After teasing Noodle for a while, we—

I

AM

NOT

NOODLE

STOP

CEASE AND DESIST

YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE LAW, CRIMINAL SCUM

If Mama is Noodle, can I be Little Noodle? Oh! Wait! Mama can be a spaghetti noodle, and I’ll be a macaroni noodle!

WE’RE NOT A FAMILY OF NOODLES

But… I wanna be a macaroni noodle…

Please… don’t make me—

Delphi charged at us out of nowhere with intense excitement in her eyes. “I sensed soup ingredients!” she shouted. “Where are they? Is there a fellow foodie?!”

“You’re something far beyond being a foodie!” I shouted.

“A foodie is a person who’s particularly interested in food! Soup is a food! I am particularly interested in soup! Therefore, I am a foodie!”

She’s not wrong.

-Window, not Noodle.

“Signing yourself that you’re not Noodle doesn’t make you any less of a Noodle, Noodle,” I said.

boi I will sla—I-I mean… have to think of something non-abusive since we’re in front of Macaro—I mean Luca!

I’m Macaroni Noodle now!

Delphi’s tail almost wagged fast enough for it to lift her off the ground. “Mother and daughter noodles! We could make a family soup! But, we’re missing an ingredient.”

What are we missing? I wanna help you make family soup!

“The father noodle!”

Must be a really small and soft noodle.

Part of me felt attacked by that. The other part of me respected how good that was. It was a strange feeling, respecting somebody for making a good joke about my trusted partner being small and soft.

I opened my mouth to say something, but then Window decided to take the diss to an even higher level.

He probably thinks he’s a lasagna when he’s really just a rigatoni.

Delphi blinked a couple times, her tail still wagging behind her as the joke went over way over her ears.

Luca must have detected that we were being inappropriate, so she turned away from us to let me and Window have our moment.

You’re such a good girl, Luca.

Delphi’s ears perked up. “Did… did I hear good girl?”

If I had canid ears like Delphi, mine probably would have perked up at that. I was confident that I thought what I thought. There was no way that I said it. Yet, Delphi apparently heard it. Or she had some sort of psychic sense that I thought it.

Was that her special power? She could sense whenever the words “good girl” were—

Delphi’s ears twitched again.

That had to just be a coincidence, right?

Drake, it is a being of existence’s—ah, screw it. Dog girl. It’s a dog girl’s innate power to detect praise whether it’s verbal, mental, or narrative.

“That makes no sense. Also, what’s with not calling her a being of existence?” I asked..

Think about it. Anybody who is still reading at this point isn’t potentially gonna get offended by calling her what she is: a dog girl. The prudes are gone by now. The people who might not be able to differentiate between a dog and a dog girl should also be gone by now. If they’re not, too bad. This is a weeb zone. Normies get out.

“Don’t be a gatekeeper. Nobody likes gatekeeping.”

Normies would walk over your garden and not care about being careful of all your plants since they’re be too busy doing normie things.

“Normies get out.”

I knew you’d understand, Rigatoni.

“One, that’s not my new name. Two, it isn’t a rigatoni!”

You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s a ditalini.

“A what?”

Window pulled up a picture of ditalini noodles on herself.

They were the shortest, tiniest little noodles I had ever seen.

Therefore, I threw her.

She was back an instant later.

Dra—I mean, Ditalini, throwing informational status noodles windows does not replace coming up with a witty comeback.

“I’m going to be honest, Noodle.”

htbergdfhgtredhgtrewsd

“I can’t think of a comeback. You’ve thoroughly destroyed me and I have no idea how I could even begin to get back at you other than throwing you into space.”

Wow. I’ve never heard you admit defeat so easily.

“It’s the best insult you’ve ever come up with.”

I… I win. I can’t remember the last time I’ve won and I’m too lazy to go back and reread to make sure that I didn’t win just a few chapters ago but forgot.

I win.

It’s like… a whole new world has opened up before me. A world where I can dominate it just by comparing your thing to various different noodles.

This…

This is the power of noodles.

Delphi, still watching and listening to everything go down, finally spoke up to say, “I don’t really know what’s happening… but if Master is the father noodle, then we have all the ingredients needed for family soup!”

The next thing I knew, Delphi was reaching down between her breasts to pull out… a bowl.

But not just any bowl.

It was a bowl that could expand to a much larger size.

Delphi placed the bowl on the ground and stepped back, allowing it to grow large enough for three people. It looked more like a bathtub or miniature pool at that point.

“Delphi… where did you get this?” I asked.

“The soup goddess gave it to me,” Delphi answered.

“The what?”

The what?

“The soup goddess!” Delphi repeated.

Delphi… there is no soup goddess.

“Now there is. Who else would have given me the perfect bowl for soup?”

Probably Vala.

“Nope,” Vala answered, suddenly hanging off my back with her arms around my neck. “Wasn’t me. Was probably the soup goddess.”

But… there is no soup goddess. Right? Wait… is there?

“I haven’t met her so I don’t know, but it’s possible if Delphi believed in her hard enough.”

“Wait,” I said. “Are you telling me that gods are so easy to make that all you have to do is believe in them?”

“Well, that’s all they really need, so basically. Genuine worship and belief is all that’s needed. You can make a god and religion out of basically anything as long as you do that.”

“I don’t want to believe that creating a god is that easy.”

“Gods really aren’t that impressive.”

“I remember you saying something like… you’re not that impressive when I asked if you were a god when you first brought me here.”

“It was more like… it wasn’t as impressive as your concept of a god. The concept of gods is like, super crazy. People make gods sound way more powerful than they are and stuff. Really, they can barely do anything. If a whole country of people decided to worship a god of rain, their belief would cause a god of rain to pop into existence, and then the god might be able to make it drizzle for a couple of minutes every month or so. Or they could save up all their power for a single day every year like Santa.”

“Did… did you just say Santa?”

“Mhm.”

“As in that guy who goes around dropping presents into everybody’s chimneys?”

“Yep, same guy. Met him once. He has a really loud laugh and his belly jiggles everywhere when he laughs.”

“You… you met Santa.”

“I’ve met all of your world’s gods. I think. Maybe. I don’t know, it’s been a long time. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are a few hundred more now that I don’t know about.”

“Are you saying that Santa is a god?”

“Yup. He was created in the same way that all the other gods were. And because he only works one day a year, and he has all the love of kids all over the world which is like… more pure and innocent and stuff, he’s actually really strong. He’s probably the strongest god your world has. Anyways, it’s no problem for him to visit the house of everybody who believes in him to drop off presents.”

“Does… does he have elves?”

“Nah. He uses his power to spawn the presents out of thin air. That’s what he saves it for.”

“Does he… have a sled?”

“Yep, and reindeers.”

“How does he visit every house in time?”

“Slows down time. It takes him a couple weeks of working around the clock, but only one actual night passes.”

“Does he drop presents off to kids who don’t believe him?”

“Nope.”

“That’s kind of messed up.”

“Eh. He would run out of power if he visited every single kid who didn’t believe in him, too.”

“I guess that’s fair. Anyways… Santa exists. And he’s a god. A god who is more powerful than all the other gods.”

“Yup. And he’s got a huge belly and super loud laugh. Wanna meet him?”

“You’re screwing with me.”

“I wouldn’t screw with you. You’re my boyfriend. And I love you and stuff. Also he’s probably bored. Wait… I just had an idea. Oh man… it’s a really good idea, too.” Vala dropped off my back and opened up a portal next to her. “I’ll be back later. I’ve gotta go do something.”

“You’re actually leaving? What happened to being lazy and playing video games all day?”

“This is for the vidya, Drake. Everything is for the vidya.”

“What about me?”

“Dating you makes playing vidya better because then I get to play vidya with somebody I love.” With that, Vala winked and flew through her portal.

When I turned around again, I saw Window and Luca, in their human forms, wearing swimsuits, sitting in the giant bowl as Delphi stared at me as if waiting for me to get in, too.

“Why are you two inside the soup bowl?” I asked.

“So she can make us into a family soup!” Luca answered.

“Because I have nothing better to do. My gacha game servers are offline,” Window answered.

Well, I knew that I was going to end up in the bowl one way or another most likely, so I climbed into it and waited to see what insane thing was going to happen next.

I probably got too used to playing along with all the insane things of the world. But, nothing bad ever happened as a result of playing along, so it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Furthermore, I planted a star.

Being turned into soup was nothing compared to that.

“So, what kind of stock are you going to use?” I asked.

“Soup stock,” Delphi answered.

“But what flavor?”

“Soup flavor.”

“What flavor of soup?”

“The soup flavor of soup.”

“Delphi, soup isn’t a flavor. Soup has flavors, but soup itself is not a flavor. It needs to at least have vegetable stock. Or chicken stock. Or beef stock. Some kind of flavored stock. Otherwise it’s just water.”

Delphi reached back into her cleavage and pulled out a container of stock.

And surely enough… the stock had a picture of soup on the front. It read, “Soup Stock.” There was no other description and the picture of soup didn’t make it clear what flavor it was.

“Is that another gift from the soup goddess?” I asked.

“Yep!” Delphi answered. “Watch!” She opened up the cap on the container and tilted it into the bowl, allowing a waterfall of stock to pour out from it. Too much stock poured out of it. It was a normal looking container of stock… yet it poured out enough liquid to fill it up several dozen times over and didn’t stop yet.

It was an endless container of soup stock.

Now, because I knew that the world made sure we were always clean when it mattered, I had no problem dipping a finger into the stock rising around us to taste it.

And it tasted…

Like soup.

I felt as if my mind was going to break from the discovery.

It just… tasted like soup.

But how was that possible?! That made no sense! Soup itself was not a flavor! How could something taste like soup?! I didn’t even know how to describe the taste other than by saying that it was clearly soup! It didn’t taste like any kind of meat nor vegetable stock, but it… it tasted like soup.

That shouldn’t have been possible.

Yet it was.

For the first time in my life, I tasted soup. Pure soup.

It was somehow more ridiculous than anything else I could remember lately. Soup-flavored soup made less sense than planting a star. It made less sense than Santa being the strongest god. It made less sense than Delphi being able to create a god all on her own.

All of space and time wept, for it was not ready for soup soup.

Then I felt the stock splash against me.

“Ehehe, I got you, Papa!” Luca said.

I was going to splash her back, but then I noticed something.

Window was in a swimsuit that matched Luca’s. I didn’t know the name of the style of swimsuit, but I knew that it was supposed to be like some sort of school swimsuit that I saw as a vanity outfit in the MMO me and Vala played.

The swimsuit looked adorable on Luca.

But on Window…

It looked too tight.

In all the right places.

It might have covered up her whole torso, but it left little to the imagination with how tightly it hugged her.

That was when I realized I fell for her trap.

I did exactly what Window wanted me to do.

When I looked up at her face, I saw her staring at me with the smuggest smile I’d ever seen from her.

She knew exactly what she was doing.

Then, while staring straight at her… she squirted some of the stock at my face.

“You’re too easy, Drake,” Window teased. “You’re a million years too early to challenge me.”

“Since when are you that old?! And what am I even challenging you at?!”

“Being the superior being. You lost the first round which means I win the entire thing because that’s how this works. I am now the superior being. All hail informational status wind—”

I squirted some of the stock at her face. It got in her eyes which cut her off and caused her to hold her hands over her eyes as she dramatically flailed around.

“Alright!” Delphi shouted. “Everything is ready… to make family soup!”

A portal opened above those of us in the bowl, right between where we all were. We were more or less spread out in a triangle shape around the bowl.

Then a table fell through the portal.

Then three bowls of soup fell through it, landing right in front of us each, with spoons and napkins ready.

A glass of water then fell down for me, a glass of wine for Window, and a glass of lemonade for Luca.

“Family soup, complete! It’s perfect!” Delphi cheered.

I looked around. Me, Window, and Luca were basically just sitting in the soup-flavored soup stock with a normal table in front of us. I felt like I was sitting at a restaurant, except the restaurant was inside of a bowl of soup. “How… how is this family soup?” I asked.

“Because it’s a family in a bowl of soup eating soup together! What’s it like? How does it feel to have become one with the soup? Is it great? I wish I could join you…”

“You could just… you know, get in.”

Delphi shook her head. “I’d ruin the recipe. Soup recipes have to be followed exactly! Unless coming up with a new recipe or modifying an existing one! But all other times, they have to be followed exactly!”

There Delphi was, salivating at the sight of us in the bowl of soup that she could easily jump into at any time… yet she refused.

She respected the soup too much.

That still wasn’t as ridiculous as the soup-flavored soup stock.