The urge to kill Thelmes every single time he says “splendid” is rising within Fenrir.

“Splendid! Now, for the wolf and his daughter, are there any skills you two would like to test?” Thelmes asks.

Serra gets a huge smile and sparkly eyes when she hears Rock referred to as Fenrir’s daughter. That is just so extremely adorable to her that she can’t resist smiling at the concept. It totally works, too. Rock is a girl, they’re both canines, and he basically created her by loving her enough that she came to life!

Fenrir looks over at Serra. She’s definitely thinking something weird.

He looks at Cassiel.

…

Why is she looking at him the same way that Serra is right now?

“Uhh, no, I can’t really think of anything for either of us. I guess I can test my sword… proficiency skill? What’s that do?” Fenrir asks.

“Essentially, every tier in Sword Proficiency gives you a bonus modifier to damage inflicted by weapons classified as swords,” Thelmes explains.

“Hey. I just got an idea. What if – what if I fight with fish?”

Serra and Cassiel both lose their awed expressions.

“You know, like, what if I catch a really big fish and just slap people with it all day? Would I do bonus damage whenever I hit people with fish?”

“I… err…” Thelmes is caught off guard for the first time.

That’s what he gets for being so splendid-y.

“I… want to say no, but… knowing this game… yes – yes, you would most likely invent a Fish Proficiency skill that behaves the same way as Sword Proficiency.”

Fenrir has a bad feeling when he sees Thelmes light up.

“That’s – that would be a great experiment! My gosh, I never even considered that! I am a failure of a scholar! My friend was trying to combine pigs with monkeys, and here I am failing to see the obvious! Fenrir, was it? Fenrir, together, we need to invent in a whole array of fish-related skills! If we can create a whole new category of combat skills involving fish, I could submit that as my thesis to the big guy and then I’ll get promoted if he approves it! Yes, yes! This is perfect! Turning my lower half into a cat is nothing compared to what we are going to accomplish together with fish!”

“…yeeeaaahh, so can I test my sword skill now?” Fenrir isn’t used to his jokes being taken so seriously. Sure, he was curious if it would actually work, but it was mainly a joke. Though, now part of him actually does want to try it out.

“A-ah, I’m getting ahead of myself. My apologies. I am very easily excited, as you may be able to tell. Anyways, go ahead! Just use the training sword instead of your own.”

Fenrir does as told, using the training sword to slash at the slime golem ten times.

“Splendid,” Fenrir cringes, “your Sword Proficiency is tier one. That means you gain a five percent bonus to damage inflicted with swords. Anything else?” Thelmes asks.

"It doesn't sound like I do that much damage even with a sword then, so how was I able to kill a guy just by punching him in the face then stabbing him in the chest?" Fenrir asks.

"Well, the sort of damage we are measuring here is the base damage you deal before the game takes into consideration all other factors such as where you hit them, realism, and so forth. Even if you only do one point of damage, if you cut off somebody's head or stab them in the heart, they are going to die. So while you do not need to do much damage to actually kill somebody, you will if you want to get past other factors such as armor, magical barriers, tough skin or hides, and so forth."

“Got it, thanks. I think we’re all done here,” Fenrir says. Cassiel and Rock are both in agreement. Though, to be fair, Rock agrees with pretty much everything that Fenrir says unless Serra has an objective to him.

Fenrir may be Rock’s dad, but Serra is the cool aunt.

“Splendid!”

Fenrir worries that his face may get stuck in this cringing position.

“Let us return to my office so that I can stamp your cards.”

They walk back to the first room he took them to, sitting down at the desk for a final time.

“How do we get these things upgraded?” Fenrir asks.

“Once stamped, the information on these cards cannot be changed. You would have to go through testing all over again to fill out the fields on a new card.”

“What’s the cost for the higher tier cards?” Cassiel asks.

Fenrir doesn’t know what she’s referring to.

“Ah! Copper cards are five gold a piece, iron are ten, silver are twenty-five, gold are fifty, and platinum cards are one platinum,” Thelmes explains. “We can also do custom orders with exotic metals, but those are one platinum in addition to you having to provide the metal itself.”

“So, the material of the card is basically like the stat for how wealthy you are?” Fenrir asks.

“Basically,” Cassiel answers him.

“Is there anything else you would like to do today?” Thelmes asks them.

“We’re good, thanks for helping us out so much.”

“Splendid! The pleasure was all mine, Mister Fenrir. Now, let me escort you to the entrance. We can discuss our fish theory on the way…”

Unfortunately for the fish-addicted cat-goblin-thing, when he leads the group back into the building’s main lobby, he realizes that he is going to have a very busy day ahead of him.

“Ah…”

There are over fifty players sitting and standing around waiting to be helped.

“I knew work was too slow today. They had to all come eventually,” Thelmes groans. “Sorry, can you show yourselves out?”

“No problem, thanks for helping us out again. Good luck with all of them,” Fenrir says, waving goodbye.

Serra lifts one of Rock’s paws to show her how to wave.

“Thank you. I am going to need all the luck I can get. If only that was a trainable attribute.” Thelmes turns to face the crowd. “Sorry for the wait, everybody! I’ll start assisting you now.”

The group escapes through the entrance before the crowd goes wild over whom gets to go first.

“That reminds me of horror stories I’ve heard about old school DMVs,” Fenrir says to the girls once they’re back outside.

“It was scary,” Serra says.

“Yeah, screw everything about working a job alone when there’s that many people. But, those crazy scholars love that kind of stuff, so he’s probably going to love every second of that rush. It’s so not for me,” Cassiel explains.

“Also, I can see why you wouldn’t explain the scholars to us. They’re very, uhh, eccentric,” Fenrir says.

“That’s the nice way of saying it. Yeah, they’re pretty out there. They’re like the super hardcore dedicated players of other games who just spend all day putting lore on Kiwi pages or theorycrafters who obsess over numbers.”

Fenrir holds up his new card to look over it. “Isn’t an ID card pretty useless without a picture?”

“They don’t know how to take pictures or anything like that yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they figure it out soon. The silver and above cards can get an etching of your face put on them, but that’s it.”

“Oh well. Now what?” Fenrir asks.

“You wanted to learn about the fishing tournament. Let’s do that,” Serra says, poking Fenrir’s side with Rock still held in her arms.

“Thanks, Serra, but there isn’t really a point. Nobody else wants to participate, and I don’t want to go join a random crew to do it. It’s not the same if I don’t do it with my actual friends, you know?”

Cassiel looks away. “I… I’ll help you with it if you really want me to. It’s not like I have anything better to do,” she mumbles.

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t want anybody doing anything they don’t really want to do. I would just feel bad if anybody does it for me without wanting to actually do it themselves. I’ll enjoy doing something more that everybody wants to do and enjoy together.”

Fenrir says that, but he actually really wants to accept Cassiel’s reluctant offer to help.

Ever since he was a child, he’s always wanted to do things – play games, watch movies, visit places, that nobody else would ever want to. Sure, if he begged and cried enough he would eventually get his way since everybody would feel bad, but he realized that going to places with bored people just took all enjoyment out of it.

Even Bonekraka and Oleander are guilty of this at times. He’s always doing what they want to do, but they rarely ever want to do what he wants. They try to put on happy faces for him to make it look like they’re enjoying it, but Fenrir always sees right through them and somehow makes whatever they’re all doing about them instead of him. The only time they're ever really on the same page is when it involves drinking or killing people.

It’s extremely lonely in a sense. He’s happy doing almost anything with anybody as long as it means those he cares about are happy. Yet, he never lets people do the same for him since he is ultimately more concerned about their enjoyment over his own.

He finds it hard to believe that he once led the most hated guild in gaming when he’s a major softy at his core.

“Come on, let’s—”

He stops himself when he sees Serra and Cassiel both staring at him with concerned expressions.

Ah, shit.

He spins around and wipes his eyes.

Great, he had to go and think about emotional things that always get to him, and now he’s gotten all teary-eyed in front of Serra and Cassiel. He just knows how to look cool in front of the ladies.

“Sorry, I’m fine. I was uhh, thinking about...” he doesn’t want to lie to them even though it would protect his pride, “…things.”

“What’re you apologizing for? I didn’t see anything,” Cassiel says.

“I was just looking at you because I want to touch your ears,” Serra says.

Fenrir can’t turn around yet. They’re just making him even more teary-eyed.

“Thanks,” he says.

He’s sure that they’re both concerned about him, but he’s happy that they’re respecting he doesn’t want to talk about it. Someday he’ll open up about it, but not right now.

“I actually am serious about wanting to do the fishing thing. I was thinking about it while you were doing your tests. I just… don’t really know how to fish. I’ve never done it before. If you teach me then I’ll be fine. I just don’t want to go into a tournament without knowing anything about it,” Cassiel says.

“Saya, can you disable my tear ducts from working?” Fenrir thinks to Saya.

“Sorry, Onii-chan, but you’re stuck being a crybaby for now!” Saya answers.

Great.

He tries bottling everything back into where it was. The cork gets more difficult to seal everything in every time he has to replace it, but for now, it’s stuck in there well enough.

“Ahh, fuck. Alright. We’re going to need bait first,” Fenrir finally turns around. Rock is pawing at the air as if trying to swim through it to him. Serra holds Rock up so that he can take her. Taking Rock into his arms, Rock hops up against his chest and licks his cheeks where the tears were. “Thanks, Rock. You’re a good girl.”