To wake up next to a giant schnauzer that kicked you in the ribs all night should be considered a religious experience of the cyanide-punch-drinking kind. My back ached and my front shared the feeling. Torticollis threatened to come over for a drink. Cold would have been preferable to the failed chiropractic machine that Blacky became when asleep.
Despite the protest of my muscles, I managed to get out of bed. Subsequently I dragged Blacky out of the hole he was digging into the mattress, as if he were a black hole curving the space-time of the bed. Luckily, he hadn’t gone past the event horizon yet.
“Up up, fluffball, we need to make some GBP today.”
“Let me sleep,” he growled, spwling on the floor, trying to sleep so to make a living ragdoll.
“I will call Lead.”
Blacky shifted to standing position in an instant. He looked around frantically, whale eyed, as if the mere mention of the girl was enough to make him go into autopilot. As soon as he realized she wasn’t there, he collected himself and sat with a somewhat dignified stance.
“At your orders, Master.”
“Good. Take me to The Warden; I think I remember the way, but fucking up and getting lost just to be killed by lobocop is not my idea of fun.”
“It, however, may be some people idea of fun,” he said, and then licked his nose.
I pointed a finger at him. “Take me to The Warden at once or…”
“Or what, Master?” he asked , absolutely unaware of the fact that was a threat.
“…or take up to ten seconds before taking me to The Warden.”
“I’ll take the ten seconds, if you don’t mind,” he said, and went inside the room to jump back into his card.
And about fifteen fucking seconds later, we were on our way to the Warden’s room.
He wasn’t here. This was an act of severe disrespect. Who would be held accountable for the fact the sitting duck I needed to farm for money was gone? It was like if you arrived at your job and the whole building had just poofed out of existence, or the child you babysit suddenly dying without compensation. And this is a hill I will die on: if I were a babysitter and your shitty genetics kill my fucking job, I’d expect compensation or you to get a new child.
If you fail at acquiring a new infant, you could, I don’t know, get a hamster. Hamsters are babysittable animals.
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But I digress.
The Warden was nowhere to be found among the balls.
I turned to Blacky, who had come out of his card, and grabbed him from the skin of the neck.
“I need my shitty-card-game fix, where is the fucking dealer?”
“The Warden?” Blacky asked, tilting his head.
“Who else?”
“Well, sometimes he goes to the beach,” he dropped as casually as I was tempted on doing. I could feel the stupidity of that statement gnawing on my brains, telling me to do worm things under the gaze of gigantic birds.
“You mean to tell me there is a beach here? I live in a mansion, with a beach inside?”
“Where did you think the previous masters kept all their Waifus contained?” I couldn’t counterargument that. Where else was the natural habitat of dumb disproportionate-bodied half-animal bimbos, if not trapped inside a perennial beach episode?
“Take me to the beach, I will play him there.”
“We could wait for him here,” he suggested.
I casted a killing glare at my guide and he lowered his ears.
“Fine, follow me.”
----------------------------------------
Coming out of the halls, no summer sun greeted us. A giant shinning, squirming Shiba Inu rolling from side to side on the sky, though? Of course that had to be there. If I need to point out a silver lining, the Shibe was well groomed and appreciably happy. I looked at the sand afterwards, or the supposed sand, as it had been replaced by cat litter.
The sea was… The waves were upside down, as in, the water curved downwards, and this scar on the ocean retreated away from the shore until it lost itself into the Shiba-lit horizon. Furthermore, the sea was purely blue. Blue Heelers instead of water, that is.
I summoned the manual.
“Goddess, were you on drugs when you made this?”
I AM THE DRUGS ÒuÓ
I snapped my fingers to put the manual away. There was no benefit in asking her anything else.
I turned to the left, and then to the rightm, and there he was, The Warden, wearing a pair of shibegglasses, sipping a drink from a Coconut as servant cyborg poodles fanned and brought him food.
“Hey, Warden!” I called as I ran to him.
He glanced at me, sighed, stood from his reclining chair (made of poodles too) and crossed his arms.
“I am in my rest. Do you think I am some sort of slave of you two?”
I glanced at Blacky and he glanced at me. “Yes,” we answered in unison.
“Slavery is morally wrong, you know?”
I pointed at my face.
“I technically am an isekai protagonist.”
“Fuck!” elaborated the Warden. Then he inhaled, threw away the shibeglasses and started gestuiring with his hands, as if he were about to talk to a child. “Listen, Mauro, put yourself on my shoes and—”
“You are barefoot.”
“I am going to ignore that. The thing is, I am constantly playing this game, as there is only one me for all The Warden avatars out there. One mind, fragmented in thousands. I am currently playing Deck of Dogs against three hundred fifty-six motherfuckers like you and four fatherfuckers. Can you imagine—”
“Holy fuck, there are four women playing this?”
“I know, I had the same reaction. Unusually high numbers this season.”
“Like, four whole-ass women?”
“Yes, four whole-ass human bitches,” he affirmed so casually.
“Was that denigrating or just a dogspeech thing?”
“I forget you use the word ‘bitches’ as we use the word ‘women’.”
“I don’t know if that is more or less sexist,” I granted, and then patted his thigh. “Congratulations, I am confused about the state of your bigotry. I generally know when someone is twitter-cancellable but—”
“For the silence of the goddess, let’s play if that shuts you up.”