Chapter 17:
Where I belong
“Lili, you know there's still a place for people like us
The same blood runs in every hand
You see it’s not the wings that makes the angel
Just have to move the bats out of your head”
– Lili, AaRON <1>
▲▲▲▲▲
You have logged out.
Linked Time [4:45:52]
With a sigh, Eva stepped out of her W-Chair and glanced at her alarm clock, which indifferently informed her that midnight had passed an hour and twelve minutes ago.
Maybe I should try to sleep a bit too.
Soon after leaving the invaded boss room, the monsters had caught up to the Progenitor and her Soulbound. Within the narrow tunnel however, dealing with the creepy swarm had been relatively easy. While Athena had readied herself for a long an arduous fight, Victoria had casually shifted back to her human-ish form – still naked and straining her friend’s self-restraint – and had unleashed the Toto-inator on the incoming mobs.
The opening behind them had thus rapidly been plugged with charred corpses, and even the spectres had been destroyed by the dragon spirit’s breath. Once again, Eva couldn’t help but feel stupid for worrying, when obviously Victoria always had a backup plan.
She’s the experienced one, after all, when I’m just… What have I even done in that fight? I’ve assaulted a comrade after she found us a shortcut. I got caught by the boss’s tentacles. I distracted Vicky from the fight because I was too focused on conventional gaming, and too dumb to come up with an obvious strategy despite it being my job. And I barely was of any help overall. All I do is causing her trouble. She’s a Deep Exp’. I’m sure she’d prefer to be on some awesome adventure instead of babysitting someone like me back to Start.
In the game, Athena was able to gain self-confidence and courage from her strength and mastery of her own skills. But as soon as she came back to reality, Eva was always too caught up with her mistakes and shortcomings to see any of the qualities which Victoria admired in her.
And to her… I almost…
Eva hugged herself and shivered as she recalled to urge she had felt to push down the girl she owed so much to and use her as a toy for her own convenience.
She even called me a friend… How could I? And right after I decided not to be a burden anymore and become a decent human being… I’m such a trash… But she said “anything”. No! Don’t read too much into it. She might be a crazy lunatic exhibitionist sociopath but… but…
“…”
…eh?
“But …what?”
It suddenly dawned on Eva that she had been so afraid to let her true self out, that she had completely forgotten to factor in her friend’s own desires.
The only “friends” she had until now where her sister’s band members, who actually felt more like older siblings than friends, and her female classmates at school, who were very common girls at the eve of their twenties and furthermore were persuaded that Eva was some kind of quiet shy super-smart bookworm. She loved each of them dearly, but they weren’t people she would feel comfortable discussing her most twisted inclinations with.
Even her successive “conquests” had been more about physical pleasure and self-comforting than deep emotional involvement. Their desires had been obvious, and so had hers, so she never had to question what they wanted from her or what she was willing to give.
Victoria was different.
Eva was attracted to the crazy girl, she was aware of that much, and sometimes she even thought her feelings were mutual. However she could never tell when Victoria was serious or just fooling around. She couldn’t understand the girl. All she knew was that Victoria’s cared very little about most of everything, yet could become extremely emotional about what caught her interest.
But how much of this interest had been caught by Athena? That, Eva could only wonder about.
She wasn’t used to need to think deeply about what the person she liked might want from her. That was trekking uncertain terrains, unknown places where she wasn’t in control, where she had no idea what might suddenly appear and hurt her.
She was scared.
Scared to be rejected. Scared of what she might do. Scared to take this step too far that would finally open Victoria’s eyes on the useless being she really was and drive the merry girl away from her.
What is she thinking?
Staring dejectedly at her own feet, Eva lifted her fingers towards her lips and slowly caressed them. Even if they had never physically touched, not really, she could still feel the sensations of Victoria’s lips pressing against hers. She hadn’t thought much of the kiss at the time, her mind had had far too many things to focus on, but now she couldn’t help but want more.
For the umpteenth time, she wondered if she should just give up on changing her class and simply continue travelling as the Soulbound, at the beautiful Progenitor’s side. And, for the umpteenth time, her body physically recoiled when thinking of spending the rest of her game life as a person intrinsically dependant on another.
She felt nauseous at the idea, and confused, because another contradictory desire had been slowly taking form inside her, a deep refusal that someone else might ever take her place beside Victoria. She couldn’t understand that desire. She was worthless. A burden on anyone she cared about. A pitiful girl crippled by irrational fears. What right had she to desire monopolising someone? How could she even think of restraining someone so great, when she was already inconveniencing that person to regain the freedom of her own worthless self?
Eva crouched down, holding her head in pain. Her thoughts were a mess. A different kind of mess than when she was having one of her breakdowns. When it happened, her mind would only be filled with fear, but now it was flooded with opposing concepts that clashed against each other and threatened to destroy the fragile balance she had achieved through years of therapy.
And, at the centre of this mess, of maybe deep within it, was a thought which she was vaguely aware of but couldn’t grasp. She knew instinctively that this was the key to sooth her emotional mayhem, because she could feel herself calming down whenever she tried to comprehend it better. However, like in the cave when she first felt the existence of that thought, she remained unable to reach it.
She slumped on the ground and remained that way, crying, face in her hands to hide her tears from God knew who, since she was alone in her bedroom.
* * *
Minutes passed by as only silence filled the room, only interrupted by her quiet sobs.
Eventually, she slowly stood up, wiping her tears and shaking her head, calmed at last.
She still hadn’t found a solution to her inner turmoil, so she didn’t really felt any better. But she had a long history of dealing with her unstable emotions, and a little variation in her usual breakdown pattern wouldn’t phase her too much. And she thought she could be slightly optimistic in this case. She had no hope of ever overcoming her childhood trauma, but this confuse relationship between Victoria and her, or more accurately with Athena, was something that was within her ability to clarify.
“I’ll ask her. Knowing Vicky, she’ll give me a straight answer, no matter if it’s what I want to hear or not.” She nodded to herself. “But not before we reach Start. We’ll stay together until then at least. I don’t want to make things more awkward that they could already be.”
She raised her head and looked around.
Her room was fairly bare for a young woman her age. A bed, a wardrobe, a desk occupied by a laptop and school supplies, a rolling chair and shelves. Everything was more functional than decorative, with the sole exception of the CDs on the shelves, a large poster of Faust pinned on the grey wall above her bed and a gothic plush doll laying atop her black bedding.
The latter had been a gift from her mother – she had been an artist, mostly a sculptor, but also sewing as a hobby. I was a little red-haired girl with a heart-shaped eyepatch and her mouth stitched, wearing a frilly black dress with purple skulls and sheepishly holding a large bloody baseball bat behind her back.
It was one of Eva’s most precious possessions and the girl had always found the doll extremely cute. She had called it Miss Asshole Destroyer… which she had meant figuratively.
Her naming sense continued to make her mother proud in heaven, while her late father was probably sighing beside his wife.
In the game, within another hour of walking through the darkness, Athena, Victoria, and Toto – who had refused to go back in the dhampir’s inventory – had come across a small cave. They had dumped the regenerating undead in a corner. As a safety measure – the guy had seemed friendly, but better safe than sorry – they had bound the archzombie with the ropes and cuffs that the Princess just had happened to have for nebulous reasons.
Then Victoria had told her friend that she really needed to rest for at least four real hours. Despite being still in good shape, Athena hadn’t retorted nor questioned her, easily guessing the reason behind the Big Sister’s lack of sleep. Thus after setting up some wards – also from the dhampir’s inventory – both players had logged out, leaving Toto to keep watch.
Hopeful, the moody dragon would neither run away nor grill them in their sleep. Victoria hadn’t seemed too worried about it though. Well, she never really worried about anything anyway.
Eva glanced at the clock once more. She had first thought she would sleep, but now she decided against it.
Eva grabbed her graphically-named cuddly toy and walked up to the desk. She sat down in the chair and dropped Miss Asshole Destroyer on her lap, then switched on her laptop. She was still a little shaken, so she once again found refuge in her safe haven: numbers.
She donned a headband to pull back her long bangs and first opened a folder named
With her hands flying above the keyboard, she created a new text file in which she noted down the data concerning the [Putrid Cocoon of the Soul Eater], [Stillborn Corrupted Moth “Monarch”] and [Butterfly King “André”], their attack patterns, reaction times, estimated HP, resistances, weaknesses, calculated number of hits necessary to take down on her own based on the aforementioned stats, different strategies that could have been implemented on hindsight, and other various relevant information.
This systematic organisation of data was essentially for her personal use. However, because she was unwilling to spend the household money for herself, Eva sometimes sold the information she gathered to other UT players.
Since she had only played in the so-called “Safe Zone” – very relative safety – until now, what she knew wasn’t really worth much. But her files were more detailed than average – or so she had been told – so it covered the price of her CDs, which were about the only “hobby” she indulged into – besides Untold Tales of course, but the W-Chair and the game were something her Mom had received freely for working at Whatever’s.
This latest insectoid boss however, along with what she had noted down concerning Nowhere, would probably get her quite a decent sum if sold, especially because undead monsters were still very scarcely documented. Of course much fake information circulated, so hers might not be taken seriously, but she had a little confidence that her relative reputation of reliability would avoid her files being instantaneously dismissed as worthless.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
She would have to ask Victoria’s permission first though, because Eva had a feeling that the pale girl liked to keep her hunting ground private to some extent. However Eva wasn’t too concerned. Even if her friend refused, it wasn’t like she really needed that money anyway. And she was obviously going to share half of it with the dhampir in the case Victoria gave her accord.
* * *
She continued to type for two good hours.
She added the descriptions of new monsters to her
Then she revised teamwork patterns between Athena and Victoria, sometimes including Toto, and even already preparing rough outlines of what would be possible if the archzombie joined them – which would probably happen, seeing how the obsessional madwoman in the group had taken an interest to him.
She also edited most of her other boss files, correcting her strategies by including the use of the environment to the players’ advantage. Then she posted the whole compressed folder – excluding anything related to the Kindgdom of Erwyn – on the official auction site, under the name
I know it’s somehow fitting in more than one way, but… Seriously… “Goddess of Wisdom”, for someone like me, it’s just too embarrassing. There’s a difference between a character name that will only be known by a few and a public name like this one. Just why, Sis?
Beside her shame, she also felt a little guilty about using Victoria’s advice on VR fighting without asking first, but she felt even more uncomfortable at the thought of having previously provided incomplete information – especially with a pseudo like that – and gained money out of it. She eventually reconciled with her peace of mind by once again deciding to share her possible earnings equally with the dhampir. Now she just needed to find a way to broach the subject.
She closed her laptop, put the headband back in a drawer, and stretched. Since she had at least another hour and a half before Victoria logged in again, she decided to exercise for one hour.
She changed out of her pyjamas and put on a pair of shorts and a white t-shirt, in passing checking her well-designed abs and nodding satisfyingly. Her real body wasn’t anywhere near the muscular powerhouse that was Athena, but it was as athletic as someone with her sort and slender built could be.
Eva didn’t feel any sort of pride from her physical appearance, but she was content to see her budding gaming addiction wasn’t yet having repercussions on the body she had trained through years of self-defence lessons. She hated when hard work went to waste.
She walked out of her bedroom and into the first floor hallway. In front of her was the staircase and three other closed doors were on her right, leading to her sister’s and Mom’s rooms as well as a fully-equipped fitness room. Hellen had pretended the latter had been installed for her own personal use, since everyone from the showbiz industry needed to keep themselves in perfect shape, but Eva knew that the studio her sister belonged to had its own gym, so the devices in that room had to be there because the traumatised girl would never have been able to go exercise in a public place.
Thinking of how much this had to have costed, Eva felt awful. However, since it was already there, not using it would have made her a stubborn ungrateful brat, on top of being a source for unnecessary expenditures, so she made sure to work out at least an hour every two days.
Until last year, her sessions had actually often ended up lasting much longer, because physical exertion helped keep her mind out of… well… everything. Although now that Untold Tales was offering her another outlet, she wasn’t as assiduous as she had once been, but she at least stuck to her minimal schedule.
She wasn’t really worried about making noise at three in the morning. Hellen would often compose music at any time of the day and night, and she of course accompanied herself with various instruments while doing so. The two sisters had a tacit agreement not to mind the other’s fuss. In any case, Hellen always slept like a log and Eva found comforting to hear of her sister’s presence in the house.
Her steps suddenly paused in the middle of the hallway and she then shifted her track towards the stairs. Thinking of Hellen had recalled the state she had left her sister in.
* * *
Hellen was still on the sofa, deeply asleep and snoring, her left arm and leg hanging to the floor. With a little smile, Eva rearranged the disgraceful violinist’s limbs back in a more comfortable position. Of course Hellen didn’t even twitch while being handled like a rag doll. The little sister then spread over Hellen the blanket that she had fetched on her way to the living room, and kissed her older sibling goodnight on the forehead.
Thank you Sis, for everything. Love you.
Before switching off the light, she casted a quick glance at the three “cute” dogs who were laying around the sofa, refusing as usual to sleep in their designated baskets. That reminded her of Toto and how he hated to be stored in the inventory. In the end, be it in real life or virtual reality, a dog was still a dog, she thought.
Well, Toto is a dragon technically…
Slightly affected by Victoria’s chronical disdain for irrelevant details, Eva shrugged off that thought.
She made a quick stop by the kitchen to grab a snack, and discovered that the fated toilet paper still was royally chairing atop the fridge. With a sigh, she resolutely took hold of the quest item and marched towards the toilet dungeon, equipped with [Rubber Gloves], [Cleaning Sponge], [Scrubbing Brush] and [Detergent].
Taking a deep breath, she opened the gate of hell.
“Holy Mother of God… Sis, isn’t your subclass Archer? How can you have such a shitty aim?”
* * *
The boss [Aftermath of Smashed Evening “Puke”] taken care of, Eva finally proceeded with her planned exercising. Five minutes of push-ups, followed by five minutes of sit-ups, then squats, then repeat once.
She spent the last half-our on the rowing machine, then stretched a bit, took a quick shower, and went back to her bedroom. After putting her pyjamas back on and sitting down on her W-Chair, she logged in.
▼▼▼
A wave of familiar pleasure hit Athena as soon as she felt her consciousness settle back in her virtual body. The tall woman abruptly opened her eyes and discovered a pale white-headed girl, apparently still asleep despite being obviously logged in, who was blissfully munching on Athena’s left ankle, a trickle of blood running sideways down her cheek.
While Victoria’s right arm was hugging the Shielbearer’s left leg, her left hand was extended to the side and a tied-up archzombie, who had wriggled his way to them, was idly devouring the dhampir’s fingers. A glint of murderous madness was flickering in his blind dead white eyes, fighting against the stoned drowsiness that seemed to constitute the core of his being.
At the same time, Toto the Second, venerable dragon of old, had denuded the Princess’s right foot and was growling menacingly while shaking a red boot, sometimes throwing it into the air and wrestling it.
Athena’s amber eyes shifted back towards the face of the girl who was sucking at her.
“Ahem.”
Victoria sleepily opened an eye, then her half-gaze crossed the frowning Shielbearer and she froze.
“Ah.”
Her smile withered and she let go of Athena’s foot, while her face was becoming even paler, if that was possible.
Hearing his sorta-master’s muffled exclamation, Toto turned around. The boot that had been in his jaws hit the stone floor with a dull thud, and he began whimpering while backing away.
Even the undead, who had no idea who was the slender, half-undead, tasteful girl he had woken up near to, had somehow picked up that something bad was about to happen, based on abundance of dark miasma that suddenly filled the room.
“Vicky…”
“Totally not my fault. I was asleep.”
“Toto, is that how you keep watch?”
“Kai!”
*bang* *bang* … *bang*
“OW!” “Kai!” “Why me…”
*sigh* “Seriously, you guys…”
Athena held her forehead in her hand, an also familiar headache coming back as soon as the pleasure from the vampire bite receded, then she peeked between her fingers.
She took a few seconds to observe a dhampir, one foot bare and gore flowing out of her mutilated hand, shouting and running after a plush puppy holding a boot in his jaws, while a tied-up archzombie was rolling on the floor, trying to avoid the flying ruby spikes that were stabbing down at him.
The Shielbearer let her hand fall beside her body and gazed up at the ceiling.
Aaaah. I guess this is fun?
“Oh! Thena, what are you doing? We’re leaving.”
Athena looked down.
Victoria had already managed to get her boot back. She was holding a very grumpy Toto under her left armpit and was standing at the exit of the cave. The relative brightness of the outside created a greyish halo around her. With light filtering through her white hair, her red bondage leather outfit, her fangy predatory grin, and her bicoloured eyes with their ever-shifting pupils, she looked like an improbable devil descending from heaven. The struggling puppy made the image a little odd though.
“So, you coming?” the apparition asked with her enchanting voice, while extending her free hand towards the stunned woman and smiling even broader.
Athena replied with a hesitant smile of her own: “Yes!”
Maybe, if I’m with her, then it’s okay?
For the first time in many years, Eva thought that, maybe, she too was allowed to be happy. She leapt towards this weird girl, and towards the light.
* * *
*roooooabrledbr* *rumble* *aaaarh*
“Vicky…”
Well, the light was full of zombies though.
“An’ shit,” the heavenly devil swore before lifting the dragon puppy.
* * * * *
<1> I’m not sure it fits, but I love this song
Spoiler :
----------------------------------------
Hurray for obvious symbolism!!
And…
YEAH!! Chapter 51! That makes three of those little dot thingies at the bottom of the chapter list! Or would it have made more sense to celebrate chapter 50?! Who cares! Let’s celebrate now with a little child-friendly creepiness!
Spoiler :
With that out of the way… back to serious stuff! They are all going to die! YEAAAAAAAAH!! Oh. Forgot to deactivate celebration mode. Right. Oh. Ah. How so very tragic. I am sad. Buu-huu….
Anyway, thank you for putting up with me and see you next chapter.
PS: Hakuna Matata.