Dinner ended up being delivered.

It turned out that Ryouta’s oven and stove had gone unused for so long that he completely forgot that they don’t work anymore, and he kept on putting off calling somebody to repair them until he forgot about it, so the only working method of preparing food was his microwave.

It was either microwave a few of his frozen dinners for him and the girls or order food.

They ordered.

He wanted to take them out instead, but they were still intent on not letting him hurt his legs over them.

As nice as it was for them to do that for him, he has felt horrible about it.

He doesn’t like feeling like he’s somebody troublesome that they have to accommodate. What’s even worse is that this is all completely unnecessary. If only he had dealt with it as a child and grown accustomed to using his braces rather than whine and complain about them, he would have no problem using them now.

The girls may not allow him to hurt his legs just to do things with them, but they can’t stop him from wearing the braces when they’re not around so that he can get used to them.

He wants to be perfect for them and feeling pain just from walking around for a bit isn’t being perfect. He wants to take them out on dates, go visit places with them, and so forth. Now that he actually has real girlfriends, he wants to do everything that he’s never gotten to but has always dreamed of. The hopeless romantic in him that has never gotten a chance to shine now wants nothing more than to make his girlfriends as happy as he can possibly make them.

Even so, it’s frustrating.

After having autotaxis called for the girls to take them home, ending the night with a kiss to each girl under the streetlights, he goes for a run.

That’s right.

As hard as it is for him to believe it, Ryouta actually goes on a run.

Sure, it may only last a few minutes before he gets exhausted and has too much leg pain to continue, but it’s something – it’s the start of progress.

He’s going to make himself better for Serra and Cassandra. He’s not going to try to improve himself, he’s not going to fail at improving himself, he will improve himself.

It just might take some time.

Even with the pain, running again feels nice. He hasn’t gone running since he was a child and as realistic as something like Fantasy Tales Online may be, it’s just not the same as having real wind flowing against him as he runs.

Being reminded what it felt like to do something physical like this with his real body is worth the searing pain in his legs.

Ryouta passes out shortly after making it inside and climbing onto his bed.

He closes his eyes in darkness and opens them to the bright light of the morning sun.

While such a thing is incredibly normal and something that billions of humans experience every day, the horrible part about it is that he feels as if he only went to sleep a few seconds ago!

Is this what it feels like to do physical exercise in reality? Is being this exhausted after a full night’s worth of sleep normal?

Ryouta lets out a big yawn before grabbing his headset to immerse himself into Fantasy Tales Online. He’s hoping that going in-game will help wake him up so that he doesn’t accidentally fall asleep and sleep through the entire day.

More importantly, there is an important event in-game today. It is an event that he doesn’t want to miss.

The king from across the ocean is arriving in Port Tugator today.

Fenrir hasn’t been able to get much information about the king other than that he’s apparently an elf and the “blue bitch of the west” according to the shopkeeper who sold him his new fishing rod.

Upon logging in, he sees everybody but Bonekraka and Corwin sleeping below deck. Tabitha is passed out on top of her gigantic backpack, Serra and Cassiel are in a couple of hammocks, and Oleander is in a hammock as well.

Fenrir gets out of his hammock and looks over to the stairs.

Corwin is knelt down next to The Shoebill’s engine and examining it.

“Morning, Corwin. What are you doing?” Fenrir asks.

Corwin jumps up and looks like a child who just got caught trying to sneak a few extra cookies into his bedroom.

Suspicious.

“A-ah! Capt—Fenrir, I was just – you see,” Corwin stutters trying to explain himself.

Fenrir walks up to him and looks him over.

“I know how this looks! It is just… I have never seen anything like this before, so it is incredibly interesting to me. I had no idea such a thing was possible. I had Miss Strism explain to me how it works, yet no matter how much I try to understand it, I am amazed that somebody could conjure up such a wonderful contraption,” Corwin explains.

Fenrir can’t pick up on any deceit in Corwin’s words nor body language. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Fenrir says after relaxing his posture and tone. “These are the kinds of things where you don’t really know that they exist – or well, ever existed, unless you look them up. Kind of like CDs. I never knew CDs were a thing until I saw people talking about them online. They used to use CDs for everything from music, to games, to movies. Now we just download everything.”

“Right you are, Fenrir.”

“Anyways, just don’t go poking around with the engine. I have no idea how delicate it is, and Tabs would probably get angry. Oh, want to join me for some fishing while waiting for that king to arrive?”

“I would gladly welcome more training along your side, Fenrir.”

“Always being so formal. I forget how much of a roleplayer you are sometimes.”

Corwin offers a nervous smile.

“Anyways, let’s go fishing for a bit. We’ll just do it off the pier instead of taking The Shoebill out.”

Fenrir heads up above deck and is greeted by Rock wagging her tail so hard that her entire body is wagging with it!

“Hey there, pups. Have you been a good girl lately?” Fenrir asks.

Rock excitedly barks and jumps up to lick his face once he leans down.

She’s been getting bigger lately from all of the rocks that he’s been feeding her. Most of the rocks that he’s been able to get his hands on have also been lighter in color, and the color of the rocks is reflected in the coloration of Rock’s body. The lighter colored the rocks are that she eats, the lighter she becomes.

The thought of going full edge by feeding her nothing but black and red rocks pops into his head.

When he shakes the thought of his mind and looks down at Rock, she looks disappointed in him.

“W-what?” Fenrir asks.

Rock huffs and walks off to curl back up near the ship’s mast.

He doesn’t know if Rock can read his mind, or if she can just tell whenever he’s thinking of something weird. He’s also worried that Rock may be learning how to be tsun from Cassiel.

Regardless of whichever it is, Fenrir picks up his new trusty rod and attaches a wooden lure to it.

The lure itself is… not one that would normally be found in reality.

It has a silver color with a blue stripe and two hooks hanging from it, but – well, this is a fantasy game, so whoever created the lure decided to give it horns. At least the horns are technically just two more barbed hooks, but even so, it looks very silly.

And that is exactly why Fenrir bought it.

He attaches the lure to his line and walks to the edge of the pier. Corwin walks up a few moments later with his own rod and lure, and then Rock comes up to sit next to Fenrir.

“See, you can’t stay huffy with me for long,” Fenrir teases Rock, petting the top of her head.

She happily nuzzles her head up against his petting hand as she wags her tail.

Fenrir doesn’t realize that his own tail wags whenever he sees hers wagging.

“Alright, let’s test this girl out,” he says, casting his new rod for the first time. “Eh?”

He tries casting it again.

“Wh…what?”

Every time he goes to cast it, the line just doesn’t fly out.

“Is there a problem, Fenrir?” Corwin asks with his line already out in the water.

“I – uhh, the rod won’t… it won’t cast?” Fenrir explains, holding the rod and examining it to try and figure out what’s wrong.

“What do you mean it will not cast?”

“I mean, I’m trying to cast it like I normally would, but nothing happens. Maybe there’s a problem with the line or the spool?”

Fenrir tries casting it again. He’s excited when a bit of the line extends out, but it’s not enough.

What is worse is that the line swings right back toward him, causing the lure’s “horns” to hook one of the canid ears atop his head.