It was difficult for Fenrir to not potentially overthink everything after what Eva explained to them. If it was as big of a deal as she was making it sound, then wasn’t it a pretty monumental discovery? And what else were they doing because of true independence aside from creating “pointless” art?

Rock.

When Fenrir first saw their obsession with her, he figured it was just some quirky thing without putting much thought into it… but that couldn’t be further from the truth. They were interested in Rock like a bunch of curious children who had never seen anything like her before, and that also explained why they asked so many questions about her before.

They were curious.

They wanted to learn.

Traditionally, whenever an NPC came across Rock, they would either pay her no mind or, at most, ask a single, generic question about her. They were the kind of interactions that only existed to add a bit of flavor to the world—to make the NPCs feel alive enough to not break immersion for players.

But being asked countless questions by a bunch of giant apes who were acting like curious children—that wasn’t immersive for the world they were in. It was jarring. It didn’t fit in. Anything even slightly outside the normal fantasy tropes was always the result of players, not NPCs.

Though, the subject of the apes’ attention didn’t care. Rock was just happy to be there and to be spoiled. The larger and older apes were also careful of the smaller and younger ones, pulling them away from her whenever they got a bit too physical with her, not that she cared.

And until it was day again, there was nothing to do but to enjoy the company of the apes in their forest village. It was too dark to explore the island at night, and none of them had any interest in doing so knowing the threats that might be waiting for them.

Fenrir, Eva, and Cassiel were even helped to dinner to make up for having their own rather rudely interrupted earlier. A group of the apes brought back large, shark-like creatures impaled on wooden spears that they roasted over their oversized fire pits.

“So, they go spearfishing for sharks,” Fenrir said to his girlfriends as they sat on some rocks next to each other. “I kind of want to try that. Imagine how badass a normal guy has to be to go spearfishing for a shark. And not that spearfishing with a gun. I mean spearfishing with an old fashioned, wooden spear carved out of a stick.”

“Being bitten by a shark is fun,” Eva said. “You should try it out.”

“It… it what?”

“Shark attacks are fun. They pull you under the water and shake you to shreds while trying to swallow you whole at the same time. I’ve done it before. Unfortunately, I died from blood loss right as I was about to be torn in half.”

Fenrir looked at his other girlfriend. “Cass Cass.”

Cassiel shrugged. “I already know what you’re going to ask, and no. I don’t know why we’re dating her.”

“Come on, don’t be like that,” Eva playfully whined. “You’re dating me because I’m cool, smart, hip, and super cute. Also, because I’m willing to try anything once. Anything. Oh, and because I have good taste in memes.”

“It’s true,” Fenrir said. “You do have good taste in memes. That alone is enough to make dating you worth it.”

Cassiel flicked his shoulder. “I’m pretty sure we’d be dating half the planet if our standards for dating somebody are that low.”

“You seriously overestimate most people’s taste in memes.”

Eva nodded in agreement, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Anyways,” Fenrir continued, “I’ve got to say… I think you’re right about everything, Eva. But that makes me wonder about something.”

Eva, excitedly curious about Fenrir’s own curiosity, asked, “What is it? Got a theory of your own?”

“Not really a theory, just a question. If they’re really… ‘free’ and independent now, then what if they, or any other NPCs, don’t do what they’re supposed to do? You know, like what if there are some NPCs who are important for a dungeon? Or some ‘quest?’ What if they decide to just… not do what they were originally meant to do? What if some really OP monster, like Fraydranth, decides to go on a rampage for fun and wipe everybody out from the safety of the sky just because she can? I don’t believe she would, but still. If NPCs are able to act however they want now, then… we’re all basically at their mercy.”

“Exciting, isn’t it?”

“I’d say it’s just as terrifying as it is exciting. And that’s without going into some of the more… ethical concerns. I mean… what if they reach the level of Saya and Rock? What if they become truly intelligent, aware beings who just want to live their own lives, yet they’re created in this world for the purpose of being nothing more than NPCs who might die for the fun of us players? It would basically be creating life for the sole sake of destroying it without ever truly letting it live a life of its own.”

“That’s a big can of worms you’ve got there. I mean, haven’t we been doing that for pretty much most of human civilization already? Just look at how we treat farm animals. Sure, we might have replaced most meat with the synthetic stuff, but there are still companies out there stuffing tens of thousands of livestock animals in cramped quarters so that the rich can still enjoy real meat regularly. And it was even worse a few generations ago. And then there’s the argument some people make about how bringing any human life into the world is cruel and abuse given the state of the world and our unsure future… not to mention the whole knowing we’re all going to die someday thing. It’s impossible to create life without simultaneously sentencing it to death. Whether that life is a chicken, a human, or lines of code—we all die in the end. All we as individuals can do is choose where to draw the line between acceptable life sentences and unacceptable cruelty.”

Cassiel chuckled to herself before saying, “I know where Fen draws the line.”

Fenrir raised an eyebrow and asked, “And where’s that?”

“I mean, even before Saya and all this… you wanted to make a city that could be a safe haven for NPCs, right? You’ve always treated all the NPCs just like you’d treat any player. I doubt you would have ever been able to kill a human NPC who wasn’t blatantly evil.”

“I… you’re probably right. The only humans I’ve ever killed have all been players. I mean, I’ve killed human NPCs in other games… but they were never as realistic as they are in this game.”

Eva tapped a finger against her chin for a few seconds as she came up with her own question. “But you have killed monster and animal NPCs. Then, despite being of a similar origin, do you believe the human NPCs have more value and are worth protecting solely because they are human?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s because they’re human so much as I’d say it’s because… they’re seemingly more sentient? Sapient?”

“Sapient.”

“Right. They’re more sapient.”

“I see. Then, you’d eat dogs?”

“What? No.”

“Why not? Dogs are less sapient than cows and pigs. Both cows and pigs have greater general intelligence and stronger emotional and social intelligence than dogs. If sapience is what you use to draw the line, shouldn’t we keep dogs for livestock as well?”

“I know it makes me a hypocrite, but no. Objectively, sure, I’ll say it’s more ethical to keep dogs as livestock than to keep pigs or cows. But because I’m biased and love dogs, no. Also, how did we even get to this topic?”

“You brought up the cruelty of how we treat other species, and I always think it’s interesting to examine somebody’s beliefs about which species are fair game and which aren’t, even if it almost always comes down to the same logic.”

Cassiel shrugged and spoke up to say, “I’d be down for it. Hypothetically, anyways.”

Fenrir scooted away from Cassiel when he heard that, causing her to roll her eyes.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Cassiel continued, “I’m against all livestock in the real world these days. We have enough synthetic meat to go around for everybody. There’s no point in keeping actual animals unless you’re some rich ‘organic’ loser who whines about synthetic meat not tasting the same as real meat, even though they wouldn’t be able to tell any difference if they didn’t know beforehand. But if we were a world that needs to keep livestock… yeah, I’d feel bad, but not more than I feel bad for pigs, cows, and chickens. People used to eat octopus despite how smart they were. You can basically take any non-human species and keep it for livestock as far as I’m concerned. It’s all fucked up. Some species are a bit more wrong than others to keep, but it’s still taking some non-human, living animal and raising it for the pure purpose of growing it into food. It’s messed up all around… not to say I wouldn’t eat them. I like meat too much to not eat them.”

Fenrir focused his eyes onto Cassiel’s chest. “Yeah, I can’t imagine what you’d be like without meat.”

“You know that eating meat doesn’t make boobs grow, right?”

“Can you prove that?”

Cassiel looked at Eva for an answer.

Unfortunately for Cassiel, Eva said, “Don’t look at me. I don’t mess with nutrition science and how that might interact with a growing girl’s body. Those scientists never agree on anything and always just support whatever fad diet is the most popular at the moment, then all the others just talk about how no long-term studies have been done and that they’re probably actually bad.”

Fenrir then got an idea. “Hey, we should perform experiments like the class ‘rubbing a girl’s boobs to make them bigger’ one. Don’t you think Cass Cass would make the perfect subject for that?”

“Ooh. Good idea. The two of us can take shifts rubbing her boobs all the time. Doing it for a few months should be enough to determine whether or not rubbing them actually makes them grow.”

“I’m so done with both of you,” Cassiel groaned. “You were actually talking about something interesting, and now all you’re talking about is my chest. Is it possible for either of you to talk without eventually turning it into something perverted?”

Fenrir and Eva both teased Cassiel some more by leaning toward her while making groping motions with their hands in the air, but stopped when she gave them both death glares.

Eva would have stopped even without that, though, considering she had an idea. “Wait. Fen, with what you said in the first place about NPCs… that might potentially cause us some issues.”

“What?” Fenrir asked.

“If they no longer act how they’re supposed to… what if we’re trapped here? There’s no way that the ocean itself decided to just screw us over like that. There has to be something, or somebody, in control. I think so, anyways. Maybe some sort of ocean monster who can control the waves. It just feels too convenient otherwise. But anyways, what are the chances of all this happening and us ending up on an island of giant, intelligent apes without them somehow being connected to it? We haven’t seen any other seriously major threats yet, and I doubt that the island is going to have anything else really on their level. I guess what I’m getting at is… if there’s a ‘questline’ for this island, our hosts here are probably tied to it somehow. Even if they’re capable of doing things without ‘meaning’ now, they wouldn’t have been created without a purpose in the first place. So, rather than focus on exploring the rest of the island as soon as we can, we should probably try to gain as much information from the apes as we can. They might be the key to all of this, or they might at least know what the key is. There’s only one problem.”

“That’s not ominous at all.”

“Well, it’s not, really. But what if they don’t care? What if, because of their independence, they’ve basically separated themselves from the questline? Or what if we’re not able to complete it and get off this island because of how they’ve changed? Worst case scenario, what if the intended route for getting off this island involves killing them for whatever reason?”

“Then I guess we’d be stuck here with them. If they’re cool enough to love Rock, they’re cool enough that I’ll do whatever I can to protect them.”

“I figured that would be your response. Well, hopefully, it’s not going to come to that. Either we’re stuck here or Rock is stuck here if it does come to that. But still, for now, let’s try to learn as much as we can about these apes.”

Fenrir was about to agree with her plan when one of said apes walked over to them, bringing them a couple of large skewers covered in roasted shark meat. “We can start our intel gathering after we eat,” he ended up saying.

Both Cassiel and Eva could agree to that.