And so, a new relationship was formed, and it didn’t take long to see the results of it as Nell’s maid crew began to spend less time with her and more time with Rao. It was evenly split time, of course, but that was significantly more than what they spent with Rao before.

Fenrir couldn’t help but to feel proud whenever he saw them all together. Though… there was clearly much work that needed to be done still seeing as how it looked like none of them had any idea what to do now that they were actually in a relationship. The girls had some experience, at least, but—well, to call it experience was an exaggeration. It was more like the maids all had specific desires that they now used Rao for, but none of them knew how to actually act like girlfriends just as Rao had no idea how to actually be a boyfriend. But, at least they were all happy together, even if they often awkwardly sat around each other clearly having no idea how to actually act.

Maybe they were just enjoying the weather in silence together, Fenrir figured. Or hoped. Thinking of them as purposely being quiet to enjoy their surroundings was better than thinking of them as a bunch of awkward teens who had no idea what to do.

That aside, everybody seemed busy, so Fenrir found himself rather aimlessly wandering around since he wanted to do something but didn’t know what to do.

And that was when he noticed Cassiel and Eva loading up The Shoebill with a few different crates of unknown contents.

Naturally, that grabbed his interest.

“What are you two up to?” Fenrir asked the two women from the pier.

“I’m bored and want an adventure,” Cassiel said. “All this sitting around and doing political stuff isn’t for me. I joined up with the empire originally because I wanted to be an angel on the frontlines of combat, but all we’ve been doing lately is… sitting still over here. We had that fight against the serpent, but all that did was make me want even more adventure.”

Fenrir brought out the fake sniffles when he heard that. “You’re—you’re breaking up with me because I’m boring?” he asked with an extremely dramatic voice.

“Don’t make me hit you.”

“Please do.”

Cassiel sighed and walked up to Fenrir, stepping off The Shoebill, to flick a finger against his chest. “There. And no. Even though I know you’re not serious, I still feel I need to say I’m not breaking up with you, you overly dramatic sweater-loving pervert.” Fenrir’s ears perked up as soon as he heard the word “sweater,” causing Cassiel to sigh again.

“More seriously, if you ever want to do anything, all you have to do is ask me.”

“Well, yeah, I know, but you’re always busy. You’re either going on fishing trips with the NPCs, training or fighting in the arena, helping Nell out, dealing with your,” Cassiel looked around and saw too many people within earshot to bring up the submarine, “special project, or being a relationship counselor for others. You’re already busy and having a ton of fun. Plus, it’s not like all of my fun should be tied to you. I’m more than capable of going out and doing things on my own.”

“Part of me almost feels jealous hearing that, but I know what you mean.”

“Don’t be jealous that it’s possible for me to have fun without you.”

“I know, I know. I’m just messing around. Though, I will admit I would rather you have fun with me than without me, not that the latter is illegal.”

“Then come with us. It’s not like The Shoebill can’t handle an extra pair of hands on deck.”

“I was getting to that part. How am I going to invite myself if you invite me for me?”

Cassiel crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes. “I’m so sorry. Here, let me just revoke my invitation then since you don’t want—”

“No, no, I accept.”

“Thought so.”

“Hey.”

“What?”

Fenrir reached forward and pulled Cassiel’s hair into two different groups on each side of her head before lifting the groups of hair up to make it look like she had twintails. Meanwhile, Cassiel was just staring at him with dead, empty eyes as he messed around with her hair.

“I was going to say that twintails don’t really suit you, but then you looked at me with those eyes during it,” Fenrir said. “They work.”

“No,” Cassiel replied, swatting his hands away from her hair. “And I will never have tails like that.”

“Why not?”

“They’re too childish. Also, I know you and Serra. I wouldn’t be able to go a single day without one of you somehow referencing using them as handlebars. I don’t need my hair to become the source of even more degeneracy for you two to exploit.”

“Tsk. But there’s nothing like a tsundere with twintails having her handlebars used.”

“The next flick will be for your balls instead of your chest.”

Fenrir covered up his crotch with his hands immediately after hearing that. “I surrender.”

“Thought so.”

“A-anyways, do you two have a destination in mind?”

Eva jumped into the conversation next to say, “Those islands I discovered while trying to escape the atmosphere. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them ever since I noticed them. I know you said you wanted to explore them, but you’ve been taking too long, so I thought we’d go ahead and check them out first. But if you’re free, you can come with us!”

“What’s even in all these crates you’re taking?”

Eva walked over to a crate and reached in to pull out what appeared to just be a normal, glass jar. “Containment vessels!”

“Glass jars.”

“Same thing. What if there are a bunch of undiscovered species on those islands? I’ll need to secure every single insect, rock, plant, and even blade of grass that looks like an undiscovered species. And if I can discover a bunch… I’ll get even stronger.”

“How?”

Eva, with a smug smirk on her face and her hands on her hips, spoke with pride as she explained, “Us Scholars have a special skill that boosts our experience gain rate the more species we discover. So for every species that we discover, we grow stronger faster in every other field for it!”

“How the heck did you figure that out?”

“With a lot of trial and error. Don’t forget, the Scholars are full of players whose peak enjoyment comes from testing even the most tiny and random of things. So when it was noticed that one of our most devout field researchers seemed to develop rapidly in all other areas, enough testing was done to confirm that some sort of skill exists that allows one to grow faster the more unique species that they have discovered. Of course, you need to not only discover them, but study them as well. A minimum of one hundred species is needed to even unlock the skill in the first place as far as we know seeing as how no changes in personal growth rate could be detected beyond that point. But as soon as somebody has unlocked it, if I’m remembering the numbers correctly, the subject who gained the skill was able to acquire an extra health point .25% faster than the player without the skill. And it really does apply to everything, meaning that you will gain health, mana, improve your other stats, skills, and more all faster than you usually would. Thus, it was decided that the skill would be named, ‘Fervor of the Learned.’ Given how few people we believe actually have the skill, since most people aren’t going around looking for new species and then not studying said new species, we believe fewer than .1% of all players have the skill. Therefore, it has earned the rank of being a legendary-level skill for how rare it is!”

While Fenrir struggled to keep up with how quickly Eva explained everything during her passionate rambling, Cassiel happily watched with a loving smile on her face and an equally loving look in her eyes.

“Maybe you should join the Scholars, Cass,” Fenrir said.

“What? No way,” Cassiel replied. “I just love listening to her talk.”

Eva nodded and told Fenrir, “She’s not fit for the Scholars at all. I’ve already confirmed that. But, I’ve also confirmed that she will listen to literally anything that I ramble about. Let me tell you, there are so many realizations I’ve had just by talking to her even though she doesn’t say anything back most of the time. All I have to do is talk to her for a long enough time and I’ll eventually have a breakthrough.”

And again, Cassiel was looking at Eva with awe and love in her eyes.

“You don’t look at me when I talk like that,” Fenrir said with a playful pout.

“I like her voice more than yours,” Cassiel said, opting for the most blunt option.

“Understandable. I, too, like her voice more than my own.”

“You’re not supposed to take that seriously.” Yet another sigh left Cassiel’s mouth. “It’s not that I like her voice more, I just like how passionate she gets when she rambles. It’s nice to listen to people who are passionate about what they’re talking about, and Eva is never anything but passionate. She never lies, never exaggerates, never feels forced into anything—you can just… tell that she’s always a hundred percent genuine. She never feels the need to lie or exaggerate because she already thinks everything she’s doing is the coolest stuff in the world even without that, and she never sounds bothered or forced because she loves to talk about what she’s interested in. You… never really get like that, but Eva is always like that about basically everything.”

Fenrir stroked his chin as he watched Cassiel fangirl over Eva’s passion. “I get it. I can see it now. You’re passionate about Eva’s passion. And I guess… there’s not really anything I’m that passionate about. Or rather, nothing I’m both passionate and intelligent enough about to ramble about. Even when it comes to fishing and sweaters, it’s not like I know enough about them to really… ramble about them. Maybe I need a new hobby.”

“Or you can just keep on being yourself because we all already love you just as you are.”

“But I want to make you love me even more. I’ve already read that you should never stop trying to improve for your partner, so I want to do that. I want to be somebody who makes you realize that you somehow manage to love me more every single day. Alright, that settles it. It’s time for a new operation. Operation: Be A Better Boyfriend!” Taking Cassiel’s hand into his own, he stepped aboard The Shoebill and swung his arm out toward the ocean. “Together, we’re going to go on an adventure to explore those new islands! We’re going to put down any threats we come across, engage in hopefully epic battles, and discover the unknown! Meanwhile, we’ll also be letting Eva nerd out and research all sorts of new things that we don’t understand but are still interested in because she’s interested in them! And then we can roleplay being stranded on an island and do lewd things, like dressing you two up in bikinis where you wear coconuts for bras.”

While Cassiel might have given Fenrir a gentle karate chop against his head for that comment, Eva tapped her chin and said, “I wonder just how efficient of a bra I would be able to make using coconuts. It probably wouldn’t be too difficult for me given my modest size, but,” she paused to look at Cassiel’s overwhelming bust, “for you… unless we discover a new species of giant coconut, it would probably end up looking like one of those micro bikinis on you.”

“That makes it even better,” Fenrir said. “They would basically only cover up her nipples and then leave the rest exposed.”

“Hmm. I think I can understand the appeal to that, but I would have to see it myself to really confirm whether or not that’s something I’m interested in. But that’s one of the experiments we can do while we’re out there.”

Now, Cassiel was used to the perversion of the group relationship she was in.

But they were not only being peverts, but they were also being perverts in public with other people around who could hear everything being said, and that meant she could see several nearby players and NPCs alike all staring at her after Fenrir and Eva talked about dressing her up in a coconut micro bikini.

Needless to say, Cassiel turned red and made sure to properly bonk both her boyfriend and her girlfriend on their heads before marching below deck. “Hurry up and finish bringing everything on board!” she shouted back at them.

It was Fenrir’s turn to let out a peaceful sigh. “Ah… properly tsundere Cass Cass. It’s been too long since I’ve seen you. I’ve fallen in love all over again.”

“I have to admit that I do enjoy the contrast in how she can act,” Eva said. “Also, being playfully hit like that was kind of nice. I wonder if I’m a masochist? I might need to perform some tests on that to measure just how much of a masochist I might be.”

“Wait, you’re not already a huge, confirmed masochist?”

“Of course not. I have never done enough testing with a partner to confirm most of my potential fetishes. While most of the Scholars would… gladly test such subjects with anybody willing, I would rather wait for… a relationship like ours to test them. But every single time the opportunity arises, I’m too horny to think about that and just want to cum instead. I need to set aside time for a specific, lewd experiment if I really want to test that out since otherwise I’ll just get too horny and be normal.”

“I’m just surprised given the magma baths and atmosphere launching and whatnot.”

“Doing things that I know will most likely hurt or kill me for the sake of science does not make me a masochist. Nor have I have ever gained sexual enjoyment out of such feats. For example, when I wanted to experience what it was like to fall from a great height and survive, there was no sexual pleasure to be found in lying on the ground with my limbs twisted and broken. Though, it was interesting to see how the bones stabbed out through my skin. That gave me enough information to visually replay it in my head like watching a physics simulation where I watched myself fall in slow motion to figure out exactly how and why my bones broke the way that they did.”

“Yep, there goes all the bystanders and any lewd thoughts they might have had in their heads. Anyways, have you checked up with the others to see if they were interested in coming?”

“Mhm. Everybody’s busy or got other things they want to do. So, it’s just us for now.”

“Everybody, huh? I bet I can find one more crewmember for us if you give me a few minutes. Mind loading the rest of this up so that I can go grab her?”

“Oh, sure. Who is it?”

“You’ll see.”

Eva tilted her head, unsure of who Fenrir could have been talking about since she already checked up with everybody that they were on good terms with.

With that, Fenrir ran off to go and pick up the last crewmember that The Shoebill needed for an adventure.

It didn’t take long to find her, either, since she was always in the same spot whenever there wasn’t anything going on.

She was currently in the middle of sleeping, too. She was just curled up and enjoying one of her many daily naps.

That was when she heard the words that could wake any slumbering beast from their nap.

The words were soft and almost whispered, but still loud enough for her to hear and immediately lift her head up upon hearing.

“Hey, Rock, wanna go for an adventure?” Fenrir asked. Then, as one did when talking to a pet dog, he repeated the previous question in an even more playful voice. “Who wants to go for an adventure?”

With her heavy, rocky tail wagging down against his bed’s mattress with enough force that he was worried she was going to break his bed frame, Rock jumped up off the bed and charged straight at Fenrir! She was so happy when she reached him that she jumped up onto her back legs and—!

And…

In the process of tackling him and getting up on her back legs, she accidentally brought her hard-as-a-rock head right into his crotch, crippling Fenrir and sending him to his knees as he twitched and groaned in pain.

While Rock licked his face regardless of the injury she just inflicted, Fenrir groaned out, “Just—just give me a few minutes to recover, first.”

The less adventuring they went out to do, the larger, heavier, and clumsier Rock grew.

They needed to get her on a diet once they were back from their adventure.