[Vol. 2 pt. 16]

We were taken over to one of the tables and had our drinks brought out to us in no time. None of us knew what we wanted to eat, though, and I didn’t think that I’d be in the mood to eat anything, but there was no way that I could resist after seeing the cute, pastel menu full of options.

Food recipes worked several ways in-game. There were the strict recipes that provided buffs, such as the food I used for pumping up my cum production and the recipe that Sophie made earlier in the day, and then there were recipes that provided no benefits but were highly customizable. Well, maybe not too highly customizable. Customizable in this case meant, for example, having a base recipe for a pie. The pie required several ingredients. It needed flour, a filling, and then an optional topping. However, instead of a strict recipe that required specific ingredients, these customizable recipes only required those types of ingredients.

Any item that counted as flour could be used to satisfy the requirement for flour. Any item that counted as a filling could be used for the filling. The recipe and its effects were always the same in that regard, but the taste could vary greatly. Cooking level as well as crafting-related stats also affected the taste. The higher the cook’s stats, the better tasting their dishes would be. It was a simple system that offered enough complexity to let cooks feel unique and proud.

But really, Sophie and her supposedly unique recipes aside, there was nothing that a cook could make that any other cook in the game couldn’t make the exact same. Basically all ingredient combinations were known, people freely shared the best-tasting recipes with each other, and… every single crafted food item in the first place displayed its exact ingredients. So, if a rival cook wanted to come into this little café to copy the woman’s recipes, it would be as easy as inspecting whatever food she gives them to figure out the ingredients and then her gear to see what her stats were.

For an MMO, the cooking system was elaborate as it needed to be.

It was inside other VR games where the real amazing and unique cooking was done. After all, people weren’t going to not make games dedicated to cooking. People were already doing that way back in the day when VR was just getting popular and even before then. Some cooking games used nothing more than a mouse and keyboard. There was no sense of taste, smell – nothing. Instead of actually eating the food they’d make in these games, which was usually extremely simple, they’d screw around setting their kitchens on fire, experience ragdoll physics while trying to take food to NPC customers, and so on.

But now? Now there are entire games dedicated to cooking anything that somebody could imagine using real-world, and sometimes fictional, ingredients. Not only that, but these finished creations can actually be tasted. Smelled. Consumed. People can make whatever they want and then eat it while getting the full experience from it.

“You know, it’s kind of funny,” I said. “I bet people way back in the day never would have thought about video games helping people lose weight.”

Wally, who was sitting across from me, tilted his head and looked confused. “Why is that? They had fitness games back then.”

“You’re right. Let me be a bit more specific then. I bet people way back in the day never would have thought about video games helping people with serious eating addictions lose weight.”

“Ah, yes. I believe I see your point. Is it because there is no need to eat for the pleasure of eating in reality when one can do it virtually?”

“Exactly. I mean, you’d have to be the laziest of all fucking couch potatoes in the entire world to be too lazy to not just slip on a headset and immerse to eat as much as you want of whatever you want. If you’ve already had enough calories and nutrition for the day, why eat real food? That’s another thing. Eating in VR saves money. You don’t have to spend a ton of money on alcohol and food when you can drink and eat it all in-game.”

Akorya stopped sipping her cherry lemonade to join the conversation. And fortunately, there was a hole in the chair that she sat in to put her tail through so that she could sit with her back against the chair instead of having to sit on the edge to make space for her tail. “Food, yeah, but not alcohol. You can drink as much as you want in VR, but you can’t get drunk. The only way to feel drunk is if you drink before you immerse. So… if somebody is drinking to get drunk and not only for the taste, I don’t think VR is going to help them that much.” She went back to sipping her drink as soon as she was done talking.

“Kind of. You can still feel warm and fuzzy, but you’re right. You can’t get drunk drunk. Only tipsy. Kinda weird, don’t you think? This game can make us more aroused no problem, but it can’t simulate something like getting drunk. If it’s basically tricking our brain into getting aroused, why can’t it trick it to feel drunk?”

Wally sighed and looked like he was ready to go into a long explanation. “Arousal is simple. It is far easier to stimulate the mind into a state of arousal than it is a state of intoxication. Furthermore, people often have wildly different reactions to alcohol. Some people clingy and affectionate. Others become full of anger or depression. Then you have those who cannot keep themselves silenced and will happily spill every single secret that they may know. Simply put, when it comes to the hardware of the human mind, it is far easier to make it aroused, to feel pain, to feel tired – any of those things, than it is to make it feel drunk.”

While he talked, I leaned over the table with my elbows against it and my hands crossed underneath my chin. I acted like a schoolgirl in love gazing at her crush as he rambled about something she didn’t actually care about. She just wanted to enjoy the eye candy that was his face. However, I actually was interested in what he was talking about, and I wasn’t nearly as enamored as I was pretending to be. That was why I returned to normal as soon as he realized what I was doing and blushed. “Thanks for explaining that, Wally. It makes sense when you put it that way. Just look at how many agreements we have to consent to in order to play any games that simulate the senses and other feelings. I mean, nobody actually reads through those, but there are always huge lists of everything we’re consenting to whenever we play a new VR game. I guess that if a game was designed to be able to manipulate the mind more than they already do to simulate something like getting drunk… we’d have to pretend we’re reading ten times what we already do.”

“Essentially, yes.”

“At least eating is perfectly simulated. So, my original point still stands when it comes to food. Well, I was going to say that video games cure eating addictions, but I guess that’s not really true, either. All they do is let people safely satisfy their addictions without actually putting their body at risk in real life. That makes me think of… let’s ask this. Is it ethical to encourage satisfying addictions in VR? Isn’t that making their addiction even stronger, even if their real body isn’t suffering any effects from their addiction? What would happen if the power went out or something else prevented them from immersing? They would end up with an even greater addiction without a safe way to take care of it.”

“No, it is not ethical. It may be useful when it comes to the health of their real body, but it does no good for their mental health, which is rather negative considering that something like an eating addiction tends to be a mental addiction rather than a physical one. Or rather, allow me to be the one to clarify this time. Yes, it is ethical so long as there is therapy being provided. If somebody is using VR to satisfy their addiction while getting serious, mental help from a licensed professional, then it is fine. However, if somebody is morbidly obese and they are simply addicted to eating and using VR for that without any care of improving their mental health, then I would say that they still have a serious issue and that it would be unethical to encourage it.”

I couldn’t help but to smile. Wally was turning out to be pretty great for these types of conversations. Previously, only Thera was really good for satisfying that itch I’d get for serious, in-depth conversations. But now? Wally turned out to be just as good at the job of seriously discussing things as Thera was. I still preferred Thera in all honestly, though.

But that was because I was extremely biased. Wally was clearly submissive and I probably could have had him in bed whenever I wanted with just a bit of pushing for it. Also, our discussion was probably even more serious than the ones I had with Thera.

As for Thera, she was the one woman I knew, both in reality and in-game, that never gave in to my advances. She made me fight for every single tiny inch that I could take from her, and then she’d take it back as easily as she breathed. Our discussions involved teasing, flirting, taunting – all that good stuff while still being serious and thoughtful. There was nobody in the world who could treat me like Thera did.

Then, when I heard the sipping from beside me stop, I knew that Akorya was about to speak up again. Surely enough, she did. “It’s okay if I’m not addicted and only eat because it’s fun to, right?”

“As long as you don’t feel like you need to eat, I don’t think that it’s a problem,” I answered. “Right, Wally?”

“Essentially,” Wally answered. “Also, I have decided what I will be ordering.”

Akorya lit up with a smile. “Oh! Same! What’re you getting?”

Wally still struggled a bit with how cheerfully loud Akorya could be. “The lemon tart. I know that it is a simple request… but I have always been weak to lemon.”

“Same! Well, kinda. I’m mostly weak to cherry. But like, you can put anything with lemon in front of me and I’ll devour it or drink it. That’s why cherry lemonade is one of the greatest things ever. It combines the two best things in the whole world!”

My turn. “So, you’re saying that cherry and lemon is a better combo than cock and cum?”

“Yeah, sorry. There’s no contest.”

“I – I wasn’t expecting you to shoot me down that fast.”

“I’ll suck your dick and swallow your cum as much as you want, whenever you want, wherever you want, but it will never be better than cherry and lemon.”

“Hmm. So, what you’re saying then is that I need to figure out a way to make my cum taste like cherry lemonade?”

Akorya’s eyes widened as if she had just learned about the truth of the universe. She looked genuinely awed. I really didn’t think that what I said was anything more than a stupid and raunchy tease, but Akorya looked like she was ready to devote her life to the pursuit of cum that tasted like cherry lemonade. “Can you… can you do that?”

“What are you going to do if I do?”

“I’m going to literally glue my lips around your dick so that I can drink cherry lemonade cum twenty-four-seven.”

“That sounds great. But unfortunately, I don’t know of any way to actually make that happen.”

“Dang.” And just like that, Akorya returned to normal. I already missed how amazed she looked. I was going to have to figure out a way to actually make my cum taste like cherry lemonade for her just so that I could enjoy her expression again. “By the way, know what you’re going to get yet?”

“I’m thinking some strawberry vanilla pancakes.”

“Ooh, that sounds good. Wait, if she can make that… she can probably make cherry vanilla pancakes!”

With fiery determination in her eyes, Akorya nodded and waved her arm to bring the shop’s owner back over to us.

“Ready to order?” the owner asked, smiling like usual with her tail wagging behind her.

While Akorya and Wally placed their orders, I went ahead and inspected her just out of curiosity.

Cani Baker was her name. She was a max level cook with the best possible gear available to her. There was something surprising about what I saw when I looked at her list of classes, though.

Cook was the only class over level ten.

Level ten was about the average level that somebody would reach while on their way to this city as a brand-new character if they were speedrunning. Considering that she was here, with no other class over ten, with a maxed-out crafting class with the best possible gear, and she owned her own property, there was only one conclusion to jump to.

She was an alt.

Sure, it was technically possible for her to get here and then to somehow level up and get money for ingredients without being bankrolled by either a stronger character or another player, but that was extremely unlikely. She basically would have had to play the auction board like it was a full-time job while barely starting out with any money. It would take forever that way.

She had to have either another character or an extremely generous friend bankrolling her.

It didn’t matter either way, really. I just thought that it was an interesting observation.

Once I gave my order, Cani walked away to get the ingredients required for our meals and the inspection window vanished as soon as she was out of range.

I figured it was finally time to get around to the main point of calling Wally to meet me. “Alright, Wally. As much as I enjoy this, I actually do want to be a bit careful of your time. Anyways, all I really need is for you to craft another dungeon trap for me.”

“That… that is it?” Wally asked.

“Yep.”

A heavy sigh left Wally’s lips. “I do not even know what I was expecting. Could you not have told me that through a message?”

“I could have, but I wanted to see your pretty face, too.”

“Your teasing remarks have no effect on me now that I know you are only interested in using me for my crafting.”

“Hey, we made a deal that you’d be the only one for me when it came to crafting for my dungeon, remember?”

“You… are still taking that seriously?”

“Of course. I’m a man of my word. If I make a deal with somebody or promise them something, I’m keeping it no matter what.”

“I – I see. Then—”

“Here we are!” Cani said. Suddenly, three different plates appeared on the table in front of us, each plate hosting our specific orders. “I hope that you enjoy it! Let me know if you need anything else, alright?”

Whatever Wally was about to say, none of us cared after seeing the delicious dishes in front of us.