+ + +

—"Hey, boss? ...Boss? Are you listening?"

It was a girl's voice, youthful and somewhat crisp in quality.

It seemed to float wispily from somewhere far off in the distance.

—"Hello? Boss? Are you there? Did you disconnect? We were just in the middle of a conversation..."

A conversation? Kiu didn't recall being in any conversation. Frankly, her mind had wandered off at some point, and Kiu was thinking about how she was going to cook the artichoke that was expiring in the fridge tonight. The problem being ⁠— she didn't know too many ways to cook an artichoke. Steaming felt too plebeian and she had already made roasted artichoke earlier this week. 

The more interesting question, of course, was why the heck Mom bought eight whole artichokes from the supermarket in the first place. In what kind of imaginary world was it possible for two people to finish that many artichokes?! It honestly gave Kiu a slight headache to think about how many different ways artichoke could be paired with everything else that Kiu was preparing this week. While it was true that Mom raked in more cash than either of them had any desire to spend on luxuries — so nobody could complain if she bought whatever the heck she wanted — but in real life, groceries still spoiled regardless of how big of a refrigerator they owned.

+ + +

"Boss! ...Q! You... You... blockhead!" The voice finally reached its limit.

There was a sudden strong vibration on the table, which jolted Kiu to attention.

The girl who was sitting across from her had slammed the table with both of her hands.

In the process, she had sprung halfway up to her feet. However, her forceful action had caused the fluid in some teacups to splash uncontrollably onto the table.

The other girl stared at the small puddle on the table. She was frozen in a somewhat awkward standing position, evidently caught red-handed as the perpetrator of the act. She seemed to regret her impulsive outburst as soon as it occurred.

"...Sorry." Kiu finally broke the silence.

"No... I'm sorry." The other girl responded hastily, deeply ashamed of her behavior.

"I must have been daydreaming. It's a bad habit of mine. Sorry."

The atmosphere turned several degrees more awkward between the two of them.

Kiu cleared her throat slightly, and the girl with flax-colored hair stiffly sat back down in her seat with nervous movements. Trying to appear as composed as possible, the girl fumbled with her handkerchief to wipe up the spill that she had caused on the table. However, regardless of how she tried, she completely failed to impart any sense of elegance.

"Um... you wouldn't ban me from the server because of this, by any chance?" The blond girl ventured all of a sudden.

She appeared crestfallen.

"......No."

Kiu was slightly taken off guard by the question. Where in the world had she gotten that idea?

While it was true that Kiu was an introvert in every regard, she didn't exactly make a hobby out of upsetting people. If anything, Kiu preferred to stay away people entirely. It was the easiest way to avoid drama.

"Scarlet... I wouldn't do something that unreasonable." Kiu clarified herself.

The girl named Scarlet sighed as she hung her head and continued wiping the table. Privately, she was relieved. Although nobody said it directly to the server owner, 「Q」 had been developing quite a tyrannical and merciless reputation. 

—"Off with her head!!"

Scarlet pushed some unnecessarily gruesome graphic mental imagery out of her mind.

She shook her head back and forth repeatedly to clear those ghastly thoughts from her brain...

+ + +

Scarlet took a deep breath and drove the conversation back on track.

"Anyways, Q!" Scarlet straightened solemnly in her seat. She looked somewhat hesitant. "The stuff I talked about... is it okay?"

"Could you summarize it briefly for me again?"

"Well, I'd like a username change."

"Okay." Kiu's response was immediate.

In fact, she answered so fast that it took several seconds for her conversation partner to register it. After all, Scarlet had been beating around the bush for the past fifteen minutes, dancing around a topic that she hadn't been ready to broach in the beginning.

"...That's it?" Scarlet seemed surprised. "...You're not going to ask why?"

"You're one of the supervisors on the server."

Kiu shrugged as if that explanation was sufficient in itself.

She didn't even particularly care for the reason.

"But..." Scarlet continued waver. "I thought you didn't liked to be bothered for troublesome things."

"Yes, you're correct, I don't."

"...I'm not a bother, am I?"

"No."

"Ugh..." Scarlet sighed again as she rubbed her forehead. "You see, I found out earlier today that one of my real life acquaintances had also joined this server, and I didn't want them to know that I'm staff here. It's a little worrisome you see? We go a long ways back, and—"

"What's their user ID? Should I ban them?" Kiu interrupted her mid-sentence.

"...No! No, no, no! That's not necessary!" Scarlet frantically tried to correct the misconception that had apparently seeded in 「Q」's head.

"Oh, okay then." Kiu was expressionless.

"They're kind of like my friend... although also kind of not... it's a little complicated."

"Well, if you ever decide which it is, you can always come to me if you want them banned."

"Thanks......... I guess."

+ + +

The conversation quickly died down again, and an awkward silence filled the space between the two girls.

Kiu looked back and forth at the furnishings inside of the cottage that they were sitting in. Although some things had changed since she last visited this place, Kiu recognized the general construction and style of this house. Many months ago, a user named @Richard had been the one who originally built this residence.

"You moved into Richard's place?" Kiu suddenly changed the topic somewhat absentmindedly.

"Ah, yes." Scarlet blinked and replied with a nod.

She reached over to pour herself another cup of tea. Scarlet remained silent for a couple seconds, but then resumed talking.

"He went inactive though... I don't know when he'll come back."

"A lot of the original members aren't here anymore, huh?" Kiu remarked.

"I miss him a lot." Scarlet hesitated. "After a few months passed, I knew I had to move in. The server automatically deletes anything with more than three months of inactivity, and I knew how much Richard loved this place. I couldn't just let it all disappear."

"I see..."

Kiu did not really have a response for that.

Kiu was never really involved in the social elements of her own server. However, she was aware of the fact that some of the users could get extremely attached. She had personally glanced at the user activity logs a few times, and there were a surprising number of users who spent nearly all day online — more than eight to ten hours a day.

Their activity level dwarfed the modest amount of time that Kiu could dedicate online on a regular basis.

It was sort of mind-boggling to think about the number of hours that people poured into this digital equivalent of a sandbox. There weren't as many "pure" sandbox virtual reality games on the market anymore, particularly since they were not so profitable for developers. These days, consumers seemed to drift to more "exciting" VRMMORPG titles like 「Swords&Knights Online」 or 「Kill Zone」 where there well-defined rules and objectives.

However, this unusual niche still pulsed with its own tiny community.

+ + +

"Um... Boss? Q? So I was thinking of changing my name to @Flan, if that's okay with you?"

"Flan, as in the food? Spelled F - L - A - N?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Sure, I'll put it in the system now then."

"Thanks a bunch!"

+ + +

As Kiu started typing into her administrator's console, "Flan" shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

Having nothing to do except stare at the black-haired owner of the server, Flan eventually stood up restlessly. She paced over to the kitchen, and then back to the counter top. Finally, she stepped out briefly to the greenhouse that was attached to the cottage. A moment later, she shortly returned with a crate of vegetables.

The black-haired administrator looked up from her screen.

There was a soft wry smile on the flax-haired girl's face as started washing some of them in the sink.

"You're not as scary as I thought," she confessed momentarily.

"Hm?"

"Everyone's kind of scared to approach you. There's sort of this intimidating aura that you have, and everyone seems to think that you'll randomly walk around and obliterate everything that you point your finger at."

"Obliterate? You mean the console 「DELETE」 command?"

Kiu raised a finger that promptly started to glow with a white light.

"...Um... Please don't feel the urge to demonstrate. At least not inside the house."

Kiu laughed quietly and returned to her administrator's screen.

Meanwhile, Flan smiled ruefully as she wiped down some vegetables and picked a few good ones to put into a bag.

"Thank you for the favor, Boss. And also for dropping by. It can get a bit empty in the cottage sometimes."

"It's okay."

"Take some sugar beets with you when you go. I'm still trying to grow natural sugar, rather than the sucrose (formula: C12-H22-O11) that gets generated from the system 「SPAWN」 command, but I'm sort of stumped. If you can figure out why it tastes weird, I'll go back to the specification files and see if I can adjust the parameters."

"Okay. I'll probably end up giving them to Synbius though."

"Thanks anyways."

"No problem."

"Want me to pack you some roasted tea leaves as well?"

"Well... I guess wouldn't be bad to keep around for guests."

"I'm glad. Don't be a stranger, okay? It can get lonely holed up in there all the time."

"Mhm, I'm fine."

"Yeah..."

∎

ohko

In the last chapter @Moshi suggested that I stop using bold with the dialogue! I gave it a try here, and if you like how this looks better, let me know!