THAT"S WHY SHE"S THE GOAT!

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-☆¡¡¡RAY RAY BABY WAKE UP AFJDAL FADJF ALD FADJ FA!!!☆-

I never exactly went to sleep, Rose just put me into a sleep animation, and I stayed under a tent the whole real-world night, contemplating how screwed up my situation was and once again coming to terms with it.

The moment Rose started chatting again, I was so happy to have another person to talk to.

"Rose, my love, good morning. Sounds like you've got something good to say."

-YES YES! OOOHH YOU GONNA BE UP AND UP LIKE BRO! I GOT NEWS TO GIVE!-

The last time she texted gibberish like this, I'd just proposed to her. I had high hopes things were about to get good.

"Lay it on me."

-First, is anyone logged on yet?-

She was doing that secret text chat thing, so this was important.

"No. Crow hasn't logged in yet. Tensei is still sleeping..." she was curled up next to me, tuckered out after a long night of trying to figure out spawnable items. "And the pirates are in another tent."

-So, I figured some things out about the game. This is big. CRAZY! Like, I bet you didn't even know.-

"Oh?"

-So, I figured out that a lot of people from your studio went missing. Well, I think I know why.-

-A bunch of the studio vets are gone because they are no longer in the real world.-

-They're in the game! They have to be!-

In the game? I couldn't figure out why, unless Tensei dragged them in. Sadly, I couldn't comment without risking Rose's findings getting out, so she had the floor.

-I know this because Teny-chan said that the isekai feature was actually a big secret. And the only way they could make it work was by having the best devs work on it from the inside.-

Wait, what? I couldn't imagine someone at the studio was so amazing that they could literally digitize people into the game. That was absurd to think about, but logic kind of got thrown out the window once I looked at my own situation. Somehow this was possible, and somehow, I experienced it.

-I don't know where they are, but they have to be here somewhere supporting it. There's supposed to be an announcement Sunday night before the game launches, which Teny-chan thinks is about the feature-

If this was a feature that the higher ups were getting ready to launch out, it meant this game was going to be even bigger than I thought. No wonder they wanted to keep it a secret.

-I also think The Virus is a dev, maybe one who had beef with the studio since he must be trying to ruin it? Know anyone like that?-

Nobody came to mind. Nobody from memory would have bad blood, unless it steamed from the isekai feature itself, which wasn't much of a stretch to believe.

-Anyways, I'm still doing some research here. Keep trying to think of anyone who The Virus could be and we can talk about it later.-

I had no idea Rose was looking so deep into this, but she was always the curious type.

"You've been busy, haven't you?" I said. "People call me the smart one, but I think you've got the real brains of the family."

-I actually haven't slept lol so these pretty brains are fired up HARD on coffee!-

I let out a laugh, warmed at the thought of her trying to get to the bottom of this. She really was the best wife I could have ever asked for.

"Rose, I can't wait to see you again," I said. "Sometimes I wish we could be doing this together, you know? Like you and me fighting side by side, exploring this world."

-Maybe when the game is finished, we can give it a shot :) -

I didn't need any more incentive to come out on top than that. But we were a team no matter where we were, or what distance was between us, together until death do us part.

"Love you, hon." I said.

-Love you too, my darling (✿◦’ᴗ˘◦)♡ -

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Davy, being a once chaotic scamp of this technological jewel of a city, knew ways to sneak in and under the wall of Mothbordia. His first few methods of getting through required a steady stream of new NPC travelers to work their way through the front gates, but since they were all zombies now, the only remaining methods were to go underground.

He led us to a broken down stone building a few miles away from the city. A small, dried up lake was next to it. In the middle of the water basin was a hatch leading into an underground sewer tunnel that led right in.

The only problem was that those zombies found this place too and were all over it, scattered around like loitering roaches.

“Yees’ better be ready fer’ da’ sewers.” he replied. “Bettin’ they’s in here like mad men.”

“Not like we have much of a choice,” I sighed, realizing this is where the zombies would have their strongest advantage. “You ready, Rose?”

-Sure am! Let’s take out those zombies!-

Before entering, Tensei did a little dance and cheer that turned her outfit fiery looking with blazing shoulder pads and flaming pom poms. “Get all fired up! We, can, win! Burn away the competition!”

-She's just like me fr fr-

All our weapons and powers gained the fire aspect, which meant we were good to go.

Ginger stepped up as our frontliner, just beside her was our newly initiated paladin, Crow. Their swords were blazing with flame as if just pulled out of a hot furnace, but his weapon was already bright by nature.

"I shall smite any who stand in our way!" Crow announced with his shining sword high in the air, sending shivers down the spines of our hungry enemies.

Both of them moved fast and swung hard, their weapons slashing through the Glitched Zombies until they were nothing but virtual dust carried away in the wind.

Just behind them I came through and blasted away crowds catching our attention. That thinned the hordes enough to allow our pirate and paladin to have some room to breathe.

And behind me covering a wide range from our flanks to the rear was Davy. His rifle picked off strays as they came around to greet us.

The sewer tunnel started wide and stinky, so the hordes of zombies were plentiful inside, making it hard to keep a spearhead assault, but our persistence was rewarded once we entered the more narrower corridors. It was much easier to funnel our many enemies in and pick them off quickly.

-This is so easy!-

A zombie sprung out from behind a hidden door with its mouth wide open for a bite, it’s teeth sharper than most. It grappled me and forced me into the water stream. A second zombie came at Davy and pinned him to the wall.

We were caught so off guard by the ambush that neither of us had time to react. Tensei alerted the frontliners, who had to turn around and swipe the enemies off us.

“We’re either of you bit?” asked Crow as he crushed the zombies in his grip.

“I wasn’t,” I replied. “Davy, you good?”

“Me… Me thinks so!”

The physical wounds in this game weren’t very obvious, usually only appearing as red marks on the skin with occasional hints of blood. That’s how we kept it at a T rating. But if he was bit and we couldn’t tell, there might have been a chance he’d turn into one of them.

-Did he lose any HP?-

“That’s not a good indicator,” I replied. “I lost HP from getting jumped, but wasn’t bitten.”

We didn’t have a cure yet, so we just needed to watch his condition. To be sure nothing was going to happen, Crow took up position behind Davy and watched closely for any signs of him turning.

Further down the sewer path their was a ladder leading up to the surface. Davy informed us that this was a good place for us to go topside.

“Do we know where Troja is held up?” I asked.

“Probably in the college, if I had to assume,” Crow replied. "It's the highest point in the city, and I doubt that man would want to put himself anywhere else."

Davy, hadn't been here since the glitching really kicked off and changed the landscape, so once we were on the streets, we had to rely on environmental cues to give us directions.

“Oh no…” Tensei said as we looked around to see zombie Glitched everywhere within the city too. “Mothbordia’s already fallen!”

Not only that, but it was considered wildlands now, so even monsters of day and night were spawning, just like in The Bad Lands. I kind of suspected this might be the case.

“It’s lookin’ like’s we’ve got more’a fight on us!”

Despite everyone else’s mental fatigue, Ginger was still ready and rearing to fight, and so were the zombies. It must have been a passive skill, because everything was especially attracted to her as the fight went on.

We all were impressed watching that woman fight so many all at once, like a one pirate army.

“What are yee’ wantin’ fer?!” she yelled back in response to our gawking. “Ain’t we got a place ta’ be? Les’ move!

“Aye, Cap’n!” Davy said as he scanned around for the right way to take. “Problem is, don’ remember where we’re goin’ now tha’ the place is floatin’.”

If I was interpreting him right, he couldn’t figure out the path because chunks of the city were now hovering up in the air.

“Ten, any ideas here?” I asked.

She took a second and floated high up into the air, getting a birds eye view of things. When she returned, she had a hopeful smile.

“The layout is more or less the same, but we have to do some rock jumping to get across each floating chunk.”

-You mean, like parkour? Oh boy…-

At first I didn’t really see the issue, because jumping across rocks wasn’t that difficult in theory…

But once I saw the huge gaps between each rock, and the really long falls down into an abyss of null space under the city, that was when panic mode switched on. Those jumps were way to crazy to make, even with a running start.

“Looks like we’ll need to bunny hop.” said Crow as he cleared out the plaza of its current zombies. “Watch what I do!”

With a running start, his body jumped from side to side in a weird figure eight motion. His speed grew by the second and he was triple the normal movement rate.

After he was confident with his motion, he jumped to the rocks, easily using his newfound swiftness to clear each of the chunks and make it to the next urban sky island.

“No way…” I broke out into a cold sweat. “Tensei, you’re going to have to carry me.”

“You’re to heavy for me to carry!” she argued.

“No I’m not!” I shouted. “I lost a lot of weight in here, so be a pal and carry me… Please?”

“You're just going to have to B-hop across, Mr. Roberts.”

Players told me about this trick and all about how easy it was to pull of with a mouse and keyboard. I almost patched it out, but they were getting very testy with me about that, so we kept it in.

Now, Rose didn’t use a mouse and keyboard. In fact, I explicitly petitioned to have all of our games feature controller support, and not make them second class citizens in the community. But the tricks between input devices were not carried over.

-How the heck do I pull that jumping thing off, CROW!?!-

“ʸᵒᵘ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵐᵒᵛᵉ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᵐᵒᵘˢᵉ ᶦⁿ ᵃ ᶠᶦᵍᵘʳᵉ ᵉᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ᵃ ʲᵘᵐᵖ ᵉᵃᶜʰ ᵗᶦᵐᵉ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᶠᵉᵉᵗ ᵗᵒᵘᶜʰ ᵗʰᵉ ᵍʳᵒᵘⁿᵈ. ᵗʰᵉ ᵐᵒᵐᵉⁿᵗᵘᵐ ʷᶦˡˡ ᵖᵘˢʰ ʸᵒᵘ ᶠᵒʳʷᵃʳᵈᵎ”

-What did he say? I can’t here him because he’s so far away!-

-Hear*-

I didn’t need to hear him to explain how to bunny hop.

“Rose, you can’t do it on controller. It just won’t work.”

-Try me! How do I do it-

We had a little back and forth, but I gave her the details on how the trick worked. Meanwhile, Ginger and Davy already got it down and were skipping across the rocks like pro ice skaters. I didn't even know AI could learn to pull that off!

“Rose, I really don’t think this is going to…”

My body swayed quickly to the left. Then to the right. I started sprinting forward and zig zagged.

“This isn’t going to work!”

-Shut up and let me focus!-

The trick required the B-hopper to use their side to side momentum to pick up speed, but that wasn’t easy if she couldn’t figure out the figure eight motion with a joystick.

She had me running in circles around the plaza, looking like a loon as my view shot from left to right. Each time I touched the ground, my sight would jerk to the left or right.

Before I knew it, that was actually working. Not great, but she was getting the timing almost perfectly.

-SPEED! ミヽ(。>_<)ノ-

Winds at this speed were sharp and harsh on my face, but our jumps were just right for us to cross.

-HANG ON!-

Rose finally decided to take the leaps. I was screaming like a little girl as my feet miraculously touched each of the rocks we needed to cross on in succession.

1...

2...

3...

4...

5...

Even after touching the other end safely, I was still shouting at the top of my lungs.

-CALL ME LABRON BECAUSE I”M HOPPING LIKE THE GOAT (ง >Д<)ง--

“You made it!” Crow did the clapping hands emote. “Nice work, but a little sloppy.”

“She did that on controller…” I said in a lifeless tone. Despite my voice, I was very impressed.

“I-is that even possible? A controller user managed this level of parkour feat? Well, I suppose she just proved it…” he mumbled to himself.

I needed to enter Rose into gaming competitions. Something was telling me she would put everyone their to shame and get a lot of fans. I mean, even if she just showed up she was going to get a lot of fans because she was absolutely gorgeous… How did I score this woman again?

"Never let her go, Ray. Never let her go." -Wise words from my father.

“I hate to bring some bad news, but there’s still more islands we need to cross.” Tensei pointed us forward. “Plus we have to fight through the zombies still.”

“My ankles are hurting already…” I whined.