JESSIE : LEVEL 10

DAY 132 : D-DAY, FIRSTWEEK, EOS, YEAR 1

CENTRAL 10 : VILLA 1 : BULLIES

Jessica the Racist Human Stonekicker decided to check her level.

But before she could, the ever-present crowd resumed their amazed muttering, this time over both her sheer foresight, and the fact she had a level at all.

“How did she figure it out?”

“Is she a genius?”

“OH MY GOSH GOLLY GEE WILLICKERS, HAVE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY BABIES!!!”

Eyes now locked onto that last guy, the stonekicker backed away slowly. Then faster as he began walking towards her. Then at a sprint as he seemed to decide that running meant ‘yes’.

She quickly outpaced him, though.

Soon after, he was gasping, winded with hands on knees.

The racist thanked God that so many creeps were fat. And that Immortalia Online punished creepy behavior by making them fat. They could still play. Except now, they weren’t even slightly threatening. It was great.

Actendonysoft even used genetic samples as the user’s primary key in their database. So any character that person created afterwards would still be just as fat. They weren’t kicked out. But they tended to leave soon enough. Except for the ones who took it as a challenge.

Not this guy though. He was probably only caught the once. For obvious reasons… Not the subtlest of come-ons, that.

But as the small human backed away, she got overconfident from outpacing the large pervert. As tended to happen with such hubris, she tripped over a pipe.

Climbing out of bed in a haze, I remember that I’m still here. Still here and still tired. But at least it’s a tiredness of my own making this time. I haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in half a week thanks to getting up to press and recharge the button every hour. I don’t want to miss one. It’s just so much XP. I fought through that entire slime-infested hellhole so many times. And each of them, for less XP than I get off a single button-press. Compared to that, waking up to bug a guy about letting me press a button is nothing. So yeah it’s annoying.

And yeah, I’m a little grouchy walking out of my room this morning. But there’s no two ways about it. It’s just so unequivocally worth it that I can’t bear to sit by and let all that XP slip away. That’s like getting credit for killing 4 Spiderwolves every minute for the next hour after I press the button… Except I’m just sitting here doing jack shit.

I look around at everyone. “So how are you guys getting that XP once per hour if you don’t follow Darreck around all the time? I mean I thought you were just ignoring me at first. Took a while to realize Blue and I were the only ones doing that.”

Yellow scoffs. “Unlike you losers, I’m not a slave to the box. Darreck gets me plenty of XP every day without getting all sweaty about it.”

“Oh my god, you can absolutely eat shit.”

Darreck sighs. “Really now, Red-I mean…” He turns to me. “Sorry for how late I am with this, but do you mind if I call you ‘Red’? I realized I never asked and… It’s just that we’ve got this whole multicolor hair situation going on around here and that’s the first place my mind keeps going when I try to remember who I’m talking to.”

I mentally nod along. “…Kay.”

“Hey, so, um…”

“So, um..?”

“Do you mind if I call you Red?”

Well past caring at this point, I decide to be pedantic anyway. “My hair is crimson. Not red.”

He nods. “Well…” He gestures to Green. “Her hair is more of an ‘emerald’. But I’m not calling her Emerald in my head all the time. Much like ‘Crimson’, it just doesn’t roll off the tongue. Although if I called her ‘Emerald’, I’d have to call you ‘Ruby’. And I don’t think anyone wants that.”

I literally shudder at the thought. “‘Yellow’ really doesn’t roll off the tongue either.”

“It certainly is more than one syllable, yes. But what would work better and still fit within the theme?”

I only think that through for a subjective moment for once. “Piss. Red, Blue, Green, and Piss. Now that’s what I call marketable.”

Piss looks just as shocked and appalled as I wanted from that.

Darreck pinches his eyebrows together. “Red.. Could you please not?”

Then I narrow my eyes. Now that I think about it, shouldn’t I be objecting to this?

But my self-doubt is alleviated when I notice the timer go off and promptly make him bleed a little to give me 256 XP. “Okay, so here’s my thoughts on that. If the color thing was a dealbreaker, I would’ve said something the first time you called me ‘Red’. Or at least when I saw this little Teletubbies thing you’ve all got going on. But, I figure that while you’re recharging this thing for me every hour, on the hour, you can call me whatever you want.”

I instantly rethink that. “Actually, no. Not whatever you want. But ‘Red’ is-” Still lame. But as payment for services rendered? “-Fine.”

Darreck gulps. “About that…”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You’re cutting me off? Now? The fuck?”

He seems genuinely alarmed by my vehemence. “O-only while I’m trying to sleep.”

“But-”

“But nothing. I can see how tired you are all the time. I’m the one you’re waking up to recharge that damn thing. How do you think I feel?”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I have to blink at that. “Oh… I’m sorry.”

He rakes his fingers through his brown-ass locks. “Like you said, it’s… Fine.”

“Then you’re not allowed to call me ‘Red’ while you’re asleep. And if you message me, calling me ‘Red’ or not, or give me any other proof that you’re awake, then I’m allowed to bother you, regardless of the hour.”

He remains silent for most of a minute. “…Fine. But no listening at my door for signs of life or anything like that.”

“Deal.”

The weight seems to fall off Darreck’s shoulders as he marches straight back into his room. “Good. And on that note, Imma get some sleep. Don’t bother me for recharges today, I have a feeling I’m gonna be out cold for a while.”

“Fuck…” I really didn’t expect him to cut me off so quick after I agreed.

With a shrug, I plop onto the couch next to blue and across from where Yellow and Green are sitting.

Yellow smirks. “That’s it? I thought you were a perfectionist.”

Grabbing the controller, I absentmindedly flip through the TV’s channels. The screens themselves are blank, The System overlaying their position with an impression of it directly into our minds. “If it's worth doing right, it's worth doing half-assed. But you’re right, I'm a perfectionist. So If it's worth doing half-assed, it's worth not doing at all.”

She blinks at that. “Wow… You really are stupid, huh?”

“Sure am. But don’t worry, just apply yourself to your studies and you’ll get up to my level in a decade or two. Oh, I know! I can tutor you! Lesson one…” I peter off once I see her equip a set of headphones and probably turn up the volume a lot on her System menus. It’s too bad you can’t just stream music into your ears instead of wearing something like that. It doesn’t even work with layered armor. Although I can now look like I’m listening to music or something while I’ve actually got a heavy helm equipped. So there’s that.

With thoughts of buyer’s remorse dancing in my head, I scroll through thousands of channels. It’s all live-action bullshit being made in Heaven. And some of the shows are fun for a few minutes. But something about the rigidity of The System’s distribution of power and the undeniability of The Admins makes it hard to get invested since a real villain in this environment just feels contrived. But then, I land on Conan. Having never seen the talk show, I remember that I’m here forever, so I might as well watch everything at some point. And I might as well start here.

A couple hours later, I break the silence. “I can’t figure it out. Is he just a complex character? Or is Max Weinberg really this much of a tool?”

Spotting red in the water, Yellow takes off her headphones and sighs. “What?”

So I repeat myself.

She nods along, the gears in her head practically visible to me. “Not as much as you.” She gestures to Blue. “Or her. I don’t know who you’re talking about, but statistically, I have to be right.”

I look over at Blue. Then back to Yellow. “Leave her out of it, you vapid cum dumpster.”

Yellow bursts into laughter that only settles down when she leans forward to look Blue in the eye. “At least Ruby over here has spirit. But you? What do you even do? I mean besides just occupy space while trying to pretend you don’t?”

Blue doesn’t say anything.

Green titters from next to Yellow. “Yeah, you pathetic little twerp. I honestly can’t see you having ever saved anyone.”

Yellow looks back up at her. “You know what? I think it’s a fluke.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

I snort. “You’re one to talk. You’ve had your tongue up Barbie’s ass since I got here. Since you got here too, I bet.”

Barbie snarls back at me. “Don’t call me that. And leave her alone.”

I sigh, thinking of having to pick one and stick with it. And that’s just no fun. “I can respect a name truce if you can. I haven’t exhausted the list yet, but I can only assume I’ll run out of shit to call you both at this rate. And as to the other thing… I can accept that truce too. You don’t fuck with Blue, I don’t fuck with Green.”

“What about me?”

“No deal. You’re the worst. But I can at least tone my sniping down enough to minimize splash damage. Assuming you can do the same.”

“This is blackmail.”

“Hardly. But call it what you want.”

Green finally grows half a pair. “I can fight my own battles.”

Raising a finger, I keep breathing but otherwise freeze just before saying something back to her, and instead shoot a look at the real bad guy here.

Piss doesn’t say anything, but clearly looks uncomfortable.

I shrug. “Is that so, you lettuce-ass-”

“FINE!!!” Eyes darting to Darreck’s room, Yellow clasps a hand over her mouth. “Fine.”

Having spent the last subjective hour thinking it through, I get an idea. “Care to make it interesting?”

Yellow narrows her eyes. “This smells like a particularly stupid trap. But whatever, I’m bored. How so?”

I look from Green to Blue and back to Yellow. “Mine versus yours?”

She actually guffaws. “You want to set them against each other like puppies in a dogfight?”

I was thinking more Pokémon. “Not exactly. But close enough.”

Blue stutters out her first objection to any of this nonsense so far. “I-I don’t know about…” But she loses her nerve before she even gets the sentence out.

Green seems to share her misgivings. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

Yellow snaps at her. “NO. Shut up. Can’t you see how in the bag this is?” She turns to me. “What are the stakes?”

“If I win, you both get off Blue’s case. Permanently.”

Yellow folds her arms. “But what if she fires first-” But then she seems to remember who she’s talking about. “Fine. And what if I win?”

Green nudges her. “Don’t you mean if I win?”

“Sure hon, whatever you want.” Yellow turns back to me. “So..?”

“I’ll get off the little dryad’s case.”

“Hey, that’s… Fine. Dryads are cool, I guess. What about Blue?”

“What about her?”

“Green has to lay off her if I win, so shouldn’t Blue be restricted… From…” Yellow seems to remember who she’s talking about again. That only cheers her up as she thinks through her odds. “Fine. When do we do this?”

I have to think my estimate through for a few minutes before replying immediately. “Two weeks.”

“And until then?”

“Truce.”

“Darreck will like that… Fine.” Without another word, she re-equips her headphones.

Looking over at the shy girl trying to look small, I decide to get a leg up on the competition as I sidle up next to Blue. “You know, you really shouldn’t…” Shouldn’t what? Be so vulnerable? At home? I shake my head. “You should’ve…” Done what exactly? Fight back? Her? She’s the sweetest girl I’ve ever met. “What’s your name?”

Blue sniffles. “Blue.”

“No, your real name.”

“Blue is my real name.”

[ HERO TARGETED: BLUE ]

HUH… A lot to unpack with that. Doesn’t say great things for Darreck that he would encourage an actual name change. Or maybe she just did it on her own to be nice? Yeah, that fits better.

Pondering through all that, I take an objective second to think of a better way to ask. “You didn’t always live here, right?”

Blue’s facial expression gains the first glimmer of aggression I’ve seen from the girl. “Yes.”

“So what was your name back then?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me.”

Blue shrugs herself deeper into the couch cushions. “Yuki.”