Chapter 259: Hands-On Experience
‘It’s normal for guys to think about those things, it’s not like I don’t…’ Aegis’s mind raced as he stared intently at the flanks in front of him. His cooking skill was taking over his hand movements and doing most of the work as he cut it up into smaller, manageable pieces fit for use in recipes - his focus was completely elsewhere now. ‘When she said that, was it part of the joke? Or is she thinking about it too. I guess it’s normal, we’re dating after all… but,’
You take 1 point of slashing damage.
The red number popped up above his head as he’d accidentally cut himself.
“Ow. Tch.” He winced at the pain. Despite the minor wound, the game simulated the pain to its fullest on his finger and a red number floated above his head.
“Are you okay?” Lina asked worriedly as she watched him from behind, still sitting on the stump.
“Yeah, I’m okay. This meat is a bit tougher than I expected.” Aegis laughed awkwardly, then shook his head to himself in frustration. He took a deep breath to try and calm his nerves and focus back on the task at hand, but was unable - the imagine of Lina’s character behind him was burned into his mind. He began to imagine what she would look like naked, pondering how it would be similar to her real body.
You take 1 point of slashing damage.
“Damnit.” Aegis grumbled.
“Do you need some help?” Lina spoke with concern in her voice, leaning forward. Aegis quickly held a free hand back to signal her to stop.
“Nope, I’m okay. No problem.” He reassured her. He then attempted to slap himself on the cheek to psych him out of his current train of thought. The fact that they were alone in the wilderness with no one else around, just the two of them, it was all becoming painfully apparent to him the circumstances they were in. ‘Does this mean she’s thinking about it? Normally, the guy makes a move, right? Is she waiting for me to do something? Where the hell is Derrick when I need him…’ Aegis continued to hastily run these thoughts through his head.
You take 1 point of slashing damage.
“Let me help.” Lina insisted, seeing the damage number pop up. She quickly pulled out a mithral dagger and moved beside Aegis as he sat on his knees, leaning forward over the manticore flanks as they rested atop his cutting board. Lina dropped to her knees as well and leaned over the meat to eye where Aegis had been cutting it, seeing the uneven slices of the flank that he’d already made.
Aegis kept his head pointed downward, refusing to look up at her for fear of accidentally checking her avatar’s form out again.
“Should it be this thin? Or thick like these ones?” Lina asked as she pointed out two separately cut slices of manticore meat.
“Uh, either is fine. They are both used in different recipes.” Aegis replied quickly.
“Okay.” Lina answered with enthusiasm before leaning closer to get at the meat, then began slicing it for him. She, with no difficulty whatsoever, was able to cut the flank into small slices with her dagger. It only took her a few cuts to realize that it wasn’t particularly difficult to handle. “Are you sure everything is okay?” She asked upon this realization.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Just tired, I guess. Lots of stuff happened today.” He shrugged.
“Oh. Right. Do you want to sleep now?” Lina asked him innocently.
“Huh?” Aegis lifted his face up to look at her, revealing how red his cheeks were. “You mean, here, right now?” he blurted out, flustered.
“I have some camping gear in my inventory… or we can log out and sleep…” She answered timidly, taken aback by his suddenly surprised tone.
“Yeah, of course. Camping gear, that’s normal for when we’re out on adventures. Of course.” He let out a sigh of relief, but it was short lived as he felt pressured once more to act. With no experience of being a boyfriend, he had no sense for what hints to look for, and when he should act.
He suddenly got an irresistible urge to study it. About how to pick up on what your girlfriend wants, and how to be more intimate, but he fought against it and went back to cutting the meat.
“Okay, sure. That’s a good plan. I’ll cook the meal, and you set up the tents?”
“Got it.” Lina nodded back quickly. She finished slicing the flank then got up and began pulling out camping gear from her inventory, then assembling a tent near the fire. As she looked away, Aegis felt he could finally breathe, and gasped for air as quietly as he could now that he knew she wasn’t facing him directly.
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“How the tables have turned…” Hae-won rubbed her hands together with a devilish grin. “Who is the shy one now, lover boy?” She turned to the chat, as Aegis’ viewership numbers were rising above 2 million and the sentiment of his audience were all of romance and anticipation. “I think it’s voting time, ladies and gentlemen. Will Aegis make a move? Or will it be another dry night for poor Lina?”
“Seriously? Isn’t that a bit much? They’re kids…” Shinji grumbled at Hae-won, his voice reaching her ears but not being heard on the broadcast. He was watching it all unfold as he veered the camera around Aegis to keep an eye on both of their facial expressions - Lina was calm now and focused on her task of setting up the tent while Aegis remained bright red.
“Kids? They’re both 19. Practically adults. Legal age. This is what the people want to see.” Hae-won replied to him grumpily after muting herself on the broadcast.
“I mean, the viewership numbers don’t lie…” Tommy joined in, speaking in a matter-of-factly tone.
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“Oh man, c’mon. Get it together.” Derrick groaned as he watched Aegis stream from his living room. It was night in the real world, so that the only source of light in the room was the screen. His voice was muffled by the sound of his toothbrush in his mouth - he was wearing his pajamas already and preparing for bed.
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Lina and Aegis went about their tasks in silence, and it wasn’t long before he was finished preparing the meat and began grilling it over the campfire, a light sizzling sound and pleasant scent filling the air. Lina finished assembling two tents, complete with sleeping bags and amenities to insure they wouldn’t receive any penalties for sleeping under poor conditions.
She then sat across the fire from Aegis and watched as he focused in on his craft to ensure the meal tasted the best he could possibly make it taste, and this helped him take his mind off of lewd things for the time being.
“There, it’s done.” He announced proudly once he’d organized the meat onto a plate with various other cooked vegetables, and a custom cooked sauce to go along with it.
“It looks really delicious. Did it give you a lot of experience?” Lina asked as her mouth began to water from the scent alone.
“No… here.” He handed one plate to her, then took the other himself. “I haven’t done any of my crafting advanced quests yet. I suppose once all this tournament stuff is over, I’ll have to do it. If it's anything like the intermediates, though, It’ll probably take forever.” Aegis replied as he thought about it.
“I’m sure you’ll manage it though. Did you know? You’re still the only player with advanced shield mastery.”
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow curiously.
“Yup. I saw some guide videos that popped up, all of them featured clips from how you cleared it. People analyze all the decisions you made, and how to recreate them.” She nodded back.
“But, if they saw my clips, can’t they just copy exactly what I did?” He asked as he took a bite of his food.
“Nuh uh.” She shook her head in response as her mouth was full. She took a short pause to chew and swallow. “Wow, this is really delicious!”
“Thanks.” Aegis smiled.
“For the advanced quests, the objectives stay the same but the monsters change a bit - different positions at the start, and such. Some people even claim you got an easy version of the quest, but that theory doesn’t have much traction.” Lina continued.
“Where’d you hear all this?”
“Hm? Well, you are a popular streamer now, so you show up on a lot of the gaming news broadcasts. My parents watch them, so they like to send me any clips that relate to our party.” Lina explained.
“Oh. Huh…” Aegis was reminded of the times he’d randomly seen broadcasts of Makaroth before he had started playing the game, despite not wanting to watch anything on him. “Being around the top is actually a pretty big deal then, huh?”
“It’s a huge deal.” She smiled before taking another bite of food. “This might be the best food I’ve ever eaten. I can’t believe this isn’t real…” She said as she continued to wolf it down.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“I’m glad you like it.” Aegis smiled at her. “I bet if I get advanced cooking, I’ll be able to make even better stuff for you to try.”
“I can’t wait!” She cheered.
“Do they talk about you guys too?”
“Yup. There was a lot of focus around Pyri awhile back, because her APM was so high, but recently the big talk is how viable Rakkan’s class is in PvP, since no one has ever seen it PvP before.”
“What about Darkshot?”
“Uh… a few top streamers and content creators talk about him, but it's usually to make fun of his bird.” Lina replied while pulling her lips in apologetically, but Aegis started laughing.
“Nothing about how cool he is?”
“Oh, sometimes. They like saying his phrase when he makes a nice play… ‘I shoot from the darkness’.”
“I shoot from the darkness.” Aegis said in unison with Lina, followed by both of them laughing. “I can’t believe he made a catch phrase.” Aegis shook his head.
“Well, you have one too.” Lina shrugged at him.
“What? Really? No I don’t.” Aegis furled his eyebrows at her.
“You do.” She giggled, then cleared her throat and straightened her back in preparation for her best Aegis impersonation. “You’re not getting past my shield.” She said in a manly voice.
“That’s not a catch phrase.” Aegis huffed at her.
“It is! It’s so cool too. You said it a few times when you were saving Kalmoore.”
“No, nope, no way, that’s not my catch phrase. I want a new one.” Aegis gestured his hands at her, but this only made her laugh.
“You can’t change it now, it’s too popular. I think Fanta-see Network is already selling it on t-shirts and stuff.”
“Seriously?” Aegis groaned.
“Mhm.” She giggled at his reaction again.
“Does that mean I need to keep saying it? Won’t it be lame if I just keep saying the same thing?”
“Darkshot doesn’t seem to think so.” Lina held back more laughter. “It should be okay, as long as you just say it at the right times, I think.” She added a shrug.
“Right.” He let out a drawn out sigh, not hiding the fact that he thought the whole thing was ridiculous. “What about you, whats your catch phrase?”
“Hm? Me? I don’t have one.” Lina replied.
“Hah? No way you can get off without having one. Make one up, right now.” Aegis demanded.
“What? No way, it’s too embarrassing.” Lina shook her head at him furiously.
“What’dya mean it’s too embarrassing?”
“It’s something boys do. Girls don’t do stuff like that.” She waved her hands.
“So Pyri doesn’t have one either?”
“Nuh uh.” Lina replied.
“What about Rakkan?”
“He’s got one.”
“What’s his?”
“I’m the encyclopedia.” Lina replied with a straight face, but the moment Aegis heard it, he spit out the food in his mouth and bursted out laughing.
“What?” Aegis asked in disbelief, Lina holding back her own laughter. “When did he say that? He said that?”
“I think when we were defending the Dark Elf city. You know? When Darkshot was trying to get him to say a catch phrase…”
“That’s what he landed on?” Aegis asked and she nodded. “C’mon, you can get one too, easily better than all of ours.”
“Nope. Don’t want one.”
“How about… The shadows are my domain…” Aegis whispered in an evil voice.
“Noo!” She urgently shook her head disapprovingly.
“No? Okay, how about this…” Aegis put one hand on his chin to think on it for a second. “It’s stabby stabby teleporting time.” Aegis spoke once again in the spookiest voice he could muster. This time Lina burst out laughing at him.
“No way, I’m not going to get one. I won’t say anything during a fight, ever.” Lina insisted.
“Well, you better be careful…” Aegis motioned to his viewership count. “If you don’t say anything yourself, stabby stabby teleporting time might catch on.” Aegis grinned.
“It better not.” She threw a nasty glare towards his live streaming icon, as if to threaten his audience.
The two continued discussing catch phrases, and Lina went over other popular clips of their adventures thus far that had made the rounds. Aegis was in the dark on what people thought of him, and what parts of his growth they were focusing on the most, so found it very informative. Eventually, though, the pair finished their meals and felt the night time atmosphere getting the best of them. Aegis let out a yawn and stretched first, standing up.
“I guess we should settle in for the night. Tomorrow we’ll want to get a lot more experience before the preliminaries.” Aegis said.
“Yeah, right.” Lina nodded as she stood up and stretched as well, walking to the campfire and quickly stomping it out. “Thank you for the tasty meal.” She added with a smile before turning towards the two tents. One was a pale tan color, the other brown.
“Which tent do you prefer? I mean, since they’re both yours.” Aegis asked as he eyed them, nerves creeping back up on him as the thoughts he had running through his mind earlier slowly began to re-emerge.
“Oh. Either is okay for me, they’re both the same really.” Lina shrugged.
“Okay.” Aegis nodded as he walked up to the brown tent. He pulled back the door of the simple, triangular tent to peer inside and see the sleeping bag already set up with a pillow on the interior. It didn’t look comfortable at all, though - the uneven bumpy ground was coming through the floor of the simple, minimalistic tent. He was sure it’d be much better to just log out of the Simbox and sleep in his bed.
It was this realization that made it click in his head - Lina must’ve known that already, yet she was choosing to camp here in the wilderness, in these cheap low quality tents. The only reason she’d do that…
With this on his mind, he saw her standing in front of her tent, pulling the flap to the side, then looking towards him with a smile.
“Uhm, good night.” She said to Aegis. As their eyes met, he didn’t immediately reply. Instead, the two ended up staring directly at each other for a long few seconds. Aegis felt a fluttering sensation inside his body as his nerves heated him up. He wasn’t sure what to do in the situation, but he wasn’t about to fail a test - even without studying, he could wing it. He went with his instincts.
“Do you want share a tent instead?” Aegis asked her, but broke eye contact before he could get the words out. She, too, looked away towards her feet as her face flushed red. She took a moment to answer, wiggling the heels of her salamander leather shoes into the dirt.
“Yes…” Her voice came out weak and soft.
“Okay.” Aegis got quieter as well. Lina then slowly climbed into the tan-colored tent and moved to the back, sitting next to the pillow so that Aegis could come in as well. He ducked his head down and followed her inside ,closing the flaps of the tent behind them, then sitting near the door, opposite to her. He then eyed the single sleeping bag and pillow on the ground.
“Should I get the other one first, from the other tent?” Aegis asked nervously. Lina was slow to reply, and looked closely at the sleeping bag before slowly shaking her head no. “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “We’ll get a penalty to our stamina if we sleep in armor, so,” He quickly went into his inventory and took off his salamander leather armor, so that he only had his common clothing underneath - all of it themed in the blue and purple colors of Rene. Lina saw him do this, and followed suit.
“Here, I’ll open the sides so we can both fit…” Aegis leaned closer to her to get over the bag and loosened the sides.
“Okay.” Lina replied quietly. She watched him do it as well as she could, but the only source of light was that of the moon and stars shining above them down on the dent, and not much light was making it inside. This somehow made Aegis calmer though, as he couldn’t see her and focus on her appearance like he’d accidentally been doing earlier.
He then moved to lay in the sleeping bag,shifting to the side as much as possible to make room for Lina, while laying on his back. Once he was in, she very slowly moved to lay in the bag beside him, but it was immediately apparent that neither would be covered from the cold if they remained as they were.
Despite this, they remained laying side by side in silence for a long, awkward few minutes. All the while, Aegis was psyching himself up, knowing how shy Lina was. He only had to remind himself of what she’d said earlier, and that she was choosing to be here with him. ‘She likes me as much as I like her, so…’
He took a deep breath, rolling on his side towards her and then propping himself up on his arm to lift his head up over hers slightly. From there, in the darkness, he could look into her eyes, and she his. The limited light made it hard to see, but they were both sure they were staring at one another. Aegis could see in her eyes the same thoughts on his mind, and that was enough to give him courage to slowly lower his head down and press his lips onto hers.
She said nothing, but her lips moved along with his. It was virtual, but the feeling of her breath, her skin, it felt incredibly intimate. She placed her hands on Aegis’ waist, and Aegis placed his free hand on the side of her face as they continued for a long while, neither wanting to stop.
Her hands made their way under his shirt and onto his skin, moving across his back. Aegis decided to follow her lead and moved his free hand from her face down to her waist, lifting her cotton shirt up to feel her bare hips on his palm. The moment he did, he felt a rush of adrenaline, the idea of it happening, his first time, here - nervous and excitement mixed together. He continued to kiss Lina and slide his hand up her shirt.
“Uhm.” Lina pulled her lips away as his hands got higher, and she moved one of her hands to stop his. “It’ll be weird, because our profanity filters are still on.” She said nervously.
“Oh. Right…” Aegis whispered as he pulled his head back and sat up slightly, realizing the situation they were in. “We’re still in the game… it’s the first time for me, so…” Aegis thought out loud.
“Me too.” Lina replied shyly.
“Should we? Or…”
“It can be good practice…” She said while avoiding his eyes briefly.
“Okay…” The two of them were bright red now. “I’ll turn off the filter…” Aegis fidgeted with his interface, as Lina began to do the same thing.
[Warning]
You are currently livestreaming your gameplay.
Disabling your Profanity Filter will require you to restart your livestream broadcast and relabel it to 18+, to warn viewers of more mature content. The age of your audience will become restricted to 18+. You may lose a significant number of viewers by doing this. Are you sure you wish to continue?
[Yes(Disable the Filter)] [No(Keep it on)]
Aegis had gotten so caught up in the moment, and with his own nerves, that he’d completely forgotten about everything else around him - including the livestream. He looked up at his icon and see his viewership had shot up to a whopping 3 million.
“You guys are perverts.” Aegis grumbled, as he hit the yes button and turned off his livestream.
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“DON’T YOU DARE!” Hae-won screamed at her screen, but it was futile.