“You looked like you were having some fun, Bone,” Fenrir says to Bonekraka.

“Da. Did not think we would fight like that. Should have said so before! Would not have punched you, probably,” Bonekraka replies.

“I honestly wasn’t planning on anything like that happening which is why I didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to get your hopes up then disappoint you.”

Bonekraka shrugs.

“By the way, want to go and get something to drink together? It’s been a while since the two of us have hung out on our own,” Fenrir proposes.

Pretty much everybody else is watching the two talk, interested in knowing what the result of their conversation will be. Oleander looks the most interested as he tries subtly listening in on them.

“Why not? Been a while,” Bonekraka answers.

Fenrir turns around to look at Serra and Cassiel to let them know that he’ll be going off alone with Bonekraka, but the two girls are already respectively giving a thumbs-up and nodding.

“We’ll take Rock out looking for rocks,” Serra says.

“I’ll be workin’ on the engine. Oi, you two lovebirds,” Tabitha says, looking for Corwin and Oleander. They’re already halfway down the pier. “I need your help when you’re done screwin’!” she shouts at them.

Oleander spins around to blow a kiss at her before clinging onto Corwin’s arm.

“Weren’t they just right here?” Cassiel asks.

“Don’t underestimate how fast Oleander can be when he gets horny,” Fenrir says.

“When is he not horny?”

“I’m not sure that’s possible, to be honest.”

“I don’t know if I’d be able to keep up if you were like th—” Cassiel jumps and squeaks from Serra’s finger poking her in the side. “I – I told you to stop doing that! You… you… agh!”

Fenrir and Serra both laugh at Cassiel’s inability to insult Serra.

A thought pops into his mind.

Behind them on the water is the aftermath of a major battle. Debris and bodies are everywhere. If it wasn’t for traumatic content being disabled, he’s sure that the sight would be even gorier than it already is, but… it isn’t actually disturbing. Despite everything looking photorealistic, he doesn’t feel anything when he looks over the water and sees so many lifeless bodies floating on it. He feels bad for the NPCs that have lost their lives and wishes he could have saved them, but he knows that most of the bodies he can see are players. They will all be alive and playing again in twenty-four real hours, so what does it matter if their dead bodies are floating around right now?

Fenrir realizes just how desensitized he is to death thanks to seeing it realistically happen all the time in virtual reality games. Part of him now fears that he wouldn’t be able to feel anything if he saw this same sight in real life. Though, it isn’t like the internet itself hasn’t already desensitized him to gore and death.

“It’s pretty funny how,” Fenrir thinks to Saya, “people back in the day used to think 2D video games were going to make kids violent, and now that the whole argument of video games making people violent and all that is a joke, nobody is willing to take it seriously now that it might actually be a problem.”

“You’re right, Onii-chan. Those guys on the news who try talking about it are always called conspiracy theorists or accused of being too old to understand how games work,” Saya responds.

“You watch the news?”

Saya doesn’t answer him.

“Oh, right. You’ve seen everything I’ve seen.”

“Including your premature eja—”

“I was a virgin, alright? Let’s see you last longer than me if you’re having a threesome for your first time.”

“I totally would, Premature Onii-chan.”

“I’m ignoring you now,” Fenrir says, returning his attention to Bonekraka. “You ready to go?” he asks while hearing Saya’s giggling in his mind.

“Da. Have found good bar. Will go there,” Bonekraka answers.

“Alright. We’ll see the rest of you later,” Fenrir says, waving the three girls and Rock as he and Bonekraka leave The Shoebill.

It gets awkwardly quiet as soon as they are alone. There are celebrations throughout the city, fireworks being set off despite being in the middle of the day, and the streets are packed full of life. This is potentially the loudest that Fenrir has ever heard the city behave, yet the silence between him and Bonekraka is deafening.

More concerning than the silence is that they are being followed.

“How’s the cat been?” Fenrir asks, looking up at the sky to the left.

“Bad. Going to have her checked out soon,” Bonekraka answers, neither men looking at each other.

“Are you and your wife going together, or will only one of you take him?”

“Will go together.”

“You’re not going to start a fight at the vet again, are you?”

Bonekraka takes a quick look behind them before answering, “Cat doctor strong man. Do not think I could beat him, but will fight if told something I do not like.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right. Anyways, when do you think you’ve got to go?”

“Should probably go now.”

“Alright. I hope that it goes well.”

Three seconds after their conversation ends and the two men take a sharp turn left through the busy crowd!

“What the hell!” a man asks after being knocked to the ground by Bonekraka’s massive body pushing him. The man looks ready to get up and start a fight, but he stops when he sees five of the foreign visitors chase after the wolf and the orc.

“Your looks aren’t doing us any favors right now!” Fenrir says, taking another sharp turn into an alleyway.

“Thought game would make me strong for looking strong!” Bonekraka grunts.

“Yeah, so much for that. Instead we’ve got a damn loli that puts both of us to shame!”

They stay close while running through alley after alley. Bonekraka knocks over as much as he can while running to try and slow their hunters, but it does little to stop the advanced players from steadily catching up to them.

“You might want to get your wife in this game because I think we’re about to lose some rebirth counters,” Fenrir says. “Shit, we can’t die. If we die then we’re going to miss the next round of the tournament.”

“Then do not die!”

“Easier said than done.”

One of the men behind them starts chanting, “A woman’s beard, a mountain’s roots, a bear’s sinew, a fish’s breath – Gleipnir, lash out and bind these fen-dwellers once more!”

Chains as thin as string lash out and wrap around Fenrir’s and Bonekraka’s bodies, binding their arms to their torsos and legs together as well. Despite the chain being so thin in appearance, they can’t even start to struggle against it.

“Fuck you!” Bonekraka shouts at the men now surrounding them.

“I’ve seen enough bondage hentai to know where this is going. Sorry to disappoint you all, but I’ve got traumatic content disab—” Fenrir’s smartassery is interrupted when a steel boot kicks in his face.

“Don’t kill them,” one of the men says right before stabbing his spear into the back of Bonekraka’s thigh.

Fenrir remembers that Bonekraka has traumatic content enabled as well as his pain setting set to realistic, but when he looks over at the orc, he sees the defiant Russian that he’s always known. Bonekraka refuses to show any pain, refuses to cry out, and will shout Russian profanities until he no longer can.

“Shut him up! We don’t need to be seen,” the same man from before says. One of his companions tears off a piece of his shirt to shove into Bonekraka’s mouth mid-swear.

“You two aren’t very smart, are you? You led us away from the public’s eyes. None of this would be happening if you would have stayed where the guards could find you,” the man says, stabbing his spear into the back of Bonekraka’s other thigh before twisting it around.

Fenrir can’t even imagine the pain that Bonekraka is experiencing right now. Yet, he doesn’t look the slightest bit affected. Bonekraka just spits out the cloth and starts shouting again.

One of the men crouches down in front of Fenrir and grabs him by his ears. “Your ears are too long. I am amazed that they aren’t flopping over yet. Want me to crop them for you?” the man asks.

“I’ve already had enough cropping in my life, I think. You know, circumcision and all that,” Fenrir replies before spitting at the man holding his head up. Naturally, he gets replied to by having his head smashed down against the cold, stone alleyway.

The man only holds onto his right ear now while using his free hand to wield a dagger.

“Can you at least do it to my left ear if you’re going to do this?” Fenrir asks.

"Onii-chan! You have traumatic content disabled, and this technically counts as torture, so why are you consenting to it?" Saya asks.

"I want to match with Rock," he thinks back to her.

“A masochist? Sure, why the fuck not. I’ll be generous,” the man says, pressing the dagger to the middle section of Fenrir’s left ear before cutting it off. Fenrir bites down on his lip to prevent himself from making any pained noises. If Bonekraka is resisting the pain, so can he. “Now we’re even,” the man says, dropping the top half of Fenrir’s left ear in front of his face.

Fenrir looks up at the man. He’s an elf, and one of his ears is missing.

He puts two and two together.

“Even for what?” Fenrir asks.

“You know exactly what you did,” the man answers.

“No, really, what did I do?” Fenrir has his best clueless expression on.

“Do you really not recognize me, you bastard?”

“Cass Cass?”

The man bashes Fenrir’s face into the ground again. “You bit my fucking ear off!”

Fenrir spits some blood. “Did I? Sorry, you’re not waifu-able enough for me to remember your face. I try not to think about trash too much. Also, try not to copy my one waifu’s favorite nickname for me. It gives me weird feelings when somebody else calls me a bastard now.”

He knows that they aren’t allowed to kill them, so that means that Fenrir can safely enjoy screwing with them without punishment – well, without dying at least.

“The hell are you on about?” the man asks.

“Don’t worry, I get that a lot.”

“You sure I can’t kill this bastard?” the man asks, looking up to the man who has been stabbing Bonekraka.

“Unfortunately. As much as I really want to kill him now for being a damn weeb, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble if we kill these guys,” the other man says.

“Correction. You are not going to be in trouble, you are in trouble,” a woman says while walking down the alley.

The group of men finds their eyes drawn to her rapier crackling with electricity.