A Gamer's Guide 375

Hm. Odd. This sensation… Very strange. 

Garath. Analysis?

<Once, I knew a dragon with excellent

skill in removing only certain parts of a

a goblin’s brain. Perhaps those abilities 

might come in use for you now?>

You make an excellent point. Unfortunately, I am too far gone for mere lobotomies. At this point, only a full removal of my cerebrum will be enough. It was a sweet thought, though! 

<Always happy to help, Kitty.>

Excellent. 

Leaning back, I let myself relax a bit while Garath finds an actual city for us to land at. It’s starting to approach afternoon, so Lett is probably growing quite hungry. Specifically, the clock is almost fourteen, which means it’s almost time to go and water the—

Oh. Yeah, right. Can’t water the flowers, they’re gone. Alongside the rest of the garden. It’s all gone. Poof, just like that. Hmm. I don’t feel too bad, though. Losing things doesn’t really make me sad anymore. In this case, it isn’t very bad, but… Wouldn’t it be awful if I lost Lett and I didn’t feel sad about it? But it’s also sort of nice. If you don’t think about it, it’s like it doesn’t exist. Everyone who’s ever left me is still in my heart and I’m still pretending that they love me. 

Absently, I use the summon rat skill to turn my hand into a rat. It appears and falls into my lap, fat and confused. For a second, there’s uncertainty to it—a whole new world. But then it looks up at me and its beady little eyes fill with innate, unshakable love and trust and it curls up, certain that it is in a safe place.

Oh, yeah, I edited the rat skill to make it so… Well, strictly speaking, I made it so the summoned rats are technically my followers, which in turn means that they are under the effect of my Evil Emotion Editor X3000 skill. I had hoped that this would make them follow my every command, but instead, they just look at me like this. I can’t say I fully enjoy it, but on, the other hand… It’s really cute. 

I pet the rat for a few minutes while we ride. Once I start feeling Garath begin to descend, I put the rat in my inventory, together with my hundreds of other live rats. Gosh, they would make for a great diversion, wouldn’t they?

You’ll never catch me alive! Behold, my rat horde!! And then I release them and it’s like an avalanche, a ravalance if you will, and the bad guys get drowned in rats, and…

The ground approaches. Ah, there’s the city.

<...And?>

And what?

<The bad guys, drowned in rats.

What then?>

Uh, I… I don’t know? Sorry, I got distracted by the city and now I have no idea where it was going. 

Until this moment, I did not know dragons could click their tongue.

<Ensure that you tell me 

should you recall any details.>

…I will?

Uncertain if he wants me to do anything else in the moment, he touches down, a few hundred meters from the city. It looked pretty small from above, so it isn’t surrounded by walls or anything, and it only had a few larger structures, specifically two churches and a castle. Dang, I really want to check them out, but I don’t think I can bring Garath into the city… On that note, if I leave him completely alone and someone tries to attack him, couldn’t that become problematic? Maybe if I leave Lett with him? But then people might think it’s a kidnapping, and they’ll be even more insistent on attacking him… Hrrrm, this is complicated…

<I wish I had an answer.>

Yeah. You’re huge, and even though you’re all white, you’re still really obvious. 

It’s a shame I didn’t make you smaller when I brought you back.

<Do you think you could do that?>

Maybe? I’m not sure, actually. It all happened pretty much by itself, not much input on my part. I’d say you turned out pretty good, though!

<Perhaps.>

Oh, I have an idea! What if you exercised lots and ate less? Then you might shrink down a bit!

<I have no need for either. 

However, you may be right.>

Yeah. I guess we can only hope—

There’s a pop and a burst and now both I and Lett are falling, completely airborne despite Garath carrying us, except Garath is gone, and now…

I throw my arms around Lett and summon a few dozen rats to break our fall with a squeaky soft cushion, which we do after one, two, three… Squeak! The cracks are fairly light so I can assume that Lett didn’t break anything, which is good. The both of us roll off of the pile of rats just in time for something large and heavy to smash into the pile with a loud, dull THUD. What the hell was—

I look over at the pile of rats to find an angel sunk deep into it, face-down and groaning. Still holding Lett, I try to make sense of what I’m looking at, which isn’t very easy because it’s literally an angel. And I don’t mean in the way that Simon is an angel, no, this is an actual human with wings. Which isn’t to mention the shoulder-length, golden locks of hair taken straight out of a shampoo commercial or the bulging, log-sized muscles. Also, considering that the pile of rats that easily cushioned both myself and Lett has been completely lost beneath his form, I would suspect that he is, on top of everything else, absurdly tall.

“What is—who…?” Lett says, rightfully confused. 

A sentiment I happen to agree with! Who the heck is that?

We watch in amazement as the angel flails a bit, seemingly unable to use his arms properly, before finally grabbing a hold of the pile beneath him to try to push himself up. Since the pile happens to be made up of dozens of live rats instead of anything solid, he fumbles the grip and rolls off the pile, landing supine in front of us. Somehow, I’m not surprised to find that he has the chiselled features of a movie star who solely performs as barbarians and action heroes. You could cut diamonds with his perfectly shaved chin!

He has enough chest to bench-press a locomotive and, frankly, he might be the buffest man I’ve ever seen. Every breath he takes displaces about two hams’ worth of pecs. He has a perpetual ten-pack. I feel bad for him, because I’ve read that models who try to look this ripped have to do a water-restriction diet, which sounds painful. 

In isolation, this all makes for a pretty striking case of who the heck are you? But I thankfully have some clues to work with. For one, he doesn’t have the standard two wings on his back, but rather four. Furthermore, he has the five horns on his head—three to crown his forehead, two snaking down the sides like that of a ram—and the eyes that look up at me in shock and dawning realization are pink. 

So, yes, but all means, I think this is Garath. Or, I guess, you’re Garath. 

“What have

<you do

ne with me?”

Ah, that’s not… 

Lett retreat furthers into my arms, away from Garath who now appears like a stranger.

“It, uh, would appear that…” I chuckle a little too forcefully, making the sound strained and desperate rather than relaxing. “I hoped a little too hard?”

Breathing unsteadily, he stares up at me, his vibrant pink eyes shaking back and forth. 

“Or, well, we hoped a little too hard, I guess. You know this, but, the skill only works if we both hope hard enough for it to happen, so…” But this is absurd, right? It was barely a desire! Heck, half of it was just me joking, so how did it turn out like this? 

“What…” He clears his throat. “What has become of me?” His voice is low and rumbly like you would expect, but his accent has changed completely. He’s talking with the exaggerated enunciation of an actor on stage before the invention of microphones, clear and almost regal. It is exactly how I would expect that face to sound, so I’m not exactly surprised, but…

A trembling smile reaches my lips. “I think you’ve become how I would expect you to look as a human?” Or maybe how I would visualize the angel Gabriel, minus the flaming sword. But he does have… “How about you put something on?” 

“Put me back,” he says, still on his back. “Whatever this is, I do not want to be this. Undo it with your miracle.”