QT: Against My Will

99 3.01.04 – World story – Downfall of Humanity

Bing Shi in a white t-shirt and shorts, waited for Kuro to return.

[Host I’m back. Here are your things.]

A phone and a harddisk appeared in Bing Shi’s hands; she hugged them like they were treasures worth cities.

[“Thank you. Give me a few minutes. You can play around for the time being.”]

[Can I stay with you?]

[“You can.”]

Bing Shi placed Kuro on her lap.

[“Do you want to see him?”]

Seeing its nod, she asked for a charger and charged up her phone. Turning it on, she showed it their photos and some videos.

.....

[“You see, Xuan Mu had a bad habit of scratching his chest during his sleep when he goes on a business trip for more than two days. So I bought an overall shark pajamas for him. This is a first, and the last time I saw him wearing it.”]

Bing Shi giggled and showed Kuro the video where she was chasing after Xuan Mu in a shark pajamas, trying to capture the moment.

° Start of Flashback...

° The whole time a girl’s joyous laughter could be heard in the background of the video.

° “Bing Shi, I’d rather have no sex for a week, than wear this horrendous thing,” said Xuan Mu, who ran out of the walk-in closet towards the bedroom, while unbuttoning the pajamas.

° “Noooo, don’t take it off!” Bing Shi wearing eyeglasses, ran after him with laughter. Putting the camera on the nightstand, she jumped on Xuan Mu’s back, stopping him from undressing, ready to fight for shark pajamas’ justice, saying, “It’s cold in Russia. What if you catch a cold?”

° “I got an anti-cold shot,” Xuan Mu untangled her and threw Bing Shi on the soft bed. He stripped himself out of the pajamas, showing her his solid body.

° Instead of appreciating the yummy sight, Bing Shi looked down at the piece of dark gray clothing on the floor. Picking it up, she wore it herself and looked at Xuan Mu with grief-filled eyes.

° Xuan Mu sent her a flying kiss and walked towards the closet.

° Bing Shi seeing his action, jumped back on his bare back, saying, “I wasted like my entire fortune on it.”

° Xuan Mu chuckled. With a fluffy shark on his back, he walked towards the camera with a sly smile, “I’ll pay you back with my body, alright?”

° “Alright,” Bing Shi snuggled her head on his shoulder. Her silver frames sent a cold sensation to his neck. “At least wear a T-shirt.”

° “I’ll be gone for three days. Will you miss me?” Feeling a light peck on his shoulder, Xuan Mu smiled and turned off the camera.

° End of the flashback...

[“He is so charming! His voice can always turn me into jelly. And that smileee.”]

Bing Shi behaved like a fan-girl meeting her idol. Fanning her tears away, she melted every time Xuan Mu smiled or laughed.

[Host he avoided your last sentence.]

[“Oh, he didn’t avoid it. There was a clear answer. What he meant was: A simple T-shirt can’t solve it. End of discussion.”]

Answered Bing Shi in a good mood.

[...How do you know it?]

[“We can read each other moods and thoughts. No kidding! I know him more than I know myself! The same goes for him. About the video... Scars created by weapons and words are the same. Because we only had each other, we didn’t want to hurt the other in any way. Xuan Mu didn’t want to hurt me with his words, and I assured him that I understand.”]

A short video was enough to charge Bing Shi fully. She asked Kuro for a portable printer and a white gold locket bangle. She showed Kuro which picture she wanted to print out, their first photo in her apartment in Sydney. Receiving the scissors, she cut the picture into a shape of a locket and put the bangle on her wrist.

(A/N: To see the bangle check this paragraph comment.)

[“Kuro, are you going to upgrade?”]

Bing Shi asked with a happy grin, satisfied with her new accessory.

[I was about to ask that. You can upgrade your inventory, so you can draw out larger items, or prolong the duration of pills to 10 minutes with a 25-minute cooldown. So far, you could draw out pills for 5 minutes with a 25-minute cooldown. Regular medicine is not counted.]

[“I don’t need larger items. I want a bigger snake.”]

Said Bing Shi with a grin.

[“Kuro, you have no idea how much emotions I can draw out of people with a huge snake next to me. Imagine a combat system. How cool it would be?”]

She patted Kuro’s head.

[“You have faster reflexes and a broader field of vision, those self-improving skills would be such a waste on me.”]

[Other Hosts like to depend on themselves. After finishing their world missions, they could bring self-improving skills with them.]

[“I know...How is it possible to draw out so many items for free?”] Bing Shi asked.

Kuro got used to her neverending questions and answered with a calm genderless voice.

[These items were always here, but nobody bought them ever. The items started to pill up. Hence the headquarters decided to implement this function to me.]

That was one of the reasons. Kuro was forbidden to say that Bing Shi’s missions were one of the harder ones. Depending on the host missions and personality, HQ would pair the Host with a suitable system.

[“Woah, that’s amazing. I never thought about that,”] said Bing Shi.

Kuro disappeared again.

‘I always wanted a talking pet snake that doesn’t need to be fed.’

‘Xuan Mu, Kuro is so me!’

‘A total mood killer.’

Bing Shi giggled and continued to listen to recordings and pictures.

[Host, I’m back.]

[“Welcome back.”] Bing Shi put down her headphones and reluctantly gave the items for Kuro to store. [“How did it go?”]

[You saved Headquarters lots of resources when I said that you wanted a big snake, they went a bit overboard with me, LOL.]

[“Huh? Really? Show yourself then.”] Bing Shi laughed.

The whole 20 square void room was stuffed with Kuro’s body, which was thick like a tree and long like a whale.

“OH, MY GOODNESS!!!! Bwahaha!” Bing Shi clutched her stomach from too much laughing; her happiness was apparent.

(A/N: To see Kuro check this paragraph comment.)

The HQ didn’t feel any loss. Because Bing Shi refused teachers in a dojo and considering her average IQ, which would make it hard for her to master something, she saved them lots of EP. (Energy points) Thought she asked for a few things from a highly protected dimension, it was like nothing for them. Not upgrading the dimensional storage also saved them lots of EP. They upgraded Kuro’s size only, which was considered their property. In their eyes, she was making a huge loss! It was just too good to refuse.

They didn’t know that Bing Shi didn’t give up anything.

‘Make a connection with the HQ. ?’

‘Try to demand things from them, but nothing overbearing. Take a loss to lower their guard. ?’

‘It seems like HQ are not that smart, they could ask if I wanted to download the content from my phone and hard disk to save EP. Maybe they were lying, but I don’t think so because...’

‘They gave me a gigantic snake?! ?’

‘Ask if I can appear in worlds in my current body. X’

‘Ask about Xuan Mu. X’

[“Kuro change into a regular-sized snake, about 3 meters would do.”]

Bing Shi said with a gleeful smile.

[“We can start the next mission.”]