Love Addict's RPG Vol. 2 Ch. 77 (Patreon)

Not much to say this time, pretty straightforward chapter and I'm eager to see how the upcoming stuff turns out.

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Rebecca's plan to keep Zoe entertained was simple. Instead of playing a video game, they’d do the next best thing. In her hands was a copy of Eternalus Souls: The Official Board Game, which sparked the gamer's interest as soon as she saw it. The dark fantasy action RPG series was one of her favorites, and from what Oliver knew about Rebecca’s interests, it made sense that she was also a fan.

After getting more cushions, everyone huddled around the coffee table as Rebecca unpacked the box's contents. There were dice, tokens, cards, the board itself, an instruction manual the size of a novella, and so much more. What captured Oliver's interest most were the dozens of little figurines depicting recognizable characters, monsters, and bosses from the game.

They appeared hand-painted, inspiring Oliver to pick one up and ask, "Did you paint these, Rebecca?"

"Huh? O-Oh, yes! Yes, I did all of these," she smiled, then preempted any praise. "It's, um, it's not a big deal..."

"Well, I think it's a pretty big deal. Some of them look like they stepped right out of the TV."

Mia picked up a figurine of a cleric, turning it around to better inspect it. She squinted her eyes at a blue gemstone atop the character's staff. It was roughly the size of a grain of rice, maybe smaller, and you could almost mistake it for real.

"I'll never understand how you get all the little details..." she mused.

"Practice. Practice and, um, magnifying goggles... ahaha..."

"How recent are these?" Zoe asked while admiring a well-painted hydra with glimmering scales.

"I, ah... I finished the last of them a month and two days ago. W-Why?"

"Just feels like you've stepped up your game every time I see your work, that's all! I swear, you should really be posting this shit online. Get a Xitter or something! I could teach you how to tag things and shit so your posts get a ton of reach, on top of promoting you myself, obviously, and-"

Rebecca laughed at the notion, her cheeks overheating from all the attention. "Oh, no. No, I would never! I'm not that good of a painter. You guys should know that. You've seen my dad's stuff, and my grandpa's even better than him! Well, I guess Oliver didn't know that, b-but, um, trust me. I'm nothing impressive."

"Yeah, no, I'm not buying it. It doesn't matter if you're not the best of the best. This is still something you should be proud of! I can't imagine myself ever getting half this good, Rebecca." Not without buying painting skills, which Oliver would never do for the same reason he refused to touch Drawing Lv. 1. He didn't like the idea of devaluing the hard work and effort of someone he cared about.

Rebecca responded to this previously unknown level of praise by picking up the game's manual, opening it up, and burrowing her face in it. Her big, dull eyes were barely visible as they peeked out from behind its cover. "T-Thank you, that's... um... very nice of you to say, but, ah... w-we should really get a move on. There's a lot of rules to cover before we can start, and-"

Zoe's phone vibrated on the table, everyone's eyes suddenly focusing on her.

"Whoops. Sorry, I guess that'll probably get a little distracting after a while... hold on..."

While Zoe was genuinely interested in trying out the game Rebecca brought explicitly to appeal to her, disengaging with the net wasn't easy. Not even after deciding she might want to. She thought setting her phone on vibrate would be a good compromise, but she changed her mind and made it so that the screen would light up whenever she got a new notification.

That way, her phone wouldn't annoy everyone around her, and she would still get her constant drip feed of attention from knowing people were talking about her. It wasn't as good as turning her phone off altogether, but it was the best she could currently manage.

"You were saying?"

Rebecca started talking about the rules in greater detail. The good news was that the book was so damn big because there was lots of art, while the bad news was that she wasn't a very good explainer. Zoe's prodigious ability to absorb game knowledge came in handy once it turned out it applied to board games as well, though. After flipping through the book on her own, she spelled things out in a way Oliver and Mia could actually follow along with.

They still had to break out a video tutorial on a few occasions. Rebecca claimed this was all part of the process, joking that any board game you didn't have to watch at least three videos to understand wasn't worth playing.

It wasn't that bad once Oliver got it.

Players started on one of the map's corners and were free to venture around the board as they liked, collecting weapons and spells and defeating bosses to level up their character, and like the game it was based on, you were expected to die. A lot. Each death prompted an event card, adding new monsters or resources to the map until a winner was crowned upon defeating Archalonde, King of Oblivion's End, who awaited all comers at the board's center.

After verifying everyone was on the same page, Oliver and the girls picked their characters and began what quickly proved an addicting experience. His exposure to board games started and ended where most people's did. He occasionally played Monopoly with his parents while growing up, and that was it.

This was all a brand-new world to him, and it turned out to be one he liked.

The ups and downs of rolling the dice, drawing cards, and making strategic decisions while competing against his friends were good fun. Mia acted smug when pulling ahead, then became pouty when the shoe was on the other foot. Zoe stayed calm and aloof, though she always had a plan in mind and a wicked smile. Rebecca was sweet as could be, helpfully reiterating the rules while taking the tiniest steps toward securing her victory.

Despite the brutal source material, Eternalus Souls: The Official Board Game was a walk in the park compared to Dokadon Empire. Oliver burned through his afternoon playing it. Zoe took the first game- a mix of strategy, good dice rolls, and undercutting the competition helping her thief to the finish line. Mia took the second by steadily accruing power in the early game and then going all out in the final stretch in a blaze of glory, her mage incinerating the big boss with a fireball.

Given that each game took roughly ninety minutes to trudge through, you think they'd get bored after a while. But they didn't. They were near the end of their third game now, and his idle comments throughout the last five and a half hours had earned him some affection from the ladies.

[Mia has gained +17 Affection!]

[Zoe has gained +14 Affection!]

Solid progress on both fronts, even if Mia still had a long way to go. Zoe, though? Seventy-seven out of a hundred was something to be excited about.

Things were ramping up not only with his heroines but also with the game. Bad rolls had left Mia and Zoe lagging, leaving Rebecca as the only remaining threat in the way of Oliver's victory. She was close- real close.

"Come on, Becca. You can kick his ass if you go straight for Archalonde right now!" Zoe advised.

"I, um, I don't know... it could go either way. My stats may not be high enough to survive."

"Won't know if you don't try," Mia added. "Think you should go for it. Otherwise, mi amor's got this in the bag."

"So nice to see I have everyone's love and support," Oliver shrugged.

"Hey, girls gotta help each other out!" Zoe barked back, then took the last sip of her Gamer Gulpies.

"Side note, but I can't believe you've only had two of those this entire time we've been playing. How are you still functioning?" He asked.

"Poorly," she grumbled. "Guess that's what I get for trying to pace myself, but whatever... so are you-" Zoe's attention span failed her as her phone's screen lit up again. It'd been doing that every few seconds for the last several minutes, but she hadn't inspected any of the notifications she was getting.

"You gonna check that, or what?" Mia asked. "It's starting to tick me off, perezosa."

"I'm trying to ignore it, but yeah, I'll give it a look after we finish up... speaking of, you make up your mind yet?"

"Y-Yes," Rebecca said, moving her piece across the board not towards Archalonde but a weaker boss monster. "After I defeat this Medusaloid, I should be at a high enough level to ensure victory, and also, if I'm really lucky, I'll roll the Medusaloid Head from the drop table and, um, t-that would make things even easier!"

"You sure?" Oliver frowned. After his string of defeats, he was desperate for a win, but he'd feel bad about one-upping Rebecca to get there. She was just too sweet.

Rebecca hesitated, briefly looking up at him through her visor. She gulped, nodded, and then committed to her final gambit. She beat the Medusaloid and even got its head. Sadly, it was too late to make a difference. Oliver went directly to Archalonde the moment it was his turn. The boss battle was fierce, but Oliver's swordsman had everything it took to topple the titanic tyrant.

Victory felt as hollow as he expected.

"Why didn't you just go for it, Rebecca?" Oliver wondered, helping everyone clear the board.

"Huh? Oh. Well, before the Medusaloid, I probably had about a sixty percent chance of winning the game with my stats at the time. You had an eighty percent chance, and I was, um, banking on the twenty... ahaha..."

"Should've just gone for it," Mia clicked her tongue. "Miss all the shots you don't take, and so on."

"Right..." Rebecca smiled meekly. "Well, maybe next time? If everyone wants to keep playing, I mean. I brought other things we can try, or, um-"

"I dunno about you guys, but I'm down for one more," Zoe said.

"Sí, wouldn't mind one last go. Mi amor?"

"Like you even have to ask," he laughed. "I could keep going all night."

Zoe resisted the urge to reach for the low-hanging fruit and quip 'that's what she said' as Rebecca's smile went from meek to starry-eyed.

"You really like the game that much...?"

"Honestly? The game is fun as hell, but it's less that and more so that I'm hanging out with all of you. We could be doing fuck all, and I'd still be having the time of my life."

The girls all looked at him. Mia had patient love in her eyes, Zoe had a somewhat confused smile, and Rebecca had nervous anticipation and a smidge of disbelief. His sudden admission created a silence in the room that he filled with another confession straight from the heart.

"Don't get me wrong, Mia, Zoe- I had tons of fun when it was just the two of us hanging- but this? It's totally new to me. I... never actually had many friends growing up... or since then, really, so..." Oliver's confession started weighing heavily on his heart the more he spoke. He looked down, his face burning up as he let out a self-deprecating laugh, saying, "God. Sorry, I didn't mean to suddenly go off on you guys about my old hangups. All I'm getting at is there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

The girls kept staring. Oliver felt like he had egg on his face, but his concerns were put to rest before they could spiral when a couple notifications popped.

[Mia has gained +5 Affection!]

[Zoe has gained +5 Affection!]

He blushed harder, confusion taking hold.

Huh? I... don't understand. The affection boost, sure, but where's the Smooth Talker bonus...?

Oliver's ignorance made him overlook the truth. It wasn't his words that raised their affection scores but what those words accomplished. He'd activated the maternal instincts of everyone around him.

Mia's heart was filled with the desire to give her sad little white boy all the love he was missing out on. Rebecca's temptation to remove her armor and tell this relative stranger how deeply she could sympathize with his troubles was immeasurable, and Zoe?

Even she cracked.

By now, Zoe had picked up that Oliver had some baggage, and it wasn't just from everything Mia had told her about him. She felt it in his awkwardness around her. Saw it in the adoring way he gazed at her during their brief moment of intimacy. Something was wrong with him, and hearing about his loneliness tugged her heartstrings.

Short of getting in line the next time it was dick-sucking o'clock, Zoe wondered if there was more she could be doing to help the guy. It didn't sound like it would take much to make him happy. All he wanted was friends. Attention. She could relate to that much.

Just another reason to rethink my streaming schedule... Zoe supposed. And while we're at it, maybe we could try that again...

"...Um, guys?" Oliver asked once the awkward silence became too much. "Did I just totally kill the mood, or-"

The three flavors of nerd girl all snapped out of their respective trances, covering for themselves in different ways.

"No, no. Sorry, mi amor," Mia reached under the table to hold his hand as tight as she could. "Don't have much new to say to your sudden trauma-dumping other than I'm here for you, I will always be here for you, and that this is your life now. Might not be much to write home about, but you got me, and my friends are your friends. Right, girls?"

"Y-Yes, of course!" Rebecca worked past her anxieties to lean a little closer- even if only an inch. "I... um, I won't stop being your friend unless you ask me! And even if you did, I'd probably be really annoying about it and cry until you took me back out of pity!"

"Geez..." Zoe scratched the back of her head and looked off to the side. "Way to put a girl on the spot, Mia. Not like your boyfriend's mental shit is any of my problem... but... then again..."

Oliver suddenly jumped in his seat. Mia knew what was up and smiled knowingly as Rebecca tilted her head, oblivious to Zoe's foot mingling with Oliver's under the table. It felt good, strangely enough, but he pulled it back out of shyness as she finished her statement.

"What can I say, Olive? I like ya, and if hanging out with me of all people brings your mopey ass some measure of peace or whatever the fuck, what kinda girl would I be if denied you my company?"

"A bitch," Mia added without skipping a beat. "A cruel one, at that."

"Uh. Yeah? That's what I was getting at, Mia. You don't gotta get on my case."

"Don't I? Trying to comfort him, perezosa. Ain't the time for your tsundere-ass bullshit, so say it like you mean it."

"Gah- fine, fine..." Zoe shrugged and forced herself to look Oliver dead on, saying, "I like hanging out with you too, nerd. The last couple of days have been fun as fuck, and I'd... be pretty fuckin' sad if you stopped coming around any time soon. You got that?"

Oliver lowered his head, feeling self-conscious as all hell. He'd just blurted his confession out for no real reason, and then everyone went and made a massive deal of it. He wasn't looking for their sympathy and didn't know how to handle having it.

It took all he could muster just to say, "I, uh... t-thank you, everyone?"

"...Too much?" Mia frowned.

"...A little, yeah," he sucked in a deep breath. "I can barely process it when you say sappy shit to me. How am I supposed to deal with another two cute girls doing it at the same time?"

Rebecca looked close to fainting. "C-Cute...?! You can't p-possibly mean that... c-can you?"

"Well, I didn't mean to casually throw it out like that, but-"

"N-No! Don't answer! I don't want to know, and besides, you shouldn't be joking about stuff like that to begin with! Your girlfriend is right there!!"

Mia rubbed her forehead, sighing. Uncomfortable as it would be, she really, really needed to talk to Becca about her 'specific interests' sometime soon so she'd stopped freaking out about her little crush. But not now- not right away. Slowly easing the innocent girl into getting comfortable talking about lewd things first was probably for the best.

Zoe was far less considerate. She had half a mind to fill Rebecca in right here and now but admittedly thought things were amusing where they stood and ended up saying nothing. Not her department.

Oliver took in a deep breath, steadying himself. The emotional moment had passed, and while he still couldn't efficiently work through his feelings, all the attention, friendship, and love on Mia's behalf left him on top of the world.

"Right, well. I still have no idea how to respond to... any of that, but it makes me want to double down on the part where I said there's nowhere else I'd rather be. Seriously." Oliver said, trying his best. "Now, if it's all the same to you, I think we should get started on the next game before my heart gives out on me from having to work through so much positivity."

"You... really aren't used to this kinda thing, huh, Olive?"

"Nope, not in the slightest, but here's hoping I'll come around the more we hang out..."

Zoe frowned. She wasn't dense- she knew she was emotionally distant and downright reclusive. Even so, at least she knew what it felt like to have people who cared for her. It got her wondering how bad he'd had it until hooking up with Mia, and she was even starting to wonder more about the guy in general.

Her tiny world had expanded by a single person, and at just the right time, too. As soon as she got her streaming schedule under control, Zoe would hopefully have plenty of time to get to know the newest member of what was essentially her family. The prospect oddly excited her.

But before that could happen...

"Atta boy. Gimme just a second to check my messages and shit so Mia stops bitching at me, and then we can-"

Zoe's eyes bulged when she saw the exact number of notifications and why she was getting them. The room went quiet as everyone turned to look at her.

"...Perezosa? You doing okay over there?"

"Y-Yeah," Zoe nodded absently, her thumb scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. "Just... got a lot of shit to go through..."

"Oh! Um, d-did one of your clips go viral again?"

"Not exactly, no..."

"Well, what's going on, then?" Oliver asked. "You're kinda freaking me out, Zoe..."

Zoe looked up to her three friends. Then, back at her phone. Then, her friends. Phone. Friends. Phone. Friends-

Friends first, damn it! Wasn't that what you fuckin' decided, you stupid bitch? Come the fuck on. Do the right thing for once and be happy with what you fuckin' have. Look at Olive- he's barely got shit, and the dude's so happy he doesn't even know how to fuckin' process it!

But you...?

"Zoe," Oliver repeated, concerned. "Are you okay? Do you need more caffeine or something? I normally wouldn't ever offer to grab you some, but you have been pacing yourself today, so I'd understand if you needed a little boost or-"

"No, no," Zoe sighed, forcing herself to look up at everyone. "It's nothing like that. I'm fine. Juuuust fine. Well, maybe a little bit more on edge because of the caffeine, but that's not... gah- dancing around this is giving me a fuckin' headache, so I'm just gonna throw it out there. Tweak's mod team or whoever the fuck reviewed my appeal and decided I was right. I didn't break the ToS, so... my temp ban got lifted, and I can get back to streaming whenever I want."

Mia frowned and rubbed her right wrist. Rebecca shrank in her seat after the ramifications sunk in. Oliver simply stared.

"Oh," he said. "Shit."

***

Stat Changes

Mia Rosas | Status: Girlfriend | 68/300 | ❤❤❤♡♡

Zoe Myers | Status: Friend | 82/100 | ♡♡♡♡♡