Cassiel is excited to work with Fenrir after hearing his new plan. He has to work some of it over with Oleander still, but it should work. For now, Fenrir and Cassiel exchange Fiscord names and head back to their safe spots.

It’s late. Fenrir may not have gotten much done, but he’s made a new friend – well, he thinks that he can call her that, and has helped Rock evolve into a proper pup! He can’t wait to see how the rest of the group reacts when they see her now. Of course, he’s also interested to see how they’re going to react to Cassiel. He can’t imagine them being too kind to her if he lets them know that she almost killed him. Maybe he shouldn’t let them know?

Nah. He’s definitely going to let them know.

Having crawled back into the small den where Bonekraka and Serra are logged out in, he wakes from the game and heads over to his desktop. He has to add Cassiel to Fiscord before he forgets her username.

Friend request sent to Holy Justice #3498

Her Fiscord username fits her in-game appearance, but as far as matching her personality goes, it’s a complete miss.

The request doesn’t get accepted right away. Ryouta stares at the screen for a few minutes in waiting. It’s only been a day, but he’s grown used to Serra’s immediate responses. He also sends a message in the group chat letting everybody know that he’s found a new friend and has come up with a plan, but that he has to tell them the plan in-game. He figures that telling them the plan outside of game would be pointless since their virtual assistants will just block the memories.

“Time to try sleeping again,” Ryouta says, stretching and yawning. He’s fortunately tired enough to sleep now.

His alarm wakes him up at a normal hour, which is unfortunately only a few hours after he was finally able to fall asleep.

Staying awake is going to be rough if he doesn’t want to mess up his sleep schedule.

Then again, seeing as how he has nothing to do but gaming, it’s not like it matters if his schedule gets messed up.

“Yeah, I’m pathetic,” he says to his ceiling fan. “I need to get one of those little robots that automatically make and bring you coffee. Hey, fan, go buy me a coffee robot.”

The fan replies by continuously spinning its blades around.

“Fuck you too then.”

Ryouta grumbles and climbs out of bed. After relieving his bladder, the first thing he does is plop into his desktop’s chair and open up Fiscord. There are new messages in his direct messages and the group chat. He checks the group chat first.

>Viktor’s Favorite Slut: k

>Viktor’s Favorite Slut: i’ll start heading down 2 u guys after class

>Viktor’s Favorite Slut: is the new person a cute boy

Of course, that’s all Spencer is worried about.

Ryouta checks his direct messages.

>HushedVoice: Good morning! I just woke up. I hope you slept well! Let me know when you’re ready to play more. I hope we have another wonderful day together!

>HushedVoice: Ahhh! I just read the group chat and saw you played more! I told you not to immerse again before me >///

Serra is too precious for this world. She needs to be protected. Alas, he decides to bully her instead.

There’s one more conversation with new messages.

>Holy Justice: Hey

>Holy Justice: Ready to kick their asses whenever you are

Whereas Spencer is obsessed with cock, Cassiel is apparently obsessed with revenge. He sends a couple of messages to the group chat and Serra before sending Cassiel a response.

>TheMemeStruggle: Your name and looks make me think you’re like some sort of paladin roleplayer, but you seem more like the dark knight type.

Ryouta gets some water and a morning snack while waiting for the replies to come in. Surprisingly, Serra isn’t the only one to have replied while he was up.

>Holy Justice: I used to be

>Holy Justice: Was one of the Augus Empire’s holy knights before I fucking got reset

>Holy Justice: Livia wouldn’t take me back since I wanted revenge but she didn’t want to hurt relations with their guild

>TheMemeStruggle: Livia?

>Holy Justice: Yeah, she’s the Empress of the Augus Empire, sits up in Saint Augus and bosses everybody around from there

>TheMemeStruggle: Remind me of this in-game so I don’t forget when I immerse.

>Holy Justice: It’s vague enough and common knowledge so it shouldn’t get blocked

>TheMemeStruggle: Good to know, thanks. It’s going to be a few hours before we can do anything.

>Holy Justice: Immerse to help me pass time, I’m off today

>TheMemeStruggle: So bossy. At least let me finish my breakfast first.

And by breakfast, he means chips.

He looks down and pinches his gut. Alright, there’s only a little bit of pinchable fat there. More than he’d like, but not too bad.

He sends a message to Serra asking if she wants to hop in with him to hang out with him and the new party member. Naturally, Serra immediately agrees and says she’ll immerse right away.

She doesn’t want to let him immerse before her again.

Ryouta sends one more message to Cassiel before putting away his chips and getting ready to immerse.

>TheMemeStruggle: See you in-game.

A few minutes later and Ryouta is Fenrir once more.

Fenrir opens his eyes to green muscles. Serra isn’t in front of him this time, but he can hear her giggling and Rock playfully barking. Rock slept at the entrance of the den to keep watch. Now, Rock is running around and playing with Serra.

“You’re so cute,” Serra says, giving Rock a few pats on her head. “Where’d you come from? Were you lost and decided to stay with us?” she asks.

“That’s Rock,” Fenrir chimes in.

Serra jumps a bit when she hears his voice, but what surprises her more is that this puppy is supposedly that silly rock Fenrir was carrying around with him. “Really? This is… this is Rock?” she asks for confirmation.

Rock answers her question by hopping up and barking.

“How?” Serra asks.

“I’m not sure how it works. I was about to get killed, and then Rock turned into this and saved me. She’s a good girl,” Fenrir explains as he crawls out from the den. Rock assaults him with licks and nuzzles the moment that he’s out. “Who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl? That’s right, you are!” Fenrir showers Rock in praise, making that stony tail wag even more.

Fenrir looks up at Serra. She looks like she wants to pout, but he isn’t sure why. Maybe she’s jealous that Rock is giving him attention instead of her?

She is jealous, but that’s not why.

“How’d you almost die?” she asks.

“Our uh, new friend wanted to kill me. She thought I was with those pricks from Coastedge. Didn’t realize that their logo is on these clothes,” he explains, showing her the shoulder with the logo. “Wait, I should…” he draws his sword and uses its tip to cut the logo off. “Much better.”

Rock barks in approval.

Serra looks even huffier than before.

“What’s wrong?” Fenrir asks.

“I don’t like anybody who tries hurting you,” she answers.

“Don’t worry about it. After hearing her story, I would’ve done the same if I was in her shoes. Those guys are assholes to more than just us. Anyways, ready to go meet her?”

Serra reluctantly nods.

Rock takes the lead, excitedly running ahead and getting distracted by new scents every few feet. Fenrir stands by every single time that Rock gets distracted. “Gotta let her sniff,” Fenrir explains. Fortunately, Serra doesn’t seem bothered by Rock drastically slowing them down with all of her sniffing sessions.

The trio eventually makes it to the stream where he first encountered Cassiel.

Sitting on a rock next to the water is an annoyed woman trying to put her spear back together. She’s failing at it. She’s even gathered some of those stems to try and “glue” it back together, but it doesn’t work.

“Hey, Cass!” Fenrir shouts over to her.

Cassiel turns to look at him with frustrated eyes. “My name is Cassiel, not Cass, and you better hope that your plan works! I was starting to get attached to this spear, but you broke it!” she shouts. Her eyes focus on Serra when she notices her. “Who’s she?”

Fenrir expects Serra to hide behind him similar to how she did when she first met Bonekraka and Oleander, but instead, she steps in front of him and crosses her arms. “I’m Serra, and – and you better not hurt him anymore,” she says, mustering all of her courage.

“Haah? Listen here, shorty,” Cassiel says, standing up and gripping the remnants of her spear in her hands. She’s making herself look as intimidating as she can.

However, when Rock places herself between the two girls, Cassiel steps back and huffs. “I only want to kill the bastards who reset me. I’m not going to hurt anybody who doesn’t want to hurt me.”

“Alright, alright. We’re all friends here, so let’s calm down. You’re both girls who those pricks wanted to screw over, so bond over that instead. The last thing we need right now is for you,” Fenrir pauses to look at Cassiel, “to try and thrust your pole into us.”

Cassiel’s face goes red. Her lips are moving as if she wants to shout something very angrily, but no words come out.

Serra snerks at Fenrir’s innuendo and notices the other girl’s reaction.

Cassiel might be a strong fighter that could easily defeat Serra in a test of strength, but Serra is already coming up with plans to take advantage of Cassiel’s apparent weakness. Serra can’t wait to see Oleander and Cassiel together.