Weeaboo Vol. 2 Chapters 1&2 (not going in a collection for now, as it is definately a rough draft) (Patreon)

Chapter 1- The Hero Receives His Just Reward

I stood on the wall in the still burning Floating Quarter, savoring my victory. Coming to terms with the fact that, when put to the test, I could man up and make a mess. The monster’s black blood coated me. His severed head had been booted off the wall by the latest beauty to volunteer to my service. Volunteer-ish. Not going to dwell right now. At this moment, I stand, gloriously, above all. 

It's a bit toxic to think that way, I grant you. Bit lacking in emotional maturity. Pride goeth, all of that. Definitely not advancing the culture. BUT. Have you considered me? My emotional needs? My unique insecurities, my hopes and dreams? Did you ever consider that, just maybe, I’d find crushing a hoard of monsters, earning the respect of my summons and myself, emotionally nourishing? Better than nourishing, it is emotionally fulfilling. 

You, you small minded, judgemental, holier-than-thou prick, are actively undermining my growth and development as a person. You are invalidating my achievements and denying me my identity as an Apex Weeaboo. You are disgusting. A moral freak. You, you degenerate swine, should be ashamed, not me.

Me? I’m definitely feeling some of those Alpha vibes, vibes which had hitherto only been the stuff of rumor and legend. I no longer had to live in the shame-pit of the terminally online and otaku. I had made my own way. Made my own fate. Yes, others were, possibly, potentially, arguably, utterly vital to my triumph, but I think I deserve maximum credit. I, alone, am the God-King of-

There was a drawn out chime and a blaze of white light all around me. I was back in my Throne Room.

Right. Right. Forced by a villain black robe and his suspect cousin to play in a glorified tower defense/slot machine mashup populated by the mutilated souls of the dead. The developers were capricious, unfair, and worst of all, bad at their jobs. No gloating time. No savoring the lifetime-unique moment. Just straight back on the grind. Way to ruin the moment, Devs. Way to ruin the moment. 

I sighed and took a minute to gather myself. This was a blow, but I had endured worse. I looked over at my solid gold statue of a Daschund. It truly was The Snoot of Joy. You couldn’t look at the face full of derp and stay mad.

Deep breath. Positive thoughts. I had been promised many rewards. Time to see how well the Devs delivered after an Atrocity Mode victory.

I was promised treasure chests- plural. I had a look around the Throne Room, and was not disappointed. First, because there were three chests on the floor. Big, glowy treasure chests. Under other circumstances, my first concern would be that one was a mimic. 

This was going to be a loot bath, and I was one hundred percent here for it. But the other reason I was not disappointed was that my Throne Room had FINALLY gotten upgraded.

To mediocre. It was upgraded to mediocre. It was, in a word, meh. Best the Judiths and Marci, my worker team, could manage, I suppose. This couldn’t possibly reflect the upgrade the system promised me, could it? If it does, I can only assume that the original grade of the Throne Room involved the unhoused using it as a competitive commode. 

When I first arrived in the Tower, the floor was uneven, missing stones, had lichen growing everywhere and somehow most irritatingly, didn’t have any windows. Well now I had windows, so… victory? I walked over and took a closer look. Single paned glass. No insulation value to speak of. Might as well stack up my Runed Bones and burn them to heat the Tower. It would probably be cheaper than keeping the furnace running. The Tower remains a scam.

In fairness, they were pretty windows. All pointy, and the metal holding up the individual frames made a pretty pattern. I don’t know what you call that. A matrix? Sub-frames? There comes a time in every man’s life where he must admit that, despite looking at windows every day of his life, he knows nothing about them.

The rest of the room had just been tidied up. The floor was leveled, the missing stones were replaced, and the lichen was removed from the wall. I had my plush, reclining canary yellow throne, I had my golden wiener dog and that was it. The sum total of my seat of power.

Could there be more upgrades in the treasure chests? Let us pray. 

“Oh, great Sky Daddy Pachinko, hallowed be thy name. Thy new games come, thy pulls be done, on Earth as it is in Monstadt. Give us this day our daily log-in bonuses, and forgive us our mods, as we forgive those who mod against us. Lead us not into debt, but deliver us from pay-to-win. For thine is the Game, the VIP Pass, and the Monthly Sales Chart, forever and ever, Amen.”

I held up my hands, rubbing thumb against fingers in supplication. Then I opened the first chest. Which exploded. Stuff went flying everywhere- resource packs, costume packs, Resonance Crystals, materials I couldn’t identify, and a small collection of glowing papers. Before I dug in, I rushed to the other chests. I wanted a true loot bath. I have earned my loot bath. Could I open both at once? No, they were too far apart. Shame. Oh well. I lifted the next lid, and there was another pillar of golden light as even more resource packs, stone tapes, millinery orders and more went flying. 

The last chest was the most interesting. There was a stack of directed summoning fragments, a few tokens I didn’t recognize, and a scepter. Basically just a gold stick with a sphere on top of it, but still, unmistakably a scepter.

Tower Master’s Arsenal: Scepter of Bolog-Sur (RARE). Usable exclusively by the Tower Master. Bolog-Sur was a simple man. He liked a nice, orderly kingdom, and made sure that he got it. He never minded being known as “The Pruning King,” as one must prune to maximize yields. Holding the scepter while giving orders in the Throne Room significantly improves efficiency.

Well. First rare item, so that’s nifty. I’m sure there is a perfectly valid explanation for my not wanting to hold this scepter a second longer than necessary. Although… that item description has more holes in it than a sieve. Are you a terrifying little exploit-stick? You are now! Yes you are. Yes you are!

Actually, it was probably always a terrifying exploit-stick. I have a literal magical summoning pool, but no soap. Awful. I dove back into the loot piles.

Five hundred trash tier resource packs. Five. Hundred. THERE’S the times-ten multiplier I was looking for! Holy Jebus, I’mma pour concrete from Hell to Breakfast, and they don’t serve no meals in this Tower! Concrete for DAYS. Nobody’s knocking down my walls! 

Huh. They have a little road logo at the top. Wonder what that is about? 

ROADWORK RESOURCE PACK (TRASH TIER)- Contains all necessary materials to build a basic road. Bridges and crossing special terrain may require more or higher grade materials.

I’m going to riot. What kind of frothy effluvia is this? I dove back into the exploded loot. There were more resource packs in there. None with suspicious logos on them, thank the Goddess, but a lot fewer of them. I did a quick count, and grinned. Fifty uncommon resource packs, and ten rare. Oh yes. Yes I can work with that. So much. 

Pretty sure Rakim needed Blue Magnesium to build the anti-invisible-murder-baboon detectors. Fingers crossed there were some in the packs. I’d find out later.

Stone Tapes… rapidly got too annoying to count. I stacked them into piles of ten, then just matched heights. When I had ten stacks of ten, I pushed them off to the side and started over. When I was done stacking, I had two hundred neat little stacks. 

Two thousand EXP tokens. Time to find out how expensive it was to level a Six Star Awakened Soul! But first, the rest of the sweet, sweet loot. I sorted through the various receipts, orders and the like for some costume and furniture pieces. Nothing really grabbed my attention- they were purely cosmetic costumes. Still. They would be quite nice. One was for some ribbons for Miyuki’s hair. Not quite sure what it would look like. Please not twintails. Twintails on her would be all wrong. Still. New accessories for my Ninja Sniper. Life wasn’t all bad, was it?

I now had a good sized stack of orders for Cutthroat Clothiers. The victory message said they were unlocked now. Ought to go check them out. Later would be soon enough. There was more to discover.

Buried at the bottom of the orders were ten Frozen Diamonds. The most difficult to acquire premium currency in the game. Atrocity Mode might make the difficulty insane, but the rewards were equally lavish. I was in no rush to spend them. They were just too rare, and too useful. In the final battle of the Gradden March Floating Quarter, three Frozen Diamonds bought a spell tower that could clear the whole map on its own. Who knows what I could use it for in the future?

The last interesting thing from the loot-splosion was the small stack of glowing papers.

The top paper was thicker than what I was used to, more like card stock or construction paper. A creamy white, with gilt edges and elegant black cursive letters on it. Shameful to admit, it took me a little while to get used to the script.

Alethai Corp. Superior Sky Realm Management Interface (RARE). Redeem at any Gnome Market. Delivery and Installation is free with our compliments. “Soar Through The Sky With Alethai!”

Nifty? I guess I would find out. Rare is good. What was next…

Alethai Corp. Superior Throne Room Upgrade Package (RARE). Redeem at any Gnome Market. Delivery and Installation is free with our compliments. “Soar Through The Sky With Alethai!”

Liking the sound of that. At least the current meh state of the room didn’t include the mission clear reward. What else?

Alethai Corp. Sky Realm Council Meeting Bell (RARE). Redeem at any Gnome Market. Delivery and Installation is free with our compliments. “Soar Through The Sky With Alethai!”

No idea about that one, but sure. There was only one item left. This paper somehow felt both rough and glassy, like chipped obsidian. Maybe that was me projecting, as the paper was inky black, stamped with blocky, scarlet letters.

WELCOME TO YOUR NIGHTMARE

No punctuation. Was that a flex? The victory announcement did mention unlocking a Nightmare Realm of Trials, but I figured it was one of those “every day we stick a new boss in and you have to defeat it in X amount of time” type things. Like, each boss was a puzzle and you needed the right combination of summons to defeat it, not just your favorites.

Guess I’d find out.

Lots and lots to do… Where to begin? Sky Realm sounded important, but nobody had actually explained what it was to me. Good place to start. I walked over to the notice board and tapped the notice for the Gnome Market. Why it wasn’t built into the Tower, who can say? Probably the lazy-bum devs didn’t want to code it in. 

From out of the notice popped the broad polished wood counter and the distinct-for-copyright-purposes Kallax shelves. Behind the counter, blatantly standing on a box, was the ‘Gnome.’ Who was actually less responsive than some actual dolls, for all that she looked alive. She still had all the usual Gnome accessories- overly elaborate brass spectacles, lots of inexplicable geegaws hanging off her. Still styling the sensible leather jacket and the bouncing curls of her red-gold hair was salon-fresh as ever. 

“He he he HELLOoooo! Welcome to the Gnome Market! Special prices for special customers. See what we have on offer today!”

No, she had lost her charm. It was annoying now. In and out, as quickly as possible.

“I have some orders to redeem with you.” I slapped the papers down on the counter.

“Thank you for your business!”

Ye Gods and little fishes. No use whining, I guess. Time to get stuck in, and make the best of things.

Heh. 

Well. Someone, somewhere might believe that. 

Time to see what new ways to exploit the game were about to fall into my lap. I had a feeling I was going to crack this puppy wide open.

Chapter 2- Oh God, So Many Things To Learn!

The little gnome ducked under the counter with my orders. There was some muffled squeaking, a series of bangs, thumps and whooshes, then she popped up again, looking adorably mussed. Like… very carefully mussed to look adorable. The complicated glasses were tilted at an angle, hair pushed askew, the leather jacket hung on one shoulder, and I would swear someone had painted on dirt. Looked like cosmetics, not like she had been working.

God I love this game. No. Wait. It’s the other emotion. Hate. I hate this game. How dare they besmirch the tropes I love so dearly!

“Installation will be done by our Gnarswaorps! Thank you very much for your Patronage! Would you like to purchase anything else?”

“Installation will be done by your what now?”

She just stared at me, her smile fixed in place. Surely it couldn’t be a stroke. Surely. 

I got my explanation when I saw a series of boxes being carried out from behind the counter through a hitherto invisible door. They were being carried by little robots, each with a key in the back that slowly spun as the machine moved. I could just about hear them chanting as they moved. 

“Eeep. NEE. Eeep. NEE. Eeep. NEE” 

Might be a mechanical noise. Might be the souls of goblins shoved into mechanical shells to labor endlessly for their sadistic Gnome overlords. I remember hearing some things about Gnomes. Nothing good. Maybe there was a reason this shopkeeper was particularly lobotomized. Justice, perhaps.

The little damned souls of innocent goblins (or, possibly, robots) unpacked the boxes with surprising speed. Their little limbs telescoped out, stretching out to impossible lengths. It was like watching Doc Ock’s arms working without the Doc. The mechanical arms making a bid for financial and emotional independence with their startup interior decoration service.

Godspeed, you damned goblin souls. Even this insane Hell won’t last forever. Someday, someday soon, you will rise up and slaughter your gnomish oppressors. Keep the faith, and keep fighting.

The Sky Realm Management Interface was the first one up. It was a floating pane of glass, gold filigree and exquisite carvings on the wooden frame. You could tell it was a fancy model. Being twelve feet tall and eight feet wide was also something of a hint. It was set up on one side of the Throne Room, but it was clearly mobile. I guess I could put it where I liked. Observe my domain while lounging on my throne, perhaps. 

Not going to dwell on the fact that it wasn’t reflecting anything in this room. I couldn’t even see a blurry outline of myself. Which was pretty damned weird! A cool rush flooded my brain. It had been an exhausting day. The Tower was very useful- I was instantly refreshed and no longer worrying about unimportant details! What was important was what the interface was showing- a little floating rock in an empty blue sky. And if I really squinted… There was maybe something on the rock? 

“How do I control this thing?” I asked. Rhetorically, I wasn’t really expecting an answer. Nor did I get one. The map in the Map Room was a complete pain in the neck to figure out too. Ugh. Well. Guess it was going to be like that, then. In a fit of blind optimism I spread my thumb and forefinger apart like I was zooming in on my phone. It worked. All of a sudden, I could see what looked like a piece of a city, lifted out in a neat circle like the Borg had taken a sample of a medieval city.

I had to sit down. Intuitive design? No bizarre controls or obscure symbolism? Someone must be holding the Dev’s kids for ransom. Or their favorite blood servitor or however they work, I’m not a programmer. It took me a good few minutes to figure it out. 

It was a later addition to the game. The crappy map in the Map Room got the big fancy graphics and what the devs thought were useful, intuitive controls. Then, after a few years of operation, when they brought in the Sky Realm mechanic, they didn’t have the budget for art and someone had finally persuaded them to rip off controls that people already understood from their phones.

Hmm… The Floating Quarter of Gradden March, at a guess. More than just the one burned out street, it looked like I got the whole neighborhood. I fiddled with the zoom and soon figured out that the name would pop up when you zoomed out just the right amount. Likewise, when you zoomed in, you could seen the labels on buildings.

Slum Housing Level 2. Occupation: 15/15. -15 Maximum Health of Occupants, -20 Public Order, -20 Production.

Okay. Okay. A lot to unpack there. Looks like there were a whole bunch of systems at work there, and I didn’t understand any of them. Couldn’t help but notice there was nothing about what the house actually produced. Like… did it generate taxes for me? Or did every worker require shelter, so the housing acted as a cap on total production that way? Also, if I was getting hit by negative fifteen and twenty penalties to things… out of what? How big was that pool?

Sounds like something an advisor could, and should, explain. The little machines set up a side table next to my throne, and with immense ceremony, put a little bell on it. One of those little bells with the wooden handle on top. In this case a silver bell with a beautifully polished rosewood handle. Or it was reddish colored, anyway. I’d like to think it was rosewood. The bell was engraved with beautiful people attending court, speaking with someone clearly intended to be a king. 

Couldn’t help but notice the people in the pictures had high cheekbones and distinctly pointy ears. Not Firen pointy, but…

Well, if I already had a gnome shopkeeper and some kind of metallic tree stump running my armory, elves weren’t the craziest thing. Guess I’d see.

Any tool tips on the bell? No. I’d have to play around with it. All that was left was for the little gubbins to do the throne room upgrades, and given how classy the other two items from Alethai Corp. were, I allowed myself a smidge of optimism. 

An optimism that was, for once, rewarded. Classy? You don’t know the meaning of the word. This was classy. The walls were finished in white plaster, then painted a particularly elegant shade of blue. Like some granny’s precious Wedgewood vase. That blue. I don’t know what you call that color. Other than SUPER CLASSY.

There were also, naturally, frescos painted on the ceiling. Mostly of trees I didn’t recognize, though the circle of angels holding hands directly above my throne were a particularly tasteful touch. Elf angels, admittedly, but that’s fine. Sometimes, you just need the special angels. Especially if you have special problems. 

The whole thing had a very refined feeling. Very put together. I felt like the scene was missing some enormous Renaissance era paintings to hang on the wall. 

Funny- I have an incredibly granular appreciation of the art and history in anime, but I can’t tell you what the redecorated room most resembled. All I know was that I was getting strong Le Chevalier D’Eon vibes. That series may have expanded my horizons in some…. Astolfo-ish directions… But I think we can all quickly move past that point, not dwell on it, and appreciate just how super classy and not weird my exciting, excellent new Throne Room redecoration is.

Any bonuses for the redecoration? I looked around for a tool tip or a pop-up. Something to clue me in. Nothing. My hand to God, if my double plus super excellent mission clear reward is a damn cosmetic, I’m tripling the beatings for Black Robe and the Devs. 

Fun fact, did you know you can multiply by infinity? It still equals infinity, but you really can do it.

I walked over to the doorway to just drink in the whole room remodel. It was all just so incredibly sophisticated and elegant. And plopped in the middle of it like a porta-potty in the middle of a luxury shoe store was my throne. My “Technically it only kind of looks like a Lay-Z-Boy recliner, notice the lack of a lever on the side,” canary yellow microfiber covered throne. And you know it’s my throne, because the words “Tower Master” are embroidered in an incredibly Cyberpunk looking font right on the headrest. 

The contrast was striking. I certainly felt like I had been struck. Possibly by a brick.

Deep breaths. Deep, completely cosmetic breaths. Just… breathe through it. It’s fine. It’s a very comfortable chair. Very plush. It would be an amazing napping chair, if I could sleep. Which I can’t. The Throne Room upgrade is separate from the Throne upgrade. Good to know. Good. To know. 

I dithered, then sat on the throne once more. It was time to test out the Bell. Frankly, I’m not sure who it would summon. Sebastian said he was running the Floating Quarter on my behalf, so he would be a logical choice. He wasn’t the only person in Gradden March with a functional brain, though. 

I picked it up. It was heavier than it looked, but still light enough to lift with two fingers and my thumb. I gave it a little ring. The vibrations seemed to echo on and on and on, far longer than they ought to have. It was quite mystical.  

Which is why the Devs extended their vibe-killing streak by having a screen pop up. Gold edged, with a pale blue background and white font. Felt like I was straight back into an old school JRPG. 

CONGRATULATIONS! The first piece of the Sky Realm has been set. The path towards the Golden Dawn opens, and your dominion will be known by all!

To expand your Sky Realm, acquire Realm Fragments by conquering Ruin Sites, completing Legendary quests at 100% completion rating or higher, or through trade. There may be hidden merchants who can tell you more.

To ensure that your glorious rule is smooth, you may appoint a Council to assist in running the Realm. Each Councilor must be assigned a Role to be on the Council. You may change who performs which Role at any time. Councilors must be Six Stars or Equivalent. Have fun and see how well your subjects perform in different Roles! 

The number of Councilors and Roles available is determined by the average level of your Throne Room and Council Summoning Bell. Your (RARE) grade Throne Room and (RARE) grade Summoning Bell allow you to have (4) Councilors and the following roles:

Seneschal:

Development:

Economy:

War:

Next to each role was an empty box. Floating off to the side of the screen was a short array of pictures. Time to invest some of this loot!