After Levin returned, Esther continued using me as a dart board for another ten minutes. She eventually got bored and just left me alone. My body was still paralyzed so I just sat there.

“Ode… Ode~...”

<What?>

“Help…”

<Just swap into the Lacuna.>

“How?”

After another few minutes of explanations I was able to swap my consciousness into the Lacuna, I fell into the dark space and landed on the platform. I walked over to Ode’s screen, I could see my body limply flopped over while being pinned against the wall.

“So when does that wear off…?”

“A few hours or so.”

“Gotcha…”

I stood there awkwardly for a second.

“Oh, Ode. Where’s Zenith and that variant that was in the World tree?”

Ode pointed straight up. I gazed upon the dark sky above us, the two white rings still rotating just like the first time I had seen them.

“They’re both on lockdown. Three hasn’t woken up yet since he’s in the process of fusing with the World tree’s core, and Zenith is too big to fit here.”

So that variant was Three…

“I see… so they’re just sealed up there like before?”

“Yep~”

Ode kept typing on his console. I tapped my hands against my pants in a bored manner. Six was on his couch reading manga as usual, and ‘541’, who’s name I learned was Harbinger, sat next to him. He seemed almost like a mechanical human. The air was stale between us…

“Anyone have anything to do?”

“Wanna play cards?” Six chimed in.

“No. Absolutely not. No cards. Ever.” Harbinger immediately started going against Six’s idea in every possible way.

Playing cards can’t be that bad… right?

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

|A Few Hours Later…|

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

“How does he have a castle?!”

“That’s why I didn’t want to fucking play!” 

Harbinger kicked over his card pile in a fit of rage, while Six peacefully sat back with a card castle. 

I stared at it…

“Why is this what he’s good at…”

Ode shrugged. He walked back over to his console and he typed a quick command. The ceiling opened up and started pulling me toward it.

“You should be all set now. Bye-bye~”

“Oh… Uh, bye–?”

I got sucked up instantly, my eyes groggily opening. My vision refocused… I felt the rope restraints tugging around my arms and legs. I warped my body into slime form and slipped down the wall. I walked over to the bridge, opened the door, and stepped in with a sigh.

Atlas looked up from his map.

“Cyn, you’re back.”

“We’re all set now…”

“Good~... let's start the ship then~”

Atlas walked over to a lever and pushed it forward, the ship creaked and rumbled before it started charging forward. It swayed gently along the ocean currents, finally we began our journey to the Dwarven continent.

I saw Atlas press a few more buttons before he walked toward the door.

“I put an autopilot mode on, it should be smooth sailing.”

“Oh… nice.”

I followed him out of the bridge, we made our way to the front of the ship. Everyone else was already sitting there enjoying the breeze, Esther saw me and quickly turned away with what sounded like a ‘Hmph’. Her arms were crossed under her chest and she was looking out toward the open ocean. I walked up to her and leaned against the railing

It was silent for a few moments.

“Did you have fun playing darts?”

She turned toward me with a blank face.

“That’s what you ask?”

“I’m not good with conversations, what do you expect?”

…

“It was fun…”

“Want me to make you an actual dart board next time?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You being the board is funner.”

“I could die, you know~”

“Sure you could~” 

She elbowed my side playfully with a smirk. I smiled back before turning to look at everyone else. Risible and Atlas were talking… Huh? Six, Levin, and Laviel are missing… I swear I saw Levin and Laviel a second ago…

“Hey, Risible. What happened to Six?”

Oh- wait, he was in the Lacuna wasn’t he… That stupid castle of cards-

“I reabsorbed him back when you were talking with Atlas.”

“Ah- gotcha. What about Levin and Laviel?”

“Hm? Oh… good point.”

I turned back toward Esther.

“Wanna go for a walk?”

She hesitated for a second.

“Sure…”

…

Esther and I started walking around the ship, searching for Levin and Laviel. They obviously didn’t go far, but it was still a matter of which room they were in. One of the doors we opened had Four curled up on a bed, he just blankly stared at the wall. Whatever happened to him completely fucked his mental state up… I kind of felt bad… I also fully forgot that he was back with us again. 

Finally we got to the back of the ship when a light rustling sound could be heard from behind one of the bedroom doors. Esther slid it open…

“Heh-?”

Levin’s jacket was unzipped and his shirt was lifted up. Laviel was laying on the lower half of his body, her cheek nuzzling against his abdomen.

“Nnngghh~”

Esther and I were a little dumbfounded, our faces a hue of pink. 

“L-Laviel-”

“Levin’s muscles feel sho good~ I wuv them~”

Levin’s face was bright red, I could see his hand trembling as he tried to endure Laviel’s… special kind of behavior. 

Wait-

“How do you guys even have muscles~... I thought you were made up of slime~”

“Huh- we are… actually, now that you mention it, my body is the same as before I reincarnated…”

I’m the same height… so around six foot one. My weight doesn’t really feel off, I think I’m still at 145 pounds. I’m still thin as well… and I have the same posture as before. 

I started undoing the buttons to my trench coat.

“H-huh-? Cyn what are you-”

I lifted my black skin tight turtleneck shirt up, Esther’s face shot red, her eyes locked onto my stomach. I gently pressed my hand down, feeling where my slight bit of muscles used to be. Surprisingly the same firmness of my muscles were still there… or at least a representation of them.

I turned toward Esther who was staring at my stomach, a bit of drool starting to fall at the corner of her mouth.

I quickly pulled my shirt down and went to button my trench coat back up-

Esther suddenly latched onto me, her arms wrapping around my back under my trench coat. Her face was pressed against my chest, it was a red hue.

“E-Esther…?”

“I-I want to feel too…”

I felt her grip tighten slightly.

Is she… jealous…?!

“Um- can I promise to let you feel later…?”

She glared up toward me.

“Fine…” She muttered gently before pulling herself off of me.

“But it’s a promise.”

“Y-yeah…”

I think I might have signed myself up for something bad…

After that Esther and I managed to somehow pull Laviel off of Levin. We went back to the deck, surprisingly in one piece. The rest of our oceanic trip wasn’t too bad, it was mainly us trying to find pastimes for entertainment. Though Esther did have another one of her episodes on being hungry, luckily Levin ran over to the beastmen continent and grabbed a bit of food to tide her over. I think that was her shortest one since he managed to grab her something within a minute or so.

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

“Attention crew! We have roughly four minutes until we are ashore. We’ll be making this pitstop for exactly one month, and then we’ll be setting off to Hellion’s Purgatory.”

Risible started clapping, and the rest of us soon followed.

Exactly one month… I have to learn ‘Save Data’ in that time, as well as developing new spells. This is going to be a whole lot of fun isn’t it~

Within the next few minutes I saw Synacri. The continent was of a modest size… and compared to Chroterr, it actually had nature. I could smell the freshness of the land flowing out and mixing with the salty sea. I noticed that it seemed to be on the longer side compared to the other continents we had been to, closer to some form of large scale island. 

Our ship docked at a rural port and we tied the vessel down. I looked out toward the dirt streets, but they seemed utterly barren… the wooden houses were boarded up and desolate.

“Where are the dwarves…?”

“Probably in their caves.”

“Why though?”

“I think it was written in a scripture a few centuries back, their skin is sensitive to sunlight… or something along those lines.”

I scooped Esther up into a bridal carry and jumped off the ship’s ledge. I landed on this rickety dock and walked toward land before putting her down.

“You need to stop doing that…”

“What?”

“Nevermind… it’s nothing…” Her face was slightly pink, she turned to the side.

We walked along the dirt roads, abandoned shacks littered the land. It almost felt uninhabited. Esther and I walked around until we found this giant crevice, it was carved directly into a small mountain-like hillside, there were two large gates inside. The initials ‘S.I.’ carved into the doors.

“Those are Synacri’s initials.”

“Well let’s see what they have to offer~”