Chapter 7: Japan + Perverted old Dwarf = profit?

WAKE UP SLEEPY HEAD IT’S TIME TO RISE AND SHIIIIIIIINE!

“Ah! What’s happening!?” Noah yelled as he leaped out of his bed, hitting his head on the bedframe on the way up.

“Oww fuck!” Noah yelled for the second time in 5 seconds, setting a new personal record. After taking a minute to massage his thumping head, Noah turned to the golden card resting on his bedside table and narrowed his eyes. It wouldn’t take a genius to tell that he was pissed off. “I don’t recall asking for such an enthusiastic wakeup call”, Noah grumbled through gritted teeth.

Sigh, what would you do without me?

Gaia’s tone reflected about as much remorse as a mouse would have after nibbling through your favourite shirt. Despite the painful wakeup, Noah was getting used to, and even appreciating Gaia’s daily banter. Though he wished she would tone it down a notch sometimes. A wish that would certainly never be granted.

“Yeah yeah, go off”. Noah quickly made his bed before walking over to his computer, still in his pyjamas. “I’m going to check out that website from last night, see if I can get one of their disguises for when I start trading with Earth. As he opened the website, Noah heard some hushed giggling from inside his head. “Got anything you want to get off your chest?” Noah sighed, feeling a premonition of utmost cringe coming along.

Well~~ one could say~~ “You woke up and the first thing you wanted to do was look at Nina’s hole.” Oh, how dirty~~.

“I wonder if I can request a refund for Gaia? Does the void allow trade ins?” Noah muttered listlessly. Pushing the giggling in his head to the back of his brain, Noah found the contact information of Nina, and sent a message, requesting a holographic disguise.

Only a few seconds later he got a reply, telling Noah to meet her at Rusty’s workshop in the afternoon so they can organise his disguise and ship at the same time. She also reminded him to bring along his ‘offering’ to Rusty in exchange for the ship. Noah sat back in his chair for a moment before asking her what kinds of things Rusty would like. The response was only four words, “He’s a massive pervert”.

“Of course, the friend of someone who names their website Nina’s hole is a damn pervert”, Noah complained to the empty room. After cleaning up and getting ready, Noah had an idea on where to find the perfect offering. He got an idea from the rant in Nina’s PSA with the mention of harems and weirdos looking for a demon king to fight.

“Ok Gaia, since you can read my mind, I think you know where we need to go.”

Really? There? Oh you’re not kidding are you! I can’t miss any of this!

Noah rubbed his forehead as the bright light enveloped him. When he could see again, he found himself squatting over a toilet in a stall Luckily for Noah it was unoccupied, unluckily for Noah… it was the lady’s room. “Yeah, this wasn’t what I meant but…” noah pulled out his GPS app on the card. “At least you got the country right.” Once the bathroom was empty, Noah slipped out… almost unnoticed. When he emerged from the bathroom, a chubby Japanese man reading a manga turned towards him, smiled, and gave him two thumbs up. No dude please don’t applaud that.

Exiting what seemed to be a bookstore, Noah found himself in the middle of a mixed-use road, tall buildings and massive posters of maids and anime characters plastered all over the place. “The land of questionable fetishes and the frontline of sexual technology, Akihabara. I’ve always wanted to visit.” Noah turned in a circle and took in the sights. “Though I’d rather see other parts of Japan over this stuff. At least I don’t have to pay for a plane ticket to travel around now.”

Oh, should I start charging? My time is extremely valuable after all~

“Let’s go and get our shopping done, shall we? We have to impress this perverted dwarf.” Noah avoided the question and began walking down the crowded street. After finding an ATM Noah withdrew what little cash was left in his bank account, choking at the currency exchange fee from AUD to JPY. With that out of the way, Noah had a look online for stores in Akihabara that sells products a pervy dwarf would like. Only to realise that you could walk into almost any shop and find a NSFW section.

Eventually, he discovered what looked to be the holy grail of sex stores. Seven floors of products that ranged from “hey that looks illegal” to “please forgive me father for I have sinned”. Which one is worse, will be left unanswered.

“I wonder how I could ever explain to my parents that in order to get a spaceship for impersonating an alien, I needed to buy an old dwarf a sex toy?”

The title of your sex tape

Noah lowered his head before entering the building. As he turned the corner, he came face to face with an oversized dildo stuck to the concrete wall by a suction cup. I hate this already, Noah lamented as a massive shadow engulfed his frame.

“Hey big man, what’re you looking for?” Noah turned, jumping back slightly at the sight of a 6’4” muscled, bald Japanese man smiling down at him enthusiastically. After breaking out of his stupor, Noah turned his head from side to side, hoping he wasn’t the poor sap designated ‘big man’ by this wall of muscle.

The man sighed, his expression turning slightly pouty. “Damn it, it happened again, I work here yet everyone looks at me like I boiled their goldfish… it only happened twice geez.” Noah was startled by the overly specific analogy, but his expression relaxed after finding out he was an employee. “Umm, actually I’m here to find a… gift for someone.” He explained awkwardly.

“Oh my, what a good boy you are! Such a gentleman~” The man grabbed Noah by the waist pulling him into what could loosely be defined as a hug, or torture. So much for the Japanese being passive, or have I stumbled across the most eccentric man in Japan?

Pulling Noah by hand over to a small table at the back of the first floor, surrounded by anime body pillows, the man placed one leg over the other and cupped his chin. “So sweety, what kind of thing is your… friend looking for?” Noah got the receiving end of a very suggestive wink. It was obvious he didn’t believe Noah was shopping for a friend. Noah hesitated for a second, considering whether to go back and forth on the topic of who he was shopping for, eventually giving up. “Well, you see… I need to impress someone for a… job, and I was told getting some ‘specific’ gifts would help improve my chances.” The man, whose name tag just had a sticker of two flexing biceps tilted his head, before a warm smile emerged as he shook his head ruefully. “I guess nothing really changes huh, perverted old men are a universal constant. Well don’t worry champ, Uncle Mu has got you sorted.”

“Mu? Aren’t you Japanese? That’s an odd name.” Uncle Mu let out a hearty laughter before shaking his head. “It’s a nickname my friends in the JSDF gave me, half of the English word for muscles.” Well, that explains a lot. A small smile appearing on Noah’s face. Noticing this, Uncle Mu stood up and brought him into a closed room all the way up on the 7th floor of the building, where Noah would suffer immense mental strain, although he was able to quickly fill in the large gaps in his sexual education.

[30 minutes later]

After leaving the store with a bag full of things he doesn’t want to think about, and an empty wallet to boot. Noah looked at the time, finding it to be midday and walked over to a cheap Yakisoba joint. While he was ordering, something struck him like a lightning bolt. So far, he had no issues understanding and speaking to everyone. From the overly enthusiastic and ripped sex store employee to the old man running the yakisoba place. You know, I always visualised having a language power would be… I don’t know, more exciting. The sweet and savory smell of his meal took Noah out of his own thoughts.

After lunch, Noah tried to find a place to return to the void discretely, but Japan is extremely busy, and all the alleys were filled with people. So with a heavy heart, Noah returned to the bookstore’s bathroom. At least this time it was the men’s one.

Arriving home, Noah quickly pulled up the address sent to him by Nina, placing it into his GPS. “Hey Gaia, why can’t you just teleport me there? In fact, why are there vehicles all over the place when everyone can teleport?” This bugged Noah ever since he found out the train ticket cost as much as healing Noah’s near fatal injury.

Teleporting is available for species with high level domains. But even then, when you can teleport all over your home world, most species like to take the scenic route when travelling through void cities. It’s about the journey, not the destination~~

“Uhuh, well I guess it could be disorientating if all you did was teleport. I could see it getting less fun over time… not, teleporting is super cool.” Noah made sure he had everything and left his cabin in the direction of the closest station. The tall and multi coloured trees swayed in the wind as Noah wondered through the quiet suburban streets, further appreciating all the strange architecture he saw along the way.

One house was just a giant fishbowl filled with pinkish water, a massive goldfish with a long white moustache floated inside staring at a TV. “Yeah, I can see why people don’t teleport around the Void.” Noah smiled ruefully as he continued towards his destination.

After shedding a few tears while paying another credit for his train trip, Noah discovered that he was actually traveling to a different city called Titans hold. As the futuristic train blasted across the land, Noah tried to look outside and watch the scenery, but the train was moving so fast it was all a blur. When checking his GPS, Noah found his current speed was at 10km/s. If this was Earth it would be impossible, however he did see a moustached fish on his way here so Noah let it go. When looking up some info on the city, he discovered it was located within a giant crater, and they certainly didn’t use the word giant lightly. The whole crater had a diameter of 20,694km. Which for reference is almost twice the diameter of the continental United States, for a single city. Though Noah would find out the population density is fairly low, with most of the land used for industry.

After an hour and a half on the train, Noah found himself wandering through the inner city towards the middle of the crater. A massive marble statue of a bearded gladiator stood tall in the very centre, surrounded by a beautiful park designed in an ancient Greek style architecture, with sandstone pathways and marble pillars weaving through the greenery. The statue itself was in the middle of a lake, split into four by bridges suspended over the water on each side of the lake. “Yeah, sorry America, this is way cooler than the statue of liberty.” Noah marvelled as the light reflected off the large silver hammer in the gladiator’s right hand, raised up towards the sky.

After checking his GPS again, Noah continued onto his destination, passing through the busy park, filled with a variety of species. He stopped at a food stall along the lakes edge and ate a fried ball of sweet pasty filled with an incredibly sweet custard and fruit that tasted like banana and sweet potato combined. According to the vendor, the sweetener was actually made with jewel bee honey, an ingredient Noah promised to look for at a later date.

Half an hour later, after passing through the park and into an industrial area, Noah found himself outside a giant dump. Well, it wasn’t as bad as a food waste landfill. This one was drowned in a sea of scrap metal and the skeletal remains of different sorts of spaceships. There were ones that resembled destroyers from star wars, to smaller ships slightly bigger than a truck. When Noah walked through the narrow passageway, formed by forcing the landfill to either side, he came across a Soviet Brutalist style warehouse on the other side. To the back of the building, Noah saw what he assumed to be a few ‘refurbished’ ships. Maybe one of them will be mine if I play my cards right.

[Rusty]

“Hey Nina, looks like the boy is here.” An old dwarf commented with his eyes narrowed, seemingly in a terrible mood. A bright orange plasma burned in front of him, as if he had harnessed a miniature star. Beads of sweat dribbled down his entire body as he carefully pulled out a brilliantly shining jewel from the heart of the tiny star with his bare hands.

“You know~~ It’s always cool to see star metal forged, how many sun farms are you running now?” A sensual fox lady commented as she brushed her hand over her flowing orange tails. Rusty turned, placing the newly forged starmetal in a futuristic container, before placing it in his inventory. “I’ve got 12 stars now, lost one in a supernova but I sent it into one of my worlds breaches before it went off, might take out a few of those fucking shades. Ever since the void started expanding constantly a few days ago, they’ve been feeding off my systems energy even more frequently. Oh, and don’t change the topic, you’re the one who invited that Noah kid here so go and greet him already, he’s standing outside like a lost puppy. I only let him come because Morris called in a favour so hurry up.” Nina shrugged. Her calm and mature demeanour fading away, before a childish and mischievous expression took over her face as she walked towards the door. “hehe” Nina laughed as she opened the door.

“Umm, is this Rusty’s?” Noah asked with a bemused expression on his face. Nina’s smile widened as she pulled Noah’s arm with force that shouldn’t be possible given her size. “Yes! It’s nice to meet you Noah, the name’s Nina! And today, you’ll be walking out of here a new man!”

“Please don’t say things that can be misunderstood”, complained Noah as he entered the building.