Chapter 11 – Let’s Get Real
Part 1
“Greetings, cosmic children of the universe.
Welcome to my serenity circle.
Please leave all bad vibes outside the healing vortex.”
– Merlin, Shrek the Third
– ▲▲▲▲▲ –
- Nicolas’ PoV - <1>
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Linked Time [14:59:58]
“Aaah! Schweinehund! Two sec. TWO FREAKIN’ SECONDS!!”
Already raging for no reason, Nicolas opened his eyes. As usual, the familiar starry ceiling looked oddly distorted through the curved Plexiglas screen. He gave a firm shake to the bindings, which came lose without a hitch. Obviously. Despite the SM design of the W-Chair, their only purpose was to maintain the user on the sensors, not to restrain him. Well, true, the device did call out to the slightly masochist part of his personality.
Sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to modify a bit. Where did I put those leather strips again?
Derisively sigh-chuckling, Nicolas got back into “sitting mode”, lifted up the headgear, leapt out of his prided anachronistic torture seat, rubbed his waking eyes, and glanced at the glowing moon-shaped clock up the wall.
“Seven uh? Morning already… *yawn* Damn. This game really fucks up my time perception… Four days in one. Useful, but brain-melting. Plus it’s linked to California time zone. Talk about a difference. What was it again… Eight… Plus one… Nine. Nine hours more… or less? Bah. Whatever. Viva Belgica! Clouds, rain, and cold winters, autumn, spring… Just cold. Erwyn without zombies, in a nutshell. … Nuts… Ah! Right. We don’t have a government half of the time either. Mmmmh. Maybe I should explore the parallel more? Nah. Anyway… Now. I got twelve hours of free time. …Although. Should I really call the moments when I’m not playing UT “free time”? That sounds like something a NEET would say. Which I’m not. Of course. Student of the state. Model citizen, Sir! Aaaah… Anyway. What kind of trap did I just agreed to jump into, this time? Elder John Doe, you sneaky bastard, what are you hiding? You’re even more suspicious than a gaming chair.”
Man… that sounded deep…
After he had agreed to virtually go bungee jumping without checking neither the length of the cord, nor the height of the bridge, Elric had gone back to Martha’s house, spent some time with Dorothy, and then told the two he would be “gone” for two days. Explaining that his mind sometimes went to another world when he slept had felt weird, as usual. Nicolas pondered once again over why the programmers at Whatever hadn’t deemed necessary to implement the basic concepts concerning the nature of “adventurers” inside the NPCs’ consciousness. Hell! Some locals had never even heard of the existence of adventurers. Most of the civilized regions Elric had crossed had at least some legends, foretelling the arrival of otherworldly beings with abnormal powers and cheated growth rates, but that rarely went further. Realism obsession, probably. Well, not that he complained. He loved RP. And not having “Descended Half-god” or “Envoy of the Underworld” metaphorically plastered on his forehead wherever he went was a good thing as far as he was concerned.
While letting his thoughts run wild, and reflexively insulting the Elder of Kansas, Nicolas forcefully twisted his upper body until he heard a satisfying series of cracks coming from his wrung backbone. He then reproduced the unhealthy stretching on all parts of his numb self, giving his nerves the equivalent of a cold-water-bucket-in-the-face wake-up call, in a concerto of crackling sounds. Delighted by the faintly painful sensations, he let out a low purring.
“Mrrrrrrrr… Ahhhh. That’sss good.” Aaaand… that reminds me… Is he…?
He hummingly waltzed up to the closed curtains, performed two axel turns on the way, and abruptly pulled them open, allowing the rising winter sun to lit up the dark room.
“Yeeep. On time as usual. Are you a clock? Or perhaps just a punctual walking stomach?”
Outside, on the balcony of his fifth-floor flat, sat a huge, fat, black, one-eyed cat, disfigured by a nasty scar eating up half of his face.
Well, I say fat, but, for all I know, all this plumpness may actually be hiding a shitload of muscles.
The oversized beast did look fierce, with his only brown-red oculus glaring through the windoor at the human, who glared back and hissed aggressively.
Furrowing his browns and moving his lower jaw forward, Nicolas put up his scariest expression, one to make dogs bark, children cry, and granny switch sides of the pavement. He then violently slid the window open, shouting:
“AAAAAaaarrh! Wat’ you doin’ on ma land a’gin McLeon?!”
The loud young man himself wasn’t sure what accent he was trying to portray… Far-West-Scottish-Countryside-Drunk-Old-Ranger maybe? Not that “McLeon” looked in any way impressed by the tentatively fearsome display, as the haughty feline – pleonasm – walked right past his not-really-owner/convenient-food-provider, rubbing mockingly against Nicolas’ leg, and arrogantly meowing.
“Meohohohow… Ya don’ scare me won bit, Siegel!”
That furry bastard even DARES to mock my godly acting!
“Well ya shou’d, fatty. Won dey, Imma get mah-self a new set of strings fer ma violin, an’ it’s yer bowels that I gonna use fer it! And ya’ll be turned into a god-damn’d carpet while I’m at it.”
“disdainful cat-snort” “Ye-meow-ah?! Ya and whose army?”
“…Tsh. Imma get’ch ya won dey, McLeon!”
“cat-sigh” Dropping the fake accent: “Yeah… yeah… whatever. Where’s my food?”
“…in the kitchen.” with Brian.
Needless to say, that was all Nicolas. Cats didn’t talk. Not in front of humans at least. Maybe they were just shy. Or was it a conspiracy? He had no idea. Didn’t care. He just liked to make up dialogue. This might make him seem weird to onlookers, but he was living alone after all. The odd-behaved gamer probably would have show some restraint in front of complete strangers – probably, maybe, I make no promises – especially if said strangers had some sort of influence over his life. New landlord. Debt collector. School envoys… Those guys.
Well, important people are pretty much an extinct species in this corner of the world. And that includes myself. Why would we say “corner” of the world, by the way. Isn’t this a known fact that the world is a sphere… kinda… more like a slightly flattened ellipsoid… BUT THAT’S BESIDE THE POINT!!
Wide exclamatory gestures were punctuating his ungoverned monologue as he continued out loud:
“So who cares if I make cats talk?! Hey!? The Feline Freedom Federation, in other words the fffffff, is the only one I would allow to object… Oh! FFF… also being an acronym for Fifth-Floor Flat! HA HA! Coincidence? I think NOT!! FREEEDOM!!! And power to cats! …Why? I don’t know, you’re the one making no sense. But you’re me! Stop that. Alright, you first. No, you. No, y- SHUT UP!! Both of me!”
While being self-satisfyingly bizarre, Nicolas walked up to the radio and switch it on. It was tuned to his favourite RSMS, the Random Style Music Station. Pumped-up computer-generated beat immediately flowed out of four impressive speakers, one in each corner of the room. He loved music. He probably would breathe it if he could. Whatever the kind, with a slight reservation on rap though. It lacked melody in his opinion. And melody was paramount! It was the only sure-fire way he found to focus his thoughts on a single thing. The flowing rhythm would fill his mind, taking with it all the ideas that laid around in disorder, and then he could finally let his brain rest for a time.
Well, it was only his opinion though. His brother – he had a real-life one – loved the stuff. Difficult to hate something when it was constantly pushed onto you. Nothing was all bad after all. Nor all good either. That went for rap too. And his natural tendency was to wilfully ignore the bad parts too.
He had even bought Whatever’s newest W-MP. When plugged on the W-Chair, the device added an in-game functionality to record sound, in order to then be able to listen to it in real life. Didn’t work the other way around though. Well, music could still be put on it normally, but none of the content could be accessed inside of Untold Tales. It probably would have pissed off bards, and didn’t fit with the makers’ realism fetish.
Most players would record in-game musical performances, or peaceful natural ambiances. Some professionals actually used the W-MP to obtain cheap background sound for medieval movies and the likes. Personally, Nicolas’ latest favourite was the wails of undead hordes. Low-toned, calm, soothing, and a subconscious reminder of the pleasure he felt when mindlessly slaughtering the rotting bastards. It helped him fall asleep.
Although… he still didn’t want to upset the neighbours, living in an apartment building and all, so he kept it relatively quiet. He did. He thought he did, at least. In fact, the expensive speakers were bought mostly to satisfy his dependency towards sound quality. He always found his neighbours quite accommodating anyway… or resigned. Question of point of view.
The music-addict waltzed to the kitchen, playing air-drums as the sound switched to hard rock, and striking possibly ridiculous poses at times he judged suitable. Inside the “lab”, as he called it, the depth-perception-impaired furball was already waiting, sitting in the middle of the room, away from any eventual collision-inducing furniture.
Not that I ever saw him bump into anything… Is it a sixth sense? Echolocation perhaps? Are you secretly half-bat? Are you Batcat? …mmmh… Bruce McLeon. YEAH!
“McLeon, I found you a first name! Aren’t you happy?”
*silence*
“Of course you are!” He merrily clapped his hands together, smiling like a proud mother.
The newly re-baptized, hungry, downsized panther was trying to look stoic, but his treacherously twitching ears and slowly wagging tail were saying otherwise.
Wagging you tail like that… Forget Batcat, are you a dog, Bruce? You know, it's not who you are underneath that defines you, but what you do. Bruce does sound right for a dog. Or was it Brutus?
“You wouldn’t stab me? Would you?”
“I meowake no prrrromises, especially if you keep swinging myeow food underrr my nose like that.”
Nicolas smiled evilly, while continuing to wave a can of pâté, and said in a teasing voice:
“You really want your sweets, don’t you?”
“O-O-Of c-course no-not! Who d-d-do you think I-I am?! But s-si-since you ins-s-sist s-so much, I-I-I c-ca-can’t refuse! BAKA! ~nyaa”
“You’re so cute.”
“…”
“…”
I need a girlfriend.
– *** –
After feeding the cat – male by the way –, Nicolas exercised a bit. More in order to pretend he didn’t completely let himself rot away than for anything else. If he really wanted, he could have picked up judo again, but he found going to the dojo several times a week to be such a hassle.
Practical, he always played UT in tracksuit, so that he didn’t need to change for his customary after-game half-assed fitness session. Once satisfied with his measly performance, he took a shower, and then went back to the living room, wearing only a bathrobe. Some retro-music from the twenties was filling the air and Bruce Mcleon, alias “the Obese Squatter”, was sleeping in the couch, taking up two-thirds of it. Nicolas sighted, searching around for someone to sympathise with his – mild – hardship. Nobody was in sight. Of course. That was the fun thing about living alone, and being single.
To distract himself from his growing self-pitying habit, he took a look at the living room itself. In his eyes, his place wasn’t too shabby. An apartment with a fairly large living space that doubled as a dining room, a separated kitchen, two bedrooms, a bathroom with both shower AND tub. Add to that a second WC and a few closets, all in the middle of a densely populated area, with a nice view of the river, and you’ll end up with a² fairly expensive abode. Nothing extravagant though. He wasn’t one to pour money down the drain. At least for things he didn’t consider essential. Although many might disagree on his very malleable definition of “essential”.
Joining hands over his plexus, and bowing his head, he offered a quick prayer to his parents, whose money was paying the rent, wherever they might be.
At work, probably. Mom and Dad both start at a half-past seven, so… yeah.
When he moved to the city for his studies, they stayed behind in their hometown. They were now living alone – too –, since Luke, his little brother, was currently living in England. This guy actually was an excellent student and had managed to get a scholarship for some prestigious school over there. Unsurprisingly, Nicolas’ career had been a bit rockier to say the least. One could say, from Society’s point of view, that his brother surpassed him in every way, if not in age. But that didn’t mean that Nicolas had any sort of jealousy towards Luke. The siblings had a great relationship in fact, just different approaches to life in general, one being more socially acknowledged than the other. That was all.
His mom still insisted that he called her four times a week though, despite her always doing all the talking by herself.
Why doesn’t she simply whisper me in-game? Luke does. Seriously… I could waste four times less precious instants of my life. It’s not like she doesn’t play! Wasn’t she some kind of hammer-wielding berserker? I’m not sure. I remember Dad said he was a healer…
Back to the apartment, Nicolas found that his place looked amazing. He decorated it himself, and was honestly quite proud of it. The walls and ceiling of the living room were painted in a uniform dark blue, on which he had pasted phosphorescent stickers of stars, planets and other space bodies, scrupulously respecting the known constellations. The two curtains, one for the balcony windoor and the other for the hallway, where he was currently standing, blended nicely into the walls and on the whole floor laid a thick grass-like forest-green carpet. The dining table was a wooden outdoor one, surrounded by four matching chairs. He thought it perfectly gave the impression of a clearing at night.
A beat-up couch, with a rocky aspect, faced a wall, and, between the two, stood an actual stone coffee table – stupid name since I only ever drink either coke or tea. On said wall, some nailed narrow planks, covered in artificial moss, framed a portion singularly painted in white. It created a fake signboard coupled with a wide-angle projector, the latter hanging from the ceiling. The projector was wirelessly linked to his black laptop, resting on the coffee table. On the ground, poufs were scattered, mimicking rocks, logs, giant mushrooms, and cute colourful slimes. The last things were the radio and the speakers, whose designs were in accord with the rest… as well as the vaguely out-of-place W-chair. But where was he supposed to put it? He didn’t like to have electronic appliances in his room – it messes up my sleep –, tried to keep the spare guest-bedroom free from his random stuff, and the kitchen or bathroom were simply out of the question….
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Well, nothing is perfect. I’ll have to customize it later… Yeah. Later.
– *** –
Nicolas was distracted from his self-flattering accessorial contemplation and shameless procrastination by a metallic creaking, followed by the sound of paper hitting the parquet of the hallway – the fake woolly grass was only in the living room.
Vincent, already?
Vincent Mayor was the landlord of the building. He was a calm, nice, old man with an – mostly – honest personality. He played UT too, as an herbalist, and was one of the few to actually know his tenant’s identity as Elric.
Well… I call him “honest”… but still business-minded. He does make a lot of money from all those recipes I send him after all.
Every day, Vincent would personally deliver the mail of the residents. “His postal jogging” he called it. Nicolas had always found interesting to hear all the idiocies people could come up with to pretend to exercise. Most of mankind was fundamentally lazy. That was the Sage of the Wild’s intimate conviction.
Nicolas went to pick up the, probably useless, “maily” stuff – Who still writes letters anyway? – and opened the door, catching a glimpse of a skinny back drawing away at a regular pace.
“A good morning to you, Sir Mayor, esteemed landlord! My utmost gratitude, as usual! Please do not overexert yourself! I fear to one day hear your pacemaker finally failed you, and to see you replaced by someone who would actually ask of me the full rent!” the unscrupulous tenant shouted.
Without looking back, Vincent waved and answered in a cackling voice:
“Haha! Continue to find me useful formulas, young knight, and I this old man will continue to let you off easy.”
“Worry not, dear sir, I recently met an ice witch brewing some kind of undiscovered, extremely potent, poison. I shall write its ingredients down for you without delay.”
Sorry Martha.
“Hehehe. Good. Good…”
And the old man was gone.
How do all the male elderlies I know manage to be both benevolent grandpas AND profiteering crooks at the same time? Do I just attract weirdoes? Or did I corrupt Vincent somehow? …Nah. Impossible. I’m an angel of niceness and honesty.
Reasserting his own immaculate innocence, Nicolas closed the door, dropped the mail on the table, and went back into his “sciency” lab-styled kitchen to make crêpes. No particular reason. Just hunger. While cooking, he tentatively danced to Offenbach’s Cancan <2>, gift from RSMS, still naked under his towelling robe, and was thusly being rewarded by the circumspect and vaguely pitying gaze of McLeon.
– *** –
An hour later, Nicolas carried the result of his attempt at post-modern choreography to the living room, and proceeded to enact a meticulous and heartless self-depreciating destruction of his hard work, barbarically resorting to his bare teeth to tear through the defenceless sugar-sprinkled batter, in an unsightly act, commonly referred to as “eating”.
A hungry man so easily devolves into the ranks of uncivilized beasts.
In an attempt to hold on to his leaking humanity, the improvised deranged philosophe grabbed an handful of pieces of paper covered in printed words – called “letters” he remembered – and went through the pile of useless cra- “Ah!”
About to drown in the depths of his own gory food porn delirium, he was suddenly dragged back to the surface by the sight of a postcard lost in the – not so large – amount of vouchers, invoices and sectarian recruitment pamphlets.
What is that numbskull doing again?
The aforementioned postcard showed a tanned man in his late twenties, dressed-up in parachuting gear, lavishly posing next to a small plane and surrounded by an anime-harem-full of lightly dressed young beauties.
“Tsh.”
Why does he always and only sends me this kind of picture? Do your job properly, for God’s sake!
The man in question, Aapeli Bernstein, was in fact a world-renowned photographer, not the kind of person Nicolas would normally get acquainted with. Music, yes. He understood. He still played the violin whenever he found some time, and some will to. Art in general… Eeeeh?
His few close friends never believed him when he claimed not to be such an art-fan. According to them, his abstract mind-frame should make him overly receptive to any form of conceptual representations. Not really. True, when he didn’t use them as paramedical psychotropic, melodies could stimulate his imagination, helping him create rhythmic imaginary worlds of his own… in which he usually portrayed himself beating the shit out of stuff and killing some other stuff… but that was beside the point! That was his own interpretation of it. Trying to comprehend someone else’s thinking, what they were trying to show, to tell, to make him feel? Not his thing. As far as he was concerned, Dorothy had been an exception, a lovely, cute, and endearing side-project. He usually never cared. He liked beautiful, simple things. Not ones he had to concentrate over.
In a sense, since Aapeli Bernstein, pen-named “AB”, mostly specialized in landscapes, he thus belonged to a category of artists Nicolas was somehow more likely to be interested in. Truth be told, the young man actually grew rather fond of the photographer’s work since they met. But even then, he would always be interested in the product itself, more than in its creator. For instance, despite his music near-physiological dependency, Nicolas never went to a single concert of his own volition.
So how did they come to be close enough for the man to attempt to slowly drown his younger friend under a continuous stream of postcards? Through Untold Tales, of course!
In order to take advantage of the high realism of UT, and its convenient time differential, AB had started an in-game career as a dwarf painter, under the nickname of Lautrek <3>. He actually managed to make money by selling his virtual oeuvres, while still continuing his real life job.
Nicolas once tried to object that, since painting took more time than photography, the time gain was pretty much cancelled out, so why not stick with the real world? The artist’s answer had been so passionate that the inept knight swore himself never to raise the subject ever again. He didn’t even understood half of the other’s arguments, but if the guy was happy, how could the Reckless Imbecile question his way of doing things? He sure as hell would himself slice anyone who dared to critique Elric’s ways.
In order to find never-before-seen sceneries, Lautrek joined the unofficial ranks of the deep explorers. A few months ago (RLT), he had contacted Elric to ask if the renowned jackass could get him some screenshots of a marvellous, but absurdly dangerous, ancient mine. The place was infested with crawlers, nasty fellows loosely related to goblins, extremely aggressive and poisonous. Seduced by the suicidal expedition idea, the Reckless Imbecile had of course agreed.
After that incident – which resulted in one of Elric’s most humiliating death, involving a sneakily pushing crawler, a thin badly located stalagmite, and long fall with a very unfortunate landing point – the two somehow hit it off. Since then, the Wandering Knight would send the painter screenshots of interesting places and situations every so often. In return, the dwarf struggled to correct his hermitic friend’s deficient social skills… mostly by dragging the Sage of the Wild incognito into various taverns and in-game previews of his own work.
While Elric never got much better, Lautrek, on his side, recently once more made a killing with the “Temple of Holli-fucking-ness”, stunning masses with his new “intentionally” vague style. In truth, Elric had been running flat out to reach the exit of the crazy building, resulting in the model shots being rather blurry, but people would always be amazed by weird art, as long as they were told the weirdness was there on purpose. And Lautrek’s work did look impressive, in all honesty. However, despite the canvas’ patron asking its creator not to use the ridiculous name, the painter must have been too busy laughing at the knight to listen to what he was being whispered to through private chat.
In real life, Aapeli travelled the Globe – Flattened Ellipsoid –, in search of inspiration, doing various activities on the way, mainly trying out all sorts of extreme sports, and hitting on every woman who crossed his path. And he was good at it. Asshole. He did take his job seriously though – reason why he chose a dexterous dwarf for his avatar, and not a seductive elf –, but his women addiction was as incurable as Nicolas’ to music. Nevertheless, the latter still thought his was the healthier of the two, if perhaps more sexually frustrating.
Careful though. Aapeli wasn’t what you would call a despicable womaniser either. More like an innocent instinctual charmer. His good looks and constant bright honest enthusiasm usually sufficed to attract people to him. Thus, since he really wasn’t one to turn down a pretty girl, he rarely spent a night alone… or sleeping for that matter… except when he was working or playing UT, I which cases he fell into “serious mode”, and often pulled all-nighters.
From each and every of the responsible playboy’s stops, a half-envious half-pissed Nicolas would receive a postcard of the guy, doing… stuff, accompanied by his latest conquest. Conquests in fact, most often. He already got mailed a total amount of almost a freaking cubic metre of those pictures, some of which could be easily classified as soft-porn, some worse. For example, even if the last sending didn’t show it – because of the parachute gear and the thankfully “clean” nature of the situation – , Nicolas knew that Aapeli’s whole body but his face was covered in tattoos. Some in places he wished he never EVER was made aware of.
The textual content being absolutely inconsequential, Nicolas carried the picture to his room and threw it with the others in a huge box marked with a glowing “radioactive hazardous materials” sign.
Yawning, he started dropping on his bed, well decided to finish catching up to the hours of sleep the “Dorothy Affair” had cost him, when, as if controlled by the God of Chaos himself, RSMS switched to the first notes of Faust’s “Rise of the Black Raven”.
“AAAAAAH!! It was today! How could I forget?!”
As if slapped by a bucket of cold water – not that the temperature mattered much when slapped by a filled bucket – , he tried to stop himself mid-fall, failed, tripped, and met the ground. Unfortunately, the carpet was in the living room, which didn’t help, since he wasn’t. It hurt.
Stunned, with the record shop in mind, he made his way to the front-door, grabbing his keys on the way. He rushed outside, locked the door, and started to run towards the lift. A few seconds later, he rushed back to his flat, unlocked the door, went back inside, then back in his room. Less groggy, he, this time, remembered to put on clothes.
– *** –
Minutes later, calmed and clad, with his WMP in hand, Nicolas was giving last-minute orders to a seemingly unconcerned black tom.
“Soldier McLeon! Keep the fort! I, general Sie-“
“Meow~ Who named you general?”
“Shut up recruit!”
“I still think I should be general.”
“Please… I’m sort of in a hurry. Just play along. Don’t complicate the situation for the sake of being a pain.”
“You do know you are the one making this whole conversation up… Do you?”
“I’m not that insane yet.”
“… Good to hear you say it.”
“Now. Keep the fort! I, lieutenant Siegel, shall be out for a short while.”
“Whatever. I’ll do a better job than you anyway, buffoon.”
“I said SHUT UP! Stop being disrespectful. You’re not even talking. …What am I doing? Anyway, I’m off.”
“Meow.” – That was actually the cat.
Nicolas quickly checked he actually was wearing shoes, got out of the apartment, closed the door, locked it, took the lift, left the building, and started his “long and perilous” trek towards the record store in the cold air of late January.
– ***** –
<1> As a quick reminder, as mentioned in the synopsis, Nicolas Siegel is Elric Walker’s real name. Just to make things clear.
<2> For those would don’t know this masterpiece, please enlighten yourself.
<3> Not to praise myself, but I think Lautrek is a good name for a dwarf painter.
----------------------------------------
Soooo… something special with this chapter?
First, I want to apologize of some were trolled by the title. It – mostly – wasn’t intentional
(Every reader: Hypocritical asshole! ).
Second, the obvious fact this was the first chapter to take place in real life. Some might think I’m losing track of the plot again, but I think episodes outside the game are fundamental. Had I wanted to make a full fantasy, I would have worked on my second project, which was a reincarnation story. (For the time being, this one will stay in my “idea folder”.) IRL chapters and UT ones will alternate in the future. Everything will be linked and have purpose though, so fear not.
Next chapter will be the rest of this first IRL episode, and the introduction of an important character, then, starting chapter 13, Elric shall (finally) get in sight of the dark castle mentioned in chapter 1. Trust me, this took longer than I thought too, although 13 is a good number to reach a dark castle, no?
On a side note, after some research on a way to describe Nicolas’ (and therefore Elric’s) mind, I finally found the following videos. Just imagine every character in these is a different thought, and you’ll have a pretty good illustration.
Usually:
Spoiler :
If the video doesn’t work, click here.
Under the occasional caffeine rush:
Spoiler :
If the video doesn’t work, click here.
I also want to thank Kiyuta, author of Twisted Nerves for giving me the idea of finding my characters theme songs.
Anyway, as usual, thanks for reading and see you next chapter.
(Gender Bender is getting close, I swear.)
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