#the bit with the slimes from his new episode absolutely made my day | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

worldweaverofmediocrity · 9 months

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Isekai Quartet Reacts ch6

An: I'm using the OVAs for Subtitles of the songs only, because I believe they are non-canon. That and because I don't find the first one funny. If you haven't read the first interlude before this, go back and read it. Also just finished the isekai quartet movie as my new year's celebration (Dec 31 of 2022). And Re zero’s timeline just got a whole lot more complicated. Because they now have season 2 development/powers, and at the end both Otto and Garfiel join the school.

THAT’s excluding the only semi-cannon of Alec Hoshin (Re zero) appearance who made the nation where Anatasia came from and is her namesake. AND the only appearance of Glittering Angel Neko Nyan-san (Overlord) who is the Wind God of the Slane Theocracy. Because his hair is blue and blue is associated with wind in Marumya’s mind. AND Alec dropped even more fuel for the Subaru=Flugel/Emilia=Satella/Repeating World Cycle ala Hinduism Theories.

BECAUSE OF FUCKING COURSE HE DID! WHY CAN’T SUBARU AND EMILIA JUST BE THEMSELVES WITHOUT ALSO BEING A CHARACTER FROM PRE-CALAMITY! …or maybe Tappei is an extreme Legend of Zelda fanboy. But hey, we get solid confidence and character building from Ainz. So everything is a net positive. Overall, I enjoyed it more than Avatar: Way of Water. Also if anyone is decent at buddhism or zen buddhism, plz respond.

>.> don’t know if I’ll go back to rewrite but. I’ve decided that Cocytus lying down is too demeaning to him, so he’s now in an indented seat in the ground, with the floor reaching his chest.

Got a job on March 27 2023, so I now do eight hour work shifts for 3 days of the week. In the meantime, my other fic Isekai Heroes has become the longest running IQ fic clocking in over 10 chapters. I also completed all 22 volumes of Shield Hero for that story, and read more of the Overlord LNs for that. Currently I am in the process of reading the entirety of Overpowered Hero. …finished Overpowered, and wow it got very “Tonight’s Episode: The Author’s Barely Disguised (Public Humiliation) Fetish.”

Also Seiya is not a planet buster like Vegeta. When placed into a distorted world (thanks Goddess of Atrocity) that (he thought) had absolutely no impact on the true world of Geaebrande, he didn’t blow up the planet. So, (so far at least) all mentions of blowing planets up are hyperbole. Like Reinhard cutting/destroying the world and then recreating it as a side effect of Killing the Beast of the End.

As a side effect of having to constantly pause/I watched and rewatched this anime too many times thus none of the jokes are landing and I don’t know where I should have the characters be laughing.

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A series of irrigated grain paddies was shown. Frogs/another farm ambiance animal made their noises. Another bit of farmland was shown near what was presumably Kazuma’s house. A blurry computer screen was shown before Kazuma raised his hand and tugged on his sleeve.

“There we go…” Kazuma said.

The camera zoomed out to look down at Kazuma and his room. Many books/mangas were shown via their spine art from behind Kazuma and his dual monitor computer.

“I normally shut myself in at home, but unusually for me, today I made up my mind to go out.” Kazuma thought while more of his room was shown.

A closer perspective showed that there were game cases mixed in with the presumed manga. In addition next to his computer were two slimes from Dragon Quest, a magical girl, an anthro cat, a dog wearing sunglasses that might have been female judging by the placement of the flower on its head. An anthro pig next to a shank of meat.

“Why do you have those blue slimes?” Seiya asked. “Only Gaebrande has them.”

Kazuma turned to look him in the eye. “How did you miss the genre defining masterpieces known as Dragon Quest? They basically made a lot of the conventions of the Japanese RPG game.”

“That’s what I said!” Ristarte threw up her arms.

Seiya rubbed his nose. “What you said was [Ah, there’s still a Japanese person who doesn’t know what a slime is.], you didn’t name drop anything.”

“So you have heard of Dragon Quest?!” Ristarte twitched her head. “Then how did you not see the slimes, they are basically the poster figures of the Dragon Quest Franchise!”

The chat log scrolled by, unfortunately untranslated. Kazuma zipped up his tracksuit. Kazuma nodded to himself, picked up his backpack, and walked out of his bedroom.

“All to get my hands on the first-run limited edition-” Kazuma closed his door and the scenery changed to a bridge over a small valley. “Of a popular online game that goes on sale today.”

Time passed as we faded from back and to a faucet above a pond or puddle with tadpoles in it. A bus passed to reveal a happy Kazuma clutching the aforementioned game’s cover.

“A five hour round trip! I’m glad I was able to buy it.” Kazuma said.

I believe the main theme music is played with piano notes.

“In store exclusives, officials or not, really are playing dirty.” Kazuma commented, slightly glaring at the game he just brought.

Kazuma squinted as the sun blared its presence to all within its gravity well. “This sunlight is my worst enemy after three straight all-nighters.” Kazuma thought while using his hand to block the sun.

“Are you sure you got the right game? Because you should already be hallucinating by then.” Tanya asked.

“How the hell did your body not cave in at the first excuse for sleep like mine did?” Subaru asked.

“Considering there was a massive line, yes I am sure I got the correct game. The hallucination, you’ll see later. Regarding the sleep thing, sports drinks.” Kazuma answered.

Kazuma turned his back on the sunlight and staggered his way home. A highschool girl was walking towards Kazuma and a Truck was gaining ground.

“Time to get home and play the hell out of this.” Kazuma thought.

The girl was happily walking by looking at her cream-covered smartphone. Kazuma walked past her and moved his eyes to glance back at her.

“A girl from my highschool?” Kazuma asked himself.

“High school?” Raphtalia asked.

“Because of the sheer amount of stuff discovered in the Renaissance and Industrial Eras, we’ve had to group education into various age groups.” Naofumi said. “For Japan schooling starts as young as three years old in the Preschool, where the basic Hiragana script and other basic essentials are taught. From preschool we start with the compulsory and government paid public schools. Unless you are rich enough to afford a private school.

In elementary schools we learn a decent chunk of our knowledge considering it starts when we are 6 years old and goes on for 6 years. Though because it only reaches the titular elementary stuff not many organizations fund elementary level schooling and the government pays for over 90% of them. Then there is the final compulsory school for 3 years called the Junior High School. These are noteworthy because they have even fewer private schools than elementary schools and the fact that all of them require their own uniforms.

High Schools however require exams to enter and tuition for the three years that you are there. But do their best to apply the finishing touches to your education and prepare you to enter college where you can study to become lawyers or merchants and other ‘high society’ type positions.”

Emilia giggled. “That’s what I feel like my current education is.”

“Why do you think I am such a nagger at taking breaks, hm?” Subaru asked, left eyebrow raised.

Emilia bowed to his wisdom.

“The government paid for most of that education?!” Satoru said in his mind. “Perhaps mom wouldn’t have died if the government or corps paid for that.”

Kazuma and the music halted as he saw something offscreen. In the midst of the glaring sunlight, Kazuma saw Truck-Kun barreling through the fields directly towards the highschool girl.

“Look out! That truck’s going to-” Kazuma shouted as he pushed the girl out of the way.

Though Truck-Kun’s true form as a tractor did pass the screen as the camera rapidly filtered between all three members of this accident.

The more prospective members of the theater noticed the change.

“Oh good, he didn’t actually get reaped by Truck-kun.” Tanya thought.

“Why did the trophy for killing over ten thousand human players appear here?” Ainz thought.

Kazuma’s backpack leapt off his back, spilling the game he so desperately wanted. Leaving Kazuma, the girl, and his items hanging in the air in the supposed headlights. The cloudy blue sky was shown.

“Why would I choose now, of all times, to do something so out of character?” Kazuma asked himself.

The game case flipped open dramatically, spilling its contents. A dark purple/brown haired knight figurine, the manual, and the actual CD case all shown in the sunlight. The box had the title of Mrtiad or Myriad (with a sword replacing the r?) Swords II. The CD case fell down to reveal the figurine knight in the front. To the left was a blond haired person wearing a black blindfold and steel-gray armor. To the right was a blond woman wearing golden bikini armor. And behind them all was the stereotypical Old Man Detity.

DVD static played as it faded to white. More DVD screen tearing/static played as Kazuma jerked back into awareness. He was sitting on a red-cushioned chair which was on a very soft/low saturation chess board. Gray mist hung close to the ground, and faint spots of light were shown. Across from Kazuma was a white chair with a white nightstand next to it and a red book upon the night stand.

“Wait, this means that I, a literal skeleton-appearing undead, am the only one out of the main Protags to die?!” Satoru screamed in his mind.

Heels clicked as Aqua walked on screen. Stylishly showing off her sex appeal, though in the most modest way Konosuba will ever be.

“Satou Kazuma-san.” Aqua said elegantly as she walked past Kazuma. “Welcome to the afterlife.”

Megumin and Darkness just sat there resisting the sway of Aqua’s voice.

“That hair ornament, it's the molecular structure of water right?” Satoru questioned.

Those who knew what a molecular structure was twitched and looked at Aqua better.

Aqua merely had an insanely smug grin on her face. “The others I can understand, but you Kazuma? How you could miss the obvious for so long and you call me an idiot!”

Kazuma blushed heavily.

Those unaware of molecules deduced that it was the smallest instance of Water possible.

“Water is associated with purity and life, among other things. So she’ll definitely be the most troublesome of our fellow schoolmates, regardless of her personality.” Demiurge and Albedo thought. “Though I doubt she would be so foolish as to break a non aggression treaty that she offered. Through the wisdom of the Supreme Beings, we should have enough Water Breathing Rings to counteract any drowning attempts. …assuming her water doesn’t behave like acid to the undead and unholy, especially not Lord Herohero grade.”

“I doubt our ‘Divine’ Level equipment will hold up against an actual Goddess.” Satoru thought.

Mare frowned. “Would most of my spells have even worked on her? Petite Disaster will have worked anyways but that costs so much mana, and if that doesn’t work then I am useless damage wise.”

“Will her body fluids have the Holy aspect to them?” Shalltear thought.

“Please don’t be as insane as the other three Heroes.” the Shield Cast pleaded.

“So that's why her ‘complaint’ was about water.” The Re zero cast thought.

“Unfortunately, you passed away moments ago.” Aqua continued.

A lens flare-heavy blue cube rotated in place behind the nightstand as Aqua sat down. The camera looked at Kazuma from above Aqua’s head.

“Your life was a short one, but you are, in fact, dead.” Aqua said.

Aqua had her best 'Customer Service’ Smile applied.

“Just one question…” Kazuma started. “What about the girl I pushed out of harm's way?”

“She’s alive.” Aqua said.

Kazuma breathed a sigh of relief and placed a hand against himself. “Thank goodness.”

Kazuma’s eyes glittered in tears of relief. “That means my death wasn’t in vain.”

Aqua tilted her head in confusion, either hearing Kazuma’s thoughts or guessing from her knowledge of humans. Aqua’s legs were shown as she uncrossed them, the pussy flash/pantyshot never manifesting.

“Actually, she never would have gotten hurt,” Aqua said. “Even if you had never pushed her out of the way.” The soft angelic choir stopped.

Kazuma jerked his head upwards to look at Aqua, the music cut as well. “Huh?”

Aqua opened the red book and read. “That tractor was going to stop before it hit her.”

Kazuma leaned forward. “Huh? Wait a second.”

Emilia frowned. “Does no good deed go unpunished in this theater?” Emilia shook her head. “Don’t be so pessimistic, just because she didn’t need saving doesn’t invalidate the feelings behind Kazuma’s actions. …like I did with Subaru.”

Aqua curled into her recliner, cringing at what she did. Kazuma leaned over and fiddled with her hair, providing slight comfort for the both of them.

“She let out her actual personality and that’s why Kazuma took her down to my world, didn’t she?” Darkness and Megumin thought.

Aqua leaned closer, “What is it?”

Kazuma’s eyes vibrated as he struggled to comprehend. “[Tractor]?”

A loud rumble like Truck-kun going on an overpass played as a fade to white showed the scene that actually happened. A white and beige truck’s cargo trailer was shown in the distance. An old man in a wide brimmed khaki colored hat in gray and brown clothes, slowly driving his tractor. The girl blissfully on her phone, confident that the old man knew what he was doing.

“Yes, it was a tractor.” Aqua narrated.

Another flash showed the old man and girl waving at each other.

Kazuma leaned even farther forward. “Huh? Then what happened? Did I die by getting plowed over by a tractor?”

“No, you died of shock.” Aqua explained.

“How did you die from surprise, when medical shock is just a faulty blood flow.” Tanya thought.

A camera shutter sound effect played as Kazuma was shown on the pavement. His eyes blank, mouth wide and drooling, arms flailed in imagined pain.

“You mistakenly thought a truck ran over you.” Aqua narrated.

Kazuma jerked back, impacting his chair. “I died of shock?!”

Aqua held a hand up to her lips as she held in her first laugh. She collapsed back into her chair, hands futilely gesturing Kazuma to stop. Only to give in and let out a belly-clenching laugh. A massive pure hearted grin on her face and her knees bouncing from the force of her laughter.

“Yep, there’s the Aqua we know.” Darkness and Megumin said, hanging their heads.

Ristarte let out a deep sigh. “Are Satoru and I the only good-hearted divinities in this room?”

Aqua curled tighter into her ball of shame, shuffling herself to avoid Naofumi’s glare.

“Her humbling has yet to take hold of her, perhaps we could have served that role.” Albedo and Demiurge thought.

“Ah, false gods.” the military records, save Tanya thought.

“Right, going to practice my anti-’divine’ techniques on her, then Weaver.” Tanya thought.

Kazuma's eyes almost rivaled his corpse’s eyes in how much they were dead inside and utterly appalled at Aqua.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Aqua wiped away a tear of pure joy. “But you’re the first human to ever die in such a bizarre way.”

“Because it’s a physical impossibility.” Tanya said. “Medical Shock refers to blood not reaching vital organs. And while sleep deprivation is rarely fatal, the fatalities don’t manifest as that. 24 hours without sleep makes your hand eye coordination worse, impaired judgment and decision making, altered perception, and just because nature is a cruel mistress, tremors/spasms in your limbs!” Tanya glared at Kazuma. “So, by staying up that long, you actively got worse at the thing you were trying to do.”

“Oi, it seemed like it was a good idea at the time!” Kazuma defended his past self.

Ristarte frowned, remembering some stories of the medical field. “Yeah that's what they always say on why there is an eel or glass bottle up their ass.”

A beat that sounded like cards being shuffled played. Aqua bent over her armrest, closer to the red book and laughed into her hand some more.

“I’ve never even met this girl before. What’s her deal?” Kazuma the neet blissfully unaware of Customer Service Jobs.

Kazuma hunched into himself out of sheer anger.

The old man, his presumed wife, and several police looking EMTs were looking at Kazuma’s passed out figure. His wet spot in the center of the camera’s view.

“You were so terrified that you’d be run over, you wet yourself.” Aqua explained through further laughter.

The hospital was shown with Kazuma’s ambulance in the drop off zone.

“You passed out and were taken to a nearby hospital,” Aqua said.

Four heads were barely visible through the fifth overhead light. The doctor in the upper left had a hand in front of their face, eyes closed like they were coughing. The nurse in the bottom left was doing the same at a different angle. The doctor in the bottom right was adjusting their glasses. The nurse in the upper right was the only one showing proper human compassion as demanded by their profession.

“And the doctors and nurses laughed at you as you had a heart attack-” Aqua said.

“You could have just said heart attack and medical malpractice.” Satoru suggested, rubbing his temples.

“And medical shock would just be a symptom of the heart attack, I suppose.” Beatrice said, also rubbing her temples.

Kazuma leaned fully back in his chair, covering his ears and futilely trying to kick away the bad news. “Stop! I don’t wanna hear it!”

Aqua got up and walked over as Kazuma repeated himself as futilely tried to shake the words out of his head. Aqua’s face slid next to Kazuma’s, hand held up to provide a conspiratorial shield. “Your family just rushed to the hospital, and now even they’re laughing out loud at the cause of death.”

“Oi.” Puck, the resident bad father, proclaimed his displeasure.

Megumin and Darkness, both being an older sister/cousin, frowned. Aqua curled even deeper into her ball of shame. Naofumi snapped his glare towards the screen.

“The hell!” Naofumi thought.

“Oi.” Albedo, the resident bad mother, proclaimed her displeasure. “Leave stuff for me to do.”

Ainz, the parent with no disciplinary bone in his body, merely breathed a deep sigh of disappointment into his hands. “This right here is what I am trying to avoid with my tomb.”

The rest of the room merely sat in disgusted silence.

Kazuma became a bobblehead out of sheer not wanting to know. “Stop! Stop!”

“Well…” Aqua flicked her hair and her Hagamoro dissolved into bubbles. “I’ve vented enough stress for now.”

Kazuma made a teary eyed angry face. “Damn her!”

The music started tinkling and the soft choir resumed.

“My name is Aqua.” the goddess finally introduced herself. “I’m a goddess who guides humans who die young to the afterlife.”

Kazuma attentively listened but was still marred by her asshole tendencies.

“You have two choices.” Aqua explained. “You can start from square one with a new life, or you can go to heaven and carry on like an old man.” Aqua’s boobs bounced as she bent over and raised her conspiratorial hand shield once more. “To tell you the truth, Heaven isn’t the dreamy place you all imagine it to be.” She said shyly looking around like she would be punished for speaking out.

“Huh?” Kazuma asked around Aqua’s pantyless booty.

“Not only is there no TV, there are no manga or games, either.” Aqua explained. “You don’t even have a physical body,” the camera left the booty shot to focus on Aqua’s mouth. “So you can’t do anything sexual, either.”

Kazuma, being a sexual person, had his face scarred with shock and disappointment, maybe even a hint of despair. The camera also felt despair and reverted to the previous booty angle.

“There’s nothing to do there but bask in the sun for all of eternity.” Aqua explained.

“What?” Kazuma voiced his displeasure.

Aqua got up in Kazuma’s face and did a miniature nod. “Yeah, you don’t want to go to a boring place like Heaven, do you?”

Kazuma, having fully converted into a neet and having his personal space breached, looked away and blushed. “Uh, right…”

Aqua got even closer to Kazuma’s face, providing ship fuel. “On the other hand, starting over from square one isn’t so fun, either.” Now their noses were roughly a centimeter apart. “On that note, I’ve got a great offer for you.” Aqua leaned back slightly, “You like games, don’t you?”

“Huh?” The sheer confusing mess that was Aqua made Kazuma forget about the Isekai Craze.

Aqua stood up to her full height, placed a hand over her heart, and stretched out her other arm to the max. Dramatic/talk show piano music played.

“That world, which has long enjoyed peace,” Kazuma raised an eyebrow at Aqua’s display.

Megumin and Darkness snorted.

“That was true roughly 700 years ago.” Megumin explained to the room. “Before our current Demon King was born and gained access to the Demon King Class.”

“Ah, so not a single terrible dynasty.” Zettour said, sighing as he comprehended the problem.

Megumin nodded. “Indeed the previous dynasty was founded by a fallen hero, so it's not even limited to the infernal races.”

The others winced as containment before neutralization just got harder.

“Would Flugel’s bones be able to contain the class, like they could for the Sloth Authority?” Beatrice thought to herself. “Or another world’s Flugel?”

“And why hasn’t that world experienced an industrial revolution and thus have easy access to an equalizer such as guns?” Ristarte smiled with sharp edges. “It's not because of your Heaven suppressing the knowledge needed for that, is it?”

Aqua turned to her with a supremely offended face. “The Mobile Fortress Destroyer pushed back the tech level. So there was an era of post industrialization, but sadly the Destroyer is one of, if not the only, piece of tech that still exists from that era.”

“So yes, you did by proxy.” the rest of the room thought.

“Wouldn’t there be a non-magical damage limit?” Shalltear asked, finger on her chin.

Shalltear’s lamprey form was shown riddled with arrows and various other weaponry, but was undamaged.“Oh, fuck you!” Visha said. “Why do you follow that logic?”

“Do it yourself, you coward.” Shalltear smugly replied while looking into Visha’s eyes.

“Eh, the Demon King does have a version of that, but it's weaker and we don’t have a convenient way of mass producing explosives.” Darkness said looking down to her left hip remembering her father’s lessons.

“Hm, would Dynamite and/or Napalm work on him?” Satoru asked, the nagging concern of technology outpacing magic reared its head.

“I think so, but again no way to manufacture those in sufficient quantities.” Aqua frowned and crossed her arms as she remembered her metaphysic lessons.

“As for the logic I was talking about, it means she can only be harmed by sufficiently magical things like silver or healing potions.” Vishia explained.

Use guns to explain the Skill Floor and Great Filter ideas. Tanya wrote in her notebook.

“Is being threatened by the Demon King’s Army.” Aqua continued.

The camera zoomed into Aqua’s face, tilted upwards to give an imperialist/gracious air to Aqua. “The livelihoods its citizens have worked for are being trampled by monsters.”

Aqua pivoted in place, moving her arms and putting on a despairing air. With a click an angelic stage light turned on and bathed Aqua in its glow, who was praising the sun with her arms in an upwards Y. “Everyone lives in fear of the Demon King’s Army’s merciless pillage and slaughter!”

Aqua’s hair jiggled and mimicked a dog’s tail wagging. “...Slaughter!

Kazuma gulped in nervousness. Aqua held her pose and smiled for another few seconds before dropping them to lean closer to Kazuma once more.

“Since that’s the sort of world it is, everyone is refusing to be reborn, so the population is declining because of infertility.” Aqua explained.

“If you can not grow new souls in mass. My world has literal piles of dead orphans that I had to go past to get to work. And said piles were new every week, if not every day.” Satoru wrote in his notebook to remind himself to offer Aqua.

“I see…” Kazuma lied about his comprehension.

Aqua had a cute angle pose before turning sideways and shrugging. “So we decided, [Why not send people who’ve died in other worlds with their bodies and memories intact?]-”

“That’s resurrection, not reincarnation.” Tanya was visibly trying to control her anger.

Aqua looked Tanya in the eyes and merely said, “Zen Buddhism.”

Tanya’s argument hitched and collapsed out of existence, causing a physical hiccup.

“Zen Buddhism is the second major religion of Japan and was primarily worshiped by the Samurai. It had a cycle of reincarnation, as in reborn in an infant body after dying, that you progressed in called Samsara. After so many lives full of dedication, you were supposed to reach Nirvana, Buddhism’s version of Aqua’s Heaven. But in Samsara you grow stronger with each life judged by how much you have achieved enlightenment.” Subaru explained once he realized that Tanya wouldn’t.

“Ah, so that's why you praised their timing. The Buddha is that religion’s god?” Ram asked, remembering his praise of the Buddha as she slipped into slumber when they were retrieving her foolish twin.

“Eh, yes and no, because if you reach sufficient enlightenment you can become your own Buddha and/or fuse with the Original Buddha.” Subaru explained, wiggling his left hand. “That and everything and everyone including the Buddha are all illusions, thus you want to break free by embracing nothingness and being true to yourself. At least that was in Zen Buddhism, in more Orthodox/the Original Denomination of Buddhism, Nirvana was simply the best afterlife (which functioned as rest stops in the cycle of reincarnation) that you could unlock.”

Ram slowly rubbed her temples. “If everything is an illusion, then nothing is.”

“Mostly it’s an existentialism thing but over all, Zen buddhism making sense died with the samurai at Shiroshima.” Tanya shrugged. “As for why I know the difference now, resurrection is one of the main tenets of Christianity, whose focal point of worship is Europe.”

“Ah, the wonders of sectoral differences.” Lergen said.

Ram and Cocytus scribbled in: Buddhism and it’s sects.

“What’s the point in sending me there if I’m just going to be killed?” Kazuma asked, visibly unsure.

“That’s why I’m doing you a big favor.” Aqua said from off screen.

A soft beat played as Aqua was shown once more with a hand gently raised.

“I’m granting you the right to bring any one thing of your choosing with you.” Aqua doomed herself to roughly a year and a half of struggle. Aqua crossed her arms and winked. “It could be a powerful weapon, or a tremendous talent.”

The two of them were shown from Kazuma’s book of the dead’s perspective.

“You’ll be able to redo your life with all your original memories.” Aqua said, raising her opposite hand and bobbling slightly towards Kazuma. “To top it off, you can bring one thing of your choosing!”

The camera slightly zoomed in as the world connecting portal swirled open behind Kazuma.

“And the people of the parallel will earn someone battle-ready to help them.” Aqua said. “Not a bad deal, don’t you think?”

Crystalline chimes played as Kazuma closed his hands.

“Um, I want to ask something.” Kazuma said.

Aqua was shown in a neutral but attentive pose.

“Will I be able to speak this other world’s language?” Kazuma asked.

A kazoo-like thing or synth something played as Aqua pulled up a booklet out of thin air.

“That won’t be an issue.” Aqua said.

We were shown the insides of the book, specifically a page titled Parallel World Reincarnation Guide and Contract. With the subtitle being: The First Ever Parallel World Guide! (For Shut-ins). Unhelpfully the book was mostly untranslated. Though there was an infographic of a soul either going to Heaven or becoming a hero after being run over.

Tanya sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Kazuma was shown hesitantly reading the book with Aqua guiding his vision. Aqua’s eyes were cut off by the letterboxing, putting her in a sultry and sinister light.

“With the kind support of us gods,” Aqua said. “We’ll overload your brain so you’ll be able to learn it instantly.”

Kazuma’s eyes widened as he heard that and found the fine print section. Said fine print being: Caution! Because the process of installing the ability to speak the parallel world’s language into the one who wishes to be reincarnated there (henceforth referred to as “Reincarnated”) requires instantaneous overloading of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex (henceforth referred to as “Brain”), Reincarnated’s Brain may, in rare cases, lose certain faculties (go “p**f”). Should this occur, according to Article 1296 Clauses 2 and 5 and Article 2051 Clause 3, Reincarnated may not hold those responsible for his reincarnation accountable.

The room just stared at Aqua.

“We do heal the injured.” Aqua defended herself, curling up slightly.

“Sheesh, I thought my Unified Divine Realm had the legalese.” Ristarte muttered.

“Why not an auto-translation effect?” Satoru asked with a finger raised.

“We do not have a god of languages.” Aqua said. “It was either this or having the Reincarnated unable to communicate at all. Unless we went with the actual reincarnation thing, but then the primary objective of the battle-ready unit is completely negated.”

Satoru sighed and lowered his finger.

“Teacher, what was the plan if Subaru couldn’t speak our language?” Roswaal thought, smiled sharp and eyes closed.

“As a side effect,” Aqua said as she used a hand to cover the fine print. “You might just go “poof” if you’re unlucky though.”

Tanya glared at Aqua. “I can see why your superiors kicked you out of Heaven.”

Kazuma was glaring at the fine print through Aqua’s hands.

“So all that leaves you to do is to choose a powerful ability or piece of equipment.” Aqua’s Customer Service Smile was back in full force.

Kazuma dragged his glare to meet Aqua’s closed eyes as the instrument stopped. “I just heard you mention something really serious. What do you mean, [poof]?”

Audio-visual sparkles radiated from Aqua’s Customer Service Smile. “I never said that.”

“Yes, you did.” Kazuma said as the sparkles faded.

Trumpets played as Aqua twirled in the air with a stupid amount of sparkles forming wings.

“Now, choose!” Aqua commanded as she bent over backwards.

Sheets of paper fell down around her. A sword with stony protrusions from its back edge was shown on a descriptive pamphlet, two shadowy-swords show that it was a weapon-type gift. The name of the sword was untranslated and its description was too small to read.

“I’ll grant you one power that is second to none!” Aqua said with the stone sword covering her shoulder.

A lizard-like beast flew in front of Aqua’s face, the ambient sparkles made the lizard appear to have glowing eyes. A different curved sword with a dragonic (?) head and sharp rocky scales served as the transition. Both of which were on pamphlets.

Kazuma looked around at the options he had on his hands and knees.

“Ah, good ol’ decision paralysis.” Satoru nodded in commencernation.

“This is my gamer’s intuition talking,” Kazuma thought. “But all of the abilities and equipment here are totally broken!”

“They do not look like they are unusable.” Emilia asked with her head tilted.

“Broken in this instance of gaming terms, means something ‘unfairly’ powerful.” Kazuma said, with his right index finger raised. “Some examples are: DND Divine Spellcasters being able to swap all of their known spells to any other spell their Patron knows with a 6-8 hour sleep. Thus they can adapt to any type of enemy and environment. Another is putting a ranged character who uses her allies HP pool count in her line to deal direct damage to the enemy player behind a melee character who deals Area of Effect Damage on attack, gains an additional attack per turn, and increases his max hp pool per enemy he kills.”

The room hummed.

“So Reinhard.” The Re zero cast except Subaru thought.

“Well, it’s a good thing and a shame that our Divine Spellcasters can’t do that.” The Overlord Cast thought.

Soft chimes played as Kazuma picked up one sheet and gazed at another.

“If I’m going to a world where magic exists, I absolutely have to try it out!” Kazuma thought.

Kazuma picked up the second sheet and started comparing them.

Satoru opened his mental mouth to ask about the details-

Aqua’s seductive lips tore a potato chip in half, the camera zoomed out from the vore-fuel to show Aqua completely bored.

“Hey, hurry it up.” Aqua said with half of the broken chip wiggling.

Soft percussion instruments played, giving a jovial country music vibe

“Allow him time to formulate his thoughts.” Satoru said, rubbing the bridge of his absent nose.

“No matter what you pick, it’s all the same.” Aqua said. “Nobody’s expecting much from a shut-in game otaku anyways.”

Kazuma squeaked/squealed like a more feral ape. “I-I’m not an otaku!”

Kazuma tossed the papers away, bowing down to his hands and knees. “And I died after leaving my house, so I’m not a shut-in, either!”

Repeating his movement several times, blowing away some of the papers.

Aqua licked her fingers, getting any non-visible chip dust off. Aqua looked completely bone tired as she played with her hair using only her index finger.

“None of that matters. Just hurry it up.” Aqua said. “I’ve still got lots more deceased humans to guide, you know.”

“And this is why you have more than one Judge of the Dead.” Ristarte said, rubbing her head. “Either that or time dilation and/or super speed.”

“For reference, on earth alone 106 humans die per minute and 6,392 per hour.” Aqua said. “While I am only in charge of Japan’s region and even then only their NEETs, that still is an unacceptable delay to my bosses. That is with the time dilation already applied.”

The room hummed.

“Damn her!” Kazuma thought.

Aqua still looked distinctly unimpressed. Kazuma meanwhile had sweat pooling on his face and wrinkles on the bridge of his nose.

“Getting all cocky just because she’s a little bit cute…” Kazuma thought.

Aqua merely had a smug smile at the confirmation of her thoughts.

Kazuma on his fists and knees sounded like a gorilla as he breathed heavily, overpowering the faint chimes. His eyes were shadowed as he plotted.

“[Hurry up and decide], huh?” Kazuma asked. “I’ll do just that, then.”

Kazuma stood up. “Pick one thing to bring to this parallel world, right?”

Kazuma stumbled under the weight of what he was about to do.

Aqua, slightly interested in where he was going, paused her eating of the chips. “That’s right.”

Before eating the chip in her hand anyways.

Kazuma’s hand was shown, the end of the track suit bright against the dramatically black room. It pointed straight forward.

“Okay, I pick you.” Kazuma said.

“Okay, In hindsight I should have seen that coming.” Aqua said.

Shalltear giggled, causing a slight ripple across the room.

“I mean my Heaven gave out monster summoning abilities before, so why not an entire goddess?” Aqua shrugged. “Especially one that was insulting to a sleep deprived and delirious boy.”

Aqua blinked, utterly adorable with the potato chip in her mouth. And utterly not comprehending what Kazuma said. The chimes returned as Aqua pushed in the chip and chewed. A loud horn played as the portal manifested beneath Kazuma’s feet. Aqua kicked her feet as she stood up.

“All right, stand there and don’t leave the magic circle-” Aqua was mostly out of her chair.

“What did you just say?” Aqua’s eyes widened.

The sound of an offscreen door opening echoed through the weird chime-heavy limbo. Aqua looked up to the forming magic circle above her. An Angel Woman descended out of the summoning circle. Flaunting her curves and a soft twinkling melody played.

“Where’s the metal?” Shalltear asked. “Angels should be metallic, except Victim.”

“Ah.” Zettour said, hand in palm. “They split the difference.”

On the left side were the biblical angels in all their eldritch beauty. On the right were the pretty boys and girls of the renaissance era, most of them had pastel colored wings in the stained glass depictions. Though notably on the bottom ring of the left side were normal human looking angels. The bottom was pushed up to reveal Yggdrasil’s Angels.

Kazuma coughed at the sight of the ‘biblically’ accurate angels. “Wait, Kirby, Bayonetta, Final Fantasy 7,and Neon Genesis Evangelion are accurate?! I thought NGE was just the stylization of Christianity spread like butter on toast over aliens.”

The non-Military Records crew just sat there for a few seconds comprehending Yahweh’s Angels.

“Yep, that’s definitely splitting the difference.” Filo said, nodding with a closed eye smile.

“So, if one wants to use angels, they would have to try really hard not to lean on Abrahamic Literature.” Demiurge said, his tail curled around his waist and its tip twitched in his lap.

Zettour nodded.

“Ah, this is where you tell the ‘Heroes’ about the Demon King’s Aura thing.” Kazuma said, left hand holding his forehead.

Aqua nodded.

Kazuma rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“We have heard your request.” Said the angel with wings at full spread and golden sparks falling in a shower around her. “I shall take over your job from here on out, Aqua-sama.”

“She’ll do a better job than you, not insulting the faux-customer.” Tanya said. [0]

Kazuma joined the chorus of Oohs as the golden shower faded.

“Huh?” Aqua adorably squeaked.

Another Isekai Magic Circle blossomed underneath Aqua.

“Satou Kazuma-san’s Wish complies with the regulations and has been accepted.” the Angel landed.

The magic circles spun, flared into blue light and made energy tunnels leading upwards.

Aqua glanced down at the circle. “Hey, what is this? Wh-What? You’ve got to be kidding.”

Kazuma looked at Aqua.

Aqua closed her eyes and tried to wave away the magic circle. “No, no, no! Come on, um…”

“This is not right!” Aqua threw her arms back, lost her pupils, and did the second instance of Aqua crying meme. “Taking a goddess with you is against the rules!”

Aqua pressed against the magic, squishing like a sea creature in an aquarium’s glass wall.

“It must be illegal!” Aqua pressed her face against the magic-glass. “This has to be illegal!”

“Oh, come on. It’s only the human world, you’ll be fine.” Naofumi said, eyes rolled before they settled into a glare.

Subaru and Shalltear coughed.

“You should be fine.” Naofumi corrected himself.

“Wait!” Aqua banged on the magic. “Wait!”

“Please have a safe trip, Aqua-sama.” The angel said. “Should you successfully defeat the Demon King, I will send someone to pick you up.”The angel smiled with her eyes closed. Aqua, with her eyes back to normal, dropped her hands to her hips.

“I may have the ability to heal since I'm a goddess,” Aqua said, placing her hands on her chest. “But I have no fighting ability to speak of! There’s no way I can beat the Demon King!”

Aqua gripped her head in exasperation before she was lifted off her feet.

“Hey, wait!” Aqua cried out as she looked to the ground growing distant.

Kazuma chuckled over Aqua’s booty.

“How does it feel to get dragged away with the guy you treated like a total idiot?” Kazuma asked.

Kazuma with his hair in hentai protag mode chucked once more. His hair parted to reveal one eye as he pointed at Aqua.

“You’ve been designated as the one thing I’ll be bringing along,” Kazuma said, hands moving into a megalovania posture. “So if you’re a goddess, use your godly powers or whatever to make my life as easy as possible!”

“You know, a lot of things make sense if you are following what Kazuma asked of you, however subconsciously.” Darkness rubbed her chin.

Aqua, Kazuma, and Megumin raised an objection finger before going over their memories and hung their heads.

“No!” Aqua cried and hugged herself. “I don’t want to go to a parallel world with a man like this!”

Aqua cried once more causing Kazuma to laugh in mock-sadistic glee. The angel’s wings extended, casting off cosmetic feathers.

“Brave hero, I pray that of the great many prospective heroes,” the angel said with extended arms and her feathers falling down around her. “You will be the one to defeat the demon king.”

The angel’s skirt flapped in the wind, revealing that she too had no panties. Nor genitalia, if she did it was hidden by a light beam.

“If you do so, we shall grant any wish you desire as a gift from the gods.” the angel revealed.

“Whoa, for real?!” Kazuma jerked in his beam.

“Wow, an actual reward.” Naofumi smirked. “How lucky for you.”

“We. Are. Not. Parasites!” Aqua wiggled in her seat. “We’re symbiotes, close yes. But not the same.”

Aqua leaned forward enough that her head completely obscured Kazuma.

“That’s my line!” Aqua cried.

“Now, go forth on your journey!” The angel ignored her superior.

The blackness at the end of the tunnel instantly shattered into blue squares, blue and green circles, and a white light at the center. The angelic choir resumed as Kazuma laughed as he was vacuumed into the light. Aqua’s despair-ridden face flew in from behind the camera.

“No!” Aqua shouted.

Which caused Kazuma to sadistically laugh again. Everything dissolved into a screen of white before the blue sky and fluffy clouds were shown. One of the Angel’s feathers floated down from the sky. Said feather gently landed on a shallow stream of water, which caused small ripples above the pebbles on the crook’s bottom. Horns played as the camera zoomed out to show a woman in a purple witch/wizard outfit and a green shirted man crossing a cobblestone bridge.

By the bridge was a low-detailed fisherman whose line glinted in the sunlight. A man’s laughter echoed from somewhere as the camera changed to a wagon pulling away. Which revealed Kazuma and Aqua fully intact and mature. Aqua hung her head and hands in front of her thighs. Kazuma stood beside her in a confident but neutral pose with his fists on either side of his hips.

Belzerg: Axel, The Town of Beginners, appeared before them in a blue text box above their heads. With a bit-style sound effect chime and a swirling symbol around the Otherworld’s characters for Axel.

Tanya narrowed her eyes. “Hm, depending on how you write that. The name Belzerg could be read as Berserk.”

“We are not backwards hillbillies!” Darkness reflexly defended her nation. “We are basically the only reason why the world hasn’t been conquered yet, especially because we are the only nation whose borders are touching the Demon King’s borders. Our two Great Noble Houses have been assimilating power for countless Demon Kings, if they only manage to kill Generals and not the Demon King themselves. The Dustines Family assimilated the defensive abilities and the Sinfonia Family assimilated the offensive abilities. Thus they are called the House of the Shield and the House of the Sword respectively.”

“Ah, so their version of the Slane Theocracy is actually doing their jobs.” The Overlord cast thought. “Lucky for that humanity.”

“Thus, if I am following your logic correctly, then those who actually slay a Demon King are assimilated into the Royal Family.” Filo said. “They were the ones you were talking about during the power level discussion.”

Darkness nodded. “That and I can’t hit anything, so I can’t ‘grind’ for Kazuma.”

“Hm, I guess I should count Jaldbaoth lucky that Rampossa didn’t have the Belzerg-style of strength,” Demiurge thought. “What is a demon to a king? Especially considering there is a precedent with the Legemon. I might have needed to break out my true strength, or just have one of my Evil Lords take place in the physical battles.”

“So not hyperbole of the Warmaster,” Seiya thought. “How lucky for that world, to not have only one hero capable of saving them.”

“I might actually respect Trash if he could ‘put me in my place’, but that chance has passed.” Naofumi thought. “Especially if he doesn’t use that strength against the Waves.”

Kazuma blinked when Darkness nodded and turned to Aqua with a sharp smile. “I pulled you down before you could say that, I'm guessing?”

The town’s background muttering resumed, as we zoomed into Kazuma’s face. Who took a deep breath and blinked, before the camera turned to show a street.

“It’s a parallel world.” Kazuma narrated.

A girl in a sun hat and red dress was shown chasing two ducks/white birds past two gossiping women and two men bargaining over fruit prices.

“Wait, you have children?” Satoru asked.

“Yes, hence why it's difficult to motivate the others into fighting the Demon King.” Aqua said, hands folded in her lap. “If the Demon King projected a massive field where kids aren’t born at all, It would make my job stupidly harder yet paradoxically extremely easy.”

“Well, I’m glad that the demon king can’t do that.” The rest of the room generally thought. “Nor is he just removing the reproductive organs all together.”

“Hey, this really is a parallel world!” Kazuma continued to narrate over the girl’s misfortune.

The two pairs of adults turned their heads as the girl and her birds exited stage right. A blacksmith, his wife, and two kids who were playing a game with a stick were shown. Two women close to a barn and thus fuzzy were in the background chatting.

“W-Wait, I’m really going to be using magic.” Kazuma said.

A group of adventurers appeared, at the very left was a dark elf man dressed with armored plates and a green tunic. Next to him was a human woman in a black/beige horned helmet, beige pauldrons and boobplate. With a red and white leotard, her sleeves were black with red gloves and elbow bands. Which held beige arm plates over her elbows. Her legs were the same, save for the fact that her legging only came up to her mid thighs.

A huge sword hung off her hip, which was underneath the woman’s extended hand. The wizard in purple robes and a black bodysuit with a navel window stood next to her. Their blue-tinted white hair was underneath a purple hat. The wizard’s tiny glasses did not prevent the wizard’s obvious attention from showing. Behind the wizard was a man who similarly exposed his guts with a black and red jacket. A thick brown belt with a red and gray loin cloth over green paths completed his ensemble.

A pair of two adventures had passed in front of the five, with the second woman in red obscuring a woman in green. The red thief-like woman left revealing that the green woman had brown hair and wore a two-tone purple bodysuit.

“Why is there an Elf?” Megumin asked. “Axel hasn’t had one in decades, mostly because the Elves and other such races have their own training spots. Hence why they just skip to the front lines.”

“If they even send help at all.” Aqua, Darkness, and Megumin thought. [1]

“Elves are basically a synonym for fantasy back on earth.” Kazuma said. “Same with Dwarves, Dragons, Demons, Angels, Gods, and Giants.”

The others hummed.

“And going on adventures in this world from now on?” Kazuma asked himself, smiling in glee.

Cheerful notes played over Aqua’s gasping.

“Goodbye, shut-in life!” Kazuma assumed an assertive stance.

“So what happened to not being a hermit?” Beatrice asked. “Or was that just a deflective denial, I suppose?”

Kazuma hung his head. “It was the latter.”

“Hello, new world!” Kazuma praised the sun for a brief moment.

Kazuma let his arms down before raising his right fist in a confident stance. “I can really start anew in this world!”

Aqua gasped before she weeped as she rubbed her head with both of her hands. Kazuma glared at her out of the corner of his eyes. He turned his head to properly stare at her in dismay.

“Hey, shut up.” Kazuma demanded.

Carnival-like notes played as Aqua clawed at her bangs that hung in front of her face.

“What am I going to do if everyone thinks I’m friends with a crazy woman?” Kazuma asked.

“More importantly, isn’t there something you’re supposed to give me at a time like this?” Kazuma asked.

“I do believe the opportunity to gain items has passed.” Satoru said, sarcasm audible.

The others nodded as Kazuma blushed.

Kazuma raised his hands to point at himself, a smug smile on his face. Aqua’s weeps had faded into near inaudibility.

“Look at what I'm wearing. I’m in a tracksuit.” Kazuma complained.

Kazuma pointed his hands to the sides, closed his eyes, and still had the smug smile.

“Here I am in a fantasy world, and all I have is a single tracksuit.” Kazuma complained.

“And a literal goddess.” Subaru said.

Kazuma’s blush intensified as he sank into his chair.

Kazuma opened his eyes and let his hands fall down to his hips.

“Isn’t there a bare minimum of starter equipment I should-” Kazuma was interrupted by Aqua grabbing his collar.

Kazuma, for a single frame, had his eyes shrink as Aqua shook the annoying boy. The camera however chose to focus on Aqua’s weeping face, her open mouth had a cute flesh fang. Aqua, and by extension the offscreen Kazuma, rocked back and forth for a few seconds. Then with a bit-like sound effect a pause screen appeared over Aqua’s face. Underneath the giant English letters of PAUSE bracketed by hyphens, was a smaller English sentence of Press Start Button.

This pause screen continued for a few seconds as even the music stopped.

“Ah, I wish I could just do that and take a few moments to gather my thoughts.” Subaru thought.

A different bit-type note played as the video resumed with Aqua breathing in. The two of them were shown between a mother with her son and a man looking at the last two people to be Isekai’d from Aqua’s Heaven.

“Wh-What the heck?! Stop! Stop it!” Kazuma pleaded with Aqua.

The mother turned around with a face of dismay as she pulled her shocked son away from the first feud of the pseudo-couple.

“I get it, okay?! I’m sorry!” Kazuma said.

Kazuma placed his hands on Aqua’s shoulders, which stopped her from rocking his world any further. …for now.

“If you hate it that much, then you can go home.” Kazuma said.

Kazuma pushed the goddess away, hung his left arm behind his hip, and readjusted his collar with his right arm.

“I’ll figure out the rest on my own.” Kazuma said.

“What are you talking about?” Aqua threw her arms back, causing her to adopt an arrow-like pose. “I’m in trouble because I can’t go back.”

Aqua folded her hands in front of her chest. “What do I do? Huh? What am I gonna do?”

“If you can’t go back because you are currently classified as [Kazuma’s Item], then the most logical course of action is securing money.” Zettour said. “Healing is, was, and will continue to be a dependable source of income for those capable. Construction is also a thing, so too with mercenary work.”

“We went with construction.” Aqua answered.

The others hummed

Aqua’s hands fell to her sides as she wept once more.

“What am I supposed to do from now on?” The Goddess of Tears cried.

Kazuma’s low detailed and nonchalant look was wasted on the crying goddess. With a speed streak-like sound effect Kazuma raised a hand to gain Aqua’s attention.

“Hey, calm down, Goddess.” Kazuma commanded as he lowered his hand once more. “Times like these call for guilds.”

Kazuma placed a hand on his chin. “Going to places like that to gather intel is what you do in RPGs.”

Aqua leaned back in subdued surprise as Kazuma pronounced the entire words of the RPG acronym.

“Huh? You’re supposed to be some game otaku shut-in.” Aqua asked. “Why are you so reliable?”

“Someone has to pick up your slack.” Puck said.

Aqua joined her pseudo-spouse in the blush and chair sinkage departments.

Kazuma ignored her comments as he turned away.

“All right! Let’s go, Goddess.” Kazuma said.

“Hey, wait.” Aqua’s train of thought had drowned already.

An electric string instrument played as Aqua’s ass overtook the camera once more.

“Why this camera angle again?” Albedo asked, fists slightly curled.

“This is my role, not yours!” Albedo thought.

“I am the closest thing my pantheon has to a Romantic Love Goddess, and as you can heard by the declining birthrate problem, I am a terrible one.” Aqua said. “Can’t even be a proper Lust/Fertility Goddess.”

Aqua scribbled into her notebook: Teach Subaru Escape Artistry, Parkour, and Breakdancing.

“I really hope that the sexual stuff gets toned down in the next episodes.” The protags except Kazuma thought.

“You can call me “Goddess” if you like,” Aqua narrated over her hipsway. “But when you can, call me “Aqua”, so we don’t cause a commotion.”

“I have the slightest suspicion that being undetected has already passed.” Shalltear said with lidded eyes.

“I get it.” Kazuma said, the camera changed to the back of his head. “If you’re a goddess, wouldn’t you know where we can find an adventurer’s guild.”

Aqua blinked as Kazuma turned his head to stare her in the eyes.

“I’m a goddess.” Aqua said. “There’s no way I’d know about every little lowly place like that.”

Aqua blushed.

Aqua leaned her head, which caused her hair to wiggle as she saw Kazuma’s disappointed and disgusted face.

“This girl’s useless.” Kazuma thought.

“Useless as in actually useless, or uselessly like Subaru?” Ram asked with lidded eyes and crossed arms.

Kazuma, Darkness, and Megumin raised a finger and opened their mouths to defend their viewpoint. Before they closed their mouths and lowered their fingers as they remembered how Aqua played her parts.

“Useless like Subaru.” Aqua answered for them.

Ram saw Subaru blush and tried to fold into himself. However he was stopped by Emilia, what caught the passive half of the Oni God’s attention was the faint glimmer of disbelief.

“Do I never compliment him at all?” Ram thought. “Not even backhanded ones?”

Ram hid her glance to her aggressive twin.

“I really hope that he never committed self harm, or far worse suicide, from my barbs. Ram clutched her elbows. “They would be the final coin in the pouch if my little sister actually followed through on her impulses.”

Ram took a quiet breath through her nose. “No, Subaru said that he was only questioned by Rem. So, she must have restrained herself. It's a waste of energy and time to ponder such depressing possibilities that never would and/or did happen. He does not act like he is, or ever was, afraid of us. …which her impulses would definitely make him.”

The screen shifted to show Axel from above. Right above the town was a large forest, where the Tranquility Queen resides. Smaller sections of woodland surrounded the town, only broken up by green fields. The light brown rooftops that formed human civilization had claimed 97% of the protected lands inside the massive wall. A few bits of the remaining kand were fields or lawns, most of the rest were small pockets of trees. But the largest non-human feature of the town was the river that curved in the middle, which formed a spoon or a bowl.

“Thank you for your business.” a merchant said while he handed a large slab of meat to a mother.

The mother’s youngest was safely strapped to her back and blissfully asleep. She had four other kinds besides her of indeterminate age. The second youngest, and the closest to the mother’s purple-like skirt was a girl with her hair tied into twin tails. The presumed third youngest had a green shirt on and an index finger on his lower lip, eyes firmly glued to the Capital A Anime Stick of Meat.

The child with the largest head merely had eyes for their mother. While the child right in front of the vase, which was presumably for water storage, had his arms behind his head. A purple scarf/collar over his cyan shirt. This boy’s eyes merely had attention for his youngest sibling or the comically small shopping basket his mother had.

“No, you’re not going to derail this by going into how purple dye was so expensive that it became a synonym for royalty.” Tanya thought as she rubbed her temples. “Nor will you do the same for the other dyes that should have been impossible for that era’s tech level. Excluding magic. What’s next, this world’s female underwear industry has access to modern elastics and/or a substitute, thus the girls would be wearing stuff that is closer to 20th and 21st century panties than the historically accurate Braies which were more like shorts that fell down to the mid thigh.”

Megumin crossed her legs as she felt a phantom draft.

“Thank you.” The mother said as she smacked her infant with the Stick of Meat. “Up we go…”

The infant thankfully was too asleep to cry out in shock or pain.

Kazuma and Aqua appeared before a large building, which had an announcement tower in the back. Above the front door sat a bird-like symbol. On their left was a green pillar and on their right was a purple pillar. Behind them were more merchant stalls and their customers. Another 8-bit style ding played as a brown bar extended itself across the screen, above it stood the label Adventurer’s guild.

From the perspective of the door, both the human and goddess had silly looking faces.

“Looks like this is the place.” Kazuma said.

Something went bang the camera which startled a hiccup out of Aqua.

“Scary!” Aqua said as they climbed the stairs.

The door swung open off screen as the camera decided to show the …emblem of Belzerg (or the Adventurer's guild) over the doorway, at a tilt. Either way, the upper part of the emblem had a bird with its wings fully unfurled, two V sections connected the wings to the main body of the bird. Which fanned out to an upside-down omega symbol for the tail.

“Welcome!” A blonde barmaid said as she twirled towards the door with 4 fuzzy Nereoid Drinks in her hand. “If you’re here to eat, please take any open seat.”

The camera showed Kazuma and Aqua unprepared for the level of prep in the barmaid’s voice.

“If you need job guidance, head to the counter inside.” the barmaid continued reading off her mental script.

The barmaid turned and walked off the right side of the screen. Aqua merely stared at the bubbly while Kazuma raised his hand.

“Thank you.” Kazuma obligately followed his own mental script for social interaction at a public place.

The camera turned to see …indoor lamp posts. A sign or plinth that had no writing at all but three pink circles, eight yellow pyramids arranged into two pyramid shapes, and two pink dots in two pyramid shapes.

Two men in dark colored clothing tapped their drinks together, their tablemate hunched over his food. Seems like they had some sort of bird, while the bearded yet bald man had the addition of cake. A red haired barmaid carried more food past the three men. Behind the drinks was an oak-like load-bearing pillar with dark red and dark green ribbons wrapped around it. The original barmaid walked past the table in her pinkish heels.

She stepped aside to reveal a man in plate armor looking up at a woman in a sports bra and battle panties. More potted plants broke up the monotony of the tavern.

Tanya mentally groaned at the sight of the battle panties and the elastic industry that it eluded to.

On one of the ribbon clad support pillars hung a dragon(?)’s skeleton. Around a horizontal support pillar was a wheel that might have served as a clock, if it rotated. The entire tavern was shown from the back, which revealed the statue of a hero, presumably one of the Belzerg Royalty and/or the dragon slayer underneath the skeleton. Another one of those odd plinths was on the opposite side of the statue’s feet.

Closest to the camera were a red head female mage talking to her melee party member. On the sides of the ceiling were banners detailing either the Mobile Fortress Destroyer or the founding of Belzerg. Above the Adventurer’s Info Desk had the statue bust of a Lizard Runner. In front of Kazuma and Aqua (behind them from this camera view) was the Barbarian Shopkeep that was only made canon in the Dust Spinoff Novels.

Kazuma hummed as he took in the atmosphere with a smirk on his face.

“Hey!” The barbarian called. “Haven’t seen you around here before.”

“You really wouldn’t have, and if you did. I would be concerned for you.” Subaru said.

Aqua squeaked as her pinprick eyes saw the bearded barbarian’s gaze. Kazuma, still in his sleep deprived apathetic mood, had no reaction. Said barbarian raised a finger to point at them.

“And what’s with the weird clothes?” The barbarian asked

“Oh,” Kazuma walked up to the barbarian. “We’ve actually come a long way, and we just got into town.”

Kazuma placed an assertive hand onto the table and his other hand on his hip. His eyes closed as he paused for one dramatic second.

“I want to become an adventurer to fight the Demon King’s Army, too.” Kazuma opened his eyes and relied on his Protagonist CharismaTM.

The barbarian breathed through his nose before he closed his eyes.

“Is that right, you reckless punk?” the barbarian said.

The barbarian twirled around and adopted the Crazy Eyes Pose (the one where an eye is normal sized and the other is widened).

“Welcome to the gates of Hell!” The barbarian said before he hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “If you’re lookin’ for the guild admission desk, it’s over there.”

Thus Kazuma and Aqua walked past the statue of the Founder of Belzerg.

“Hey.” Aqua said, which caused Kazuma to halt.

Kazuma turned his head over his shoulder with a hum.

“How can you make up a story like that on the spot?” Aqua asked.

“Well, it is the truth.” Satoru said, head slightly tilted to the side. “Just a bit farther than that barbarian understood.”

The room nodded.

“Listen, Aqua.” Kazuma assumed a lecturing tone.

“Okay.” Aqua hummed.

Kazuma raised a hand to seemingly hold the statue’s sword tip. “Today we’ll register with a guild and find a place to stay the night.”

“G-Got it.” Aqua nodded her head and raised her hands in front of her chest. “I don’t know anything about games, but I guess that’s how it works in worlds like this, right?”

“By which I meant, I have no first hand experience playing the games.” Aqua explained. “All I knew was observing their world and reading from the books of the dead.”

Kazuma raised his hand even further to directly point at Aqua. “Exactly. All right, let’s go.”

The pseudo-couple dropped their arms and walked off.

“Oh, wait.” Aqua muttered with her knife-hands framing her booty. “You seem like such a capable guy.”

The camera changed to a front view of both Kazuma and Aqua.

“Why were you a shut-in otaku with no friends or girlfriend before?” Aqua asked.

“Did you not just read a book that detailed his entire life, or was that book merely how he died?” Satoru asked.

Aqua blushed and hung her head.

Kazuma grunted and gritted his teeth at that.

“Why did you seclude yourself every day and act like such a shut-in NEET?” Aqua asked.

Kazuma gritted his teeth even more before he half turned towards Aqua and pointed an accusatory finger towards her.

“Stop calling me a shut-in NEET, you bitch.” Kazuma proceeded to escalate the situation. “Don’t lump “shut-in” and “NEET” together.”

“Well, in the mid 2010s, they did become basically synonyms.” Ristarte said. “Along with NEET becoming a synonym for utmost laziness.”

The rest of the room hawed.

Thankfully his outburst produced no reactions. Specifically the next frame was a mid-back length red haired mage in a bowler(?) hat and a dark haired warrior sitting at a bar. The bartender merely shook his tumbler and produced a soft clanging sound that signaled that there was ice in them. The mage’s staff sat next to her and conveniently covered the menu.

The next frame showcased Luna the receptionist in her alcove, the camera specifically panning up past her large tits to showcase Luna’s dark yellow hair and amber colored eyes.

“Hello. What can I do for you today?” Luna asked, firmly in her customer management mode.

The camera zoomed out to showcase the three other desks, though Luna was the only receptionist on duty. At desk number three, desk number one was against the wall to the right. There were two different signs framing this help area, their text too blurry to translate.

“Um, we’d like to become adventurers.” Kazuma said.

“I see.” Luna’s autopilot brain replied.

Luna closed her eyes and smiled. “In that case, you’ll first need to pay the registration fee.”

The camera showed Kazuma smiling with his eyes closed, not processing anything. Aqua stood by a support pillar. The Founder’s statue and its red caper separated the two.

“Sure, Sure…” Kazuma said.

Kazuma’s very tired neurons fired and transmitted the information gathered by his ears to his cerebral cortrex.

“Huh?” Kazuma opened his eyes as he stopped smiling. “Registration fee?”

Kazuma turned his head towards Aqua.

“Do you have any money?” Kazuma asked.

Aqua shook her head in the negative, her mouth still an adorable tiny dot.

“You dragged me here without any warning.” Aqua reminded Kazuma. “Of course I don’t.”

Kazuma had stress sweat all over his despairing face. Luna still had her autopilot brain active and her hands neatly clasped each other.

“This girl’s useless…” Kazuma blamed everyone but himself.

“Yeah well, that’s what happens when you don’t give prep time.” Seiya said, glaring at Kazuma.

Kazuma shrunk into his chair. “Oh come on, I just got the courage to sit back up properly! I mean, as much properly you can be in a recliner chair.”

The tavern was shown from above as a barmaid walked past two fully seated tables. Kazuma and Aqua were sitting in the loneliest corner by the window. Kazuma was shown alone before a reddish-brown haired barmaid came up to the table.

“Are you ready to order?” the barmaid asked the depressed pseudo-couple.

“Um, I’m still thinking about it…” Kazuma said.

The barmaid sighed as she turned away, holding her clipboard to her chest.

“Please take your time.” the barmaid's autopilot brain replied.

The heads of the two isekai’d were shown. Well more specifically their eyes and noses, or at least Kazuma’s when he looked up and across to Aqua.

“Hey, what should we do?” Kazuma asked. “We’ve already hit a roadblock.”

A circular shield with a cog wheel on the outer rim, a bumpy-flower like ring just inside of the cog wheel, and inside of the flower was a plus (or cross if one wanted to ascribe more Christianity than was necessary) which had two swords that peaked out at diagonal angles, and formed a blunt 8 pointed star of chaos. Was shown over their table, high up on the wall.

“Normally we’d get a minimal amount of equipment and enough to cover basic living expenses, at least.” Kazuma continued to complain. “This is totally inhospitable.”

Kazuma shrunk even further under Puck and Tanya’s gazes. Satoru had a bemused tint in his wavering flame eyes. Naofumi, Raphtalia, and Filo directed their deadpan stares towards the 16 year old. Rista had gripped Seiya’s mouth closed and pulled his head towards the screen.

Aqua raised her head to stare Kazuma in the eyes.

“There goes your reliability, just like that.” Aqua said. “Well, I guess it was inevitable. You are a shut-in NEET.”

“Don’t call me a shut-in NEET.” Kazuma glared at the goddess.

Aqua placed her hands on the table and pushed herself up.

“Fine. I guess it’s my turn now.” Aqua said as she adopted a confident hand on hip pose.

Kazuma looked attentive at the goddess’ new found confidence.

“Let me show you what a goddess can do!” Aqua said.

Aqua waved goodbye as she walked away to horns playing. Thus Aqua walked up to an old man calmly drinking his beverage of choice. Hand grabbed the barrel-like mug from the side, the other hand supported the drink from below. She stopped right before the camera and treated the audience to another shot of her booty. Which perspective wise was the same size as the man’s torso.

“You there, priest! State your denomination!” Aqua said, visible hand on her hip.

“Hm?” Went the old man as he opened up his eyes.

Aqua had a cute and confident grin on her face, hands on her hips with the backs of them pressed against her Shrodinger’s Dress. Flutes played.

“I’m Aqua.” the goddess introduced herself. “Yes, the object of worship for the Religious Cult of Axis: The goddess Aqua!”

Aqua blinked as she raised a hand to point at the priest.

“If thou art one of my followers…” Aqua said.

Aqua bowed from a side view, the old man priest had a bit of nervous sweat rolling down his face.

“It’d be a huge help if you could lend me some money!” Aqua pleaded in a rapid squeaky voice.

“I’m in the Eris Sect, actually…” the priest busted the goddess’s bubble.

Aqua instantly snapped into a shocked face with far more nervous sweat than the priest and the bridge of her nose/between her eyes became red. The flutes stopped with a bang as even Kazuma knew how far Aqua shoved her foot down her throat. His eyes were mere pinpricks and his jaw fell open. …if he wasn’t just now realizing that Aqua wore nothing under her dress in the next camera angle.

All was silent enough for a woman’s giggles to echo through the tavern which overlapped with the theather’s

“Oh, you are? I’m sorry.” Aqua said in a quiet/dead tone.

She turned around as she rubbed her head, but the priest raised his hand.

“Oh, young lady, are you with the Axis Cult?” the priest’s brain jiggled into motion. “The relationship of the goddesses Aqua and Eris is that of Superior and Subordinate.”

“The difference is the ‘quality’ of faith and what we embody.” Aqua said. “For Eris as the Goddess of Luck and Commerce, every action of probability such as shooting an arrow into a crowd of enemies, will empower her. Of course more specialized things such as trying to infiltrate a mansion or dice games will provide more faith towards her, especially if something valuable to more than the thief and current holder is at stake.”

Everyone else’ eyes widened, mentally filling in why Aqua is a senior goddess. Water, after all, was a widely observed physical thing and essential to most life. While Luck and Commerce were only things that sapients could spend time thinking about once their essentials were met. Or in the case of luck, bemoaning their lack of luck because they couldn’t fulfill their essential needs.

“Oh no, you’re the collective consciousness type of deity.” Satoru said, voicing everyone’s thoughts, head in his hands..

“Ah, so that’s why my village has so many sealed detities around it.” Megumin rubbed her chin. “It is easier than killing or converting everyone of their disciples-dreamers. Let alone actual battles to the death with the detities. Which has the potential of fragmenting said deity and/or embedding the ‘idea’ of them into every viewer.”

“So If I want to keep her around and she loses all of her followers, then I would have to personally worship her?” Kazuma thought, eyes on his hands fiddling in his lap.

“I wonder if there is an analogue to Megumin’s clan in my world.” Demiurge thought, left hand on chin as his right hand wrote mental scribbles on the chitin of his tail. “That way I can give Jaldaboath the goal of unsealing his master. Assuming that my plan of making Jaldabaoth the Demon King falls through. But if Jaldabaoth has a god that he ‘answers’ to, then that will increase Lord Satoru’s Momon Persona when he defeats said god. I’ve already implanted the Tri-Armagedden Evil Statue as the reason for the Demonic Disturbance. So I can just say that this god made that statue.”

“And it prevents them from growing stronger and influencing reality, whether that be by empowering their faithful or deciding that 2+2=Purple Pineapple.” Aqua nodded. “Being sealed and forgotten has weakened them.”

Aqua glanced towards Subaru and Shalltear “Should have weakened them.”

“So what happens if you die?” Subaru asked.

“Among lots of other things, Water magic won’t work any more.” Aqua said. “While that doesn’t seem too bad, you must understand that their world doesn’t have the evaporation cycle being the cause of rain, instead it is drunk elementals that cause storms and rain is managed by the lesser spirits. Admittedly evaporation does fulfill the role of making the elementals ‘drunk’ off of the mana in the ocean boiling away into the clouds where the elementals hover.” [2]

“Assuming I just don’t wake up back in Heaven because I got crippled.” Aqua thought. “Seriously, I forgot the whole deal between the Storm Elementals stripping the women in thanks for the adventurers beating them back into sobriety. WHICH I REALLY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BECAUSE I AM THE WATER GODDESS! Or the fact that Devils have the ability to save up multiple lives via Arcana, the negative energy of this world. Which also provides magic resistant to at least the Dragons. Oh and in sufficient concentrations such as a High Ranking Devil being in one place for centuries, Arcana can rip open a portal to hell. While Divine Mana only grants silly-grade regeneration. Because fuck us.”

Again the room's eyes widened.

Satoru’s eye flames narrowed. “If there is no water magic, then that means there is no healing magic nor irrigation for agriculture. Thus mass famines that will weaken nations, if not destroy them outright. And because there is no food, your armies will starve while the Demon King can just modify some beasts to grow food directly from their bodies. Or modify slimes to function as irrigation. And have his combat minions be completely immune to everything but the now absent water magic.”

The others in the room rubbed their temples.

“If you are so important then why did your superiors even allow you to leave?” Puck said, teeth gritted. “While I am the Great Spirit of Fire, in my world Fire Magic covers both hot and cold temperatures. It is a title that will be passed onto another Fire Spirit with my death. It is what happened when I killed Melakouera. But that is just a random title humans made, same with the Beast of the End. it doesn’t have any effects on Od Laguna.”

“Is the Winter Shogun your heir? Does your Heaven have a backup plan at all?” A twitch traveled down Puck’s spine to the tip of his tail.

“I am planning on being the last Water-type deity of my Pantheon.” Aqua said. “But probably that is what would happen if mortals wanted to Apotheosis him. Or one of his subordinate Snow Sprites, which if you kill one of them, then winter is shortened by a single day.”

The others except Kazuma, Darkness, and Megumin blinked.

“That’s odd.” Puck summarized the room’s thoughts as he rubbed his temples. “First the manually controlled water, and now this season decoupled from the time of the year? What’s next, all plant life being mobile and extremely hostile?”

Megumin opened her mouth.

“Oh come on!” Puck said, spasmed from head to tail tip, this time the twitch traveled down to his paws as well. “I was being rhetorical!”

“Well, so long as you don’t swallow the seeds whole.” Megumin explained. “Then most of the plant life just pulls up their roots and runs away. Only the vegetables actually attack you, hence why you need permits to grow them. So I don’t think you can count that as hostile.”

The room blinked again.

Lergen rubbed his head. “The childhood fears of plant life growing inside of you if you swallow a seed. Should not be a literal thing.”

“A-Allergies can be t-triggered if the f-flowers engulf their enemies’ f-faces.” Mare said as he tapped his chin.

“Eh, haven’t seen any flowers do that.” Megumin waved her hand. “They mostly run around and make the teacher force his students to round them up. Maybe if there was a vicious Tranquility Girl nearby, but uh.”

The room filled in the blanks of that happening when their species’ common name was that.

Warn Kazuma of the Tranquility Queen and the Manticores that live near Axel. Darkness wrote in her notebook.

Ah, that is easier and harder than the Unified Divine Realm’s ranking system of how many worlds you have saved. Ristarte thought. Ask Aqua about ascended humans.

Hm, guess Aqua is vulnerable to Ovid and Dante-type Orators. Rudersdorf frowned.

Aqua blinked and turned her head back.

“This must be fate. I saw earlier that you couldn’t cover the fee, correct?” The priest continued.

The priest laid out several golden coins on the table. They were engraved with the dull star of chaos which maybe is the emblem of Belzerg Kingdom.

“Here. Please consider this Eris-sama’s divine blessing.” the priest said while doing the cross motion. …which was a Christian thing.

The military records crew, except Tanya, all breathed in through their noses and counted to ten.

Aqua’s dismay tinted appearance straightened at the sight. Her body and hair cast far more shadow than it should.

“Still, no matter how devout a believer you are, you mustn’t call yourself a goddess.” The priest rubbed his beard.

“Uh, yes. I’m sorry.” Aqua said while she completed her turn and walked over to grab the coins. “Thank you very much…”

Aqua clutched the few coins to her chest before Kazuma’s mouth twitched, eyebrows knotted as Aqua walked back. A soft giggle-sigh escaped Aqua’s lips as she stood in front of her ‘owner’.

“He didn’t even believe that I'm a goddess.” Aqua complained.

Aqua’s eyes wavered under her tears. “By the way, Eris is a goddess ranked beneath me. A believer in my subordinate took pity on me and lent me money…”

Aqua’s eyes wobbled so much that they were audible.

Kazuma looked away and down at the floor. “Y-Yeah…”

Luna was shown wiping off her desk, more accurately her hand. She paused as the camera zoomed out to show Luna nearly horizontal with her butt pointing to the lower right corner of the screen. Kazuma and Aqua’s eyes were covered by their hair bangs.

“Um,” Kazuma brought up his hand. “We’ve brought the registration fee.”

Luna stood up as she stopped her washing, “S-Sure…”

“Something told me that she didn’t want to make eye contact with us…” Kazuma narrated over the request board.

Luna turned around, “Allow me to formally explain.”

Kazuma and Aqua were shown as Luna’s autopilot brain swapped back on.

“Adventurers each have their own occupations.” Luna said before she pointed to the card. “This is your registration card. It keeps track of how many monsters you’ve vanquished.”

“So, you don’t have to cut off the ears or other body parts to confirm the kill?” Satoru said, left hand on chin.

“We are not backwards hillbillies!” Darkness said, fists clutched at her side.

“Besides, if all the adventurers are looking for is to cut off their ears.” Tanya said with a shrug. “Then the natural thing to do is to make a monster breeding farm, cut off the associated body part, sell the part, and then use the money to expand your breeding facilities. Which will eventually get exposed and release far more monsters than originally was.”

Albedo closed her eyes and mentally groaned at such an easy answer to raise money, which she and Demiurge completely missed. Then not one of Lord Satoru’s operatives would lack for money in the human world. Demiurge resisted the urge to slap himself upside the head with his tail as he came to the same conclusion.

“Okay, I get why Albedo and Demiurge didn’t think of that because they have to run Nazarick and deduce Lord Satoru’s plots to take over the world respectively.” Aura thought, head in her hands with Mare gently rubbing her head. “But I am the Beastmaster, so I should have thought of that myself! Hey, for that matter, why don’t we see if Mare could grow one of the rare (for the New World) plants and harvest those to give to Lord Satoru’s Momon Persona. Which would increase his fame because he can now accurately identify AND harvest rare plant materials.”

“I could have the Lizardmen see if they have any other rare resources suitable for trade to human settlements.” Cocytus thought. “Then have Lord Satoru as Momon formally meet them and bring trade. Increasing his fame not only as a Human Hero, but as a Hero of many races.”

Satoru placed a hand on his forehead. “Oh, I am such a dumbass for not thinking of that. It would certainly give Aura and Mare something to do so that they aren’t bored.”

Tanya gave half-lidded glares to the Nazarick crew. “[Geniuses], Suuuuure.”

The NPCs accepted that remark and hung their heads.

“As your level increases, you’ll earn points that you can use to learn skills, so please work hard to raise your level.” Luna said as she folded her hands in front of her waist.

A blue crystal orb was shown, yellow and light gray metal formed a clockwork machination around the orb. Below the orb were three cyan laser focusing discs. The Card Maker was held up by two dark gray claws.

“Now, both of you, please hold your hands over this crystal.” Luna asked.

The camera swapped to show Kazuma reaching to the crystal. Aqua was interested in the clockwork of the Card Maker.

“Like this?” the boy asked.

With a click and the sound of a film reel rolling, the crystal lit up with an inner like as the clockwork spun. Which prompted an amazed [ha] to spill from Kazuma’s lips. Cyan bubbles gathered in the crystal before they descended to the focusing lens. The clockwork clicked and swirled as a violin played over the fantastically rendered CGI. the focusing lens, more like small bowls as the camera zoomed in and provided clarity, wobbled as the cyan bubbles passed through them to reach the needle at the bottom.

With a soft electronic whistle, the needle tip glowed and shot the concentrated bubbles down at the card. Etching into it the details of Kazuma.

“With this, you will each learn your current status,” Luna said as the laser wrote down Kazuma’s name. “So please choose your desired occupation based on your stats.”

The laser-pen was shown from below, looking like a saucer-type final boss. The laser passed over the camera twice before we returned to Kazuma’s very invested face.

“Here it comes!” Kazuma leaned closer. “Now my tremendous latent abilities will be made apparent, and there’ll be an uproar throughout the guild!”

“I mean…” Kazuma scratched his left cheek. “I guess I did receive it, with that sheer delay of leveling up.”

“You also did get it by proxy of Aqua.” Megumin and Darkness said.

Aqua nodded.

Kazuma blushed.

“So, Subaru truly isn’t the only one with that type of expectations.” Emilia thought with half-lidded eyes.

The laser etching finished, leaving a lot of words in the Belzerg script that went untranslated. Below a stylized portrait of Kazuma were six bubbles that detailed the type of class he had. To the left of that was his skill list and presumably his current stat point number. Above that was his name in the script, which looked like the scribbles of a space architect. Luna picked up the card and then turned around.

“Yes, thank you very much.” Luna said while reading Kazuma’s card. “Satou Kazuma-san, is it? Let me see…”

The camera showed Kazuma gleefully awaiting his destiny and Aqua mildly interested.

“Average across the board.” Luna said. “With the exception of decently high intelligence…”

Luna blinked. “Oh? Your luck is extraordinarily high.”

Kazuma blushed as most of the room nodded in agreement with Luna.

“Of course,” Luna held Kazuma’s card to her chest, a hesitant look on her face. “Luck isn’t a very essential stat for an adventurer… with this much luck, I’d recommend becoming a merchant or something similar.”

Kazuma had the barest hints of despair on his face, Aqua tried and mostly succeeded in suppressing her giggles behind a meritful smirk and her hand.

“Ah, the [Easy Growth] thing is a hidden stat.” Rudersdorf said, tapping his left hand’s fingers against his left palm. “On one hand, it's convenient not to hang a [please assassinate me] sign around their necks. On the other hand, I do not envy your nation’s strategists when it comes to your nation’s future.”

“We did identify the previous Cheat Users by their black hair and odd artifacts.” Darkness explained. “But roughly 20 years ago there was a push from the demon king that focused down on black haired people, so Mitsurugi and Kazuma are the latest in the trend of disinformation.” [4]

“Ah, what is a mere twenty years to a goddess?” The rest of the room thought, realizing that the demon king wouldn’t use a dagger in place of a broadsword.

Kazuma glared at the snickering Aqua over his shoulder. “Hey, she’s disapproving of my adventurer’s lifestyle right off the bat. What’s going on?”

“U-Um,” Kazuma turned towards Luna, he hunched over. “Make my primary job [Adventurer], please.”

“W-Well,” Luna’s brain switched into consultation mode. “You can always change jobs when you level up!”

“Y-You’re right!” Kazuma said, straightening his back as he took his card.

“Eh? You don’t have to wait until level 40 before your Class-Up Ritual?” Raphtaila asked, her ears twitched as she remembered the battle against the Class-upped Bandit that was cut from the anime. “No wait, you have that very slow leveling process. Thus you wouldn’t need to restrict access to the Class-Up ritual.”

Raphtalia glanced at Filo’s Cowlick-Tiara thing.

“Would you gain stats from changing your class?” Raphtalia asked. “It happened to us, so you should have the same thing. …though, you don’t have the Waves as a phenomenon.”

Aqua shook her head. “No we don’t have to wait, no our stats don’t grow when we change classes. The only way for stats to grow is leveling, training, and Dragon Meat.”

Kazuma turned towards Aqua. “Hey, if Dragon Meat is a stat boosting item, and at least Mitsu-prick can easily kill a Dragon.” Kazuma reached over to pinch Aqua’s cheeks. “Then, why oh why, isn’t Dragon Meat being served as a regular, if expensive, meal here at Axel’s Adventurer’s Guild?”

“Because Dragons are converters who seek out Arcana, the energy of hell, absorbing it. They break it down into usable energies and rare materials like Manatite that form in their treasure hoards, the stat increase is just a side effect. But because the Dragons are not native to hell, they all go insane and must be put down.” Aqua said through her pinched cheeks. “The other side effect of this conversion process makes it so that Arcana can be smelled by anyone, not just the Divines. Thus if you were to serve Dragon Meat, you would get numerous complaints about the smell.” [3]

Kazuma closed his eyes, breathed out his nose, and let Aqua go.

“Ah, if only Volcanica’s meat could do the same thing.” Roswaal thought. “Then Subaru would be on board with my plan to kill the Dragon, he must be desperate to be worthwhile in combat.”

“Eating to get stronger? What a lazy growth method.” The casts of Overlord, Military Records, Rista, Seiya, and Subaru thought.

“Ah, so more of the cardinal weapons.” Raphtailia and Filo thought.

“Subaru and Kazuma are going to be so pissed that I can grow stronger just by eating everything.” Naofumi thought of his shield’s absorption ability. Blissfully unaware of his time as the Tray (Mirror) Hero in the second Glass World arc.

“Of course we can’t have that type of ‘metaphysics’, no that would mean Subaru would be useful in more situations.” Puck’s left eye twitched. “Apparently we can’t have nice things.”

“I know that the last heartbeat of a Dragon and/or the blood of a Dragon is one possible solution to my frozen forest.” Emilia frowned and glanced at her lap. “But why can’t we have such an easy way to gain power? That isn’t being born with it like myself, or tremendous training like Wilhelm?”

Emilia breathed in through her nose, held her breath for 10 seconds, and released it from her mouth.

“I. Am. Not. Her.” Emilia thought.

Ram laid a hand on her twin’s back which broke Rem out of her angry thought spiral.

Kazuma opened his eyes and stared down Aqua.

His face dropped as he saw for himself, exactly how terrible his stats were.

“The weakest job, huh?” Kazuma thought as Aqua walked past behind him.

The machine swirled for a brief moment then Luna let out a loud gasp.

“Aside from your intelligence being below average,” Luna said around her hand in front of her mouth. “And your luck being the lowest possible level, all of your stats are drastically above average!”

“Yeah,” Zettour nodded. “Being dragged down from Heaven would qualify for the lowest luck possible.”

“If we didn’t just see part of Subaru’s first day.” The rest of the room finished the thought.

Luna’s boobs jiggled as she turned towards Aqua.

“What?” Aqua’s just stated intelligence kicked in. “Does that mean I’m really amazing?”

A mirthful jingle played as Luna retrieved Aqua’s card.

“A-Amazing is an understatement!” Luna said. “The mage class, which requires intelligence, is out of the question, but other than that, you can be anything you want!”

Two barmaids and four male customers were shown as they turned towards Luna, Kazuma, and Aqua.

“A Crusader, Sword Master, Arch Priest…” Luna continued over their interested looks. “Nearly any Advanced Class right from the start!”

The red haired barmaid walked in front of them, the camera focused on her interested face as Luna’s final syllable left her lips. Before Aqua and Kazuma were shown once again, Kazuma looked at Aqua with a dejected expression as Aqua had a closed eye smug smile on her face. One arm supported the other whose hand had her raised index finger twirling in place.

“I see. It’s a shame there’s no [Goddess] Occupation,” Aqua said, she opened her eyes and placed her hands on her hips. “But in my case, maybe I’ll be an Arch Priest who heals her allies.”

“An Arch Priest!” Luna said.

The camera panned up Aqua’s body starting at her hips

“An almighty Class that commands all recovery and support magic, and that boasts enough strength to stand at the front line!” Luna’s narration ended at Aqua’s pleasant smile.

The tavern erupted into cheers and trumpets. Still images of celebrating adventurers passed before Luna turned around after getting Aqua’s card. Luna was suddenly flanked by two other receptionists, the left one was an elf with light green hair. The right was a human with a darker shade of green.

“Without further ado, welcome to our adventurer’s guild, Lady Aqua.” Luna said.

The camera retreated to show further uniformed staff members, Luna took her free arm and placed it under her boobs like she was going to bow. All of the …behind the scenes staff wore the same uniform. A brown vest over a secondary vest this time colored navy, which had a white long sleeved shirt underneath that. A red tie provided a centering effect compared to the yellow star that was over everyone’s heart. The look was completed with a gray pair of pants with the navy vest’s coattails covering the belt.

To the left of the elf was a moderately tall brown haired human man who had his arms folded behind his waist. To that one’s left stood a far larger, both in height and width, man with his arms crossed.

“All of our staff will be looking forward to your future exploits.” Luna said.

“Why couldn’t Re-Estize be developed enough to have these adventurer’s cards?” The NPCs thought. “Then Lord Satoru wouldn’t have to waste his time doing menial tasks.”

A wide shot of the guild filled to the brim with adventurers who all cheered before the camera cut back to Aqua’s smiling face.

“Starting off as an Archpriest is incredible!” Said one female adventurer amongst the crowd.

Aqua’s hair did its pseudo dog tail wagging as the camera routed around her, as Aqua looked around the crowd. Aqua closed her eyes as she rubbed her head and waved with her free hand.

“Someone like you might actually be able to beat the Demon King, you reckless girl!” Said the Barbarian as he was moved behind Aqua.

The turning movement ended when the disappointed Kazuma got onto screen.

“No event like this is going to happen for me?” Kazuma asked.

Aqua pivoted towards Kazuma, a smile beaming across her face and finger pointed directly at Kazuma.

“It’s the adventurer’s life for us starting today, Kazuma!” Aqua said.

“I thought you absolutely hated all this.” Kazuma replied, still down.

Aqua blinked and lowered her hand, “Did I?”

Kazuma merely closed his eyes and sighed. The camera swapped to just above the statue’s head, showing the massive crowd. Kazuma half turned before the entire crowd was blurred out to focus on the statue. Then the camera showed the statue from Kazuma’s perspective.

“Well, anyways, everything thus far has been basically character creation,” Kazuma thought, as he turned to the camera and a small smile grew. “Now our adventure is about to begin.”

The camera zoomed into Kazuma’s face before blending into a blinding white. Axel was shown from the treetops, sunlight peeking from above the wall. Then one of the nearby mountains was shown with a tower to the side, in between was the sunlight behind the horizon. No, it was the dawn of a new day and the dawn of the end of the Demon King. trumpets and other horns played continuously until the next spoke line over this montage.

A dove flew past the screen at a very close distance, close enough for the viewer to count the individual feathers. Which was helped by the fact that the bird was rapidly losing feathers as it flew up and away from the camera.

A mound of dirt was shown before an offscreen Kazuma swung his pickaxe into the ground. Kazuma was shown mid backswing, down to his white undershirt and green tracksuit pants. The top half wrapped around his waist and a white headband from somewhere applied to his forehead. Kazuma gritted his teeth as he once more swung the pickaxe forward, obscuring the sight of a short set of scaffolding to repair the wall’’s face.

The animation exaggerated Kazuma’s determined but despairing face as he commenced the hard labor of groundbreaking.

Kazuma was shown from afar with several other men digging to either provide stone for the wall or to make a foundation. In the foreground Aqua was providing water to three men in the shade of a lean-to. Kazuma was next shown to be carrying the back of a massive timber that was tied to a bag of coal or the result of their mining, only for the weight to be too much and he collapsed which caused the rocks to fall out.

A small amount of dust, the same amount as Aura kicked up, billowed around him as Kazuma laid on his back amongst the rocks which narrowly missed him. Kazuma slowly glanced up to the blonde foreman who had his arms crossed and a massive frown. Kazuma jolted upwards and raised an apology salute while the other worker was scratching his head and a faint light of dismay shone in his eyes.

“Why didn’t you participate in the hard labor, if your stats are so good?” Filo asked.

“Well, that would be training.” Aqua shrugged. “As a Goddess, my stats are already at the cap that they naturally can grow to be, whether that be training or leveling. So the only way for me to grow stat wise is Dragon Meat.”

The others blinked as Kazuma placed his hands on Aqua’s shoulders and gave her a pitying look.

“I don’t need your pity.” Aqua said as she removed Kazuma’s hands from her shoulders.

“Ah, too bad about Aqua not doing the hard work.” Tanya thought. “Might have seen some Popeye-type action. …and the joy of a ‘Goddess’ forced to do the same menial tasks as us.”

A pair of horses were shown with their heads between the stable bars.

“What are those?” Emilia asked. “Why do they look like Melakuera?”

“First a fire cat, and now a fire horse.” Tanya breathed in. “Ah, proper fantasy.”

“Those are horses?” Ram said. “Hn, I like the look of Land Dragons better. At least the scales don’t get everywhere like fur does.”

The entire stable was shown before Kazuma’s face was shown with closed eyes on a bundle of hay. Kazuma then rolled over to face a pile of horseshit, he then smelled it and jerked away. Kazuma glared at the scat and held his nose closed.

“You know, if Aqua actually pulled her weight.” Filo said. “Then maybe you wouldn’t have to sleep in a stable.”

Aqua hung her head.

“…and that’s another thing I am forced to be grateful about.” Naofumi thought, head in hands. “How lucky I was to not be forced to sleep in a stable, even when the entire nation hated my guts.”

Raphtalia gently rubbed the back of her Master’s head.

“Well, at least Subaru didn’t have to deal with this.” Rem thought.

“Oh come on, why couldn’t I have joined the party early enough to sleep in the stable with them?” Darkness bit her tongue to prevent her jealousy from showing on her face.

Her party mates all had half lidded eyes as they sensed their perverted knight’s thoughts.

“Wow, Aqua didn’t cry about that?” Megumin thought. “I guess she does have a modicum of self control.”

Megumin twisted in her seat.

“At least I didn’t force Kazuma to smell my pee during that doll incident.” Megumin thought. “Couldn’t the stable owner find an actually clean cell for them to sleep in?”

“Aw, of course I miss such a delightful bounding experience.” Darkness shuddered. “Kazuma could have used my body as a blanket and as an air freshener.”

The camera shifted to show Aqua right behind Kazuma, blissfully asleep and selfishly hogging the only tiny blanket. More scat was just below Kazuma, to the point where if he straightened his legs, then his feet would be barely an inch away. Kazuma’s shoulders shook before the camera showed the outside of the barn, above which was a pleasant navy night sky partially hidden by the clouds.

Beneath the barn laid a gently babbling crook which ended in the screen’s bottom right corner. The crook’s end gently shimmered like Kazuma’s tears.

Kazuma blurred as he swung the pickaxe in the light of day, his expression far more maniac today. The other workers, however, were far more impressed with Aqua’s …Talents to see what Kazuma was doing. Though Aqua did eventually learn enough construction skills to expand a castle under daily [Explosion] bombardment by Wolbach, the one who taught Megumin explosion.

So Aqua flourishly applying mortar, or whatever the brick binding element is called, does have a purpose. Though her white shirt, green pants, gray boots, and yellow bandana certainly was …an interesting design choice. One that only highlighted Aqua’s delight as she spun around to face the crowd, which included Kazuma who had stopped working.

Aqua dumped a bucket of water over her head as she did the pseudo-shower of apparently Japanese tradition. Kazuma and Aqua were shown back in their original gear drinking milk. Whose vendor was just to the side of them in a purple apron and a light purple shirt with a white hat. Both Aqua and Kazuma held their left hands on their waists as they completely drained the glass jugs of milk.

The adventurer’s guild was shown at night and Kazuma bit into a drumstick and had to pull the meat apart with his teeth. Aqua bit into cheese on a fork before she and Kazuma bumped their Nereoid drinks together.

Kazuma threw a large blanket onto a pile of hay, which was finally free of horse scat. Aqua turned around and leapt backwards onto the blanket. Hands held close to her chest before she threw them out and upwards as she landed. Kazuma too was making a Y shape but he was face down into their new blanket.

Kazuma was finally working in unison with the other groundbreakers, but still wildly threw his head back and forth. …well mostly in sync, he was in a line with the others who were in actual synchronization. Kazuma operated the crane lifting up three more bricks to the top of the wall, and Aqua took a free ride. She waved some encouragement towards Kazuma as he got her level with the top of the wall.

Aqua and Kazuma were shown side by side as they did the bucket of water thing. They then banged their drinks together once more. They both sensed the presence of their construction co-workers and their eyes shrunk to pinpricks as they saw the entirety of the crew before them. Said crew was understandably pissed because of their lackluster work efforts. Kazuma and Aqua quietly shook in fear.

A white flash then Kazuma was shown line dancing with the other men, each of which was holding their own drinks. Everyone had their eyes closed as they swayed from side to side. Aqua bumped drinks with two of her co-workers as some of the tavern goers raised their mugs to the partying group of workers.

The camera zoomed out of Aqua chugging so much alcohol that even she had a small blush over her nose. Kazuma had a hand on his head as he closed his eyes and leaned back, nearly resting on his boss. In front of Kazuma was another filled to the brim mug, in fact the foam of the drink was overflowing. Next to the overflowing drink laid a plate of drum sticks. After that Kazuma rubbed Aqua’s back as she puked out a rainbow, a large one in fact with a modest puddle by their feet.

The next day Aqua slathered on more mortar in a sideways V shape, the duo did the bathtub bathing thing, and this time Aqua joined Kazuma in the conga line. The post dance drinking was skipped to replay the rainbow puking once more.

The dove lost the same amount of feathers as it heralded the dawn of a new day.

Kazuma still made his overly exaggerated faces but this time he was in sync with the other workers, Aqua made a sideways V Mortar. Then Aqua and Kazuma drained their small glasses of milk. …the clip of Kazuma eating a drumstick and Aqua eating cheese replayed. They toasted their drinks and the full conga line was shown in this replay. Before it zoomed into Aqua’s cheerful but closed eyes face. As transparent liquid droplets filled the bottom half of the screen.

The droplets continued as it went to Kazuma’s face, also full of enjoyment.

The navy blue sky filled with stars as the camera raced up to show the full moon. The music reached a crescendo as Aqua and Kazuma, now finally having separate blankets of their own. Laid down on their sack of hay. A beat filled with the white noise of nightlife animals as their work closes were hung on a drying line above them.

“Wait, this isn’t right!” Kazuma lunged into a seating position.

“Really, what was your first indication?” Lergen snarked.

“What isn’t?” Aqua asked, not willing to exit the comfort of her blanket by sitting up.

Kazuma placed his hand over his mouth. “No, wait a second!”

That caused Aqua to shuffle herself upwards and push her blanket down to her hips. Her blue nightgown was just a shade lighter than her hair or her eyes, it had a bare neck with exposed shoulders. Her nightgown was prevented from falling by two white straps connected to a thick white band. Above her breasts was a small tie, a dark purple circle with yellow trim. The main body of the tie was red and ended in a white chevron.

“What’s wrong?” Aqua asked. “Did you forget to use the bathroom before bed? It’s dark. Do you want me to go with you?”

Kazuma jolted his hand away and crunched it into a fist as he glared at Aqua.

“No need! It's not that!” Kazuma yelled

The stable owner was apparently close enough to hear that and banged against the wall. …further frightening their horses if said animals were awake. Aqua’s hair twirled as Kazuma hunched into himself, fists near his chin in an ametur’s boxing pose. His eyes were pinpricks as he stared at the wall separating him and a potential beatdown because of a noise complaint. Aqua completed her motion and her final pose was that karate chop hand position.

“Keep it down!” Shouted back the stable owner as Aqua’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks.

The pseudo-couple twisted their spines as they waved their hands and closed their eyes in the exact same way.

“W-We’re sorry!” They both stuttered in the same way.

Kazuma spread mortar over a seam in the bricks before placing a new brick over the seam. Aqua was sat a few feet away on a wooden stool so she could make a higher layer of bricks. Kazuma picked up another brick and laid it upon the mortar.

“We didn’t come here to be laborers.” Kazuma said.

“Oh,” Aqua jolted out of autopilot and turned towards Kazuma. “That’s right!”

Aqua pulled her brick and …mortar spreader thing away from her work station. “I need you to defeat the Demon King, or I’ll never be able to go home!”

Kazuma had a face of mute despair upon that. So much despair that the next scene was bathwater rippling as Kazuma gingerly lowered himself in.

“Her intelligence stat was lower than a human’s.” Kazuma thought.

“Oh, wait.” Aqua leaned over to Kazuma. Hand hiding a smirk. “You forgot as well.”

Kazuma hung his head.

Kazuma walked out of the bathhouse, carrying a small wooden box.

“All of the monsters near town have been long since exterminated.” Kazuma thought. “With no monsters, there's no need for anyone to give us fetch quests.”

================= Bloopers:

-during the pick a power section-

“I’m surprised that you didn’t say that Heroes marry into Belzerg’s Royalty if they killed a Demon King, and Nobility if they didn’t.” Darkness said. “Thus the Royal Family has abilities on par with the Heroic Cheats.”

“Why only Belzerg?” Aura asked.

“We’re the frontlines and have been for countless Demon Kings.” Megumin said.

“Thus the other nations provide elite troops to shore up our defenses and give other types of support. But the main financial backer of Belzerg is Elroad, a nation built on gambling.” Darkness clarified. Vol10 stuff.

------

“YOU CALL THAT REINCARNATION?!” Tanya yelled, trying to fly over to Kazuma to choke him. Luckily for Kazuma, Visha and Lergen knew Tanya very well and pinned her down. “THAT'S RESURRECTION NOT REINCARNATION!”

“Why would there be a separate term?” Aqua tilted her head.

“CAUSE THEY-” Weiss shoved an unwrapped chocolate bar into his superior’s mouth.

“Because they are widely different things.” Ristarte sighed, hanging her head at her fellow goddess’ stupidity.

--------------deleted cuz I was about to go into Christian-Norse relations and the Crusades.

The non-Military Records crew just sat there for a few seconds comprehending Yahweh’s Angels.

“Angels are also metaphors. Hence why the Cherubim have a human head for love, an ox head for strength, a lion’s head for majesty, and an eagle’s head for cunning.” Rudersdorf said. “Though as you can see on the left, the standard angel looks like a human, being the ones to interact with us most. “Be Not Afraid” does not help with that many eyes. The reason why they have white wings and halos, when they didn’t in the bible, is because the renaissance artists needed a way to differentiate their humans and angels.”

Satoru rested his head in his palms. “So, why did the Cherubim become the angel baby archers?”

“Valentine’s Day, a day where you’re supposed to give chocolate to your significant other.” Rudersdorf explained. “Thus the greco-roman minor deity named Eros/Cupid whose weaponry bestows love, usually in the romantic sense, to anyone they wound. Even himself. Got assimilated into said holiday, because we of the Abrahamic Faiths just love to take someone else’s properties and make it ours. Like what happened to Yuletide (a celebration of Norse’s Great God Odin) into a celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth.”

Satoru perked up. “Oh, right. Christians also transcribed the Norse Literature.”

The other worlds stared at the Military Records cast.

Rudersdorf raised an eyebrow, “Would you prefer the violent way known as the Crusades?”

----

Blooper: if the Axis Cultists were shown.

“This is my role, not yours!” Albedo thought.

In response a group of humans labeled the ‘Axis Cult (Aqua’s Faithful)’ were shown in all of their sexual deviancy. Particularly the various monsters charging the cultists, seeing/overhearing their affiliation, and instantly bolting for the horizon. An image was shown simply titled: Who controls art. On the bottom left was a monarch, in the middle was an eccentric millionaire, on the right was a furry with wads of cash.

“If there is a hole there is a way?” Zettour held his head in his hands. “What is this, the Roman Empire in popular depiction?”

“Oh, splendid. Yet more Eight Fingers-like organizations.” Sebas thought, ki bristled underneath his skin. “Thankfully this one doesn’t have any slave-brothels. …or at least ones that Weaver has yet to reveal to us.”

The others, save Darkness and Megumin, sat in silence absorbing the Axis Cult.

“So, Yggdrasil closed down without any word of a sequel or something.” Aqua, the Goddess of Monster Fuckers and other sexually societal Outcasts, shook her head no. “And that’s just the furries/heteromorph-only players. Especially considering that Name Recognition is just as valuable, if not more so, than Gold.”

“Especially since Satoru’s Earth had only humans and thus Yggdrasil (and its contemporaries) would be one of the only escapes from the cruelty of man.” Aqua raised her hands into a confused shrug. “And the other races couldn’t sabotage their ‘harmless’ reputations like hippos. Compared to Shark’s reputation of monsters always on the prowl.”

“Again, we are just as monstrous as you think we are.” Shalltear and Demiurge thought, cupping their heads in their hands.

“Unfortunately like Bitch/Whore did for women in general, Balscus ruined religions for Mr. Naofumi.” Raphtalia thought, rubbing her temples. “Otherwise you would maybe have a new convert. If you weren’t so lust focused.” “So, your solution to you using people from a nation of declining birth rates and put them into a world of declining birth rates.” Tanya thought. “Was to reincarnate the people from the world of declining birth rates back into Japan. I’ve heard that [If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it] from the Americans. But this is ridiculous.”

=======Preview.

s1ep5/6:

“Why? Did you aim for his arm?” Puck’s tail twitched, Rem’s pinprick eyes were reflected in Puck’s very sharp teeth. “Why am I not the only one of his allies to kill him?”

S1ep7 re:zero

A pair of hands grasped Subaru’s and broke him out of his nightmare.

The oni twins merely turned their heads towards Subaru as they remember the first interaction they were allowed to keep.

“A simple hand holding is what caused you to forgive us?” Ram stated with half-lidded eyes. “You are far too kind, unnaturally so. The barest of bare minimums of kindness do not make up for what we did.”

….

Subaru leapt off the cliff.

“No, I retract that unnatural kindness comment.” Ram said. “You’re insane. Literally insane.”

S1ep8 of re:zero.

-------

“So, not only are you completely and utterly insane.” Tanya threw her hands up. “But you don’t even give yourself any rest? Seriously, wait a day or two before you are all chummy with those demons.”

“Racing against a dog clock, remember?” Subaru said.

S1ep14 of re:zero.

“Rem. Rem.” Subaru muttered as he dragged himself through the tragedy around him.

“I’ll count this as healing.” Rem said as she stared down at her hands.

Subaru opened his mouth.

“Yes, I know that it’s because you don’t want to actualize the thought of Emilia being hurt.” Rem spoke before Subaru could. “But thinking about people that have harmed you being hurt, is perfectly normal and a sane thing to do. Which you are in short supply of both.”

-------------------

S1ep2 of Shield Hero:

“You need to trust more.” Subaru said.

“You need to trust LESS!” Naofumi, Tanya, and Ainz shouted back at him.

---------------------

[0] Said angel being completely and utterly terrible was, in fact, the trigger for the party actually killing the demon king. By provoking Aqua’s good hearted nature with the fact that no one else is coming after Kazuma until Aqua is returned. No natives. No isekais. Nothing. Thus the Demon King thinks Kazuma is the Doom Slayer.

[1]the reason why I say this, is because in vol 4 (later half of season 2) Kazuma expresses shock at finding an Elf and Dwarf in Aqua’s church-town. So, elves and dwarves must skip Axel if they come. Also in vol 10, even another human nation does not want to support Belzerg. So why would non humans (other than Aqua and Eris) help? Remember that Belzerg has held back this current demon king for 7 centuries, several of them even before the Crimson Demon clan was made.

To the point where the Belzerd nobility have agreements for the Talentless. If a Talentless only kills a General, then they can marry into the nobility. The Dustiness Family (aka Darkness family) which has only accepted defensive cheats, there’s a rival family for offensive cheats. The royal family itself only accepts the Talentless who actually killed a Demon King. So, the other nations and races are basically blissfully unaware of the danger that the world is in. (which isn’t really shown because it's a comedy series).

Afterall, Belzerg has stood for many generations of Demon Kings, why should this one be any different.

[2]Yes, I know that the common fanon is that all water molecules would disappear with Aqua’s death. But that’s not how I interpated the debate between Aqua, Megumin, Darkness, and Lucy (vol14). But what about Eris not having big boobs if all her faithful believe that she has them? To which I reply: Fanon has Eris being an ascended human like Ristarte. I forget if that is actually canon to the ln, but that is what I am using.

Thus, like Ristarte and Cerceus, Eris is immune (or at least resistant) to attempts to mold her form and facts about her.

[3]in canon, Dragons do have Arcana but that only grants magic resist for them. The smell and stat increase is also canon. Again, I am spending far too much time trying to make sense out of a comedy series.

[4]Yeah it’s canon that Wiz is literally the reason why Konosuba’s Demon King isn’t overlord vol14/later half of s4, or any of the Overly Cautious Demon Kings.

AN: Brain: hey you know what’s a good idea? Use the power picking section to brainstorm powers. Me actually writing: oh hell no. even though I did come up with powers and how to connect them into explaining Actual Speed v Esoteric Speed (using DC’s Flash) vs Action Economy (using Brain Unglaus). That is just too unwieldy, SO STOP APPEARING IN MY MIND, BRAIN!

In other news, that thing about Mare smashing the ice statute of Brain? Yeah I thought it was a personal smack with his staff, ‘comedic’ or otherwise. Not that Brain was caught up in the AOE of Mare’s spells. So Mare is surprisingly less of an asshole than I thought he was.

"I respect you enough to command my subordinates to freeze you into cryostasis, take your weapon as a trophy, but not enough to move your body out of the AOE of my coworker." -Cocytus to Brain.

Unless the road the nobles took to Ainz’ rubble throne was the street Brain defended, then Cocytus must have asked Mare not to destroy the street.

In other news: I’ve got a tumblr, worldweaverofmediocrity. Go there to see progress updates on this story (and maybe others)

I want to have subaru discuss the normal cour length of 12/13 episodes, thus he mistakenly believes that most of the mansion loops (such as the ones where the Oni Twin were cruel to him) wouldn’t be featured in favor of saving the screen time for pete. Thus, he (alone in his head) doesn’t need to explain why he committed a (heroic) suicide nor why he isn’t deeply afraid of said twins. Nor his self harming habit. Or his fear of chains. But I have no idea where to put that, maybe I should save that for the next re:zero episode.

…and i basically lost my first job because of crippling anke pain/constantly under preforming. So job search twice in one year. …yay -_-

I don’t expect to live past 8/30/23, because I have an endoscopy and that requires anatheisa (the part i’m worried about) i’ve underwent that far too many times (like 15+ because when I was 6-8 I had to do an endoscopy every six weeks), so i’ve rolled the dice too amny times. If I don’t take this down in like 5 days, then i’m dead. Writing this last bit during a panick attack.

#isekai quartet #re:zero #overlord #saga of tanya the evil #the overpowered hero is overly cautious #overly cautious hero #overly cautious #konosuba #writing #my writing #the rising of the shield hero

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bigbrothernetflix-st · 4 years

Text

EPISODE ONE

“its week ONE. why is everyone being so cracked i hate it here i absolutely hate it here someone take me out with a sniper rifle” - aria

HOH: Jev UPSIDE DOWN: Jacob & Gina NOMINEES: Kiki & Nash POV: Nash FINAL NOMINEES: Kiki & Mo EVICTED: Mo (14-1)

PRESEASON CAST ASSESSMENT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEdLzVoyttU&list=PLFEwPPy8j010XXwntq80VSU0qLNTNpSIN&index=2&t=0s

JOEY

WOO holy shit this cast is filled with such insane personalities, and I cannot WAIT to play this game!

NASH

tell me why i'm already nervous

NASH

waits patiently for mo to pick another damn person to infect

GINA

skghkdgljhgdlj BRAIN HURTY,, sm people to talk to and everyone is so so nice! just glad I'm not winning hoh

ARIA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-bwCxQGRhk

alternative title: im very mean for 20 minutes

KIKI

so far the cast seems very sweet! a little quiet so far but otherwise im really enjoying talking to them!! and i think the twist is a cool idea but could be dangerous.... maybe a little too easy to expose alliances

GINA

I really like this cast! I'm actually really good friends with Aria (but we keeping that a secret) and I recognize Joshua from other orgs! Also, this twist seems super fun!

ARIA

okay,,,,okay,,,ok,,,k my brain is struggling to complie everything ive learned today i am STRUGGLING!!!!

So!! Lets make a tier list

We're working together (didnt even need to discuss)

-Nathan

-Jacob

-Gina

Asked to work together

-Joey

-Joshua

Implied we're working togther but lower tier

-Jev

-Josh C

-Monty

Super Sweet & Nice

-Bri

-Kiki

-Dem

-Mo

Sweet but i want a response

-Nick

-Emma

_saira

-jake

-Nash

So thats what i've gathered for today mostly, Jacob-Joey-Jev-Joshua all seem to really want to work close with me and we've talked a bit of game ( ITS ALL THE Js HELP) and seem super open while the girls seem more closed off as of now, kinda worried gina isnt gonna be active enough but idk, oh also everyone is noticing bri is CHAOS and that nick is talkative/assertive. more to update in a bit but heres a trust ranking for night one, one more thing jev said he doesnt like nathan or nick :OO and someone else mentioned nick being overbearing

1.Gina (i love her to the moon and back)

2. Nathan( the charisma SNAPPED this game go off sir!!)

3. Josh C (they're also charismatic but they're hecking hilarious and our view are pretty similar)

4.Jev (they cared about me!! and im nice to them and this is just really wholesome)

5.Jacob (LOVE him but we havent talked enough beyond "we're winning this game")

6.Joshua (super fun to talk to, same og community king)

7.Bri (they wont keep info to themselves but shes SO sweet pls take my heart)

8. Joey (hes kinda sketching me out tbh but also he wants to work with me so)

9.Nick (they wouldnt put me up and thats all i could ask for)

10.Monty (PLEASE trust me i need ur braincells)

12.Kiki (sHES SO SWEET AND GOOD AT ART ADORE HER)

13.Mo (existential dread buddies <3)

14.Dem(approached game w/ me,,,but on the first message so might be doing that w/ everyone)

15.Nash (kate protection gang!!!)

16.Saira (we loVE DOGS! and thats it)

17.Emma (feel better soon,,,then pls talk to me k thanks)

18.Aria (dont trust anyone,,,not even yourself)

DEM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykD4dZjsDl0

BRIANNA

https://youtu.be/odNZXz-jNtw

If alliances have been made already, I am gonna have some QUALMS... This cast is very cute, I love meeting new people, let's see we have

Aria - an ANGEL we've been talking about SIX the musical and slime tutorials

Brianna - The first person to recognize me using a Carole & Tuesday song in any of my videos. I'm v grateful.

Dem - He kinda jokes like a mom...

Emma - I'm friends with Emma outside of the game and she is such a chaotic sweetheart. We been in the house a day and she plays Lois Griffon singing Doja Cat... for what...

Gina - I have not talked with her, I just said hi.

Jacob - Jacob is nice. I think I've yet to have a super positive ORG experience with him tho. So. Yeah.

Can I do the rest tomorrow cus I'm tired and just not in the mood. Okay thank you.

SAIRA

I was a little surprised by the amount of people dming me but they all seemed pretty nice! The twist sounds cool, I'm excited to see how it plays out

JEV

i definitely did NOT expect to win the first hoh but here we are, i have no idea what i'm gonna do but i need sleep so that's tomorrows problem

JOSH C

HELLO! it's your boy josh coming to give you some thoughts on the cast. coming into this game, the only person i know of beforehand is.. JACOB who has managed to snake me in both games we've played together so that's cute. i don't really have a choice but to trust him for now bc that's my only outside connection so we'll see how it goes. he's fun to talk to so i don't really mind but my eyes are PEELED for it going south.

my favorites just from the first night are probably aria, kiki, nathan, and saira. for no REAL reasons other than i just feel like i've had the best conversations with them and they were more fun than the rest of the cast. i'm not sure if those will stay the same but that's HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW!!

i've reached out to everyone and heard back from everyone (other than nash.. dunno what that's about so i'll just let it sit there. i don't REALLY mind bc it's good if i win HOH because it's a good reason to throw someone up there). everyone is cute enough, though i think i've connected LEAST with brianna, dem, joey, and monty? just haven't gotten a lot of energy back from them but i'm hoping that was just FIRST NIGHT jitters of people not putting in their full effort into their social game.

i'm going to spend today just chatting with people so i have a base relationship with them and that way if jev goes the route of asking people who they'd him to nominate -- i'm not someone they name simply for not knowing who i am. trying to be a little SOCIAL QUEEN. fun and funky so let's hope it pays off.

for the twist, i'm not really sure how to play this. i don't think the first round is going to have the BEST power hidden in it but it'd be nice to know that i for sure won't be first boot. (though i'm feeling OKAY enough that jev won't kill me bc we've talked at least). i think i'm going to wait a minute before i ask someone to send me in, or someone just sends me in on their own accord. that way people don't look at me for having a secret power bc it'll be really easy to narrow down who has one and that's just such an unnecessary way to get a target on your back. i like the twist, it's just hard to figure out how to play it and maybe i should just wait until someone does it for me or i'm one of the later people to get it so i get safety when there are less people in the house and it'll be harder to survive.

xoxo gossip josh

SKINNY NICK

https://youtu.be/yNBReh_pBPk

NATHAN

He's here, he's queer... and oddly enough starting off by not doing a Video DR; however, I think when making an initial first impression/trust list this method seems to go a little smoother... First off, coming right off of Big Brother Pasio and thrown into this game has made my head hurt more than it should. I forgot how annoying and tiresome the initial conversations are with everybody. With that said, I have begun to kinda pick out a path that may be suitable for me this season. In Pasio, my goal was to lay low, not be seen, and form connections. That strategy is going to be partially active this time around as well. I'm a big personality, and while that's fun and cute, I learned by keeping a low profile in the beginning portion while remaining social it does wonders. I don't need to be a Skinny Nick character and be talking in the house call and house chat at every ounce I get. With that being said, this season is full of Pasio players... some in which I had both good and bad experiences with. However, pushing that aside I really have my eyes set and locked on Aria. I have a feeling that the other Pasio alumni may see her for how she played in Pasio and I do as well, but I want to make sure her and I are on as good as terms as possible. She did NOT like me in Pasio, so rekindling that flame is ultra important. Alongside Aria, I get to play with both Monty and Jacob who I've had rocky relationships with in the past, but have grown to become great friends outside this. Working with them is going to be vital, but keeping them too close is suicide. With that being said, here's my initial trust ranking:

1. Aria

2. Jacob

3. Nash

4. Jev

5. Josh

6. Monty

7. Joey

8. Nick

- - -

END LIST

JOSH C

okay, well nominations just came out and i can't say i'm too surprised that nash got nominated for eviction considering she hasn't responded to me yet and most everyone else is saying the same. i can't really imagine anyone using the veto on her unless she has a complete social turn around in the next 24 hours but that seems like.. a stretch. just gotta hope she doesn't win! we love an easy first week boot!

i'm a little sad about kiki getting nominated because i've really hit it off with them, but i think it's a good way to secure some trust with them and spark off a relationship. i've been trying to already be like YOU GOT THIS, YOU'RE STAYING! NASH DOESN'T TALK TO ANYONE! and i think they're being receptive. i like that i can joke around with them, so i'm hoping they enjoy me as much as i enjoy them.

i've also had aria and jake come talk to me about noms which means they trust me and that's GOOD. i want to try to secure something with them soon because i think they're both people that would want to work with me and i know that jake doesn't have a lot of connections already so being an early ally of his would be BIG.

just trying to focus on being a cute little social presence so people don't really focus on targeting me early on. i think this is a game full of half social players and some.. not so exciting people so it'll be easy to just slip through by not being the most boring person around. i don't want to promise TOO many people loyalty just yet but i think building a small core for myself will be important to keep me safe and i'm hoping that can come with jake/aria/kiki/jacob(?)

JAKE

chile............. where the fuck am i?

i dont know what dimension i'm in right now with these people but i am ready to show them what i am made of!! so far i've felt..... on the outs of most of what is going on so im just gonna give my perspective on things so far!!

the cast....... ill just do an assessment

dem: said maybe three words to me since we've started... so there's that

saira: seems like a queen! i def need to talk to her more i've been sleeping on her and i think we'll get along well

joey: girl sometimes idk what this man is saying to me but we're rolling w it..

nash: her "sick" ass hasnt responded to my message from yesterday so bye

joshua: oh he can work! hes fun to talk to and i def see some potential to working with him. hes only 16 so yung so pure i remember those days </3

nathan: hes so hot god i literally want to eat his entire ass but i dont wanna be creepy so im trying to subtly flirt with him SDLKJFSKF he seems to be a sneaky player to me but hopefully thats not the case and we can be a showmance later on hehe

emma: LEGEND. QUEEN! PUT SOME RESPECT ON HER NAMEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my ride or die in this thing <3

jev: oh jevfrey my angel im so happy he's here!!! he's a loyal guy from what i remember and ill def be working with him ESPECIALLY now that hes the first hoh ayyyyY!!!! i feel completely safe with him

kiki: oh i LOVE THEMMMM we had a great connection from the jump and i have a soft spot for them for sure. theyre sadly nominated this week i did not know why jev made that decision but i will make sure they stay know THAT

monty: monty left me on read :( we had a kinda awk convo so idk how monty feels about me right now?? i def dont think he trusts me and ugh i hate the tension!!!!!!!! i hope we can resolve it all and be friends again

josh: KDJKFG i love this man... hes not entire truthful and is def playing me a bit but i think he's great and hopefully he doesnt turn out to be the snake i think he has the potential to be

gina: idk what to think of this girl she doesn't reply much to me and we haven't really spoken much for me to really get a good read of her. i infected her and idk if she'll take that a certain way i came to her with the explanation that we just havent talked as much. idk shes fine?

mo: hahhaha hes a cutie too and i think hes not much of a talker so i think hes nice for the most part it's just kinda hard talking to him sometimes

brianna: um....... yeah we haven't spoken yet and she infected me so idk how to feel about her yet. she claims it was this number system but do i fully believe thats what she based it on? not really.. so ill def have to talk to her more

aria: NOW THIS........ THIS IS ELEGANCE. THIS IS CLASS. THIS IS EXPENSIVE. THIS IS TASTE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! this 15 year old girl has me shaking to my god damn core with her social game within a 20 minute conversation ive already devoted my entire game to her and our "attention whores" alliance. iM GAGGGEDDDD i really like her and i know shes a big threat but if shes with me then we can do some damage together hehe

skinny nick: SKINNYYYYY i dont have much to say about nick i think they're well connected in this game so i have to make sure i'm good with them a little more. our convos are a little dry hopefully that'll change as the game goes on

jacob: a sweetie.. i really like jacob as a person but as a player he scares the shit out of me DSLKFGFKJ he lied to me like every round in BBHOS9 so i dont rly know if i can trust him. he def has other friends in this community hes playing with so ill have to sus out who exactly that is...

and......... yeah! kiki and nash are nommed. gina n jacob went to the down under. i think jacob will def get whatever power is down there he is one lucky man so i wouldn't be surprised if it's something good. oh well hopefully when i go i get whatever the best thing is a dpov mayhaps!.......

i hope the next hoh is something i can win because i want these people to TALK TO MEEEE tell me where their heads are at for god's sake! me on day 2: why arent you telling me all your alliances? dFGKLF i feel like im okay just gotta talk to some said people more and try to make sure they dont hate me!

JOSHUA

I thought Jev was nice but I'll have to go back on that because he absolutely is not fooling a single person, I thought we'd be allies but he's been acting sus all day so he can choke on rat piss. Joey and nick literally aren't talking to me at awl so... they can choke and die too. Aria is talking to me a lot but I know she talks to everyone a lot sjdkjds queen of big brother pasio... but I trust her for now I guess. Other than that I'm not super like concerned with anyone else I mean brianna kiki gina mo are nice I guess.. mo is a little hard to talk to though so :( anyway glad to be here but my social is kind of rocky skjdjskdj : ( ( ( ( (

JEV

SKINNY NICK

https://youtu.be/0Kb-twzCkYI

trying to hint to dem that I’m not okay... wonder if it’s working

ARIA

its week one. its week ONE. why is everyone being so cracked i hate it here i absolutely hate it here someone take me out with a sniper rifle im sick of this, but its fine im gonna try to do my best to explain EVERYTHING bc whew is there a lot..

First off lets start with the fact ive been talking with everyone from the moment i woke up and my fingers hurt so much but also now people like me and thats all i need in life so heck yes!! So when it was nash vs kiki i start planting seeds to keep kiki with people and then nash wins veto so thats thrown out the window yayyyy-

Things start happening after jev renoms Mo. First off i get a call with crack kills (joey bri me) and we discuss the vote a little bit with Joey leaning towards keeping Mo and Me/Bri wanting to keep Kiki, joey leaves and me and bri talk about the alliance we were invited to (jacob josh jake kiki us) and then i notice theres a house vc which i then go and join alone.

It was silent for a bit before they mentioned they were talking about votes and were being kinda secretive about names but i asked directly so Mo tells me that dem told him that there was 5 confirmed votes against Mo (nash Jacob Nick Joshua/Jacob(dont remember which) and Josh c) he said the names really fast so i mightve missed a few and nathan interjects about my notes and like??? shut up nathan???? anyways i act all shook about an alliance and we talk about votes and apparently when mo campaigned to bri she just sent "hugs" and im caCKLIGN FDSGFDSH anyways that confirmed 5 votes is gonna make people nervous and cause people to keep Mo which like, im not totally against but i just want a unan vote please. Also i think dem & emma dont really trust me which is big ughhh idk if one of the pregame girlies (any of the names from that list) win hoh next week ill throw one of them utb easy peasy

So then i start asking around to gina and she ghosts me??? gina NEVER ghosts me so im sketched out there and Mo is asking for my help when i already told kiki i would save her its such a messsss. So if i had to guess the sides i would say

PREGAME GIRLIES: Nash Jacob Jake Joshua Josh c kiki

UNCONNECTED NOT PROTECTED: Dem Joey Emma Nathan Mo

Whomst: Saira Jev Monty Nick Gina Bri

Help: Aria

So, where do i go from here? How do i make sure this vote comes out hecking even,,, im not sure. nvm i am sure because Mo just told me they want to give up HFBHJBSDFS MO MY SAVIOR ILL NEVER FORGET YOU KING <<<<3333333 okay nvm hes not fully giving up but im giving him an avenue that would make my life much easier where im telling him to have good convos with people so they connect more and if anyone feels moved theyll come to me and ill get the ball rolling with a easy peasy unan vote hopefully. But i think i might be able to manipulate this situation to my advantage WHEW im hyped now!!

So lets say mo leaves the thought of those "five confirmed votes" is still gonna be in peoples heads mainly dem/joey/emma/nathan which might form into a side and go hard for hoh taking out some big social player and then we have two sides going after each other which would be cute.

I would make trust rankings but i trust no one fbhsafd and thats on pewiod

JAKE

WHEW!!!!!!!!!!! im not the first boot :~) let's celebrate that....

but i'm not too thrilled about these noms...... im happy nash won POV she started talking to me more and shes actually really cool so i wanted her to stay. i am sad kiki is nominated i don't want them to go at all..... and mo being the replacement nominee was a shock to everyone i think.....

i don't have a problem with mo leaving cuz we have a weak connection i just thought dem was going up based on my prior conversations with jev. he says dem started talking to him more but i just wish jev would talk to me and emma about his decisions if we're "aligned"?? like whats the point of having an alliance if we don't have any say in your decisions?

today i woke up to a message from josh asking me what i think about being in an alliance with jacob brianna aria and kiki........ and im just like wtf where this come from and he said that jacob is making it and its just his fave ppl??? im like ok like im not one to turn down an alliance but i let him know that i dont rly trust jacob n brianna as much as the others in the alliance. hopefully this makes him feel close to me and not blab his mouth to jacob ab that!

brianna has yet to speak to me and jacob is just someone im always gonna have a hard time trusting sooo if i have to nominate them down the line i won't hesitate unless this alliance is genuine and helping me in the game.

i really only trust emma so far with aria being my secret spy and big meat shield im gonna need in this game. aria's super well connected and im hoping she'll be able to provide me w the information i need to take bitches down later on.

i think i'd be worried about brianna winning bc we've never talked but at least we have this alliance possibly in the works?? and i dont know if nick would nominate me we haven't talked much..

but i want to win the next hoh so people actually talk to me LOL praying i can win

#bbnetflix st

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balshumetsbaragouin · 7 years

Text

Beloved: Chapter Three

Summary:

A destabilizing episode, a new space, and a revelation delayed...

Artwork, Stories, and Mishaps

The day was shining up to be a good one. It was bright and clear, the air cool and crisp this late in autumn the first signs of winter were peaking through. Most of the trees were beginning to show bare branches through their changing colors, and there was a soft frost on the ground over night most nights now. Deep in Vlad’s underground lab though, between the depth underground and the equipment giving off heat, it was a toasty near 80. The clone was seated a few feet from his small bunk scribbling quick pictures of the rest of the house as it came to mind.

It was early, nearly 6am, but he couldn’t sleep. He had trouble sleeping for more than a few hours at once, and with nothing else to do, he found ways to keep himself occupied. His Daddy was likely up by now, but he wouldn’t be downstairs in the lab for a few more minutes, and with the ghost portal closed, Ghost Skulker wouldn’t be visiting either. So he did what he usually did when bored, drew. He was getting sorta good at it too, at least in his thoughts. The sketches were starting to actually look like what he’d been trying to draw. Maybe I could get Daddy to look at them later? D27 pondered while finishing off a simple drawing of the dining room from the night before. He set it aside and rubbed at his chest. It still hurt. He was thinking about telling Daddy when he got downstairs. It seemed kinda bad that his chest still hurt after yesterday, even if he did use a whole lot of power. Something told him it still shouldn’t hurt. D27 shrugged it off and walked back towards his bed. He had more art supplies there…

Vlad stretched coffee in hand, as he headed for his private study. The entrance to the lab was in there, and besides that, his secretary was in New York finishing up the merger, which was more like a willing take-over, with the smaller company gladly becoming a subsidiary of Dalvco. New York was a solid time zone ahead, and so despite the hour at his Wisconsin home, he was expecting a call from her. Stupid time zones; how can it already be 7am over there? He wondered blearily. He usually didn’t mind being up early, but the constant supervision the clone required was beginning to take it out of him. He couldn’t wait until this growth phase slowed and stopped completely in another two weeks max, because then he’d be able to get back on a normal sleep schedule. The weary billionaire reached for the phone on his study desk before settling into the plush leather chair behind it. He was about to punch in the few buttons needed to connect him to his secretary in New York, when a clarion alarm rang through the house, loud and urgent. Vlad had his hand on the left football player before his conscious mind had really caught up with him. That alarm only meant one thing, and time was precious for the next few minutes.

The pain was unbearable. In the few seconds it had taken to walk from his comfy spot made of repurposed bed sheets on the floor back towards his bed the pain in his chest had spread everywhere. Before he knew what hit him, D27 was curled up in a ball on the floor, a scream frozen on his still shocked lips. The pain came in waves originating in his chest and moving towards the tips of his fingers and toes, and just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, he felt his toes tingle and burn. Then it felt like someone poured boiling and icy water over them. He cracked a scared eye open and felt absolute fear grip his mind. Where he last saw his toes there was now a growing pool of green slime. Worse, it was traveling up his feet, like the slime was eating more of him as it went. His mind screamed out that he needed to get away from the growing pool of slimy glowing awful stuff eating him, but he was in too much pain to move. Just as the slime reached his ankles, he heard a door upstairs slam closed, and it frightened him out of his terrified stupor enough to scream, “Daddy!” He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew he needed his Daddy now.

Vlad rushed down the last of the stairs, and was half way through the front part of the lab when he heard the clone scream for him. It sounded so pained and terrified, he nearly teleported the last few feet just to save time. He decided against it, knowing he needed to keep a level head to stave off any serious damage. “Maddie, I need a live vital feed on the clone now! And while you’re at it, splice in the information from the Nanites, get some of that stabilizer I made earlier out of the chiller and onto the console in the back room, and make sure you highlight which segments of DNA are going haywire for me, I don’t have the time to waste figuring it out at the moment.” He spoke hastily into the hologram quickly materializing air in front of him. Vlad strode purposefully into the back of the lab and zeroed in on the distraught clone’s position on the floor instantly. It looked like it was trying to crawl away from the growing pool of its own ectoplasm. “D27, stop moving right now! You’re making it worse, so stay still.” He commanded before rushing over to it to hold it still. He got its attention when his hand gripped its arm to root it firmly to the ground. The tear and fear filled gaze that met Vlad’s own made him rethink his position about the clone’s utter lack of personhood. “You have to stay still, it’s very important that you don’t stress yourself out more right now. Stay still for Daddy ok?” Vlad soothed while scanning through the floating work-up of the clone’s system in front of him.

“Clone’s stability at 72% and dropping, the culprit seems to be lack of energy honey bun. Nanites can’t correct, immediate fusion of energy necessary.” The Maddie hologram supplied from across the room near the large computer console on the opposite end of the room. “Genetic Stabilizer would be ineffective in this instance, lamb chops, my suggestion is to give it some of your energy to jump start the stabilization process. Clone’s stability 65% and dropping…”

Vlad’s frown deepened as he skimmed through the information in front of him. Looks like my guess about the melting wasn’t incorrect after all.

The clone’s ghostly core was flickering on and off, barely able to produce enough energy to hold it together at the moment. Unlike normal ghost hybrids, well if a sample size of two counted, the clones were basically balls of willed ectoplasm with human DNA mixed in. If Vlad or Danny ran out of ghost energy, they just couldn’t transform or use their powers for a few hours. They essentially became completely human for a while. Clones, however, were much more like ghosts. They needed a constant supply of spectral energy to remain stable, unlike normal ghosts though, they produced their own, like a regular half ghost.

The older halfa came to a decision as the melting portion of the clone reached mid-shin in height and its stability dropped below 55%. He took a deep breath and summoned a small amount of gentle blue spectral energy, holding it out for the clone in front of him. “Now D27, look at me…” he trailed off as he felt the clone pull against his hold. Vlad squeezed a little harder and said forcefully, “D27. Look. At. Me.” Slowly, much more slowly than he was comfortable with, the clone forced its eyes away from the growing pool of glowing green sludge and towards him.

The pain was getting worse by the second and he was so scared he could barely breathe. Even though he could hear his Daddy talking to him, it was so hard to think or listen through how bad he felt right then…but then it had to be really important, so he tried to focus. Daddy has to be trying to fix it. D27 reasoned before tearing his wide eyes and tear streaked face away from the green stuff currently eating his legs.

“Good boy. Now, I need you to give me one of your hands, it doesn’t matter which one. Reach for the glowing blue ball ok? You’re going to feel a cold tingle, and the blue ball is going to disappear slowly alright?” Vlad explained as simply and slowly as he could manage at the moment. Even he was surprised by the calm cool tone of his voice; inside he was a notch short of full blown panic. The clone was under 50% stable and falling quickly. The last thing he wanted to do was start all over when this one was so promising. He studiously ignored the niggling sense telling him it was something more than scientific pursuit and unwillingness to start over fueling his worry. He felt a wave of relief as the clone reached out for the softly pulsating ball of blue ecto-energy with its hand…

The burning icy boiling feeling was all the way to his knees now, and it took every bit of concentration he had to ignore it and listen to Daddy talk. He said something about a glowing blue ball, and he finally noticed it sitting in his Daddy’s free hand. He would have started if he had the energy, but instead of a gasp all that came out was an aborted cry. He gritted his teeth and reached out for the ball like he was told, and hoped this would make it better. He had just about reached the ball, when the tingling burn started up in his fingers as well. With a scream made of pain and surprise, he watched as his fingers turned into more of the awful green eating stuff as well. “Daddy make it stop please.”

Now more worried about the clone melting than overloading its system, Vlad placed his energy loaded hand onto the clone’s chest and pressed it into its failing core. For a couple breath stealing seconds, the melting process seemed to get faster, but just as he was about to truly panic; the melting stopped and began to reverse.

The pool of green beneath the clone grew thicker and reabsorbed into the creature’s system. The reclaimed ectoplasm quickly reformed limbs, right down to the missing digits on its hands and feet.

Vlad poured a few extra seconds of energy into its body before carefully removing his hand from its chest. He swiftly gave it a once over, checking for any visible damage or changes to its structure, and was relieved to find none. “Maddie, analysis, how’s its vitals look?” He questioned into empty space.

“Clone fully stabilized. Ghost core is producing sufficient energy to remain stable indefinitely pumpkin, and there are no deleterious or neutral changes to the clone’s DNA.” The blue spandex clad Maddie hologram pronounced.

The errant scientist’s shoulder sagged in visible relief. That had been a close one. I suppose it would have been easier if it had just cooperated. Vlad concluded with a small frown, before refocusing on the clone besides him on the floor. He finally noticed he was still fiercely gripping its arm. He let go, and noted with concern the dark purple bruise blossoming across its surface shaped like the palm of his hand. Still more concerning was the lack of noising coming from the clone itself. Despite the fact it had just melted and reformed, something he was sure must be painful, it hadn’t made a peep since it began to solidify again. It hadn’t even reached over for a hug or comfort of some sort, and the continued silence was both unnerving and worrying. “D27?” Vlad ventured softly, reaching out to brush a few stray hairs off of its face.

The pain in his chest was mostly gone now, but even the fading echoes of the hurt didn’t distract him from what just happened. Suddenly, he could remember all the other bad times this had happened, and it was overwhelming. Sometimes his Daddy would inject him with something, something that hurt like crazy, but that made the… the like cheddar cheese wilting on his potatoes last night, stop. Others it would stop on its own after a few hurt filled minutes. All of it was bad and scary, and worse it all happened at different times. There was nothing he could remember that happened right before or that could warn him about it. It just happened, and then…then Daddy fixes it. He felt shivers work up his back and the cold bumps show up on his arms. I need a hug. D27 concluded before he heard his Daddy call out to him. He swiveled fear filled and tear brimmed eyes back towards the only constant in his life. Before he knew it, he was flinging himself into his Daddy’s open arms. There were a more questions than he had fingers and toes he wanted to ask, but they could wait until after he wasn’t so scared anymore.

Vlad relaxed into the now more responsive clone’s arms. He felt it wordlessly practically meld itself into his chest, a ball of fear and insecurity. “Shush, it’s alright D27, there’s nothing to be frightened of.” Now. Vlad added mentally before continuing, “You’re just fine. I’m here; nothing’s going to happen to you.” He reached over and gently patted its back, trying to calm the nearly hysterical combination of wailing and tears the little creature had turned into in an instant.

“Buh Daddy, the green stuff almost eated me, and it really hurt, and it happened before-”

“What did? And no nothing was eating you D27, the green liquid wasn’t eating you. It’s-”

“The green stuff tried to eat me before, and you stopped it.” The young boy insisted.

“D27, I’m telling you, nothing was trying to eat you.” What it is with small children and being terrified of being devoured? “You were destabilizing.” Vlad answered truthfully. It wasn’t as if the clone would understand what it meant, even if he was entirely honest with it.

“Destabilize, to upset the stability or equilibrium of; unbalance.” He quoted dictionary perfect. “Daddy why was I becoming unbalanced? I don’t remember feeling unbalanced, just hurting.”

Vlad was beginning to regret letting it read that dictionary in the first place. “Your ghost core wasn’t making enough energy to keep you stable.” He watched the clone’s already big doe eyes widen even further. “But,” he quickly interrupted the blubbering spilling forth from its trembling lips, “it’s not something you have to worry about.” Vlad started quickly trying to change the subject.

“Why would it? It has you to worry about it for him.” A metallic voice echoed from the fore of the lab.

“Ghost Skulker!” D27 said happily, wriggling out of his Daddy’s arms to go run over to the floating metal specter. With the distraction of the metal covered hunter ghost, he had completely forgotten about the green eating stuff from a few minutes ago.

“Oh alright, just leave me here why don’t you.” Vlad teased before giving his house coat a once over. It was filthy, covered in the remnants of the clone’s green ectoplasm. He barely suppressed a grimace as he worked his way off of the floor. “Ok D27, why don’t you stay here with Skulker for a few minutes while I change?” He watched as the clone’s face dropped from a shy and excited smile to a scared wide eyed look. “Now, now, there’s nothing to worry about. You’ll be just fine here for a few minutes, I promise you won’t do any more melting. Skulker will be right here with you, I just need some clean clothes alright?” Vlad didn’t wait for a real response; he was already walking towards the lab entrance. “Skulker keep the little thing entertained why don’t you?” He offered over his shoulder jogging up the entrance stairs, ready for a quick change of clothes.

Skulker stared uncomfortably at the little ball of cloned ectoplasm in front of him. It was even bigger than the last time he’d seen it, and worse, it looked needy. If his guess was correct, the creature had just tried to melt, and was understandably very unhappy about the whole thing. Unfortunately, Skulker wasn’t the nurturing type. He much preferred to just kill small, and in other beings’ opinions cute, things about the clone’s size to watching over them. They were annoying and required a lot of care, two things that he hated. But Plasmius has charged me with caring for the little whelp, so I might as well distract it or something. At least if it isn’t thinking about how it nearly just died, it’ll stop looking like it wants some kind of affection. Skulker decided before looking down at the still watery eyed creature. “So…” He started only to stop short. He had no idea what the creature was liked or even what it understood, and so had no idea what to talk about. While he was fumbling for a quick idea, the reason for his visit came to mind. “Have you ever heard of the Ghost Dragon King pup?” He noted with triumph the way the creature’s eyes started to shine with interest instead of tears. He took its silence for the ‘no’ it was, before plunging forward with his tale. “Well, you’re in for a real treat, because I was there the day he died. You see your…father, Plasmius, got into a fight on behalf of this female…”

Vlad sighed and sagged into the top of his mattress. That had been the worse melting episode so far. Not because of the severity, but because of the clone’s reaction. Previously, the thing had either been asleep or too small to remember anything from the melting episodes. Now, it seemed like it remembered not only the instance that just occurred, but several from the past he was sure it hadn’t recorded. Looks like it just repressed it. Fantastic. It’s not even a week old and it has repressed memories. You should win ‘Father of the Year’ in no time like this Vlad. He sighed and banished the thought, not least of all for the implications of even being eligible to win an award for fatherhood. All of the stress from the constant attention the clone needed to make it through a single day had just about drained his reserves. Not only did the thing have a habit of destabilizing in the middle of the night and early morning, when he should be asleep instead of tending to it, it was also a rambunctious child, which made watching over it a trial to begin with.

The only good thing to come out of this day so far is the fact this is the final day of accelerated growth at this level. After that, it should be much more stable, and in fact, it should be able to sleep upstairs in its own room tonight. The thought brought some energy back into his system, not only for the relief from the level of vigilance it required of him, but because it marked a serious accomplishment for his cloning work. No other clone had ever stayed this humanoid and stable for this long before. Vlad once again ignored the illogical affectionate warmth spreading through his chest at the thought of the clone’s excitement and joy. It didn’t really matter yet if it was happy; maybe it would in another week or so. With a huff of semi-energized air, he pushed himself off of the bed and finally padded towards his closet. He needed to get back downstairs. Leaving Skulker with small defenseless creatures for any period of time isn’t the best of decisions…

“So then the Dragon King flew down at Plasmius at full speed. I tell you my very core nearly stopped in fear when I saw the malevolent gleam in his eyes. He drew his head back and took a breath so deep, you could feel the air around you moving 100 yards away. Finally, he let out a veritable wall of deep green flames, heading straight for your father. I watched with growing dread as Plasmius didn’t so much as budge from his spot on the arena floor!” Skulker paused for dramatic effect, enjoying the enraptured look on the little clone’s face.

“And then what happened?” He just had to hear the end of this story. It couldn’t stop there; his Daddy might be burnt to a crisp!

Skulker smiled widely before picking up the story where he left off, “the flames came crashing down all around him, engulfing him in their licking tendrils and burning grasp.” He paused once again when he heard the clone gasp and begin to bounce up and down nervously. The hunter spared it the wait, though, and immediately started the story back up. “For a full ten seconds, there was nothing but deep green flames surrounding the whole of the courtyard, and I thought for sure Plasmius was but a cinder of ectoplasm. Then, suddenly, the flames gave way, and inside you could see this swirling hot mass of red ectoplasm shaped like a dome. Your father had constructed a shield of solid red ecto-energy, er if you didn’t know; red energy is both rare and hard to control. I’ve only ever heard of beings wielding it before I saw Plasmius actually do so. In any case,” Skulker moved pasted the little tangent, “the fires were practically eaten away by the strength of the pulsing shield around him, and the Dragon King roared with frustration. He flew around for another pass, willing himself to go even faster, before Plasmius surprisingly dropped his shield.”

“Why?” He didn’t want to interrupt, but putting down the only thing keeping you from being set on fire didn’t seem like a good idea.

“Hold your horses, I’m getting to it!” Skulker bellowed at the impatient child. What is taking Plasmius so long? He wondered before heading towards the end of the battle. “Inside was a double of your father and he had a dark red sphere of energy in his palm. Then I felt a tingle travel through my suit, and the air around me charged with energy. I heard something crackle through the air, and it began to smell like a rain storm. That’s when I realized, Plasmius was charging an electrical attack! The static discharge from the blast grew as the attack grew in power, and quickly several of the female’s hair were practically floating straight up. He charged a second attack with the other version of himself, and the air took on a strong metallic taste and smell. The Dragon King had just flown into position to charge at him at full speed, and was already inhaling what felt like half of the air in the arena. Luckily ghosts don’t need to breathe! The two of them stared each other down for a hair’s breadth, before they threw their attacks at each other. And then-”

“Skulker what in the world are you talking about?” Vlad had just made it back into the lab, and had only caught the tail end of Skulker’s last sentence.

“Why your glorious defeat of the Ghost Dragon King of course! I was about to get to the good part too.”

“Really?” He practically screamed. He didn’t think it could get any better than this.

“Skulker…” Vlad trailed off as he took in the eager and antsy look on the clone’s face. “Don’t you think this is an inappropriate story for a child?” He wasn’t sure why he was even asking. As if Skulker knows what is appropriate behavior around children anyway. Vlad thought with a roll of his eyes.

“What do you mean Plasmius? Is not a tale of your victorious battle not the perfect story for your whelp to hear?”

“Perhaps if it wasn’t so violent and filled with so much gore and death. Couldn’t you have picked something else to talk about?”

“But I wanna hear the end of the story Daddy! Pretty please? You were just about to hit the mean evil Dragon King with a big electreecal attack.” D27 whined up at his Daddy with the biggest saddest looking eyes he could muster.

“Electrical,” Vlad corrected, “and no. The story is about to get very-”

“Aw come on Plasmius, it’s a great story!” Skulker interrupted. He had just about gotten to his favorite part.

“Maybe for a bar full of harden ghosts, or a something, but not for a barely 5 year old child.” Skulker looked about ready to argue the point when Vlad held up a hand. “No Skulker. He’ll be having nightmares for a week, and I’ll be the one dealing with them. I don’t want to be up all night when I don’t have to be.” Vlad said in a voice that brokered no arguments.

Skulker smirked widely before saying, “Why Plasmius, I didn’t know you cared. You’re even calling the clone ‘he’ instead of ‘it’ now. What were you telling me about it being an experiment two days back?” He gloated freely.

The older halfa frowned before retorting, “A slip of the tongue. Now, since you want to talk about the ancient ghosts, I assume you’ve found the location of Pariah’s Keep like I asked.”

“Oh certainly. In fact, it’s the entire reason I’m over here, but are you sure you need that crown?” Skulker wasn’t really comfortable with the thought of waking the ancient King up for any reason, but he trusted Plasmius to keep the situation under control. At least enough to keep him from getting killed, and the payment for the information, in the form of a brand new suit and new weapons, was too much to pass up for just handing over some Intel.

“Of course I am. I’m going to need that-”

Oh no. Not this time. He wasn’t being brushed off again for some stupid conversation with Ghost Skulker about stuff he didn’t care about. He’d waited a whole day to show Daddy his sketch, and he was doing it this time. Now more determined than ever, D27 walked over to his space in the back of the lab and snatched up the nearly finished picture before marching purposefully back into the front of the lab. He stood in between the talking adults with purpose and lifted and wiggled his art project in the air above him. When neither of them reacted, he lowered the paper and called, “Hey!”

“Hm what?” Vlad paused in his conversation with his ghostly associate and looked down at the frowning face of the clone between them. He noticed the piece of paper in its hands and immediately began to brush it off. “Now D27, Daddy is busy. He’ll look at…your picture later.”

“No,” he started emphatically, “now. You’re going to look at it right now. You promised Daddy.” He managed to not whine a bit while saying any of the sentences, settling for an angry tone of voice instead.

The billionaire frowned deeply. He was not about to be commanded by a small child for any reason. “No D27, I will not. I-”

“That’s not fair. You never keep your promises!” Now he was actually upset. Nothing he did seemed to get his Daddy to listen or pay attention to him, and he was sick of being…ignored, that was the word.

He was about to reprimand the little clone when Skulker interrupted.

“Oh come on Plasmius, the sooner you look at the thing’s doodle, the sooner we can get back to our conversation.”

“It’s not a doodle, it’s a sketch, and you promised you’d look at it today. Remembeer? You promised after training last day.”

“Remember, and the word you are looking for is yesterday.” Vlad corrected while contemplating the wisdom of giving into the clone’s childish request. Seeing no reason to put it off any longer, he leaned over and picked up the page from the creature’s grasp. He had been prepared to just dismiss the drawing outright after a quick glance over to satisfy the clone. Instead, he found himself staring intently at the page. The level of skill…

Although the sketch had been made with crayons and colored pencils, not the most sophisticated of artistic instruments; the composition was fairly well made. It was a vivid representation of the Wisconsin sunset from the night before. The sky was a rich combination of bright reds and oranges with hints of purple at the top edge of the page. The sun was the center piece of the picture, and unlike most typical childish representations of the star, it didn’t have any lines coming off of the deep red sphere. It hung low on the horizon, disappearing behind the slowly rising fog common in the evenings of autumn in the area. The ground was an interesting mix of greens, browns and red from the light of the sun collecting in the low hanging fog.

If he had to guess the age of the person who’d the sketch in his hand, he’d have thought at least middle school aged. The attention to detail and specific pieces chosen to be showcased demonstrated a level of artistic talent and practice well beyond the barely five years of age, but literally three day old, clone waiting silently beneath him. “D27, you made this?” It was more a rhetorical question borne from a sensation of being impressed than anything else.

He smiled brightly and nodded his head. “It took me a really long time, but I think it came out pretty. I’m not done with it though.” He finished, his face melding into a small frown. “I still need to, um, sign it. Like all the painting in the house, but…I don’t know how.”

“What do you-” Vlad practically slammed his free hand into his forehead. Of course. I only taught it to read yesterday. “Oh well, writing is easy. Listen, I have to finish talking to Skulker, but right after that, I’ll show you how to write, and you can finish your sketch.” He offered while handing the picture back down to the enthused face of the young clone next to him.

“OK! I’ll go fix my bed so I’ll be ready when you come back.” He barely stopped to grab his sketch from his Daddy’s hand before running back towards his space in the lab.

The older hybrid chuckled as he watched the clone race out of the room. “Now,” he said turning back to the metal clad hunter, “where were we?” He asked before he noticed the odd stare Skulker was giving him. “What?” He snapped impatiently.

“Oh nothing Plasmius, you just seem awfully excited over the creature’s little doodle.”

Vlad had to stop himself from telling Skulker it was a sketch. Instead he just responded, “Did you get a good look at it? It was rather good for someone who’s only been drawing all of three days don’t you think?” He didn’t wait for a reply, but instead plunged right ahead. “Admittedly, the construction materials were childish, but the composition was interesting and displayed-oh shut up Skulker.” Vlad stopped himself from continuing to praise the clone’s picture when the grin on his ally’s face only widened.

“What? I haven’t said a word. In fact, you’ve said enough for the both of us about the pup’s little picture.” Skulker was enjoying rubbing his employer’s obvious affection back into his face. Especially after he’d made the point of being so detached the two days before. It looks like the ghostling is growing on him. He concluded with a few extra internal snickers.

“Nevermind.” Vlad snapped back waspishly. “So you’re sure you have every piece of available information? I don’t want to be surprised when I arrive.” He mentioned quickly changing the subject. I do not care more than necessary for that little ball of ecto-goo.

“I’m sure Plasmius. You’re lucky there’s even this much information around. Heck, he was imprisoned over a millennia ago. Anyway, if that’s all you need, I’ll be heading back home. I saw a golden spotted ecto-bob cat on the way here, and I don’t yet have a matching set of male and female for that species yet.” Skulker said eagerly.

Vlad gestured towards the open ghost portal. “Be my guest. I’ll call on you in another two weeks or so, before I head over to Pariah’s Keep.”

“What for?” Not that he minded Plasmius requesting his help, he was always well compensated for it, but he was frankly curious about what he wanted. He had better not tell me to go with him to that death trap. Skulker considered with worry.

“I don’t want to leave D27 alone for any large period of time, so you’ll be keeping an eye on him for me. Don’t worry; you’ll be compensated of course, but-”

“Plasmius I am not some kind of baby-sitting service. Leave a duplicate of yours here or something to watch it.” The hunter was not about to degrade himself by watching small children.

“It’ll be nearly Daniel’s age by then, so it’s not going to need serious watching over, I just need someone around who knows the technical of working my systems, just in case it tries to destabilize. Besides, I’ll need all my energy for going through Pariah’s Keep, unless you’d like to accompany me?”

“No! I can watch the whelp. You are sure it’ll no longer be so small in two weeks?” When faced with the option of either flying into certain near lethal level danger, or watching some pup for a few hours, the choice was clear.

“Of course. I’m glad we are in agreement.” As if there was ever any other option. Vlad concluded smugly. “I’ll see you in two weeks then. Don’t look so glum, I promise I’ll train the clone to have much better manners than anything Daniel can muster.” With that, he watched the frowning hunter float through the ghost portal, and disappear back into the zone. Now much more curious about what his quickly growing experiment was up to, Vlad turned away from the hypnotic swirling greens of the portal and back towards the back of the lab.

He’d waited as patiently as he could for nearly five minutes, before he’d found something else to do other than staring at the now completely clean floor of the lab. The little blue hologram that showed up sometimes when Daddy talked was floating in front of him now. Chatting happily with D27 about how pretty the sky had been last night, and the few messier scribbles he’d made earlier when he was bored. “I think I’m go to do this one again, but much better.” He said while holding up a picture of his Daddy in ghost form arms crossed, an imagined wind blowing back his white and red cape. He watched the hologram smile and nod, obviously paying attention. “But what I really want to draw is the really cool, um, battle between Daddy in that mean ghost dragon thingy, it’s just…I don’t know what a dragon looks like.” D27 concluded with a huff, a frown marring his previously bright features.

“Oh that’s simple! I have lots of pictures of dragons you can look at.” With that the hologram’s image was replaced with a large collage of various dragons from all over the world. There were East Asian dragons, classic European dragons, and even some pictures of South American dragonish figures.

“If you want to know,” Vlad started from behind the pair, “the Dragon King looks a lot more like this one.” He stated while pointing to an especially impressive black European dragon in the mass of pictures.

“Daddy!” He didn’t know what was better, that his Daddy was actually paying attention to him without him having to cry or scream or something bad, or that he’d actually kept his promise this time. “Mrs. Computer was showing me some dragon pictures, oh and she showed me how to sign my name.” D27 held up the newly completed sketch of the sunset, with a squiggly solitary letter and two numbers at the bottom right corner.

Vlad chuckled at the barely legible script at the bottom of the picture. “Yes that’s very nice. He blinked when the clone practically shoved the sketch back into his hands. “What-”

“It’s for you. I want you to keep it.” He said with a big smile. He hoped Daddy liked it. “I wanna make more, but um, I’m almost out of sketch making stuff.”

“Art supplies,” Vlad offered casually. “Of course I’ll get you some more. In fact, I’ll have someone pick some nice watercolor paints in the morning.” As messy as those are. “And you’re sure you want me to have it? You worked very hard on it, and I was thinking you could keep it in your room.” Vlad said carefully picking the clone up from the floor.

D27 glanced around the lab with an unhappy pout. “Of course I do! That’s why I worked so hard on it. I already have lots of pictures in here with me; I don’t need the good ones to stay here.”

“Ah, but D27, I didn’t mean here.” The older halfa watched as its eyes lit up with curiosity. “There’s a nice space upstairs with your name on it, oh not literally,” he added when the clone began to look confused, “but it is just for you. Would you like to see it?” He carefully balanced the clone on his hip and stalked towards the exit of the lab.

“You mean I don’t have to stay here tonight?” He watched as the space he’d made in the back of the lab disappeared farther from view. It made his tummy feel like there was something wiggling in it. He did want to sleep outside of the lab; it was cold and made lots of beeping noises. On the other hand, he’d never slept anywhere else, as far as he could remember, so the thought of doing so wasn’t as fun as he imagined it would be.

“Not unless you want to.” Vlad added when he noticed the nervous energy coming off of the clone. “But why don’t you take a look at the room before you decide?” Honestly why in the world does it want to sleep in a cold impersonal lab over a nice decorated room, I can’t fathom. He rounded the corner taking him away from the study and back towards the front part of the house. He’d had a room set up after the clone had fully solidified out of its growing pod about five days before. It was generic kid friendly, with enough personality and bright colors to entice most small children. I’m sure it’ll want to make changes as soon as it’s settled.

“Oh, ok I guess.” He decided. During the last part of the walk to the room, something he’d put off before came back to mind. Skulker and Mrs. Computer had called him something weird. And when he thought about it, Daddy did too sometimes. He knew what the word meant; he just didn’t know why they kept calling him that. “Daddy, why does Ghost Skulker and Mrs. Computer keep calling me ‘clone’?”

The elder hybrid nearly dropped the clone in surprise when he heard its question. He hadn’t expected the question for awhile yet, perhaps never if he was honest with himself. It wasn’t something he was keen on explaining. “Oh well, don’t worry about it, it’s not really that important.”

“But it is Daddy. Ghost Skulker keeps saying it, and you do too. If ‘clone’ means to make a copy of, or an individual produced by cloning, then who am I a copy of?” It had been bothering him for the last day or so, and he really wanted an answer.

I definitely hate that dictionary. What was I thinking? “I…” His first instinct was to blatantly lie. To say it wasn’t a clone at all. That it had misunderstood. But the way it was looking at him made it nearly impossible. “I promise, I will tell you later. Just not right now ok? I don’t want you worrying about it, but if it really bothers you, I’ll tell you in a few days.” At least by then it will be much older, so maybe it’ll understand better.

That wasn’t the answer he wanted, and his Daddy didn’t always keep his promises, but he’d kept his last one, so maybe he would this time too. “Ok…” He rested his head against his Daddy’s shoulder right as he stopped in front of a door. The door opened with a slight creak and on the other side was the coolest room he’d ever seen. There were cool colorful pictures on the walls of big bright green lizards, and the bed had red cars all over the sheets. The floor was a bright blue carpet that matched the walls, the ceiling was sky blue with little white clouds on it, and the background of the bed sheets too. D27 started to wiggle, wanting to see the room for himself.

“Oh alright, there.” Vlad set the clone down onto the floor and watched it bolt for the bed. He suppressed laughter as it practically bounced off the walls in excitement. He started when he felt his cell phone buzz, then the reason for it hit him. I was supposed to call Cynthia. In between the near melting episode, and talking with Skulker, he’d forgotten why he’d woken up extra early today in the first place. “Now D27, I have to take this call, but I’ll be back in a little bit so you can tell me what you think of the room.”

“But I already know what I think. Can’t I sleep here tonight?” He wriggled with energy, his whole body practically buzzed he was so happy.

“Certainly.” The occupied business man answered with a flick of his wrist to open the phone.

“Now stay right here until I get back, I don’t want you wandering the halls like yesterday.” Vlad turned from the room, and closed the door behind him, already going over the finalities of his newest acquisition. A few distracted minutes later found him settled behind his private study’s desk, signing off on the last of the faxed over documents, preparing to send them back to Cynthia in New York. He pulled back the second to last page and was about to sign the last page when he noticed that it wasn’t a document at all. Vlad had somehow dragged the clone’s picture back into his study with him, and it was staring back up at him innocuously.

“Mr. Masters?” a disembodied voice asked from the other end of the cell.

“Oh? Yes, I’ve finished signing the last of the documents, and I’m faxing them now. Yes this did go a lot smoother than I thought it would. I’m glad they agreed so readily, to the updated conditions, as well. I’ll talk to you when you get back to Wisconsin, Cynthia, have a great flight.” Vlad clicked the cell shut and stared down at the clone’s gift. He had contemplated pinning it on the fridge, but it didn’t seem right to put it up there. He wanted it somewhere they’d both see it regularly, and he rarely frequented the kitchen, and he doubted the clone would either. On the other hand, his study desk got plenty of use, and both him and the clone would be in here often enough to assuage any guilt about leaving it somewhere supposedly private. A small smile graced his lips as the picture balanced against a square shaped paper weight on the desk. He’d get it a real frame in a day or two. Once again, the squiggly unique, personal, touch on the bottom corner stuck out to him. It was significantly different seeing the clone mark something as his-its own. If it was difficult thinking of it only neutrally or as a scientific curiosity before, those three little symbols made it basically impossible. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. I can’t thinking of D27 as an ‘it’ forever if I want to call…him my son one day. Maybe saying ‘he’ won’t cause as many problems as I think. Vlad pondered leaning back in his leather chair. The clone was still small and unstable, but he couldn’t pretend it was just a ball of ectoplasm anymore. If only it-he didn’t have such an endearing personality. Vlad pondered before concluding, but then if he wasn’t so endearing, I wouldn’t want to call D27 a ‘he’ right now, and I suppose that’s a small ‘sacrifice’ to make for finding a way to start thinking of him as Daniel.

#Danny Phantom #danny phantom fanfiction #Phandom #Beloved #Balshumet's Fanfiction #Balshumet's Baragouin #Chapter Three

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