“Goddammit, he was right there! Literally there, and I missed it,” whines Franky.

“Technically, you didn’t actually miss it,” Aodean counters with a smile and a sip of his beer. It’s a fine brew. While the brewers of this world didn’t have the same variety of craft beers and brands Earth had, they made up for it with exotic ingredients and pure skill. It’s a lot harder to care about your favorite type when they’re all so… perfect. The sight of the smug Australian cheerfully appreciating his drink is more than enough to irritate the still hungover Franky.

Worse even, Aodean knows just how much he is getting on Franky’s nerves.

“It’s not the same,” Franky argues. He folds his arms and angrily leans back into the comfortable seating of the carriage.

“Stop moving!” Sarena admonishes him.

“Sorry,” Franky says.

Sarena continues wiping Franky’s cheek, doing her best to remove the phallus scrawled over his face. Thanks to her efforts, it’s been smudged and cleaned enough that it no longer looks like a well-detailed, hairy penis.

Instead, it looks like a Rorschach blob in the shape of a dick.

Quasi, as he was on Earth, isn’t one for doing things cheaply. The man threw around money like a five year-old at a birthday party. No, that man wouldn’t write with just any kind of ink. No! It had to be ink hand-squeezed from a kraken by a legendary oceanographer.

This is to say the ink won’t come off without more effort than should have been necessary.

“But, yeah, it’s not the same. I want to see him. To talk with him. He’s my friend,” Franky says.

Aodean shakes his head. “Well, I sure as shit want to meet him too.” He takes another sip. “I’ll keep an eye out, but I think your best shot at finding the bloke would be through the Gentlemen’s guild.”

Franky groans. He had tried, but the guild was very tight-lipped about their members, of which Quasi is, apparently, one.

“Maybe he has his reasons,” Jessa chimes in.

“Maybe,” Frankly grumbles.

Aodean leans to the side and grabs a half-empty wine glass and pours himself some of the burgundy-colored liquid. “Well, whatever his reasons, we’ll probably see him again. In the meantime…”

Aodean tilts back his head and downs half the glass in a single swallow. “What are you up to? I know you’re training, but what else?”

Franky shrugs. “Well, that’s about it. I’m going to train, get stronger, and then help people.”

The [Prime Minister] rolls his eyes. “You’ve got to be taking the piss.”

“What?”

“You bloody well heard me. Your plan to help the world is ‘Get Stronk’? Seriously? You’re in a fucking fantasy world and that’s all you can think of?” The [Prime Minister] shakes his head before finishing his drink. He looks at the elf woman cleaning Franky’s face. “And the pisser is, it seems to be working. Got a sister?”

“You’re fucking pathetic, you sleazy, drunk, shit-stain!” Jessa calls out to the surprise of everyone in the carriage.

Aodean giggles at the insult, practically enjoying it. It reminds him of his cousins. He smiles. Good times.

“What I’m saying is that just becoming stronger is like kicking cans down the road. It’s a problem for future you. ‘Oh, look at that fuck-off big problem! That really fucking sucks! Ah, well, I’m too weak. I’ll do it when I’m stronger.’ Just do it now, you lazy bugger!”

“It’s finally off!” Sarena exclaims as she removes the rag from his face.

“Thanks,” Franky says and gives her a kiss. Her pale skin flushes slightly but her expression stays neutral. He turns back to Aodean.

“I want to help people,” Franky clasps his hands, ”If you have better ideas, then let me hear them.”

Aodean smiles and leans forward. “Ever considered starting a guild?”

______________________________________________________________________

“Look Aiden, life isn’t so simple. It’s not black and white.” I tell the young man, who takes every word I say seriously. Honestly, this kind of talk would be really bad if I actually was my physical age. A mid-twenties guy guiding a younger man through life is a recipe for disaster. Twenty-five years of life experience does not to sagacity equate.

Thankfully, everything that comes out of my mouth is laced with wisdom gleaned through millenia.

“Evil and good is a false dichotomy, really it’s all just so much poop. Some of it is black and tarry with blood while other piles are pale from liver malfunction; sometimes it’s runny from bad soup, occasionally it’s hard as brick, it may even glow if you ate the wrong mushroom, but all told, most of it is brown. We’re all full of mostly brown poo.”

Aiden scratches his head in confusion and points to the person next to me. “So he’s brown poop?”

I glance at the [Grand Necromancer] peacefully sleeping with ropes around his body and a gag in his mouth.

“Absolutely. He’s as brown as it gets.”

Shina groans, annoyed. “I- Poop? You’re going to let him live because of poop? That made no-”

“I get it!” Aiden screams, startling everyone in the carriage.

“When I poop, it’s usually brown. But sometimes, I see black hard parts or blotches of green, especially when my mom cooks a lot of veggies.” He points at the unconscious man. “That means he isn’t all bad. Maybe he is even good.”

Everyone goes silent as Aiden touches his lip, deep in thought.

“I mean, he didn’t kill anyone, did he? He did threaten people, but,” he frowns and looks at Shina, “should he really die?”

The question is asked and I can’t help but have a shit-eating grin on my face. Thankfully, the mask prevents the intrepid band of adventurers from seeing my face, but Jessica can see through it. She is both bewildered and annoyed.

“No,” Brando interrupts.

Shina is taken aback by the unexpected answer. “Really? You lost an arm from the fight yesterday,” she questions him.

Brando waves his hairless arm. “It’s fine, I grew a new one.”

The leader of the Flame Spitters sighs into her hands. “I don’t like this. He’s dangerous! We shouldn’t let him live,” she twists her head, “Elly, what do you think?”

Elly, hearing her name, escapes her trance while she holds her bow close to her chest like a mother holds a newborn baby. ”Huh? Did you say something?”

“Elly, this is serious!”

Elly blinks quickly. She is confused.

“What is?”

Shina sighs. “I’m asking about whether we should execute the [Necromancer].”

“His name is Abernick,” I interject.

“How do you even know that? Actually, no, nevermind.” Shina looks at Elly. “What do you think?”

Elly looks at her friend Shina, then the bow, then me.

“Whatever Bone thinks is best.”

“Elly!” Shina yells and the [Flame Archer] winces.

“Don’t you have a mind of your own? I’m asking what you think, not what he thinks!”

“But… the bow…” she whines like a child.

“Look at it!” she exclaims as she pushes it forward.

Immediately, the light around them flickers and dims as malevolent fire ignites the cams at the ends of the bow. The green-black flame races across the strings, joining the ends of the composite, compound bow in a weave of hellfire. The center of the bow, carved from the crystal cannibalized from Abernick’s staff, glitters menacingly and casts a green dot on the far wall of the carriage.

“Instead of fixing my bow, he made a better one! A [Very Rare] one!”

Right, Very Rare… yeah. It’s a good thing they don’t have [Identify] or [Advanced Analyze].

[Compound Bow of Demonic Hellfire] [Legendary]

Created and enchanted by a [Grand Anarcho-Artificer] using the remains of the [Grand Hellfire Archdemon] Garashist. This bow is capable of firing a [Hellfire Meteor] in the form of an arrow.

-[5/5] Arrows

-Regenerate 1 arrow every 60 seconds

[Laser Sight]: At will, activate the crystal to turn on a green laser sight.

[Hellfire Torrent]: Fire an arrow into the sky to activate this skill. Cooldown: 7 days.

Or that they did not accidentally use its spell. Like, fuck, that thing is borderline [Divine]. Maybe I shouldn’t have used Garashist’s corpse.

Wait, wouldn’t Shina enhance the spells of the bow? What the fuck would the spells upgrade to? What the fuck is stronger than a [Hellfire Torrent]?

Fuck me, I’ve kicked off armegeddon.

Elly pulls the bow back into her embrace and chuckles like a dirty old man while she strokes her bow.

Yup, and here’s the antichrist.

“Look, relax. It’s fine.“ I tap Abernick. “I have everything absolutely under control.”

The [Necromancer] in question chooses this moment to wake up, and boy is he violent about it.

With the gag in place, Abernick attempts to scream, but finds himself unable. He tries to move, but can only wiggle violently enough that he falls off the seat onto the carriage floor.

“Mrph! Mrphmmmphmmrmmphmmmm.”

All eyes gaze at Abernick as he tries to speak while doing the worm.

I lean down and pull the gag from his mouth.

“-are they!? No strands. Voices! Gone! Why can-mrph phr phrmmmm.”

I shove the gag back into his mouth as he continues his tirade.

“Huh,” I say curiously, before pulling the gag back out.

“-horrors of the world, I swear-”

I put it back again and then take it out. I do it a few more times for good measure.

“-engeance the likes you-”

“-Destroy the very bou-”

“Stop gagging me you imbe-”

“I will re-”

“-onstr-”

“-de-”

I lean away while leaving the gag on him while he struggles.

I silently cross one leg over the other and look at my audience.

“Right, what were we talking about again?”

__________________________________________________

Ferris rides out of the village of Elmherst, his two horses pulling the carriage with ease, even with the new passenger.

Truly, Ferris can safely say that this trip was the most entertaining one he’s been on in a long time. Never has he seen something so truly ridiculous. He’s sure once he tells the [Bards] the story, the tale will be retold across all the taverns in Camelot.

He flicks his reins and chuckles as he listens to the conversation inside. Apparently, the passenger had awakened, and it seems Bone is having a decent bit of fun.

He shakes his head, but the smile is plastered hard on his face.

A story to tell that most won’t believe.

But not for long, because the proof exists.

His eyes shift to the forest before rising far above the treeline. Towering over it, an undead stands firm like a mountain given human form. It is unmoving, but Bone had left it in a curious pose. “To send a message,” he had said

It was such an odd position that Ferris, in all his years, had never seen before. What even was it?

So, he had asked Bone, to which he had replied,

“Dabbing.”