- Well, maybe I would have more motivation if I had another boyfriend, then.

Elicia’s cruel words resonated on Jacks’ head. He knew she wasn’t doing that on purpose. Or, better saying… she was doing that with the sole purpose of hurting him.

It was a weird thing, to be hurt by someone so close to you, and, still, just back up silently. Still, he knew it was for the best.

She would understand soon enough what she did, and then apologize. In the meantime, he could just find a place to do… something, or anything, it didn’t really matter.

It was amazing how accurate she was when she wanted to hurt someone. All it took was for her to fell really down and depressed, and that “berserker” side of her would appear.

It was a torn on his heart.

He loved Elicia, he truly did, and he could understand her. He himself had done things to her as well, things like being an asshole with her or fell seriously aggravated if she had a dream in which someone as much as appeared seductive.

He had days when he would be a bitch all day long, not even looking at her and keeping a face of distaste and contempt when around her.

So, a little bit of hurt from now and then should be only fair, right?

Still, he was that kind of person. It didn’t matter if it was wrong or fair, he just couldn’t get over it easily.

[- Aaah….]

In human form, he then seated at one of the terraces of his dungeon.

Dragon Kings’ Island (2), was modeled by him and Elicia together. It had a variety of biomes and NPCs’ but, the most important thing, undoubtedly, was the main mountain.

It was a towering 4000-meter-high mountain composed of many layers of metal alloys and, at the outermost part, knife-point sharp volcanic rock.

It would usually be impossible to have a 4000-meter-high mountain made almost entirely of an alloy, but this was Another World. All it took was for Jack and Elicia dig the ground, then pile up some rocks to make a hollow mold, bless the rocks with the “fire resistance (temporary)” spell, put a large amount of ores in there, and then use a few Dragon-King level breath attacks to melt all the ores.

The rocks would make a soft center which cold later be excavated, whilst the molten alloy outside could be cleansed of impurities, if it was necessary to do so, by using the “gravity increase” magic. Once all impurities were on top of the whole thing, a good blast of ice and wind combined breath would clean the alloy underneath.

Of course, the ice-cold breath attack would shatter some of the alloy, but that really didn’t matter in terms of a whole mountain.

After all, it was made by repeating the aforementioned process time and then time again, each with cheaper and cheaper ores - in the end, Jack just couldn’t afford to make a whole mountain out of the strongest and most expensive Mithril-Adamantite alloy plated with a Stellar-Christal and Orichalcum cover. Even if Elicia’s dungeon mana-to-ore conversion rate was made to “weirdly” tilt heavily on the side of the ore production.

It seemed as if some Admins were quite happy with Jacks’ choice, but not to the point of plainly giving him the finished mountain. Some were probably watching his struggles to pile up the ores and rocks while eating popcorn and drinking the famous Dragon King Tea(rs).

Most of the mountain was made of iron in the end, and the outermost layer was made of common rocks like quartzite, slate and assorted kinds of gravel. Those were heated up to the point of melting, and then quickly frozen solid by water and ice breaths. The sharpness of the extremely rough and pointy surface of the mountain made it look like a needle mountain from hell.

At one of the huge terraces close to the mountain top, appreciating the sea-side view and hurting his ankles a little, as he swung his legs up and forth at the edge of the terrace.

In truth, Jacks’ dragon king form wouldn’t be able to fit in this terrace. Even a regular Ancient Red Dragon like Elicia would feel it to be quite difficult, as she would feel the ceiling to be too close to her head.

In the whole of the mountains’ architecture, it was most of a ventilation hole than a sightseeing spot, just like the other few which existed nearing the mountain top. But it was a huge terrace in human terms, nonetheless.

*sigh*

[- I wonder…]

Jack conjured a small flame on his hand, and then changed the spell to conjure a small familiar instead.

The fire salamander was a rather cute elemental, with its big, round black eyes looking full of curiosity at the world around. Just like a puppy or a newborn baby.

Recently, the intelligence and presence of these small NPCs’ had been becoming stronger and stronger. In fact, Jack could faintly see a players’ User Interface behind the salamander, were him to open his ‘Heavenly Gaze’ and see it by looking at the Interface Code level of Shabens’ Will.

Yep. People had nominated the ability to access levels deeper than ones’ own User Interface as “Heavenly Gaze”. Were they forgetting that they were in a game or something?

Or were they?

After all, this tiny NPC walking around the terrace had life and a mind of its own. It was the result of either someone who entered the game without an Avatar or someone who died at it.

In a certain sense, knowing that gave Jack a little bit of comfort. That meant no one would disappear, even if they died.

On another, it meant that people would be stuck inside Another World, even after death.

A morbid thought, but one that Jack was quite in the mood to contemplate.

Indeed, it was because of this question that he and Elicia had such a bad exchanging or words earlier.

It happened that an inconsolable group of players came to the Dungeon to ask Elicia about what the NPCs were and what was happening, and she finally decided to give it a look.

She had been way too busy to go on investigating weird NPC behavior, while Jack just… well, to put it simply, he used to fell watching TV to be a hustle, because it gave him too many emotions to fell.

In the end, the discovery made both her and the party to become slack-jawed, while Jack felt quite guilty about killing his dear squirrel wife.

What followed were a couple weeks of deep moral hangover, followed by the realization that the squirrel wife he had was just an NPC in the end. It had received a players’ mind on its brain, so it would be able to grow and show new behavior, but it was still hard-wired as a weird NPC.

If she hadn’t had time to grow its own personality, it wasn’t such a big loss, right?

She could just find other NPC brain to attach itself on, right?

In the end, Elicia tried to remain composed and help him remain calm and composed as well. However, keeping a positive outlook on life and trying to cheer someone up for two weeks had its tool on her, so, in the end, just as Jack got out of his moral existentialism crisis, she then fell on one herself.

Jack sighed once again and got up.

[ - I can do it.]

He took a few big breaths and transformed back to his hummingbird form. Human forms were the best to deal with strong emotions, but he was running out of metaphorical juice already. He would have to sleep deeply very soon.

The least he could do before doing so was to get near his wife and take a few hits from her. As long as he was able to remain at least a little bit positive and remember all she said was something she, indeed, thought, but not the entirety of her feelings for him, he would be able to recover from it.

Didn’t he hate her a little bit as well? Didn’t he pondered how would it be to get with other girls or ditch her a few times as well?

None of them were serious, and while he was depressive he would think and say a lot of bullshit. Then, after thinking deeper about what he said and receiving Elicia’s forgiveness, he wouldn’t fall on that pit again.

Things were simple like that. As long as he managed to endure the pain and be comprehensive, she would actually fell grateful and eventually would come to accept him deeper on her own heart.

Taking these hits was the way to remain married!

Steeling himself, he prepared to dive deeper on the mountain, but, at the last moment, looked at the young fire salamander on the terrace.

The small thing looked at him with its moist eyes, as if asking curiously “hey, are we going to do something fun?”.

He gave a small hummingbird smile.

“[Permanence]”

The elemental salamander then became a permanent existence, detached from him except from the bond of master and pet.

It soon found itself a crevice on the walls were to hide from the cold, precisely near one of the still hot-to-the-touch internal layers of the mountain.

This way, a hummingbird planted the seed of compassion on a crevice of the needle-mountain of hell.