The intel gathering began as soon as the trio were done eating. Splitting up, Fenrir, Cassiel, and Eva interviewed all the different apes they could find to get any information they could out of them regarding the island and the wave that sent them there. Though, the intel gathering didn’t last all that long due to patience running out pretty quickly for both Fenrir and Cassiel. Then once Eva noticed how tired they both looked, she decided to call it there and gathered them up together so that they could share whatever information they might have gathered.

“How’d it go for you two?” Eva asked.

“Bad,” Cassiel answered first. “I… can’t talk to them. I don’t have the patience for trying to make it work. It’s like talking to children, but worse. “

Fenrir nodded and said, “I know the feeling. No matter how friendly they might be… it can be difficult talking to them. Reminds me of some manga I read where the authors would try to give characters a unique way of talking. Like… always… stretching… words… out. Or make character speak simple. No big word. No big sentence. Small simple words. Me no patience.”

Cassiel nodded along that time.

As for Eva, she smiled and said, “Wimps. There’s barely even a communication barrier and you struggled that much with them? How are you going to cope when we have kids?”

Hearing that, both Cassiel and Fenrir blushed a little, the former more than the latter.

“That’s—that’s different,” Fenrir said. “They’d be our kids, so we’d be more willing to put up with the annoyances that come with kids being kids. I have enough confidence in myself to baby talk some kid and have a fake conversation, but trying to have a serious conversation with somebody to try and learn from them while having to listen to what is basically baby talk? I can’t.”

Eva rolled her eyes for sassy effect before saying, “You know, it’s actually considered great for early development to talk to your children like you’re having a serious conversation with them. It’s actually bad to baby talk them. Even as babies, you should just… talk to them like they’re normal people. Even if the conversation is entirely one-sided, talk to them like you would an adult. It helps them understand language and how to properly speak much more effectively. If it’s raining outside, and you ask a baby what they think about the rain, and the baby just says gibberish back to you, you should say something like, ‘Ah, yeah, I really love when it rains, too.’ You know what I mean? Actually talk to them, don’t just make noises at them.”

Fenrir and Cassiel blinked a few times while listening to Eva before coming to a realization together.

“Cass,” Fenrir said.

“Yeah?” Cassiel replied.

“Between Aza and Eva… I think we need to learn how to handle children. We’re getting left behind.”

“Yeah… even Nell knows a lot about that stuff.”

“At least Serra might be on our level.”

“No way. If anything, Serra would be the best mom out of all of us.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because she grew up in a house with a bunch of different parents and a ton of siblings. She has more experience with parenting and children than all of us put together by far.”

“Right. I didn’t consider that. She’s just… such a small pervert that I’ve never even imagined her as a mom before. I can imagine her teasing us and wanting us to call her mommy, but I can’t imagine her being a mom.”

Eva raised her hand to interrupt. “I can. She’d be super cute as a mom, too. Like… imagine her standing there with a bunch of babies strapped to her in different spots while she looks at us with her usual blank expression.”

Fenrir tried his best to imagine it. In his mind, he formed a picture of Serra with her classic kuudere look standing still with her arms stretched out and no fewer than a dozen babies strapped to various parts of her body via Velcro. It looked more like she was wearing armor made out of babies rather than being a mother, but he had to admit that the mental image of it was adorable. Concerning, but adorable.

Then he imagined her shooting babies out of cannons.

The mind was a strange thing.

“Anyways,” Fenrir said, “we can worry about learning more about parenting later. Eva, did you learn anything?”

A smug smile stretched Eva’s lips. “Of course. Do you think I could proudly call myself a member of the Hermetic Scholars if I didn’t?”

“I don’t know, could you?”

“No, obviously. Anyways, to start with the good news, I don’t think we’ll have to do anything like hurt our new hairy friends in order to get our freedom. The bad news… is that we’re going to have to go full JRPG and kill a god in order to earn our freedom.”

Fenrir shrugged and said, “Can’t be worse than killing the giant serpent.”

As for Cassiel, she hung her head low and said, “We’re screwed.”

“Come on, it’s not a true gaming experience if you don’t kill a god at some point.”

“Well… I guess, at the very least… I’m pretty sure all the gods in this world aren’t any stronger than the serpents. But we also don’t have a whole army and giant dragon to help us this time.”

“Wait. Hold on. I just realized I don’t actually know anything about any gods in this place. Are—are there gods?”

Eva was never going to pass up the opportunity to explain something. “Kind of! There are dozens of entities regarded as ‘gods’ in this world, but—well, if they’re gods, the four serpents are like… super gods. They’re all physical beings, just super powerful. They’re like the kinds of end-game bosses you would find at the end of some super tough raid, except they reside over different parts of the world and often grant powers to players who worship them. That’s how the Augus Empire has its corps of angels. They pledge themselves to the god over there, but access to the god is kept so confidential that not even we know where exactly the god is or what they’re like. Fraydranth? She’s not a god as far as I know, but she basically fits into the same category as them: powerful entities in the world who can interact with the players. And there are dozens of them that are known, potentially more that we don’t know about yet. For example… the guardian of this island is one from the sounds of it. Wait, Cass. Did you ever find out about the Empire’s god?”

Cassiel shook her head. “I was just one trial away from earning the right to meet him. We weren’t allowed to know anything about his location, form, or name even at that level. All I know is that he is a… well, he.”

“Hmm. Well, given that the god is responsible for the angels, and the angels are the Empire’s strongest fighting force, I’m not surprised they keep it so secret. Anyways, back to this island. There are a few different names—titles, rather, for the local god, but the most common one is ‘Guardian.’ The second most common is ‘Wave Mother.’ You might see where this is going already.”

“I think I have an idea,” Fenrir said.

“This god—goddess, rather, is the guardian of this island, and it seems like she controls the surrounding ocean. Now, I haven’t confirmed this yet, but I have a feeling that this island isn’t quite the traditional kind. By that, I mean… I think it’s actually just floating on the water rather than connected to the seabed. If she can control the ocean around this island, then she can move it wherever she wants.”

“Sounds like a big assumption to make. What makes you think that without checking it out first?”

“Because they know about dwarves. Dwarves are pretty much strictly only seen around the most far western part of the known world. Meanwhile, we’re at the far eastern part of the known world, and this island wasn’t here before. So what I’m thinking is that—for starters, the world officially loops around. I know that might sound like common sense, but nobody has ever successfully circumnavigated the world before due to the serpents. And, perhaps to protect the island’s inhabitants, the goddess used the ocean’s waves to move the entire island across the ocean to the west—toward us. To here. So, this island was originally near the western end of the world. Now it’s over here at the eastern end. I suppose it’s possible that it could have teleported, too, but I think it fits the fantasy vibe more to imagine a goddess who can control the ocean pushing the island across it using waves.”

“Question,” Cassiel said. “If she’s protecting the island… why would she send us into it? Wouldn’t it have been smarter to send a wave from the opposite direction to knock us away from it instead?”

“That would have been smarter, yes. I asked if anything like this ever happened before and none of them recalled anything like our situation ever happening. Before, the dwarves were able to safely reach the island on their own using ships. It sounded like the goddess didn’t interfere with their travel at all.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they see her as their guardian then?”

“Maybe because she’s responsible for moving the island? She could also prevent hurricanes or rogue waves from washing over it, maybe.”

Fenrir stroked his chin as he thought about it before offering a theory of his own. “If the apes are capable of intelligence now and acting differently from before—at least, assuming that they’re different from before… who’s to say that the goddess isn’t the same? What if she brought us here on purpose with the intent of talking to us? Though, if that’s the case, I wish she would have just appeared in front of us instead of wrecking my baby and almost killing Rock.”

Eva thought about it for a few seconds and then sighed. “Honestly, I have no idea what her motive could be here. Any motivation I try to think of comes with evidence to easily contradict it. Fortunately, I learned something else that can help us figure it out.”

“And what would that be?”

“Her location. We can just go and ask her ourselves what she wants.”

Cassiel sighed and said, “I feel like you should have started with that.”

“Where’s the fun in that? Have to build up to the exciting stuff. Anyways, I already got the leader of our friends here to agree to take us to her in the morning. I guess there’s some cave in the middle of the island that they offer tribute to her in, and she shows up to personally take the tribute from them. Funny thing is that their idea of tribute is stuff like fish they’ve caught. So… they’re basically taking fish from her… for the sake of giving them back to her.”

“I don’t know why,” Fenrir said, “but meeting a virtual god sounds way more intimidating than having to fight a giant serpent monster.”

“It’ll be fine. Probably. Maybe we’ll even be able to convince her to drive this island over to Nameless and drop us off there seeing as how our ride got destroyed.”

Fenrir’s ears couldn’t help but to flatten against the top of his head every single time he was reminded about The Shoebill’s destruction. Then again… he didn’t really see that she was completely destroyed yet, right? That meant there was still a chance that she was alright, right?

Just because he saw a bunch of debris from her didn’t mean that she wasn’t still seaworthy!

Hopefully.

“If she brought us here for anything other than wanting to kill us, she better be prepared to make it up to Rock and The Shoebill,” Fenrir said. “At least if she brought us here to kill us, she’s just evil and we can kill her. But if she tries to sound good, she better plan on making it up to us.”

“For now,” Eva said, “we should take turns resting. It’s going to be hours before it’s the morning, so we should go and get some rest while we can.”

Fenrir nodded and looked at Cassiel. “You can go first. You too, Eva. I’ll stay here with Rock and… try to build my tolerance for talking to the apes.”

Cassiel let out a yawn and stretched. “I won’t say no to that. Thanks.”

“Honestly,” Eva said, “I’m too excited to sleep. So, why don’t I take the first watch, and you can go sleep with Cass?”

“Sure,” Fenrir replied. “I won’t say no to that. That means I get to cuddle and grope her.”

Cassiel flicked his shoulder. “I won’t be able to sleep if you get me worked up.”

“Oh no, what a shame.”

“It will be a shame seeing as how the point is for us to get rested.”

“It’ll be fine.”

With a sigh, Cassiel left her avatar behind, leaving Fenrir and Eva immersed together.

“Eva,” Fenrir said. “Kiss.”

“What do I get out of it?” Eva teased.

“The honor of kissing me.”

“Ooh. What a great bargain.” With that, she came closer to Fenrir to give him a kiss on the lips. “There. Now, go get some sleep. Oh, and make sure to grope Cass for me at least a little bit.”

“You can count on me.” Fenrir gave her another kiss back before leaving her alone with Rock and the apes.

After making sure that both Fenrir’s and Cassiel’s avatars were comfortably on the ground, she stood up and clapped her hands together. “Alright! Now that they’re gone, I can go full researcher mode without any distractions.”