Chapter 7
A/N: to GodofMadness, this chapter will have a lot of Vert moments. You've been a great supporter of this story since chapter one. Even if I may not be her biggest fan, this story can still go any of which ways. So enjoy this chapter as much as you can.
"I see, so that's why." This is the aftermath of my brother Maurice.
We had drove home from school and just pulled in front of his apartment. Since my brother is considerably older than I am and I don't know where my parents are, I live with him and his girlfriend. I don't take up too much of their income or space, in fact, I help them as much as I can. The whole ride home I had told him the events that had unfolded today. He was shocked to find out about how my day was with eight angels, or demons in ones case.
That's right, she hasn't stopped texting me the whole time. As soon as I turned my phone back on, I had a whole array of random messages sent from the one and only Neptune. Fifty messages in under a minute, that's not humanly possible.
One thing that he said that ticked me off, and embarrassed me at the same time was when he said bring one of them home. Do I really want to go out with one of them? That moment I had with Nepgear in the computer lab was one thing. I didn't know what she was thinking at the time, or why I was going to go for it. Then there's Blanc in the band room, the way she looked at me was very nerve wracking. Bad becomes worse when I was actually thinking about going on my primal desires.
This was officially the weirdest experience of my life. Being lonely for so many years must've finally caught up with me. It gets even weirder because of the fact that deep inside, I think I could feel that they wanted the same thing that I've been pondering. Was this the same for all of them or was it just the two? It'd get even weirder if Rom and Ram were part of that mix.
Enough of that, it's my turn to cook dinner tonight, so I better get started.
Part of living with Maurice for so long is that I've learned how to cook. It also doesn't help during my solitude years that I watched a lot of cooking shows. This is much to his delight as well as his girlfriends. It's kind of sad that I'm a better cook than him and his girlfriend respects me more for it.
We have a rule, whoever cooks doesn't have to do the dishes. This was good, as soon as dinner was over, I received a text Vert. This was to be expected, we were friends after all. It also doesn't help matters that I said I'd play games with them tonight. It's not like I had anything else better to do, and with no dishes to do, I went to my room and booted up my laptop.
Looking back at the text, it read as such: "Jack, the game is known as four goddess' online. Meet me at castle courtyard on server forty-three."
"This should be fun."
Finally inputting my password, I open up a browser and search for the game. The official site came up on my search and I clicked on it. It looks appealing enough to get me to play. Since I don't have an account, it's obvious to create one. Clicking the sign up button I'm taken to another screen. Entering an avatar name, GunSlinger679, I then click that I will use a male avatar. Customizing my character, being average height, dark blue hair, and hazel eyes I was ready to go.
The game had other plans, one final screen appeared, it said I had to choose an alliance to join. Only given the choices of Planeptune, Lastation, Lowee, and Leanbox, I needed to see the benefits of each nation.
Planeptune was the nation of Purple progress, having the most advanced technology in the whole game gave tech savvy people an advantage. You also received extra hit speed if you joined this nation. Getting more attacks than the average player. Another thing you got if you joined this nation was an intelligence boost. An interesting choice, but I'll have to view the other nations.
Lastation was next on the viewing list. The land of Black regality it is called, personally I like the name. A heavily industrialized nation, being covered mostly by factories and machines. A person of this nation will get a weapons crafting bonus. Your character will also get more agility and dexterity than an average player. Finally was the strength boost I would receive if I joined. Two nations down, two nations to go.
Third was Lowee, the land of white serenity. A land of fantasy and something you'd see out of a child's mind. It looks like a great place for players who don't dig combat. A player of this nation will get a potion crafting bonus. The character will also gain elemental resistance of a great degree. Finally if I joined there would be a power you'd get to find rare ingredient spots. One more nation left to review and then I could choose.
Leanbox, the land of green pastures, looked like it might be my style. Covered by mostly green, a character of this nation will receive a spear strength and speed bonus. A passive treasure search ability which would reveal medium rare treasures in dungeons. Finally the player will get a vitality bonus, probably from all the clean air.
Now that the boring reading of each nation is out of the way, time to make a choice. Taking a minute to review the pros and cons of each side, I finally made a choice about the character I will be. My nation is Lastation, I'm hoping to be a speedy warrior type and that agility will come in handy with that.
Clicking no for the tutorial dungeon, I head to the big castle in front of me. A few avatars are there, but one is waving to me. She has sea foam green hair, a white suit that covers her back but leaves almost all of her front exposed. The armor ratings in these games is so unrealistic it's not even funny. The most apparent feature is the amount of underboob she is displaying. Yep… that's Vert alright. I can tell by two reasons. One, her avatar is blowing a kiss to mine with one eye closed. Two, her boobs are so massive it should be a crime to be that large.
"Hello dear, you made it!" She sounds so glad I'm here? Speaking of which… where are the others right now?
"Why wouldn't I make it?"
"No reason, all of our friends couldn't play tonight, so I was afraid I'd be alone."
She gets lonely if she doesn't play MMO's with people? Guess I can live with this.
"By the way, I have some new gear for you, much more advanced than your current things."
Her arm reaches out and hands my avatar some items which are now in my inventory. As the new items icon appears, I click equip. This new equipped items looks… cool. I'm wearing a grey shirt then over it is a blue short sleeved jacket. My pants are a darker shade of blue than the jacket I'm wearing. The boots are the same shade as the pants with gold laces. My gloves are with the same pattern as the boots being dark blue with the gold on it. The final piece of clothing I was given was a yellow scarf that compliments the blue jacket. My new weapon was a revolver, five shot and packs a mean punch in all silver.
Overall, my character has the strength of a player way higher level than me. I really owe Vert a huge debt for this. For now, she's looking at a map, she must be planning something devious. Whatever it is, I'll play along with it.
"Alright dear, I have something planned just for you."
"This should be good."
"I have a dungeon we could go through just so you can level up a bit."
"Alright, let's go."
She then hands me a crystal and tells me to use it. Instantly I'm shattered then reappear in front of an ancient looking door. There's a red icon above the door, I can only assume it means this dungeon is way out of my league. As long as I'm with Vert though, I should be alright. Our hands touch the door, it automatically opens. This place has an eerie feeling too it, I'm not sure if I'll be safe.
"What's wrong? There's nothing to be afraid of." She gives me a comforting smile then turns to walk forward.
"It's… nothing. Just a little nervous."
Nervous doesn't describe how I feel. If my avatar dies, then I'll lose this gift from Vert. Guess I just won't die then, I'll just survive. Making our way past some empty rooms, enemies appeared. These enemies were suits of armor holding a claymore, except they had no heads. The icon above their heads were yellow, a take caution icon. Vert readied her spear, in response, I draw my revolver and picked a target.
The knights charge at us, Vert uses her spear to impale the charging one. She then turns around and the force of that makes the knight slide off into another knight. I fire a shot into any of the knights that get near me. It's at that point I notice a knight about to hit Vert in the back. I had a choice, save her life points, or take damage. I chose the obvious thing, I turned the revolver and shot the knight, its health bar depleted. As Vert let out a "thank you" a sword had hit me.
"Gah!" Damn that hurts.
Returning the revolver to fire at a charging knight, I realized that I needed to reload. Luckily the gloves increased the reload speed. Just in time, I put the gun up to its chest and fired. Vert had finished off her enemies at the same time I finished mine. Looking at the loot list, I got a short sword. I knew I needed a melee weapon in case I can't reload fast enough. Equipping the sword, we then face the final room of the dungeon.
"This was a really short dungeon. Perfect for leveling up at an early level."
The door opens, it's dark and rather dry in the room. I can't see hardly anything, until the boss showed up. Torches upon torches lit up revealing a dragon, standing three stories high. I looked at his cursor, ancient dragon it said, the danger meter showed black. Black means you should never attempt this enemy. For Vert though, I'm sure it appeared at most yellow.
Roaring, the dragon then breathed fire on us. Suddenly an ethereal shield appeared before me. Vert cast a spell to shield my life. She wasn't as lucky as I though. Her life meter was going down rapidly. At my final glance, it was in the red, this was bad, even she couldn't stand up to it. Her avatar fell to the ground, I had to kill this thing, for her sake. Pulling out my revolver in my left hand then the sword in the other, I was about to test death.
Surprisingly, it had very little health. It's attacks are just really strong, strong enough to leave Vert down for the count. Even my weapons could damage it. Shooting at the dragon, I already had his health at three quarters. So far it only attacks me with its claws or mouth, guess fire breath needs time to recharge.
"ROAR!" I can tell it feels pain.
"Take this you son of a bitch!"
It throws its claw into the ground, now's the moment. Jumping up on its hand, I begin running up the dragons arm. In retaliation, he thrusts his arm up, this is no problem however. Being in air, I lunge myself towards the dragons head. My sword is able to pierce his eye.
"ROAR!" I kind of feel bad for this string of 1's and 0's.
Driving the blade deeper inside of his eye socket, now the health bar of the dragon is dropping rapidly. Roaring in pain as if begging for me to get off of him, thrashing into anything he can find. One of those thrashes knocks me off of him. Looking at his health bar, it's extremely low. All it would take to finish him is one bullet. Problem is, my character only has one shot left in his revolver. Better make it count.
"vaya con dios." I say to the dragon.
A shot is fired, and it goes directly through the dragons' heart. With one final roar of pain, he falls to the ground. Finally he has been defeated, but this wouldn't have been possible without Vert's shield at the beginning of the fight. Looking at the drop screen, I received enough EXP to raise me from level three to level fifteen. Damn that's some good experience, well, it is hard to kill after all. Something here is called a weapon recipe for fire bullets. Among a new revolver, ingredients, and new gear, I get healing items.
"Oh no!" I immediately run over to Vert's avatar. Still on the ground and still slowly depleting health. Going through my inventory, I select a major healing potion and give it to her. This gets her health from low red to high yellow. I can see her start to get up, she stares at me, then the dragon, then me again.
"You actually killed it? I'm impressed."
"I couldn't have done it without your help. In a way, we both saved each other." I'm right on that part.
"Well Mr. Hero, care to claim your reward?" What does she mean?
"I have plenty of loot already, what reward?"
Her avatar then begins to move forward slightly, then pucker her lips. So it's this type of reward eh? Not long after that, I get a text box asking if I'll do the emotion. I'm not sure actually, I don't think I have feelings for her, and yet, I'm getting all fuzzy from this game interaction.
"Oh well, it's a game, it's not going to affect our friendship in the real world."
Clicking the yes icon, my character takes hers in his arms. He then looks into her eyes staring down since he's taller. Closing his eyes, his head moves closer until their lips meet. Like I said, even if it is a game, I still feel really weird inside from this. Just looking at this gets me all light headed. Our lips break apart, then our bodies separate. "We might want to get out of here before the dragon respawns." Good point Vert.
We walk out of the dungeon, moonlight quickly shining upon us. For a game, it's very relaxing just standing under the moon. Other than that, we just stand there. I look at my clock, it's eleven already, I'm going to have to get to sleep soon.
"Well this has been fun, but I really must be going."
"Aren't you going to give your princess a goodnight kiss?" Her avatar then puckers her lips again. Might as well do it. My avatar holds hers again. And like before, stares into her eyes before kissing her with passion. Why is she doing this to me? Perhaps she does this to every new boy she meets. Not being able to come to a conclusion, I scroll over and click the logout button.
I didn't know this, but Vert said after I left, "if only that was a real kiss." Shortly afterwards she logged out as well.
Back in the real world, I was more confused than ever about any of these girls. Something deep inside told me I'd get used to it eventually. It's only been one day after all, I'm sure to get used to it. Oh how wrong I was that day. Before I went to sleep, I asked myself a question.
"What the hell is happening to my life?"