I walked forward in the endless dark expanse toward the two glowing buttons. I raised my arm to click the respawn when a screen suddenly popped up in front of me.

Huh.

This hasn't happened before.

[Calculating lifespan and actions...]

I watched as a loading screen popped up below those words. Was there internet in this place or something?

[Calculated.]

The screen let out a ding and confetti rained down around me.

[Congratulations!]

I let out a sneeze, confetti flying out of my nose.

[You have been awarded: +1 Combat, +1 Physique.]

Well, I certainly didn't feel stronger. Was this a new feature?

The screen faded away which left me alone with the two glowing buttons again. I waved my hand around the space where the screen formerly was.

Nothing happened.

I'll figure this out next time. Onwards to my next respawn!

I smashed my fist down onto the [Respawn with Current Character] button, my body disappearing from the space.

I appeared a few meters away from where my former body lay dead on the ground.

Taking in a deep breath of fresh air, I let out a deep sigh.

"Ah."

The wind blew past, tickling my balls.

"It feels good to be back."

I looked around, spotting my corpse on the ground. I walked over, clicking my tongue.

"What a handsome fella."

I pulled it away in a fireman's carry toward some nearby bushes.

"Too bad he's not as handsome as me though."

I dumped the body into the leaves, clapping my hands in satisfaction. I'll leave this here for some unsuspecting travelers to discover.

It's not my problem anymore; I've done my good deed for the day.

I walked over, picked up the dropped water bottles (and sign), and continued on my journey.

This was life.

Walking naked on a road, taking an occasional swig of water.

But seriously. What a good Samaritan. Leaving all those bottles of water out there just in case I got thirsty.

They were almost as kind as me.

"Hey! Stop right there!" I heard someone shout from behind me.

I started running.

If someone you don't know tells you to stop, you don't stop.

Unless it's the cops.

Then you run even faster.

A young girl suddenly jumped out from some bushes in front of me.

She held out a palm toward me, her pink ponytails swinging around.

"STOP!"

I turned around to see the owner of the voice from earlier telling me to stop.

It was a young teenage boy with short brown hair.

"Hey, centaur! Do you know where you are right now?" He asked me in a questioning tone.

Another boy with spiky golden hair jumped out from the bushes beside me, nodding.

Where are they coming from? Is that the last one?

"Looks like he doesn't know where he's at, Henry. Let's teach this centaur a little lesson."

The girl in front of me spoke up.

Oh, they wanted a fight.

"That's not a bad idea, Sar-"

Before the boy with short brown hair, Henry, finished talking, I attacked.

Although I almost lost to a chicken, don't underestimate me. I was a karate master.

I swung the sign in my hand toward the nearest target.

The boy with spiky hair fell to the ground clutching his bleeding nose.

"BILL!"

His comrades screamed in unison.

"Why'd you hit Bill!?" The girl, Sara, ran to the boy's side. "He didn't even do anything!"

Oh.

Was I not supposed to do that?

I scratched my head in confusion. I thought they wanted to fight.

Henry cleared his throat and stared at me with a serious look.

"No one has ever stood up to the Trio of Tyranny like that before."

He sounded thoroughly impressed.

Bill, still bleeding from his nose, stood up with a serious face.

"Yeah, that was really cool," he remarked, blood still gushing from his nose.

"How about it?" Henry asked me. "Wanna join us?"

"What?"

"Join the Trio of Tyranny, of course!" Henry said with a proud face. "Well, we might have to change the name if you do decide to join..."

"We could be the Quartet of..." Bill added from the side. "Uh..."

"We can worry about that later."

Henry interrupted him.

"So whaddya say, centaur?"

"Can I say no?" I asked.

Sara punched me in the stomach.

I'm pretty sure I felt my internal organs shift around from that. What the fuck.

"No," she answered.

"Then I guess I will."

I laughed, feeling blood pooling in my mouth.

I joined because I had nothing better to do. Not because I felt intimidated.

Definitely not.

"Say, how are you so strong?"

I patted her on the back, swallowing the blood back down.

"She's the muscle of our group," Henry answered.

The three started walking away.

"Follow us, centaur, we've got business to handle."

"What are we doing?" I asked curiously.

The three all looked at each other and giggled evilly.

"Of course... we're going to rob the candy shop!"

"Huh? Candy shop?"

"Don't tell anyone, centaur."

Sara chimed in from the side.

"Yeah, don't tell anyone, centaur. We've spent a lot of time setting this up."

They led me along the road until they suddenly took a turn and walked into the forest.

"C'mon, hurry up."

The three of them waved me along.

There was a giant tree in front of us, a ladder dangling down.

A treehouse.

The base of operations for robbing a store was a treehouse.

This ought to go beautifully.

I climbed up after them, not expecting much.

Walking into the room, I was surprised at what I saw.

It was a grand, spacious enclosure.

The treehouse definitely did not look this big when I looked up at it earlier.

"Wow, how's it so much bigger in here than out there?" I asked.

Sara laughed.

"We used space magic! Duh!"

The floor was furnished with carpet. Light shined down from the electrical fixtures dangling from the ceiling.

For a fantasy world, they sure had a lot of modern-day technology.

There also was a television set sitting on a tabletop from across the room.

"That's not all," Henry said, nudging me in the ribs.

He walked to the wall and pressed a button. An entire section of the room retracted and was replaced by an armory.

There were weapons of all kinds on the wall, ranging from pistols to bazookas.

Don't even know how they got ahold of that.

Bill and Henry began picking out the weapons of their choosing while Sara bounced to the side and picked up a bat. It was wrapped in a pink fluff, had the face of a rabbit, cute white ears on top, and a ribbon tied around it.

"What are you waiting for, centaur? Grab a weapon!"

Bill said as he examined one of the pistols.

"It's fine, I have my emergency grenade on me."

I pulled out my grenade and showed them.

The three looked at me, stunned.

"Please. Put that back where it came from and pick a weapon."

I shrugged, walked over, and picked the bazooka.

They all also took out a mask and began putting them on. Henry tossed me a mask as well.

It's time to rob a candy shop.

 

---

 

The four of us squatted down in the dark alleyway in front of a shop reading, "Maurice's Candyland".

"Everyone ready?" Henry asked.

We all nodded.

"Alright, let's do this."

Henry muttered a few words under his breath and disappeared into the air. Alarms began blaring from the shop immediately.

Bill and Sara also followed his example and disappeared. I stood there, not knowing what to do.

Did I miss a part of the plan?

I noticed that the three were inside, stuffing up their sacks full of candy.

I guess they didn't realize I can't teleport.

Oh well.

I raised my bazooka and pulled the trigger. The rocket flew out and crashed into the shop door, blasting it to pieces with a loud boom.

Laughing, I joined the three inside.

"We have a few minutes before authorities arrive."

Bill hissed from the side.

"That's more than enough time," Sara remarked, stuffing a few pieces of candy into her mouth.

Suddenly, a screech came from the back part of the shop.

"Oh shit!" Henry yelled. "They've installed the new security system!"

"Plan B! Plan B!"

The three got into formation and signaled to me with their eyes.

What the fuck is Plan B?

All three of them took out their weapons and stood at the ready. I watched them, confused.

A few horrid figures drifted out from the ceiling of the store. Their limbs were long, but frail. Their faces were missing and the only remaining part was a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.

The three immediately began attacking, bullets flying.

One of the ghouls turned to me and snarled.

"Stay back!" I warned. "I've got a grenade and I'm not afraid to use it!"

It apparently didn't care and flew toward me anyway.

I dodged to the side as the thing waved its claws down at me.

"I didn't want to have to do this to you!"

I held my hands in front of me and began chanting a spell Henry taught me earlier.

A rapidly moving blue wind began forming on my palm. It was spinning faster and faster as it began to rapidly grow in size. The eerie blue glow from the spell lit up the otherwise dark room.

Somehow, I felt as if this spell was extremely familiar.

Then, I smashed the spell in my palm toward the ghoul, shouting out an attack name that won't be included due to copyright.

The attack hit the ghoul and fucking exploded, propelling both me and the figure backward.

The thing instantly vanished with a puff of smoke as I stood up coughing.

"You alright, centaur?" Henry asked me as he was punching a ghoul over the head with his fist, flames flying forth with every hit.

"Yeah."

"As expected of our fourth member," Bill said from the side where he was still firing his assault rifle.

"We don't have much time left," Henry reminded as he went to another table and began stuffing his bag with more candy.

Sara was to my left, beating one of the ghouls over the head with the bat. The black blood of the ghoul stained the bat as she kept striking it, laughing in glee. The ghoul was struggling to escape, probably regretting its decision to protect this store.

I had a tiny feeling that she didn't come to rob this shop for candy.

Bill, on the side, put away his rifle and held out his knife. He took a deep breath and vanished, before instantly reappearing behind two ghouls.

There was a purple flash, lighting up the entire store. The ghouls were turned into smoke as he put away his still-glowing knife.

"Then let's go."

Bill started tying up his now-full sack as Sara continued beating the ghoul on the side.

I'm pretty sure it was dead, if not crippled, but I'm not going to be the one to ruin her fun.

Henry ran out the door laughing with his sack slung behind his back. The three of us followed after.

I looked behind me just in time to see the ghoul that Sara was beating turn to smoke.

Poor thing.

 

---

 

We were back in the treehouse, looking over our goods. There were candy of all different kinds and flavors, most of which I was unfamiliar with.

I was beginning to see why they decided to rob the candy shop.

"Good work, team," Henry took off his mask.

"Especially you, centaur. As expected of our newest member."

"Aw man," Sara muttered. "I got the least amount."

I didn't bother to tell her why.

Bill started gobbling down mouthfuls of candy as everyone began placing their weapons back.

"Where are we going to rob next?" I asked, excited.

Blowing up shit? Robbing stores? This was what I was all about.

"We have to lay low for a while," Henry answered me. "We're going to get caught."

"He's right, the authorities are gonna be all over us," Sara added. "Besides, I've heard that a veteran of the Mana Dragon Cloud Wolf Faction recently moved in nearby. We have to play it safe."

Well.

"It's getting late, how about we get some sleep and have some more fun tomorrow?" Henry suggested.

"Alright, let's do that and then hang at Sara's house tomorrow," Bill replied with a mouth full of candy.

That kid is not scared of cavities.

"Get some sleep centaur. We're going to have more fun tomorrow."

The three of them lay down on several sleeping bags that were littered over the ground.

"Okay."

I followed their example and laid down. The moment I knew the three of them were asleep, I immediately got up.

Like hell I was going to sleep.

I stole a couple of weapons from the armory and crept out of the treehouse, climbing down the ladder.

I strolled along the road absent-mindedly before arriving at the town that we were at earlier. I walked along the silent road before getting to the store that we robbed. There were several people in cloaks closely investigating the scene.

I turned around and walked away. A naked man strolling around with weapons is certainly a suspect for questioning.

I looked up at the night sky. The stars shone beautifully, twinkling with heavenly joy.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.