‘For this is a tale about a liar.’

‘The liar who had the wings of fire.’

‘As he flew up to high.’

‘Before the sun burned him, saying goodbye.’

Enar had borrowed a handmade guitar and began to play songs which many people danced too. Nicko and the beetle, now known Rhin, were fighting each other with their fists. A crowd had gathered around him, and people placed bets of who would win the true fistfight.

There was no [Magic] or [Skills], only muscles and punches. The two of them were close in their ability to fight, and both enjoyed it.

Harrian, on the other hand, was staying in his lizard form, with people tearing off pieces of his flesh and gathering his saliva so that the [Demihumans] could paint their exoskeletons a gorgeous vermillion. Harrian felt no pain in his scales getting ripped apart, but as soon as they were done, he fell to sleep in his lizard form.

Atogin kept having drinks with many [Demihumans] and teaching them tricks which he knew for various reasons. A lot of people admired Atogin for this, as he was showing the weaker soldiers [Skills] that they wouldn’t have known otherwise.

A lot of people went to sleep that night with hangovers, the flies seemed to have a take to [Alchemy], and sped up the process of fermentation with a berry wine. One person who didn’t drink a lot, and didn’t have a hangover was Vespa, the appointed leader of the [Demihumans].

She was a [Queen Bee], her legs and arms were coated with an exoskeleton turned vermillion, she also had a bee abdomen and wings. She had gotten up and decided to drink some honey which she usually gave out after having some fruit, and as she was walking around, she felt something in the air.

It turned out something was in the air, as Harrian had dropped from the sky yelling ‘Incoming’ followed by a massive bang and a could of dust erupted from the impact. Many hungover people were woken up, some went back to sleep, whilst others got up.

One of those people who got up was Atogin. He had found himself inside a tent and was sleeping on the floor. Looking down, he saw that he was undressed and that his clothes were neatly packed towards his right side. His feathers were ruffled, which he quickly plumbed. Finally, after cleaning up, he saw the shape of a person underneath the blankets which he also had on.

The person was wiggling underneath, and very cautiously, Atogin used his right arm and lifted the blanket to reveal who the person was. The cockroach girl, who was there at the meeting yesterday was present right next to a naked Atogin, and also looking down, he realized that she was naked as well.

Seeing this, Atogin and the cockroach girl screamed, waking even more people up. One of the people who he woke up was Nicko, and after hearing the scream of his friend, he got up and ran towards the scream which he had memorized.

After opening the tent and saw what was inside, Nicko apologized and closed it, looking away. Turning around, he was met with stares from Vespa, Harrian, Enar, Allanae, Rhin and Sten the scorpion. They all saw Nikco’s flushed cheeks, so Allane stepped forwards and asked what was in there.

“Let’s just say, Atogin put the cock, in cockroach,”

Vespa, Harrian and Allanae didn’t even change their expression, but Rhin, Enar and Sten’s faces were filled with shock. After a short while, Atogin emerged from the tent with his clothes on and walked off as nothing happened.

Soon after the cockroach girl also came out of the tent, she kept her body very narrow and short, walking off very quickly to getaway. Atogin saw the girl run past, and he scratched the back of his head with his left hand.

“*Long Sigh*, Even your greatest mistakes shouldn’t stop you for moving forward,”

“Shut up!” Nicko hit Atogin on the back hard with his open hand, “You boned a bug, not to mention, a pretty one at that,” Nicko smiled.

“Well, what are you saying?” Atogin looked up at Nicko.

“What I’m saying is,” Nicko began to fidget with his Rubix Cube, “Is that I hope that wasn’t just a one night stand, look at her, she has feelings for you now, and she is one of the four generals of this revolution,” The two of them began to walk around.

“Yeah, but I mean,”

“Not ‘yeah’, I want you to promise her, that you will try to come back to her,” There was a long pause, and Atogin shook his head.

“Why Nicko, why are you like this?”

“Because you’ll regret it! I’ve seen it on earth, and I’ll probably see it here as well, please just try and do it,” Nicko pouted.

“... Fine, I’ll go and… talk to her,”

“Attaboy!” Nicko hit Atogin with an open hand on his back.

Atogin began to run after the girl, despite her escaping, Atogin began to track her. Meanwhile, Nicko fidgeted with his Rubix Cube, as Vespa stood in the prints Atogin had made on the ground and began to talk to Nicko.

“I don’t think it will work, but I do hope it will help her become less of an introvert,” Vespa explained.

“It’s just that, Atogin doesn’t know a lot about love, only having his wife, the one person he had a romantic relationship with. A beautiful woman, but she didn’t love Atogin back as he slipped into depression when she left. So when we started this adventure, we made a list, the first thing on that list was… to try and find long love,”

“It may be for a while, but I hope does he helps her,”

“Me too.”

Atogin made his way to an amber tent, seeing the number three followed by a capital G, this was the place. It was larger than the regular tents that surrounded it; he placed his ear to the tent and made his feathers iron, which he then banged together.

An ‘EEP!’ was heard, and Atogin entered. There the cockroach girl was laying on the ground, tears trickling down her face. There it was then Atogin had realized he had done something wrong.

He now saw her actual features, not just as a woman, but as a person. She had amber eyes with the dark sclera, a trait which most bugs had it seems. She had a narrow face, and full of beauty, with long brown hair reaching her shoulder blades, and a carapace which covered half of her hair.

“S-sorry, I-i didn’t see you t-there,” The girl stuttered.

“No no, it’s fine,” Atogin smiled, walking into the tent.

Her legs were under a short square table, and you could tell that she was shaking. Atogin sighed and went to the other side of the table and sat down as well. He looked down and saw a bottle of some alcohol. Atogin placed his right hand on the table and made two shot glasses out of wood.

He slid a glass towards the girl, and a little smile came from the girl’s face, which also made Atogin smile.

“Listen… I’m sorry, I didn’t expect anyone to next to me,” Atogin began pouring the girls drink.

“It’s fine; you had a triple of the same glass, I... would be surprised if you remembered any of what happened,”

“And what did happen?”

“To be honest, you only did me once, the rest of the time we just exchanged [Skills] and tales,”

“That’s great, but I’m STILL SORRY!” Atogin lowered his head.

“And I say it’s alright, to be honest, I have to say thank you for building up my courage,”

“No, I promised myself that on this adventure there would be no one-night stands, so,” Atogin took a deep breath, “I do hope that I can return and be in a serious relationship, and since I’ll be leaving tomorrow, I do hope that we can be together more.” Atogin laid out his left hand onto the table and smiled.

The girl opens her hand out as well but struggles to put it next to Atogins. After a minute or so, she held hands with Atogin and smiled. The two of them giggled like little girls, and finally, the cockroach girl spoke again.

“I’m Amra, one of the four generals of the vermillion resistance,”

“Is that what you’ve named yourselves? Vermillion resistance,”

“Indeed, your friends colour was very... inspiring,”

Atogin closed his eyes, “I see,”

“Can you?” Amra put her left hand into a fist and placed it over her mouth, blushing.

“It’s good that you got that,”

“I know.”

The two of them were excited and saw that everyone had gone about their day, meeting up with the rest of the group, the generals, and Vespa who was asking Harrian what that loud crash was. Many moons ago, when Mitch, the merchant in Newtown, gave Harrian the ability of [Teleportation Item Box], unfortunately, Harrian never actually told anyone about it.

“You see, I… can teleport using the [Infinite Item Box],” All of the [Demihumans] other than Atogin seemed shocked, whilst the rest of the group still had faces.

“One question, why in the air?” Sten asked.

“Because it is a terrible fate of someone who is caught when I’m teleporting,”

“They cease to exist?”

“Actually, yeah, they become lost within a part of my storage that even I can’t tamper with, of course, I only tried it with non-sentient objects,”

“So... You reported back to the king I would assume?” Enar stepped forward, her arms crossed.

“Of course, I told him just to be more aware, so I’ll be seeing him every day, and around the time of where you woke up due to me, it’ll happen again, but much quieter,”

“Let’s hope so.” Nicko slapped Harrian on the back.

All of a sudden, a [Creators Update] had appeared in front of everyone. There were no balance changes; there was only one thing that was introduced [Settings].

[What’s New?]

[Settings]

[A variety of separate features that can be found next to the [Status Board]]

[Press on the new button that looks like a gear to access it]

[Here are a list of features you can change in [Settings]]

Everyone began to read them; the [Settings] ranged from closing pop-ups when they [Level up], to changing their muscle mass, to make them look more substantial or weaker than they were, it did not affect the [Strength Stat], as Nicko tried it out.

It was all fun and games until Atogin found a particular setting and his gaze sharpened.

[Interspecies Breeding]

[This setting allows a couple to enable to have offspring if they are of [Different Species]]

[This can be accessed by people you don’t trust if your [Reputation] is in the negatives]

[Creators note: I’m always watching over this world, always, ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

Atogin looked up, and in a tone that scared everyone, began to speak.

“I know my goal after we save the world or whatever, I’m going to pay ‘the Creator’ a visit,” Atogin cracked his knuckles.

Everyone was able to calm Atogin down, before ‘The Creator’ took it as a challenge and would kill Atogin. The [Demihuman] dialled it down to he just wanted to talk to ‘The Creator’ about privacy afterwards.

Before coming here, Atogin was a single father of two boys; both were in their early twenties before the world ended. Atogin was used to doing it, so he decided it would make no difference to do to a god.

The group split up again, Harrian and Allanae disappeared together, Atogin angrily trained the soldiers of the art of the blade, and so did Enar with [Skills] and [Spells]. Nicko went above to the surface, saying he needed some fresh air, and didn’t come down for quite a while.

All of the party returned sooner or later, and instead of partying with alcohol, the whole place drank water and ate a proper meal made by Nicko and his helpers which he trained. The reason why Nicko went above ground was to find a [Giant Bear].

It had a proportion of a grizzly bear, but about ten times larger. Nicko only made sure to damage the head and had brought it back to the group, where they cut it up and made many dishes.

The entire revolution sat down and enjoyed meals made from all the five food groups, something so rare for the people who were of the lower class. Harrian had brought cheese, the [Demihumans] scavenged for fruits, vegetables, and rice which they quickly picked up and with the help of [Young Tree Affinity], they crops were able to reproduce and bloom into a plentiful bounty.

Many dishes were served, and the majority favoured the steaming rice bowl, with roughly one hundred grams of thinly cut bear meat, which was coated in steaming cheese, with a side of a variety of vegetables. As for the desert, it was just some cut fruit which was cold, and many also loved.

People ate and sang songs with Enar leading the musicians, and everyone fell asleep that night, with a full stomach and a happy attitude which personified the entire army. And as sunlight came, the cheers were silent, and everyone was asleep, all except two.