Book 8: Chapter 17:

“I, Azalabulia, the Dark Sorceress of Twisted Flames, the Breaker of Reality, the One Who will Set the World Ablaze, the Wielder of the Cursed Flame of Bahamut, the Protector of Smiles, and the Explosive Massager of Dragons, will deliver you to the afterlife you so eagerly must desire! Cursed Spell, Flash Variant: Strike!”

Faster than any spell the others saw Azalabulia use before, a spear of dark magic cracked through the air, breaking the sound barrier in the process, before piercing straight through the nearest elk’s torso. The elk tried to intercept it with his defensive lightning, but it was too slow against Azalabulia’s magic.

The elk ended up exploding into far too many chunks.

“Da-dang,” Mary said, stopped in her tracks with Saya after seeing the explosion. “She’s… really, really strong, ain’t she?”

“Yeah, she’s OP,” Saya answered. “And aren’t we supposed to be taking one of these back? She’s going to destroy them both at this rate!”

“We’re gonna have ta take tha other one down before she kills it.”

Saya nodded and nocked another arrow as Mary charged at the remaining elk.

“We’ll handle it!” Mary said.

“Go find the dragon and take care of it!” Saya shouted.

Hearing Saya’s order snapped Azalabulia out of her rage. That was right, she needed to go and find the little dragon to take care of it. She wasn’t even sure if it was still alive! What if it was on the verge of death? Every moment wasted against the elk was a moment not spent potentially saving the dragon’s life!

Azalabulia looked around for the dragon while the other two women focused on the elk.

Now, since neither Saya nor Mary were as overpowered as Azalabulia, they had to actually be careful as the elk tried to zap them with its lightning. The lightning strikes were rapid enough that neither girl could get close, and all of Saya’s arrows were shot down with ease.

However, that was because Saya was trying to shoot charged shots that would kill the elk with a single shot each time. The time between her arrows was far apart.

That was when she had an idea.

“Mary, I’ll create an opening for you!” Saya shouted.

Mary wasn’t sure what Saya had in mind, but she nodded and jumped back to wait for the opening to present itself.

Rather than try to fire any single, powerful arrow at the elk, Saya loosed her arrows as quickly as she could in the elk’s general direction. After a few repetitions of this, she realized she could even fire two at a time without losing any noticeable speed.

The rapid flurry of arrows forced the elk to go on the defensive against them, dedicating his attention to intercepting every arrow. While they might not have been strong enough to defeat the elk, the beast didn’t recognize that and interpreted them all as equal threats.

“Now!” Saya shouted while still firing.

Mary, having gotten in position behind the last male while Saya had him distracted, charged at the elk as quickly as she could while staying as silent as she could.

Punching or kicking the elk with enough force to kill it meant that she might rupture its internal organs and ruin the meat. That was why, instead of going for the easiest kill, she jumped up onto the elk’s back and grabbed him by his head! Once she had the elk’s head between her hands, all she had to do was twist it to break its neck in a single motion.

Mary severed the elk’s spinal cord with that and near instantly killed him. Even so, the remaining energy within his antlers surged into her hands and electrocuted her even with her suit on.

But it wasn’t enough to kill her. It wasn’t even enough to seriously hurt her.

“Huh, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be,” Mary said. “Probably coulda just ran right at it and tanked the bolts.”

“Well,” Saya said after running up to them, “I guess it was just a wild animal. It’s not like it was a boss or even elite monster or anything.”

The women looked at each other and shrugged.

Then they heard incoherent noises from Azalabulia that sounded like a mixture of giggling and crying.

Looking over at Azalabulia, they saw her on her knees next to a small, black lump on the ground. Upon closer inspection, that lump was none other than the dragon who was shot down by the elks.

Azalabulia scooped the dragon up into her arms and lifted it up onto the top of her breasts, setting the small monster down there since it was the easiest spot that allowed her to check on him. Plus, she figured the dragon would appreciate a soft spot to rest after being zapped out of the air earlier.

“You poor thing!” Azalabulia said, gently stroking her hand along the top of the dragon’s body from head to tail. “It’s okay, you’re alright now. I’ll take care of you!” As much as dragons tended to bring out her edgy roleplayer side, the only side anybody could see from her at the moment was her motherly side as she did her best to make the dragon comfortable.

“Is it alright?” Saya asked.

“I—I think so. It’s still breathing!”

“That’s good,” Mary said. “Tough little bugger.”

Azalabulia nodded and stroked the dragon’s back. Dedicating all of her attention to it, the random twitches of the dragon were what concerned her the most. She was familiar with some videos online of animals who suffered from things like paralysis, and she remembered that a common treatment to help them out was to stretch and bend their limbs for them. So, that was exactly what Azalabulia did. She began with the wings on the dragon’s back, gently unfolding them and stretching them all the way out a few times each.

Of course, as concerned as she was for the dragon… she couldn’t help but to be incredibly excited. After all, she was taking care of an actual dragon! She never saw such a cute little dragon before! She wanted nothing more than to take it back with them to take care of it all the time! She wanted to feed it, play with it, pamper and spoil it, cuddle with it, sleep with it, train it—there was an endless list of things that Azalabulia wanted to do with the dragon. She ended up thinking of so many exciting possibilities with the dragon that she almost began to drool, but she managed to calm herself down. She had to tend to it and help it recover before she could do any of those things!

But at the same time, she felt like a little girl who was about to get the dog of her dreams, so it was incredibly difficult to stay focused on helping the dragon rather than getting excited over it.

The stretching process repeated for all of the dragon’s limbs, its tail coming last.

Meanwhile, Mary and Saya looked over the elk they took down together.

“So… are we going to drag it all the way back?” Saya asked.

Mary shook her head. “No need to. We’ll field dress it here.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Got a knife I can borrow?”

Saya nodded and took the dagger off from her hip. “Does this count?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

With the dagger in her hand, Mary rolled the elk onto its back, pulled apart its hind legs, and…

That was when Saya looked away. She saw where the dagger was approaching and had no desire to watch what Mary was about to do. “Wh-where’d you even learn this?”

“From my old man. Used ta take me huntin’ when I was a kid. Taught me all about guttin’ in the field.”

“What’s the… the point of it?”

“The point of what? This?”

Saya turned around to look and saw the underside of the elk cut open with all of its internal organs on display. She immediately turned back around and silently nodded.

“Ah. Ya wanna get all the organs out ta reduce the body temp. Lotsa folk complain about game like this tastin’, you know, gamey. That’s because people tend not ta field dress their game. By removin’ the organs, you’re lowerin’ the body temperature which cools down tha meat and prevents any accidents from happening. Like ya don’t want the stomach to rupture and get acid all over the meat or anythin’.”

The next moment, when Mary went silent all of a sudden, Saya was tempted to turn and look at what she was doing but had a feeling that she probably shouldn’t.

She did anyways.

“Wha-what are you doing?!” Saya shouted as she stared at Mary who was holding the elk’s heart in front of her mouth with a chunk bitten out of it. “That’s—that’s a raw heart!”

Mary nodded as she chewed with blood all around her mouth. "Old man taught me that it's just murder if ya don't eat the heart. Guess it was part of our culture back in tha day or somethin' to always take a bite from the heart after huntin' somethin'." She then held it out toward Saya as if offering her a bite of it.

Saya lifted a hand up over her mouth and turned back around. “I’m not cut out for this. I want to go back to fishing. Save me, onii-wan.”

Mary shrugged and held the heart toward Azalabulia instead, swallowing her own piece of it just in time to ask, “Hey, want some?”

Azalabulia shook her head, more concerned about the dragon curled up on top of her breasts.

“We could give the little guy a bite. He must be hungry if he was tryin’ ta take this guy down in the first place.”

If it meant helping the dragon out, Azalabulia was happy to do it. “Are you hungry?” she asked the dragon. “Do you think you can handle a little bit of meat?”

The dragon, barely able to move, did its best to nod its head.

Azalabulia did her best to help the dragon by picking him up and holding him toward the heart, letting Mary meet her halfway by holding the heart up directly in front of the dragon’s mouth.

It took a bit of effort on the dragon’s part, but it managed to bite off a piece of the chewy muscle to swallow whole. The two women then heard an almost purring-like noise come from it.

As injured as the dragon might have been, hearing that noise was enough to make Azalabulia squeal with childlike excitement as she hugged it back against her chest.

That was when she decided it.

Without any warning, Azalabulia picked up the dragon, held it in front of her, looked at its underside, and then set it—him back down. “His name is Death!” she declared.

“De-Death?” Mary asked.

“Death!”

“Why Death?”

“Because death is the ultimate ending of all life in the universe, and he shall be the one who brings it!”

“Then shouldn’t he be called Reaper or somethin’?”

“Death!”

“Al-alright.”

Azalabulia smiled and hummed as she stroked Death’s back. “Want another bite?”

Death nodded and looked toward the heart.

To make things simpler, Mary handed the heart over to Azalabulia so that she could feed him herself while Mary returned to working on the elk’s carcass.

A pile of organs were left next to the elk. “Shame we don’t have any good bags. Won’t be able to take the good stuff back with us. Unless somebody wants to carry ‘em. Saya, ya want ta carry this?”

Saya looked at Mary, saw her holding a floppy liver in her hands, and immediately looked away again.

“Guess that’s a no. Well, we’ll still get plenty of meat from tha body.”

“Are… are we ready to go back then?” Saya asked, pinching her nostrils shut so that she wouldn’t have to smell the organs sitting out under the sun.

Mary splayed the elk out over the ground, underside facing down, and said, “Sure, just let me bleed it out a bit first.”

“I—I think I’ll go ahead and start walking back.”

Mary shrugged as Saya put some distance between them. Meanwhile, Death made good progress on the heart but could only eat so much of it before feeling completely full.

“All done?” Azalabulia asked.

Death purred again and nodded, prompting Azalabulia to set the heart down on the ground before wiping her hand off on the grass. She wanted to pet him some more, but she didn’t want to wipe blood all over his head even if his face was already covered in it at that point.

“We’ll get you all washed up once we’re back! There should be some rags on the boat.” Carefully, she stood up while making sure not to let him slide off from her chest. “And then you can meet everybody and make all sorts of friends! Don’t worry, I promise to take good care of you!”

Death wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but he did know that she felt soft and warm, so he had no problem staying on top of her.

The two women joined Saya on the way back before long. Mary ended up hanging the elk over her back to carry it. Fortunately, her suit was pretty insulated and kept any of her body heat from being shared with the corpse, so the cool air was more than capable of cooling it down.

Back at The Shoebill, the three women returned to the sight of Fenrir surrounded by fish all over the deck of The Shoebill. Most of them were tiny fish that they knew he never would have caught himself, so where did they come from?

“What’s… what’s with all the fish?” Saya asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Fenrir answered, his face covered in red imprints that resembled the fishes’ tails.

“Were you… attacked by a school of jumping fish while we were gone or something?”

“Please. I haven’t felt this fishy since I did those fish armor and weapon experiments back in Port Tugator.”

Saya sighed and patted Fenrir on the shoulder as she crossed onto The Shoebill.

The truth behind what happened with the legion of tiny fish would forever stay a secret of Fenrir’s. Of course, Saya actually did know considering that she was his virtual assistant, and she just could not stop laughing at him in his head.

Knowing that she pretended not to know, while fully being aware of what happened, made Fenrir feel even more ashamed.

But before Fenrir could feel too bad about it, he saw a specific little thing popping up from between Azalabulia’s breasts. While the sight of something popping up from between them wasn’t an unfamiliar sight thanks to his private time with her, seeing what he saw most certainly was an unfamiliar sight. For between her breasts, popping out from the top, was none other than what looked like the head of a baby dragon.

“Uh… Aza?” Fenrir asked, looking at the yawning dragon.

“Meet Death!” Azalabulia answered. “He… he went in… there, while we were walking over.”

Death nodded before yawning again and nuzzling his head down against her breasts.

“I want to be him,” Fenrir said. “Also, I have a lot of questions, but the most important one is how can I become that tiny and do the same thing? Maybe Eva will know something.”

As much as Fenrir wanted to tease Azalabulia some more since he saw how much she was blushing from that, he found his eyes drawn to the monstrous elk carried against Mary’s back.

“I take it the hunting went well,” Fenrir said.

Mary nodded and crossed over while carrying the elk still. Fenrir made sure to help her by holding her arm as she crossed, causing her to blush and almost slip on one of the tiny fish.

“Careful,” he said.

“Ye-yeah,” Mary replied. “Thanks.”

“So, we all ready to go back?”

Saya, still manically laughing at him in his head, maintained a neutral expression in-game and nodded.

Azalabulia and Mary were ready to return, too, so The Shoebill set sail once more to sail back south.

Once they were back home, Fenrir brought The Shoebill to her usual slip and everybody was back on land once more.

The women explained everything that happened to Fenrir as they sailed south, and Mary also realized that it was a lot later than she realized it was right as they made it back.

“Darn… it’s later than I thought it’d be,” Mary said. “Sorry, ah’ve got ta go.”

“It’s alright!” Azalabulia replied. “I’ll make sure that that meat gets cooled down so that we can enjoy it together the next time you’re on!”

Mary stepped back and looked away. A smile threatened to curl the corners of her lips, but she instead scratched her cheek and said, “Ya don’t have ta do that for me. You can go an’ cook it up while it’s nice and fresh.”

“We went there because we wanted you to experience how elk tastes, so it would defeat the purpose if you miss it! And it would be rude to eat it without you. So, whether you like it or not, we’re going to wait for you. Understand?”

Not expecting the dominant aura from Azalabulia, Mary took another step back and nodded her head before failing to hide that smile of hers. “Go-gotcha. And er… thanks, for today. I had… a lot of fun. A-anyways, I uh, guess I’ll see ya later! And seeya, Fen and Saya!”

Fenrir and Saya waved as Mary ran off to wherever she usually went to wake from.

Now, down to only the three, the trio transported the fish that Fenrir caught alongside the elk’s corpse into the community fridge. The community fridge, situated behind the restaurant that always had players online to cook up delicious meals inspired by real world cuisine with fantasy spins on them, was basically a giant, wooden room enhanced with icy magic to keep it cool. This was done by digging a pit into the ground of the room, covering it with grating so that it could be safely walked over, and then it was filled with water that was frozen via magic to become a single, solid block of ice. Items that required the coldest temperatures were kept closer to the ground so that they could benefit the most from the passive cooling.

Tabitha was in the process of designing an even better cooling system so that the town could safely store food instead of always having to harvest or catch fresh food, but nobody had heard of any progress with her plotting in a while.

All that the trio needed to do after setting the food down near the floor was put up a little sign with their names on it to say that it belonged to them. Anything that didn’t have a nameplate on top was available to everybody in the community, but nobody would touch anything with a nameplate claiming it.

The system was largely built off of trust. While there were quite a few players who liked to comment about how such a system would never work in the real world, everybody respected it in the virtual world.

As for Death, he climbed down between Azalabulia’s breasts for extra warmth to get away from the cool air of the room.

Fenrir wished that he could do that, too.

Now, having done what they needed to do, the trio was ready to walk out through the restaurant connected to the community fridge when Saya spoke up to say, “I’m gonna stay here and grab something to eat. Thanks for taking me along.” She looked at Azalabulia when she said that. Then she looked at Fenrir and stuck her tongue out at him before turning around and taking a seat on one of the wooden stools at the bar. “You haven’t had any alone time with Aza lately, so you’re welcome.”

Fenrir smiled and wrapped an arm around Azalabulia, causing her to blush and blink a few times since the restaurant was nearly full. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s find somewhere more quiet to hang out.”

Azalabulia nodded and let him take the lead.

He ended up taking her over to the beach. It was a windy day and, even though they just got done sailing for hours, he could never get enough of that fresh, sea breeze.

Even Death appreciated it since he made sure to pop his head back up out from her breasts to feel the wind blow against his face.

“I’m starting to get jealous of him,” Fenrir said. “He’s like a baby kangaroo and your cleavage is his mother’s pouch to hide in.”

Azalabulia blushed and shook her head. “I-it’s not like that! He’s just cold!”

“Don’t worry, I can’t blame him. I’d be doing the exact same thing if I was small enough.”

“That’s… that’s so embarrassing.”

“What? Are you saying you wouldn’t let me spend all day between your boobs if I was small enough?”

“No! I—I would! It’s just… it’s still embarrassing!”

“Well, even if I can’t spend all day with my body between them, there’s still one part of my body that could.” Fenrir wiggled his eyebrows at her.

“Fen!”

“I couldn’t resist, I’m sorry. Also, he’s not allowed to stay there once he hits puberty.”

“He’d probably be too big to anyways!”

“Good point. I wonder how much bigger he’s going to grow.”

“Well… the others he was with were all huge. Bigger than buildings.”

“It might be inconvenient to keep him around if that happens, but I mean, how long would we even have to wait for that to happen? Would probably be decades before he gets that big. The game might not even be around by then.”

“Then we’ll find a way to take him to other games with us!”

Fenrir was about to say that he wasn’t sure that was possible before remembering it was exactly what they were doing with Saya. “That could work.”

Azalabulia nodded a couple of times before petting Death between his horns. “I won’t let anybody take my Death away from me!”

“That sounds pretty emo when you put it that way.”

Azalabulia titled her head for a moment before realizing what she said. “Oh. I get it.”

“Slowpoke. Anyway, you looked like you had a lot of fun with Mary. Can’t say I expected that.”

“A-ah… well, she reminded me of some of my students. And myself,” Azalabulia answered with a hint of a smile.

“How so?”

“Well, when I was a child, I used to have a very… vivid imagination. I always wanted to play with everybody else, but they usually wanted to do things like sports or tag while I wanted to pretend to be a dragon breathing fire. Everybody thought I was weird. It didn’t take long before I stopped trying to play and just kept to myself instead. I became quiet and never tried talking to anybody because I was afraid I would annoy them, be boring, or get insulted for what I like. So… I stopped trying to make friends because I figured nobody cared enough to be my friend in the first place, even if I really, really wanted to be friends with everybody.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. For what it’s worth, I would have played with you and acted like the knight who came to slay you, and I’d let you throw dirt at me pretending that it was fire.”

Azalabulia chuckled and shook her head. “It’s fine. Anyway, once I was in high school, I finally made my first real friend! Well, I thought I did. She only pretended to like me so that she could steal my notebook and show everybody what I was drawing since she thought it was creepy how I spent all my free time drawing in it alone. Everybody got to see I was still obsessed with dragons even in high school.”

“I want to punch her.”

“I would have stopped you. I didn’t want to cause any trouble, and I didn’t put the blame on her in the first place.”

“Why not?”

“My whole life, I had nothing but teachers who acted like they didn’t even care about their job. They acted like the only reason they chose to be teachers was for the pay and benefits. As much as I agree with the decision to have increased teacher salaries so much… that attracted a lot of people who saw it as glorified babysitting with better pay. I was never really bullied aside from that time with the fake friend, but even so, the teachers never once paid attention to me. They made me feel as alienated as the other kids did. They never stepped in to stop teasing, they never punished the girl who stole my notebook and showed it to everybody—they just sat at their desk and collected their paychecks. That was all they cared about.”

“Alright, then I want to punch the teachers.”

“That, I would have allowed. But, if that never happened to me, then I wouldn’t have been as motivated to become a teacher. When I saw kids bullying others, I thought, ‘is it possible to guide them and change them?’ When I saw other kids like me who were all on their own, I thought, ‘Could I help others understand them and become friends with them?’ I didn’t have the confidence to do anything about it while I was in school, which I still regret, but I did everything in my power to gain that confidence once I was out of high school. I despised who I was. I didn’t want to be the girl who wanted to help others but was too afraid to anymore. So, I went to college for education, I talked to a therapist who helped me become more confident, and I volunteered in programs that supported children after school. I got rid of the girl who was too afraid to help anybody and tried my best to become the adult who would never shy away from it.”

“Do you think you succeeded?”

Azalabulia smiled and sighed. “I do. Somehow. I was frequently worried I would fail, but I’m proud of who I am now. Anyway, the reason why I brought all this up—Mary reminded me of the children, myself included, who would stay quiet by themselves. The kids who wanted to be friends with everybody but weren’t sure how to. But… I do regret not reaching out to her sooner. It didn’t really hit me until I saw her without her mask. I thought she might have been roleplaying, but… I still have a lot to learn.”

“Wait. So, was this whole thing part of your plan?”

“It might have been.”

“Hunting elk to let her taste it was all just an excuse for spending time together and making her feel welcomed, wasn’t it?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then… wait. Is this also why you’re usually pretty calm around Saya?”

“I don’t want to overwhelm her, especially with Nell being so crazed around her, so I figured being relaxed around her would be appreciated.”

Now it was Fenrir’s turn to sigh. “I feel like I’ve been a bad boyfriend. I’ve been blind to all the hard work you’ve been putting into interacting with everybody.”

“My passion isn’t teaching so much as it is wanting to prevent anybody from feeling like how I did when growing up. If it means preventing even one person from feeling left out and alone without anybody to talk to, I’ll do everything in my power to become their friend. That is why I will do my best to become Mary’s friend!”

“I don’t think you’ll have to try too hard. She already really seemed happy to hang out with you.”

“Well, in that case, I will do my best to make sure she knows it wasn’t just a one-time thing.”

“It’s adorable how different Teacher Aza is from Edgy Azalabulia.”

“Wha-what do you mean by that all of a sudden?”

“I mean that I’m a pretty lucky guy to have a girlfriend with so many sides to love.”

Azalabulia blushed and grabbed onto the front of her hat to pull it down over her face. “You… you can’t say things like that all of a sudden!”

“Then stop me,” Fenrir teased. “You want to make sure that everybody feels welcomed by you, and I want to make sure that you feel loved by me.”

“I—I assure you that I already feel more than enough loved by you!”

“Then I’ve got to make sure you know it’s not just a one-time thing.”

Before Azalabulia could think of anything to say in response to that, she found her lover slipping up underneath her hat to press his lips against her own.

Meanwhile, Death cutely snored beneath them, still tucked between Azalabulia’s breasts.