[Vol. 10 pt. 10]

“Uno!” Saya shouted as she threw her second to last card onto the table. Not only was it her second to last card, but it was one of the dreaded cards that everybody feared.

It was a draw-4 card.

Azalabulia was forced to draw four more cards despite already having ten in her hand.

What Serra couldn’t believe she was seeing was that Saya and Azalabulia were not only playing Uno, but that Azalabulia was getting absolutely annihilated. It wasn’t just the first match between them, either. It was the third. Every single time, Saya managed to utterly destroy Azalabulia.

And this time was no different.

With all the luck in the world against her, Azalabulia failed to draw even a single card that she could use. Not that it mattered anyways. Playing with the house rules that every logical played with, because nobody actually cared about the official rules, the draw-4 meant that Azalabulia’s turn was skipped anyways. Even if she did have a card that she could place, it wouldn’t matter since Saya placed down her final card and won the match.

“I told you, I’m the queen of board games,” Saya said. She may not have ever been called that before, but she decided to grant herself that title now. “Well, and card games. And all games in general.”

“H-how?” Azalabulia asked, totally defeated and dead inside as Death slept on the table next to where the piles of cards in the center was. “Wait! I know what I can beat you at!”

“Oh yeah? Bring it.”

“G-give me one minute!”

Azalabulia stood up and ran over to the nearby shop that one of the players set up. The shop just so happened to be a board game shop that had all manner of board games and card games. Legally speaking, they were all products of piracy considering that there was no official license granted to Fantasy Tales Online to have those games within it, but they were creations by a player rather than Kadi. They were still technically illegal, but nobody was going to go after a random player in a VRMMORPG copying real world games into it.

And it was all because gamers were people who preferred playing board games inside of fantasy VRMMORPGs where they could instead be fighting dragons and casting magic rather than play them in real life with real people.

That aside, Azalabulia came out of the shop with a game of Connect 4.

“This—I won’t lose at this!” Azalabulia declared, earning the confidence of absolutely nobody as she set the game up on the table.

All Saya did was lean back and smirk. “We’ll see about that. Me and Corwin have played all these games thousands of times. We’re masters.”

“I have this game in my classroom and have played it with all of my students for years! You—you won’t defeat me!”

And so, an epic battle of Connect 4 ensued.

Except it wasn’t epic at all because, despite Azalabulia’s claims of experience, she was utterly destroyed once again without even a single ounce of mercy tossed her way. “H-how?!” she cried out, staring at the four diagonal pieces that Saya lined up.

“Maybe you’ll be on my level in a few lifetimes,” Saya teased. Despite how cruel that might have sounded, it was honestly going easy on her considering just how horrible she was at the game. Saya’s theory was that all the kids she played with must have let her win sometimes because there was no way that even a newborn would lose against Azalabulia in any of these games.

Even Serra was cringing while watching them.

And then…

Azalabulia began to laugh.

It started out as a quiet, almost whispered laugh before slowly growing louder and more maniacal, resulting in her standing up from the table and pointing a single finger at Saya. “If this is how it will be, let us partake in the ultimate challenge of one’s ability! A true test of might! A test that will prove which one of us is more worthy of setting this world aflame!”

The rest of the townspeople of Nameless already knew to just ignore whatever Azalabulia was rambling about when she got into character.

But Saya, taking after her onii-wan, knew to play along. That was why she stood up as well with one foot planted on the bench as she pointed right back at Azalabulia. “I could take down a dragon with a single arrow! You need magic just to take down a pig!”

The two women leaned closer toward each other, their faces right in front of one another, as Serra began to sweat in the distance. If this was some sort of seduction method… she never heard of it before.

Saya and Azalabulia had to find worthy prey for their game, and Saya had just the idea for it.

The same bears she hunted earlier in the day with Serra.

Of course, Saya knew that her arrows wouldn’t be enough to deal with them. But she also knew that she needed to let Azalabulia win at something where she would feel her victory had meaning. Otherwise, she would lose interest in ever playing with her and feel discouraged.

Saya learned that from learning about psychology in animals in her downtime. Even dogs would purposely lose sometimes so that their playmate wouldn’t get bored. Always winning was discouraging.

“Are you prepared for the greatest loss you have ever faced?” Azalabulia asked, maintaining her roleplay as held out her staff.

“You mean my biggest win?” Saya asked as she drew her bow. “It won’t take more than a single arrow to take these oversized cubs down.” That was a blatant lie, of course, and she knew it. But she figured that the prouder she acted, the more satisfied Azalabulia would feel taking her down some notches. And the sweeter her revenge would be after her previous losses.

Though, because Saya didn’t want to feel like a complete loser unable to take down a single bear, she made sure to find a smaller bear without as thick of a hide as the one she tried taking down earlier.

Unfortunately, she found the opposite of a smaller bear.

The bear she found instead was even larger than the one she already struggled with, meaning that it probably had what was basically even more defense and health.

“Even if you take it down in a single shot,” Azalabulia said, “I will take it down with even less effort.”

“A-ah… yeah. I’ll definitely take it down with a single arrow,” Saya said while trying not to nervously sweat. Onii-wan, help me. Unfortunately, Fenrir wasn’t even there to share thoughts with her. Instead, he was busy as a group of ferrets treated his fingers as chew toys.

With her bow in hand, Saya drew an arrow and aimed it straight at the bear who now noticed them and began to charge. It took everything in her to not try and run away because she knew there was no way she would be able to take down the bear on her own, but she didn’t want to look too weak compared to Azalabulia, so she loosed an arrow right toward the bear.

And just like earlier, the bear used one of its tusks to knock the arrow out of the air.

She fired another one as quickly as she could.

No luck.

With her third arrow, moments before the bear would reach them, she charged it up as much as she could and aimed for the center of its head.

The arrow managed to break through the tusk meant to deflect it and even pierced the bear’s head, but didn’t pierce it deeply enough to stop the bear’s ferocious charge.

At that point, Saya realized she was in trouble, and Azalabulia realized it as well.

Then Saya realized the real trouble she was in.

Even if Azalabulia was to realize she needed to step in… it took her so long to cast a single spell that they were both going to get killed before she could finish a single incantation. She wouldn’t even get to make it halfway through one if the bear focused on her and interrupted her from saying it.

Saya was just about to wrap an arm around Azalabulia’s waist to jump up into the nearby tree with her when she heard a short phrase leave Azalabulia’s lips.

“Bahamut Blast.”

A wave of draconic energy pulsed through the air toward the bear, stopping it in its tracks.

“Chains of Bahamut!”

Magical chains glowing with draconic magic shot out from the ground and wrapped around the bear’s legs, holding it in place.

Then, before Azalabulia could even begin her next spell, her hair was already flowing behind her with raw power as Death remained asleep on her shoulder with his tail partially coiled around her neck for balance.

“I, Azalabulia, the Dark Sorceress of Twisted Flames, the Breaker of Reality, the One Who will Set the World Ablaze, the Wielder of the Cursed Flame of Bahamut, the Protector of Smiles, the Explosive Massager of Dragons, and the Caretaker of Dragons, will show you what it means to win a game! Cursed Spell, Ultra Variant: Bahamut’s Chains of Fiery Domination, Explode!”

Saya, and Serra in the distance, took steps back just to be safe as even more chains appeared from the ground and air all around the bear to bind it until not even a single inch of its skin was visible behind the chains. The chains then rapidly grew brighter over the next few seconds until they looked white hot, then purple, and then… they exploded.

The blast sent everybody, except for Azalabulia who could somehow resist the explosive force of her magic, flying. Well, it only knocked Serra back a couple of feet, but Saya went stumbling backward across the ground due to how close she still was.

Then, once the smoke from the explosion was cleared, not a single trace of the bear remained. It was as if it never even existed in the first place.

I have no idea what her virtual assistant’s logic is for deciding that making her so OP is allowed, Saya thought while staring at Azalabulia from the ground, now covered in as much dirt as she was dried blood. What does she even do to be this strong? I know she practices magic all the time… but is she really allowed to get this strong just because of that?

Saya didn’t know and she didn’t want to tap into the code of Azalabulia’s virtual assistant to find out as she felt that would be too invasive. Instead, she helped herself back onto her feet and tried to brush some of the dirt off.

And now she was faced with an incredibly smug Azalabulia who had her arms crossed underneath her breasts. “How about that?” Azalabulia asked. “You witnessed one of my new, ultra-class spells! There is nothing that can resist it!”

That might not be an exaggeration, Saya thought. “It… was really cool. I can’t compete with that.” She forced herself to sigh and pout. “You win, this time. But next time, I’ll have a special arrow so awesome that it makes an even bigger explosion!”

“Then let us train together! Together, we shall create the ultimate form of explosive magic and explosive archery! None will be able to withstand the awe-inspiring might of our explosions!”

“T-together?”

“O-of course. I would never turn down somebody who wants to walk the path of explosions with me! Besides… you are basically one of my girlfriends now anyways, so it would—it would be good bonding time! I think…”

Both women were blushing at that point. “You—you already consider me one?”

“Am I not supposed to?”

“No, no! You are. The whole point of me coming to you today was to seduce you, or myself to you—I don’t know, it’s confusing, but the whole point was to officially become… well, official with everybody.”

“I thought you already were?”

“Seriously?”

“A-ah… did I make a mistake? At this point… I sort of assume that any new girl who hangs around us now is one of our girlfriends.”

“Uh… you might want to have a bit higher standards than that.”

“Wait! What about Mister Smiles—ah, Mary? What about Mary? She’s one of our girlfriends, right?”

“I—I don’t even think her and Fen have made any progress lately.”

Azalabulia’s eyes widened at the realization. “I… really do have to be more careful then. If she would have come up to me and wanted to kiss… I probably would have let her because I thought she was one of ours!”

“Yeah… no more assuming that girls are our girlfriends just because they hang around us. But uh… while you might not be allowed to kiss Mary… yet, you could always… you know, kiss me?”

Saya might have said that, but that didn’t mean she was any less nervous looking after saying it. And then there was Azalabulia who looked just as nervous and incapable of actually initiating the kiss without the influence of alcohol to encourage her.

And so, just like that, the two girls were back where they started with both of them being too afraid to—

Saya stood up on the tips of her toes, grabbed Azalabulia’s face, and pressed their lips together.

“Th-there! I did it this time, but… but you have to take initiative next time, deal?” Saya said after lowering back down, her cheeks burning bright.

“I—I’m sorry! I’ll try harder next time!” Azalabulia replied, her own cheeks burning just as bright.

“It’s fine! It’s just… embarrassing if I have to do all the kissing myself. I’m not like Fen where I can just put my lips all over anybody interested without thinking about it.”

That got Azalabulia to laugh, and it also lightened the mood enough for Azalabulia to lean over and kiss Saya. Though, the kiss was only on the top of her head. “Th-there.”

“Good… good enough. Also… where’s Death?”

Azalabulia looked at her shoulder and noticed Death was gone. “He—he must have gotten blown away during the explosion!”

Saya sighed and said, “I’ll help you find him. Come on. He couldn’t have gotten too far.”

Meanwhile, Serra was holding her hat upside down in her arms to let Death take a nap in it after being blown her way as she observed the mating ritual of two bottoms. The ritual was a lot different than what she expected, but at least everything worked out in the end.

Ace_Arriande

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