Chapter 76 – Nighttime Chat with Rosalia

Steel Slice smirked as he ran his hand up his widow’s peak and through his slicked back hair. “I have enough tickets, right?”

The otherwise eternally angry Beelzebubs laughed, slapping his rabbit paws on his belly as if he heard a good joke. “Yes, two hundred and thirty four tickets is more than enough.”

“Catch you in the finals,” Bubs said while saluting Steel Slice, before hopping off to continue his massacre.

“Is that the guy you told me about?” Rosalia asked, pointing at the barbarian king guildmaster of the Steel guild. “Steel Slice?”

“Yep, that’s him alright,” I growled. “Spoiled brat kid of the S corporation CEO. In his late twenties and still waving around daddy’s money like he earned it himself. He works at his dad’s company as a liaison managing director, basically he doesn’t do shit except cash a fat check every week from his pops and drive around town in luxury cars picking up expensive prostitutes.”

Rosalia bit her lip and frowned. “Yeah, he’s a pretty big asshole from what I’ve seen so far.”

I chuckled. “Don’t girls like guys like that? As long as they’re rich and relatively good looking, from corporate dynasty families.”

Rosalia shrugged. “Some of my friends do, but personally I don’t care too much about dating a corporate heir.” She had a weary look on her face for a moment, but it faded into a bright smile as she looked at me and bit her lower lip playfully. “And plus, if I was limited to only annoying guys like that, then I wouldn’t be able to have play time with my cute big Spoon, right~”

I knew she was just trying to joke around, but my pride stung a bit knowing that I wasn’t some kind of big shot heir like Steel Slice. It felt like he one upped me from miles away.

Making a casually disappointed face, I crossed my arms. “Hey, how do you even know I’m not the son of a conglomerate CEO? Maybe I am, and you just don’t know it.” I tried to make a sparkle appear in my eye to seem more convincing.

Rosalia covered her mouth and giggled. “No way~”

“How can you be so sure? We haven’t even met in real life yet.”

“Why don’t we do that, then? Let’s go to an amusement park~ A Fantasyland just opened in Seoul recently, we can go~”

“Here’s my info~”

Rosalia wrote her contact information on my interface’s notepad, since communication functions were currently blocked.

“You live there? That’s a really nice part of town,” I said to her after seeing her address.

“Hehe, yep I go to school at Yonsei University~”

Damn, this girl was smart, to be able to get into one of the top three universities in korea. Maybe I underestimated her because of how ditzy she always acted.

“You know, I can barely tell that you’re korean. If you told me you were a foreigner I’d believe you. I can sort of tell from your mannerisms that you aren’t a foreigner, but based on looks alone it’s not easy…”

Rosalia laughed. “It’s because of all the cosmetic products I have on, haha... You will see what I look like in person later anyway~”

I gave her a quizzical look while smiling. “Are you that different in real life?”

Rosalia looked at me for a moment, and then added a comment. “Don’t worry, I’m even prettier in person~”

“I believe you, haha…” I responded to her. “Cosmetics can only change your appearance a little, so you have to be good looking in real life as well.”

“Aw, thanks~” chimed Rosalia. She leaned into me and planted a wet kiss on my cheek, then trailed down and bit my neck, sucking in to leave a hickey.

There were still quite a few hours left until midnight, more than enough to intimately enjoy Rosalia’s company.

-------

The moment the clock struck midnight, a hologram of Beelzebubs appeared before us.

“Ahem. I’ll be delivering tonight’s weather report perk for all gold invitation holders. The weather forecast tomorrow is cloudy, with a chance of rain. The main night event I’ll be holding is called safehouse scramble.”

“The rules for the safehouse scramble will be revealed tomorrow during the contestant debriefing, so for now I’ll give you a general gist of what’s going to happen.”

“The gods have opened up a number of safehouses in this region, with food and entertainment and all the necessities you’ll need to fuel up for another murder filled day. These safehouses will open up at sunset, and anyone with a high enough rank key will be able to open them up.”

“If you don’t find yourself in a safehouse, at night we’ll be unleashing some not so pleasant surprises for the miserable idiots that didn’t get keys. And that includes you two,” Bubs said while staring directly at us. “Don’t think you’ll be safe in this realm, dimension thief. I’ll post ten ogres outside your portal if I have to.” Bubs squinted at me, narrowing his eyes as he examined my face.

“Honestly, I still can’t believe the dimension thief is such a spineless wimp, compared to your predecessor,” the bunny said while staring at me intently.

I responded, a bit confused. “My predecessor?”

Bubs folded his arms across his chest and threw his head back, laughing. He snapped his paws and summoned a portal, then stepped into it. A moment later, a portal opened directly above where the hologram was, and Bubs landed in the dimension room. “You didn’t even tell him, Cerebi?”

Meat Shield, who was idling to the side, suddenly stood up in interest. “Well, he didn’t ask, nyang~”

Bubs leaned on the wall and laughed maniacally. “I’m not surprised that you didn’t tell him. His successor looks like a total pushover so far. Only fourteen tickets on the first day of this challenge?”

“Who are you talking about?” I said, completely confused.

“The original dimension thief, of course,” Bubs said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Vahlen Hazak, lord of the ancients, the soulstealer himself. Not a pleasant guy to work with, but you couldn’t deny that he was good at getting the job done.” Bubs spoke as if he was reminiscing on something that happened in the past. “Ah, that was quite a time. He was the one that first convinced me to change my mind about all humans being worthless. Although it’s been more than three thousand years since then...”

[You have unlocked a new investigation]

The demon Beelzebub has given you information about your predecessor, an enigmatic human known as Vahlen Hazak, Lord of the Ancients, the Hollow Soulstealer.

Investigate Vahlen Hazak’s legacy.

Reading the description of the investigation gave me chills down my spine. My predecessor seemed to be part of the lore itself, a titan from time immemorial, long forgotten by everyone except ancient demons themselves.

And standing before me were two of those ancient demons.

…

A fluffy white bunny and a black cat.

“Vahlen Hazak would be rolling in his grave if he knew that his successor was a spineless mouse that ran from fights with his tail between his legs.”

He must’ve been referring to the Steel Slice fight. Although calling me a mouse was rich when coming from a fluffy rodent. Were rabbits considered rodents? Not too sure, although probably not. But either way, a rabbit calling a human a mouse was pretty ironic.

Beelzebubs tutted and shook his head. “How can the successor of the soulstealer himself be so weak? What a shame.”

Meat Shield jumped onto the couch armrest and settled herself down to lounge. “Master is weak, but that’s just because he’s new at this. Give him twenty years and he’ll improve.”

Twenty years? Did she have that little confidence in my ability to improve?

Bubs snickered. “We’ll see. Anyway, I’ve delivered the weather report perk and have a hot date with a young bunnygirl to catch. She just turned a hundred years old, barely legal ya know. See ya.”

With a snap of his fingers, Bubs created a portal and jumped through it, leaving us for the night.

I sighed. “Well, guess we should go to sleep for now, so we’ll be prepared for tomorrow’s event.”

Rosalia nodded.

“But there’s no furniture here… how about this.” I opened the menu for the dimension shop, ignoring Bubs’s salesman-like voice ringing out the moment I entered the shop screen, and navigated to the furniture section.

[Tatami Futon]

Basic sleeping bed roll. What it lacks in comfort, it makes up in portability and price.

Price: 5 souls

[Standard Bed]

Basic twin sized bed. Relatively comfortable.

Price: 30 souls

[Royal Bed]

A king sized royal bed, with an ultra soft mattress and fluffy covers.

Price: 400 souls

[Soul bank: 293 souls]

Ugh...I decided to buy the cheapest option for now, the tatami futon. Later when I had more souls at my disposal, I’d be able to set up a nice bedroom, but this would have to make do for now.

[You have purchased Tatami Futon]

A somewhat comfortable looking futon appeared with a poof to the side of the living room.

“Oh, looks comfortable~” Rosalia said cheerfully. “Do we get to share the futon~”

“Yeah,” I nodded, laughing as I took off all my clothes except a t-shirt and underwear and jumped onto the futon. Ouch. Harder landing than I expected. “Come,” I said to her, beckoning her to me for a big hug.

Rosalia giggled, unbuttoning her cleric robes and tossing them onto the couch as she peeled back the blanket and climbed into the futon with me, pressing her soft body onto mine with just her white bra and underwear on.

Resting her head on my chest, she draped her leg over mine and snuggled with me. “This is so comfy~” she said sleepily, rubbing her face in contentment against my chest as I put my arm around her and affectionately pet her smooth blonde hair.

We fell asleep cuddling, with the television playing in the background at a muted volume.

------

[You will be summoned to the field in twenty minutes.]

The loud announcement woke me up from my sleep. Checking the clock function of my interface, I saw that it was early morning. The time interface was rather cute, with a smiling sun face peeking over the horizon.

Rosalia was already awake, resting her chin on my torso while smiling at me. “Good morning, Spoon~”

“Morning Rosalia,” I replied happily. After all, what guy wouldn’t be happy being greeted by such a pretty face in the morning. Her gentle lips complemented her cute face and bright eyes, which were highlighted by an intense eyeshadow from the Eclipse cosmetic shop.

Eclipse corporation really knew what they were doing when they designed the female line of aesthetics, consulting top fashion designers and cosmetics experts to create products that let girls look even more beautiful and exotic virtually than they did in reality.

“Spoon, it seems like you’re happy to see me~” Rosalia said flirtatiously, her hand lingering over my boxers. She bit her bottom lip and pulled at it, tugging on my boxers with her hand.

“Rosalia, you’re really beautiful,” I said to her, staring at her icy gray eyes with a bit of glowing blue, like a shining iridescent fantasy crystal. Her beauty was almost fantastical, to say the least, because of Eclipse’s cosmetic shop. No wonder so many people treated this game like night life– it let already pretty people become otherworldly beautiful.

“Yeah, I know~” she replied with a hint of pride in her voice, pushing back her blonde locks.

There were only twelve minutes left before we’d get summoned to the field for our morning debriefing. “Let’s get dressed first,” I said.

Laughing, Rosalia pecked me on the lips and rolled out of the futon, grabbing her clerical robes from the couch and running to the hot spring bath so she could put them in the magic laundry for cleaning.

Her cleric robes were pretty decent, but she also needed to upgrade her clothes as well. Today I was planning to head back to that hidden outpost shop to spend some tickets on better equipment.

I didn’t get a chance to fully launder my clothes before time ran out, but no big deal.

[You will now be summoned to the field.]

“See you later Spoon,” Rosalia waved at me, as a teleportation circle appeared below her, and her body began to disappear from the bottom up.

“Bye, Rosalia.” My body began to disintegrate in a similar fashion as well. It reminded me of mass teleport from the battle of Mountain.

A moment later, I reappeared in a different area than yesterday. This time, we were spawned on a beach, near a large lake.