As my consciousness returned to my body, I reached out and slowly pushed open the lid to my game pod.  Working my way up out of the chair, I glanced over at the other pod and it’s occupant, my friend Jennifer.  She lept spryly out of her pod as if it she wasn’t stiff at all, then came over to help me out of mine.

“Too stiff to get up?  You should exercise with me more.  It’ll help.”

I shook my head at her.

“No thank you.  Our morning runs are already enough for me.”

“Enough?!  You’re barely doing half the laps I am.  You need more!”

“Unlike you, I didn’t run track through school, remember.  I also don’t have a job that needs as much energy and stamina as yours does.  Normal people don’t run that much.”

She dismissed my objections with a wave.

“Whatever, let’s go eat.  We don’t want to keep everyone waiting, after all.”

We headed to the kitchen, where I got to work preparing a simple lunch for the both of us while Jennifer hopped onto a bar stool and rested her arms on the counter.  Due to her catastrophic cooking abilities, preparing meals was my job.

“So I know I kinda dragged you into it, but are you enjoying the game so far?”

I nodded.  “It’s interesting.  I had no idea games were like this.”

I had never played any video games before SWO.  Without Jennifer’s insistence on it, I probably wouldn’t have played at all.  My parents had raised me in a very sheltered environment, so I had little exposure to this type of thing.  It’s not that they were bad parents, it’s just that they wanted to protect me and went overboard with it.  Even while I was in college they had kept a tight leash on my activities, much to Jennifer’s frustration.  She had always felt they were too controlling of me.  Now that I’m finally independent and out of their control, I’m beginning to see what she meant.  There’s a lot of things most people are experienced with that I still don’t really understand.

“That’s good.  I didn’t know what to expect either.  I was worried you would be overwhelmed and want to quit right away when we started fighting monsters, but I’m glad you’re having fun.”

“I feel like I’ve still got a lot to learn, though.”

“That’s true for both of us, but I don’t think we need to worry about that.  We seem to have found us a good teacher, after all.  By the way, I can’t help but notice you’ve been reverting.”

“Reverting?”

“Yep.  Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.  Your habits of hiding and letting someone else take the lead all the time has been coming out.  These last few years you’ve been doing a lot better about opening up, but in the game it’s like that never happened.  Just because your character looks younger doesn’t mean you should act like you did when you were that age.”

I set a plate in front of her, and moved to my stool beside her to eat.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Hmm, now that you mention it, you might be right.  I didn’t even realize I was doing that.  Maybe because it’s a strange environment, I’m more nervous than usual.”

“I guess that makes sense.  Still, it’s to the point that I was very surprised when you spoke up about wanting to go with Lilith later.  Now that I think about it, you’re actually getting along with her really well, aren’t you.”

My thoughts turned toward the succubus who we had befriended and my face naturally broke into a smile.

“Mm, she’s friendly and seems to understand me.  I like her a lot, so I didn’t want to part ways.”

“You… I thought you were straight all this time.  Are you into women after all?!”  Jennifer asked while backing away with a shocked expression on her face.

“It’s not like that!  I like men… I think.  I mean… I’ve never… um...”  My mind and words became flustered as I tried to elaborate on that thought.  My friend just grinned at my reaction.  She was teasing me after all.

Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I continued the earlier discussion.  “It’s just, she seemed to pick up on my personality right away, and adjusted her behavior to account for it.  For example in conversations, she intentionally asks me for my opinion.  I think she’s realized I want to speak, but don’t know how to jump into a conversation naturally like you do.  I think because of things like that, I’ve already gotten comfortable with her.”

“I see.  But... hmm…”

Jennifer stared at her plate and began thinking about something.  Her expression showed she wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell me what it was or not.

“What is it?”

“No, well I just have a few suspicions about Lilith is all.”

“Suspicions?  Like what?”

“Well, keep in mind I have no proof of this.  But the way she carries herself and acts sometimes makes me think she might actually be a guy playing a female character.”

“Eh, really?”

I hadn’t even noticed.  But Jennifer has always been more observant about these types of things than me, so if she says it, I have no reason to doubt her.

“Like I said, there’s no proof. It’s just a gut feeling I get watching her sometimes.  All the same, she seems like a good person.  Also since her race is a succubus, it’s possible she didn’t even have a choice in her gender.  Traditionally they’re all female, after all.”

Ah, traditional succubi are all females.  I didn’t know anything about them but the name until this morning, so I had no idea.  My parents would have considered them a “dangerous influence” on me, so they were careful to prevent me from being exposed to that type of story.  Which led to a very embarrassing situation earlier.  I began to blush, remembering that incident.

“Wait, why are you getting embarrassed suddenly?”

“No, I was just remembering earlier what you said about succubi.  How they…”

I couldn’t finish the sentence, but Jennifer understood what I was getting at and grinned.

“Ah, that.  Well, it was better you find out now, since we’re going to be travelling with one.  Even if she doesn’t do that in the game.”

I nodded.  For some reason, I felt strangely glad that Lilith didn’t need to do that type of thing.  I wonder why.

“Anyway, I’m pretty excited about this dungeon.  I wonder what it’s going to be like.”  As she spoke, Jennifer took both our dishes to the kitchen and started cleaning them.  This was our system: I cook, she cleans.

I nodded.  “I just hope it’s not too dangerous or difficult.”

“I doubt it.  They said it was designed for people like us who just unlocked their class, so I can’t imagine it’ll be that bad.  Besides, the others all seem to be experienced and know what they’re doing.  We just need to follow their lead and make sure we’re not holding them back.”

“I’m still not sure about some things though.”

“Well, asking me isn’t going to help.  Let’s try to ask Lilith before we head out.”

As she said that she finished rinsing off the dishes and putting them into the washer.  We decided not to keep the others waiting any longer and quickly finished up and went back to her room where our pods were.