Window was really in the mood for progressing things, so we found ourselves teleported to the next area for a new battle right after me and Vala woke up from our nap on top of the slime tower.

I wished I could have stayed sleeping on top of that slime until the end of time. I never expected something that looked so slimy to be so comfortable. Or rather, I would have thought that the cons would overwhelm the pros. Cons such as getting all sticky and slimy. Needing to take a shower afterward. Things like that. But seeing as how we managed to get all the benefits of sleeping atop semi-solid slime and none of the downsides of it, it was perfect.

Perfect. Seriously perfect, one might even say if they are a dungeon-exploring dog.

Of course, Window popped up in front of me out of nowhere saying something that I didn’t fully understand. She had a habit of saying things that sounded like inside jokes or references that I never understood. “What?”

Nothing. Seriously nothing.

“Alright then.”

That aside, I looked around at where we were brought to for the next battle.

And… I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel about it.

Standing before us was a sign to an amusement park that read, “MR BONES WILD RIDE.”

Well, calling what was behind it an amusement park was an insult to actual amusement parks. All that was behind it was a massive, twisting line that eventually led to what looked like the most boring roller coaster in all of existence. It featured a track that extended for quite a while in one direction before turning and coming back… and then turning again to go back, over and over. Then once it took up enough space doing that, it went up a small ramp to reach over the tracks on the ground to repeat the process of going back and forth and back and forth over and over and over again.

It looked like it was designed by somebody playing one of those roller coaster building games. They must have purposely designed it to be the most boring, long, dreadful roller coaster in all of history.

Then there was the chain link fence all around it that looked like a security fence to keep any riders inside in case they tried to escape. There were a few decorations here and there such as fiery smoke plumes and a graveyard, but what really tied it all together was a giant skeleton sticking halfway out of the ground lifting a top hat up off its head. In front of the skeleton was another sign that read, “THE RIDE NEVER ENDS.”

“Woah, Drake, look at the reviews for this place,” Vala said, holding my phone out for me to look at it.

I forgot that I even had a phone since I never needed it. And I had no idea where Vala got it from unless she was hiding it underneath her clothes.

Regardless, I checked on what Vala brought up on it. “How does this place even have reviews?” Something about that seemed more unbelievable than the fact that it existed in the first place.

As for the reviews, they only repeated a single thing over and over again.

I want to get off MR BONES WILD RIDE

I want to get off MR BONES WILD RIDE

I want to get off MR BONES WILD RIDE

I want to get off MR BONES WILD RIDE

I want to get off MR BONES WILD RIDE

Needless to say, it had an average rating of one out of five stars.

Another review popped up just before I handed the phone back.

I want to get off MR BONES WILD RIDE

If a review just popped up, then that meant somebody must have just finished riding it. Or something like that. Point being, I looked at the track and paid a bit more attention than before.

That was when I noticed a few different cars on it traveling ever so slowly over the tracks. Each car was full of skeletons that looked like they probably died from boredom… if they were ever alive in the first place.

One of them was even holding up a sign that said, “PLEASE HELP, I’M HUNGRY AND HAVEN’T SEEN MY CHILDREN IN YEARS.”

I decided to chalk that up to flavor text instead of actually worrying about it. After all, Vala made a world where there wasn’t supposed to be any suffering, and that made it sound like there was suffering if it was legitimate.

…

“Hey,” I said.

“Yeah?” Vala replied.

“Has that skeleton actually been missing its children for years?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“There’s nothing bad in this world, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Wouldn’t a skeleton parent being away from their children count as bad?”

“Yeah.”

“So… it’s not real, right?”

“Dunno.”

“How could you not know?! You’re supposed to know everything!”

“I don’t know everything, I just know what I know.”

Your boobs aren’t big enough to steal Hanekawa’s signature line.

Also, stop worrying. They’re props. Geez.

I looked back at the track. One of the skeletons now held up a sign that said, “WE’RE NOT PROPS PLEASE SAVE US.”

“They’re definitely real!” I shouted. “Return them to their families!”

Reeeeelaaaaaxxxxx. It’s fiiiiiiiiine.

“This is imprisonment! You can’t just keep them away from their families for the sake of some kind of reference!”

Okay. How about this. I’ll let them go if you can beat this area’s boss. That means three more fights to progress the story!

“I thought you said they were props?!”

Listen, “props” can have a lot of meanings in this day and age. Words change, you know? Like, a thousand years ago, the word… uh… crap, I don’t know words well enough to actually think of an example here.

I was about to shout again when I looked back at the track and saw another skeleton holding up a sign. This one read, “I FEEL BAD. DON’T ACTUALLY WORRY ABOUT US. THIS IS OUR JOB. OUR QUEEN IS PAYING US AND WE GET TO GO HOME TO OUR FAMILIES AFTER THE BATTLE IS OVER. WE EVEN GET DENTAL IN OUR BENEFITS.”

“… Window.”

What?

“I suddenly feel the urge to never let them off the ride.”

What’s with the sudden change of heart?

“I know the truth. They made me worry about them and their families for money. I want my concern back! I actually felt bad for skeletal families! I didn’t want their children growing up without their parents! Do you know how rare it is for me to actually care about somebody?! To feel any kind of empathy?! And they wasted it! I want my two minutes of empathy back!”

Yeah… you’re definitely the villain here. Here, let me help you change subjects before you make yourself sound even worse than you already are, as hard as that might be to believe is possible.

BATTLE TIME.

WHO YOU GONNA SEND ON THE EXPLORATIONS?

“Clawdia and Cami,” I answered.

Wow, you chose them pretty fast.

“Their names both start with C.”

They can be nicknamed the “C Gang.”

Alright, C Gang will go out on the exploration.

“Wait,” Cami said, walking up to us. “I want a headpat, please.”

I gave Cami a headpat just as requested before getting another idea. “Want something even better?”

Cami’s ears twitched before she nodded.

I slowly slid my hand down toward her neck, turning it over to rub the back of my fingers down against her neck to her shoulder which caused her to shut her eyes and shiver. She loved her neck touches, after all. “Good girl.”

There were tiny hearts hidden within her eyes the next time Cami opened them, her tail wagging behind her. “Will I get more neck touches if I do good on the exploration?”

“Sure.”

Cami gave me a salute before turning to Window to say, “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

“Wait!” Clawdia shouted, jumping to my front where Cami just was. “I-it’s not fair if she’s the only one who gets something before we leave! Since—since I have to go, I demand something as well! Not… not that I want something from you… I doubt that a lowly peasant such as yourself could—”

I grabbed Clawdia by her chin, which already made her ears and tail shoot straight up, and leaned in nice and close to whisper while staring into her eyes, “I know that Cami likes me to gently touch her neck, but you would probably like it if I was anything but gentle with yours, wouldn’t you? Though I don’t know what you’d prefer more: biting or choking.”

Clawdia quickly turned red from her ankles to her forehead as steam vented out through her ears. Much larger hearts appeared in her eyes than those that appeared in Cami’s eyes. As for her response, all she did was speak in pure gibberish before turning to look at Window, barely able to stand up straight as she pressed her thighs together, and mumbled out, “Re-read-r-eady-eareyeready.”

Window looked down at Clawdia, up at me, down at Clawdia, back up at me, and then teleported them both to the exploration site.

You’re really trying to get us upgraded from PG-13, aren’t you?

“What? I’m not allowed to tease one of my girlfriends? I was giving her fanservice,” I explained.

“Hehe,” Vala giggled, clinging onto my arm. “Such a good boyfriend. I’ve trained you well.”

“Keep in mind that, given our age difference, people are going to get weirded out if you mention training me.”

“Woah… since when do you care about the readers? A-and wait! It’s—it’s not like that! I’m not even that old! And… and I didn’t groom—I mean train you! I mean, I didn’t groom you either! I—oh no, now this sounds horrible… I’m a horrible dragon… I’m a bad drag—”

NOPE STOPPING YOU THERE

I tilted my head. “What’s so wrong about her calling herself a bad drago—”

GOD YOU TWO HAVE SPENT WAY MORE TIME ON THE INTERNET THAN ME BUT ARE SOMEHOW STILL SO INNOCENT

EITHER THAT OR YOU’RE BOTH SERIOUSLY TRYING TO MAKE US R-RATED

ALSO DON’T YOU THINK THERE’S ALREADY BEEN ENOUGH REFERENCES THIS CHAPTER? THE DUNGEON HOUND, INTERNET MEMES, MONOGATARI—SERIOUSLY THE MORE REFERENCES WE USE THE MORE DATED THIS IS GOING TO BE IF SOMEBODY EVER READS IT IN THE FUTURE

I mean not that it really matters because if they don’t get those references then it’s their fault.

BUT STILL. WE’RE NOT GOING TO OVERLOAD THE READERS BY BRINGING UP… THAT COMPANY.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about still, but you know that trying to censor something obvious like this is probably going to make people look it up, right? I mean, I know I’m going to search it on my phone later as soon as I can. Because now I want to know what’s so bad about bad dra—”

Crap, you have a point.

I’ve… I’ve played myself.

If I would have let Vala finish her sentence in the first place then it never would have been suspicious and then nobody would be curious about what could potentially be wrong with placing the words “bad” and “dragon” next to each other.

Whelp.

I guess a lot of people are going to lose their innocence if they haven’t already.

Choo choo, full speed ahead toward R-rated territory.

“If it makes you feel any better, we can start the battle now. I’ll handle it with Lavi. I want to test out my weapon’s enhancement and give Lavi a chance to show off her upgrade.”

Nice change of subject. I’ve trained you well.

And you can’t say it’s weird when I say that because my existence was created after yours. So hah.

“Speaking of which,” I paused to look at Vala, “I was teasing. I promise. And nobody is going to think you’re weird or creepy or that you groomed me. Probably.”

“All I wanted was to play vidya when I first met you… it’s not my fault I fell in love with you,” Vala whined. “And I didn’t even try being weird or anything! I even let you keep on thinking that I was a guy so that it wouldn’t be weird when we played together! I never flirted or anything! I even wished you luck in finding a harem of women to have a ton of kids with!”

“Please don’t remind me of those conversations. I still cringe from them even if I’m basically living that dream now.”

“Then tell me I’m not creepy!”

“You’re not creepy.”

“Why don’t I feel convinced…”

Part of me was really tempted to tease her, but I could tell she actually felt down about it, so I resisted no matter how tempting it was. Instead, I rubbed her head just like how I rubbed Cami’s and then kissed her forehead. “I promise you’re not creepy. And I’ll punch anybody who thinks you are in the face. Deal? Also, let’s not forget that I was the one who was always harassing you every single time that you logged on. And I was the one who tried everything I could to find you after you logged off and never came back. If anything, I’m the creep. I’m a violent stalker who will punch people for you and try to find you when you’re missing.”

And that’s two more reasons for why you’re the villain.

“Would… would you really punch them for me?” Vala asked.

“I’d punt a newborn for you, Vala,” I said.

…

you know what, i don’t even have to say it

While Window might not have appreciated my vow to punt newborns, Vala swooned and smiled. “Hehe… you’re the best boyfriend ever. Oh. When can I upgrade that to husband? We should get married already.”

WAIT ARE YOU PROPOSING

“Doesn’t matter to me,” I answered. “We can get married whenever you want.”

“Oh, right. You were never that into marriage.”

“As far as I’m concerned, all marriage does is make things sound fancier. Nothing actually changes. Well, nothing is supposed to actually change other than taxes.”

“Hehe, and we have no taxes in this world other than the cat tax. And the puppy tax. Well, any cute animal tax, really.”

“Wait, we’re taxing cute animals?”

“No, no. I mean… you know. On the internet, whenever somebody mentions that they have a pet cat, they’re supposed to include pictures of their cat as ‘cat tax.’”

“Huh. Never knew that there could be a good tax.”

“Right?”

We went from punting newborns to talking about marriage to taxes…

I’m just…

I’m just ending the chapter here before the conversation evolves into something even crazier. Hopefully next time you actually focus on the battle like you were supposed to this chapter.

I don’t get paid enough for this.