[Vol. 4 pt. 41]

After my date with Akorya, which involved her dragging me around the city’s shopping district while pointing out all the things she wanted to buy so that she could decorate her own room in the dungeon, as well as some clothes that she could dress up with, she went off to have some time with Lily and to give me the time I needed for something that was in the making for a long time.

Challenging Thera.

Honestly, after talking to my mom about that whole deal, I had to agree that it was pretty unnecessary. It was pretty silly to have to duel and defeat somebody just to have the pleasure of getting to date them. We weren’t in the medieval ages, and I wasn’t some knight trying to prove myself to a princess.

But it did feel that way.

At the same time, though, was there really any harm in it? Sure, I didn’t know Thera’s exact intentions, but I did have faith in her to not be stringing me along for no reason. Even then, what she did could hardly even be called stringing me along. I was only ever teasing her and joking around for the most part whenever I tried to ask her out since I knew she would reply with the same thing about having to defeat her first.

I should have seriously put effort into getting with her sooner than I did.

There was no point in dwelling on that, though. What mattered was the present. I might have wasted my time not trying to hook up with her sooner, and I wasn’t about to waste even more time beating around the bush.

I got powered up thanks to my new powers from becoming Lust’s—Meadow’s, champion. I also trained with my mom in a different PvP game to learn some new moves and get used to a more intense PvP environment, I watched guides on how to get the most out of my main class in PvP, and I specialized my gear while glamouring it to retain the usual appearance so that I could excel in PvP while still looking like my usual self.

I was prepared.

Even if I was going to lose against her, at least I could feel that I tried my absolute best.

And so, I sat there in the city’s arena lobby where some NPCs and other players sat around for flavor and to wait for queues respectively. Sometimes one player would return, getting teleported back into the seat he was in before he vanished, with a deep sigh which probably indicated a loss in the arena. Other times, players would return with wide, cocky smiles on their faces.

Everybody more or less stuck to themselves, though. I was probably the only one paying attention to anybody.

That was, until Thera stepped into the arena’s lobby.

I forgot just how popular she was in PvP circles sometimes. The moment she entered, everybody looked at her. Some with awe, some with lust, but most with respect and admiration. They knew she was the queen of the arena.

Though, they all stopped staring at her the moment she looked around and sent glares at them, causing each and every one of them to looked away and mind their own business before she flashed me a smile and came over to me.

“You’re too cool, Thera,” I said as soon as she reached the table I was at.

“I know, darling,” Thera replied. “Now, just imagine if I actually tried.”

“I’m not sure anybody would be able to handle it.”

“Oh? And here I thought you could handle anything. Have I been misled?”

“More like you’ve deluded yourself into thinking I’m that impressive.”

“Perhaps I have. Or perhaps I have a good eye and know your true capabilities, even if you fail to see them yourself.” While speaking, she sat down across from me… if it could really be called sitting down. It was more like she rested the bottom of her arachnid abdomen against the ground which brought her head to just a slightly higher level than my own. She couldn’t actually sit down in any chairs or use any furniture in general that wasn’t specially crafted for her race, resulting in her having to just rest against the floor in cases like this.

That got me thinking about how much of a logistical nightmare it would be in reality to try and make everything accessible to everybody of all races if said races included giant and uniquely shaped fantasy races.

“You’re as much of a flatterer as always,” I finally replied, finding it hard to look her in the eyes when she leaned forward over the table a bit, resting her elbows on it with her breasts pushing forward between her arms. Going by the teasing smile she flashed me, she knew exactly what she was doing.

“I try, darling. Now, tell me, what is it that you summoned me here for?” Thera looked around the room just to make sure nobody else was checking her out before returning her attention to me. To my surprise, not a single other person in the room dared to look at her after she first scared them off.

“I think that should be obvious. It’s finally time to kick your ass in a duel.”

Thera couldn’t help but to show me one of the cutest, closed-lip grins that I ever saw from her. But as cute as it was, I felt like I was being looked down on by an adult to some tiny little kid. “Is that so?”

“It is. The only way I’m going to get any more prepared at this point is by challenging you and learning from it if I fai—”

“I surrender.”

“—l. Then I can study the match and try again la—what?”

“I surrender.” Thera pretended to wave around an imaginary white flag with her right hand. “You win.”

“But—but we didn’t even… we didn’t even fight.”

“And why should we? To try and sate the anxiety of a woman making excuses to prolong the inevitable? There will be no satisfaction from dueling you, nor would you stand a chance against me regardless of how prepared you are. If you think I could not bait you into using your CDs before locking you down with stuns and poisons, then you have no respect for what I am capable of. As much as I admire you, darling, there is no universe nor timeline in which you defeat me or ever even come close to doing so.”

“I feel like you’re talking shit to me, but I can’t help but to find you stupidly hot right now.”

“I am only pointing out the obvious.”

“So, wait. Did you… never actually expect us to duel?”

Thera unenthusiastically swung her arms out. “You caught me, darling. I have been nothing but a poor liar since the day I first told you to defeat me first.”

“Then… why’d you keep lying about that?”

“Was the implication not clear enough?”

“You might have to explain it like I’m five because I’ve always placed faith in you by default.”

Thera tilted her head to the side and let out a gentle sigh as she looked into my eyes. “I appreciate it, even if it was misplaced.” A party invite from her popped up the next instant, which I accepted. And upon accepting it, she triggered a teleport that took both of us to a different location.

She took us to where we first met.

It was a small camp inside of a forest renown for being the perfect spot for open-world PvPers who loved ambushing unsuspecting players. The space inside the camp was safe, but there was no safety the moment we stepped out from it.

Unfortunately, the camp was not our destination. Instead, our destination was the exact spot we met before.

There wasn’t much special to the spot where we first met. It was just a group of trees next to a small pond that featured a quest objective I needed to gather. She knew about the quest objective being there and found a sadistic pleasure in waiting for unsuspecting players simply trying to complete the quest before stabbing them in the back out of nowhere.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Thera said. “You were crouched down in front of that tree there to gather the objective, and you got distracted by a spider crawling atop your shoulder. You had no idea that I was already behind you and ready to slice your throat open. Yet, even for an artificial spider in a virtual world, you talked to it as if it was some cute puppy and helped it onto the tree.”

“To be fair, I was terrified of it biting me if I made any sudden movements, but it turned out to be friendly,” I replied.

“That is not what matters. What matters is the kindness you showed to something as artificial and trivial as that even when nobody else was around to see—or so you believed, that is.”

“And then you jump scared me when I turned around and saw you standing there, staring at me.”

“I will never forget the precious noise you made when you saw me and jumped. Then, despite how I looked, you did nothing but look me in the eyes. You were the only one to not immediately assault me with your eyes in some lustful craze.”

“I felt like you were going to kill me if I did. Even now, I’m not sure how I managed to not check you out for so long.”

“You managed because of who you are.”

“Or because I—”

“Damian. I… am sorry.”

“You know, when you bring me back here and then apologize in a voice that serious, you make me think like something bad is about to happen.”

“While my heart may be racing in fear of the worst, my mind is doing its best to tell it that nothing bad will happen. For as long as I have known you… I have come to trust you. Genuinely. Even if my heart is afraid of what you may do or think of me—even if my mind sometimes fears I will be but some short-lived fling you have your way with before tossing to the side… I know that I can trust you. I have done everything in my power to convince myself of that, anyways.”

“Wait, how long have you felt this way? I always thought of you as nothing be secure and confident. Not that there’s anything wrong with you having the feelings and thoughts that you do. I’m just… surprised.”

“Are you? Good. I played my part well then. This may be hard for you to believe, as I would hope it is, but I assure you that I have quite the anxiety and insecurity issues. I always feared, with as popular, charming, and incredible as you are, that you could have any girl you would desire. I feared you would have your fun with a girl and then move on. In setting some immature ‘goal’ for you to accomplish before taking me, I… selfishly kept you with me. I knew you would never be able to defeat me, and I believed I would get to enjoy your company for a longer time that way. A great ruse, I know. You thought I was simply being mature and mysterious, yet all this time, I have been nothing but an insecure girl afraid of you leaving me the moment you got what you wanted from me. So, I simply refused to give you what you—what we both wanted.”

“I’m… not sure what to say. What changed?”

“Nothing, really. I am as fearful as I was on the day I realized I fell in love with you. But seeing you with Lily and Akorya—you have stuck with them for so long. In all my time seeing you with them, I have never once felt like you expressed any lesser amount of passion toward them. You have been as genuinely in love with them, and have made them feel loved, for every moment of your relationship that I have seen. The more I watched, the more painful the longing in my chest grew. I’ve been jealous, terribly so, not that I have anybody but myself to blame for that.”

“You’re a fool, Thera. You’ve caused yourself so much stress.”

“I know. For whatever it may be worth, I regret it very much. That being said, I understand entirely if you have lost interest in me now that you know the truth. I would not blame you in the slightest for—”

“Ah, sorry. Did I call you a fool? I mean the biggest dumbass in the world if you actually think I’ve lost interest in you.” Probably harsh, but I couldn’t resist. “Come on, Thera. For starters, everybody has their issues. Insecurity, anxiety—whatever. I’m not going to fault you or judge you for having, you know, human emotions and worries. Secondly, while I am bothered by you not being open and honest with me from the start, nobody is perfect. Yeah, you lied, but everybody makes mistakes, and it’s a pretty harmless lie that only hurt yourself, as unfortunate as that still is. And thirdly—come on. I love you, Thera. Even if I think you’re being pretty stupid right now, I still love you, and I’m looking forward to overwhelming you with my love every damn day until you get sick and tired of me and have no option but to try and run away from me once you’ve realized that I’m never going to stop or toss you away.”

Thera’s lips quivered and her eyes watered up, but she took a deep breath and maintained her composure. "Then... if—if you… really will keep me, there are some… other misconceptions I should clear up. I should get this all out of the way with so that we can… be on truly equal footing.”

“Go for it. I’ll always be here to listen to you.”

“I… lied about my age. And being in college. Truth be told… I am not only a year older than you, but seven. I graduated when I was your age. I was afraid you would not like somebody so much older than you, especially when every other girl around who flirted with you was younger.”

“I have to say, I’m seriously not alright with the lying, even if you were insecure over the truth.”

“Nor should you be. A lie is a lie regardless of the intent, and I would never believe myself to be worthy of forgiveness for lying to—”

“Alright, I forgive you.”

“But—but darling! I just said that—”

“Consider it your punishment. I’m punishing you for lying to me by forgiving you for lying. Now, is there anything else?”

“That… that is everything.”

I let out a sigh and leaned against the tree behind me.

While the lying absolutely was an issue, she confessed to it before entering a romantic relationship with me, both sounded and looked genuinely apologetic, and I understood her reasoning behind the lies.

Like she said, they were still lies, and nothing would change that she lied to me.

But if anything, that just made her human.

“You’ve always been so cool. Too perfect, even,” I said to her. “I’m glad to know there’s a genuine human underneath that cool personality of yours.”

“A liar is not something to be glad about,” Thera replied.

“Maybe not, but it still makes us feel more like equals than we ever felt before. It’s not like I’ve never lied before. All that matters is that you never lie to me again. If you can promise me that, then I would love to make you my girlfriend, Thera. The others would be happy to have you as well.”

Thera brought her hand up to her chest and said, “I… it is taking everything in my power to not perform an emergency logout right now. I do not want to cry in front of you.”

“Too bad. If you’re going to be my girlfriend, that means showing all your emotions to me. Whether they’re sad tears or happy tears, I’ll be here for them.”

With a sniffle as the first tears struggled to remain in her eyes, Thera lowered herself to the ground again, wrapped her arms around me to hug me against her, and buried her face against my neck.

She turned out to be pretty quiet when crying. I could only tell that she was from the occasional sound and the way her shoulders moved.

Naturally, I tried to comfort her by stroking her back and petting the back of her head while she cried. “It’s alright, Thera. And thank you for telling me the truth. I know it must have been causing you a lot of anxiety. I’m proud of you.” That got her to cry a little louder. “Also, I’ll always forgive you for anything as long as you press your tits against me like this.”

Thera gave my neck a quick bite before saying, “No more lying. From either of us.”

“Who’s saying I’m lying? Don’t you know boobs are the way to always get forgiven?”

Another bite.

“Alright, alright. If you lie to me again, I’ll get seriously mad at you no matter how much you press your tits against me. Is that better?”

Thera sniffled and nodded her head against my own.

“By the way.”

“Yes, darling?”

“Now I get to tease you about being a grandma compared to me.”

She bit my neck again with significantly more strength than in her previous bites.

It felt great.