The True Endgame

“Now that I think about it, we should probably invest in some rowboats so that our only option of getting to and from the ship isn’t swimming and climbing up the side,” Fenrir says.

He said that because he has realized that they may have a problem.

They can’t get any closer to the shore than they already are and the water isn’t shallow enough for Rock to stand in.

Rock looks over the side of the ship and whimpers.

Even if she knows how to doggy paddle… she’s made out of rock. She’s going to sink.

“I don’t suppose you can breathe underwater, Rock?” Fenrir asks her.

She whimpers louder.

“Alright, so no undersea adventures for you. You got an idea, Olly?”

Oleander crouches down and looks at Rock. “Yep,” he answers.

“Well, what is it?”

Oleander gets up, gets some rope, and returns. “I’ll tie her to your back.”

Fenrir and Rock look at each other. They’re not sure how well this plan will work, but they don’t have better ideas.

“Kneel down, Fenny. Rock, hop up and lean over him like you’re trying to hump him,” Oleander orders.

“Did you really have to explain it like that?” Fenrir asks.

Oleander shrugs and straightens out the rope in his hands.

With Fenrir kneeling down, Rock gets up onto his back and leans her front legs over his shoulders. She takes up his entire back now that she’s grown.

Once Rock is in a good position, Oleander ties the rope around the two of them by going underneath Rock’s front legs and Fenrir’s arms.

“Alright, stand up!” Oleander orders.

Fenrir stands up with his arms back and underneath Rock’s rear to keep her supported up. Meanwhile, Rock just happily pants while sticking her head over his right shoulder.

“You’re supposed to have a parrot on your shoulder if you want to be a captain, not a wolf,” Oleander says.

“Wolves are cooler than parrots anyways. You think this’ll work, Rock?” Fenrir asks, his voice strained from how heavy Rock is. She may be the size of a regular wolf, which is already heavy on its own, but she’s also made entirely out of rock and isn’t hollow as far as Fenrir knows. He’d never be able to lift her in real life, but in this game world where he has far more strength than his real body has, he’s able to manage.

He just has to hope that he doesn’t sink straight to the bottom with her.

This is probably a bad idea.

Rock barks and licks his face.

“See you on the beach!” Oleander says and dives into the water!

Fenrir and Rock look overboard to see Oleander waving up at them.

“I think we’re going to be better off climbing down into the water than just jumping in,” Fenrir says. “Oh, I should bring Rod.”

He hooks the fishing hook into one of the guides on Rod and tucks the fishing pole between him and Rock. It’s probably the safest place for Rod to be since he won’t be able to use his hands to carry him.

He’s still not used to thinking of Rod as a he, even if it does make sense.

With one hand under Rock’s rear and the other holding onto the rope, Fenrir rappels down the side of The Shoebill and gets some serious rope burn thanks to the extra weight added by Rock.

Swimming ends up being just as difficult as he feared it would be. Rock’s added weight is enough to completely push him underwater while barely leaving her above it, so Fenrir naturally starts panicking and trying to get his head above water.

Then he remembers that he can breathe underwater now.

As soon as he remembers that, he’s able to calm down and take deep breaths despite his head being completely submersed.

The two swim toward the shore. Rock helps out by doggy paddling with her paws over his shoulders.

After a rough start and with Rock’s help, they make it ashore and meet up with Oleander who’s stripping his clothes off. “I should’ve done this before jumping in,” Oleander says.

Fenrir looks Oleander over while helping Rock get off from his back.

Oleander somehow manages to have an even more feminine figure than Aiko does, and even his chest, despite being a male’s, looks to be just slightly bumpier than Aiko’s.

Aiko really does have it rough.

Fenrir wants to see how she’ll react when she discovers that even a boy has more of a chest than her.

Meanwhile, the crabs that they’re hunting are completely ignoring their presence to dig their massive claws into the sand in search of those tentacle-filled shells.

A couple of crabs have already brought up the shells and are trying to crack them open.

“Hmm. There’s eight crabs and three of us. We’re stronger now, so… three for each of us and two for Rock?” Oleander proposes. “I could probably take them all out from back here now. It’s always nice returning to low-level monsters after powering up.”

To demonstrate, Oleander reaches into his satchel to pull out a thorn, enlarges it, and sends it flying toward one of the crabs!

The thorn travels with incredible speed straight through the side of the crab, carving a hole through it and exiting out of the other side before the crab even realizes what just happened.

“I probably should have aimed for the head. Oh well!”

The crab falls down and starts writhing its legs around, unable to properly stand.

“Aww, cute,” Oleander says with a happy sigh.

It’s been a while since Fenrir has seen Oleander’s inner sadist come out.

“How about four each? Me and Rock will team up,” Fenrir says.

“Sounds good! Wait, you don’t seriously plan on fighting with a fishing rod again, do you?” Oleander asks when he sees Fenrir holding Rod.

“Yeah, why not? It’s funny. We’ve fought with joke weapons in games before.”

Rod pulsates a few times as if to express anger that he was compared to a joke.

“Whatever floats your shoebill, Fenny.”

“You get the four on the right, and we’ll get the four on the left.”

“Wanna race?” Oleander asks.

“I already know you’ll win with your magic if we try to seriously race, so no.”

“You’re no fun, Fenny. Annyyywaaayys, let’s go!”

Oleander and the trio made up of Fenrir, Rock, and Rod charge at their respective crabs.

Fenrir realizes that he has to let Rock get a head start because of how slow she is.

While Oleander unleashes thorny tendrils produced from the stems of roses against all four crabs at once, Fenrir and Rock reach the first crab and cooperate in attacking it.

The crabs were just enjoying their lives digging around for shells, but now they are under attack.

Fenrir gets himself right in front of the crab, grabbing onto each of its pincers to disable them from being able to move and attack, while Rock hops up onto its back and bites into the shell! The shell, while sturdy, is no match for being crunched on by Rock’s fangs.

Fenrir first killed a crab with Rock when she was just a rock by slamming her over and over into the crab’s head until its brain was crushed, and Rock seems to remember that tactic. She bites right behind where the crab’s head is, uses her front legs to swipe away some of the shell once it’s cracked, and then digs her snout into the crab’s shell and kills the crab by what Fenrir can only assume is directly biting its brain. He can’t see much of what’s happening since Rock is sticking her head into the crab’s shell and since he technically has traumatic content turned off, so he can’t see anything too gory.

He does, however, see Rock lift her head out from the shell once the crab falls to the ground. There is yellow and pink liquid all over her face when she happily barks.

“You’re gross, but good job,” Fenrir praises her.

The next crab, Rock distracts it by biting at its legs and running underneath it while Fenrir looks for an opening.

He’ll just copy what Rock did.

While the crab is distracted, Fenrir jumps up onto it from behind, grabs onto its head by one of its eyestalks with his left hand, and holds Rod in his right hand. “Sorry about this, Rod,” he says right before slamming the bottom of Rod directly between the crab’s eyes.

He realizes that he should probably be more careful of using Rod like this when the gem that contains Rod’s soul—at least, that’s how he thinks these gems work—is embedded directly into the bottom of the handle and is the first part of Rod to get slammed into the crab’s hard shell. But, when Fenrir pulls Rod up to look at the gem, it looks unharmed.

Back to being used like a hammer.

One of the crab’s claws reaches behind it to try and tear Fenrir off from its back, but Rock protects him by jumping up and biting onto the claw!

Three strikes with Rod directly between the crab’s eyes is enough to knock it down, lifeless.

“Nice assist, Rock. That’s two down and two to go. Want to try taking the other two out on our own?” Fenrir asks her.

Rock barks and runs at one of the two remaining crabs.

“I guess this one is mine then.”

Fenrir notices that Rod is rapidly flashing.

“What?”

Rod pulses twice, waits, then twice again over and over.

“Are you angry or something?”

One pulse.

“Alright, I won’t use you to smash crab brains anymore. I want to try going feral on this crab anyways.”