Volcatia was bored.

It wasn't new for her.

She was bored more often lately.

Why was she always bored?

It was a question she wondered about for a while on the roof of Carl's workshop.

Aquila's words lingered in her mind despite her attempts to throw them out.

She'd thought about fighting.

She'd thought about fucking.

She'd thought about legs.

Nothing worked.

Each time, she always came back to what Aquila had said.

Was it really true?

No, it fucking wasn't.

She wasn't.

In the next instant she could be anywhere, hanging out with any number of people who would be excited to see her again.

A few minutes from now she could be fucking any number of people who had legs so sexy she squirmed just thinking about them.

If she wanted, she could go fight someone or something too.

That hardly even took any effort!

Fuck, half the times she went anywhere, people would pick fights with her, completely unprovoked!

How was she lonely if she could do that?

She didn't do any of those things, obviously.

They all seemed boring right now.

Not for the first time, she wondered if there was something wrong with her.

There wasn't though.

She was just human.

Humans got bored, didn't they?

She wished Carl would wake up so she could prove to herself that she wasn't lonely.

They were friends, so it was normal for her to expect that he'd be there to hang out again today, wasn't it?

She reconsidered the thought.

That almost made it seem like she was depending on him for fun.

Volcatia depended on nobody and nothing, and that was how she liked to be.

That was how she'd always been.

She continued to lay on the roof while the suns came up over the horizon.

She hadn't always been like this.

She'd depended on her brother, her mother, and her father when she was growing up.

She wondered what Opiter would say if he heard the story of her life.

She knew what her father would say.

But those were boring thoughts.

She'd thought them many times already, and they could never be more than thoughts.

She needed to find something to do.

She had too much time to waste.

She'd done everything though.

She'd traveled the world, visited strange lands and cities, met all sorts of famous people, fought monsters, fought people, fought things that were neither of those…

What was even left for her to do now that she hadn't done already?

She could race, she supposed, but there would be no challenge in it, and she knew how quickly she would find herself bored in a contest that held no challenge.

The suns continued to reach higher into the sky.

She wondered what the suns were.

There were deities who it was said drew power from them.

She'd met one once.

That had been fun, though she wasn't eager to do it again.

Maybe she was a little.

There was the obvious reason.

Maybe she could visit one of the suns to see what it was made of.

That might be fun.

Eh.

Probably not.

Mysteries like that were usually best left as mysteries, she knew.

The time she'd met a dragon was proof enough of that.

All those legends, and the supposed last of its kind just wanted to complain about shit.

Didn't even have good legs.

Was Carl fucking awake yet?

Urgh, she was so fucking bored.

She wagered that nobody had ever been as bored as she was at that moment.

If she wore an horologium, she might have checked the time.

She never needed to know the time though, so an horologium was useless to her.

She refused to be confined by it.

That was…maybe not very human-like.

Okay, enough of this shit.

Volcatia stood up and took a mug of coffee out of her Inventory.

She'd made a lot this last time, but she'd nearly exhausted it once more.

It was maybe not a surprise that the coffee an archmage drank wasn't for everyone.

That Carl enjoyed it as much as she did was great since they were friends.

They were friends, weren't they?

She'd said it, and he agreed, but was that enough?

It had been a long time since she'd had a friend.

She looked down at the mug in her hand.

Maybe Carl wasn't good enough to be her friend.

Shouldn't her friends be at least as strong as her?

That was impossible though.

Volcatia sighed.

Maybe Aquila was right.

If anyone had the qualifications to be her friend, it was probably Carl.

There couldn't possibly be two people like him in the world.

And he was fun to hang out with.

Sometimes.

He still had that problem of his.

She moved down into the workshop and set the coffee on the stone table she'd had Saxum create.

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Carl was slumbering away peacefully.

She missed sleeping sometimes.

Maybe she'd try doing it more.

That was something humans did too, wasn't it.

This was too fucking hard.

She moved back to the roof and pressed her palms to the sides of her head.

Maybe she should have come back sooner.

The first year or two she'd been gone had been somewhat normal.

Maybe just the first year.

Maybe the first day?

How long had it been since she'd noticed it all?

Remembering was getting harder.

That had been the first sign.

She remembered that much, at least.

Maybe Aquila really was right.

Maybe this was the cause of her problem.

She was just so fucking tired of everything.

But that wasn't human either, was it.

Why did she even bother clinging to such a stupid fucking idea?

Why bother caring whether she was human anymore?

She didn't know, but she knew she was afraid to stop.

Fine.

Volcatia took a deep breath.

If Aquila was right—if—then that just meant she needed to be with people more, didn't it?

She grimaced as the second part of the Imperatrix's appraisal poleaxed her again.

Okay, fine.

Fine.

Fine!

Maybe she'd give this friends thing a real try.

Friends…

She started to tap her foot.

What would really being friends mean?

She tried to remember back to all those years ago.

When she had friends before, she…

They hanged out—she didn't like the feel of the phrase in that use at all though—yeah, but they also helped each other sometimes, didn't they.

So maybe she needed to help Carl.

But then didn't that also mean she should expect him to help her?

The idea made her frown.

She couldn't imagine that he would ever be able to help her with anything.

Or that she would ever have anything she would need his help with.

This whole thing was making her head hurt.

Too fucking complicated.

She wasn't a complicated person, and she didn't like complicated things.

She'd try to help with Carl's problem some more.

It seemed like a good starting point.

She'd try.

If it got boring…

She didn't know what the problem was though!

That fucking girl wouldn't talk at all.

How was she supposed to fix things if she didn't know what was wrong?

Wasn't that how solving problems worked for people?

She cast her mind backwards, fighting to recall how it had been when she first arrived in Onyxfell all those decades ago.

But it had barely been more than one decade, hadn't it.

Remembering hurt.

This was too fucking much to think about so early.

That seemed like a human thought to have, didn't it?

Yeah, it definitely was.

Volcatia was great at being human.

She moved back into the workshop.

It was a very human way of changing locations.

She was on top of the roof, and she was also still in the workshop since she'd been there before. She just stopped being on top of the roof—though she was also still on top of the roof, obviously—and was in the workshop.

Except humans couldn't do that.

She knew as much.

It was part of that quantum shit that made her head hurt any time she thought about it.

So she didn't.

She looked around just like a human would, and she saw with her eyes that there was nobody here just like a human would.

She was about to call out and ask Carl where the fuck he was, but then she reconsidered.

With how weirdly protective he was of Mina, he might get mad if unnecessary yelling woke her up.

She might lose her friend.

Probably not.

People didn't stop being friends for such stupid reasons, did they?

She tried to remember.

What had happened to her friends?

They stopped being her friends, obviously, but she couldn't quite remember why.

It was different from thinking about the archmage with the divine legs.

Her, she remembered.

She just didn't want to for various reasons.

Definitely not the reason Aquila had said either.

Volcatia decided to look around. She started with the room that contained the shower as well as the toilet that the Char hero had probably added along with so many others.

She hadn't used a toilet in years, but she was tempted to again use the shower.

She'd do that later.

Hot showers were a small joy that she hadn't gotten bored of yet, and she didn't want to overuse them.

Carl wasn't in the shower room. She even checked the ceiling in case he could stand up there like she could. She didn't check the pipes, but she imagined he wasn't that dedicated to hiding, if that was even what he was doing.

He was Carl though, and Carl did a lot of really fucking weird things.

She looked around the main floor of the workshop thoroughly. There was the automaton fornicatiēns, which she still really wanted to talk to and laugh about since its existence was another of those really fucking weird things Carl had done, but there was no Carl.

She checked the stairs next.

There wasn't really anywhere to hide on the stairs.

Not for humans.

She climbed up.

Her eyes rose over the second floor, and she spotted Carl with his hand down Mina's shirt.

Volcatia frowned. She looked closer, and he spotted her, mouthing some word that definitely wasn't something she knew in the process.

Also his hand wasn't down the girl's shirt, which she felt immense relief at since it would have made him incredibly boring. Instead, she was holding onto him in her sleep, judging from how asleep she looked and how she was holding onto him.

If Volcatia was an admirer of breasts, she might have commented further, but she wasn't.

She liked legs, and that was final.

She'd thought about it in great detail and length over the years, just like she was doing now.

She stopped though, because she had to figure out what the fuck Carl was doing. She mouthed the question to him, but it didn't seem like he was very good at understanding what she meant.

He moved his lips again, seeming to be increasingly panicked.

She rubbed her forehead.

Was he trying to tell her something in another language?

What the fuck would be the point…

Well, that would be a perfectly Carl thing to do, wouldn't it.

He began to gesture crazily while she spectated, first placing his free hand under his head and closing his eyes on it as though he was going to sleep on it.

As though it was a pillow.

Volcatia grinned.

This was sort of a fun game.

Next, he repositioned his hand pillow as though he was going to put it where his other arm was…

Okay, so he wanted a pillow to replace his arm.

Why didn't he just take one out of his Inventory?

Maybe…

Did he not have pillows in his Inventory?!

The idea shocked her.

Pillows were one of the first things she'd gotten to put in her Inventory.

They were so useful!

She could sleep on them if she wanted.

She could fuck on them if she wanted.

She could throw them if she wanted.

Obviously she'd been using one while she was laying on the roof that morning.

Might even have been the one she took from the palace.

Wasn't like Aquila would miss it.

Or maybe she would, but that wasn't something to worry about.

Volcatia returned to the main floor.

"Inventory," she said quietly.

She searched through the assorted pillows.

Which type should she choose?

This one was probably too rough.

This one was too lacy.

These were too big.

What was…

She didn't remember putting this one in, but she wasn't going to worry about it.

This seemed like the one.

It was sort of the shape of an arm.

Good texture.

Not too hard.

She looked down at the pillow.

Yeah, this would work.

She'd have to be a little fast to avoid waking the girl up, but that wasn't a problem.

She decided to be a little faster, and then she was faster.

She walked over to the stairs and climbed back up to the upper level.

Carl was standing motionless, frowning at the stairs.

She walked forward, pillow in hand. She moved Carl down to the main floor. Being closer made it easier. With him gone, it was easy to slot the pillow into the gap his arm had left.

She felt some tiny satisfaction when the pillow fit perfectly.

Her eye for sizes and distances was still flawless.

Volcatia moved back to the main floor and decided to be slower. "You wanted a sandwich for her, right?" she joked as Carl looked around in confusion.

He made a Carl sound to confirm that he was confused at being moved.

She thought about it.

Had she ever moved anyone else before him?

Probably not.

She'd still been human back when she had people she might have…

No, she was still human.

Very human.

"Joking, obviously," Volcatia said, acknowledging that she was still a human who made jokes. She pulled her reclining chair out of her Inventory, like any human would, and placed it in the spot she thought of as hers. "I gave her a pillow," she said as she fell into the chair.

"Thanks for the save," Carl said a little while later, taking a seat in his chair next to her.

She felt a little happy at his appreciation. "Don't worry about it."

Maybe really being friends was easier than she'd thought?

She didn't totally understand what happened that he needed saving, but…

She didn't feel bored.

She frowned when she considered it.

She should be bored.

This was all very boring.

She felt…

There was something peaceful she felt about just sitting around now.

With her friend.

Yeah, maybe he didn't know much about her, but she didn't imagine that would change much.

Would a man who had his own dungeon and knew the Regina Daemonum really be that amazed by what she, a human, could do?

He owned a fucking automaton fornicatiēns!

The girl upstairs made a car that could drive faster than most gladiators could run!

She could tell him.

Urgh, it would take fucking hours though.

Now that was something that seemed boring.

Yeah, maybe later.

When she was actually bored.