Guest review response time!

Eisenfaust: Yes she did, yes he is and isn't, yes he does, thank you, I beg your pardon, you are correct, he most likely wouldn't and that would most likely disintegrate his leg. Thank you.

Guest: Thank you.

Saturn56: Alrighty. And no, I meant uncomfortable for Purple Heart. Have you not seen her wings? That would make sleeping very uncomfortable. And I don't know for sure when they'll reappear.

SS7x3: I would like to mention that these are reviews and not a discussion thread. If you have a story you want to bring to my attention, please do so via PM. And thank you.

Guest (other one): I'm not minding them, really. That's a pretty funny thought, actually. I'm glad it makes sense to you because it makes sense to me and I'd hate it if I'm the only one who can make sense out of my logic.

N00BhfU: You might want to ask Eyeshield that next time but his fanfic takes time to think about. His writing has a lot of nuance in it and that's an important thing to get right. Also, thanks.

Story time! Also, I'm sorry for any guest reviews that I missed amongst the several billion other reviews I received when I posted this chapter!

Chapter 23: Oh Come On

During the afternoon of the fourth day after their last encounter with Lowee's CPU, the party was gathered in the motel room. IF was sitting on the bed closest to the door, Neptune and Nisa were sharing the former's bed, Gust was sitting on her sleeping bag and Jacob stood with his back to a wall and a half-empty bottle of water in his hand. As White Heart wasn't cooperative with their search to find the Key Fragment, the party spent the following days doing random side quests in a very desperate attempt to find any clues. Needless to say, those days contributed as much information to their search as the previous ones did. Understandably, every member of the party sans Compa, IF and Gust was a bit irritable. Compa just looked a bit uncomfortable while IF and Gust seemed a bit pleased with themselves.

"So what quest did you find this time?" Jacob asked. "Please tell me it doesn't concern a pirate ship that somehow ended up on one of the islands."

IF and the rest of the party remembered that dungeon very clearly. During one quest, they had to go to that place and Jacob would not stop asking questions about it ("How in hell did it get here?", "Why is it still here?", "How come no one's dismantled it yet and salvaged it for materials and whatnot?" and so on and so forth). To most of the party, it got really annoying really quickly. "No, thankfully," IF responded. "Gust and I have actually come across something very interesting."

"Brace yourselves," said Gust as she rubbed her hands together and looked like the most excited person in the world with a reasonable helping of restraint. "We may have plot-driving quest."

Good news of that magnitude took the party completely by surprise. Instantly, all feelings of irritation vanished. "For reals?" Neptune asked with more enthusiasm than normal. "We can finally get this plot on the road?"

"Maybe." IF was quick to hammer down on Neptune's eagerness. "Just maybe. Don't get your hopes up yet."

Jacob drank some more from his bottle. "What makes you so sure that this quest will get us closer to the Key Fragment?"

"Quest concerns plot element not encountered before," Gust answered. "Have you heard of Guild?"

Compa perked up. "I've heard bits and pieces. They're a gathering of heretics, right?"

"Something like that, yeah," IF replied. "Because of the persecution the heretics faced on each planet, they came together and made-"

"Hold it right there," Jacob cut in, much to everyone's confusion. "Why did you just call the landmasses 'planets'?"

IF looked very confused as she processed her previous words before the realisation hit her. "Oh, I... have no idea."

"Didn't Compa say the same thing in the tutorial dungeon?" Neptune asked.

"Y-Yes, that's right..." Compa shrunk in mild embarrassment.

"Curious..." Gust remarked.

Jacob took a large swig of his water. "There's something horribly wrong with this place..."

"L-Let's not get carried away," IF said, getting the attention of the party back on her again. "Anyway, because of the persecution the heretics faced on each landmass," IF stressed that last word as she glared at Jacob, who responded by flashing a cheeky smile, "they came together and made the Guild. There's more to the story but let's talk about it on the way to the mission."

As the party exited the motel, Jacob zipped up his jacket and lifted the hood over his head and Nisa zipped up her jumpsuit. From the motel, the party then left the city to head to the next one.

"You know, I'm beginning to get sick of snow," Jacob complained as the party traversed the road, lightly laden with snow, that connected the city their motel was in to the next one. "Back home, I loved the idea of snow and making snow angels. Now I'm beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. I wonder if this is how Americans feel?"

"A-what-icans?" Neptune asked.

"People from America, a country in my world. It actually snows there."

"That's nice but we need to talk about the mission," bumped in IF. "Now, you all know how Lowee has a Basilicom for each city, right?"

"It's so c-cold..." Compa whimpered.

"We should have gotten snow jackets," commented Gust. "Current party's clothes not suitable for snowy climate."

IF sighed. "Anyway, the Guild's hideout is one of Lowee's cities, called Guild City."

"How inconspicuous," Jacob noted.

"In Leanbox, ten years ago, there was a massive purge against the heretics, so they evacuated to Lowee," IF continued, regardless of Jacob. "The Guild started from the survivors of that purge."

"What?" Compa was alarmed. "Isn't that going to result in the purge all over again?"

"... Why would that happen?" Jacob asked. "They're heretics. They didn't worship the goddess of the landmass they were born on. Why would they go to Lowee if they didn't worship White Heart?"

IF shook her head at Jacob. "You make it sound like they had a choice. Don't forget that the landmasses float around the world. Lowee was the only one there at the time, by some miracle."

"Couldn't they have just stayed hidden for a bit longer, though? I mean, I highly doubt all the heretics were bound together in one big pile and ran through the Sky Bridge with Leanbox's army chasing them while bound in their own pile."

"Maybe they were too scared to wait any longer. I don't know the specifics," IF admitted." Anyway, you are right in that there were White Heart worshippers among the heretics but not all of them. Realising this, they took the heretics into custody at Entremets."

Jacob raised an eyebrow and looked at IF. "Who is 'they', and why would they take a bunch of refugees that they knew nothing about and hide them in their most important building?"

"That doesn't matter. The thing is, they then built a city for and run by the heretics known as Guild City. Even that city's Basilicom is run by the heretics."

"Okay, when you say 'they', are you referring to the heretics or the people at the Basilicom? I'm getting confused."

"That doesn't matter," repeated IF with growing irritation.

Jacob rolled his eyes.

Neptune decided to intercept. "So we're going to this Guild City for our next mission, right?"

"Yeah, we are," answered IF, slightly relieved at the lack of nitpicking this time around. "Hope you're all excited to see another city of excitement and wonder."

It took longer than they would have preferred but the party finally arrived at Guild City after fifteen minutes of walking. To Jacob's surprise, the towns were much closer together in this world than his. As they travelled to the street where their client was said to be, they wasted no time taking in their new environment.

"This looks a lot like the city we were in before," commented Nisa.

"This looks exactly like the city we were in before," corrected Jacob, looking very confused. Rightfully so, mind; looking around, he saw from the original city the exact same distorted buildings in the exact same positions and the exact same piles of snow on the exact same spots on the exact same road. "Are you sure we didn't go in a circle somewhere along the way?"

"No. We in Guild City." Gust walked forward to take point as the party searched for their client. "Guild wants to hide. City can't stand out."

"And yet they call it 'Guild City'," Jacob responded. "I'm beginning to wonder how deep this parody hole goes, not to mention how many people were actually in on the joke. I mean, look over there." The party looked towards where Jacob pointed and saw a white castle with an indigo roof far off in the distance. Even though it was most likely massive, it looked somewhat underwhelming with the giant blue snow-capped mountains right behind it. "See that castle? I swear it was in that exact same position from the main street of the first city. I know it didn't take us long to get here but I imagine there'd be at least some differences. Actually, come to think of it, what is that castle actually for?"

"Maybe they're hoping that, if they ever get chased out again, the Basilicom will get lost and confused in the first city while the Guild sneaks out?" Compa guessed.

Nisa was slightly uneased as she looked around. "Pardon me but am I the only one who feels a... somewhat ill-intending aura?"

"Yeah, it feels all tense..." Neptune agreed, feeling a bit put off as well.

"That's because we're in the Extremist side of Guild City," IF explained. "Guild members can be divided into Moderatists and Extremists. Moderatists just worship their specifics goddesses but Extremists despise the goddesses they don't believe in."

"And worshippers of said goddesses," Gust added. "Gust has heard stories of poor followers dying at Extremist hands or suffering from Internep forum flames."

"Oh no, not the Internep forum flames. What fate could possibly be worse than people you can't see or even interact with sending offensive messages to you?" Jacob asked with the tone of voice he'd use to ask someone if they emptied the rubbish bin.

"You making fun of us, punk?" Compa slightly jumped while the rest of the party turned to the source of the somewhat hostile voice. It turned out to be a female silhouette with long bangs and a ponytail reaching down below her waist.

"Terribly sorry," Jacob responded calmly. "No offence intended. We're actually here for a job to kill monsters."

"Oh, it's you?" The Extremist seemed rather amused by this. "If you ask me, you lot don't seem like the monster hunting type."

"Beggars can't be choosers, sorry."

The Extremist laughed raucously, much to the confusion of the party. "Well, then! If you're so sure of yourself, the monsters are in the forest on a nearby island. They're a bit violent so make sure you don't die horribly. Have fun!"

"Thank you for your concern," IF answered sarcastically.

Jacob pulled out a green apple as the party walked along the road. "So, the Guild is full of heretics that were booted off Leanbox and they have now built their own city on a landmass that may or may not want them there to begin with. Is that about right?" Jacob took a bite out of his fruit.

IF eyed his snack with interest. "You have another one of those?" Jacob nodded and IF caught the apple that he tossed to her. "Thanks. Yeah, and the Guild has Moderatists that focus just on worshipping and Extremists that hate the goddesses they don't worship."

"Fascinating." Jacob bit his apple. "Even though this is a generic monster killing quest, I hope it leads somewhere."

"I wonder what sort of plot this could lead us to?" Nisa inquired. "It's clear that the Extremists must be the villains but what is their evil scheme?"

"Nisa!" Compa exclaimed. "That is very judgemental and rude!"

"She does have point," Gust defended the heroine. "Extremists only hostile people on Lowee. No other candidates."

"I hate to admit it but she's right," said IF. "I don't like pointing fingers at groups, especially ones that have suffered like the Guild, but, given how the plot's been going so far, there's no one else who could start a problem in Lowee that would need to be fixed in a story arc."

Gust reassuringly smiled at the party. "Don't worry. If quest dead end, we go to Leanbox," she stated, much to Neptune's confusion.

"Wait, what?" the purple CPU asked.

IF's eyes briefly widened as she remembered something. "Oh, almost forgot. Look over there."

Neptune, Nisa, Compa and Jacob looked over at where IF gestured with her thumb to see a landmass in the distance. This one had tall brown mountains and a vast green landscape, covered in forests and dotted with tall windmills.

"Looks nice," commented Jacob. "Very green."

"That's why it's called the Land of Green Pastures," IF responded.

Jacob turned back to her. "Really? Do the other landmasses have names like that?"

"Yes. Planeptune is Land of Purple Progress, Lastation is Land of Black Regality and Lowee is Land of White Serenity," answered Gust. "If dungeon produces unsatisfactory results, we go to Leanbox. If results satisfactory and plot continues, we stay. A good day, today."

"That is very good timing," Compa cheerily agreed.

Finally, the party arrived at the gondola. The girls made their way inside with IF going in last. However, she stopped at the door when she saw that Jacob was standing on the edge of the landmass, looking out to the floating island in the distance that housed their dungeon. His mind was set on something, processing a thought that was snagged in uncertainty.

"Hey, uh, are you going to get inside?" IF asked.

From his disc, he pulled out his jetpack and looked at it. After a moment, he turned his eyes to the dungeon. "Hey, IF." He looked towards her. "Do you think I could fly over there?"

Mildly taken aback by the suggestion, IF stepped out of the gondola, the other girls following behind out of curiosity, and looked towards the dungeon's island. "Are you sure you can make it?"

"What's going on?" Neptune asked.

"Jacob asked if he could fly up there," IF answered.

Neptune's eyes lit up with excitement. "Ooh, that sounds awesome! Sparky, you have my complete permission to go up there!"

Jacob rolled his eyes. "Thanks but I wasn't asking for permission. I was asking if it was physically possible for me to fly up there."

Nisa walked over to him and inspected his jetpack. "Well, why not? Your jetpack has taken you across distances greater than that since you first acquired it and shows no sign of running out of fuel."

"What does it run on, anyway?" Gust inquired.

"No idea but it's from Planeptune," IF responded. "Probably stores solar power and passes it through amplifiers to power it or some crap like that."

"Well, I'll fly with ya," stated Neptune. "I can transform and whiz through the air with you and I'll catch you if you fall."

"That's a great idea." IF looked over the edge of the landmass with Gust and Compa. Even though the abyss was covered in clouds, those clouds alone were so far down that it made the three of them a bit uneasy.

Nisa joined them in looking over the edge and wasn't fazed one bit. "I wonder what's down there..."

"I don't and I'd rather not." IF moved away from the edge and to the gondola along with Nisa, Gust and Compa. "See you two up there."

Neptune nodded before transforming into her more mature alter-ego, who then turned to Jacob. "Are you ready to fly?"

"To tell you the truth, I'm a bit nervous." Despite this, Jacob walked with Purple Heart right to the brink of the floating nation. "I think I'll be fine, though."

The gondola began to move. At the same time, Purple Heart placed a hand on Jacob's shoulder and smiled at him warmly. "Jacob, please know that I am right beside you. I swear to you that I will not let you fall."

Jacob, looking back at her, returned with his own smile. "You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you refer to me by my own name for once."

Purple Heart suddenly retracted her hand as if it was burned. "What? You mean to say my promises mean nothing to you?"

Even though she looked offended, Jacob could tell her heart wasn't it. He chuckled. "Come off it. You know I'm joking."

Purple Heart rolled her eyes but she smiled regardless. They both lifted themselves into the air but only Purple Heart took off right away, only stopping moments later when she realised Jacob wasn't as eager as she was. Turning back to him, she saw him take a deep breath before moving over the edge of the landmass. When he found himself still flying and not falling into who knows what or where, he allowed himself to relax before flying more calmly towards Purple Heart who he then followed to the dungeon.

The four other party members watched the CPU and the male aviate right past them and arrive at the dungeon before the gondola was even halfway up.

Nisa looked down on the transport's floor. "Is it just me or is this thing moving much more slowly than normal?"

IF found herself looking at the floor as well, impatience and disappointment brewing deep inside her. "It's not just you. It's just all of us."

Finally, the gondola reached the island and the four girls inside exited. Outside, they found a grinning Neptune in her human form and Jacob waiting passively, playing with his jacket's zip slider.

"You all took so long to get here," Neptune pointed out cheekily. "That just doesn't fly in these here lands."

"The only benefit flying gives you is doing what we already do but slightly faster," IF countered, slightly agitated. "Apart from that, you don't do anything else with it."

As everyone correctly anticipated by the time they climbed the snow hill and jumped off the end of it into the actual dungeon, it looked exactly the same as Entremets' snowy forest barring the layout.

"Am I the only one who's getting a bit sick of these forests?" Jacob asked as they strolled leisurely through the dungeon. "Not that I ever want to go back to the caves but I'd rather not have my options limited to the shiniest of two turds."

IF sighed. "Jacob, I get the impression that, if you were never with us, we would never have noticed how tedious these dungeon crawls are."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"I dunno. I think I'd rather be stupid and having fun than bored of my ingenious mind, though."

Neptune seemed to pick up something unpleasant in IF's words. "Wait just a darn pickin' minute..." she began. "Are you saying that people who are having fun are stupid?"

IF rolled her eyes. "No, Neptune. I'm just saying that I think I wouldn't be so bored with these dungeons if Jacob didn't constantly bring up how boring they were."

"Just look on the bright side, Iffy!" Neptune pulled out Armas and activated its blade before swinging it a few times in the air. "These dungeons are monster hot spots so we can fight as many monsters as we like! We always have a lot of fun fighting monsters, don't we?"

"No, not really. Mainly because you are the only one fighting monsters now with that ridiculously overpowered Neptune Break of yours." The party came to a stop as IF's irritation began to snowball. "We don't even do anything any more. All we ever do is eat all the snacks and joke among ourselves while you cut up every single thing stupid enough to get in our way."

"IF, relax," Jacob said sternly. "Besides, everyone gets the same XP no matter what so there's nothing for you to complain about. If anything, I should be complaining, especially since I don't even get XP. All I ever do is practice without ever putting my skills to the test, not to mention I have never fought a non-human entity in hand-to-hand combat."

"Well, why don't we change that?" Nisa smiled at her student. "In the next encounter, why don't you take on a single monster of your choosing?"

IF was slightly worried at Nisa's suggestion. "Are you sure that's a good idea? Jacob can't level up and, while I'm sure we can take on this dungeon, the monster's aren't exactly low in level."

Jacob stretched a bit. "I'll be fine, IF. I just need to choose monsters that I can take on."

"And we'll beat into the dirt the ones Jacob doesn't wanna fight!" Neptune exclaimed loudly.

Walking through the dungeon passively as normal, it wasn't long before the party came across a random encounter with two familiar-looking monsters. They looked exactly like Vorpals but they had a blue colour scheme and there were dots on their back.

Satisfied, Jacob raised his arms and clenched his fists. "Alright-"

"Neptune Break!" Before anyone could act, Neptune's attack utterly annihilated the two floating enemies. At the end of it, only she was left standing, grinning like an idiot.

Jacob groaned. "Neptune, you were supposed to wait. I was going to attack one of those things."

"Virpals," Gust corrected.

"Thank you," responded Jacob even as he kept his eyes on Neptune.

After realising what she had just done on a thoughtless whim, Neptune rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "Eh heh heh... Sorry. It's just that, whenever I see an enemy, my blood just boils like harmless lava."

"Let's not worry about it," Compa reasoned. "Monsters respawn infinitely, so all we need to do is find the next one. Let's keep moving."

And so the party returned to walking through the passageways that the dungeon provided, only coming to a stop once an obstacle halted their progress. It wasn't really much, just a row of spheres of snow that ran across the path ahead of them. At their highest, they were as tall as Gust. At their smallest, there were as tall as Gust's show.

"Alright, ladies. Stand aside." Everybody just stayed put and looked confused at Neptune while she pulled out her hammer. "I'll clear the way."

"Uh, Neptune? You don't need to do that," advised Jacob.

By that point, Neptune had the hammer raised over her head, ready to strike. She remained in that position as she looked at Jacob and blinked. "... Why? It's in the way. We need to get rid of it."

"Well, it is there but whacking it with a hammer is entirely unnecessary," Jacob responded.

Neptune lowered her hammer with her right and placed her left hand on her hip. "Alright then, smarty pants. What do you think we should do?"

Jacob crossed his arms and looked at the row of snow like he believed it had as much stopping power as a single snowflake. "I think we should just climb over it."

The party's gaze then shifted to the snow for several awkward seconds. Suddenly, in their eyes, the 'obstacle' was anything but.

"... Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Nisa agreed.

The party then traversed the snow pile by walking on it or, in Jacob's case, flying over it because, in his words, "why do something that expends more energy when you can do something else that expends less energy?" After this completely non-straining exercise, it didn't take long at all for the party to come across yet another random encounter. This random encounter consisted of a Virpal and a completely new enemy that, much to Jacob's concern, was a dragon that looked like it came out of European legend. It had green scales, a beige underbelly, two horns that pointed back from its head like ears and a beak-like snout. It stood on two legs with decent balance, making its short tail even more redundant, and it had two large, powerful arms with massive black claws that managed to look threatening despite the orange-webbed "wings" on the sides of the arms that looked more like oversized fins.

"Neptune, stop," IF ordered quickly.

"What? I wasn't doing anything!" Neptune responded indignantly.

"Good."

"Okay, I'm taking the Virpal," Jacob began. "You lot can thrash the hell out of that dragon."

"It's a Wyvern, actually," Compa spoke up.

"Alrighty then." Jacob didn't care at all. All he cared about at that moment was fighting the indigo-coloured monster ahead of him.

He did, however, turn away to see Neptune, Nisa, IF and Compa all rush the an extremely surprised Wyvern at once while Gust stayed behind, presumably to provide support with Musical Words if things suddenly took a turn for the worst. He chuckled a bit as they beat the hell out of it while it was still getting its confused head around the forsaking of turn-based combat.

Jacob quickly realised he was distracting himself and focused on the Virpal. However, he couldn't help but smile amusedly at how the creature, clearly perplexed, was looking at the Wyvern getting beaten savagely even as it reached out towards its purple acquaintance with a desperate claw. Jacob then got his act together and raised his fists, which were wearing his gauntlets as usual. The pragmatic teen took advantage of the Virpal distracting itself by watching the Wyvern's beat down and rushed towards the purple monster to deliver a sudden and powerful haymaker which sent the creature spinning through the air. Floating off the ground, it was attached to nothing to transfer the force of the attack to. The Virpal managed to stop itself from going any further after a few moments and tried to regain its senses. Unfortunately for it, Jacob continued his assault by flying right towards it, landing in front of it and then side kicking it.

Jacob had intended to kick the creature into the nearest tree but he missed. However, as the dungeon was pretty much just a series of paths closed off by high walls of snow, it was at least kicked into something. As the snow was soft, the monster recovered quickly and started charging up a blue sphere in front of its mouth. Jacob had seen this attack plenty of times before and the only way this magic missile attack differed from only a number of the others was its blue colour. Jacob crossed his arms in front of him to project his shield which protected him from the volley of six weak homing missiles before lowering it to fire his massive laser at the creature, engulfing it completely. After a moment, Jacob cancelled his attack to see how the monster was going. It seemed a bit dazed but still ready to fight. Once it shook off its dizziness, it flew forward to attack Jacob.

"Justice Kick!" called Nisa as rocketed towards the Virpal, kicking it very far away. When she believed the creature to be out of sight and therefore out of mind, she stood proudly as she faced her pupil.

Said pupil was dumbfounded. "... What the hell?" he said once he got his thoughts together. "I was fighting that thing!"

"You were taking too long!" answered Neptune, causing him to turn around. Neptune was standing on top of the limb body of the Wyvern, clearly proud of her victory against the creature. Jacob would have winced at the reptile's injuries if they weren't so comical. Its tongue hung lazily over the side of its mouth, one of its eyes was swollen and black while the other was a dizzy spiral, bruises were all over its body and its limbs were bent at various odd angles. Neptune must've gotten bored at some point because the tail of the Wyvern was tied into a knot halfway through. "We wanna get on with this plot!"

"But I needed to see if I could take on monsters on my own!" Jacob complained.

"We were watching. You can do it, it just takes much longer than it needs to," responded IF. "Can we please get back to saving the world?"

Jacob groaned. "Fine, whatever. Let's just take down the boss."

The group left the battered monsters behind and progressed through the rest of the dungeon.

"Is it just me or is it odd that we're just told to kill monsters but our goal comes down to killing the boss?" Compa asked.

IF looked at her quizzically. "How would that be odd?"

"Well, the boss is only one monster and monsters respawn indefinitely," Compa answered. "If it's a lot of monsters that are being troublesome, like the Extremist said, shouldn't we be killing more monsters than this?"

"All we need to do is kill the boss to stop monsters respawning in this area. You've played these games before, you know how it works."

That explanation didn't sit right with Jacob. "I don't think it works that way in JRPGs."

The party turned to him at once. "What's a JRPG?" Nisa asked.

"Oh, it's an RPG from Japan. They're much different from the RPGs made in the Western side of the world. My world, I mean," Jacob elaborated.

Gust, like the others, was even more perplexed but even more curious. "Western side of world?"

"Basically, the world is..." He tried to find the words for it but he gave up with a sigh. "Honestly, I don't really know. Japan is on the Eastern side of the world so it makes Eastern RPGs while America is on the Western side of the world so it makes Western RPGs. That's pretty much all I know."

"Ah." Gust was still curious but she didn't press for more information. "So what about JRPGs not working that way?"

Jacob was surprised as he just remembered what they were talking about before they went off on one of their usual tangents. "Oh, right. Well, dungeons in my JRPGs, when they don't function as places holding very important artefacts, connect two different areas. When the bosses aren't guarding artefacts, they just happen to be in your way. Or they're the guardians of the transitional dungeons. It varies."

"Oh, your dungeons actually do something?" IF asked, mildly surprised.

Jacob sighed and closed his eyes in disappointment. "... Yes. Yes they do."

"Uh oh! Boss dead ahead!" Nisa exclaimed, snapping the party out of their reveries and getting them to focus on the boss monster.

"Oh, it is Tadpole," Gust noted.

Jacob looked at her like she was crazy. "That is a tadpole?"

To say that the boss ahead looked absolutely nothing like a tadpole would be a vast understatement. Firstly, the main body of the creature was its blue and white-dotted head that was topped with two orange horns that looked more like narrow mushrooms. The mouth of the creature was ridiculously large with its bottom lip and small tusks being only a quarter of the way away from the top of the creature's head. On either side of the monster's body was a massive - massive enough to make the orange horns look like stubs, mind - brown curved horn with orange protrusions and tip. Protruding from its back was a long tail that curved up and came to a lamp in a black frame which was then followed by a black tail that finally ended with a silver ball tip.

"Well, it looks like a recycled sprite of a Frog Baby," IF noted.

"That would be because it is a recycled sprite of a Frog Baby," Jacob returned.

"Hey, do you want to try and fight that thing?" Neptune offered the male.

"What? Oh, no, I'm fine. Let's just take that thing out."

"Hurray!"

And the Tadpole was quickly defeated by the party's combined might.

"Same ol', same ol'," Jacob noted before the party turned around to exit the dungeon.

Compa, however, didn't move. In fact, she seemed confused by the party leaving. "W-Wait!"

The party turned around in response to the call. "What? What is it?" IF asked impatiently.

"Aren't we here for plot-related information?"

The eyes of each party member briefly widened. Jacob slapped his palm onto his forehead. "I can't believe I forgot about that..."

"Oh, right! We're here to figure out what to do next!" Neptune exclaimed.

The party stood around for a few quiet moments in anticipation.

"... So..." Neptune let that 'so' hang in the air for a couple of seconds. "... What do we do now?"

"Well, typically, when we get here, we find someone who exposits on the plot some more," said Jacob.

Glancing around, the party found no one of the sort. All they found was a lot of snow, trees, lights and more snow.

"Alternatively, someone finds us, like a CPU," said IF.

"So Blanc should be around here somewhere? Okey-dokey!" Neptune turned to the dungeon and cupped her hands around her mouth. "Hey, Blaaaaanc!" she yelled. "Us lovely ladies and Jacob are right heeeere! Come out, come out wherever you are!"

Jacob turned to IF. "Actually, the CPUs don't really do anything for the plot. They just come out here, we beat them up and we go home."

"True..." IF crossed her arms and thought.

"Hey Blanc, guess what?! You're stupid and I'm better than you!" Neptune kept on yelling.

"You don't really mean that, do you, Nep-Nep?" Compa asked.

Neptune turned to the nurse. "Nah, I'm just trying to push her Go And Beat Up Nep-Nep's Party button." Neptune turned back to the forest again. "Did you hear that? Because I was lying! You are stupid!"

Exasperated, Jacob rubbed his temples. "Was this dungeon really a complete waste of time? Is there anything else around?"

"Gust has checked ground," informed the alchemist. "No items or clues nearby. Just normal dungeon."

"Oh, come on..." Jacob groaned. "I'm sick and tired of this."

"Why aren't you coming out to fight us?!" For a moment, Neptune stopped to think about the best way to coax Lowee's CPU into revealing herself. Suddenly, her thoughts struck gold and a cheeky grin spread across her face before she resumed yelling. "Hey, Blaaaaanc! Sparky here has bigger boobies than yoooooou!"

"What?!" Jacob was certainly not expecting that. "Neptune, shut up!"

"Uh, what?" Gust was highly confused. "I don't understand."

Compa turned to Gust. "Ah, well, you see, Jacob has boobies-"

"Compa, please!" Jacob pleaded.

"Eep! I'm sorry!" Compa jumped back in surprise.

Gust looked at Jacob with newfound curiosity and utter bewilderment. "... Jacob's world is whack."

"Do you wanna feel 'em?" Neptune yelled some more. "Come down right now and get a grope!"

"Neptune, please stop talking about them!" Jacob shouted.

"Why you have breasts?" Gust asked.

"It's fat, okay?" Jacob explained irritably.

"So are regular breasts," Gust countered.

Jacob's face contorted into an expression of barely restrained rage.

"Gust, cut that out," stepped in IF. "It's a sore point for him, not to mention Nisa."

The four of them looked over at the heroine. She was trying - and failing - to not look like she wanted to destroy everything within ten miles with her fist that was clenched so hard that everyone feared it would spontaneously explode.

Neptune, oblivious to the previous hostilities, turned back to the party. "I don't think she's here."

"Really? You'd only been shouting for an eternity and I only just noticed that!" Jacob remarked with mock surprise.

"Jeez, what's your problem?" Neptune asked, put off by Jacob's agitation.

"If you ask me," started IF quickly, "it's odd that White Heart isn't here. Isn't this usually the part of the plot where we get ambushed?"

Jacob took a very deep breath and let it all out in order to calm himself down. "I think it's odd that nothing is here. We just came across a plot point, for God's sake. You'd think there'd be something here to advance the story."

The party stood around in silence. They had all gotten incredibly hyped for a plot to go on and it turned out to be another dead end. After four days of this, it was just too much.

Jacob threw his hands up. "Screw this. Let's just go to Leanbox."

"Agreed," said the rest of the party as they walked back the way they came.

One of my complaints about Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 is that the writing is so different from its predecessor, leading to a more serious and idiotic story. I think I've finally figured out why the difference is present; NISA fired the idiotic translator that interpreted "landmass" as "planet" on no less than two occasions. Come on, now; the landmasses aren't even the size of Tasmania. They're definitely not going to pass as entire planets.

Anyway, I am glad to report that the next chapter is where something will actually happen! I am disappointed to report that I have also started university again and I will now have to squeeze in "read required texts" and "write essays based on required texts" in my incredibly un-busy schedule. Therefore, I'll probably have to go back to monthly updates. Shame. Also, I am going to sink a LOT of planning into the next few chapters because, at some point, things are going to deviate.

See you all later.

*By the way, when I wrote Jacob's line on Internet forum flames, I was not thinking about a certain number of reviews... okay, I was but I was thinking "Whoa, this is coincidental".