Once the girls’ and boys’ nights were over, each one having been moderately successful if one could even consider them separate things anymore, The Shoebill returned to the river that it has been docking in lately. They considered staying out on the water for the night with Fenrir and Rao sleeping on the floor so that the rest could comfortably make use of the hammocks below deck, but Fenrir was too concerned about the sheep creatures and horses to leave them all alone for the night.

After all, they have learned that there are some predators roaming around the area. Fortunately, they are basic predators rather than flying dragons, roaming gorilla-bull giants, or giant serpents.

Well, there is one giant serpent. She only hunts rowboats, though.

Though, by the time that they actually made it back to the building site, everybody except for Fenrir and Tabitha was asleep. Tabitha was on the verge of passing out, and Fenrir was quick to wake from virtual reality once they docked.

In reality, Fenrir came back to Serra sleeping on top of him, and he was too tired to move her and himself to bed where he assumed his other girlfriends already were.

He ended up waking up with back pain due to sleeping in a chair in an uncomfortable position because of how Serra was sleeping on top of him.

And now, because he didn’t disturb Serra’s sleep, he has convinced her that she owes him back massages on demand for a week.

“Ryouta,” Cassandra says now that they’re done eating breakfast, “don’t forget to change the ferrets’ litter.”

“Why do I have to?” Ryouta says, followed by a sleepy grumble.

“Because you’re a guy.”

“That’s sexist.”

“I know.”

“I – I was expecting you to deny it.”

“I don’t care about using sexism if it means not having to clean waste.”

“You really are girly when you’re not thrusting your spear into people.”

“Stop making it sound so weird, you – you… dumbie.”

“I’ve got to admit it, you calling me a dumbie just doesn’t have the same effect on me as bastard does.”

“It shouldn’t have any effect on you in the first place.”

“I know, but it does because you’re the one calling me it.”

“Goodness, my hero, do you not believe that it is too early for you to be flirting with Cassandra? At least wait until you change the litter!” Alice interjects.

“Yeah, but flirting won’t have the same effect if she knows I just got done cleaning up poop.”

“It already lost any effect it had,” Cassandra says and sighs.

Serra slides her phone across to Ryouta so that he can read what’s on the screen.

You always bring up the spear thing with Cass like her thrusting into you, and that just makes me think of Cass as a futa with a dick. That’s kind of hot. We should buy strap-ons.

Ryouta slides the phone back to Serra without replying at all.

She slides it back.

Pls respond.

He doesn’t respond.

Unfortunately for Fenrir, Alice happens to see the phone’s screen and leans over to read it.

“Oh! That sounds wonderful!” Alice says. “I feel ashamed of myself for not considering such a possibility sooner. There are even more potential fantasies that we may act out with such a device.”

“What are you talking about?” Cassandra asks.

“For example, if we were to get such a thing for Serra and Cassandra, then the three of you could all team up on me and—”

“I don’t want to know what you’re talking about anymore.”

“Listen,” Ryouta says. “As long as you don’t want to use it on me, alright. I’m down for anything else.”

“You just reminded me of something,” Alice says. “There is this one website that I stumbled across once before. It featured such toys that ranged in size from more realistic ones to being larger than bottles of soda, and they came in all sorts of shapes and designs! I believe some were even stylized after monsters such as dragons and minotaurs! Unfortunately, those would probably quite literally break me in reality. Even so, I would love to look at the site with you just to see what your favorites are!”

“I have a feeling I know exactly what website you’re talking about, and I don’t know how to feel about you wanting to look at it with me to see what your favorites are.”

“We’re not buying anything like that if you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about,” Cassandra says.

Then there’s Serra who pulls up a website on her phone as they talk, and said website just so happens to have a toy designed to simulate egg-laying on it.

Upon handing the phone to Alice, Alice’s face grows bright red and she has to hold her hands against her cheeks to cover her blush.

“M-my, they truly do have devices for everything, do they not?” Alice asks. “And for that price… per-perhaps we could—”

“We’re not buying anything weird,” Cassandra says.

“I mean, it’s interesting and all,” Ryouta says, “but I don’t know how to feel about it. Why do they have to make all these toys so much bigger than normal dicks are?”

Serra signs to Ryouta, asking him if he’s jealous.

“I – kind of. They just make these things way too big. Besides! We haven’t even actually had real sex yet in real life. We shouldn’t even be looking at toys when we don’t even have normal sex yet.”

“Re-real sex is riskier,” Cassandra mumbles. “We can do it all we want in-game and feel good without any risk…”

“I thought you wanted a kid anyways, so why are you worried about risk?”

“It’s not that easy! I mean… yeah, I want a kid, but… th-that’s a lot of responsibility, and there’s no coming back from that.”

Alice nods and sighs. “Cassandra has a point. Even if we are all wishing for children, such a matter is incredibly serious.”

“You know we can just both use birth control, right? Heck, us guys can do it all on our own now, so we wouldn’t even need protection and you wouldn’t need pills,” Ryouta says.

Serra slides her phone onto the center of the table so that they can all read it.

Babies now.

And sex now.

They slide the phone back to her together.

“I know, my hero,” Alice says. “I – I am sure that we will cross that line soon. Right, Cassandra?”

“Ye-yeah,” Cassandra answers, looking away.

“You’re going to make me think you’re unattracted to me,” Ryouta says, looking at them with an unamused expression.

“We already told you that’s not the case. We’re just being weird and we’ll get over it.”

Alice nods her head to Cassandra’s words.

“Oh, you just reminded me something,” Ryouta says.

“What?” Cassandra asks.

“I have a date with Aza tonight.”