histoire," she quickly dismissed.
"Huh. Well, I figured it was something like that so I simply hung up. Still, it was rather strange just how worried he sounded when he asked about you."
Vert actually felt a small amount of guilt upon hearing that. As bad as the kid was, he did seem rather attached to her and making him needlessly worry just felt wrong to her. However, she was still not mentally prepared to deal with him just yet and so she simply passed it off with another sigh. "Neptune most likely told the guy to keep the call going as long as possible so he probably had to get creative. Honestly, leave it to her to come up with a prank idea like that."
"That does sound like something she would do," Noire quickly agreed, always eager to criticize her (best?) friend. "When will she stop behaving like a child and act a little bit more like me?"
"Like an angry Tsundere?" Vert teased with a smile.
Noire immediately started scowling again as she turned around and began walking away.
"I expect my money back no later than one week from now," she demanded as she reached the door. "And for Celestia's sake, clean up the room!"
With that, Noire stormed out while slamming the door shut behind her.
This outburst finally alerted Vert to the mass of empty soda bottles around her which caused her to give a sheepish grin. "Ah... I suppose I really should clean this place up. Well, after I finish this quest anyways."
Turning back around, she put on her headset again and focused back on her game.
As she ran across the fields looking for more spiders to kill, Vert noted just how silent her guild was. Normally, she would have been happily chatting with her guild members while doing these daily quests but most of them were apparently still a bit peeved at her for the failed raid several days ago. Everyone had accepted the public apology she had made but it seemed it would still be a while before everyone fully forgave her.
"I can't even escape my troubles inside my favorite game," Vert sadly muttered as she continued her solitary trek.
Her musings were suddenly interrupted however when a message from Kotori appeared in her inbox. While the Battle Mage had been particularly annoyed with her since the raid incident, she still completed her duties as one of the guild's advisors by sending her periodic updates on important information.
After finding a safe area to idle in, Vert opened up the message expecting to see an extensive list of guild spendings and required materials. Much to her surprise though, only three short sentences were written on it.
Glasses-man sent out a summon for you and the Gary-Stu. Central Town Gathering Hall, 4th floor, Room 401. Password is 'Hamburger'.
Vert raised an eyebrow at the strange password as she sent a reply to Kotori telling her to deal with any important guild matters while she was gone. As much as she would have loved to simply ignore her rival guild leader, she was extremely curious as to why he would suddenly call a group meeting between all three of them.
With a sigh, Vert abandoned her current quest and teleported back to town as she prepared to meet up with her two least favorite people in the gaming world.
"Alright, you better have a good reason for dragging me out here."
For a gathering between three of the most powerful players in 4GO2, their meeting ground was surprisingly plain. The small, wooden room only had a single conference desk in the center and a few dozen plant doodads decorating the sides. At the far end of the room, a glowing portal could be seen on the wall in place of a door.
At the moment, Vert was standing next to the portal she had just entered from while the other two leaders were seated on opposite sides of the rectangular desk. As per usual, all of them had their silhouette feature activated to make sure that their stats and equipment were hidden from view. This had the unfortunate side-effect of making them all look like generic NPCs but Vert personally preferred it over seeing her rivals' faces.
"Well?" Vert asked as she used her 'cross your arms in annoyance' gesture. "What could be so important that you had to call me in the middle of-?"
"The first wing of the raid was just cleared."
Vert immediately narrowed her eyes at the silhouette wearing a pair of glasses. Shiroe, leader of LogHorizon and first conqueror of the infamous Lich Queen, calmly stared back at her with his hands folded in front of his currently nondescript face. Even with all of his equipment being concealed, his trademark glasses were still somehow gleaming with its usual sinister light.
"Let me guess, you guys teamed up to clear it and now you want to gloat," Vert said in an unimpressed voice.
"Hell no," the third figure drawled out as he used what Vert liked to call the 'lean back in your chair while propping up your feet on the table like an asshole' gesture. "I'm fine with using his lackeys as my meat-shield in our guild wars but there's no way I'd share my raid-winning glories with him."
While Vert disliked Shiroe in a professional, business sense, she outright hated her other rival. Kirito, leader of SwordArt and the self-proclaimed strongest player in the game, was one of the few people that Vert would not have minded kicking in front of an oncoming train. He was annoying, arrogant, and an overall insufferable person. The thing that really annoyed Vert, however, was the hoard of players who flocked to him and worshiped the ground he walked on in the hopes of leeching off on his fame and glory. The worst of them were his so-called 'harem members' who mindlessly followed him around everywhere and did all of his bidding like the crazy fangirls that they were.
Thankfully, Kirito was alone at the moment but that still did not mean he was any less of a detestable jerk.
"By the way, I heard you tried and failed the raid several days ago," he remarked in a taunting voice. "Did you really think you and your army of noobs could have beaten something that even I had trouble with? Pfft. You must be a lot dumber than you look."
Vert did her best to ignore the murderous rage building up inside her and instead turned to her less-hated rival. "If none of us completed the raid, then who did?"
Shiroe did not move as he brought up a large holographic screen in front of him.
"FGL?" Vert read aloud in confusion as the screen moved over to the head of the table for everyone to see. "I've never heard of that guild before. Are they new?"
"They're apparently several years old," Shiroe calmly explained. "Most of the basic information about them is on the screen but the point I want to bring attention to is the fact that they're apparently a social guild."
Vert found herself getting more and more confused by all of this. How exactly did a social guild manage to take on and accomplish what the three biggest raid guilds in the server failed to do?
"Who's the head-honcho?" Kirito asked from the side, his curiosity piqued as well.
The image on the screen changed to reveal a character profile featuring a hooded figure wearing a dark blue robe and cloak. In his hand, he carried a staff with a strange sundial-like contraption at the top.
"He goes by the name Amadeus," Shiroe narrated as the other two stared intently at the screen. "He's currently at max level and is fully geared with Legendary-rank equipment. Unfortunately, that was the extent of the information I was able to dig up on such short notice... well, other than the fact that he's also a Chrono-mage."
"Chrono-mage?" Kirito repeated as he let out an impressed whistle. "Haven't seen one of those since lovely little Kurumi left your guild to be a free-lancer."
Vert could not help but be impressed as well. Chrono-mages were an extremely rare class to find at the highest levels due to their insanely high learning curve as well as the micro-intensive nature of their skills. As Kirito had said, there had only been one level-capped Chrono-mage during the previous expansion and no one had heard anything noteworthy about her since her brief stay in LogHorizon.
While Kirito paused to mull over this new information, Vert turned to eye Shiroe with suspicion.
"And why exactly are you telling us all of this? You're not the type to freely hand out information to others without asking for something in return."
Shiroe let out an amused laugh as he used the 'adjust your glasses' gesture. "It seems you catch on rather quick. Well, to put it simply, I require your cooperation to root out any potential moles we might have within our ranks."
"Moles?" Kirito asked. "You mean those animals that like to pop out of holes?"
Both Shiroe and Vert used their 'roll your eyes' gesture at this though neither could see it.
"He's talking about spies," Vert explained with a sigh. "It's obvious someone must be leaking information over to this Amadeus person."
As she said this, Vert realized why Shiroe had wanted to meet with the two of them in the first place. Information about the new raid had been highly classified up to this point and had only been available to the highest level guilds. In fact, Vert had to call in every favor she had just to get a small list of some of the bosses' attack patterns from the game developers. Knowing her rivals, the other two guild leaders most likely had done something equally drastic to obtain information about the raid as well. If this new guild completed the raid, then it stood to reason that they had obtained detailed data about the bosses somehow beforehand. Such a small and unknown guild would not have had the funds or connections to gain this intel the same way the larger guilds did so the most likely explanation for their sudden success was that they had one or more spies working for them.
"We need to find these leaks and stop them before we lose too much cred," Shiroe spelled out for their rather dull third member. "People might pass off this recent success as just a fluke but if it continues to occur, we'll start losing our reputation as well as potential future guild members. Not only that but the developers just announced that the first clear bonus for the upcoming wing will be a grand total of 10 million gold for the guild. And as far as I can tell, none of us wants that kind of money falling into some unknown's hand."
Vert could not help but silently agree. Better to see that money fall into the hands of an enemy they knew about rather than one they did not.
"Do we really have to waste our time with this?" Kirito whined in annoyance after a brief silence. "How do we even know if there really is a spy?What if this FGL guild just got really lucky and beat the current raid wing blindly?"
"I've considered that possibility as well but it's statistically improbable," Shiroe countered. "There's yet to be an uploaded video about their successful clear but I think we can all agree that a blind run is practically impossible with the current raid's difficulty. In fact, even I wouldn't be able to coordinate such a large number of players through all of the raid's mechanics without prior knowledge."
Kirito still sounded unconvinced. "Okay, then what if this Amadeus guy is just a wannabe bad-ass trying to copy me and just soloed the entire raid?"
"How many times do I have to tell you," Shiroe said with an exasperated groan. "No one can solo a raid."
"I did," Kirito replied smugly.
"Yes, and you got banned for an entire month afterwards for hacking the game."
While the two continued on with their pointless bickering, Vert was busy keeping silent as she tried to put down the sudden worrying thought swirling around in her head. The moment Kirito had mentioned someone soloing a raid, Vert's mind immediately went to a certain boy who was crazy and foolhardy enough to try something like that and somehow come out alive just to mess with everyone's expectations.
"Pardon me for interrupting your couple's spat but I have a question that needs answering," Vert suddenly said as she faced her glasses-wearing rival. "Is this Amadeus person a new player? You told us that he's the current leader of FGL, but was he the actual founder or did he simply gain that position recently?"
Shiroe set his character to use the 'calculating stare' gesture as he apparently went over to look through his list of information in real life. After a few seconds, he seemed to come up with an answer.
"As far as I can tell, he's the only one who's been the leader for that guild. Is there any particular reason your asking me for this?"
Vert tried not to let out a sigh of relief as she replied in an even voice. "Just curious. I simply wanted to know more about our potential information thief."
Shiroe did not seem to fully believe her excuse but he passed it off with a 'dismissive wave' gesture. "Of course. Anyways, I suggest we adjourn our round table meeting for now. And yes," he quickly added before Kirito could speak, "I know perfectly well that this table is a rectangle. It's simply a figure of speech."
"Your mom's a figure of speech," Kirito said with a laugh.
Both Vert and Shiroe ignored him as they faced each other.
"I shall leave you to your own devices to root out any potential leaks on your end," Shiroe told her as he got up and headed towards the exit portal. "However, I will say this: If there really is a spy, then they will definitely be within your inner circle. Be careful of who you trust."
With those ominous last words, he left the room. Unfortunately, this left Vert alone with her absolute, most hated person in the entire universe (and possibly beyond).
"So..." Kirito called out in what he probably believed to be a charming voice (it came out sounding more like a black market merchant trying to attract a customer). "You wanna come over to my place later tonight? I'm going to be showing off my sword collection to my girls and I wouldn't mind having a foxy lady like you th-"
Vert was already in the exit portal before the game could even register her character's movement.
Despite Shiroe's warning, Vert decided that she needed at least one person at her side while conducting her investigation. After thinking over her options, she eventually chose to go with Kotori. Despite her sharp tongue and moodiness, she was also the least likely suspect to be a spy due to her strong sense of responsibility and duty. In a way, the fiery young girl reminded Vert a lot of Noire. She was rather hard to get along with due to her contrary attitude but when things got rough you could always depend on her to get the job done.
After discretely making her way into her guild hall, Vert approached Kotori and dragged her into a private chat room to tell her about the recent developments.
"Ugh, what do you want?" the irritated Battle Mage huffed in a typical Tsundere manner (Vert had to seriously wonder if the girl was actually Noire's secret younger sister).
Pushing back the terrifying yet amusing thought of Lastation being home to three Tsunderes, Vert focused back on the matter at hand. "Kotori, have you noticed anyone acting strangely recently?"
"Other than you abandoning us to that giant alpaca? No, not really."
Vert winced at her guild mate's sharp tone but pressed on.
"Again, I apologize for that but we have more important matters to deal with right now. I need you to listen carefully to what I have to say and make sure to keep it a secret from everyone else."
Before the red-headed Battle Mage could interrupt her, Vert quickly began recounting the events at the guild leaders' meeting. The explanation took several minutes to get through but by the end of it, Kotori's irritated expression had thankfully been replaced with a thoughtful one instead.
"Alright, I'll see what I can do," she said with a simple nod gesture. "I'll investigate this FGL guild further and see if I can get some more info on their raid-clearing party. I'll also make sure to keep an eye out for any further suspicious activity within our guild."
"Thank you Kotori," Vert said with a relieved sigh. "You don't know how much it means to me to have someone to rely on at a time like this."
Kotori gave an embarrassed scoff upon hearing this. "D... Don't take this the wrong way! I'm not doing this for you! I'm just... um... doing this for the guild! Yeah, the guild!"
Vert could not help but smile in the real world. Yep, definitely a Tsundere.
"A... Anyways," Kotori quickly said with a forced cough, "this kind of covert investigation will take a bit of time to complete so don't expect any results until a week at the least. Now, is that all you needed me to do or am I free to go?"
"Ah, there's one more matter I want you to look into," Vert said, her tone becoming serious. "I need you to find whatever information you can about this Amadeus person. It's hard to explain but I'm getting a really bad feeling about this guild leader. Someone who can take members of a social guild and successfully lead them through an end-game raid, even if he might have had stolen information to aid him, is not a player to be taken lightly."
Kotori listened to all of this in grim silence before giving a short nod in response. As the Battle Mage exited the private room to no doubt call up her various informants, Vert could not help but feel that her troubles in the game were only just beginning.
"Great... now I have something to worry about even in the game world," Vert muttered to herself as she finally logged off for the day.
Two days later and Vert was feeling a whole lot happier.
Things had progressed fairly normally in both the real world and the game world following that meeting and Vert had been enjoying every single moment of it. Between finishing up her daily MMO quests, watching a few movies, and stuffing her face with all the ice cream and bonbons she could order (which she was definitely going to pay back Noire for... eventually), the blonde goddess was truly enjoying her vacation to its fullest.
As such, it was in high spirits that Vert walked out of Uni's room that day as she decided to coax Noire into going to a massage parlor with her. Obviously, she intended to get the Tsundere goddess to pay for it but she figured her friend could use a little time off to relax as well.
Making her way into Noire's office, Vert was unsurprised to see the other CPU at her desk filling out a stack of paperwork.
"I think it's time you went outside for a bit," Vert said in a cheerful voice as she made her way next to the desk. "You're going to grow all wrinkled and moldy if you stay inside here for so long."
"Not now. I'm busy," Noire answered distractedly.
Vert gave a theatrical sigh as she crossed her arms and faced her friend with a disappointed look. "Come on Noire. It's been forever since we had a regular girl's day out. We can go shopping, watch a movie, get a massage, and maybe even pick up a few cute guys along the way."
"Not interested."
Vert continued to look at Noire with a disappointed look before a playful grin appeared on her face.
"Ah, I forgot. You swing the other way. My apologies. I suppose we can go find a cute girl for you instead."
This finally did the trick in getting Noire's attention as she dropped her pen and looked up at Vert with a rapidly reddening face.
"What?! I... You... I'm not into girls!" Noire screamed out in an extremely flustered manner.
Vert's smile only widened. "Still in the closet I see. It's not good to hold these things in Noire. Besides, everyone already knows that you have a crush on Neptune."
"No I don't! That's just a stupid lie the internet made up!"
"Are you sure? I seem to recall NepxNoire being the number one pairing in all of-"
"NO! I don't swing that way! I like guys!"
"Really now?" Vert said, her grin definitely bearing a striking resemblance to Sync at this point. "How strange that I've never seen you within any male presence other than your guards."
"I... I had that secretary guy in my game!"
"Spin-off universes don't count."
Noire's head looked like a boiling teapot as she struggled to come up with a response. Failing to do so, she quickly tried to turn the tables on Vert instead. "What about you?! You're always shoving Nepgear's face into your boobs! And... and... you spend a lot of time with Blanc! I'm sure I've seen plenty of stories about the two of you being in a relationship!"
Vert's smile did not falter a bit. "Ah, that's where we differ my dear Noire. You see, unlike you, I make it very clear that I have a fondness for men. Or at least Yaoi. Either way, people know that I am not against the idea of spending time with the male gender. You, on the other hand, only interact with other girls and never give any indication that you're even aware of the opposite sex. In fact, even Uni shows more attraction towards males than you, even if they're usually robots."
Noire opened and closed her mouth repeatedly as she tried and failed to come up with a response to this. The look on her face could only be described as priceless as Vert had to hold back from laughing out loud in case she sent the flustered CPU over the edge.
After a couple more seconds, Vert decided she had teased her friend enough for the day and tried to make an apology to defuse the volatile situation. Before she could do so, however, a completely unexpected voice suddenly spoke up from behind her.
"Ha, I knew you were hiding out here. Looks like Nepgear owes me another cake."
All the joy and amusement that Vert had been feeling up to now seemed to melt away like snow under the summer sun as she realized that her time of reckoning had come at last. Hardly daring to breathe, Vert slowly turned around to see none other than Sync smiling back up at her.
"I kind of guessed you were here after the phone call but decided you probably wanted to be left alone," he casually said, seemingly ignoring the two gaping goddesses staring at him. "Still, you could have at least checked in a few times to manage the nation. I've filled in for you as best as I could but there's still quite a number of items that needed to be verified by you personally."
"Who is this?" Noire suddenly asked, still too flustered from Vert's prior teasing to properly piece together what was going on. "Is he your new secretary or something?"
Vert found herself unable to answer as she stood in shock at the unexpectedness of the entire situation. She knew she was going to have to deal with this meeting eventually but she had expected to at least have a few more days to herself before then.
Before she could figure out what to say though, Sync switched his glance over to Noire with an amused smile.
"I suppose secretary is an accurate enough description considering the amount of work I've had to get through," he said with a brief laugh. "As for you, I suppose you're Noire, the CPU of Lastation?"
Noire did not answer as she instead seem to look at him with a calculating gaze as if measuring him up. After a few seconds, a rather vindictive smile briefly appeared on her face as she glanced back at Vert.
The moment Vert saw that smile, she could practically foresee the unfortunate events that were going to play out from there. Sadly, she found herself unable to move or speak due to her current shock as Noire foolishly approached Sync.
"I suppose you'll do," Noire said in an critical voice. "The green coat is a bit stand-offish and your bangs could be trimmed a bit but other than that, you're not a bad choice."
Before Sync or Vert could react, Noire suddenly moved forward and latched onto the boy's arm. Funnily enough, the gesture looked more like the black-haired goddess was claiming ownership of him rather than anything romantic.
"I hereby declare you to be my temporary boyfriend," Noire proudly said as she held onto Sync's arm like some kind of designer purse she had just bought. With a smug look on her face, she turned to face Vert with a wide smile. "Ha! What do you have to say to that Vert? I told you I'm totally straight! I'm the first one out of all of us to even have a boyfriend!"
Vert stayed silent for a long, long time as she looked between her friend's triumphant expression and the slowly growing grin on Sync's face. Knowing that it was far too late to do anything for her, Vert just gave a sigh as she spoke up in a sincerely apologetic voice.
"I'm sorry Noire. I truly am."
Noire had just enough time to look confused at Vert's reaction before Sync suddenly spoke up.
"I see what's going on here," he said with his trademark grin. "You don't have to force yourself with this charade Noire. I know this is a bit of a shocking news for me but I can take it. I understand that my sis set the two of us up for an arranged marriage."
"What?" Noire uttered in a dumbfounded voice as she swiveled her head around to face Sync. Looking more and more amused by all of this, he moved in slightly closer to her as he continued speaking.
"I have to say, I've never really been a fan of girls with twintails but I suppose you're not the worst person a guy could end up with in an arranged relationship. Still, it would have been nice if sis gave me a little warning before coming over here and setting up all of this. I would have liked to come up with some of our wedding details and future honeymoon plans."
Before either CPUs could react, he pressed himself next to Noire so that he was practically leaning against her. This also had the added effect of trapping their interlocked arms against their sides so that Noire could not escape.
"Well, no need to keep such happy news to ourselves! Let's head over to the Lastation TV station and tell the entire world about our engagement!"
Noire managed to make one last look of shock and utter confusion before Sync promptly teleported the two of them out of the room.
Silence fell across the office as Vert stayed frozen in place while trying to figure out what to do. A part of her wanted to immediately head out and try to help Noire no matter the cost. The Lastation CPU had helped her out a lot over the past few days (even if she had been tricked to do so) and Vert felt she owed it to her to go to her rescue.
On the flip side, however, there was the fact that Sync had most likely been serious about broadcasting his fake engagement story to the entire world. If that was the case, then there was no doubt that Noire's fans would go up in arms as soon as they heard the news. It was a rather well-known fact that the Tsundere goddess' fans were among the most vicious and fanatical people in the entire world and any hostile engagements with them were bound to end badly. The last time her fans had gotten riled up – when Noire had to cancel her appearance on some famous Lastation talk show – they had started a week-long riot that had spread to every corner of Gamindustri and had nearly brought about the start of another Console War. It was without any exaggeration to say that Vert was absolutely terrified of those crazy zealots.
Vert did not know how long she stood there trying to reach a decision. Her uncertainty seemed to stretch on for all of eternity as she continuously went back and forth between her desire to save her friend and the need to stay alive to continue protecting her own nation. As far as she could tell, these two choices were practically mutually exclusive at this point.
As it was, her decision was eventually made for her when a sudden noise from outside caught her attention. With a fearful look, she slowly went over to the large window behind her and looked out. What greeted her eyes could only be described as complete and utter chaos.
Sync had apparently just announced his engagement over live television and now Noire's fans were swarming through the streets of Lastation as they cried and raged in various destructive ways. Cars and various other transports were toppled over, multiple buildings were set on fire, and the poor guards that tried to resist them were mauled like cattle. In short, the city (and probably all of Lastation) was consumed by a madness that even Kurome might have called overkill.
Looking away from the chaos outside, Vert briefly stepped into her mental landscape as she addressed her other personas.
"So... who's up for an extended vacation in Lowee?"
All of the Verts raised their hands in unison.