[Vol. 2 pt. 15]

I really wasn’t expecting things to turn out how they did while walking over to the café that Akorya knew about. Rather than have Akorya stuck to my arm like she was before, she was stuck to Wally’s. She did the same thing that she was doing with me by wrapping her arms around his and hugging it against her chest. Though, there was a clear difference in intent there. When she held onto my arm that way, it was partly to be lewd, partly to be romantic, and partly just because she really liked me. When she held onto Wally’s arm that way, it was in more of a friendly way and because of how much they were getting along talking to each other.

That was the other part that I wasn’t expecting. They managed to become really good friends… through talking about music. Not just any music, though.

Classical music. The music made by a bunch of old dead guys with pianos from hundreds of years ago. Now, I could imagine Wally being into that sort of music, but definitely not Akorya.

Yet there she was, talking about seemingly endless composers, their songs, her favorite era, how she wished that more people were into the classical style, and so on. She was able to talk on and on about classical music to the point where even Wally seemed to struggle to keep up.

I seriously never expected to find out that Akorya was the biggest classical music fangirl in possibly all of existence.

Even so, there was another reason for why she clung to Wally’s arm.

To tease him.

He was very clearly uncomfortable with the situation and had no idea how he was supposed to react. He looked like he never expected to ever get himself into such a situation before where the opposite gender was playfully clinging to him like that, and both me and Akorya realized just how foreign the situation was to him. He had zero interest in her sexually and was instead simply flustered because he knew how it looked and didn’t have the courage to just go and steal his arm back from her.

It was harmless, fun teasing. Though, as soon as the topic moved away from classical music, Akorya came back over to my own arm.

“Jumping from man to man, are you?” I asked.

“Hey, I like holding the arms of my friends!” Akorya answered with a playful pout before switching to a hushed voice to whisper, “Plus it was fun teasing him.”

I pet her on the top of her head to reward her for the teasing part. Seeing Wally all cute and flustered was great. Then I replied to what she said that he could actually hear. “That confirms what I said, doesn’t it? You jump around from arm to arm since no one arm is good enough for you.”

“Fine, if that’s how you want to play it, then I guess I’m a sucker for having huge, warm things against my chest.” She stuck her tongue out at me.

“Why only against it instead of between it?”

With a catlike grin, Akorya hugged my arm even more tightly to squeeze it between her breasts. “Nyehehe, like this?”

“Exactly.”

“Hmm, hmm. Nyehe.” Akorya then reached up on the tips of her toes to whisper into my ear, “I might hug other arms, but your arm is the only one I’ll do this for.” As if she wasn’t already hugging my arm tightly enough, she proved her point by hugging it just a tiny bit harder.

Even though I had absolutely zero problem with her hugging Wally’s arm, and I wouldn’t have cared even if she hugged the arm of somebody whose preferred type was very clearly not anybody with breasts, I wouldn’t have cared. Even so, hearing that she’d only hug my arm to the point of putting it between her breasts was pretty nice. Was it necessary? Not at all, but it still boosted my ego.

Not that my ego needed inflated any more than it already was. If anything was going to be inflated, I’d rather it be wombs. As a result of cum. A lot of cum.

The scenery drastically changed once we made it to the city’s slums. Seeing as how the game really wasn’t exactly original, it went with the usual sort of fantasy city where it looked all nice and medieval and knightly and all that for most of it, but then there was—of course—the seedy slums that everybody liked to pretend didn’t exist. Well, the NPCs liked to pretend it didn’t exist. Players didn’t care.

Even as we walked by dirty, homeless kids begging us for money, it really didn’t bother us. After all, they were unthinking, unfeeling NPCs simply going through their routine. They couldn’t be interacted with. They couldn’t be harmed nor killed. They couldn’t be saved. All they did was run around begging for money. Well, it wouldn’t be fair to say that they couldn’t be interacted with at all. It was possible to give them some money in exchange for some bonus reputation with the Virtues, especially Kindness and Charity. However, in the event of giving one of these kids money, they would simply thank whoever handed over their coin, run off into a nearby alley, disappear, and then respawn about ten minutes later to restart the process of asking for money. Even if somebody gave them every last coin in the game, which would be worth more than the entire city as far as the lore went, the kids would still be back in ten minutes asking for more.

And they weren’t all there was to the slums. Among the rundown buildings that looked ready to fall apart under the gentlest breeze, there were plenty of alcoholics and drug addicts lazing around unable to get their fixes, thieves trying to pickpocket players for a handful of coins that didn’t actually matter, and male NPCs occasionally dragging female NPCs into dark alleys while the women yelled for help. Of course, nothing actually happened to the women. Even if nobody intervened, the men and women alike would despawn as soon as the timer to be interrupted ran out. They’d be back thirty minutes later to repeat the process. If they were interrupted, then—again—players who stepped in to save the women would gain bonus reputation with the Virtues, especially Chastity and Diligence.

And again, even if they were saved, the women would be back thirty minutes later for it to all happen again. The city was full of little, repeating events like that. It was an easy method of farming reputation points without having to leave the city. Of course, actually going out to quest and do world events were far more effective methods of gaining reputation, and they were also much more elaborate.

Something like participating in a world event where Wrath-led monsters were trying to raze a village and kill everybody within it would result in far, far more reputation points for Sins and Wrath in particular while being way more hands-on and offering more interesting options than something like slapping one of the beggar kids after they asked for money.

But I didn’t really care about any of that. If some little NPC beggar ran up to me asking me for money, I’d usually just give them a pat on the head and carry on. If one got really annoying and didn’t find somebody else to beg, though, then maybe I’d give them a flick on the head.

Fun fact: petting a begging child’s head resulted in nothing. However, flicking a begging child’s forehead apparently counted as an unforgiveable sin and would result in loss of reputation points for Virtues while gaining reputation points for Sins. And, of course, Wrath appreciated flicking a child’s head the most.

That meant it was entirely possible to go from zero or even negative reputation with Wrath to maxing it out… solely by flicking the heads of children when they beg for money.

I was still surprised that nobody ever came up with “The Flick Challenge” or anything like that. If I ever ran out of ideas for my videos, and if I really wanted to tap into this game’s userbase, I’d probably do that. I’d stream myself going from zero reputation for Wrath to maximum reputation only by flicking kids’ heads.

Well, maybe not. That would probably require over a hundred hours straight of flicking heads given just how little the reputation increase was. It would probably be fun to try, though, just to see how far I could get.

We eventually made it to where Akorya was leading us. Standing in front of us at the back of a cramped, dirty alley was a small storefront that looked like it picked the most cramped place in the city to be. There weren’t even windows or anything to let us see inside. The only way to tell that it was meant to be a storefront and not the back of some random building was the sign hanging next to the door that read, “Paradise Bistro.”

Nothing about this looks like paradise, I thought. There was absolutely nothing appealing about this cramped little place from the outside, but Akorya vouched for the inside being nicer.

“Oh! By the way, try not to flirt with the owner too much,” Akorya teased with a poke into my side. Fortunately, I was able to hold back the laughter that almost forced itself out of me. My side was a terrible, terrible weak spot of mine. Poking and tickling my side could send me into such an intense fit of giggles that I would not only be able to breathe, but I would cry as well. Fortunately, the only people who knew about that were my mom and sister, and neither of them were in contact with anybody who might abuse that classified information.

“Hey, I can go without flirting,” I replied. “It’s not like I flirt with every single person I see.”

“Doubtful,” Wally said, causing Akorya to laugh.

“Keep up the sass and I’ll flirt the fuck out of you right here, right now.”

“Only you would use flirting as a threat.”

“I’d only use it as a threat to somebody who I want to flirt with.”

“I – wait. Was that flirting?”

I gave Wally’s shoulder a smack and said, “You’re so innocent, Wally,” before opening the door to hold it open for them. “Come on. Let’s sit down.”

Akorya happily skipped into the restaurant while Wally looked like he had no idea how he was supposed to reply. Seeing that flustered, confused expression of his was great. I hoped that he would reply with something else for me to tease him with, but he went inside to follow after Akorya instead.

For once, I was the one left pouting.

After finally entering the restaurant, I saw that Akorya wasn’t exaggerating when she said the inside would be fine. It seriously felt like I stepped into some sort of alternate world after getting hit by a truck while crossing the street. There was a pastel pink wallpaper with a frilly, white border painted on. All the tables were covered in patterned cloths that would make me horrified of eating on them in real life because I wouldn’t want to accidentally stain anything as pretty as them. The tables and chairs were all wooden and looked expertly crafted while, again, having pretty and elaborate designs carved into them. Each chair even came with a little, heart-shaped cushion to sit on.

It was all so… cute. The only problem was how narrow the interior was. It wasn’t like one of those cases where something ends up being bigger on the inside. The inside was just as small as it looked like it would be from the outside. Hugged between two larger buildings, the interior was only wide enough for the tables to fit in a single row from front to back. A couple of the tables were already occupied, too. Similar to real life, certain places attracted different crowds of people. An in-game restaurant designed to look like some grungy bar would attract all sorts of rough, tough players. A more casual place would attract a variety of all players. An upper-class restaurant would attract upper-class individuals… and players who hate the snobbery associated with anything being “upper-class” who go while dressed in bondage gear.

Like me.

Then there were places like this. Super cute cafes that looked like they were trying to give their customers diabetes before even taking their orders. The other players already at their tables looked feminine and wore cute dresses while they enjoyed tea and cake with one another.

Then there was us. Neither Akorya, Wally, nor I looked like this place’s usual type of customers. Even so, I liked the atmosphere. It was nice. I always was a fan of cutesy stuff whenever I wasn’t in the mood to gangbang somebody with a pack of monsters.

That wasn’t all that was nice to look at, either.

From the end of the room came jogging a pretty adorable girl with short and pink hair, a French maid outfit with a heart on the front of it that was dyed to be pink and white, and… she had a couple of floppy dog ears resting on the sides of her head with a bushy tail wagging behind her. Not only that, but her white thigh-highs stopped at the perfect spot to reveal some thick thighs before her dress could cover them up, and she was pretty seriously stacked underneath her costume. Only a little bit of cleavage was actually visible, but the fact that she still looked as busty as she did while wearing clothes that didn’t exactly look tight was telling all on its own.

“Hey!” the girl said with her hands on her lap, giving us a slight bow. “Table for three?” I expected to hear a cutesy, high-pitched voice from her given how everything else looked, but she actually had a pretty deep, if not androgynous, voice. I liked it.

“Yeah, please,” I answered. “By the way, this place looks great. Did you decorate it all on your own?”

The girl’s smile spread across her cheeks as she nodded. Her canid ears twitched a little but, given how floppy they were, they couldn’t really twitch much. “I did! Thanks! It cost a lot of money, but I’m happy with how it turned out. It’s super cute, right?”

“It really is.”

“Heh, glad you agree. Alright, let me take you over to – oh!” The girl looked at Akorya. “I remember you! You got the chocolate cherry cake last time, right? With the… cherry lemonade?”

“Woah… you remember all that even though I’ve only been here once?” Akorya asked.

The girl placed her hands on her hips, her tail still wagging behind her, and answered, “I’d never forget a customer! And it’s not often that somebody comes in here wanting everything to taste like cherries.”

“Nyehe… what can I say?” Akorya scratched her cheek. “I really like cherry.”

“Well, fortunately for you, I have everything I need in stock to make every cherry-related recipe in the game!”

Akorya tugged on my arm and said, “See? I told you that this place is great.”

Ace_Arriande

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