“DONE! FINALLY TIS BE DONE!”

Falling back on my chair and feeling as it slid back from the impact, I heaved a relieved sigh while looking at the text screen before me. A long and surprisingly not that messy line of codes was taunting me with its white in black coloration.

Well, I must admit that this program was a bit more trouble than I expected. Giving a quick look to the clock on the bottom of the screen, I saw it marking around eight thirty in the night. Which means I spent the last three to four hours sitting here in front of my not-so-used anymore computer making this damn thing.

Sadly, this isn’t an in-game four hours, but actual world four hours, which pretty much means that I lost a whopping twelve in-hour game time. Since the program I had to use was installed in my computer and there was the chance of Cyg dealing with some legal stuff if she illegally ported it to the D-lute OS, I was left with no choice but do it in real life.

Well, not that it matters that much since I was logging off anyway. Still…

“Hmm? Are you done?” A certain goddess’ voice came from the speakers with a slightly surprised tone.

“Yeah. Took me long enough.” I said while stretching myself and looking at the other, smaller screen besides the one I had been working in. There was a paused screen of 3 campaign’s with a chibi animated version of Cygnas standing contrastingly before it.

She had asked for permission to fool around in my computer while I did my project, even offering to help me in case I needed it. I would say that I hesitated to let Cyg in my computer, but then I’d be lying through my teeth. I was so damn desperate to start working on this program that I didn’t even think twice before plugging my cellphone in.

Well, on the other hand, as far as I know, there’s not really anything I could do if she decided to hack her way in, so I guess it doesn’t make that much difference?

Oh yeah, fun fact. If she limits her processing power to something roughly around a normal human, Cyg is actually surprisingly bad with strategy games. While she was fooling around with her account (she noticed I had the game installed thanks to a desktop shortcut, bought the license with her own pocket money and started playing it in my computer. Let’s not ask why an AI has pocket money.) and started playing the game on the second screen. Kind of cute seeing her wander around the screen and dictating orders to the NPCs instead of using a mouse.

Well, she did limit the graphic settings a bit and the program I was using is nowhere near that heavy, so it didn’t bother me too much. She also said something about using her mainframe for cloud computing to reduce the burden on the CPU too.

It might have been a bit overboard for playing a game, but oh well. Who am I to say anything?

I watched amused as Chibi-Cyg paused the game and peeked over the edge of the screen and into my own. She spent a brief moment looking over the program before smiling and nodding.

“Good job!” She said while clapping her hands. “Want me to go over it and see if I find anything wrong?” She offered.

“Hmm… Nah. That would be too much cheating. Having an AI look over my programming homework doesn’t really sounds like something my teacher would allow.” That, and the fact that if she DID find something, I’d have to go over and fix it… Yeah, let’s not mention that.

“Well, if you say so.” She shrugged.

“Well, now that this damned thing is over, I’m going to see if I find something to eat.” I said while kicking back the chair and stretching myself a bit. “Want me to leave the computer on?” She blinked surprised before nodding shyly.

“If it wouldn’t be a bother… I really want to finish this mission.” She said in a voice that was barely recognized by the loud speakers.

“Meh. Wouldn’t be the first time I leave it on for the night.” I shrugged. Compared to what she can do, I guess a favor like this isn’t something that I can really deny. “So, do I need to leave the phone connected or…”

“Only if you don’t want me to install an access door on your computer.” She explained quickly. “That said, even if I did that, I’d need to find another way to talk to you, since I’m using the phone’s speaker to register your voice.”

“Hmm. I guess we can do something about it later.” I said with a shrug. “Install the access door or whatever.” I keep saying that I wouldn’t let her get too pompous, but can’t help but pamper her a bit, huh? Well, can’t deny that its amusing to have her around.

“Ah… Yes!” She said with a wide smile before pulling out a small toolbox out of nowhere and put a worker’s hat. “I’ll get it done in a moment!” She said before summoning a pair of metal doors on my desktop and passing through them. A light popped up above it written: ‘Work in progress’ as the sound of hammers, saws and welding torch echoed. Four seconds later she came back and the door dissolved into bits as she smiled widely. “It’s done!” She said excitedly.

“That was fast.” I said surprised while approaching the screen and raising an eyebrow.

“Well, to be honest, I did over-exaggerate there with the animation.” She said while looking away embarrassed. “All I had to do was change some things here and there in the config files. It’s actually a basic option from the OS. Just had to add me to the whitelist.”

“I see. Well then, pulling off the cellphone because it’s time for me to grab some eats.” I said while saving the project on a pen-drive and then unplugging my cellphone.

“Hmm. See you later!” Cyg waved me goodbye before going back to her screen. “And now, prepare to face my wrath, you Zergling scum!” She said in an evil voice before laughing evilly.

Yeah… I might be a bad influence on her. I thought awkwardly while putting on my jacket and going to call the girls and Kotetsu for a nightly snack.

…

A loud song echoed in my bedroom, waking me up from my slumber as I absentmindedly extended my arm towards the usual place where I left my cellphone and quickly swept it over to turn off the alarm.

Ahh, my eternal enemy that curses me every morning that I have to wake up early. How I wish that one day I will be able to defeat you before you even arrive to announce your presence. One day I shall survive this torture and avenge myself from thy eternal and repeated torture. And here I would have continued my meaningful inner monologue if it wasn’t for the fact that a long and very intense string of curses in a foreign language came from somewhere nearby.

“…Morning Kotetsu.” I grumbled while pushing myself away from the pillow that I was having a very-close-quarters staring contest.

“Ughhh…” The old man said while sitting up on the. “…What time is it?” He asked groggily.

“Five thirty in the morning.” I replied automatically while sitting up in my own bed and lazily yawning.

“Hell… And here I thought I was the one who woke up too early for my own good.” He scratched his eyes and eyed the window in the bedroom. “Geez, sun’s not even up yet.”

“Yeah. I like waking up early to get ready for class.”

“Ugh… And what hour is this class of yours?”

“Eight fifty.”

Another loud stream of curses followed by a flying pillow echoed as I made the old samurai hate me with all his strength in this morning. He almost literally kicked me out of my room after that, and I took the chance to take a quick shower to wake me up before attending to the grumbling monster in my belly.

Turning on the toaster and scavenging the wasteland I call the fridge for something to have on my early breakfast, I managed to find some creamy cheese and milk. Good enough. While I not-so-patiently waited for my toast to jump up, I felt as my cellphone complained in my pocket.

“Gon. Yuu should be arriving at your door soon.” Cyg said while showing herself in my cellphone. I didn’t miss the fact that she was wearing clothes similar to the protoss armor.

“Okay…?” I said confused while walking to the door. Just as I unlocked it I saw the black-haired easterner approaching in her white sleeping kimono and a pair of slippers. “…So, what’s this about?” I asked confused.

“I asked Cygnas-san to…” She stopped to yawn. “…Warn me when you wake up.”

“Not that I’m complaining about you doing that, and sincerely it leaves me with a very warm and fuzzy feeling… But why would you do that?” I asked confused while resisting the urge to just go and pet her back into sleep.

“Because you said… That you can’t cook… So I will make something for you.” She said with a sweet smile, a halo of light forming behind her and a couple of angels playing their trumpets around us. Truly a saint!

“Yuu.” I said while taking a deep breath and holding her shoulders. This seemed to startle her for a moment as her eyes widened. “…There is no need for such a saintess like you to waste thy time with a lowly being like me.” I said while turning her around and pushing her towards her house.

“F-Fueee? Shis… Ri-kun?” She asked confused.

“It’s clear that you are still sleepy. There’s no need for you to follow this freak who wakes up five thirty in the morning for some classes that he’ll only have at eight fifty.” I said while leaving her before her door. “Just go back to sleep and don’t worry about me. It’s not like I need to cook to fix me some breakfast.”

“Huh? But...” She tried following me back.

“Besides, I’m used to not eating anything till later anyways. Just the fact I’m making toasts is unusual.” I said while waving away her worries. However...

“Toast…?” Yuu tilted her head as if confused for a moment, before finally widening her eyes that began shining. “Ah…”

Before either of us knew it, she was looking upwards to me with shining eyes that were almost pleading me for something. I’m just making a quick guess, but I don’t think she ever had a simple toast before from the way she’s looking at me.

[Yuu has used puppy eyes.]

[It’s super effective.]

[Richard has given in.]

“…I’ll put another one in the toaster for you.” I said in defeat while walking back towards my house.

“Un!” She replied oddly excited at the idea.

“So. What do you plan on doing for today?” I asked her while fishing the two toasts that had popped up while we were talking and put up two new slices of bread in the appliance.

“Hmm?” Yuu looked confused at my sudden question while seemingly having a staring contest with the toast.

“Here. Try spreading this on the toast.” I said while passing her the creamy cheese. “And I asked what will you do today while I’m in class?”

“That’s... Etoo…” Yuu lowered her head as she stopped to think for a moment, probably thinking up her answer. “Probably just stay at home? Ah! And try to play that game Ri-kun taught me about a bit.”

“Hmm. So you don’t really have anything to do, huh?” I said while munching on my toast.

Yuu nodded happily before turning back to the toast and nibbling it. She seemed satisfied with the taste because she gave a small smile while eating it. Deciding to go ahead and finish my own toast, I put another two on the toaster and proceeded to enjoy on my own cheese-smeared goodness.

“Neh. What’s Ri-kun’s class like?” She suddenly asked me.

“Hmm? Today’s or in general?” I asked curious.

“Either one. I’m… A bit curious about how college is.”

“Hmm. I see.” I said with a nod. “If my memory doesn’t fails me, you probably are entering college next year or in the following, right?” I asked her and she nodded. “Well. If I were to say it in a couple of words… Probably a laxer, but harder version of school?”

“Laxer… But harder?” Yuu asked me confused.

“Well, I won’t say it’s the same as in japan, but at least here in Brazil… Rather, at least in my college, it’s how it feels to me.” I took another bite of my toast. “The teachers don’t really demand as much with things such as homework, or even presence. Well, at least some of them. I guess it’s a more related to the individual teacher than school.”

“Heeh.” She said surprised.

“However, tests are a nightmare and projects are usually enormous compared to some things we had to do in school.” I said with a wry smile remembering the project I had to do last year. “Also, at least for my type of course, my classes aren’t always at the same time every day. Today I have class during morning, but tomorrow I only have class in the afternoon, for example.”

“I see.” She looked distracted for a moment as she thought about it. “Sounds interesting. I kind of want to see it now.”

“Hmm. I don’t think It’d be a problem to show you my class if you wanted. It’d be mostly in Portuguese, though.” I said, making her turn to me in surprise.

And that’s how it went. Three hours and some minutes later, we found ourselves at the entrance of my college. Yuu being a bit nervous as the guard on the gate gave a look upon her passport. Meanwhile, I was a lot more at ease with the situation, as I knew that there wouldn’t be any reason for him to block Yuu entrance.

Not even a minute went through before he gave her passport back and smiled while motioning for her to come through. Yuu clumsily thanked him in Portuguese as I have taught her before meekly following me inside.

“See. Told yah. Public property.” I said while guiding her in.

“Hmm. It is still a bit nerve wrecking.” She said while looking back and then storing her passport away in her bag.

“I can guess.” I said before clearing my throat, turning back towards her and opening my arms wide. “Welcome to the college! The most hated place in any student’s life!” I said grandiosely.

“I-It can’t be that bad, can it?” Yuu asked me worried.

“Well. Probably not. I do like to over-state things though.” I shrugged with a smile while Yuu giggled slightly.

Since there were still some minutes before class, I decided to give Yuu a brief tour of the college’s facilities before we had to head into class. I decided to start with the more unusual areas, such as the laboratories and practical classes. That said, I wasn’t exactly the best of the tour guides around seeing how I had no idea what most of the laboratories were about. They either were for later in the course or from another course altogether, so I couldn’t be entirely sure.

While we were walking around, a few teachers recognized me and gave me a brief greeting. I quickly introduced them to Yuu. They became surprised by her coming from so far, but quickly opened up to her.

Seeing Yuu getting flustered over that was a healing scene.

“Speaking of which, Richard… Don’t you have classes to attend?”

…Ah crap. Looking at my wristwatch, I saw that I was already five minutes late to class. Completely lost sense of time.

Dragging Yuu with me, I quickly reached the classroom. Seeing the teacher near the desk on the farther part of the room, I headed straight up to him and explained about Yuu’s situation while passing him the pendrive with the homework.

“So… Can she just stick around for today so she can have an idea of how classes are?” I asked my teacher in Portuguese.

“I don’t mind. Though I don’t think It’ll be productive to the other students if we give the class in Japanese. Not that I know how to speak it, though.” The teacher said half-joking.

“I think I can translate it to her in English… Somewhat.” I said before thanking the teacher and motioning for Yuu to follow me to my usual spot, near the second to last computer on the left-most row.

“Is it alright?” She asked me worried and I nodded.

“Yeah, no worries.” Heck, if I have to translate the class, chances are I might even understand the subject better.

“Yo bastard!” I heard a familiar voice calling me. “Oh? You brought Yuu with you?”

“Yo.” I said while greeting Paul who was sitting beside me. “I decided that It’d be dangerous to leave her alone with the ero-maid, so I brought her with me.” I said in english so that she’d understand. She let out a giggle amused.

“Ah. Hello Paul-san.” Yuu greeted him politely, and he waved at her playfully.

“…Am I missing something around here?” Someone asked in the seat behind Paul’s. I leaned back and smirked at the long black haired man with glasses and a nerdish look him at me and Yuu confused.

“That’s what you get for not showing up in the Yuu-arrival party.” And spending the last one hundred chapters only appearing as a textbox. “Yuu, meet Phantoms, AkA, Jean. The guy who can disappear without a trace in the universe.” I quickly introduced them.

“Ah. It’s nice to meet you, Jean-san.” Yuu said while bowing. I quickly fetched the chair from the nearby machine, the last one in the row and made a motion for her to sit on it. She nodded and sat beside me. “I believe we have talked previously through the chat.”

“Ah… Yes. We did.” My friend replied with an awkward nod. “And you really are Japanese…” He eyed me. “I thought it was just another prank of yours?”

“Jeez man. What a lack of faith. You almost makes it sound like I’m always joking…” I complained while feigning being hurt.

“You are always joking. That’s a fact of life.” Paul said bluntly while shrugging.

“Shut it.” I’d have kicked his shin to make a point, but sadly there was a piece of wood in the middle of the way, so there wasn’t much I could do about it. While PH and I did our usual skit, Yuu and Jean introduced themselves to each other.

“Anyway. Man. We need to meet up.” Jean suddenly said after he turned back to me.

“Huh? Erm… Well met?” I said confused.

“Not what I meant! In game!” He said while shaking his head.

“Oh?” I stopped to think for a moment. “Ah. Let me guess… It’s something to do with the guild announcement that happened some time ago?”

“Yes.” He said with scary smile. “It made me notice that it might be our first chance to actually stay within the top guilds of the game!” He said. “After all, I was level 42 when they reached 50, so we aren’t all that far off!”

“Damn. You already over 40?” I said surprised. “Addicted as always, huh?” I raised an eyebrown taunting him.

“…Man… Don’t tell me…” He stared at me in surprise for a moment before it finally sunk in. he facepalmed as he sighed. “You completely forgot about leveling and went straight into crafting again, didn’t you?”

“Guilty as charged. On the bright side, I do manage to get me some really fancy gear because of it, though.” I gave him a wide smile and a thumbs up.

“Why am I even surprised?” Jean sighed before shaking his head. “Anyway, we still need to meet up to make the guild. I’ve been dungeon diving for some time now and I think I might have gotten a pretty big questline for that.”

“And let me guess…” When he talks about dungeon, chances are… “You need a tank.”

“Yes. Either I get some kind of really slow solo puller who refuses to pull more than one group at a time, then have a ten seconds break before pulling the next, or I get some kind of retard who doesn’t even know that a tank is supposed to take hits for the teams, instead of running away and letting all the aggro fall on the damage dealers, or the tank forgets that he has a health bar and gets himself killed every other pull.” Yup, same complaint as always. “I need someone who actually knows how the hell to tank and not kill the rest of the group into boredom.”

“Muu….” Yuu asked confused, making me notice that we had been talking in Portuguese. I laughed awkwardly and gave her a quick run-down of what we had discussed. “Heeh… Is tanking that difficult?”

“Well, depends on the game. But usually it’s a balance between dealing enough damage so that the monster doesn’t focus on someone else, and managing your defense so that you don’t get one-shotted by their attacks. Besides that, there’s also the issues with positioning and some tank-specific mechanics that pops up in some games.” I told her my personal experiences as the designated tank of the guild.

“I see.” Yuu nodded. I didn’t miss the fact that she looked a bit uncomfortable. If I had to guess, I’d say it was probably because of the attention she was getting, being a foreigner and everything else, since everyone in the class were taking a peek at her.

“Anyway, on some games, tanking is more difficult than just dealing damage, in others, mostly those that are mechanic heavy, I feel that tanking is a lot simpler than being a DPS.” I recalled back to the dungeon we had done last time. “I’d say IO is the second kind.”

“Speaking of which, I’m still counting on you to make my weapons.” Paul said to me. “And I guess Jean here most likely want a healer’s rod?”

“Why do you assume I’d be a healer?” Jean asked annoyed.

“Come on. We both know you are physically incappable of playing anything that’s not a healer.” Paul commented bluntly.

“I literally can’t remember the last MMO you played where you weren’t a healer.” I added in, and he flinched.

“Ughh… Anyway, we still have to meet up to make the guild. I looked it up, and we need at least seven players to make a guild.” He stopped to think for a moment. “We got our usual four, plus Yuu and Hanbei…”

“There’s also my long lost twin sister. She’ll most likely stick with being with Hanbei.” I added in.

“…Long lost twin sister? I’m really missing something in here, aren’t I?” Jean said confused.

“Don’t worry. When you stop being anti-social and appear more you’ll get caught up.” PH said jokingly, and the two of us chuckled.

“Ermm… Ri-kun.” Yuu called me with an awkward tone while fidgeting slightly.

“Hmm? What happened?” I asked a bit confused.

“Class started…” She replied in a low voice while pointing towards the teacher.

“…Ah…” I nodded before laughing awkwardly and turning to the computer. The fact that the teacher was looking at me with an amused expression not exactly helping.

Leave it to model student Yuu to be worried about my classes for me.