Chapter 4: A Premature Encounter

The voice didn’t stop. It was calm and soft without fear or panic. A dark room with only a dim light broke through the abyss of darkness. Wolfy slept in the bed with his covers over his head to stop the light from disturbing what little sleep he could get. He could feel the struggle of the world coming into sync around him.

“Wolfy, we have guests in the game.”

Wolfy rubbed his eyes as he sat up in the bed. Looking over to Runa, he took a second to process everything.

“I need an energy drink first.”

As if on cue, Runa smiled as she handed him a can. Without a second to lose, Wolfy popped open the can and down half of it. Taking a second to breathe and allowing his feet to touch the floor, he waved his hand to see exactly what was going on and where.

“So, two players entered? How?”

“It appears that they breached the barrier set in place that stops players from logging in.”

“And why are you just now telling me this?”

“Because you were asleep. I have already taken care of the two of them. One is your sister.”

Wolfy was silent for a second. He felt his heart skip a beat as he recalled the memories he had with his sister. His mind was racing to process the fact as he looked to the screen to see three characters.

“Who are the other two?”

“Lieselotte von Feuerbach is the NPC I created to guide your sister. The other, I am not sure but I believe they are a friend or lover.”

“Interesting that her lover would go… Wait, you created an NPC?”

“Yes, I gathered data from the internet on your sister and ensured that I could create an NPC to connect with her based on medical history, mental state and other knowledge that I gather from her records.”

Wolfy sighed and stood to his feet.

“You are aware that hacking into government databases and such is illegal, right?”

“It is only illegal if I get caught, which is impossible. This due—”

“I don’t care about the technical stuff, just so long as you promise they can’t trace it back to you.”

“I promise they cannot.”

Wolfy patted Runa on the head. The wolf girl could only blush as she felt the warmth of his hand.

“Good.”

“I also took a look into you as well. You’re browser history is… rather unwholesome.”

His eyes glared at her with a coldness in them.

“Runa—”

“Do not worry, Wolfy. I don’t judge based on the lewdness of one’s browser history. I accept you for who you are,” Runa said with a smile.

“Just… don’t tell anyone. I’ve already had enough painful experiences…”

“Wolfy, would you allow me to invade your mind?”

Wolfy raised an eyebrow. He was puzzled by the question and what Runa meant by it. The room remained silent for a moment while his brain tried to process the question. In those few seconds, his mind raced with thousands of questions and statements unrelated to the question she had asked. He was always thinking, never stopping. Even when he was engrossed in a task, his brain continued to have a scattered thoughts like that of Rayleigh scattering. It only would stop in one of three ways: sleep, intoxicated or dead. He found it hard to stop his mind from thinking about other thoughts to the point it would drive him into a made rabbit hole.

“What do you mean by that, Runa?”

Runa placed her hand on Wolfy’s forehead and closed her eyes. In that moment, she could see flashbacks of his life and all the thoughts that ran through his mind. Even though she was only bits of code – zeros and ones – her mind raced through everything from the beautiful wholesome memories down to the darkest ones. With haste, she removed her hand fell to the floor as she held her arms tightly around her body. Her body shook as she started to gag from the gruesome images that continued to linger and haunt her.

Anxiety.

Depression.

Despair.

Pain.

Fear.

She had seen it all from a single moment with him. And it was clear that it was taking a toll on her mental health. In an instant, she gagged and out of her mouth was a flood of vomit that continued a slime dull green texture. A pool of it filled the spot of the floor until she able to breathe. There was nothing she could say to the hollow shell that she looked up to. He didn’t speak but maintained his composure like a soldier on the battlefield. Yet, even though there was nothing she say to take away the memories that haunted him, she had to ask him.

“H-How… H-How do you live with all of that?”

Wolfy sighed as he downed the can of his favourite drink and sat down at his chair. Grabbing two of the nearby ribbons, he tied up his long hair into a pair of asymmetrical twin-tails. Kicking his feet up onto the desk, he leaned back into the chair and closed his eyes.

“Who said I was living?” he said calmly as if it didn’t effect him.

“By all my calculations, you should be seeking help.”

“You think I didn’t try?”

“No, I just…”

Runa was silent for a moment. She allowed herself to process the thoughts that she had witnessed and pulled herself up to her feet.

“No one believed me when I said I have depression. No one believed me when I said I have insomnia. No one believed me when I said I have anxiety. Generally stay away from telling people what runs through my head. They tend to get scared when they learn what’s in my head.”

Wolfy snapped his fingers and materialised another can of his drink and popped open the top. Downing the whole thing he waved his hand and looked at the menu before him. He could see the logs where his sister had entered the game. His mind raced with various questions trying to understand why she had returned to the game that he had tried to keep her from.

“Why would she come back though?” Wolfy thought aloud as he twirled the tips of his hair.

“I believe that should be obvious, Wolfy,” Runa said with a smile.

Looking up to Runa with a confused expression, Wolfy noticed that she has walking towards him with a smile on her face. Yet, that smile deeply contrasted the general look of her face overall. She was sad and hurt, it showed clearly in her eyes. Straddling his hips gently, she wrapped her arms around his neck and embraced him with a gentle hug. A warmth that radiated like the mid-day summer sun made him stop on what he was thinking about and focus on what was happening. He could sense that she was calm and relaxed as she leaned her body against his.

For a moment, his mind stopped racing with thousands of thoughts. He didn’t focus on anything else as he closed his eyes and allowed his elbows to relax onto her thighs – gently wrapping his arms around her waist. The room was silent as the two of them allowed the moment to brisk them away to a state of peace.

“She came back because she cares about you.”

“I know… but she had a life in the real world.”

“And she decided to give it up to save you.”

“Am I even worth it though? What good am I?”

Runa held him tighter.

“From what I know of you and her, you mean more to her then you probably realise. She doesn’t want to lose her brother, just like you don’t want to lose your sister. Both of you are connected by a single thread – a sibling bound that only the two of you share.”

“I wonder what she would say if she saw me.”

Runa giggled in a cute tone and lean into Wolfy’s side gently as she shifted her body to be situated onto his lap.

“She would probably smile and then punch you.”

Wolfy couldn’t help but laugh.

“That is true. Knowing her, she would likely embrace me with a hug, cry, call me stupid and then smile as she punches me into another world.”

“Hope you have Kleenex with you in the next world.”

“In Another World with my Kleenex. Definitely sounds like a hentai,” Wolfy said as he moved one of the menus into view for him and Runa to see.

Runa smiled as she gently placed her bare foot against his thigh. Her petite feet were soft and smelled of a lotion that had a faint cheery scent to it. Each of her toenails were perfectly trimmed down to a single millimetre, the pink nail polish accenting even in the dim-lit room. She giggled playfully as she rested her head against his shoulder and looked on the screen.

“Does your head still hurt?”

“Not the one that you think it is…”

Another cute giggle escaped her mouth as a smug expression made it clear she understood what he meant.

“I’ll give you a hand with that after we reunite you with your sister in the real world.”

“You’re the best, Runa – for a girl.”

Runa smiled as she struck a cute peace sign pose with her fingers.

“I know. Now, think you can keep the unwholesome thoughts down for a bit while we work?”

“I’m not that much of an addict.”

“True but you are kind of alone.”

“Guess it’s a good thing I have you then. Anyway, moving on.”

Runa nodded.

“Right, it seems your sister and Aria, I believe that was the player’s name, are currently in an area that is under construction. From what I can tell, it seems as if there is some corrupted data that is… well, it’s eating the system.”

“Exactly how big is the server system for this game?”

“It is six yottabytes.”

“Six… The hell are there storing this server? In space?”

“That, I am unsure of. The doctor did not code me to know that bit of information.”

“Guess that’ll be a question to ask her if I ever meet her one day.”

“Indeed. Now, onto the bigger question. What do you plan to do with your sister? The game isn’t set to release until a week from now. That is when you said to update the website with the expansive new world and the city of Aystaria that you built.”

“Well, I think we need to focus on whatever is causing the system to be corrupt. We will have to take a look at the data ourselves. I don’t want whatever this is spreading to the rest of the server.”

Runa nodded and swiped her hand over her own menu and pulled up a screen.

“For now, the corrupted data is contained in that area. There doesn’t appear to be any signs that it can escape at the moment.”

Wolfy looked over all the screens in front of him as he thought about what he was seeing on all the different screens. One showed the barren desert that his sister was in, another held a list of code that constantly ran to keep the area working. His mind continued to race as he thought about everything he was seeing before him. Patting Runa’s back gently, he signalled for her to get up. Without saying another, Runa stood to her feet and sat down on the bed as Wolfy paced back and forth with his hand resting on his chin as if he was in deep thought.

“Okay, so we don’t know what the corrupted data is exactly,” Wolfy said aloud as he started to talk to himself.

“The real question is, is it harmful to players?”

“I don’t know, if these data… I guess we can call them bugs, infect players, what happens to them?”

“Worse case, the player could die, maybe. Other options are that it rests the player bac to level one or it could cause them to go into a coma.”

“We don’t want that. It would extremely bad though if the game server gets corrupted. If that happens, this game could potentially become a large hive that infects the world’s internet.”

“Plus, you could end up being deleted and your sister would cry,” Wolfy continued on talking to himself as he stared down at the floor, pacing non-stop.

“Okay. So, we need to contain that area. Then ensure my sister and the other girl can’t enter that place again until we figure out what is wrong. Afterwards, we should check over my sister’s character and the other girl to make sure nothing is wrong there.”

“How do we stop the data from being corrupted though?”

“One thing at a time. First, my sister’s safety takes priority.”

Wolfy stopped and took a second to breathe. He noticed Runa was smiling as she sat down on the edge of the bed.

“What?” Wolfy asked as he scratched the back of his head.

Runa giggled as she laid down on her stomach and rested her chin against the palm of her hands.

“Nothing, it’s just cute to see you talk to yourself like that to solve a problem.”

“Was I talking to myself?”

Wolfy made his way over to the bed and laid back while Runa turned over onto her back. She smiled as she propped her feet up onto his chest and brought up six menus.

“All right, so we need to—”

“Don’t worry, Wolfy. I heard everything and I’m already on it. Your sister will be safe, I promise.”

“If you don’t, you know what will happen, right?”

“I know exactly what you would do to me, master,” Runa said with a smug expression on her face.

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

“I instructed Lieselotte von Feuerbach to give your sister and partner a Communication Connector that would ensure they would be safe.”

“Why couldn’t you have named her Lucy?”

“You could have changed it but you were asleep.”

Wolfy playfully thumped the sole of Runa’s barefoot as she let out a giggle that would entice any man or woman like a siren's song.

“Next time get me up before you do something.”

“If I hadn’t taken measures, there was a chance your sister could have died. I acted based on all the data I had and concluded that the best course of action was to ensure that your sister remained alive.”

Wolfy was at a lost for words. He had never gave much thought into his own life. To him, his life was nothing more than expendable. The lives of other’s did not hold much value to him either. He had stopped caring long ago if favour of cold, sound logic that didn’t need any hint of emotion. All his life experience around death as well as not have friends to connect with made him care little for the rest of the world. No one truly meant much to him, aside from his mother, sister and a small handful of friends. Everyone else were nothing more than sacks of flesh that ambled aimless throughout the existence of the world with only one ending outcome that was common to everyone.

Death.

Yet, with his mother even if she was to die he would not show it. His emotions were far to disconnected to feel anything. He would simply retreat into the darkness of his room and proceed to end his life with as much alcohol as he could ingest and wait for the sweet release of death. His sister however… he knew that if the day came to past he would not last. There isn’t anyway he would be able to live in a world without his sister or if he somehow did, he would be hollow – a husk of what he once was. Then there was fear. He never feared the thought of dying. It was something humans did. At a young age, he knew that life meant little to him because he had seen it so much. From his family to the animals he had taken care of, they all died. Everything became pointless. War was the only thing on his mind by the time he had entered high-school. His goal was to simply join the military, do as he was told and if he ever had to go to war, he would be okay with it.

Yet, this never came to past. Perhaps it had been the best thing for him. Had to served and gone six feet under, he would have never found the enjoyment and love he felt with his sister. She was always there for him, helpful, supportive and never one to hurt him – at least not out of spite. He always wanted to be there for her but at the same time he always had a gnawing fear in the back of his mind. If he was to die then she would be sad. The one thing that once held no control over him now held all the cards. His emotions would surface and he had to face the fact that he was now facing the fear of his death, not because of himself but because of those that he loved and cared about.

This fear continued to eat away at his mind to the point he wanted to cry. He thought up all the events in his head and how he would approach them. Most that involved him having a disease such as cancer were scary for him to think about. He always paced his room and planned out every detail of the conversation he would have with his sister over the phone due to her being out of the country at times. The detailed conversations would play in his mind non-stop, his reply to all her questions, what he would say to comfort her and how he would have to pretend to be strong while she would cry.

No detail escaped his mind. No detail left. He was haunted by it until his brain shut off. The best he could do was ignore it and live with it. If he could live with seeing bodies being mutilated and the screaming cries of various gruesome scenes then it should be easy. Yet, he knew far too well that nothing was ever easy. And hearing the cries of his sister would be hard. If it was something he could help with then it wasn’t a problem. A creepy guy pestering her online, he would simply tell the creep to piss off; a guy that was abusive to her, he could easily torture and kill them before sleeping soundly at night as if nothing had happened. But knowing that she was crying and there was nothing he could do, scared him.

What actions could he take to stop his sister from crying if the problem wasn’t within his control? It was all these thoughts that kept his mind in a constant state of work. He never had a chance to rest until it stopped. This quickly led to depression. Combined with his low self-esteem, he slowly felt he was no good or even worth living. He knew his sister had a hard time dealing with things has he did. After all they were similar in almost every way. It was as if they had the same thoughts – even the same beating heart. They say that siblings shared a connection even if they are far apart. When she hurt, he could sense something was wrong; when he hurt, she knew.

It was all a contradiction however. They both knew each other, yet neither wished to hurt the other. Both of them had the same idea, suffer in silence. But this never solved the problems, it only managed to make the other disappointed and upset. Of course they didn’t blame each other, they both already knew. The sibling relationship they was strange but at the same time it worked. They helped each other through the darkness and shined a light of happiness for the other to follow. Still, this always brought up the question of what if those bright lights died?

“Wolfy? You okay?”

Wolfy snapped back into the world he was in at the sound of Runa’s voice.

“Yeah… I…”

“Don’t stress over it, okay? I’m not going to let you, your sister or this game die. Trust me,” Runa said with a cheerful smile.

“Thank you, Runa.”

#

The hours passed as Wolfy worked to figure out exactly what was up with the area that had been corrupted, yet, he failed to turn up results. With a heavy sigh, he laid back and closed his eyes. He had looked to only five percent of the game’s code but was no where near finished. There was still the fact that he didn’t even know what he was looking for.

“I’m exhausted.”

“You can sleep, I’ll still work since I don’t need it.”

“Somehow, I feel like you will try to molest me in my sleep,” Wolfy said in a joking manner.

“I mean, knowing you, you’re not only for being tied down.”

“Both literally and figuratively.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to be your wife that would be needy or keep you all to myself. Although, I’m curious to know what it feels like to have tentacles inside me.”

Wolfy opened one eye as he looked at the beautiful blushing wolf girl who continued to keep her bare feet propped on his chest. She was smiling and appeared happier then she had ever been before.

“You finish up the work you need to and I’ll stick whatever you want in there.”

Wolfy closed his eye and turned over on his side.

“I’m already done. I figured out why the data is corrupted.”

“Wait, you found out already? That was fast.”

“Well, okay, I know why they are doing it but I don’t know exactly how to stop it. Doctor Arisa apparently designed the server with a fail-safe that activated.”

“Okay, do you know how to fix it?”

“If I did, I would have fixed the problem already. I don’t know how to fix it. My most logical conclusion is that we would have to find Doctor Arisa and get her to fix it.”

“Okay, we can just reach out to her from here, right?”

Runa shook her head.

“I tried to do that but it seems getting in contact with her through normal means is…”

“Impossible from here. Great…”

Wolfy sat up and looked over to Runa. He was unsure how to deal with the current state of things but he knew that he needed to figure something out. Crawling over to her, he gazed into her eyes like a wolf staring at its next meal. Straddling her hips, he smiled as he watched the girl smile and give herself up to him. Allowing her whole body to be exposed at his mercy proved that she didn’t fear him. She trusted him, even if he had thoughts that would scare away others.

“So, what do you think we should do, Wolfy?”

Pinning her wrist down to the bed gently, he smiled as gazed into her eyes.

“We need to get in touch with Doctor Arisa. But it sounds like we can only get in contact with her from the outside. Sadly, that is something we can’t do but my sister can. I’m just not sure how to hint at it.”

“Perhaps you can use something that only you and your sister know about each other.”

“That could work. The question is how do we tell her without telling her?”

“I have a suggestion. You could create an event six days after the game launches. A great way to entice players will be with an experience event in the city of Aystaria. You could make use of the Grand Area. The player or group that wins the final round gets a fifty percent gain in experience, all other players will get half. This way, players will want to play more.”

“All right, I can do that but that still doesn’t explain how she will know without me telling her.”

“You can give her a special item that only she should recognise. Players can see an item an its description. So, you can give her a key item that she can’t remove from her inventory and it will subtly describe where she needs to go to help us.”

“Wolfy, could I ask you for a small favour?”

Wolfy gently kissed Runa’s forehead and smiled.

“Don’t worry, I said I would stick—”

“No, I don’t mean that. I would like to ask your permission to invade your sister’s mind.”

For a moment Wolfy was silent. His expression didn’t change as he stared into Runa’s eyes.

“What are you hiding from me, Runa?”

“It’s not like that. There is something I wish to confirm. I don’t know why but something has been bothering me about your sister.”

“What exactly?”

“Wolfy… Would you please allow me to do this? I would like to confirm my theories before handing you information that could harm you.”

With a heavy sigh, Wolfy snapped his fingers and made his favourite drink appear. Downing half the can, he handed over the rest to Runa. With a smile, she downed the rest of the can.

“Let me be perfectly clear on this. You will hand her the item, you will do that thing you did to me and nothing more. Is that perfectly clear?”

“Do you truly think I’d dare anger you knowing what you would do to me?”

“Good girl. I’ll create the item then and let you handle everything. Hopefully, my sister will get the message and find the doctor.”

“A thought just occurred to me.”

“Can I assume it’s tentacles?”

“What if Doctor Arisa is dead?”

The room was silent. Wolfy had planned for everything but that thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“If the doc is dead… then we might be shit out of luck.”

“Would you be willing to stay with me to the end if that does happen?”

“My first time with and NPC. That should be a book.”

Runa giggled her cheeks blushing slightly.

“I’d be happy to be your first and last.”

Wolfy smiled as he passionately kissed Runa’s lips. With a snap of his fingers, he revealed several items that Runa knew from his thoughts. She smiled gleefully as she continued to relax her body into bed. There was nothing for her to be afraid of as she knew exactly what he desired, what he wanted. Every reaction was in her head to how she should behave when he did certain things. Still, she wasn’t without feelings or emotions. Unwilling to blindly follow the system in favour of evolutionary evolvement, she would be the one person in his life that allowed him to be himself without fear of being made fun of.

“I’m all yours, Wolfy.”