Right, I was. After exactly half an hour, I was standing with Shirley right outside the part of the fence where we exited.

Pauli was already done about 2 minutes ago and waiting at the temple where I first appeared, according to Trichia. Since she was here, I picked up the pace a bit more.

"Shall we?" I said to Shirley. This time I asked for permission, rather than just picking her up.

She stood in front of me and turned to the side. I took that as a consent and picked up her legs with my left hand and grabbed her upper body with my right. Unlike the last time, she had her hands wrapped around my neck.

With one easy jump, we crossed the fence and I let her down. Walking for about 2 more minutes, the temple was finally in sight. Someone waved at us and was running over. At first I thought it was Pauli. Well, it should have been, I mean who else could it be? But...

(Who IS that?)

Wait, now that she's coming closer, I recognized that face! It is actually the non-glasses Pauli. She looks so weird without them, or maybe I'm just too used to seeing her wearing her glasses. You probably don't need those in VR?

As she was coming closer, I started deliberating over what to say. "Hi", "Did you wait long?", "You look good without your glasses.", or just take her in a plain old hug.

(Is it just me, or I hug people a lot?)

"I like it."(Trichia)

I left Trichia's comment for later and focused on what was in front of me. I decided to comment on her glasses but... Have my plans EVER come to fruition!?

When Pauli was about 2 metres away, Shirley came in between and stretched out her arms, one towards Pauli and the other towards me which caused Pauli to stop her momentum.

"Don't tell me this is the new companion you were talking about!?" (Shirley)

"Yeah. This is Pauli." (Me)

"You told me it was a friend!" (Shirley)

"She is." (Me)

"Then why does your 'friend' have these!?" (Shirley)

Shirley cupped her hands and moved them up and down under Pauli's breasts. I got a bit embarrassed from that but controlled myself since Pauli didn't seem to care and was only looking at Shirley with a weird look.

"That's because she's a girl?" (Me)

"Exactly! And you said that it was a guy!" (Shirley)

"Hey hey! I never said that, you assumed it yourself!" (Me)

"But you didn't correct me." (Shirley)

Shirley was totally glaring at me. She was telling the truth too, so I had nothing to retort with.

"What's going on Rota? Who is this?" (Pauli)

Finally spoke my beloved Pauli and saved me from the devil-like glare.

"Oh yeah, this is Shirley. She's a travelling companion." (Me)

"I'm his wife." (Shirley) She interrupted.

"You told me you were alone?" (Pauli)

I gave Pauli a mental thumbs up for ignoring Shirley. Haha! Serves her right!

"Well you see, that was in regards to another user. Shirley here is a resident of THIS world." (Me)

"What? You mean like an NPC?" (Pauli)

"What's an NPC?" (Shirley) She interrupted again.

"Its what we adventurers call the people of your world." (Me) I answered Shirley's question, thus answering Pauli's too.

I could tell Pauli was satisfied but Shirley was still glaring at me.

With a "hmmf", she walked away. I shrugged visibly towards Pauli and we started walking in the opposite direction from where Shirley went. I invited Pauli to party and changed the EXP sharing.

Set the distribution of sharing of EXP:

Rota - 0 % +Shirley - 20 % +Pauli - 80 % +

I set it so majority of the EXP went to Pauli.

Oh yeah, why were we walking in the opposite direction to Shirley? Well, she stormed off in her anger and probably forgot that we had to go to the merchant's place. She went in the direction that we had to exit from so she'd probably stay there anyway knowing we had to take the same route.

Anyway, I took Pauli to the merchant's place and asked him to show us his best bows. He showed us some and I let Pauli chose since it was going to be hers anyway. Meanwhile, I decided to ask him if he knew of any methods to obtain magic. He told me it was rare to come across a person who could use magic and he himself had never seen one in this village. I thanked him anyway and paid for the bow Pauli selected. Though Pauli looked like she wanted she say something, she refrained in the end.

After we got out the merchants shop, she thanked me and told me she'd repay me. I told her not to worry about it and went on.

After a short walk, we were finally at the place where Shirley was waiting for us.

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

"Why come here?" (Pauli)

She asked that while looking around. Seeing that it was fenced, she was probably wondering something along the line of 'weren't we going to leave this place?'.

"This is where we exit from. The guards on the village gate don't aren't too fond of outsiders that appear from the inside." (Me)

She was probably convinced. Or maybe not. It was hard to tell. She just gave a nod at my answer and faced towards the fence. She was probably waiting for me or Shirley to go first.

"Hmmf. I'll go first." (Shirley)

Shirley made a 'hmmf' at Pauli and came and wrapped her arms around me coquettishly. Without minding, I picked her up and jumped over to the other side. Shirley reluctantly let go and I went back for Pauli. Seeing the scene she was probably speechless since she didn't say anything. Actually, she doesn't say much to begin with, so I guess I could be wrong.

I pointed towards the other side of the fence with my arm while facing Pauli as if to ask her if she wanted to go or not.

"Crouch." (Pauli)

She said a single word and I understood her meaning. She was probably asking for the piggyback version of the ride. Well it might be a good thing, actually, since I cant imagine what would happen if she was that close and right in my arms.

I did as she said and crouched while facing my back towards her. She hopped on and I stood up.

"*whistle*" (Trichia)

I realised another problem. Virtually Reality probably doesn't have the concept of bras.

(HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!! THE PEAKS ON THE MOUNTAIN ARE HARD!!)

In my excitement, I jumped a bit too high and instead of the original 2 metres, I jumped about 15 metres. On landing, the surroundings got blurry with dust. Pauli hung on till the dust settled and got off. I could still feel the place on my back where the hills met the plain. Especially the peaks. Shit, I was petrified.

Thankfully, Shirley came over and woke me from my trance.

"I wanna do that do! Jump with me!" (Shirley)

She was pleading like a little child.

"I lost half my HP from that." (Pauli) She said from the side.

" "What?" " (Me and Shirley)

We were both surprised. She lost half her HP even though I was holding her. Doesn't that mean that she would have died otherwise?

"Still wanna go for a ride?" (Me)

"T.. That's alright. I..I'll make do without it." (Shirley)

We decided to continue onward letting Pauli's HP to heal on the way. I told her to stay at the back while I power levelled her and to do the same thing as I told Shirley, to focus on SP first so we could hunt longer. Normally, HP was more important, but with me here, it wasn't going to be a problem at all.

I again killed every monster we came across and made our way deeper into the forest. Pauli was surprised to see that I could one hit practically every monster we came across. I had her keep the items in her inventory since mine was too haphazard with Shirley's stuff. Pauli also wanted to hunt but I stopped her and told her to first level up. This had more than one advantage. Not only would it make our hunts easier, with more SP we could also hunt for longer and at the same time, have less chance of getting killed.

We decided that today would include only levelling up and from tomorrow on, we would hunt together. At least Pauli and I will. Shirley still couldn't use a weapon and was useless in a fight. Even so, she was an indispensable part of our team with her cooking skills. Though I had learnt some, there was no way in hell that I would ever come close to her level. I could have continued learning but I didn't. I don't know if you would call it being considerate, but I did so, so that Shirley wouldn't feel useless. Though, I was still practicing a bit at home with mom(she was really surprised to see me know more than she expected).

After hunting for about 7 hours(2 hours in RL), we decided to call it quits. Pauli was level 42 and it was more than enough for me to stop worrying about her.

Having said her goodbyes, Pauli was the first to log out. I also said goodbye to Shirley but didn't log out yet. Having given her her cooking equipment and some weapons to train with while I'd be gone, I reassured her of her safety telling her that my 'Guardian Angel' would protect her(just like the last time).

I went to another part of the forest and found a good place to spend time with my 'Guardian Angel'. With Pauli and Shirley travelling with me, I didn't get any time to spend with Trichia so I came here like this to do so.

I called out to her and she appeared on my lap and I hugged her from behind. After talking some, I finally bid farewell to her too.

"Log out."