Haha, you thought I was dead? Nah. Just lazy. This one's been on the backburner for way too long though.

Reviews? Should I go about that? Yeah. I think I should.

Huh. Well um... Besides a blanket thank you, there doesn't appear to be much to reply to this time. Thank you all for your kind words, and I'll try to get off my butt to get more work done. Sound fair? Kay, let's go!

Bleeble bleep.

I pause, looking ahead for a moment. I'm staring at the loss screen again, but my vision is even further out. How long has it been now since I've done anything? Sure, this situation is comfy…

"Thanks, Nepgear." I say, nodding at the Candidate who had just brought in fresh tea for me and the others, as well as additional cookies for Neptune.

But it's been weeks. Weeks without doing anything. Even a month - God, I hope the others are doing all right. Uni and Noire haven't so much as tried to call us since they returned back home, MAGES. went with Vert back to Leanbox, and Marvy went with Blanc. So, it's just me, RED, the Nep sisters, and IF and Compa. And Compa isn't even around much these days… She's using the downtime to study more medicine. Good for her, but man, it's boring having no one around.

Neptune lightly jabs a finger into my side, irritated at me and my indecision. The screen shows a very obvious 'player not ready' line, made all the worse by everyone else's bright 'ready' text. "Heeey! What's the holdup, guy? Just because we kicked your butt doesn't mean you get to hold us up by playing the long game! That's a loser's strategy!"

I shake my head, and carefully put the controller down. RED and IF stare at me in confusion, while Neptune just keeps her arms crossed.

"Hey, uhh… Nepgear? Can you take my spot?" I ask, getting up, catching the Candidate before she can leave the room again. "I just realized that I need to do something."

"But she's doing tea and cookie runs!" whines Neptune. "If she takes your place, then who'll get us cookies, huh?"

I sigh. "Nepgear? Which would you rather do? Get her cookies, or play?"

There's an awkward pause, before the Candidate replies, "Well… Ummm… If it's not too much of a big deal… I'd like to play the game, please?"

"Well, there you go." I state, folding my arms, and getting up for Nepgear to take my seat. "I got a few things I need to do. See you later, alright?"

Neptune pauses, and then gives me a side-eye. "What, are you going to go check on your girlfriend?~"

"Dunno." I shoot back, not really caring too much. Neptune can believe what she wants, but if I don't get back into the swing of things... "Why haven't you talked to yours?"

Judging by the wide-mouthed stare I get back in return as I turn to leave the room, I can't help but grin in satisfaction. Taste that one, Neptune.

"M-my heart… Ooow…" I can hear Neptune murmur, as I close the door behind me. I can also see Nepgear just blinking at me confused. She'll get it eventually.

Wandering through the halls isn't productive, but it at least gets the blood flowing. I've done nothing but sit around, eat, play games… Basically the most hedonistic thing I've ever done, if you discount the entirety of my previous life. And that life didn't make me happy, now did it?

I shake my head. The past is the past. Let's see what I can do in the present.

I weave between the hallways, listening for a very specific sound.

"Neptune! Nepgear! Where are you?! I have important work I need you to help me with!"

And there it is. Cruising at around head (their) level, or upper body (my) level, is the fairy that I'm looking for - one very distressed looking Histoire. She's got papers trailing behind her, like depressed legal confetti. One of the Basilicom workers is just barely visible in the distance, likely collecting all of the mess she's leaving behind.

"Hello, Lad- I mean Histoire," is my greeting. It's been long enough that I can drop the superlative. At least I personally hope so. Mostly just because Histoire is such a mouthful anyway. And I'd rather die before I start calling her 'Histy'.

God, I'm really thinking like Neptune now. Soon I'll be nicknaming everyone. Nope. We fix this now. Even if it's more work.

"Hello, Lady Histoire." I correct myself. "How are you?"

The fairy pauses, and then slowly turns towards me, sweat on her brow. "Oh, hello Mister Matthews. I've been looking for Neptune and Nepgear… It's been quite some time and although I can do most of the Basilicom's work without their input, there has been quite an influx on things they should probably be aware of."

"Well, they're off-…" I begin, before I shake my head. Snitching on them solves nothing, and it's not like they'd be productive without a real reason anyway. "They're off… somewhere. Do you have anything I can do? I'm starting to get a bit stir-crazy just sitting around all day."

Histoire pauses for a moment, bobbing around. "While I doubt you would enjoy… On second thought…" The fairy sighs, looking down. "As much as I'd love to have help with some of these documents… Offloading Planeptune official documents to a third party would be both unethical and irresponsible."

I roll my eyes back at her. "Well, are there any non-essential quests that I can do?"

That earns me a stare.

I stare back.

Histoire says nothing for several moments, before she finally breaks the silence. "You… do remember that we have a Guild for that specific purpose, correct?"

Oh.

Oh.

Judging by the snickering I get from Histoire, my face must be hilarious.

"I can forget things too, sometimes!" I sputter, but I know there's no escaping this one. I only can hang my head in shame.

"Do you need assistance in finding the Guild, or can you accomplish that yourself?" smiles the fairy.

"No no… I'm fine. Thank you for offering, Lady Histoire."

The fairy waves me off as I leave for the entrance, in hopes of putting my skills to good use.

Now I remember why I disliked this place. There's so much buzz. So many people. And everything is so tightly packed.

Even worse, I get a feeling that this place is even more busy than it was before. Having the CPUs out of the Graveyard to bolster morale and rally the troops must mean that there's even more bodies going about than before. Ugh.

I end up gravitating towards the first board that's open, and whoo hoo, it's Virtua Forest. Maybe I can go into the depths again. I remember the last time I went there: I almost got eaten by a spider and got rescued entirely by accident. Good times, good times.

Slowly, I flip from page to page. Standard hunt missions, standard collect missions, all for stuff I probably could massacre without much effort. I look about at the other boards, but the crowds around them are so thick that they don't look like they'll ever disperse.

With a sigh, I reach for a piece of paper, before the blur of a sprinting person slams a new quest onto the board in front of me. I turn towards them, blinking.

This new, brown-haired kid is covered in bruises and blue goop, and appears to have a black eye. and the quest they put up:

'Defeat the Dastardly Dogoo!'

'A strange, extremely powerful Dogoo is menacing the outer parts of Virtua Forest! It captured my friends! Please help!'

I stare at the adventurer, who only shivers in either fear or panic.

"Hey, kid." I say, poking them. "What level are you? Five? Six?"

There's a pause, and a blink of confusion from the quest poster, before they turn towards me.

"Um… Well… We're all level twelve… Me and my three buddies." states the low-leveled adventurer. "Th-they're still trapped in there with that thing! Please tell me you are willing to help? B-but be careful! It's unlike anything we've ever seen!"

I stare at the kid. On one hand, it's a Dogoo. How dangerous could it be?

On the other hand, it's a world of recolors and palette swaps. It could very well be a superboss. But still, three kids are in trouble. Might as well help, right? Neptune sure as hell isn't going to get off her ass any time soon.

"Yeah… Sure." I state, stretching and going for the paper. "I'll just sign up, alright?"

The kid grins widely, and nods excitedly. "Th-thank you mister! I-I was hoping to have someone see the quest within the next twenty minutes, b-but for it to-"

I shake my head good-naturedly. If it's a dangerous thing, I'll just distract it and let the kid take his friends away, then call in help to carpet bomb the area. I'm certain Nepgear would be more than willing to spend some time to rescue some of her people.

"Just show me the way, alright?"

Ahh, Virtua Forest. The place where I woke up, all of that unspecified length of time ago. How long's it been since I've last been here? I can't help but take in a deep breath of the fresh air, and be thankful that whatever trees are here, they aren't the horrid pollen-spewing monstrosities that we have back home. The fact that there's no cherry blossoms here is also a big plus. They're great plants, visually, but the pollen causes nasal agony like nothing else.

"Th-they're right there!" squeaks my escortee, pointing into the shrubbery. Following his outstretched finger, I can see three stereotypical adventurers cowering against a large tree, as a Dogoo bobbles on the ground in front of them. A Unicorn Dogoo. Wait…

Blinking my eyes thrice to confirm I'm not seeing things, I walk closer. A few of the kids stare at me, and shake their heads frantically, but I just shrug and walk closer.

The moment I get close enough, the Dogoo slowly hops in place, until it faces me. It's a regular Dogoo, blue and happy looking, but it has a knife sticking out of its forehead, blade out.

I stare at the Dogoo. It stares back at me.

"Run! Save yourself!" shrieks one of the novice adventurers. Immediately, his friends throw their hands over the kid's mouth, probably to avoid drawing the 'monster's' attention.

I just stare at the Dogoo, and then at the kids it's holding hostage. Strangely enough, this Dogoo seems more solid than the usual, as if parts of itself had solidified and are slowly being reabsorbed.

Almost like it was recovering from a burn.

"Is there a reason you're menacing these people?" I ask, not entirely sure how to proceed.

If slimes could shrug, then yes, that Dogoo definitely shrugged.

"Gooey." replies the Dogoo.

I just sigh, and dig through my pocket. Where are they? Ah, here they are.

Slowly, I pull out a handful of Goosberries, and wave them in front of the Dogoo. Its eyes widen, and it hops to the side and waits for me. I take a seat beside it, and lay the berries on the ground. I need more of them at some point - that was my last batch.

I just sigh. That reaction seals the deal. "Fancy seeing you here, Seamus. I told you to stay out of trouble."

"GoobleDoo." replies Seamus, bobbling happily as it pounces on the berries. Yep. That's Seamus, alright. It chews for a bit longer, before it burps, and spits up a scrap of ASIC uniform.

Looking up, I can see the kid I brought with me grabbing his friends. Good.

"So, what are you guarding this time, buddy? And who did you take that knife from?"

"Doogoo gooomoo." burbles Seamus. Right. He can't talk. Sometimes I forget that.

I try a different tactic. "Can you show me?"

The slime looks at me, and at my empty hands. Then back at me, before it begins to hop off.

I can hear the kid hiss behind me, "I'll leave your reward at the guild, thank you mister!", but I'm not really interested in his money. It's not like I really need anything when the CPUs are paying for my stay. Let's see what this Dogoo has found.

Seamus hops deeper and deeper into the forest, past several trees, before finally taking me to a cave opening. It smells acrid and damp, like a limestone cavern after a heavy rain. I look at him, before shining a light in.

Dozens of blobs stare back at me, each a different color of the rainbow. None of them seem particularly aggressive: in fact, most of them seem pretty scared.

"So what, buddy? Are you looking to start a family or something?" I muse, looking at the blobs. If I were to guess, there's men, women and children in here. Or whatever term is best suited for this motley assortment of goos.

"God dooo." blurbs Seamus, rolling his eyes. He bounces again, before leading me past the cave. And towards a familiar figure lying prone on the ground that makes me pause.

It's a humanoid creature, broken and bruised. Its limbs are twisted and damaged, and it's leaking a dark fluid onto the ground. But as I look into its eyes, I finally recognise it as the same creature we saw up in Lowee. Last time I saw one of these, they were used as mindless monster cannon fodder to defend the Loweean prison. If I remember correctly, MAGES. dubbed them Shades, after the glasses ASIC had put on them.

The entire creature is also covered in a light layer of blue goo; it seems like the big Goo had some say in its mostly-neutralized state. It's definitely not dead, but it's not going anywhere any time soon. It hisses at me aggressively as I approach.

I gulp. "So… Is this still here because you can't kill it, or because you wanted someone to find it before it could eat all of the Dogoos in the forest?"

Seamus stares at me for a moment, before just launching itself at the Shade, landing hard and popping it into data and random loot.

He stares at me with a proud look on his face. I smile back at him, but look at the remains.

"Yeah yeah, I get it. You're strong. Fuck, if these things are loose then it means-"

"Goobledooom!" interjects the slime, jumping straight up.

"Yes, that."

I sigh again, and absentmindedly pet the Dogoo, only to jab myself on the knife in its head. Ouch!

As I hold my hand and check it for injuries, I'm left to consider the options. One, this could be a ploy-

Wait. If there's only one in the forest, then that means it escaped. No one would ever just release one of something. And a forest like this definitely won't like having an invasive predator. Especially not a low-level one such as this.

And if one escaped, that means…

Oh god. There are more of these things somewhere nearby. Purposefully being held, otherwise they'd be running around all over the forest.

"We… probably should alert the others about this, right?", I murmur, looking down at the slime.

Seamus only bounces once, before hopping off. "Goo!" he barks, urging me to leave.

Great.

With a sigh, I turn back the way I came. I guess I have some explaining to do. And it seems like ASIC is far from done with its bag of tricks.