I began by pulling out Mr. Gargles and making him run around.

I was reluctant a little, but after hyping myself up, I also tried manipulating my Intra to key into his senses just like I’d learned how to do last time. It took me a couple of tries to get the feeling right again, but as soon as I did, I was suddenly seeing from two points of view again.

And this time, without instantly turning into a drooling idiot. Yay!

It was… actually not as disorienting as I thought it would be. Sure, I stumbled at first when I mixed up which view was which, but I got used to it surprisingly quickly. The best part was that it didn’t seem to be draining Intra as quickly as I’d feared. I could probably keep it going for quite some time.

I must have wasted a ton of Intra on trying to get it to work the first time around, huh?

Or maybe I just had more Intra now? I hadn’t used any tickets on Intra, though.

Hmm.

Regardless, I could now easily control my adorable plushie friend as a mobile drone.

Jeofffff: add the gun to it

trelipideliberitation: this still looks trippy

“What does it look like to you guys anyway…?” I murmured and pulled out stream history as I dismissed the shared senses to not accidentally run out of Intra again.

I rewound it a few seconds and blinked at the odd view on screen. It was, like Trelip had said, a bit trippy. The view from my eyes was more prominent on the left side of the screen and Mr. Gargles’ vision on the right, and then they were almost intertwined together in this strange gradient. where it was hard to see things in the middle and impossible to see things on the opposing side where the other view was more prominent.

Huh.

Well, alright.

This was kind of like Heat Vision, wasn’t it? Impossible to truly replicate the experience for the viewers, so the stream just did the best it could.

Speaking of which… I never checked out what Heat Vision looked like for myself.

“Let’s see…” I murmured as I rewound the stream all the way back to day two where I’d tested the first skills I’d bought. It took me a couple of minutes to find it again, but once I did, I immediately left a marker there just so I could find it easier next time if I needed to.

“Hmm, you guys were right. Heat Vision really was just like infrared vision in the movies.” I shook my head. “It was completely different from what I actually saw, though.”

I stopped.

I was getting distracted again.

“Anywho! Not important! It’s time for more mad experiments!”

I closed the stream history and took a look around me at all the items before nodding to myself.

“Alright… I’ll have limited tries, though, since I don’t have my bucket. Or I guess I could go look for another ooze lake later if I really needed to.” I shook my head. “But that’s for later! What do you say, chat? What should I try first?”

Jeofffff: turtle turreetttt

trelipideliberitation: emerald on gun

GeorgeDoshington: mash the two guns

GeorgeDoshington: ultra gun ftw

Eclipsoon: could you make a gunsword?

“Hmm… I guess I’ll make a poll again,” I decided.

This time though, I only put the first five suggestions on the poll and ignored anything I thought was stupid. Sure, it would have been funny and whatnot, but I’d already decided to take this whole isekai business seriously. I wasn’t going to waste time and resources by messing around too much.

While the poll went on, I got up and decided to look around nearby, hoping to find an ooze lake. Granted, I hadn’t found one when I’d been looking for trees to make my shelter with, but also hadn’t looked that much.

By the time I decided to return, I hadn’t found one.

“Well, that sucks… Damn, you don’t really appreciate things until they are gone, huh? I was so used to having free life ooze on hand whenever I needed it…” I mumbled as I got back to my shelter.

Then I glanced at the poll results and saw that combining the two guns had won by the tiniest of margins, while putting a gun on Gargles was close in second place.

I hummed and closed the poll.

“Alright, I guess I’m making the ultimate fantasy rocket launcher or something…”

Of course, I was still pretty concerned that the result would shoot hypersonic bouncing plasma balls and end up killing me, but I could work around that. I could use geometry to my advantage and try shooting it at a sloped rock so that the shot would bounce into the sky.

I just had to be smart about things.

Now, the polled option was specifically trying to fuse the plasma handcannon into the water gun, so that was exactly what I tried doing. Of course, I was curious about the reverse as well, but for now, I swapped Flameguard for Armsmaster, grabbed the handgun, and used Fusion on it.

For some reason, it was much less exhausting to turn it into the glowing blob of Ether than I remembered. I wasn’t going to complain, though.

I admired the thing for a brief moment and then grabbed the water gun and fused the two. Once the glow subsided, I was left with something that reminded me of the steampunk aesthetic.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

I could clearly see the basic plastic water gun as the base, but now there were also metallic parts incorporated in the gun itself, and it also had the claw-like metal rods sticking out of it and almost cradling the muzzle, just like the handcannon had.

“...Well, this somehow looks even more dangerous than the handcannon alone,” I commented.

GeorgeDoshington: hell yeah

GeorgeDoshington: death beam ready

Uwith3dotz: is this gonna be noisy again?

To my surprise, I didn’t particularly feel low on Ether after doing that. Increasing my Ether must have helped in that regard.

“Alright then, time to test this baby out! Yeah, there’s probably gonna be a bang again. Sorry, I can’t really make it any more quiet.”

I left my shelter and went toward the collection of rocks I’d seen earlier. One of the rocks was the perfect shape for me to safely test the gun just in case it was going to bounce.

I took a stance to negate the recoil, took aim, poured my Ether into the gun, felt around it for available settings, and found out that in addition to the water, ink, and stored liquid settings, there was also a plasma setting.

Interesting.

I picked the new setting and pulled the trigger. Contrary to what I’d expected though, instead of firing the moment I pulled the trigger down, it instead began charging a plasma ball in front of itself.

“Oh… So it’s literally just a different setting…?” I murmured as the ball got larger, then frowned. “Wait, no…”

As I felt around with my Ether, I could sort of tell that there were two ways of launching the ball now. Slow or fast.

Before the ball got too big, I picked the fast option, released the trigger and fired.

There was a bang as I stifled the recoil with my feet – which felt a lot easier than I remembered – and a subsequent explosion of light at the collection of rocks.

A split second later, I blinked away the spots from my eyes and stared at the result.

My target rock was gone, replaced by a small pool of plasma that still had sparks of lightning occasionally jump across its surface. Luckily, the pool was mostly contained by stone on all sides, so it didn’t set anything on fire.

I slowly walked closer to it as I stared with my eyes wide.

“Uh… Wow, I… Okay. That’s… something.”

Combining two extremely high-damage guns resulted in an even higher-damage gun. Who would have thought?

Then I blinked, realizing that I still had plenty of Ether. Enough for maybe two or three more shots before I drained myself.

“Wait, hold on! Why does it feel like it cost less Ether? Or wait, no… It’s… I have more Ether than I used to? Somehow? But I didn’t even do anything!”

trelipideliberitation: you grew up?

trelipideliberitation: maybe?

trelipideliberitation: lol

Eclipsoon: no that might be it actually

I blinked.

“I… Huh.” I looked down at myself. I hadn’t really noticed it from moment to moment, but… my hands were bigger than they used to be a week ago. I was bigger than I had been a week ago. “I guess… Yeah, actually, it makes sense. You grow up, your body gets stronger, and so you have more Ether… which is the physical energy thingy.”

I frowned and thought back on my earlier experiments with Gargles.

“Actually, probably not just Ether. More Intra too, I bet! And possibly more Tempor! Huh. Okay, cool! That means that I’m stronger than before even if I just spent a few days being sick and useless!”

GeorgeDoshington: hell yeah afk gains

PrestoFive55: that’s so weird to think about

At some point though, that growth would probably stop, wouldn’t it? When exactly would it stop? And if we were to continue with that idea, would you get less Ether when you got too old, just like elderly people got physically weaker and more brittle?

“...You know, chat. I think I understand why that water park was a D-rank dungeon. If I could beat it in a tiny child’s body, then it’s probably a cakewalk for groups of grown adults.”

Granted, it wasn’t easy, but I had done it.

Jeofffff: how op are adults if you can blow up a forest tho

I snorted.

“I just blew up some rocks. But good point, Jeoff. Just how powerful can people get in this world?”

I glanced at the plasma pool as it continued to sizzle.

“I mean, this gun… I feel like it’s a total overkill, but what if it’s not? What if this kind of firepower is normal for this world? For my ‘level’, so to speak?”

Thinking back on the spaceship dungeon, I’d thought the killer robot was some kind of boss monster, but what if it was just a weak mob you were meant to kill in one shot? What if having a gun like this was expected in high level dungeons? What the hell would the boss of that place even look like?

GeorgeDoshington: cant wait til u come back to earth and declare war on it

I scowled.

“I’m not gonna declare war, George! I don’t wanna fight anyone! I just wanna go back home and be a normal Vcuber again!”

Eclipsoon: you might not have much of a choice

Eclipsoon: if you can shoot nuclear bombs on a whim by the time you return

Eclipsoon: people won’t leave you alone

I stared at the messages for a good few seconds as it sank in.

They were right, weren’t they? If I kept my skills and items when I returned, I would probably be strong enough to take on an army by then. There was no way I could just live peacefully as a streamer then.

Maybe if this whole isekai thing wasn’t streamed and people didn’t know about me then I could hide, but now…

I took a deep breath and let out a sigh.

“You know what? That’s a problem for future me. Present me needs to first find a way to get back in the first place. And before that, I gotta get stronger to do the stupid Limit Break and then find that rift thing…”

Which still felt so far away. Granted, I could just up and try to do the Limit Break right now, but considering I only had a single try, I wanted to make absolutely sure I was ready.

I glanced at the plasma pool that didn’t seem to be wanting to dissipate anytime soon, then I looked down at my gun-shaped weapon of mass destruction.

“Well, anyway. I guess I’m gonna keep it in this form for now. I know you guys wanted to try turning Gargles into a mobile sentry, but…” I frowned. “I kind of… don’t want to? I mean… he’s just my plushie and I wanna keep it that way. Hugging a death bot to sleep would be kinda awkward, you know?”

And a remote-controlled plasma cannon of mass destruction sounded even worse if I wanted a peaceful future of Vcubing. One thing is holding the gun yourself, another is controlling the gun with your mind from afar. That would probably freak out people way more.

“And besides, my Ether is limited. Sure, I have more of it, but I still don’t wanna waste it on unfusing and refusing things. I don’t have free Ether anymore, you know?”

Jeofffff: but muh turrettttttt

GeorgeDoshington: just soulbind turtle and fuse with gun

GeorgeDoshington: easy

Eclipsoon: so door making now?

I scowled.

“No plushie of mass destruction, chat. Yeah, gonna try to make something that can cut wood better. The key sword is a bit awkward for anything precise.”

I eyed the plasma pool again, worried that the surrounding greenery might catch on fire, but it seemed that just like with the plasma ball projectile, the sparks of lightning looked to be contained within the mass of plasma itself.

Even if it kinda behaved like a liquid now.

Hmm, actually…

“...Can I still reabsorb it?” I mused out loud and carefully stepped closer to the plasma lake.

I lowered my gun and aimed the metallic claw thing at the lake as I approached. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel the same pull I did when trying to reabsorb the bouncing plasma ball, even when I got close enough to touch the plasma pool with the tips of the claws.

All that achieved was a spark and a bzzt sound, which startled me and made me jump back.

I stared for a few seconds more before breaking out a sigh.

“I don’t think I can, chat. Well, hopefully it doesn’t burn down the forest in the meantime…”

I shook my head and finally left the plasma pool behind.

I walked straight back to my little shelter. There I took another look at all the items available for fusion and began brainstorming the best way to create some kind of chisel or a knife for woodworking.