Author’s Corner: Not really sure why, but people seem to think that the story from this point on is going to focus primarily on the women around John. Even in the most serious of circumstances, it’s possible to be distracted by naked women clinging to your leg, it does not mean that your life from then on will revolve around that! xD

Also, by popular demand, here is a Sharon-focused chapter!

Sharon, Celeste and I all climbed up on Yo’s back so that she could fly us to the capital of this planet. Since we had all the materials we needed, as well as the ‘workers’ to build the ship, all that’s left now is gathering the information we need while we wait. Celeste’s job was basically to sit in front of a TV and get as much relevant information as she could, starting with star charts and other navigation information.

The flight back to the city went by fairly quick with everyone riding on Yo’s back, so teleporting between cities would have been a waste. And once we got there, I called the slime back into my grove, while Celeste ran off towards the hotel, leaving Sharon and myself alone. Though, the druidess didn’t particularly seem to mind, and smiled at me. “So, what do you want to do now?”

I chuckled lightly as we started walking down the street. “Honestly? Not sure. Kind of figuring this plan out as we go along.”

Sharon frowned at the words, “You know where you want to go after we leave, right? We won’t just wander aimlessly?”

I shook my head at that. “No, I know where we’re going. That’s one of the things that I want Celeste to find first in the star charts. The mana erupted from Earth, which is what caused it to become a dungeon planet, the Cradle of Life. Since there is only one planet like that, then it means that other worlds didn’t get the Seeds.”

I could see her raising an eyebrow curiously at me. “And?”

“It means that other races, other worlds were caught completely unprepared. They didn’t have the advantage of being able to train in the future, or bring back magic and technology. My guess is most of the races still don’t know how to use magic at all yet. However, monsters are still spawning on their worlds. Imagine how it was for Earth before the moon left, but with nobody having the ability to train and fight back, if all of us were just your run of the mill humans.”

Sharon’s eyes went wide for a moment before she hesitantly nodded. “So… you want to go to one of the closer homeworlds, and help out by introducing some of the mechanics to them..?”

“That’s right. With Celeste, we can save all of the basic knowledge from the starting classes, and give people a way to train themselves. Though, this still relies on there being a homeworld close enough to Earth for us to quickly reach. We should still in the milky way, so it’s just a matter of time to reach the nearest homeworld. Meanwhile, humans are probably the race most capable of taking care of themselves right now. Still want to come with me?”

The druidess smiled, nodding her head. “Yup! There’s not much for me on Earth anymore, and you seem like a fun guy. Even if you do end up surrounded by women…” There was a look in her eyes that made me shiver, so I quickly shook my head.

“Look, that’s totally not my fault! I was expecting Yo to turn into a guy, not a girl, and not one like that especially.” I wasn’t really sure what killing intent felt like, but I was starting to get a good idea now. However, that feeling completely vanished in the next moment, with Sharon returning to her usual smile.

“Still, that’s fine. Just don’t forget about the rest of us, okay? Besides, I don’t really blame you for that. If Celeste is right about the evolutions, then I’ll probably have a bunch of humanoid wolf people eventually too.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’re going to need to find some animals to raise for meat before we go. That, or I’ll have to take a few of your rabbits. Yin is an omnivore now, but she does still need meat occasionally.”

Sharon thought it over, and then nodded. “I can give you a few rabbits. Right now, I’ve got a couple hundred of them, so it’s not a problem.”

“...How do you have that many?”

“Ah, well, I didn’t like how they would always fight and kill each other… So I set each species up with their own ‘planet’ inside my grove, and every so often I’ll have them merge into several larger planets for the races to fight and hunt each other for food, before separating them again. That way, I can prevent the endangered species from dying out while letting the carnivores eat. I just had them fight it out on the way here, that’s why there’s only that many rabbits.”

That was… actually a pretty brilliant idea. It required more management, but ensured that she never completely lost any of her races from her grove. “Huh.. smart. So, any time one of your races grow too big, you can move them over to a larger carnivore and dwindle them down a bit.”

“Yup~! Also helps them train themselves. Though, they only send the younger generations off to fight, because the older ones are too strong. Even a fully grown and matured horned rabbit could easily take on one or two humans at once. If it was one of the wolves, they could probably take on an entire group. Of course, that’s going by the standards from before NeoLife. Now, people are trained enough to take them out, for the most part.”

I suddenly realized that Colony Druids likely had far more battle potential than a Xeno-Shifter, though my class was more skilled in other things. So far, I hadn’t seen Sharon do any shapeshifting at all, and wasn’t even sure if she had practiced it yet. We continued walking around aimlessly, not really caring where we ended up. After all, we didn’t have any pressing business for the building of the ship. Celeste was handling most of that. “Oh yeah, I don’t think I’ve met your companion AI yet, have I?”

Sharon smirked slightly to me, and raised her wrist. “Say hi, Jeeves.”

A blue hologram emerged from her wrist, taking the shape of an elderly man in butler clothes. “Good evening, Falenel. Is there anything in particular that you require of me?”

I thought about it, and shrugged. “Well, if you’d like, we could arrange for you to get your own body like Celeste did.”

The holographic butler remained completely unfazed by this. “Apologies, but the young mistress has already made this offer. For the time being, I am content with my current form. It may be convenient to have a body in reserve, but I do not require a Deus Ex body. Such a thing would only serve as a distraction from my duties.”

“Huh… alright. Well, I’ll see if we can get Celeste to build you a body once the ship is prepared.”

“That would be most agreeable, thank you.” The butler gave a polite bow before vanishing, and Sharon gave a helpless shrug.

“He’s been like that ever since he awakened. I guess that he figured I needed a guardian to take care of me or something.”

I looked over at her curiously. “I haven’t actually heard much about you, on the other side I mean. Mind sharing a bit?”

“Not really much to tell. Typical spoiled rich girl.” Sharon giggled playfully as she said that. “My parents virtualized when I was eight, so I was living with my aunt until she passed away a couple years later. From there, I’ve been taking care of myself with the money from the trust fund. Since I’ve been living by myself, I didn’t really have the chance to get a pet or anything like that. At most, one of the people that worked for my parents would come by to check up on me every now and then since my parents couldn’t do so physically.”

“A few years back, I got started with VR games, but that was mostly a hobby to pass the time. What I really love to do is painting. Sometimes, I’ll take the chance in one of the games to be a painter and expand my skills, while other times I like to take on other roles to make up for some of the things I missed growing up. For NeoLife, I wanted to be a druid, because I’ve never been able to enjoy holding a soft pet in my arms. You can get the basic feelings in other games, but you can never get the warmth right. It’s never the real thing.”

“Though, that’s not to say I missed out on everything. I had a love life, kind of. My boyfriend, Ryan, was someone that I had met in the last game I played. We found out that we lived near each other, and met up in real life. Eventually, we got closer, and started dating. Though, after I started playing NeoLife, and my body changed like this, it seemed like he lost interest in me.” She gave a rather sarcastic smile. “Guess he was just after my body, huh?”

“Men can be separated into two categories. Jerks, and idiots. He was definitely a jerk.” I said with a resolute nod of my head, which made Sharon giggle lightly.

“And what about you?”

“Obviously, I’m an idiot.” I gave another nod, and she started laughing more loudly.

“I meant your life story. Come on, I already spilled, it’s your turn.”

“Oh, right… Well, my story isn’t really anything special. My dad was a doctor for a few years. Not a big shot like you’ll see on TV, just a regular surgeon. My mom would stay at home to take care of things there and raise me. We were never exactly rich, but we had enough to get what we needed. They put me through college for programming, but the technology advanced faster than I could. So in the end, I wasn’t able to do anything with what I had learned except adapt it to a bit of mischief.” I smirked playfully towards Sharon as I said that.

“A few years back, my parents decided to join the virtual communities after my father was let go from the hospital. Since the technology had advanced to the point where his presence was irrelevant, they didn’t keep him around anymore. So they took the severance pay and virtualized themselves. Since then, I’ve been doing the best job I was qualified for, bouncing around from VR game to VR game to make money by selling items and stuff.”

“Oh? So you are a ‘pro gamer’, then?” She smiled as we walked. “Guess that does put you in a bit of an advantageous situation now that the world has become a video game, doesn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t call myself that… I would typically barely make enough to get by. Especially with how fast new games became popular. When I had the chance to enter the beta for NeoLife, I saw it as an opportunity to get ahead of the business, and finally get a somewhat stable income.”

“And now we’re about to leave Earth, and any money you had before will become meaningless?”

“Right… Still, it’s probably for the best. There are people much better than me to help out on Earth, and in much better positions to do so. I’m just an average guy, so I’ll do what an average guy can do. Right now, that’s going to help the different races that actually need it. And while I’m at it, I can learn the various auras to advance my own class abilities.”

Sharon nodded her head, thinking about something. “You’re a Xeno-Shifter, right? That means that you learn the auras of different races to transform into them. At least, that’s what I remember him telling you back on Hascion. What races do you have so far?”

“Well… for sentients, I only have myself and a void elf. I want to take the chance to copy Celeste and Yo whenever it’s possible, because they each have interesting racial traits.”

That earned me another nod, before she smiled warmly in my direction. “What about me? If we end up meeting elves, it’d be better for you to resemble a full elf, rather than a half-elf, right?”

“I thought about it… but wasn’t sure if you’d be comfortable with me doing that or not…”

The druidess laughed lightly for a moment before she spoke again. “Oh, it’s fine. But you have to do me a favor in exchange, understand?”

“Uhm… that depends on the favor?”

“If you learn how to modify specific parts of the body like the ‘surgeons’ around here. You have to… let me get my original appearance back.” As she said that, she glanced down towards her petite chest. I guess she really did miss having sizable assets.

I felt my face heating up a bit, but could only quickly nod. “Alright… I think I can do that. But I’ll have to practice with auras for a while before it’s possible. With Yo’s help, I think I can speed it up, but I’ll need to experiment.”

Sharon was starting to blush as well, but agreed with me. “Good! This body just feels wrong to me after growing up like that. I know that elves don’t typically have large chests, but still…”

“Change subject please?”

When I said that, she glanced over at me and giggled cutely. “Fine, fine. What else do you want to do before we leave Earth?”

“Well… The most important thing is gathering the information. I want Celeste to get a complete star chart, marking as many known homeworlds as possible, and then date it back three thousand years to find their positions in our time. She also needs recipes for various potions, but she’s already gotten most of that. Don’t want to risk getting a strange infection in the middle of space. Aside from information, I want to test out the ‘portable Seed’ project that Celeste and I talked about before. If it works, I’ll send a copy of the machine to the authorities on Earth, since it can help out there as well.”

Sharon nodded, so I continued detailing the plan. “With that taken care of, if you are able to use the portable Seed, we can go get what we need for an FTL drive from the asteroid belt. Otherwise, we’ll need to fly over to where you live and pick up your main body first.”

“You’re not worried that they’ll shoot you down to try to confiscate your ship?” Sharon frowned at that thought, but I just shook my head.

“The ship itself really isn’t that special. It doesn’t use any advanced technology aside from the FTL drive, which isn’t even going to be on it until after we leave. At most, the most advanced hardware will be enchanted shield arrays and weapons, which they have probably already started production on by now. Rather than building the ships, the biggest issue with evacuating the Earth is getting the people to do it.”

“Ahh… So… we’re just going to be flying around space, dodging monsters in a rather ordinary ship, then…?” Suddenly, the plan did not sound so good when she put it like that.

“Well… at first. But once we mine enough materials, Celeste can build a better ship for us in my grove. Right now we’re just focused on the minimum needed to get to a safer region of space.”

She seemed satisfied by that answer, and nodded her head. “Uhm… Falenel, before we go back… can we see if this town has a pet shop with anything interesting in it… please?”

The sudden change threw me for a loop, and I glanced over to her. Seeing my surprised reaction, she grinned sheepishly. “Well, we didn’t have enough money to afford the ones on Hascion, but now we have more money and nothing left to spend it on, right? Might as well get a good mascot for the Seraglio.”

I thought about it, but her logic wasn’t really wrong. After we left Earth, we wouldn’t be coming back to NeoLife, and thus our coinage wouldn’t be useful anymore. “Alright, fine… We can see about getting you a new fluffy pet before we are ready to leave.” After saying that, I found myself being tackled by an overly happy druidess who was profusely thanking me for agreeing to her request. I mean, we really weren’t lacking money anymore. If we found something really interesting, I could sell off my Advanced level Mana Signatures skill, since I have plenty of buffer now. That would get me a couple dozen gold to play with.