Then, without warning, the top half leaned back and the legs started moving, sprinting in fact, right towards me.
“No, no, no!” I cried as I ran through the forest, dodging every tree and slipping under every branch as the creature’s wet feet slapped against the ground behind me.
I wasn’t going to be killed by a giant, and I sure as Hell wasn’t going to be molested by a reverse mermaid.
I hoped.
However, unlike with the bees, it was easy to lose the sounds the creature made given that they were so few and so quiet against my breathing and my beating heart.
It got to the point where I was having to regularly check over my shoulder only to see that it was never more than fifteen feet behind me despite its ungainly body and Attack on Titan-style movements.
The Titans, not the nimble little soldier people.
After what felt like an hour of running and jumping and slipping and falling and… you get the picture, I stopped seeing it.
I didn’t stop moving of course, I’d learned my lesson there, and I was still waiting for it to leap out in front of me, but after a few more seconds of near-asthmatic wheezing, I slowed down until I finally collapsed to my knees and started vacuuming up air through both my mouth and nose like I was trying to suck up the dirt.
“So,” a highly amused Jesse scoffed from in front of me, “I take it you had fun.”
“Fuck…” I heaved out without looking up, “you.”
CHAPTER 10
“Feeling any better?” Jesse asked after a few minutes of me trying and failing to regulate my breathing.
“Do I sound any better?” I replied as I finally got myself into a seated position, “Where the Hell did you go?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Jesse said, “I was runnin’, you know, on account o’ all the bees?”
It was at that point that I realized it was stupid of me to be frustrated with him, wasn’t like he’d just chased me through the jungle in an attempt to either eat or mate with me.
“What happened to you though?” Jesse asked, “Last I saw, you were flailin’ like a spider with somethin’ in its hair.”
“Reverse mermaid,” I huffed, successfully completing my first proper breath, “damn near the scariest fuckin’ thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Is that a fact?” Jesse chuckled, “Man, that makes my little wander through the jungle seem like a cakewalk.”
“Yeah? What happened?” I asked as my breathing became more and more regular.
“Nothin’, it was a cakewalk.” Jesse replied with a smile, “You alright there? You really sound like you could use an inhaler.”
“I’m fine,” I said before coughing up a lung, “just a whole lot of runnin’ has put my lungs in a less than ideal spot.”
“Heh, you really need to work on your health.”
I nodded at that then smiled, “But maybe let’s get on top of my mental stuff first, yeah?”
“Good call,” Jesse said with an approving grin, “you reckon you could get movin’ soon? Girls are probably goin’ to start gettin’ worried soon.”
“Yep,” I heaved as I got up to my feet with all the finesse of a pensioner, “still haven’t got anything for Cassie though.”
“I’m sure you can put something together on our way over,” Jesse replied before letting out an amused huff, “Hell, you’ve probably unlocked a hammer already and just haven’t noticed.”
“True,” I said as we started walking before pulling up the screen and scrolling through my recipes, “very true.”
It took some reading, and more than a few accidental screen closes courtesy of having to catch myself after stumbles, but I eventually found a hammer.
“Doesn’t exactly look like something a dwarf would like, does it?” I asked as I spun the hefty single-handed hammer around in my hand, “Lacks a certain… fantastical quality, you know?”
“Does a bit, huh?” Jesse replied, clearly disinterested after the fifteen or so minutes he’d spent making sure I didn’t walk into trees and stayed more or less on course, “But I’m sure Cassie’ll be fine with it.”
“If you say so…” I sighed before absorbing the hammer back into the Toolbox, “How long until you think we’re back?”
“Few more minutes,” Jesse said matter-of-factly, “I took us around the back of the waterway instead of the front, figured it would be for the best if I kept you away from the water and, in the nicest possible way, drowning.”
“Hey, none taken,” I chuckled, “my legs aren’t exactly reliable at the moment.”
“Heh, yeah, and those crappy lungs aren’t doin’ so hot either.” Jesse added, apparently deciding to hinder my progress in becoming a healthy, well-adjusted person.
No, I wasn’t really that upset about it, but it gave me something to focus on other than the fact that I was going to have to work out at some point.
Anyway, we got through the next couple of minutes in relative silence while I fiddled about with the Toolbox options in the hopes of finding something, anything, that would help me make Cassie’s hammer a bit less plain.
I had no luck though, and resigned myself to the fact that I’d done a kind of crummy job with the crafting once we got close enough to hear the girls talking.
“You want to move with your opponents,” Fern said while Jesse and I struggled to get through the last two dozen or so feet of jungle, “that way you’ll be able to use their own weight and strength against them.”
“Yeah, you see, that just feels like a good way to get stabbed in the back.” Cassie replied exasperatedly, “Seriously, we’ve been going at this for ages, I just don’t think I’m getting it.”
“That’s because you were taught to fight with a hammer and not a blade,” Fern sighed, “I really wish you’d listen to me.”
“I am listening,” Cassie implored, “I’m just not getting it.”
“Hey,” I called out, announcing Jesse and I’s arrival as we came around the back of the newly tightened up shelter, “you guys been having fun?”
“Eh,” Fern replied without looking over, her sword still in hand as she and Cassie circled each other near the fire pit, “we got the shelter fixed up, as you can see, but we haven’t made so much progress when it comes to defending ourselves.”
“The shelter does look good,” I said with a smile as I regarded the more secure-looking structure, “and on the defending yourselves front… well, I’m sure we’ve got plenty of time to figure it out.”
“You say that, but-woah…” Cassie trailed off after finally getting a look at me, “you look like hammered shit, what happened?”
“Bees.” Jesse chuckled before I could open my mouth, earning him a less than impressed look from me.
“Bees?” Fern asked, having joined Cassie in staring at me with a weird mix of concern and confusion.
“They were really big bees.” I replied, “But that doesn’t matter, what matters is that…”
Now, I’m not sure what triggered the thought that made my words die in my mouth, whether it was the graceful sort of way Fern was holding herself or the newly enhanced construction behind me finally registering in my mostly exhausted brain, but I’d had an idea.
“Hey, Fern?” I said, throwing everyone off slightly, “Could you head down to the beach?”
Naturally, Fern was confused by the request, “Why?”
“I just need your help with a little something.” I replied with a smile, “You head on down and I’ll catch up.”
That seemed to confuse her more, or maybe she was simply more intrigued, but she nodded after a couple of seconds and smiled, “See you down there.”
“She’s gone,” Cassie said after we were all sure Fern was out of earshot, “what’s going on?”
“I need you to take these,” I replied, spawning a bunch of flower wreaths into my hands, “just put them all over the place, make it look all… I don’t know, wood elf-like.”
That was Cassie’s cue to be the
confused one, “Is this her present? Or both of ours?” she asked as I handed her the stack of wreaths.
I went to tell her the truth then stopped and put on a fake apologetic expression, “Sorry, I couldn’t find what I wanted to get for you.”
Unsurprisingly, Cassie was somewhat disappointed by that, but she was quick to force a smile, “That’s alright, I’m not stressed.”
“Good, thank you.” I said before walking backwards toward the beach, “I’ll keep her occupied for a while.”
“Sounds good…” Cassie let out with a sad sigh as she went to work putting the wreaths up and breaking them apart so that they were more like flowery ropes.
“What’s the play here?” Jesse quietly asked once I’d finally turned around and was facing the direction I was walking in, “Are you trying to play favorites or..?”
“You’ll see.” I replied coolly as we broke out of the jungle and saw Fern standing patiently on the beach.
“What’s going on?” Fern asked.
“Nothing big, I just need your help with this,” I said, using the Toolbox to manifest a hammer in front of Fern where I held it, “I got it for Cassie and was hoping you’d be able to knock something together with some runes or something.”
“Really?” Fern chuckled, catching the hammer as I dropped it, “That’s it?”
“Yeah, I thought it might be nice for her to get something for all the hard work she’s been doing, you know?”
Fern nodded at that, just barely managing to hide the somewhat disappointed frown she’d grown, “I um… I guess she has been working very hard, huh?”
“Don’t worry,” I said with a smile, “I didn’t forget you and all the amazing contributions you’ve made, it’s just that I couldn’t really find anything that screamed ‘Fern’ if that makes any sense.”
“Yeah, no, I totally get it.” Fern replied, clearly genuinely ‘getting it’ but at the same time being thoroughly let down, “I’ll get to work on it now, shouldn’t take me too long.”
“Awesome, thanks,” I said before pointing my thumb over my shoulder, “I’m just going to go for a quick walk up the beach, if that’s okay? Could use some time to collect my thoughts.”
“Sounds good to me…” Fern trailed off disappointedly, forcing an involuntary little grin across my lips as I thought about just how similar she and Cassie were.
After Fern started working and it was clear the conversation was over, I started my walk in the opposite direction of the waterway, not bothering to hide the proud little smile I had.
I don’t like deceiving people as a regular thing, but I have to admit there was something pretty fun about knowing that those two disappointed women were going to be happy as a clam by the time my little ruse was up.
“That was pretty damn crafty of you,” Jesse muttered after we were a good distance away from Fern, “might be able to get some use out of you yet.”
“I ain’t an idiot,” I replied, “just took me some time to get used to the whole… real-ness of this world. I played with real people in the base game, but there was always this air of ‘nothing’s real’, you know?”
“I think I get what you mean…” Jesse trailed off as he thought about it, “But this place seems to have a whole lot more sex and… I don’t know, shit like the Toolbox.”
“A, there hasn’t been that much sex,” I said in an attempt to pretend I was some kind of stud in the base game before realizing that it was kind of weird to try and impress a male lizard with my sexual prowess, “and B… Okay, so maybe it isn’t all that realistic, but still, it was different up there. The people were all in on the ‘lie’ so to speak.”
“S’pose that makes sense,” Jesse replied, still not sounding altogether convinced, “I’m just glad you’re havin’ fun with it and have started usin’ your noggin more.”
“Heh, yeah, kind of had nowhere to go but up,” I chuckled, “still though, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Things were silent for a while after that.
A long while.
Seriously, like five solid minutes.
“Hey, Jesse?”
“Yeah, Dax?”
“This is kind of weir-”
“You’re smarter than I expected, but still dumber than you should be.”
“There we go,” I sighed with relief, “normalcy.”
CHAPTER 11
With everything more or less back to normal, Jesse and I were actually able to enjoy a pretty relaxing walk. There weren’t any giant bees, reverse mermaids, or anything else that was seemingly designed for the sole purpose of making me scream like a little girl.
And then, naturally, something decided to kill that brief moment of relaxation and calm.
“Hello, Dax,” a familiar voice practically sang, causing Jesse and me to freeze in place, “good to see you’re up and about.”
“Yeah, well, it’s going to take a bit more than a kick to the head to keep me down,” I called back as I struggled to place the source of Red’s voice, “you know, with me being a Creator and all.”
“Heh, you may have everyone else fooled, but I can tell you’re about as much of a Creator as your lizard friend there.”
Jesse scoffed derisively at that, “Lady, you don’t want to underestimate me.” he said, clearly having as much trouble as I was with locating the succubus.
“Please,” Red laughed from a completely different place than she’d last been, “what are you going to do? Bite me?”
“Actually, yeah, that’s my go-to.”
“Well let me save you the trouble of experimenting and tell you that your ‘deadly’ venom will barely register as mocktail for me.” Red mocked.
“Then there’s no reason for you to keep on hiding,” I said, trying to look in all places at once, “I mean, if we’re really absolutely no danger to you.”
“Ha! Do you really think I’m hiding because I’m scared?” Red giggled, “No, no, no, my pretty little darling. I’m doing this because it’s fun.”
“Oh…” I trailed off, ignoring the cold tingle that was rushing all over my body, “Well then… Yeah, I don’t really have a follow-up. Guess you’ll just have to kill us.”
Unsurprisingly, Jesse shot me a sort of ‘What the fuck!?’ look, but I gestured for him to stay calm.
“How ‘bout it, Red?” I goaded, “You goin’ to come on out? Take us out with those gnarly claws of yours?”
“Who are you calling ‘gnarly’?” Red asked disappointedly as she appeared in the air a few feet in front of us.
“Okay, so maybe ‘gnarly’ was the wrong word,” I chuckled as I took in just how drop-dead gorgeous she was even in her demonic form, “but the point still stands, you goin’ to kill us or what?”
Red was clearly frustrated that I’d stopped playing her little game, but at the same time she seemed undoubtedly impressed with my hubris.
“The way I see it, you have two options,” I said once it became apparent Red wasn’t going to kill us right then and there, “one, we can have a little tussle and you can go on being on your own and killing anyone who gets close to you. Two, you can join my harem, have some fun, and cohabitate with your fellow island-dwellers.”
Red appeared to be thinking about it for a few seconds, but then she shot me a sly grin, “Or three, I can just go ahead and kill you and your lizard and then take over your harem.”
I opened and closed my mouth a few times at that, my brain struggling to figure out where I’d had the conversation wrestled away from me until I finally realized it probably had something to do with the fact that I was a mostly unfit guy and she was a fit-as-fuck demon with wings.
See? Told you I was getting smarterer.
Anyway, Red, amused by how dumbfounded she’d left me, decided to go on the attack, launching herself towards me with a beat of her powerful wings.
However, mere nanoseconds before she could hit me, I twisted my palm and, without moving my arm, generated and smashed her stomach
with the broad side of a cannon, the weight of the hefty chunk of metal and wood causing her to plummet to the sand and let out a pained heave.
“Woah,” Jesse murmured, “wasn’t expectin’ that…”
“See,” I said as I slowly approached the pinned succubus, creating a flintlock in my right hand and a ball round in the other as I did so, “you really should’ve considered going with one of the options I offered you.”
“Yes, well, I can see the error I made now,” Red worked out past strained grunts as she tried to shift the cannon that was clearly causing too much pain for her to effectively use all her strength, “should’ve just gone ahead and ripped your head off before you knew where I was.”
“Maybe,” I chuckled as I reached Red and made a show of letting the ball slide down the barrel of the pistol I had pointed in the air, “certainly would’ve left you in a less… vulnerable position.”
“This?” Red scoffed, failing to hide the very real fear in her voice, “I’ve gotten out of far worse situations than this.”
“See, I doubt that,” I said before pulling the hammer back on the flintlock, “I mean, it’s not like you could’ve died before this point, is it?”
Red went to respond to that but stopped as I aimed the pistol directly at her forehead.
She was frozen in terror, although she was managing to keep her expression in a defiant grimace as opposed to a defeated or terrified gawp.
And then the ball round fell out the end of my gun and onto Red’s forehead.
“Bang.” I said monotonously before winking at the thoroughly stunned Red and walking back towards the girls, “If you ever decide you’d rather work with us, the door’s always open.”
I didn’t get a response from Red, and I didn’t really expect one if I’m being honest. There was nothing that needed to be said that we didn’t know.
“Jesus, Dax,” Jesse huffed amusedly, continuing his tradition of keeping his mouth shut until we were out of earshot, “I didn’t think you were capable being that much of a… well, that much of a badass.”
“Mmhm.” I replied while looking over the flintlock, “Is Red following us?”
Build-A-Harem- The Island Collection Page 18
