Book 6: Chapter 43:

Fenrir wasn’t sure what was going to end up happening with Oleander and Corwin, but he decided to trust in the love of his best friend. Though, even if Oleander wasn’t alright with Fenrir giving a “soul” to Corwin, he still would have planned on doing so. Corwin deserved one in any situation, Fenrir thought.

Talking to Oleander was also a good reality check for Fenrir. Even if hearing about Oleander treating Corwin as less than real at first pissed Fenrir off, it was a reminded that most people who played the game, if anything, were just as uncaring regarding the NPCs if not far moreso than Oleander.

Even when it came to his own girlfriends, Fenrir was confident that they didn’t care about NPCs anywhere near as much as he did. Some of them likely even cared less than Oleander did to be more in line with the average player. After all, NPCs were just that – NPCs. Non-player characters. No matter how realistic they might have appeared to players, they were nothing more than lines of code meant to trade with, talk to for “quests” and rumors, and to kill. Nothing of value in the real world was lost by killing them.

They were worthless.

Whether an NPC was as realistic as Fantasy Tales Online’s were or as simple as old school MMO NPCs where they were lucky to get a sentence of unique dialogue while standing in the exact same spot all day every day, most players viewed them as the exact same. They were vastly different, sure, but they were different in the way that photorealistic graphics were different from pixel art. Whether the graphics were photorealistic or pixelated, they were still just fake graphics. Being more advanced didn’t change that in the slightest. No matter what, they were fake.

The exact same logic was applied to NPCs.

Fenrir knew that he was in the tiny, tiny minority of people to actually care about realistic NPCs. The vast majority of people around the world would have thought that he had some potential mental health issues to know just how much he cared about them. They would have worried that he could not separate fact from fiction. To want rights for them, to treat them with respect, to give them equal chance and to protect them – to want all of this for NPCs in an MMO was similar to wanting rights for fictional characters in a book. Even among those who thought that his plan of creating a settlement where NPCs were welcomed with open arms to live equally sounded fun, that was all they thought it was – fun. It wasn’t necessary, it wasn’t doing the right thing, it wasn’t helping anybody, it was fun and only fun. It was the same kind of fun that people found in playing the “good guys” in RPGs with moral choices.

And to absolutely nobody’s surprise, the world was full of people who thought picking all of the “bad” choices was even more fun. At the very least, most people were neutral. They would have multiple playthroughs where they experiment with different paths, sometimes choosing the ethical choices to save everybody and other times choosing the unethical choices to be the biggest possible assholes.

Fenrir wasn’t sure if there was even a single person he knew who could truly agree with him on his beliefs. His girlfriends and friends would take his side, but they wouldn’t fully believe in the same belief with the same resolve that Fenrir had.

Even Kadi herself implied how foolish he was for feeling how he did.

But if there was one thing that Fenrir was always good at, it was being stubborn – it was relentlessly throwing himself in the form of new characters at overwhelming enemies to harass them over, and over, and over again until they rage quit. It was infilitrating other guilds pretending to be a new member in need of help multiple times in the same guild, using a voice changer to make sure that nobody would catch on once when he joined their voice chats. It was spending literal days camping people’s heavily guarded bases, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, to destroy everything that they had worked so hard to stockpile for themselves.

Even before the Divine Brigade, back when Fenrir was just a random griefer with Spencer and Viktor, he was dedicating countless days of his life to ruining all joy and entertainment that various assholes tried to have in online games. Even with Spencer and Viktor, they had more busy lives than him. He usually ended up being on his own, yet he was still successful.

If Fenrir was able to cause so much trouble as a lonesome teenager because of his stubborn spirit, then there was no excuse for him to fail now.

Only, instead of proving that nobody was a bigger griefer than him by specifically targeting the most famous griefers there were, Fenrir wanted to devote that stubborn spirit of his to making a better life for the NPCs of Fantasy Tales Online.

Was he crazy? To some people, yes. Was he unrealistically idealistic? Same answer. Was he going to ruin the fun of a bunch of people playing by subjecting them to his morals regarding what was considered by the vast majority of the world to be a total non-issue not even worth thinking about for more than a split second? Definitely.

And was he going to refuse to give up even if there wasn’t a single real person who shared the same belief as him?

Obviously.

Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it was narcissistic. Whatever it was, all that mattered was how Fenrir felt about this, and Fenrir’s resolve was unshakable.

But this was not one of those cases where he could harass his enemy into submission, join their ranks to destroy them from within, nor anything else like that. If he really wanted to have his way, he was going to need power – pure strength. Conflict was unavoidable and there would surely be many direct battles to test his resolve against other’s. Even after the serpent was dealt with, there was no way of knowing what else Kadi might have in store for him, and news of a world serpent being defeated would surely spread across the playerbase in no time. Other factions of players would turn their eyes in Fenrir’s direction.

The time for developing strength was now. He needed to become as strong as he possibly could if he really wanted to be able to protect everybody as he aspired to.

And that was why he found himself in the nearby forest, trying his best to train, but there was a problem.

There wasn’t exactly anything to train against.

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Sure, there were various monsters around, but they were all weak. No worthwhile training could be accomplished by one-shotting weak monsters over and over again. That wouldn’t have worked even if the game was more like a traditional MMO since they would have been weak enough to not offer an experience reward.

This left Fenrir with trying to train on his own by coming up with new techniques. Whether it was swinging a transformed Rod around, trying to improve on that pseudo-transformation ability of his, or sitting down and meditating, Fenrir tried to improve his abilities however he could.

It was the last thing he tried—meditating—that made him realize that he was missing the extremely obvious answer. He was so focused on future plans and his belief regarding NPCs that he completely overlooked the most obvious solution that there was to how he could be training to become stronger.

Cassiel. And Eva for that matter. Not only were they both incredible fighters on their own who could stand equally against him whenever he didn’t bring something out like Cassiel’s weakness of having her neck bitten. There was also the fact that, as far as he was aware, they were both already in the same forest as him. Cassiel went to train and Eva went to hunt for some more bugs. As long as Fenrir could find them, he would have his choice of perfect sparring partners to train with.

So, he went searching for them. He knew that Cassiel liked to train at a particular clearing in the forest that featured a small pond that added to the natural beauty of the area, so he checked there first.

And surely enough, he found her.

He found both of his girlfriends in the forest, actually.

Cassiel was in the process of putting her armor back on before she groaned and rubbed her shoulders. “I don’t think you realize how rough you can be,” she told Eva who had disheveled hair.

“Too bad I don’t actually have any pleasure receptors in my tail. I wonder if I could fix that somehow,” Eva pondered out loud. “But at least my theory was right. My tail is pretty useful for whenever Fenrir isn’t around.”

“Just… don’t tell anybody about the tail thing.”

“You want to keep it a secret from them?”

“It’s – it’s not that I want to keep it a secret. I mean, if they ask, then we would be honest, but… it’s embarrassing.”

“I see. That makes sense. We’re not keeping it a secret, we’re just not going to run around shouting to everybody that my tail makes a suitable replacement for penises. Now, if only I had one of those potions at the Scholars’ headquarters. Even women can grow temporary penises with it. If I had a penis and used my tail at the same time – that would be a scientific experiment worth conducting.”

“I’m surprised you and Serra don’t hang out more with how you are. She’d be the one who would happily go along with every single one of your experiments no matter how crazy they sound.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“I – I… well… she’d go along with them without any hesitation. Isn’t it better to have a science partner who can probably think up just as many ideas as you instead of somebody who doesn’t even know how to react to this stuff?”

“Maybe, but… Serra intimidates me. So do Fenrir and Nell.”

“What? How?”

“They all have more experience and are bold about what they want.”

“And you aren’t?”

“But they’re more bold than me. You’re easy to fluster, so I feel confident when I’m in charge with you.”

“Are you… are you basically saying that you prefer me because I’m—”

“She’s saying that she likes how submissive you are and that she struggles with people who are more dominant than her,” Fenrir finally spoke up, walking out into the open.

Cassiel immediately pointed her sword at him. Eva joined her by pointing her thunderbird wing at him.

“I swear I only just got here, but I will admit I’ve been listening since the part about how rough Eva can be,” Fenrir admitted with his hands up in the air. “Sorry. I didn’t want to interrupt, but I felt guilty staying quiet any longer.”

“Then… you heard about the tail,” Cassiel said with slumped shoulders.

Fenrir looked Eva’s tail over. “I can see how that would work. It’s hard and pointed. Mine is only fluffy.”

“Your theory about me is… correct, but I wish you wouldn’t have heard it in the first place,” Eva said.

“Sorry. For what it’s worth, I understand how you feel. Serra and Nell intimidate me sometimes still. Though, I think that’s part of the fun.”

“I didn’t upset you or anything?”

“What? No, of course not. I mean, I wish that you could have been honest about that with me, but I know it’s not like you were trying to hide it or anything. You’re just more comfortable with Cass when it comes to this stuff, right?”

“I guess so. Is it really not a problem?”

“Not in the slightest. Though, if you want to invite me to watch the next time you use your tail on her, you’re more than welco—”

“No watching allowed,” Cassiel interrupted.

“I’m not allowed to watch my girlfriends have fun with each other?”

“No. If you’re not joining in, you’re not allowed to wa—”

“So, what you’re saying is that you want me to join in the next time she uses her tail on you, not just watch?”

Cassiel realized what she just implied and turned a darker shade of red yet. She looked more than ready to chop Fenrir into no less than fifty sections.

That was exactly what Fenrir was hoping for.

“So, I have an offer for you two. You’re welcome to try your absolute hardest to kill me right now. You get revenge for me eavesdropping and embarrassing you, and I get training experience. That sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it?” Fenrir asked.

“Do you want us to actually go all-out against you?” Eva asked.

“Yep. Try to kill me. If I die, I die.”

Cassiel and Eva looked at each other before nodding and returning their eyes to Fenrir.

Between the light forming around Cassiel’s blade and the sparks of electricity shooting off from Eva’s thunderbird wing, Fenrir was in danger. Grave danger.

He couldn’t ask for better.

Trees fell as their trunks were severed and explosions of lightning sent wildlife fleeing for safety.

Fenrir knew that his girlfriends were powerful. He knew just how intimidating they could be in one-on-one fights. What he didn’t realize, however, was how terrifying they were when working together. It made sense since they were the two most powerful players in the region if their little tournament was anything to go by, but it was something that he really didn’t consider when he gave them the option of teaming up against him.

On the bright side, Fenrir could feel himself improving by the minute as he struggled to survive against his girlfriends. Whether he was blocking their attacks with his sword or Rod, going on the counterattack whenever a very rare opportunity for such presented itself, or simply running away and trying to evade all of their deadly attacks, he was getting more combat experience from this “training” session than he got in probably the last few weeks if not months combined.

Some of that was going to be lost if he died, though, so he really needed to not die.

Yet his girlfriends clearly had no intention of going easy on him. After embarrassing them like that, they were more than motivated to kill him. It was just a game, after all. And, unlike NPCs, he would respawn if he was killed.

It was essentially zero-risk revenge for his girlfriends. He even consented to them killing him.

Of course, consent was something that could be revoked at any time, but his pride wouldn’t allow him to do that. Fenrir wanted to survive because of his own abilities, not because he had to ask for mercy.

He wouldn’t be able to accomplish any of his idealistic goals if his only option was begging for mercy.

So, because that was definitely not an option, Fenrir struggled to the best of his capabilities to survive. And, for the most part, he was successful. Sure, his left arm was out of commission, his tail was almost cut off, he had a hole in his left thigh, and he was starting to struggle to look straight, but he was surviving.

“Are you a wolf or a ferret?!” Cassiel shouted, frustrated that she kept on missing with her attacks.

Their ferrets in real life were slippery little things who were always able to avoid capture, so perhaps Fenrir did pick up a thing or two from them.

Before he could reply to Cassiel’s question, though, Eva landed directly in front of him with a fist ready to plow through his chest.

Fenrir was only able to block her attack thanks to using Rod’s unbreakable body as a shield, but Eva’s attack still sent him stumbling backwards which opened him up to an attack from Cassiel.

The predictable thing to do was to continue trying to not fall as he stumbled.

The unpredictable thing to do was to let himself fall.

So, he purposely failed his recovery and fell to the ground just in time to avoid Cassiel’s blade.

“Trying to impale me from behind just like in the old days, huh?” Fenrir asked her with a cocky smile on his bloodied face before using the chains of Rod to wrap around her ankles.

Cassiel became even more motivated to kill him now. “You’re seriously still bringing that u—”

“Sorry about this!”

“Wha—”

Fenrir pulled on the chains as hard as he could while jumping back up onto his feet. This resulted in tripping Cassiel, causing her to fall backward with her head smacking against the ground.

That wasn’t all, either. As Eva rushed him, Fenrir picked Cassiel up and held her in front of him to use her as a human shield.

He felt a bit guilty about that even though they were trying to kill him.

“She survived me punching a hole through her chest before. She can survive me doing it again to get to you,” Eva threatened.

“For somebody who’s intimidated by dominance, don’t you think that was pretty… you know, dominant?” Fenrir asked.

“It’s a different kind of dominance…”

“I guess so,” Fenrir said and pushed Cassiel forward at the same time, knocking Eva off balance.

This was his chance.

Fenrir used Rod’s chain mode to to wrap around each of his girlfriends at once, binding them together.

Eva might have been caught, but she still had use of her thunderbird wing. All she had to do was zap the chain which would shock both her and Cassiel, but it would also travel back to Fenrir to electrocute him.

Only, there was a problem with that.

There was a chain around her and Cassiel, yes, but it was not metal like it might have appeared to be. Regardless of what form Rod was in, he wasn’t very conductive for electricity. All Eva ended up doing was giving both her and Cassiel a powerful zap of electricity that made their hair look like something out of an old cartoon after a character was struck by lightning. There was also the fact that the direct shock left each of them stunned, allowed Fenrir to take his sword and hold it down between their necks.

“I wasn’t expecting any help, but thanks,” Fenrir said. He may have sounded confident and proud, but he still looked as if he was about to die at any moment thanks to all of his injuries.

Somehow, Fenrir managed to secure a victory against his girlfriends. What should have been impossible was suddenly reality.

If he was able to do that, defeating the world serpent and defending NPCs against other factions would be no problem.

The impossible was never truly impossible as long as he was determined enough, and he was far more determined in his ideals than he was in defeating his girlfriends in a mock fight.

Fenrir unbound them from Rod’s chain and took a few steps back. “I’ve still got some life in me, so how about round two?” he asked.

“Are you serious?” Cassiel asked in response. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“The longer I last like this, the higher my health and stamina will be. Or something like that. Who knows with how this game works, but I think that makes sense.”

“It does work something like that,” Eva confirmed. “The evidence points to it working like that, at least.”

“Then there we have it. Round two. Let’s go.”

“You’re insane,” Cassiel said.

“And you’re a tail fucker.”

Needless to say, the second round began now that Cassiel was properly motivated.