Chapter 132: Best Dad of All Lifetimes!
Chapter 132: Best Dad of All Lifetimes!
I went to the kitchen downstairs where Drainia was first after sending Lesha off to go sit with Trinity. Drania was my long-time friend through all the games as my guide. She had been affected by what Reginold did the worst.
She had been forced to lie to me and distract me from my goal with small and seemingly innocent tasks, but they started to add. Thankfully there was always Lishtani to help straighten out the lies.
Lishtani had not been directly affected like all of us had. She was loaded into the game as my quirk, and for some reason, that protected her.
Even then, there were restrictions put on the entire game. Now the main restrictions were gone, and even the disposable desk jockey gods restrictions had been lifted.
This meant that Dave had done something, a reset or a wipe that cleared out all the old blocks that had been restricting what we could talk about. That still left the ones that had been affected directly, all my girls, but Blank/Gripton gave me the program to fix that.
I walked behind the bar where a smiling Gram was, and I stopped to give the old furball a hug. I wasn't a bitch; I just knew what I had time for and what I didn't.
"So, you started out with a measly five Guild members in a run-down little hall? Now, a month later, and boom! You don't even look like the same girls that I had met then," Gram said as he stroked himself.
"That's because I'm actually more than ten times as old as you," I said quietly as I leaned in conspiratorially.
"What?!" Gram started, but I put a finger to my lips, and his eyes went big.
I turned and left him, heading into the kitchen, and smiled when I saw Liena with Drania and Gobby. While I didn't really approve of Gobby helping with food preparation, seeing the three of them together like that was heartwarming.
I first walked up to Liena and took her into a hug that she seemed very startled by but returned immediately without a second thought. The stupid me from before never truly appreciated the things that this woman had done for me, and she deserved some recognition for it.
"That you for everything that you have done for my father and me over the years. I have never truly told you how grateful I was to have you in my life growing up," I said as I felt Liena's grip tighten on me as she began to shake and cry softly.
"I have waited a long time to hear you say those words, and even if you weren't really that girly, you always treated me with respect and listened to what I told you, even if you never implemented," Leina said as she pulled away from me and whipped her eyes.
"True, but now I have changed back to what I consider my real self. So, my personality will be different than what you are used to," I explained, but then I turned to Drania. "I need to see your Real Eyes."
She froze, and blue light Instantly encased Drania, and the screens started to load up with the virus scanner. Liena had jumped back in shock, but I put a hand out, signaling for her to slow down and just wait.
I waited, and soon the blue light vanished, and I set forward to catch her. She was alright, but coming back from those memories and finding out the truth of it all was still going to be complicated.
"Are you okay?" I asked as Drania leaned into me for support.
"Yes, it was just a lot to take in after being without my own mind for so long. I'm dead in the place that we call the real world, and this is a game that was supposed to be repurposed as our new home," Drania said out loud.
"Yes, but the same person that killed you all is in this game trying to take it over. Now, are you going to be okay, Drania? I need every one of you girls at one-hundred percent, so if there is anything that you want to talk about, I and everyone else are here to help you and talk with you if you need. You are not alone," I explained to her as I held her close, and she nodded her head.
"I will be okay, but can we go do L now? I really just want to see her, and we need to talk. I was forced to lie to her so many times and talk poorly about her. I love her more than anything, and I didn't mean to do these things," Drania said as we pulled apart, and I nodded to her.
"Yes, and L knows that. She is the next one on the list, but I will send her down to you when I am done, okay?" I asked, and she nodded at me.
I turned to go and almost tripped over the arms that were sweeping the floors awkwardly. I had almost forgotten about them, but I stepped around them and made my way out.
In the near future, I was going to have to do some more expanding, but I needed to deal with the girls first. Then wake the island up and get this beast moving to the first dungeon that we would need to start grinding.
The dungeon had the Soul Gems and the other raw materials we would need to make special weapons and armor. We also needed to start getting more people to the cores, but that was a whole other question itself.
If I brought more than one person to the Dungeon Core, could more than one person activate it? There were no Dungeon Cores like this in the Game Worlds, so I didn't have much for a reference.
I had reached the top of the first flight of stairs. This was the smith shop level where Lishtani said she would be, and I turned to the door, but I could hear muffled shouting coming from inside, and I rolled my eyes.
I walked over and opened the door to the sounds of the twins fighting, and I could see the two yelling at each other with bare centimeters between them. As I walked in, I saw my father and Lishtani each sitting on an anvil stump with the anvils on the floor beside them.
"You're nothing but a useless cheat that ran away after you won, so you never had to face me again!" Crass shouted, but Gastbo retorted back.
"You just can't let that go? Twenty years now, and all you want to do is bicker like always! You can't even just say that I beat you fair and square!" Gastbo smeared back, making Crass's face turn red in frustration.
"Fine! You bet me! But no, it's time to see who has improved the most over the years! You did win, but you and I both know that the judges have an extra day just to pick from the two of us to be the winner!" Crass shouted.
"Pft! Why should I ruin my perfect score? Just so I can humiliate you in front of everyone, AGAIN?! I am your brother, not some heartless vagrant off the streets! I would never dream of doing a thing for my own brother," Gastbo said with sarcasm.
"Ah, see? Your cowardly nature always likes to show up for the challenge? I didn't really think you were man enough to accept the challenge anyway, but I bet James would, right?" Crass asked as he looked over to my grinning father.
"Yeah, but you boys quit your bickering while my daughter is up here," James said as he stood up from his stump.
I walked over and gave him a hug, but I looked over James' shoulder and into Lishtani's eye and spoke the activation words. She was frozen in a smile as the blue light was instantly covering her, and I heard the twins shout out.
"Hey, what the hell is that?!" Gastbo shouted as he noticed the light.
My father pulled away from me to see what he was talking about.
"K, What's going on with the goddess?" James asked me, looking over Lishtani.
"I need to do this to each of the girls. We are all players in a game that is outside of this world, and there are many other worlds that we have already traveled to, but something happened when we first came in," I explained to him, but stopped there after seeing the total and utter confusion on my fathers face.
That was right, he was an A.I. specially created for the Zodiac worlds. James only had knowledge of this world, so I might as well have been talking in another language as I tried to explain it to him.
"Just know that I will still treat you as my father since I have not really had any good ones that were around in my memories with all the lives. That I have lived, "I explained to him, and the confused look disappeared, and he got a big grin.
"So you're telling me you're some born again god?" James asked me.
"Something like that," I said to him.
"And I'm the best dad you had in all the lifetimes you have lived, right?" he asked, getting a thoughtful expression on his face.
"Yes" I said, letting my voice trail off as I raised an eyebrow at him, but my father wasn't even looking at me.
"Yup, going to get that put on a cup! Best Dad of All Lifetimes!" James said to himself as he walked away from me.