Nothing else interesting was won from the church’s gacha machine. However, something interesting did happen after the final attempt that rewarded me a few logs as a reward.

Dramatic fanfare played as miniature fireworks shot out from the sides of the gambling machine. Once they were all done with, a message popped up that read—

I’ll handle this.

Ahem.

Congratulations! Thanks to your continued contributions to the Church of RNGesus, enough money has been saved (and not taxed!) to upgrade the church! A new machine will be available the next time you visit that costs more to play but will offer even greater rewards! And if you continue burning your—we mean, donating your money to a wonderful cause, then we might even have enough to hire an assistant! And who knows! Maybe that assistant will even come with a tower! And seeing as how she would be an assistant to a church, it’s probably pretty easy to figure out what kind of fetishes she’d be playing into!

Because let’s be real here, otherwise it would be like an anime having a religion in it without having cute nun girls in it. What’s the point? Seriously! So, if you want your own cute nun girl today, keep on giving us money!

“I feel like that went from being somewhat… normal, as normal as anything involving this world can be, to promoting mail-order brides via church donations,” I said, having no idea how I was supposed to actually feel about that.

Don’t blame me. All I did was read the message. I’m not the one who wrote it.

“Then who did?”

Huh. Now that I think about it… I actually have no idea.

“How do you not know?”

By not knowing.

“It’s been a while since I’ve thrown you.”

Window vanished, reminding me that, if I wanted to throw her, I needed to just go and do it without implying doing it or even thinking about it.

But just as quickly as she vanished, somebody else arrived and put her hands over my eyes before asking, “Guess who?” in a voice that clearly sounded like somebody trying to make their voice deeper to make it unrecognizable.

The mysterious eye coverer wasn’t as mysterious as she thought. “Vala,” I answered.

There was silence for a few moments before she said anything else. “Wha-what makes you so sure I’m Vala? Maybe I’m Delphi! Or… uh… Lake!”

“Lake wouldn’t do this and Delphi isn’t tall enough. You, Vala, are the only one who could cover my eyes like this without touching any other part of me since you can use your wings to hover behind me. Also, your hands have orange powder on them and smell like cheap snacks. Nobody else is that stereotypical of a gaming gremlin.”

“A—a gaming gremlin?! When—when did I get downgraded to a gremlin?! That’s even worse than being called a lizard!”

I grabbed her hand and brought it in front of my mouth to lick some of the snack dust off her fingers. “Just as I thought.”

“Whe-when did you get so bold?! Not that I mind… but… it’s embarrassing when you grab me and start licking me all of a sudden… at least warn me first.”

“What if I say no?”

“Then… then… I—I don’t know, but I don’t know if my heart could handle it…”

I turned around and grabbed Vala by her waist to bring her close enough for our faces to be right in front of one another. “Let’s find out if it can.”

Vala’s eyes widened before she shook her head and flew away. “I-I’m serious! My heart feels like it’s going to explode! When did you become so smooth?! You—you must not be gaming enough! The lack of gaming is turning you into some smooth normie! You need more vidya in your life to dorkify you so that my heart doesn’t get overwhelmed!”

“You’ve noticed it, too?”

“H-huh?”

“I’ve been smoother lately.”

“You’re even self-aware about it… what kind of Chad are you turning into?!”

“I have a theory about it. I think that I’ve fully embraced that nothing needs to make sense and that nothing bad will ever happen. That means I can act however I want and things will work out and I never need to worry looking stupid. Because I don’t have to worry about looking stupid, I can try to be confident and smooth without fear of failure, which in turn makes me into somebody who is actually confident around his multiple girlfriends and capable of being smooth without even really trying to be. I look at you and I think, ‘I want to make her flustered and love me even more,’ and then I do it. I don’t think about how to. I don’t think about what might happen if I mess up. All I do is… it. I go for it. No doubt involved. No questions asked. For example, I can look at your lips and tell you that I want to kiss you right now. I can look at your thighs and tell you that I want to feel them squeezing around my head like that one time when we were walking in the forest and you were sitting on my shoulders. I can imagine you wearing overalls with some dirt on your face and say that I want to—”

“My heart! Stop! I need to make you so immersed in games that you forget what it’s like to be confident! I’ll give you a bunch of waifu collecting games so that you forget how to talk to real women!”

“I’ll never forget how to talk to you, Vala.”

“Even that was smooth?!”

I positioned myself so that I would be facing her with my side as I ran a hand through my hair from front to back, stopping it at the back of my head while gazing into her eyes. “I can even do something that looks this stupid with full confidence. I learned this pose when one of the guys in Honey’s games did it.”

“You can even do sexy anime boy poses that nobody does in reality outside of in modeling magazines where they’re overly dramatic?!”

I pointed a finger gun at her and fired it with a wink. “Exactly.”

Vala placed her hands over her heart and almost acted like she was hyperventilating. “This isn’t fair! This is way too OP! You’re too OP! You—you’re using fanservice against me! I’m supposed to be the lazy gaming dragon GF who gives you fanservice! My sheer existence is supposed to be fanservice! But how can I compete with you?! How am I supposed to compete with somebody so grossly incandescent?!”

“Accept it, Vala. I am the fanservice.”

“No… no! I refuse!” Vala used her wings to lift herself a few feet higher into the air. “It’s over, Drake! I have the high ground!”

“You underestimate my power, Vala.”

“That may be… in which case, there’s only one way we can settle this!”

“Bring it on.”

“Fanservice competition!”

Vala snapped her fingers. The next thing I knew, we were taken over to the stage set up for the concert that the dog sisters gave us in their idol costumes. Everybody was there, too. Only, there was a new addition in the form of a table meant for a judging panel in front of the stage, and there were three judges sitting at said table all looking equally confused.

On the left was Tabitha the beaver forewoman wearing a business suit with glasses.

In the middle was Lake who looked like she was either half asleep or drunk.

On the right was… a random dog from one of the towers.

Then, above the stage was a sign that read, “IDK’s Got Fanservice!”

It was clear what was happening.

We were about to have a genuine fanservice competition.

Vala explained the rules to everybody. To summarize them, we’d each have a minute to give fanservice to the judges. Whoever got the highest score won. If there was a tie, those who were tied would take turns doing different fanservice-y things until the judges could choose a winner.

And because it was Vala’s idea in the first place, that meant she already knew exactly what she wanted to do and wanted to go first. So, we let her.

The rest of us waited in the audience behind the judges while Vala stepped onto the stage. Immediately after, she snapped her fingers to summon a bed, lazily climbed up on top of it, and then looked at the judges with sleepy, loving eyes. “Do you really have to go?” she asked with a sad tone, holding out a hand toward them, “I know how important work is, but… can’t you come and cuddle for just a couple of minutes? Please? I’m going to miss you all day… and I need a hug from you to give me energy to survive…” She got on all fours so that we could see her tail anxiously swaying in the air behind her. “Please? If… if you cuddle for just a little bit… I’ll do whatever you want when you come home. We can even—”

The timer buzzed which meant her time was up, causing her to click her tongue and flop onto the bed. A floating camera then went in front of the judges to show them on the stage’s screen.

The dog was up first. They barked several times, paused, tapped their chin, sniffed their paw, licked their paw, and then barked again before pressing a button on the table in front of them that showed their opinion in the form of a number between one and ten. The dog gave Vala… a four.

“O-only a four?!” Vala shouted. “But I was so cute! And clingy! I thought people love clingy girlfriends who try and get in the way of them and work because of how much she loves them?!”

The dog let out a sigh and shook their head.

Tabitha was next, nodding with the dog and pressing the button to show Vala a two.

“That’s even worse!” Vala whined.

Then there was Lake. “Vala.”

“He-hey, Lake, you understand, don’t you? You—”

“I don’t really understand what ‘fanservice’ is, but even I can tell that what you did doesn’t count. If I was dating you and supposed to be attracted to what I saw, I wouldn’t be. All that would have done is apply pressure and feel like a guilt trip when I have a stressful day of work ahead of me, and offering to do whatever I want upon my return sounds manipulative. If you were to truly ‘service’ me, I would want to wake up to a warm pot of coffee waiting for me, a handwritten note saying how much you love me and that you hope I have a nice day at work, and the sight of you sleeping in bed still so that I can have the morning to myself for some peace and quiet before leaving.”

Vala looked like she had a sword stabbed through her heart after that.

“If I could give you negative points, I would. You only get a one from me.” Lake pressed the button and confirmed her words, showing a one on the display.

Vala’s total score was only seven out of a potential thirty.

Personally, I would have given her an eight. I honestly just felt bad for her after seeing the horribly low score she got. It almost made me want to throw the competition just so that she could have a higher score than me and I could let her have the win…

But there was only one person I would purposely let win, and that was my daughter. Nobody else deserved mercy.

A team of beavers and dogs then helped to push Vala and her bed off of the stage to make room for the next contestant: Cami.

Apparently, all any of us had to do to set the scene was snap our fingers because half of a kitchen showed up when Cami did that. She then picked up a bowl full of what looked like cake batter and mixed it with a whisk, walked around, and very obviously forced herself to trip and fall. Falling caused the batter, which was thick and white, to get all over her face and chest. Then, with a face suggestively covered in white batter, she looked at the judges and said, “You surprised me,” in her usual, monotone voice. “Sorry. I wanted to surprise you… but I’m not good at this. It’s my first time trying to make a cake and now it’s ruined… but… we can’t let the batter go to waste… so you can lick it off me?”

Her time was up and the judging began.

The dog gave her a six. Tabitha, a five.

Then Lake’s analysis began. “You started off strong. A girl doing her best in the kitchen to surprise her lover with a freshly baked cake, only to endearingly fumble and mess up. There is a strong appeal there. However, your acting failed to sell the performance. I understand there is some appeal in the monotone talking, but you need to play to your strengths if you intend on talking like that. Your dialogue was better suited for somebody who is bubbly and playful, such as the one with blue hair.” She didn’t even know Delphi’s name. “What you should have done was act like nothing was wrong and try to go back to finishing your task while assuring us that it would be alright. Like a robot who doesn’t know failure and only knows to keep on trying to complete her task no matter what. You get a five.”

As it turned out, Lake was… actually a really serious judge. She wasn’t taking her role lightly despite us interrupting her out of nowhere for it.

That being said, Cami’s final score was a sixteen. More than twice of Vala’s. I would have given it a seven, probably.

Lavi went on stage next. While I expected a fanservice competition to be something that would fluster her, she seemed anything but. Instead… she was completely in character as she snapped her fingers and dropped to her knee. Unlike the others who spawned props with their finger snaps, Lavi’s snap made her look all cut up and bleeding as if she just suffered through an intense battle. She then looked at the judges and asked, “Are… are you alright? Fufu… good. I… I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you. You are my reason to fight. Without knowing that that your smile is waiting for me at the end of the darkest of tunnels, I wouldn’t be able to restrain the demon in my arm. I would lose myself in rage and darkness. But as long as I have you to serve as a guiding light… I promise to survive. I promise that I will never lose, and I will never let anything bad happen to you. You understand? Even if it means tearing apart this world with my own two hands, I will rend apart reality itself to protect you.”

Tabitha was first and gave it a five after shrugging. Next was the dog who rated it a seven before barking and saluting for some reason.

And then we came to Lake again. “Heh. As expected from you. A woman who shares my heart and understands that the battlefield is one where true love blossoms. There are few places more romantic than a field of death surrounded by the corpses of our enemies. To know that you put your body through such harm in order to protect me, how could I not feel serviced? The only problem is how overly dramatic you were for your wounds. You look like you only suffered light scratches and scrapes, yet you sounded as if you lost a limb or eye, were on the verge of death, and so on. Your acting doesn’t match the damage your body has taken. Of course, I would not expect you to cut an arm off for the sake of a performance, but you should have taken that into consideration as it ruined my immersion. Instead, I believe you should have taken the cool and confident approach. You should have acted like it was no big deal and that you didn’t even feel anything. That would have worked with your appearance and not ruined my immersion. That being said, I will give you an eight. Somebody less experienced than me likely wouldn’t have their immersion ruined, so I am judging you based off that as I know very few living people will have any idea what true battle is like.”

Lavi’s total score was twenty, putting her in the lead.

I had no idea how the competition was going to turn out, but I did already have a plan to win over Lake.

I was ready to show the world what it meant to truly give fanservice.