“Attention dear passengers, I am glad that you have chosen the Sycos as your method of transportation. We have just arrived in the Vilen System. Home of the Quartet Federation’s Coreworld, Itak.
I trust that your passage was safe and very cozy. I do hope you will come back again. Space can get quite lonely without passengers.”
“Well, thank you for carrying us upon this voyage! It's always cozy whenever you take us anywhere, Sy. You can bet we will be back soon, right darling Ko?”
“Sure thing, after all, we gotta get to our next destination somehow.”
For my perhaps insensitive comment I get a light elbow to the side from Ray.
“Pardon my boyfriend’s insensitivity. He is a worthless NEET with a jerk complex at heart.”
“Hey, that's not true. My heart is completely full of thoughts of you, dear Ray.” I say, in a completely flat tone. My signature move to destabilize her, sweet words without any emotion is a great way to throw people off.
“Wah, you can't just counter with something so sweet. That's not fair.” She says, with a blush creeping up her neck. It looks really nice in contrast to her platinum-blonde hair. Almost as if I've managed to set her ablaze. I've gotten quite good at that lately, according to her.
“Wait, that was supposed to be sweet? I was just speaking completely honestly in my defense against your violent assaults upon my character. Though, if that's what it takes to make you turn beet red, guess I gotta do more of that.”
“Oh no, what kind of monster have I created?”
“Well, it's simple. You being happy, makes me happy. Thus, I make you happy. You give me ways to make you happy, and I shall do them. After all, my darling Ray is super duper cute. It's only natural that I’d dote on you to the best of my abilities, amirite?”
From the assembled bridge crew, I get a few assents. After all, they all recognize Ray’s reality-bending cuteness too. I'm sure they can sympathize with my desire to take her happiness meter and turn it to 69/10. I mean, what else is love for, if not to encourage seeking maximum happiness [for your partner] behaviour.
“Oh my sevran. It's nice and all, but do you two have to flirt at every possible moment? It's insane. Bridge, flirting. Dining hall, flirting. Training room, flirting. Political meetings, flirting. Add that on top of all the stuff you two do behind closed doors.. Don't you ever get tired of it?” Initae says. She acts as though she is irritated by it, but I can tell she really doesn't mind that much. Though she definitely would prefer if we showed up to things on time. She is also right that we do a lot of stuff behind closed doors.
“Well, Miss Initae. Maybe one day you'll find love and realize that yes, it is required to flirt every five nanoseconds. After all, what is love for if not to seek the happiness of your partner? Flirting is merely one way that we express that ingrained behaviour.”
“Wonderfully put, dear Ray. I struggle to think what we would do if we didn't flirt.”
“Hmm, I could think of a few other things to do.”
“For what it's worth, I disagree, goddess. Among the Elvan public displays of affection are highly encouraged. After all, isn't it natural to want to show your mate off to all those present? It also naturally encourages mating behaviour, which is great for a species’ ongoing success.” Lina adds. It turns out, she is actually quite a romantic. Which, you wouldn't think considering she was super high in their religion. But it turns out Elvan culture is actually just highly romantic in general. Perhaps to counteract their low fertility and long lifepans.. They must naturally encourage such things to an extreme extent.
Definitely far different than many elves in earthen media, who often lack emotions and romantic stuff. But, I guess from an evolutionary standpoint it makes sense. That always bugged me about elves in fiction. Like, having lower fertility would not cause them to engage in less reproductive activities, rather it would likely cause the opposite to offset the lower chances of reproduction with more instances.
“I concur, we Aetherians weren't always the best at being emotional. But when you truly feel something, it should be expressed, not hidden!” Emil comments, the perfect wingman.
“Right! Like, people should know how everyone feels. In comparison, it seems humanity for most of its history has formed cultures around removing emotions. Far different than our Elvan history. Why would you want to hide emotions and feelings in politics, it's just likely to cause problems and distrust.”
“Hey auntie Initae, does it happen that the Vikea were very.. Conservative? Or have you just, like, never been in love?” I ask, though I can already guess the answer pretty well.
“WHAT. Of course, I've taken many lovers in my time. What, you think that I've just been all alone?! Preposterous, I've had more engagements than all of you in this room combined, times a billion at least!" She replies, though her face tells quite a different story. It's practically on fire. I wasn't even aware she could blush at all in that form.
“Hey darling Ko.. is it really possible? Can Initae really be~?”
“Yep, I think it's true. I've had my suspicions based on her behaviour, but this all but confirms it.”
“Oi, what do you two think you're implying. Whatever it is, I must highly disagree, it's obviously not true.”
The entire bridge bursts into laughter at her pitiful counter.
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“If I may weigh in, Transcendent. I do believe what they are trying to imply is likely true.”
“Oh, sweet Rigar, what could you possibly mean by that?!”
“Well, I think they are trying to shy away from it. But they are saying that you, Transcendent, are a virgin.”
9:00 IST, Eleventh Day, Eighth Month, 3079 PV | Vilen System (Quartet Federation Territory) / Itak / Groundport
After our intriguing discussion earlier, Initae suddenly vanished. I think she went off to hide somewhere. I don't think she really wanted to continue that specific line of discussion. Which, I completely understand, In her situation, I would probably never come back.
Anyways, we have since departed from orbit and have just taken a car down the space elevator to the surface of the Quartet’s colony, the Planet Itak.
It's a fairly lush planet, with lots of mountains and beautiful vistas. There is also a lot of tectonic activity. Which is a strange pick, usually you want to avoid natural disasters. Humanity and other species go through great effort to engineer planets to minimize harmful tectonic effects. I can't wait to learn why they would go counter to what the general consensus is.
We are greeted by a pretty large party. Within it are of course the Quartet. Each of them looks absolutely stunning in the mid-day light. The star of this system is a blue one, so everything is tinted slightly blue. As a result, it seems their architectural style has been designed to accent the color blue really well. There is a lot of white, gold and green dotted about.
Being in the middle of the city center, we are surrounded by a shocking amount of greenery. It seems they are believers in the whole green cityscape idea. Which is perfect, considering how lush and vibrant all the flora is on this planet.
The moment April and Ray’s eyes meet they practically run at each other. They end up engaged in a quite tight hug. For some reason, I feel a slight pang in my general heart area. I hope it's not some bizarre medical condition. Wait, that should be impossible, the augmentation kits would prevent or quickly resolve any major issues.
Ray and April then proceed to engage in a flurry of very gigglish conversation. They speak at a speed that must be inhuman. Even the best AIs in the universe would probably be unable to keep up with the information/time density of their speech.
I take a look around at our surroundings. I can notice a few tall buildings off in the distance, and the pathways seem to be very well kept. The air is very clear and fresh, due to the abundance of greenery I suppose.
As I look around, I realize that I should also be attempting to socialize. After all, we are here to visit some important friends.
I approach the trio of guys and try to start up some casual conversation. Suffice to say, it does not go very well. I don't think I'm cut out for this whole diplomacy thing, I'm far better at supporting Ray. Asking me to do things alone is like asking a single human to build the great pyramids in a single day.
We make some very horrible conversation until Ray and April are finished. The moment Ray moves away, I rush to her side and grab her arm. She gently squeezes my hand and mumbles an apology about leaving me to face the horrors of conversation all alone.
I shall have to make sure she gets extra headrubs later. Though, is there a higher number than infinity? Perhaps if I use both hands for headrubs, that will equal two infinities.
Naturally, we are given a tour around their quite lovely colony. It's a lot more expansive and sprawly than our own. Which I guess makes sense, you don't normally start with skyscrapers like we did. I guess we may have gone a bit hard.
For comparison, Itak is sitting at around five million citizens, whereas City Stelarum is just under ten million. Though, that's not to say there is that big of a discrepancy in skill. Rather, it seems the Quartet have taken a different approach.
As we walk, Ray and I notice something interesting. There are very few citizens compared to tourists. To an insane degree.
City Stelarum has attracted a fair few tourists of course, but most of our exposure happens over the net. Most don't bother to actually come to the city. Which makes sense, given the vast distances involved.
However, it seems the Quartet have taken a different approach. They have basically turned their entire colony into a luxury resort destination.
We are talking, hot springs, carnivals, plenty of lush parks, and super fancy hotels. The works. They went all in on in-person tourism.
I guess this might be the influence of their Shesah sponsors, who are well known for their vast network of resorts and luxury retreat destinations.
When all is said and done, well wishes, compliments exchanged, we retire to one of the finest hotels in the colony. Only the best for their guests I suppose.
Once we are alone in our room, Ray walks up behind me super sneakily (of course, I can sense her though). She stands up on her tiptoes and whispers in my ear. “Hey darling, guess what they have here?”
“Hmm, what could it possibly be?”
“Theyve got hot springs.”
“That sounds perfect. After all, you can't have an adventure without an obligatory stop in some hot springs.”
“I had that exact same idea, darling.”
Naturally, we proceed to head into the hot springs, which are conveniently located right next to our hotel room.
We enter the room, and are greeted with a fairly large pool. Probably comfortable for around ten people. The room is absolutely full of steam. It makes it very hard for me to properly admire certain things in the room.
Oh well, I'll just have to admire them some other time.
“Ko, the last one in is a rotten algae bar.”
“No fair, you're so much closer!” I say, while implementing a brilliant plan to ensure at least a draw.
I quickly grab Ray about the waist and drag her into the pool, ha, she can't win if we both enter at the same time.
We emerge from the quite hot water, thankfully our augmentation kits allow us to almost instantly adapt to the heat. In fact, we could jack up the temperature to some insane levels if we really wanted to. But we leave it at a normal temperature, we are here to relax after all.
Ray’s beautiful platinum-blonde hair looks really nice when it's wet. Somehow, even soaked she looks absolutely stunning. I reach out and brush a strand of her hair off her cheek.
For my efforts, I am awarded with the faint hint of a blush.
“Ko, you're such a jerk.”
“Well, even if I am, I'm yours. So you're just gonna have to deal with it.”
“You're not fair. I can never win against you in these situations. Your sweetness is just off the charts. It's impossible for you to be this cute, it's not physically possible.”
“Well, darling, I am a space wizard after all. It's only natural that I break a few laws of reality on my journey.
Though, you should take a look at yourself. Like, your cuteness is practically about to destroy reality itself.”
“Oh stahp, you're gonna make me faint with happiness.”
“Well, then I could do many things, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.”
“Wait, what type of things are you talking about?”
The scene fades to black as I begin to show her some of the things I was talking about. I also got to test out my headrubs theory. It seems that two hands do create a larger infinity than infinity. Good to know for future reference.
No matter what comes next, Ray and I shall overcome it together. After all, I've gotta make her the happiest girl in the universe. Can't really do that while dodging some shady organizations or some pink haired chick’s sword, now can I? Whatever shall come next, we will conquer it. So, bring it on.
End of Chapter 77
Next: Chapter 78 | Overwhelming Moonlight
A/N: Hiya dear reader. Welcome back to the section of the chapter where I ramble about stuff. It's been a moment, hasn't it?
Well, for my first note in a while, I will give you a super special chapter (seen above). What's so special about it you may ask? Well, it's the obligatory hot springs episode of course! Wait, you mean that only happens in anime and not in webnovels? Oh well, I did it anyway. Have fun filling in the blanks I left ya, really use your imagination.
I hope your enjoying the story. I am getting into a better writing rhythm, so I hope it only gets better and better as the story goes on. Don't worry, there are still many more plot developments, and even some twists to come. Keep in mind, we are only two trials in, out of seven. So stay tuned for more.
If you've been enjoying the story, reviews/ratings/follows/favourites/etc. Are much appreciated. Comments too! It's always appreciated, so I bid thee farewell. Until the next time, dear reader.
- Cathrix, I self-declare myself as the best author on the planet.
PS: We are just about at 200k words for this story, it's really grown quite fast!