[Vol. 3 pt. 15]
“Woah, Master! Did you do this?” Akorya asked as she walked around the remodeled dungeon with me. “It looks super nice! I feel like I’m in a museum or anything! Or like… this isn’t a brag or anything, I promise, but like… my parents are pretty wealthy and this place still makes me feel like I’m too poor to be walking around it. No-not that there’s such a thing as being too poor for something! I just mean—”
“Don’t worry about it, I know what you mean,” I said.
Given how most of the world was, implying things like being too poor for something was one of the more offensive things that could be said. Sure, there was still money and people who had more of it than others, but separating people into different groups based off their wealth was more or less done with. Those who tried to see themselves as superior for their wealth were treated like garbage by basically everybody, so even they were smart enough to put themselves on equal standing as those less wealthy.
But it was still a sort of sore topic best avoided. The differences between classes were almost fully eliminated. Those who tried to reinstate those differences were, albeit a bit too dramatically, compared to some of the worst human beings to ever exist. So, I could easily understand why Akorya panicked all of a sudden over that example.
“You can say things like that around me and I won’t judge you for it. I know you’re not actually trying to put anybody down,” I explained.
“O-oh. Alright. Thanks,” Akorya said. “The last time I said something like that… yeah, it umm… didn’t really turn out well for me. I had a bunch of people jumping down my throat accusing me of being a classist trying to reverse all the progress we’ve made. Then when I tried apologizing and explaining, they said I was a liar trying to hide my real beliefs behind humor by saying it’s just a joke.”
“On one hand, people are allowed to say whatever jokes they want. Even the fucked up ones, not to say that yours was fucked up. But on the other hand… well, in their defense, hiding behind ‘it’s just a joke’ to spread hateful beliefs has been an issue for decades. Not as much of an issue as it was in the tens and twenties since people finally caught on to it, but there are still some people who try to hide behind it. But I like to think it’s obvious when somebody is trying to hide and when somebody is genuinely telling a joke. One of my favorite comedians has an entire act where he shits all over us ‘sexual deviants and degenerates’ and makes us sound like the worst people alive. But, you know, he’s an ex-porn actor. He even has his own sex toy brand. Pretty obvious to tell he’s being ironic and just joking around. Doesn’t always have to be that obvious, either.”
Akorya sighed with a hand on her chest. “I’m happy you feel that way. I’ve… I’ve got to be honest. I love really, really offensive humor. Like, I swear I don’t actually hate anybody… but the kind of humor I like would probably get me called every kind of -ist there is if I talked to random people about it. And that includes offensive to me! Like, the more offended it makes me, the funnier it is! You know what I mean?”
“I’m probably not into that kind of humor as much as you, but yeah. I know what you mean. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that sort of stuff as long as it’s just jokes. I won’t judge somebody for an edgy joke. It’s when it becomes more than just a joke that I’m going to start judging them.”
“Yeah, exactly!”
“Though, I will warn you not to say those sorts of jokes around Lily in case that isn’t obvious yet. She doesn’t like mean jokes.”
“Ah… yeah. She’s really sensitive about that sort of stuff. What about Thera?”
“Thera isn’t into them either, but she wouldn’t get upset over it. She’d probably just roll her eyes.”
“Ouch… sometimes having somebody roll their eyes at you is worse than accidentally upsetting them. One thing is just an accident and you can apologize for it… but you can’t apologize for being stupid in somebody’s eyes.”
“I mean, you could, but at the same time, huh. I never really thought about it that way before.”
“Oh?” Akorya crossed her arms over her chest, looking awfully proud of herself. “I’m a genius, aren’t I? I thought of something that you haven’t! That makes me like, super smart.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but being smarter than me doesn’t make you that smart.”
“It does by my standards. You’re the second smartest person I know!”
“Who’s the first?”
“Thera. She’s like… scary smart. I almost want to play with her and roleplay like… I’m her student and she’s my teacher, and she’s trying to tutor me and that leads to lewd things. But like, I’m pretty sure she would take it so seriously and actually try to teach me something that would break my mind and burn me out before we even get to any lewd stuff.”
“Huh. Thera dressed up as a teacher… that’d be nice. With like a pencil skirt, an open blouse, and glasses.”
“Exactly! She’d totally look hot in that. Or in a nurse costume. Or a cop uniform… huh. I think she’s just hot in general.”
I crossed my own arms over my chest now and nodded. “Sounds about right. Also, while we’re talking about her, she’s the one who designed this place. Not me. I tried to redesign it… but I made it look horrible. Thankfully, she was there to help me out and turned my shitty design into a masterpiece.”
“Ooh. She’s even more awesome now. But I still feel like I’m too much of a peasant to walk through here.”
“You filthy peasant. How dare you walk within my dungeon. Your kind isn’t welcome here. Shouldn’t you be in the city’s slums instead?”
“Nyehehe, we’d so get canceled if we made those jokes in public.”
“Probably. But hey, I’ll take people being the no-fun-allowed police for the sake of a better society than, you know, not having a better society. Then again, that’s all subjective. To other people, we’ve got no-fun-allowed police and a worse society… despite those same people benefiting from all the changes.”
“Oof. My dad is like that. My mom is like, super progressive and stuff, but my dad is like, the most stereotypical classist guy you could meet even though he still gets to benefit from all the new stuff. But wait, I don’t want to make him sound like, horrible or anything! He’s actually a really good dad, and I love him lots. And he’s always taken care of us. It’s just… he’s also the kind of guy who would rather burn down the government and let companies take everything over. It’s like he wants a monarchy with royalty and nobles and stuff, except with companies, CEOs, and executives.”
“Oh god.”
“I know, right? Oh! I told my parents about you! Well, not that I like, know you. But I sent them one of your videos!”
“Oh god, part two. Which one did you send?”
“The one where you talked about the history of prostitution and why it needs stronger laws protecting it and stuff. My mom completely agreed, and my dad… kind of agreed. Basically he said it’s common sense that it should be legal because people should be allowed to do whatever they want with their own bodies, but that the government was useless and shouldn’t be getting involved at all. Oh, and he said you’re hot.”
“He—he did?”
“Well, he’s bi, so. He’ll never compliment another woman in front of my mom, but he’ll compliment men. But that’s not the important part!”
“What’s the important part then?”
Akorya held a hand over her mouth and giggled before answering. “Nyehe… I dropped a hint like, ‘I wish I could find a guy like this,’ and my mom totally approved. She said our babies would be super cute. My dad called you a commie, but he said that he’d rather me marry an attractive commie than an ugly one, so that means he approves in his own way. He also said you’d be a good choice since you’re probably loaded from ad revenue.”
“I honestly can’t tell if I would get along with your dad or not.”
“You probably would. Like, yeah, he’s really opinionated about stuff and kind of goes against a lot of what we say is good now, but he’s also super far into the camp of leaving people alone and letting them live however they want. I could probably go marry a dog or something and he wouldn’t care as long as it can be proven that the dog consents.”
“That’s… that’s kind of weird, but I understand. He’s one of those types who just wants to be left alone, wants to leave others alone, and doesn’t care about what people do as long as it’s consensual, right?”
“Yeah! That’s like, exactly him.”
“And he probably thinks that things like exploitive work contracts are consensual because people have to consent to sign them on their own while ignoring the fact that they would starve and be homeless if they didn’t.”
“Oh, yeah, definitely. He’s the kind of guy who thinks like, indentured servitude should be legal. Like you should be able to become an indentured servant for a fast food place in exchange for a roof over your head and leftover food.”
“I’m leaning toward not liking him.”
“But he’s also the kind of guy who puts his money where his mouth is about donating and stuff! He gives away like, forty percent of every paycheck to local shelters for animals and abuse victims and stuff.”
“Damn it, how dare he not be purely bad or good. How am I supposed to know if I should like him or not? What, do you expect me to have nuance? In the modern year? Do you know how much effort it takes to have nuance instead of throwing everybody into the ‘good’ side or the ‘bad’ side?”
“Nyehehe… my bad.” Akorya reached up to pet my head. “But at least you and my mom would totes get along.”
“Sounds like my mom would get along with your mom, too.”
“You uh… you might want to keep her away from my parents.”
“Why?”
“Well… let’s just say that they’re very open about who they invite into their bedroom. You’re too young for them, but anybody within ten years of them is fair game. How old is your mom?”
“Forty-seven.”
“Yep. She’s within their strike range. I don’t think they’ve ever been rejected. If they set their eyes on somebody, that person ends up in a threesome with them by the end of the night. And they’re super dominant, too. My mom actually told me that’s part of what makes their marriage so successful. They’re both mega doms who refuse to ever let the other come out on top in the bedroom, so they have to bring others to dominate together. That way they get it out of their system and never fight over it.”
“My mom doesn’t even have legs and I bet she’d wreck them.”
“No way. You don’t know my parents.”
“And you don’t know my mom. Wait… are we talking about whose parents would be able to dominate the other’s better?”
“Yeah… this is weird.”
“On one hand, I’m tempted to throw our parents together in the same room and say, ‘Let them fight.’ On the other hand, I don’t know how to feel about the idea of helping my mom hook up with somebody for that.”
“I kinda helped mine before.”
“Well, now I’m curious.”
“Okay, so, when I was in high school, I had a teacher who my parents really liked. So I told the teacher my parents wanted to invite him over for dinner, and he accepted. He came over and then I left as soon as they started talking to go stay over at my cousins’. The teacher never looked me in the eyes again after that and always gave me straight As. And came over every now and then for a few months.”
“Huh. So, instead of sleeping with your teacher for better grades, your parents slept with your teacher for better grades.”
“All they cared about was the sex. The better grades were an unplanned bonus that I wasn’t gonna complain about.”
“Your parents sound pretty cool. Even if your dad does have some beliefs that make me want to bash my head into a wall.”
“Yeah… but at least he always put me and mom first. He just grumbled about it whenever he had to do things he was against, but he still did them.”
“Nothing wrong with that. Anyways, that was extremely distracting. The reason I called you here and why the dungeon is closed right now is so that we can finally execute our plan.”
“Our plan?”
“To get revenge on your bully.”
Akorya tilted her head. “Oh. That’s still a thing?”
“Well… yeah. We’ve been working on it this whole time. Well, it’s mostly been Thera.”
“Oh. It’s been so long that I completely forgot you were setting something up.”
That hurt a little. Hurt in the way that it made me feel like we probably put way more effort into the plan than we needed to. “You… you don’t mind us still getting revenge, right?”
“Sure! I just forgot we were even doing it, nyehehe. I’m totally down for it as long as it’s not too mean or anything.”
I sighed and poked her forehead. “Your parents raised a seriously nice girl.”
“Well, I try! Even if I really like edgy humor, I don’t want anybody to actually get upset or anything. It makes me feel bad when others feel bad. But… it’s okay if we make her feel just a little bit bad.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t be doing anything too messed up. We’re just going to—”
“Hey!” Cani shouted at us, leaning out from the entrance to her relocated restaurant. “You two! In here! I’ve got some new dishes I want to run by you!”
We both jumped at the sudden shout since we had no idea she was even in there. We got completely absorbed in our conversation.
“Guess it wouldn’t hurt to enjoy some new food first,” I said. It wasn’t like the plan couldn’t wait another hour or so.
“Speaking of food, when do I get to suck your dick some more?” Akorya asked, placing one of her large, paw-like hands against my crotch.
“Actually, after the plan, why don’t we go out together to hunt down a new monster to bring back to the dungeon? Then I’ll take control of that and we can have some fun.”
Akorya wrapped her arms around my right arm and nodded. “Sounds like a date!”
“Then a date it will be.” Especially since I planned on officially inviting her to the relationship with me and Lily once the plan to deal with her bully was finished.