Rupegia

Chapter 167: Theorycrafting – Part 1

"I don't like fighting pretty women," I immediately shoot everyone down.

But Lily gives me a very suspicious stare as she holds her waist in a sassy way. "Are you trying to be chivalrous and compliment me? It won't work because you just sound patronizing," she retorts exactly how I expected her to.

So I begin my rather awkward explanation, "Look, it's like asking a veterinarian to euthanize a dog. I'll do it if I have to, but I just like women too much to hurt them. My sadism is only for sexual roleplaying."

She frowns at me and grumbles, "You're making it weird."

But I just pout and stubbornly stick to my argument, "You're the one who's calling me patronizing."

"Didn't we just agree to not bicker?" Samkelo warily questions.

"We're not bickering," Lily and I retort in unison, surprising both of us, but then we become awkward and avert our eyes. I don't know about her, but I've just realized that she's still mostly the same person that I fell in love with and married.

"You two were definitely married," Kaatohe says out loud what everyone's thinking, literally thinking, as I can read the girls' minds.

Lily frowns disgustedly and denies it like a haughty ojou, "No, not with him. Someone similar to him, yes, but he's not my Toto."

"I still don't understand how that works," my cat adds and gives us a questioning glance.

Alissa reads my mind and kindly explains with a Rupegian perspective, "Imagine another Rupegia Realm existed, almost a perfect copy of this one, but there were minor differences between the two, almost like a flawed mirror."

Kaatohe frowns thoughtfully, then a grin creeps up on her thin cat lips. "So there are two… 'Totos'?"

And my almost-orange fox happily answers, "Each of the Travelers seems to have come from their own Earth, so there are at least five if you count Wolfy. Maybe more. Imagine."

The girls do imagine what it'd be like to have five "me"s around, and their thoughts take a very obvious turn.

But Yunia immediately cautions them, "The other 'Totos' won't be like Wolfy. They'll just be average men with his face."

"We all fell in love with 'average Wolfy,' Ciel soberly points out.

Yunia isn't entirely convinced since I was already halfway through my transformation when we met, but she accepts that it's a reasonable point, so she nods and hums, "True…"

But Lily interrupts with a very important concern, so she emphatically interrogates me, "Hold on, did your girl just meme…? Did you teach memes to them…?"

I grin childishly and give a curious glance as I answer, "Yes, and yes, though Alissa used to dislike my memes."

"I still do, but just a bit," my almost-orange fox agrees with an uncanny cheerfulness. Then she adds through [Bind], "I just want to show off to Lily that I know you better than she does."

"I wonder what else is different between our Earths," Samkelo hums out loud.

"We're here to test our skills, not chatter," Lily sternly interrupts, starting to get impatient.

So I throw my last card, "I claim royal pride, dignity, or whatever it is that doesn't allow my skill to be tested in public!"

But the cinnamon loli goes for the throat, "Why do you hate the idea of fighting me so much?"

I shrug and hide my smirk as I explain, "I just don't like fighting, especially when it's against a person who has the face of someone I care for."

And that pokes Lily's pride just as I expected it to. "You little shit. I know that you used that exact wording just to piss me off. Now I'm sure that you're just a sleazy version of my Toto."

"My God, get a room, you two," Samkelo groans loudly.

"Gods, plural. We have multiple," Ciel sternly corrects him.

But the gnome doesn't know how to react to that. He was likely an atheist back on Earth, so how would an insolent jokester react to being corrected by a priestess he doesn't want to offend? Awkwardly, is the answer.

And the angel feels a small amount of sadistic pleasure at seeing his meek reaction, but this is as far as her puddle-sized well of evil allows her to go.

"Someone has to fight me!" Lily frustratedly exclaims and throws her thin cinnamon arms up into the air.

And I give her a genuine excuse, "I'm honestly a bad choice. I can't fight without using magic, and do you really want to receive repeated [Earth Bullet]s, [Fireball]s, and [Lightning Bolt]s to the face?"

The angry loli carefully considers my words for a moment, and she seems to begrudgingly accept that I'd, indeed, be a very annoying opponent. My Lily used to whine a lot about cheap, low-risk, high-reward tactics and "slippery" builds.

"I can fight her," Lina suddenly volunteers, her tone showing the resolute bravery one would expect from the wife of a dragon.

"Ooh~…!" the girls' coos echo inside my soul space.

"She's a Queen; it doesn't count!" Urmeie childishly whines, still sour we don't let her fight.

"Fuck it, who cares?" Hana casually retorts, ticking off the big bear sister even further.

And she won't take this injustice lying down. "Then I'm the one who's going to fight her!" she roars defiantly.

But I take on her childish barking head-on. "No. I shall respect your sister's wishes and not allow you to fight," I composedly retort.

The ursine Princess recomposes herself and assumes a more dignified posture as she glares at me, but the filthy words that pour out of her toothy mouth are anything but dignified, "You rusty bloodstain. You're just doing this because you want her tight pussy."

I'm not exactly criticizing her as I do the exact same, "Of course, I am. Pussy is pussy. But I'm going to let you deal with a horde of monsters, so chill your fiery cunt until then."

"Hmph, fine," she sourly accepts, still sounding quite childish, and crosses her arms, bunching up her massive, furry puppies against her baggy training shirt.

Seeing that our banter is over, Lily turns to Lina and soberly states, "We just have to establish some rules because normal weapons don't hurt me."

And since we're talking about fighting, Hana makes a wise counter-proposal, "We want to test your weapon skills, so just the standard touch-based scoring is enough, but a hammer hit should have a bit of power behind it for it to count."

"Don't you dare hurt my little Lina with your hammer," I immediately caution the angry loli.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not petty like that," she replies dismissively as she rolls her eyes.

Thinking about our wife's safety, Ciel makes a suggestion, "How about they use [Switch]-enchanted weapons, but add padded cloth to the head or blades so that it doesn't hurt?"

Having foam would be awesome.

"Sure," Lily hums, and Lina nods.

And so, the two lolis face each other. The gloomy raven loli, and the angry cinnamon loli, two little fuckable bundles of adorableness and mass-murder facing off in a grudge match. Lily is definitely aware of Lina's dislike of her, so there's no way that the cinnamon loli will show any mercy, which is why I warned her.

"I'll be fine," Lina tries to reassure me through [Bind].

"I'm just being selfish here. Seeing you get hurt gives me mental pain, so I just want you to never get wounded," I explain matter-of-factly.

She's the submissive kind who loves being pampered, so she likes this overprotective part of me, especially because I never let it actually go wild. She just gets a nice, comfortable feeling whenever I act possessive, so of course, I deliberately act like this to please her.

And with high morale, she raises her padded [Switch]-axe, braces her shield, and enters the [Dwarven Pride Style] standard stance, ready to chop down while receiving a direct charge at the same time. Lily responds with a more relaxed and sloppy stance, which immediately makes us wary because she isn't an unskilled warrior, so she must be using a deceptive style.

Lina moves first, and her axe clangs against Lily's shield, who responds with a standard strike that also clangs against her opponent's shield. Dwarven duels of pure weapon skill can sometimes degenerate into simple, risk-free exchanges until one side suddenly does something different.

They trade a few more standard blows, but then Lily's gaze suddenly turns sadistic, telegraphing that a special attack is coming, so Lina floods her body with mana, activating [Spirit Of Gaia], which boosts her "Strength" and "Endurance." You can't play around with a Gifted like Lily, so a preemptive defense is an absolute must.

And it immediately shows to be the right choice, for her [Battlefield Perception] activates as Lily performs a deceptively sloppy chop. Instead of simply receiving the seemingly innocent attack with her shield, Lina binds her axe against Lily's, and the cinnamon loli frowns angrily as her obvious ruse fails.

But then Lina's [Battlefield Perception] triggers again, and she braces herself with her shield as Lily bashes it with her own, and there's so much strength behind the attack that Lina is sent flying backward. My gloomy loli is simply too light to not be punted by the ridiculously heavy attacks of her monstrously powerful loli opponent.

Lily attempts to rush forward to press her advantage against her downed opponent, but not only is she slow with her loli legs, but Lina is also quite fast getting up again, already quite experienced at being knocked down by opponents with a much higher mass than her. And so my loli, now angered by being thrown back, boldly clashes with Superman-loli again.

A weakness in Lily's style is soon made clear: she's terrible at deceptive strikes, as she shows her intentions in her facial expressions. It also means that she's bad at poker, so the girls take note to challenge the angry, roasted cinnamon loli to strip poker one day. But, more importantly, it also means that she's ill-suited for this fighting style since it's all about tricking your opponent into lowering their guard for a cheap hit somewhere vulnerable.

Well, when you're ridiculously powerful and have skill points to spare, spending a few on a style that may give you the chance to one-shot your enemy is actually a viable choice. And it doesn't even hurt Lily so much in this duel since she clearly has the higher skill level with their weapons, putting Lina on the back foot.

The second time Lina is thrown back, she lands on her feet, and the third time, she doesn't even get air time as she manages to simply slide backward, but my loli is starting to get frustrated with this situation.

"Since you're using your Gift, I'll use magic, too," she states with a dark tone and starts to glare.

Lily simply raises an eyebrow and hums, "Hm? Alri-…" Then she suddenly frowns warily. "What are you doing to me?"

And my gloomy loli grins evilly. "[Cursing Magic]. Don't worry; it isn't permanent and won't even hurt."

"Hmph…" Lily grunts haughtily, underestimating the unorthodox magic school.

On Lily's next superhuman blow, Lina glues herself to the ground by using [Earth Wall] to instantly grow stone over her feet, which prevents her from flying away, and uses her defensive skills to the max to deflect the brutal strike away from her center of mass.

The angry loli frowns as her reckless attack has left her wide open, and even though Lina's posture is awkward, all she needs to do is slide her padded axe's blade across Lily's thigh to score a point. And my little wife grins evilly at her successful deceit.

Lily follows up with a flurry of serious and skillful attacks that puts Lina on the back foot again, but dwarven fighting styles excel at defensive battles, so even while heavily pressured, Lily is unable to score a hit.

And then the angry cinnamon loli starts to noticeably slow down as the effects of Lina's multiple [Cursing Magic] spells continue to stack. There's now a clear path towards victory for Lina if she maintains course, but her opponent also realizes that, so of course, Lily turns it up to eleven, as her pride won't let her lose this easily.

The atmosphere suddenly shifts as the angry loli angrily releases her high-level aura of pure, raw, unbridled anger. And now Lina suddenly feels like she's standing before a Behemoth as her opponent enters a berserk state, her pretty face warped in fearsome fury.

Lily suddenly rushes forward and strikes down with blinding speed, her padded axe horizontal, telegraphing a sweep attack. Lina doesn't even attempt to [Parry] or [Block] it and simply [Dodge]s using both her [Enhanced Speed] and [Muscle Explosion] to be able to get out of the way in time, but now the latter is on cooldown, and she's not fast enough to fully [Dodge] the follow-up attack.

Lina receives another sideways strike with her shield and attempts to deflect it upwards, but there's so much momentum behind it that she barely diverts its trajectory, so it still sends her flying. Unfortunately, her attempt at defense reduces the distance she's thrown back, so berserk-Lily is upon her again in the blink of an eye.

Seeing no easy way out, Lina uses [Earth Wall] to sink into the ground and away from the loli-Behemoth. Lily attempts to dig her way through with her axe, but it's an ineffective use of the padded weapon against rock, and it even threatens to break with her savage strikes.

But then she actives the [Switch] enchantment, and after a flash of light, we see an ornate, oversized, winged sledgehammer, something straight out of a fantasy game and stolen from the hands of a proud, muscle-brained, heavily-bearded, brawny dwarf that definitely calls elves "knife-ears." And that makes us all so apprehensive that Roxanne stops molesting Ciel's massive tits.

Lina sinks deeper as fast as she can, but there's only raw rock under her, slowing her down. I hover my internal finger over the button to summon my dear loli, but she bravely stops me as she comes up with a genius idea.

In the second she has before Lily strikes, she uses [Earth Wall] to soften and weaken the stone under her. Then the loli-Behemoth monstrously slams the sledgehammer-shaped monstrosity down. The ground trembles and shakes our bones as the training yard cracks, sinking down a couple of centimetri, but Lina's idea comes to fruition.

The stone above tries to crush her lithe body, but the stone below cracks open, collapsing the ceiling of the underground warehouse below the training yard, allowing her to "safely" fall down upon the weapon racks. Thankfully, the pointy weapons are all pushed away by the broken chunks of rock, so she painfully falls upon the messy pile, leaving her with nothing worse than a small bruise or two.

But Lily raises her stupid sledgehammer again, and I think this duel has become too dangerous to allow it to continue.

"ENOUGH!" I roar, infusing my voice with [Godly Language]. The loli-Behemoth freezes in place, her arms trembling as she attempts to resist my coercive voice. But the sliver of sanity she has left allows her to wrestle back control of herself, and she slowly lowers down her winged sledgehammer as the rage leaves her, allowing the beauty of her pretty face to return.

The golems promptly begin to open a hole in the training yard with [Earth Wall] while Lina quickly downs an HP potion. My gloomy loli is feeling petty enough to not show a hint of pain to the cinnamon loli, and even Ciel gives her her support.

"Holy shit," Samkelo hums in awe.

"That was intense," U Thant remarks in kind.

Oritiki gives us a worried glance, so Alissa quietly whispers, "She's fine."

"That [Cursing Magic] is fucking annoying," Lily grumbles with a pout as she returns her stupid sledgehammer to its deceptive axe shape.

"Forced you to get serious," I smugly taunt, just to piss her off further.

The golems open up a hole, then [Telekinesis] Lina out, and my magnificent loli wife comes out radiant. Her smug smile is so bright it's blinding, and it almost triggers Lily's berserk again.

"I scored a hit while you scored none," the younger loli brags with an infuriating casual tone.

Lily's right eye twitches in annoyance as she retorts, "Doesn't count because we got interrupted."

And with Roxanne's assistance, she taunts further, "Maybe if you didn't lose control, you would've eventually found an opening to score since you were consistently putting me on the defensive."

But the cinnamon loli is too experienced in banter to fall for that bait. "What the-…" And she turns to me. "Toto, is your loli being sassy to me?"

I shrug and dodge, "Why are you asking me? She's right in front of you."

Lily's too wary of a trap to engage in earnest, so she turns back to Lina and starts acting patronizing. "I'm a dwarf, too, so I know I'm twice your age, and you're a decade too young to give me sass."

Then Lina accepts my little suggestion and answers with an even more infuriating smug grin as she bites back, "But I am old enough to make you mad."

And Lily turns her intense stare towards me again, a bit mad. "Really?"

So I mirror Lina's expression and mockingly ask, "You mad?"

"It's just a duel; why do you have to be mad?" Lina follows up perfectly.

Lily's lips twitch as she tries her best to hide her smirk, but she gives us a very small concession, "Okay, I admit that's a little bit funny, but only a little."

I'm quite happy with this result, so I stop the taunting and reply honestly, "You better start enjoying it because these are the only memes you'll get to see for a decade, maybe."

She raises a thin black eyebrow curiously. "You're going to build the internet in only a decade?"

I shrug. "Maybe sooner. Now, let's move on before Urmeie falls asleep."

The big bear sister grunts in surprise, then smirks affably. "Hm? Don't mind me; hearing you talk about earthling things is rather interesting."

But Alissa is feeling like poking Lily one more time, so she casually adds, "I'm sure you two have a lot of catching up to do. We know that old flames never die."

"Excuse me?" the cinnamon loli concernedly replies.

"Since you're beginning to act with more respect, we'll also consider allowing you into the harem," Ciel kindly follows up, her puddle of sadism starting to act up again.

And that makes Lily visibly shudder. "Ew… not interested."

That hurts a little bit, tho…

Then Roxanne unleashes her aggressive gayness as she sultrily attempts to seduce her into joining our garden of flowers, "But we are very interested in you. If you ever wish to know how sweet the lewd nectar of a flower tastes, you're welcome to join our bed."

Now that hits the spot, for Lily shows a rare, embarrassed side as she awkwardly rejects the offer, not looking the gay succubus in the eye, "Jesus, when I think that I've seen everything… I just don't swing that way."

"Neither did half of us until we were brought together," Alissa states matter-of-factly with innocent pride.

The young gnome wryly coos, "Goddamn…" But Ciel just glances at him. "I mean Godsdamn."

It's best to leave Lily like this so that she can stew in embarrassment for longer, and so Yunia solemnly moves on, "Now, there's only you two left to show your skills." And she gives the two in question a questioning stare.

The quiet Thalanthro girl promptly makes an excuse, "We aren't great fighters. All we have are our awkward Gifts and the system magic we've been taught."

"Show us the most damage you can do by yourself," I casually propose.

Lily gives her a look, which puzzles us as we aren't able to decipher it. Then the mer girl meekly suggests, "We'd better get somewhere outside town for my Gift."

"I could create clouds of cyanide or maybe just give everyone cancer with asbestos," Samkelo cheekily remarks.

"Yeah, we should go somewhere better equipped to test that," I wryly agree.