“Richard...”

“Huh...” I groaned annoyed when i heard someone calling my name, only to fall back into stupor again as my head met with the desk a second time. Or third. Or fourth. I couldn’t really recall how many times I had fallen asleep today.

“Richard. Class is over.” The voice echoed.

I processed the meaning of the words before finally raising my eyes up towards the source of the voice. The old, slightly overweight teacher was looking at me with an awkward expression. I looked around and noticed that I was the only student left in the classroom.

“I’m used to you not exactly paying attention to class, but downright sleeping is brand new.” He commented.

“…Huhh… Sorry?” I said awkwardly while stifling a long yawn. “Didn’t have a good night sleep today…” I muttered while recalling the wonderful time tied to the mast. Sometime before I logged out Arcus had been freed from the mast so I had to stay alone while Yuu and the rest slept soundly in the real world. Me? I was stuck in a freaking mast in the most uncomfortable way possible. And I couldn’t even move my feet or head because Aura, Rio and Pebblesworth were sleeping on me.

“Well, anyway, class is over, so you can go home to sleep now.” He told me. “And I need you to leave if I want to lock the classroom, so it’s a win-win situation for us.”

“Huuh, yeah. Sorry.” I said awkwardly while making the motion to store my notebook, only to notice that I hadn’t even opened it for the class. I changed it to look like I was checking my backpack before standing up and yawning my way out of the classroom.

The teacher stayed behind for some time so he could lock the door, so I made my way out while trying to keep myself standing straight. Today Yuu hadn’t come with me since the class was a lot more of raw math than programming, and I’d need to, first, translate everything for her, and second, try to explain the more basic parts of the equations that she might not have learned previously.

That, and I kind of guessed I wouldn’t be in the best presence of mind to explain the things to her, seeing how I only had slept from around six in the morning until eleven, so not much I could do there.

As soon as I stepped outside, I could hear my cellphone complaining in my pocket. Having already foreseen something of the sorts, I reached back to the side-pockets of my backpack and fished out the earphones from it. After a few seconds of stumbling with the plug, I finally managed to set it up and brought it to my ear.

“Hello and thanks for calling…” Stopping for another yawn. “…Thanks for calling Wargon’s Workshop. We are currently closed, so please call again later.”

“Yeah, try again. I’m pretty much your secretary and I know better than you do when Gon’s workshop is open.” Cyg shot me back. “Anyway, what happened? You haven’t even replied to the messages. What happened?”

“Message?” I frowned slightly while trying to recall if I had received anything like that. “Well, it probably arrived either when I was napping or sleeping.”

“…I just checked, but neither of those are supposed to be done in class.” Cyg said coldly.

“That’s what the popular media wants you to think. School is the third best place to sleep. First is sofa, second is bed.” I said with a proud nod before yawning.

“Sure… Anyway, Yuu wanted to know what time you’d arrive home and if you’d want to eat something by the time you got back.” For a moment I stopped while processing her words, then finally nodded.

“That sounds like a tempting, delicious and cheap idea.” I said amused while feeling my stomach grumble. Usually I’d go for a snack at the college’s canteen at this time, but a Yuu-made snack sounds like a great idea. “But I guess that it’s a bit late for that.” I laughed awkwardly. I think it might be a bit late for me to ask for something when I’m already on my way home.

“…I’d try to tell that to Yuu, but she already logged off.” Cyg commented awkwardly.

I let out an amused laugh before starting to make my way out of the college. Apparently, Yuu had forgotten to take her cellphone with her to the kitchen, so Cyg was unable to contact her outside of the game.

Wondering what exactly Yuu would do for a late afternoon snack, I left college while looking around for PH and Jean to complain to them for not waking me up. It took me a few minutes to recall that we didn’t take this course together. It took me a little less to notice that even if that was the case they’d still leave me sleeping.

Having some idle-chat with Cygnas while walking, It took me a bit more than ten minutes to reach home at my sleepy pace, and soon enough I was already on the elevator home.

“I hast returneded.” I said while opening the door to my apartment and walking in.

“Ah. Ri-kun.” I heard Yuu calling out to me from the kitchen.

“Oh my. Yuu. What a surprise.” I said in a fake surprised tone. I passed by the sofa to leave my backpack before turning back towards the kitchen.

“Since you didn’t warn me earlier, I had to make something simpler.” She said disappointed while looking back to the counter.

“Hmm… Why do I have this feeling that my definition of simple and yours are different?” I said while following her gaze. True enough, laying on the counter was something that I could call nothing but fancy.

A pair of bowls that I was pretty sure I didn’t have in my house were standing on the top of the counter, some cooking utensils, as well as a honey jar and a few other containers that I wasn’t quite familiar with.

“I smell Glucose.” I said while taking in the sweet smelling aroma that emanated from the bowls.

“Mother usually said that sugar is good for when you have mental fatigue.” Yuu said in a proud but tone while turning back and picking up the bowls. “I didn’t have much, but I did this one snack that I learned in… Anoo.” She stopped for a moment to think. “Cooking class? Iye… Muu...” She then mumbled some words in Japanese while in deep thought.

“Cooking class?” I blinked trying to think. “Home EC?”

“Hmm! That!” She nodded. “It’s a snack that uses fruits, honey and…” She blanked out again. “…Remembering the name of proper nouns can be difficult if you don’t use them regularly.” She complained. I couldn’t help but laugh at her pouting expression as she tried to recall the word.

“I know the feeling.” I looked at the bowls and at the surprisingly tasty looking fruit-salad on the bowls, taking in the smell I recognized the ingredient that she was talking about. Though the English name also escaped me.

“Cinnabar?” I asked while tilting my head. “Sounds about right.” Let’s just ignore the red alert that has been blaring on my head at the word.

Besides, I doubt that whatever it was, it would be any sweeter than Yuu herself. While thinking that, I couldn’t help but pat her head a little bit. She didn’t understand the reason, but soon made a satisfied expression anyway. Yeah, sweets really helps one relax.

“So, what happened while I was offline?” I asked while taking one of the portions and heading to the table.

“Hmm… Argento-san contacted us and said that he managed to get into a ship. Apparently the undines became calmer a bit after we set sail.” Yuu said while recalling the happenings.

“Huh. I wonder if it have a relation to Baltamur.” I muttered curious, and Yuu nodded in agreement.

“I also wondered about that. We told him what had happened and he then told Wich-dono.” Yuu explained while taking a spoonful of her bowl.

“Hmm. Yeah, even if it’s only an idea, there’s still the fact that it’s not the first time it happened, so having a theory is better than nothing.” I thought it over. I do recall Hanbei mentioning that something like that happened in the past, and if we take into account that Baltamur is really ancient, it wouldn’t be odd for him to be the cause of the previous unrest. “Did we get a reaction from Wich?”

“Wich-dono didn’t seem to recall anything, but Sam-Dono Apparently mentioned hearing of Baltamur in a book before.” Yuu explained. I widened my eyes surprised. With how scarce the info on Baltamur was, I was half expecting for the answer to be that there was nothing. “We asked for him to see if he could find the book again for him to lend you when we went back.”

“Oh, that’d be helpful.” I nodded while recalling back to that skill that allowed me to return to the house I got. “Speaking of the house, did we get any news on the repairs?”

“Hmm. I forgot to ask them.” Yuu commented disappointed.

“I could do that.” Cyg suddenly chimed in from my phone. We turned our attention to her, only to see her holding a bowl herself behind the screen.

“…Jealous much?”

“…Not really.” She complained while looking away.

“I’ll make some for you when we log in again.” Yuu added in with an awkward tone. Cygnas pretend to not care, but we could clearly see her eyes peeking over towards us.

“Anyway, how would you do that?” I asked curious.

“Pet being transported to the house when the owner is offline. Remember that?” She told me in an obvious tone. It took me a moment to recall that was, indeed, a thing she mentioned about the house. “Actually, Aura should already be over there, I could just ask her.”

“Is she?” I asked surprised. Now that I thought about it, Aura haven’t really been leaving the game too much despite the whole preparations that she underwent with Cygnas.

“Hmm.” Cygnas nodded. “I’m not entirely sure what she is doing, but if I had to guess, she should be marking the territory.”

“Huh…” I exclaimed surprised. “It’s kind of rare for her to do something so animal-like.” I commented while recalling back to her actions since I tamed her.

“Hmm. Is she doing that to keep monsters away from the house?” Yuu asked curious.

“Should be.” Cygnas nodded. “Even though she doesn’t have the same stats she had as a boss, she is still a freezing tail. Not many monsters would dare to challenge her. And even if they did, thanks to a certain someone’s influence, even if a monster stronger than her would show up, she should be able to keep them away with some ease.” Why was she looking at me? It’s clear that lieutenant’s the one to blame for that.

“But would that even work? I mean, doesn’t territory marking works only for animals of the same kind?” I asked confused.

“Not exactly. It’s actually used for animals of similar standing to warn each other off.” Cygnas explained. “Of course, that doesn’t work for all match ups, and most of the time it is mostly towards their own kind. True.”

“Huh. The more you know.” I said amused. “How would she even do that, though? Smell?”

“Hmm… maybe magic?” Yuu suddenly said. “I mean, Aura is a magic fox, right? It would make sense for her to also use it.”

“Hmm... True enough.” I nodded. “…Thinking about it, I don’t know much about Aura and the other color slash elemental tails natural ecology.” I commented.

“…I can’t really tell you since that’s outside of Crys’ knowledge.” She told me apologetically.

“Don’t worry. That was mostly me thinking out loud.” I shrugged off her worry before taking another spoonful of the treat Yuu made. Tasty. “What about Yuu you?” … Ermm… “You Yuu.” She giggled and Crys sighed with an amused expression. “You were going to mess around with talismans, weren’t you?”

“Hmm.” Yuu nodded. “I got the skill up to level 3 earlier today while testing some things. As you said, I can do a lot more with talismans than just… Ano… Exorcism? Most of the talismans I made were weak magic spells, such as fire ball and ice spike. But they didn’t use my mana and I wasn’t limited by my elements affinity.”

“Hmm.” I nodded and went for another spoonful of the treat, only to hear the sound of the spoon clinking on the empty bowl. I pouted since I was quite enjoying the sweet taste, but it looks like Yuu hadn’t made any more. I stood up and noticed that Yuu had also finished her own snack. She made a motion towards picking up the bowls to wash them, but I stole her bowl away and took them to the sink myself.

“Ah…” She let out a surprised gasp, but didn’t try to pursue any further once I started washing the dishes.

“So… Do you have to use kanji for talismans?” I asked her to distract her pout for a bit. “That would be kind of limiting for non-japanese players I reckon.”

“Ah, no.” Yuu shook her head. “When I got the skill, it gave me the option to assign symbols for each of the effects I wanted.” She explained. “Then, all I had to do was use them on the talismans.”

“Hmm… That’s really different from crystal tinkering.” I commented amused. “I guess you get more symbols you can assign as you level up?” Yuu nodded.

“On level three I got the ‘if’ symbol.”

“…Did it just turn into programming?” I grimaced.

“Hmm. Not all crafting systems are similar.” Cyg explained. “Some are more free-form, like your crystal tinkering. Others are more systematic, like talisman making and magic engineering.” I flinched at the word engineering. “Then, there’s all the stuff that falls in between, like normal blacksmithing.”

“…Normal…?” I asked confused.

“Don’t worry. You wouldn’t get it.”

Cyg said in a smug tone while Yuu giggled amused. I stared at the two confused for some time before shrugging. Stiffling a yawn, I focused on finishing my job before going for a nap.

Hmm… Taking a nap on Aura’s fluffy fur sounds like a great idea right about now. While feeling satisfied by the idea, I tried to bring out a bit more of a conversation before I fell asleep.

“What about the others?”

“Hmm… Mary was chatting with the sailors, but she said she was planning on leveling up her crafting skill too.” Yuu mentioned, causing me to raise an eyebrow while trying to recall what her craft was. “Maya was training her hiding skills if I recall.”

“Does she even have a crafting skill?” I asked curious.

“…I… Do not know.” Yuu said slightly disappointed.

“…You don’t really need to sound disappointed because of that, you know?” I told her awkwardly. “Anyway, almost done here. You can go logging in for now if you want.” I told her, she thought for a bit before nodding.

“Ah! Ojii-sama will log in later. He left for a jog.” She told me before starting to leave the house. “See you later Ri-Kun.” She told me with a shy smile before walking away from my apartment.

“…You do know you have a really silly grin on your face right now, don’t you?” Cygnas commented after a moment.

“No I don…” I started complaining, only to notice that I was still washing the dishes and the cellphone was firmly placed on the table, so there was no way for her to see me.

“I don’t need visual to know you have a silly smile right now.” She taunted to me. “Whenever Yuu does something for you, you get really happy.”

“…I’m currently searching my memory for rebuttals, but I sadly cannot say anything.” I pouted. “I also do not need visual contact to know you have a very smug smile on your face.”

“Indeed I do.”

Okay. She’s getting window-balled first thing on log on.

…

As I laid there, blankly staring at the empty sky before me, I felt a familiar presence suddenly appear near me, following by hurried, but quiet footsteps. Soon enough, a black nose in the end of a blue furry muzzle appeared before my sight.

Soon after, Aura started poking my forehead worriedly.

“Hello Aura.” I said while reaching my hand over my head and petting her from a slightly awkward position. She looked down at me worriedly, so I just gave her a small smile. “I’m fine.” I used my free hand to point somewhere ahead. “On the other hand, Cyg was mean to me, so scold her!”

Aura blinked surprised following her raising her eyes towards Cygnas, who was still floating there with a smug expression and throwing a windowball up and down. It took a moment for the fox to understand what happened. Then, she turned to me and bopped my forehead with her nose disapprovingly.

“Hey! It was her who started it!” I complained. “And she cheated!” Aura just stared at me blankly, greatly injuring my fragile heart by her lack of trust.

“Well, to be honest, I WAS the one who started it this time.” Cygnas suddenly said, much to my and Aura’s surprise. “But I didn’t cheat.”

“I call BS!” I shoute while sitting up furiously. “There’s no way 30 against 1 is not cheating!”

“Technically, they were all me, so it was still one versus one.” She argued back.

“You AMBUSHED me!”

“And you did that to me before.”

Ughh…

“Curse you and your super AI-enabled arguments!” I said while pointing at her incriminatingly.

“That wasn’t even that complex of an argument, Gon.”

I heard a sigh coming from Aura, but I just ignored it as I turned to her and dove my face into her fluffy mane to recover from the mental damage. I felt the fox flinch for a moment before she finally relaxed and started wagging her tail cheerfully.

“Well, window-ball payback aside, aren’t you going to finish logging in?” Cygnas asked me, and after a moment of thought, I nodded. Somehow managing to fiddle with the menu while still filling my fluffy meters, I felt a brief moment of weightlessness as I was transported back into the game, and when the salty air hit my face, I knew I was back on the ship.

“Woah!” I heard a male voice echoing surprised nearby. “Geez, I’ll never get used to these chosen appearing out of nowhere.” He complained before I heard the footsteps walking around me and Aura.

I grumbled in annoyance for a moment before finally standing up and letting out a loud yawn. Taking on the view around me, I noticed that I was near the front of the ship, the same place where I had logged off earlier, while Yuu and Rival were chatting somewhere down the rear of the ship.

It didn’t seem like they had noticed me, so I decided to make my way to them so I could greet the two, but before I could even take the first step, I was dive-bombed by a flying pebble to the face.

“…Ouch.” I mumbled when I felt my head hitting the deck of the ship as a rock scorpion happily ‘tek-teked’ on my face. “…Did you grow?” I asked curious while grabbing pebblesworth by the tail and pulling him back. I could swear he was two-or so centimeters smaller.

“Te-Tek?” Pebblesworth titled its head confused, but soon stopped thinking too much about it and summoned the blue scarf it had been knitting out of his inventory and took advantage of his position to throw it around my head. “Tek-Te!” He said satisfied.

For a moment I just stared at him blankly, but finally I smiled awkwardly while putting the little elemental on my shoulder.

“Thanks lil’ buddy.” I told him while petting his head. It let out some satisfied teks. Then he suddenly pulled out another set of strings and went back to knitting on my shoulder. I raised an eyebrow confused, but didn’t bother thinking too much about it before setting off.

Out of curiosity I inspected the scarf as I walked. I raised an eyebrow surprised for a moment.

Sprite’s Favor

(requires a friendly miner’s sprite)

Def: 0 M. Res: 0 Quality: Good Durability: Infinite Description

A scarf made by and from a friendly miner’s sprite. Woven with surprising care and expertise. It does well to protect from the cold and allows you to more easily find the veins you seek.

While wearing this scarf, you gain the following skills:

[Cold resistance]

[Detect mining Veins]

“Neat…” I muttered amused.

“What is it, Shishou?” I heard Yuu’s voice from nearby. I raised my sight out of the window and noticed that I had already reached both Yuu and Ashley, who reacted with curiosity and annoyance at my muttering.

“Hmm, just checking the scarf Pebblesworth made for me.” I said while raising my scarf and showing it to them. “It have both cold resistance and Something about detecting mining veins. Doesn’t really have defense though.”

“Heeeh.” Yuu muttered surprised.

“Yeah. Anyway, no need for you to try and leave in silence.” I said while turning towards Ashley who was trying to sneak away. “I’m really sleepy, so I just came to warn that I planned on napping in the cabin.”

“...Huh?” Ashley let out a silly sounding mutter.

“Hmm. Have a good nap then, Shishou.” Yuu told me cheerfully.

“…That’s it? Really? No attempt at annoying me nor anything?” Ashley asked confused.

“Too sleepy for that.” I waved away her hidden desires and moved towards the place we were assigned. Greeting Cherrygrove on my way down, I barely managed to enter the cabin without falling asleep before using Aura as a pillow.

The fluffiest of pillows.