As promised, it did not take long before the maid class was ready for implementation. However, once Lifre told me that she wanted the private messaging system to be added as well, I asked Ashley to hold off on applying the patch until that was done.

Unfortunately, things got a bit more complicated after that. Once I added the private messaging system to both of the testbed worlds, Ashley said that the rest of the system code had mutated. This meant that it would likely take them a few more weeks to sort everything out and have the code prepared again.

When I heard that, I could only let out a sigh of resignation. Of course, I knew that the system was prone to changing things however it wanted when a new facet was added in. I saw a grand example of this when Fyor’s magic system was introduced, with the birth of mana siphons. So this is why high level Keepers like Oldbeard and Sarah actually still buy things from the system instead of making everything themselves.

Surely, the way that we were doing it was bound to be the more difficult path to follow. However, the fact that we were able to create a method to crash other game systems because of it felt like it was worth the trouble. After all, as long as our opponent didn’t create a firewall, we could throw their entire world into chaos simply by bringing down their system.

In the meantime, I spent my days enjoying a ‘mortal’ life on the surface, once again going around and visiting various festivals or tourist locations with Tsubaki and the others. After the last time we did this, the girls only seemed more happy for the approved leave, though we weren’t able to get Gerard to come join us.

“Thanks, that’ll be everything.” A young felyn girl said as she turned off her communication crystal, a smile on her face. She hummed lightly to herself, leaving her bedroom that seemed to be converted from an old office, and walked out to the kitchen.

In the kitchen, she could see a downtrodden boy standing at the counter, trying to make himself some dinner. When she entered the kitchen, his eyes seemed to light up briefly, though he glanced around as if to make sure nobody saw the change.

“It’s fine, Dash. They’re both gone.” The girl said, walking over and patting the boy’s back. “Mama got called back in to work, and Papa is out at the festival.” When the boy heard that, he let out a long, sullen sigh. He was only eight years old, far too young for his parents to be voluntarily leaving him home alone.

“Is it really okay for you to call them Mama and Papa, though?” The boy asked, looking at her. “You’re pretending--”

The girl put a finger on his lips, shaking her head. “Until my work here is done, I am their daughter, and they are Mama and Papa to me, and you are my super cool older brother.” She said with a smile. “Mama’s going to be getting home a bit later today, I think. One of her more abusive coworkers is being fired. She might even be getting a promotion to let her work from home!”

The boy’s eyes went wide at that, looking at his ‘sister’. Even he knew how much stress his mother’s work put her under. “How did you even…”

“I recorded evidence of the abuse against her and other employees, including some that crossed the line of legality. So I just sent that information to the police and upper management.” She said with a shrug of her shoulders, as if it were easy. “Anyways, what were you thinking of making? If you want, I can help! That’s what a sibling’s for, right?”

The boy blinked, before letting out a small chuckle. “I was just going to make sandwiches.” He admitted shyly, the girl rolling her eyes.

“Nothing wrong with that. Papa would probably get upset if we used the stove, anyways.”

Dash nodded his head, glancing around again. “What… what are you going to do about Papa?” Although neither of his parents were very attentive, leading to some problems at home, at least his mother’s issues could be attributed to work.

The girl’s face scrunched up at that. “Still working on that one. I’m hoping that having Mama around will bring out the best in him.” She shook her head, as if she didn’t have much hope. The boy’s father was a drunkard that preferred any chance to go out and have fun as opposed to staying with his family. And worse, when he came home, he was often an angry drunk. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong in the father’s life that she could try to correct, it was just that he had gotten lazy and selfish after not having to work for so long.

The boy’s head lowered at that, but he still nodded. At the very least, he’d have one of his parents around, and the house would not always be so empty. “Then, if you can’t do anything about him… what will--”

He was silenced by the girl once again placing a finger over his lips. “I’ll take care of it, Dash. I promise, I don’t want to destroy this family. All I want is for them to give their child the love and care he deserves. Nothing is worse than an abused and neglected child. Now, let’s get these sandwiches made, and we can go over your homework!”

Dash swallowed thickly, but nodded his head again. “Alright… thanks, Lily.” He said with a shy smile, watching his ‘sister’ quickly assembling two sandwiches, one for each of them.

“Now now, we talked about this.” Lily said with a grin. “My name is Clara while I’m here. Lily is just the name of a friend from school that your parents haven’t met, alright?”

“Oh! Right, sorry Clara.” The boy nodded his head quickly, pulling his hand up to trace his fingers over his lips.

Lily nodded her head in satisfaction, taking the plates out to the dining room. As she did so, she focused on her avatars. There were currently two of them, one watching each of the boy’s parents. The first was sitting invisibly in the back of his mother’s car, while the second was quietly following his father. As far as she knew, the problems with his mother would be taken care of with this, but she still wanted to watch and make sure. Lily never liked leaving a job half-done, after all.

The real problem was the father, at this point. He wasn’t simply going out to ‘festivals’ as Lily had claimed. Instead, there was a young elven woman on his arm, the two seemingly on a date at this festival. Affairs are always the worst to deal with… especially when the rest of the family still loves the cheat.

Lily pursed her lips, trying to think about how she could do this. If she revealed the affair to Dash’s mother, she would be heartbroken. All of the work taking care of the stress from her work would be undone. Worse, she could never predict how the situation would go from there. The two may break up, sure, but there was the chance that his mother would become even worse than his father due to the heartache.

If there was another target for me to shift her affections to, like some male best friend, that would be great. Sadly, she doesn’t have anything like that. Rather, instead of saying that she didn’t have anyone, her hypocritical husband got jealous whenever she spent too much time with another guy. Meanwhile, he has an elven beauty that he runs off and spends time with every chance he gets.

She had considered driving a wedge between him and his mistress, but that wouldn’t fix the core problem. The man simply loved to go out and spend the money that his wife brought home from work in order to court other women. The elven girl wasn’t even the only one that Lily had caught him with.

“You know, following couples around like that makes you seem really suspicious, especially when you try to hide yourself.” A voice spoke up next to Lily’s avatar, making her eyes go wide in shock. She turned her head to see a black-haired elven girl wearing a neatly pressed maid uniform. The girl’s eyes were closed, but she seemed to be looking directly at Lily.

Lily gulped audibly, recognizing the figure. Who wouldn’t be able to recognize one of the servants of the Keeper himself? Her eyes darted around, and she soon caught sight of the Keeper walking down the street with both Tsubaki and the slime girl, Lifre. Only Dana was absent, and she was now standing in front of Lily herself.

“But… how? I was hiding my presence with my divinity?” Lily asked curiously, her eyes focusing back on Dana. She wasn’t scared, as she truly hadn’t done anything other than follow the man with this avatar. If Dana heard the story, she would likely be just as concerned as Lily herself.

“You weren’t hiding your shadow.” Dana said, pointing at Lily’s shadow. “I’m rather sensitive to shadows, so when I noticed one that didn’t seem to have anyone attached to it, I thought there might be a monster that snuck into the city. So… are you going to tell me why you’re following those two?”

Lily pursed her lips, glancing around. “It’s a bit of a story, do you have the time? Without getting in trouble with the Keeper, I mean.”

Dana tilted her head, before letting out a soft laugh. “Oh, we don’t actually have to stick together. We just were to help keep the wave of media from swarming him. They’ll be just fine if I take some time to listen. I just want to make sure you’re not going to cause a scene when we’re nearby.”

Lily shook her head, having no intention of doing anything like that. “That man is a drunkard, an abusive father, and a cheat.” She said under her breath, not wanting their conversation to be heard by anyone else. “I’ve been staying with the family for a few weeks now, just to try and help their son and the rest of the family. I’ve done everything that I think I need to for his mom, but…” She glanced towards the father again, as if trying to make sure she didn’t lose sight of him.

When her eyes went back to Dana, she jumped back in fright. Dana’s eyes were no longer closed, and were… utterly terrifying as she looked at Lily. Cold and dark, but full of an intense power that Lily knew she wouldn’t be able to resist if a fight started. She had her methods of self defense, but she was far from a combat deity.

“He has a wife and son, and would rather spend his time having affairs?” Dana asked, her voice as cold as her eyes. Something about the story seemed to have struck a deep wound with her, tearing open old scars. “Why haven’t you just revealed him, then?”

“I… don’t want to destroy the family.” Lily said, once she had the courage to speak up. “Both his wife and son still love him. If I were to bring this to them, it would crush both of them. His wife doesn’t have anyone else to support her, so I’m afraid that she would go on a downward spiral from the shock…”

Dana’s brow furrowed deeply at that, glancing towards the man that Lily had been following. “Have you tried revealing the fact he’s married to the women he’s dating?”

Lily gave a bitter smile at that. “They already know. He never tries to hide it.”

“Well, then.” Dana nodded, and Lily could see the little elf’s shadow seem to stretch out endlessly behind her, into the crowd of people. “I’ll take care of things here. You disperse this avatar, and just wait for him to come home. Don’t worry, I won’t be hurting him. He may be living garbage, but I’ll never take a father from his child.”

Lily didn’t even have the chance to disagree. As soon as Dana told her to disperse her avatar, she felt her consciousness fading from it, as if her spirit were being evicted from the avatar itself. Back at her main body, she felt a cold sweat falling down her back, almost dropping the sandwich that she had been eating moments before.