After Mark finished delivering justice to everyone who called him gay, he went back to the marketplace to find Sebille. As he walked, he noticed a popup window at the edge of his vision. He double clicked it with his new, high-tech gamer mouse, and enlarged the window.

Congratulations, you saved the city! Quest reward: $10 000 000 000 000 (UD)

Due to the heavy inflation in-game, important quests were rewarded with real-life money. Since saving the whole city was a big deal, Mark received quite a sizable amount of money.

"Wow! Tusky, we are rich!" Mark exclaimed. "But there is a typo, I think. What's this UD? shouldn't it be USD?"

What? No, no, it wasn't United States Dollar. Mark's reward came in Ugandan Dollars.

"You can't be serious!" Mark raged. "What the hell man, why did I receive Ugandan currency!!! And how much is this sum worth then?!"

Well, that number had a lot of zeros in there... it was a pretty large number... so with that much money, Mark could probably buy one or two bananas.

"WHAT?!"

"Oh, I like bananas!" Tusky said cheerfully.

Mark threw his hand up in surrender. "That's it, I had enough. I'm done with these stupid quest rewards. Let's just find Sebille and figure out where to go next. Now, where was that market?"

"You do not know tha wey?" someone spoke with thick accent. Mark looked around, but could see no one... until he looked down. A small red creature with tiny arms and legs was looking up at him. "Let me show you da way."

Not waiting for Mark's response, the tiny red avatar began gliding down the street, emitting strange clucking sounds as he went. Mark raised an eyebrow, but apparently none of the townspeople found this figure unusual. Fantasiaia was a very popular VRMMO after all, so everyone was already used to seeing strange avatars.

Mark followed the tiny red avatar, but soon his guidance turned out to be unnecessarily. Mark saw from afar where the market was. It was quite spectacular. Not because of the screaming and running people, or because of the city guard storming into the fray. No, it was spectacular because of the flames that were burning everywhere. The whole market was on fire, and Mark had a really bad feeling about it. He had some ideas about who might have started the fire, and all of those ideas started with S and ended with ebille.

"Come on, Tusky, we gotta hurry!" Mark shouted as he spotted a group of guards gathering around something... or someone.

"What's happening here?!" Mark asked from the guards, just as one of them fastened a manacle around Sebille's wrist.

"That crazy lady over there didn't want to pay at a shop," the guard replied, shaking his head sadly. "She kept saying that she is a princess and it is her right to take what she wants. Set fire to the entire market when nobody believed her. Damn crazy, I tell you."

Well, that didn't bode well for Mark and his first waifu.

"Make way, make way!" Mark pushed forward through the crowd. "Let me through!"

"Mark!" Sebille cried out, "Mark, I'm so sorry! I—"

"And who you might be?" one of the guards asked Mark.

"I'm Mark," Mark reMarked. "I am the guy who defeated the Dark Lord and saved the whole city!"

"Which Dark Lord?" the guard asked with narrowed eyes.

"Erm... the one that arrived here today."

"Morning or afternoon?"

"Ehh— What?"

"When did he arrive? There is a Dark Lord invasion event twice every day."

For a second, Mark just only stared with his mouth open, his thoughts about being a celebrated for his deeds shattering with a loud crack.

"Erm... afternoon. It happened a couple of minutes ago."

The guard nodded. "Good. That's a stupid as Dark Lord with his dancing skeletons, but I appreciate your efforts nevertheless. Now, what do you have to do with this crazy chick over here?"

"I'm not crazy! I'm a princess, and once I reclaim my throne, you will—"

"OH, that chick over there!" Mark interrupted Sebille. "Nothing much, guard NPC sir. I'll be on my way now. Have a nice day!"

"Nooo, you can't go!" Sebille cried. "Mark please, I know I haven't been a good waifu up till now, but I promise that if you save me know, I... I..." Sebille was breathing heavily now, "I won't burn you alive when I reclaim my throne!"

This honest confession captured Mark's heart, and he said—

"What the f*ck?! No, it didn't capture my heart! Stop putting things in my head!"

"Alright miss," the guard spoke to Sebille, "Come on, the prison is this way."

"No, wait!" Mark said, suddenly feeling guilty that he was about to abandon Sebille. "Listen, guardsman NPC sir, I'll pay for the damages. I'm the hero who saved the city, after all. I can save it once again! I received a lot of money as reward, just a couple of minutes ago. Here, take this! $10 000 000 000 000 UD!"

"Sir, I'm not sure I can do that. I have to bring this lady in for—"

"Don't worry, it's a lot of money!" Mark talked over the guard. "Look at how many zeros are there!"

"Sir, I don't think that—"

"Sorry, but we are in a hurry! Heretakethismoney, kthxbye!"

Mark grabbed Sebille's hand, then put on his running shoes and ran away with the speed of light. (Only figuratively, of course. There are like a dozen of reasons why it is impossible to run lightning fast, most of which would leave Mark dead.)

Once Mark and Sebille got clear (and Tusky too, though she was conveniently staying in the background), Sebille jumped into Mark's arms and hugged him close, crying in relief.

"Oh Mark, thank you, thank you! Please don't be angry, I didn't really want to burn the whole market down, but the script said that I have to! Please forgive me!"

Mark was about to curse this badly written novel for treating such a nice girl this way, but then realized that said girl was hugging him at the moment. In Mark's short and cruel life such a thing had never happened to him, especially not with a girl who had such huge personalitits. So in the end, Mark said nothing about the novel and just hugged Sebille back. Thanks to the , Mark didn't embarrass himself during this intimate contact. Hah! Who would have thought that such a curse would come useful one day!

"Umm, Mark?" Sebille asked half an hour later. "You can stop hugging me now. It's getting a bit creepy."

"Ah, of course, of course," Mark said, stepping back abruptly like Casanova upon finding a gay bar. "Sorry I just got caught in the moment."

"No worries," Sebille said, then batted her eyelashes at him. "So, you aren't mad at me? You paid a lot of money for compensation."

"Hmm, yes, yes," Mark said, nodding sagely. "It was a lot of money, but I don't mind. You're worth every penny!"

Before Sebille could respond to Mark's clishé flirting technique, loud shouting could be heard in the distance.

"I think they went that way!"

"After them!"

"Get them!"

"Guys, run!" Tusky appeared around the corner, already running. "They figured out how much Mark's money is actually worth! The whole city is after us now!"

"Whaaat?!" Mark exclaimed, but after a moment of hesitation he grabbed Sebille, put her into his inventory, and ran after Tusky. "They figured out the money is only enough for two bananas?"

"No," Tusky said, "They figured out it is enough only for one banana."

Mark paled. "Oh sh*t, that's even worse. What do we do now? Did I accidentally become a villain?!"

Tusky had no answer to Mark's moral crisis. However, she had an answer about what to do next.

"Quick! Under that bridge, let's hide there!"

Tusky and Mark rushed to the base of the bridge with the speed of light. (Only figuratively, of course. Everyone knows that only the Flash can run actually that fast, and Mark wasn't the Flash.)

When they got down to the riverbank, they took a sharp turn and ducked under the bridge, safely away from the searching eyes of the guards and angry merchants. However, their hiding spot was not as deserted as they would have thought! There was a—

CLIFFHANGER

—already hiding there!