Capture Target

Ah, see?  He’s --

…Fuck.

Where did she go…?

She was right here!  I swear it!

Oh don’t give me that look, I’m not crazy!  She was all ready to meet you and everything!

Argh!

Hrmph.

Maybe next time.

…Better happen next time…

…Y-yes, taking me shoe shopping would make me feel better.  Since we're already here and, and all, yeah.  Yeah.

…This is definitely not a date.

---

So, now that we're back and settled in, storytime.

Yes it was important I rearrange my shoe closet right after getting back, I have a very precise system, moving on.

It took a while for everybody to adapt to the aftermath of year three's not-so-final battle.  By the time we got all of the necessary cleanup done, we only had two months left in the year.  One month on campus, one month of vacation.  

One of the most surprising things was how little salvage there was from the Robolands.  Anything that was destroyed or non-functioning was there, sure, but the coalition's scouts and patrols couldn’t find a single functional robot in the entire area.

Which was… ugh.

Look, it doesn't make any sense, right?

Technically, we could account for any robot that we knew that we’d seen.  So, in theory, if the Empress had used her entire army against us, including throwing all her noncombat robots in an act of desperation, then everything checked out.

But that didn’t make any sense.

Not even one working robot?  Nothing got trapped underneath rubble, or was in the middle of being built?  Nothing in the palace, nothing left guarding the border.  Nothing at all?

Frankly that was half the reason the cleanup took so long; we were all scouring the Robolands trying to find hidden robot bunkers or something.

Not.  Fun.

The Wildlands and Farmlands went back to normal, mostly.  The Wildlands' raiding skirmishes died down a lot.  There was one modestly big raid that thought they could steal stuff while everybody had 'gone soft', but they stumbled into a trap that Big Bull and Hayato set, and the ransom the prisoners had to pay to get to go home was humiliating enough that neither they or anybody else tried anything afterwards.  

Big Bull organized a dueling circuit on the border as a vent for everybody that just liked fighting, and it got pretty popular pretty fast.  I never visited, but Shimizu liked it and said it went from just tents and dirt rings to buildings and arenas over the next couple of months.

And then there was Kaiser.

With Royal Champion Hayato snagging him as their personal student, Kaiser, from what I understand, rapidly found that his daily schedule of ‘ten percent fighting, ninety percent napping’ was changed into a much more tiring ‘ninety percent training, five percent collapsed and unconscious, and five percent fucking me’.

There was this hilarious image once when I walked in on Kaiser, and he was flipping this human sized book with the tip of his claws.  It was so tiny next to him and he looked miserable as he forced himself to learn ‘basic math’.

I love that moment.

So, so so much.

Especially because he fucked me after he realized I was there and saw him!

Sumiko, our newly diefied -- shut up, that is too a word! -- cow was subtly using her incredible, reality bending power to…!

…Produce more milk and make being milked feel better.

What?  There isn’t much she could do with it that would avoid being noticed.  She couldn’t even request knowledge using it, because that would send an alert to whatever goddess ran that system on the World Shard.

Ugh, fine, let me explain.

Say, for example, she wanted to know how the Atlantean Rifle worked in more detail.  She can scan it for information -- which she can, and did, regularly do -- or she can just ask to know from the World Shard.

The World Shard would then look up its sub-system of ‘technology’ -- which Roberta created and ran -- and give what was basically a manual on the item's construction and use to Sumiko.

But in so doing, Roberta would get a note that somebody… who very much wasn’t a ‘registered goddess’... was requesting information from her system.

We could probably have gotten away with that if we really wanted to.  In that example, Roberta wouldn’t know where the god in question was, or even who they were.  The most it would reveal is that somebody had managed to find a divine shard.

…But if we kept on using it to get information about things directly related to us, then somebody would catch on sooner or later.

We all decided it was best to just minimize the use of the shard.  We weren’t going to use it even in emergencies -- even one shard like that could prove to be a critical resource in the end.

Get it now?

Great!  Great.

It’s important to know because with… basically anybody else?

They would have abused their shard, thinking they were ‘clever’, and ended up getting caught.  Since the shard can simulate everything except other shard-holders, it’s very, very easy to think that ‘everything goes perfectly as planned’ in a simulation means ‘I'm invincible’ in reality.

Sumiko was the only one of us smart enough to know that wasn’t right.

I could pull it off if I had to, but Sumiko understood it innately.

I really appreciated our cow a lot more due to that.  She proved her trust and then some.  I actually asked that she make my last cybernetic for me… I had four out of five required for [Technosymbiosis], and I knew that she would make something brilliant.  I told her to take her time doing so, as I wanted something amazing.

Now, the others.

Shimizu was… uh…

…

Well she was basically just crashing Kaiser’s and Hayato’s lessons, frankly, to mug them for sparring matches.  It was a rare opportunity for growth for her, and she didn’t want to waste a single day.

Yuki was, out of everybody, the most normal of them all.  She was never the most involved in the third year's explorations, and she was having fun fucking me and Sumiko with her tentacles.

…

You know…

…I asked her, and she swore this wasn’t the case, but…

…I’m pretty sure that she had more tentacles then, than she did when she first got them.

I couldn’t tell for sure, but…

…Yeah.  Yeah, alright.

Moving on.

…Actually, moving on to the exact opposite of somebody who barely changed:  Omori.

If I didn’t know any better, I would swear that somebody had taken her place, or that she was an entirely different species.  She wasn’t pregnant when I went to see her, but that was the only thing that remained true of her original self.

Originally, she was at a tall for MISSY height of 5’6”, with brown hair that reached her shoulders.  She was gangly, with no real curves to speak of -- frankly, with the right makeup and clothing, she could easily have come across like a boy.

That was very much not the case now.

She had tits.

Mega-milkers.

Big Bouncy Boobies.

Massive Mangos.

Wonderful Watermelons.

I can keep going all day long, but I’ll let you off with just that for now~

The point was she had tits larger than her head that jutted out of her chest like she was more cow than human.  She was only wearing a simple wrap to hold them up, and her nipples, even soft, were more than thick enough to see poking through the fabric.

On her hips she was wearing a miniskirt and… frankly, I suspected she wasn’t wearing anything else?  I couldn’t actually tell.  She could, somehow, move in just the right way to keep me from glancing and seeing her panties -- or lack thereof, as the case may have been.

Speaking of hips, hers were handlebars, I swear, and her ass was practically a shelf with how firm it was, sticking out behind her.

Her [Angelic Womb Tattoo] was almost fully corrupted.  It was pulsing with a lewd purple light, making one think of sex and fucking and rutting.  The design was intricate, and the heart was nearly filled, with only the smallest sliver of bare skin left.

It was almost awe inspiring.

No, let me correct myself, that was wrong.

It was totally awe inspiring.

I could barely pay attention to the conversation we were having, whatever it was about, until I could get an answer as to just what she was doing.  

Why was she risking being so close to changing her blessing?  Why had she jumped so far down the depths of depravity?  Did she want us to stop teasing her, or not?

The answers were delicious, not that I realized it at the time.

I would before the month was out, though~

It turned out that Omori had discovered that she loved this new life of hers.  She adored it.  Being fucked by bulls daily, getting bred for eggs, milking her massive tits, needing to be carried around just to move at a proper pace due to a hugely pregnant belly…

She loved it all, and what she loved most of all was the sensation of getting worse.

She adored it.

And she thanked me for ‘showing her’ that.

She wouldn’t accept any of my flustered denials, and insisted that she thank me for ‘helping liberate’ her.

It turned out, the entire reason why she hadn’t finished off the transformation of her tattoo?

Was because she wanted it to happen due to the most extreme sex she could manufacture.

And she wanted me to join her as its victim.  To 'express my full and proper gratitude that mere words cannot convey'.

I, uh.  I kind of.

Fled.  After that.

---

I ended up fleeing to Seven’s office.  

It had been a while since we chatted, but there was a very good reason I ended up running to her!

I was avoiding Takeo.

…What’s with that look?!

I had a good reason to!

No I’m not going to tell --

EEK!  Not the spray bottle!  

Fucking -- fine!

Look.  It was [Romance Obsessed], okay?  

That blessing was the worst one that I’d gotten so far!  Its two traits are bullshit!  ‘Always know when somebody has genuine affection for you’ and ‘those that would match you well can more easily woo you’, I mean, come on?!

Why would anybody think I was a good match for Takeo?!

Okay, sure, he was super hot -- you know, when I let his aura affect me -- and yes, he was sometimes capable, and was always patient with me, and always tried to help me, and --

-- aaaargh!  I’m doing it again!

Hit me with the spray bottle!  

Do it!  

… … …I am now freezing cold and slightly wet.

That was a mistake.

But at least I’m calmer now.

The worst thing about [Romance Obsessed] was its first effect.  ‘Genuine affection’ was something that Shimizu felt strongly toward me, of course.  And also, in a lesser way, from Sumiko, Yuki, and Omori.  I knew we worked well together and I trusted them, but I didn’t think that they liked me.

But while for Shimizu it felt like a nice campfire, for Takeo it felt like a massive bonfire.

I could literally feel when he was nearby because of how potent his ‘affection’ for me was.

His genuine affection!

It was terrifying!

What was worse was that he didn’t act any different!

Still with that stupid, cute, ‘whatever’ look on his face, and his deep voiced complaints, and his piercing eyes that could see right through me, and --

…

Spray me again!

…I need a better solution than this, even if this works.

Anyway, to avoid Takeo, I spent time with Sevens, instead.

---

Nobody really spent time with Sevens.  

Not even in Takeo’s time loops, according to him.  She was always just -- kinda, there.  In her office.  People went to her with complaints, she answered them or didn't, and then they moved on.

Frankly, I thought and still think that that was a fair reaction.  Sevens wasn’t exactly the most sociable person even before she got burnt out, and she never made any attempt at connecting with -- uh -- anybody.  And she responded to other people's attempts at connecting with her with actual hostility.

But Shimizu was busy training, Omori was planning her ‘grand corruption gang-bang’, Sumiko was having fun being a cow, and Yuki was Yuki.

…And Takeo was Takeo.

I was in an odd mood that day, and letting myself be used in alleyways by random strangers wasn't as fun as it usually was.  So, on a whim, I went to hang out in Sevens' office.

I could tell that she was merely ‘tolerating’ me, instead of actually enjoying me being there, but eventually she -- actually asked me a question.  “Why do you enjoy it?”

Naturally I asked what ‘it’ was, and she clarified that she meant -- uh -- basically everything in the world of MISSY.  

Sex.  Getting corrupted.  Struggling to gain enough power to defeat the Evil God of Chastity and Purity.  Stuff like that.

This was the first time I had ever even heard of her asking a question -- a question for herself, instead of for her job -- so I took my time considering it.  It was a good question.  I had a lot of potential answers for her, but most of them were just… bad.

I could say ‘living is nice’, which was true, but a useless answer.  ‘It’s nice being useful’ was also true.  …And also useless.

‘I like my friends’, ‘I like having a purpose’, ‘I enjoy alchemy’, ‘Magic is really really awesome’, ‘I feel important’... all of those are true answers.

And none of them are useful.

They were all pointless things to say to her.  Sevens wasn’t asking me how I enjoyed it.  She was asking why I enjoyed it.

What, at its core, made this life enjoyable to me?

So I thought about it.

I really did.

Sevens didn’t even nag me about how long I was taking as I leaned back in my chair, possibilities going around in my head.

Ultimately, there was only one real answer.

Really, I, uh, I knew that from the start.  I just didn’t want to admit it.  Not to Sevens, and not to myself.

The answer is pretty obvious when you think about it.

“...Because I find it fun.”

You could say whatever you like about the morals of the situation.  About how awful everything was.  About how this was going to ruin my life.

All of that was -- is, really -- probably true.

I’d probably even agree with it.

But it also doesn’t matter.

I had a goal.  I wanted to save that world.  So I was going to keep on trying to do that.

As for why I was enjoying it?  Why my mood remained positive?

…That was because it was fun.

It was a blast.

I was pushing my brain to its limit every week, trying to find the optimal number and kinds of goods to produce.  How to get what resources when.  Which paperwork I could file ahead of time without getting in trouble.

And the sex!

Good goddesses, the sex was amazing!  And it was only getting better!

Every time I was warped, every single time, sex got even better for me.  It was like my own personal debauched orgy!

Why wouldn’t I be having fun with that?!

I didn’t want to admit it because admitting it would mean I agreed with Omori.

…But admit it I did, and Sevens slowly nodded with my words.  Clearly thinking it over.

Then she asked the magic question.

She asked, “Can you show me?”