Chapter Nineteen #4
I had to assume that—since the skill name specified being third generation—Jeanne had a similar skill that was even stronger. If so, then what about Dracula?
Not only that, but Dracula was a person.
He wasn’t just a dungeon boss. In the game, he was a living being until defeated for the first time, then he became a respawning spirit.
So, what did that mean if he was a living person of this world?
Didn’t that mean he would have access to classes and skills himself?
And wouldn’t he have a similar skill that was even stronger than mine and Jeanne’s?
There was still so much that I didn’t know about the world.
But, as much as it worried me, it also made me even more excited to learn more about it. I mastered the world when it was a game, so now I wanted to master it when it was real.
But first.
“Who’s a good girl?” I asked.
Lupa’s ears twitched and her eyes shot open wide. “Master!” she shouted out, quickly wrapping her arms around my neck before rubbing her face all over my own.
“I’m a good girl? And here I thought that was you.”
“Master is finally awake!”
“You’re going to make me worry when you say that. How long have I been out for?” It must have been for a while if she was feeling so expressive.
“Mm… it’s been two days.”
“Oh, that’s not too bad. That’s actually faster than the best case.”
“Mm… even two days without Master… is too much.”
“Sorry, sorry. I’m back now, so it’s—”
Lupa looked into my eyes and blinked. “Red.”
“Red?”
“Master’s eyes. They’re red.” Lupa pressed her nose against my face and sniffed. “But Master still smells like Master.”
“I guess that’s all that really matters.”
“Mm.”
“Still, red eyes are cool. Also, where’re the others? I feel like they would’ve come barging in here by now if they were home.”
“Dungeon. Rosie said you can’t be the only one getting stronger and Jeanne went with her since she still needs levels.”
“And you? Not robbing any banks while I’m asleep?”
“Master was vulnerable. Had to stay by your side and protect you. Refused to leave until you woke up. Rosie even tried tempting me with fried cheesy sticks, but I said no. Stayed here. Am I a good girl? Did I do good? Did I protect Master?”
Lupa must have been feeling needy without praise, so I made sure to pet her and say, “You’re a good girl, you did great, and you protected me.” Her tail wagged so fast after all that.
“Mm. Happy.” Then she buried her face against my neck to rub all against me as her tail kept wagging behind her.
“I’m sure it’s thanks to you being here that the others felt they could go train. They trust you to protect me.”
“I’ll always protect Master.”
“I know you will. By the way, do you have a racial skill?”
Racial skills were admittedly pretty uncommon in the game since there were only a few races players could turn into from being human or one of the other basically human races.
There was vampire, werewolf, demon, and dragon.
Each one of those had their own classes associated with them.
The demon and dragon races were only unlocked by acquiring late-game items that meant most people who wanted to use them needed to go most of the game without ever picking a secondary class to leave the slot open for their classes since—again—there wasn’t much point in getting them just for their races, and then there was the werewolf race that worked kind of similar to the vampire race… but… well…
Vampire was available on release.
Werewolf was not.
People complained, of course. Some people thought it wasn’t right to have one but not the other, and other people were werewolf fans who hated vampires. Anyways, people complained, so an update added a werewolf companion who could turn the player into a werewolf and thus get the Werewolf class.
Most people assumed it would be just like with Jeanne. A lovable, endearing girl with a past as tragic as she was beautiful.
Instead…
The werewolf character added into the game was not only male, but an absolutely unlikable, annoying asshole. Basically, Seth got so annoyed by people asking for werewolves that he added the worst werewolf he could possibly think of.
So, yeah.
I thought it was hilarious. People begged him for a “muscle mommy werewolf” and instead got an annoying asshole who constantly whined and blamed everything on everyone else.
It was very clear that Seth believed in vampire superiority.
It was also clear he despised all the people who begged him for muscular, female characters after that.
There was even one reviewer who criticized his character design and uploaded pictures they edited of girls from the game with their arms replaced by noodles, and Seth shared the review with pride.
That god loved girls who were only thick in the areas he personally approved of. No fat was allowed anywhere else, apparently.
I also definitely wasn’t going to recruit the werewolf now that he was real.
Even in the game, I only recruited him during permadeath runs so I could get the Werewolf class, and then I immediately got him killed.
Sure, I tolerated his existence for one run since I was obviously going to check out all available content involving him, but that was only once.
That one time made it more than obvious Seth didn’t plan for anyone to actually keep him around.
“Master?” Lupa asked. “Are you alright?”
“Oh, sorry, I got lost in thought,” I answered. “I’m fine.”
“You had the same look on your face of when you talk about dungeons.”
“I was reminiscing about the game.” I looked at Lupa’s arms. Even though she was so strong and fit, her arms were totally smooth with zero muscle definition.
I gave her left arm a poke just to confirm.
It was soft. No muscle. How that made sense in a world where stats and numbers weren’t everything, I had no idea.
But my aesthetic preferences aligned with Seth’s, so I wasn’t going to complain.
As for Lupa, she narrowed her eyes at me and asked, “Why poke?”
“I wanted to see how soft your arm was,” I answered.
“Mm. Was it soft enough?”
“It was as soft as it looks, so yes. Though… would it even be possible for you to make it more or less soft? Or bigger or smaller?”
Lupa tilted her head as if I had asked her a strange question. “That’s not how puberty works, Master. Once your body is done growing, it stays that way.”
“But what if you lift weights? Would it really stay the exact same no matter how strong you get?”
Lupa’s head tilted in the opposite direction now. “Why would lifting weights change the body? Lifting weights make you stronger, they don’t change your genetics.”
“So, no matter what you do… your arms will always be like this.”
Lupa nodded. “Mm.”
“But if you eat more food or diet, your breasts still get bigger or smaller.”
“Because that’s where the body stores fat.”
“So, when someone gets stronger—if someone lifts weights to get stronger or practices running to get faster… their body doesn’t change at all?”
“Why would they?”
“What change actually causes the improvement then?”
“Mm. The spirit. If you train to get stronger, your spirit grows stronger, so it makes your body stronger. It’s all about the soul. A strong soul has a strong body.”
“Huh. It might sound ridiculous to me, but… in a way, it’s way more fair that way. People here aren’t limited by their genetics, only their determination.”
“Mm. What was it like back in your world?”
“The more you trained and stronger you got, the bigger your body got.” I gave Lupa’s soft, squishy arm another poke. “This would all be hard muscle. Your whole body would be hard with visible muscles pressing against your skin.”
Lupa’s ears flattened against her head. “That sounds gross.”
“Some men from my world liked that. They were only interested in girls with huge muscles.”
“They’re even weirder than Master, but at least Master is weird in a good way. They sound weird in a bad way.”
“Is it really that bad?”
“Girls are supposed to be soft, not hard.”
“Even if Seth didn’t write you… you’ve still inherited his beliefs.”
“Does… Master not like soft girls?”
“No, I definitely do.” I wrapped my arms around Lupa to hold her closer. “I don’t think Seth would have chosen me for this world if I didn’t agree with him on almost everything.”
“Mm. Good.”
“Also, I’ve got a feeling you answered me earlier while I distracted by thinking about the game, but do you have a racial skill?”
Lupa shook her head. “Mm. I don’t.”
Then it really was just the ones associated with classes.
“By the way… do werewolves exist?” I asked.
“What’s a werewolf?” Lupa asked, tilting her head.
… thinking about it, if Seth was really making the world for real, there was no way he would include that annoying werewolf bastard in the real thing.
I wasn’t going to complain about that.
While Lupa cuddled with me, I pulled out my phone and…
There were ninety-three messages.
From Stella.
They started off relatively normal.
>I hope you have a nice day today, Darling~!
>I don’t know what I should have for breakfast. What’d you eat? You ate, right?
>Not coming to the guild today?
>I love you.
>Sev?
>You must be sleeping in. Sorry for the spam.
And then there were the rest of the messages… but all of them looked like:
>(Message deleted by sender.)
Except for the very last one.
>Sorry! I had no idea what was going on!
Lupa told me everything! Umm… yeah… sorry.
You’re going to see a lot of deleted messages whenever you wake up…
don’t worry about what I sent, okay? Anyways…
I’m looking forward to when you wake up!
Can you… please message me when you wake up?
I’ll keep my phone fully charged and on me at all times! So… message me, please.
Seeing all of those messages broke my heart. Not because I was upset with her or anything, but because I knew exactly how she felt.