Spiderlily had begun leaning over Blackstone’s head, glancing at her wood carving. “Is that me?”
The dwarf paused, lifting the figurine up a bit and grinning broadly. “It is! Xiao Lan is so pretty, you could even participate in some shots with me, if you want to. Ah – Jian Lin, too! My company would go nuts if I brought them the Ice Emperor. Besides, you look so similar to your character that if we just use a tiny bit of make-up, you’d look exactly the same.”
The “tiny bit” would also include contact lenses, fake ears, hair dye and something to adjust his skintone, but for a model, that was indeed only a tiny change.
It took Ice three minutes to answer. At that point, Blackstone didn’t even expect one anymore. “I’ll consider it.”
After all, going out to eat together hadn’t been that bad. His parents would be happy, too, if he accepted a shoot or two. He wasn’t even announced to the public, so they’d probably be very happy to have a family shoot.
“Me too, me too! I wanna be in the shoot, too!” Bloody jumped out of Ice’s arm, tail wagging. “I haven’t been in a real shoot before!”
The topic kept on jumping around.
After having wasted enough time, Ice and Bloody departed. The mage looked up at the sky, squinting into the sun. “What about Little Droplet?”
“They said they aren’t participating in the quest, either. I’ve met them for a short time this morning, but they didn’t look too well.”
“A cold?”
“No, looks like private business. They said there’s a bit of family drama going on right now that’s hopefully going to be solved soon. I think we can all relate to that.” The beastman took the road leading out of the city. Without having to talk about it, both knew they were going to return to the mountains. “Yun is still at my place too. Honestly, my parents are pretty irresponsible. I’m pretty much a professional gamer stuck in a capsule all day but they’re leaving him for me to take care of.”
Ice thought that Dead Rabbit was at least old enough to take care of himself, but Bloody looked like a surprisingly doting older brother. “He could come grind with us after the quest.”
“Don’t carry him! He’s bad enough at his job already, if he skips any more practise, it’s gonna be a disaster! Besides, let’s get this quest done first.”
“Thanks for accompanying me”, Ice muttered sheepishly.
“No worries, no worries! It’s a good excuse to get away from Woodcutter too.”
“Oh…”
Ice held himself back from asking. Outside of the city, they stopped near a couple of stones instead of flying away immediately – there was too much traffic in the sky. The mage sat down on a larger stone, looking down at the grass.
“Oh, are you curious?” Bloody snickered good-naturedly. “I don’t mind telling you. I just didn’t want to inform everyone of my past relationships.”
Bloodless Sunset plopped himself down next to Ice. He stretched his arms, looking quite comfortable in the sunshine.
“I’ve had five relationships before. Two girlfriends back when I was still at school – one only for a month, the other for… Oh, something around half a year. I think none of us took that time too seriously. The third one was a guy; I met him in a bar. Uh, I’m not sure how much you can call that a relationships at all… It went on for around half a year too, but… Well.”
He paused for a moment.
“The fourth one… Two years.”
Not only the amount of time, also Bloody’s tone of voice notified Ice that there was something different about that one. “It didn’t work out?”
“Bah. He was an asshole through and through. As I said, I had a bad eye for people. It took me quite some time to get over it and decide that it’s unhealthy for me to be with him.” The beastman puffed a strand of hair out of his face. “After that was Woodcutter. That guy, he… Basically, he was the perfect gentleman at the start. He just kind of deteriorated? In the end, he was downright violent.”
Worried, Ice began to scowl. “He hurt you?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“He didn’t hit me if that’s what you’re implying, but he was needlessly violent in… other aspects.” Bloody sighed – deep and slow. He looked a bit exhausted. “I know, I know – I’m not a cute little guy, I’m tall and sturdy, but that doesn’t warrant people not treating me well.”
“Just because someone could endure something better doesn’t mean they should have to”, Ice whispered. Then, sincerely, he followed it up: “I hope your next relationship will be with someone who is good to you.”
“Ck! Tbe’gf j ubbv oglfcv.” Ktf sbecu wjc ijeutfv bea ibev. “Tbe tjnfc’a yffc lc j gfijalbcrtlq sfa, gluta?”
Ice shook his head. “I’m not not interested, just… not very interested.”
Ktja jybea rewwfv la eq.
Ktfgf tjv yffc akb mjrfr ktfgf tf tjv ajxfc jc lcafgfra lc rbwfbcf, yea la ofia ilxf j ilaaif yev lcrlvf tlr tfjga – rbwfatlcu atja tjv ab yf meialnjafv ab ugbk, jcv jr tf ifoa la jibcf, la klatfgfv jkjs.
The thought of dating – and marrying, for that matter – was nice, but it wasn’t needed. If he wouldn’t find the right one, he thought, then it was alright.
“Well, that’s fine too! Right now, both of us are kind of focusing on the game anyway, aren’t we? Might as well not worry too much about dating. We are still young. I’m more worried about Little Yun in that regard. It feels like he’s so naive, he might get cheated.”
Dead Rabbit did indeed seem a bit naive and ditzy at times.
“It seems he’s straight though, and his type is the cute defenseless one. That means there’s only one group I have to look out for. You never know what someone is like on the inside, even if they look harmless.”
Seeing Bloody pull a face, Ice smiled a tiny bit. “You’re protecting him.”
“Of course! One time, that idiot was about to go out and I asked him where. He said he was going to meet an online friend. I asked if I could check the convo and – you wouldn’t believe it – he completely missed that he had agreed to a sex date. He thought he was meeting with a good friend. I swear, that guy laughed his ass off when I called to inform him that Little Yun wouldn’t come.”
“… How do you miss that?”
“He just didn’t get a single hint the other one sent and randomly said yes and amen to everything. Thankfully, the guy was understanding and didn’t have anything bad in mind, so they’re still online friends.”
“That’s good.”
Given his situation, Ice considered online friends as valuable as people you met in reality. He knew not everyone shared that opinion, but especially in this day and age, it was more common.
After all, Bloody was also his online friend.
…They were even neighbors, but Bloody didn’t know that yet.
“The traffic is clearing up. Let’s go?”
“Yes-”
A small sound alerted Ice to a new message. Surprised, he froze where he stood.
“Messages.”
With the command, the window opened up. Contrary to the chat, these were official game messages, and they were quite rare.
“Huh? You got a message?”
Ice nodded and tapped the message to open it. He directly read it out loud for Bloody. “Hey hey! Welcome back! I’ve annoyed some people and we got what you wanted! We didn’t know which colour would be good so here’s the one I liked best, but we can totally exchange it if you want another one. Let me snap some pics sometime, kay? I’m sure you’ll look pretty! Ah, don’t use them during combat – they break super easily. It was the only way the dev team could come up with a way to avoid people misusing them, and it was also the reason they were scrapped. Anyway! Bye-bye and have fun!”
Bloody’s shoulders were shaking. He was trying hard not to laugh, but Ice’s deadpan face and monotone voice did not match the text at all. “Y-Your recompense?”
“One part.”
Ice pressed the little giftbox icon at the bottom of the message. It opened with confetti flying out and automatically equipped itself.
Bloody whistled.
The pair of feather-wings were huge and fluffy, with the main colour being white but a golden sheen enveloping every single feather.
Fascinated, Ice moved them – he knew how to do it without being told, just like beastmen could move their ears and tails. He stroked his fingers through the numb feathers.
“Wow! So pretty!” Eager to touch, Bloody jumped over and nuzzled his face into the wings. His voice ended up being a bit muffled. “I want wings too! It must be way cooler to fly with wings!”
“They’re non-tradable. Sorry…”
“Sucks… Hmm, you could carry me?”
“Okay.”
The moment Ice agreed, he regretted it. Not because it would be embarrassing, but… Bloody was the same height as him. How was he supposed to carry a guy 180cm tall? It wasn’t like he could piggyback him with those wings.
Bloody realized the same issue. He ignored all the players who were staring at them because of the sudden appearance of wings, and tried to find a way to get carried. “Your back is impossible, so… Princess-carry I guess?”
“I don’t think I have enough strength to hold that for a longer flight.”
“It’s okay! A short one will do!”
Was there a problem with a guy carrying another guy in a princess-carry?
Obviously not.
That was the shared opinion of the people watching, although there were three very different groups.
One group just thought it was gender equality.
Another group thought that somehow, Ice and Bloody made it look kind of cool.
The third group… Were Red Snow fans.
Ice adjusted his hold on the beastman. His left arm was under the other’s knees, the right arm around his back. Bloody had wrapped his arms around Ice’s neck to steady the hold and was excitedly wriggling his feet. “I’m ready!”
“I apologize in advance if we crash”, the mage commented dryly, then took over.
The curious onlookers watched until the happy “Wheeeee!” that the passenger was squealing couldn’t be heard anymore, then either got back on their way or logged out to go scream into a forum.
As Ice had already prophesied – he didn’t think he’d hold on long.
Bloody actually took fall damage when, during a not-so-pretty swerve, Ice ended up letting him fall. Instead of getting angry, though, Bloody ended up laughing so hard that he had to keep on sitting.
“Stop apologizing, it’s okay”, he snickered. “At least now I can say I’ve gone sky-diving before… without a parachute.”
The fall almost killed Bloody, but the beastman took it with humor. In the first place, he was the one who had asked Ice to carry him during his first flight.
“Okay, I’ll take my mount now. Let’s fly the last bit to the mountain.”
As they neared the mountain, Ice noticed that he didn’t feel the same restriction as the mount. He could have probably continued to fly, most likely because this restriction wasn’t programmed into the wings.
He considered it for a moment but unsummoned them. Not only would it be unfair, he’d also end up getting his wings taken away if someone reported him cheating like that.
The situation on the mountain wasn’t too bad.
There were many players around, but because most of them were helping with the quests, no one stuck out. Even Ice and Bloody – despite initially drawing some attention, were soon forgotten in favor of work.
“If we focus on levelling for the rest of the week, there shouldn’t be anyone noticing us slipping through the blizzard when it comes.” Bloody let his eyes wander over the countless players. The area was actually quite convenient for going undercover, since most people were wearing hoods or hats.
Ice’s staff could also be hidden in his inventory.
Now if only he hadn’t used his wings, no one would have noticed them at all. He hadn’t considered that.
“We’re both pretty high level, but we’re only two people. Let’s keep close to the middle of the first ring for now and figure out where to grind best.”
Ice followed obediently.
It was impossible to grind near the area where people were starting to clear out snow, but the mountain range was huge, and so was the first ring. They easily found a corner, and even found three – completely overloaded – dungeons on the way.
“I dunno”, Bloody said, warily staring at what was nothing but a hole in the ground. He wasn’t the only one watching it from a safe distance. “I get that it’s a dungeon but… This looks pretty scary. I don’t think we wanna do a dungeon yet, do we?”
The mage shook his head. He preferred training first before going into a dungeon, which was generally harder.
“Onwards we go then. We even might be able to find you a suitable mount while exploring for the ideal grinding spot.”
And that they did.
Author’s note
Ice failed his strength check gloriously. Agility was a tiny bit better, but let me tell you, this wasn’t a pretty flight.
Also I remembered that other people show their fanart off in their chapters, which makes a lot more sense than hoarding them to yourself lol. So, it’s late, but here they are C: Thanks to Fishy, Haze and YueLqn
(Deal with it, Fish. Your comic is here now. Foreeeeeveeerrrrr.)
Little Theater
Bloody: “I’ll take that princess carry anytime.”
Ice: “I’m not strong enough for that.”
Bloody: “Then… I princess carry you?”
Ice: “Sure?”
Bloody: “…You don’t mind at all, huh?”
omgggg model Jian Lin….I want it!! I want to see it!!! And also Blackstone trying to convince the two people she finds pretty to take photoshoots with her…AHHH Blackstone is so cool!
also, I (platonically) love Ice
also Bloody nuzzling Ice’s new wings…!!! Good thing those wings aren’t ergerous zones right? hahaha (I have read a number of wing-fics in my time haha)
hehe and the princess carry! cuteeeeeee. >w<
If there were real wings, they’d be buuuut they’re just items. Too bad xD
MC is so pretty ;-;
Thank you for the chapter!!! ❤️❤️
».. Ice ended up letting fall.« letting him fall, I guess?
Okay, seems like I have to redeem my previous comment about Knightrider calling out Ice’s real name in the online world since Blacky does the same. (But it doesn’t feel that rude when she did it lol? My brain xD)
Bloody wasn’t that lucky with his relationships, eh? D: But good thing that he always got away from those scums.
Thx for the ch ٩( >ヮ<)۶
And nice fanarts :3
I.. tempted to draw JL with wings, reaching down at Bloody falling but my arm hurts (vaccine) and I’ve already drawn like 3 things today..
Actually nvm I’m gonna go draw it anyway lmfao
Thanks for the chapter~
Share it with me when you do!!!! C:
Also lol. Dramatic moment. Bloody slipping out of Ice’s hands……. Only to land on the ground and nearly die of laughter
Aa I already shared some sketches of JL with wings on CGs discord (was I supposed to @ you? Not sure qwq) but the one with Bloody is still a WIP nwn
Yeeees please ping me in the future <3
Aight!
“he was needlessly violent in other aspects” UGH. Woodcutter, come meet my knife. it is a nice, gentle, safe knife. >_<
thanks for the chapter <3
Introducing, my most annoying character…. for the next arc, anyway.
Thank you for the chapter 💜