The guild bank costs 4 gold and 30 silver to build. After selling all the loot from my recent farming expedition to Yock, who glares at me suspiciously as we haggle over the price of goblin cheese, as though guessing I’ve been out committing genocide against his people again, I’m left with 10 gold, 86 silver and 12 copper. That’s enough to place the guild bank inside the base, and have a bit leftover to pay the guards another day or so out of my own pocket. With the establishment of a guild bank, however, I’m hoping the other members of The Whales will start contributing their fair share to the base’s defenses, so all the burden doesn’t fall on me.

  [Guild leader, would you like to pay guild employees from the guild bank or continue to pay out of personal funds?]

  I select the former.

  [Guild leader, would you like to set an automatic guild tax?]

  The system prompts me with another message as I interact with the bank. I pull down the collapsible menu to read a little more. It looks as though I can tax each guild member’s quest rewards so that a percentage of each monetary reward is deposited automatically into the bank. In other words, if the quest rewards 1 silver piece for completion, and I set the tax to 5%, the players would receive 95 copper, and the guild bank would receive 5. Low level players won’t be able to contribute a lot in the beginning, but over time, especially as the quest rewards increase, it will add up. I just hope it will be fast enough.

  Is 5% too much to ask from players? Perhaps I should go with 4. But dang it if I’m not tempted to bump it all the way up to 10…

  Running this base is so expensive. Can I really keep it up? Maybe I should cut back on defenses after all…

  Just then there’s a little sparkle to my left, and I turn to see ChuchuMisa-pyon materialize in the base, somehow carrying an even bigger axe. She puts it on her back and I see she’s still wearing the same Santa bikini. I’m guessing it’s a skin Gramps bought when he made the character; probably, he’ll never take it off…

  “Uwao! So this is Whale Base! Kirei desu! Daisuki desu! Ano!” She spots me and I cringe. “Konnichiwa, Austen-chan!”

  “Konnichiwa,” I answer with less enthusiasm as she gloms onto me, her fake old man breasts pressing suggestively into my arm. Ugh. I think I’m gonna be sick. I shake her off deliberately.

  “Anyway, this is the base,” I introduce her with a wave of my arm. “It’s not much yet, but you’re free to look around. You can sell items to Yock over there, or buy potions from Mad Wim,” I point to the two of them alternately, and Misa-pyon waves her fingers at them.

  “Haiiii~”

  “There’s a wizard named Bax in that tree over there, but I wouldn’t bother him unless you want to get thrown out on your ass.”

  “Misa-pyon likes a challenge,” she says, her eyes glittering as she looks up at the tower.

  “Fine, just don’t harass them too much, I finally got them settled down. By them I mean Bax and Captain Moon. Moon’s the shirtless guy training soldiers over there,” I say, pointing out the heartthrob Kpop idol lookalike, but to my surprise, Misa’s face goes gray when she sees him.

  “What’s this? Not interested?”

  She turns her head deliberately.

  “Misa-pyon is not interested in good looking boys. Misa-pyon is Kami-sama’s gift to ugly boys, nerdy virgins, and lonely old men. They are the ones that need Misa-pyon most,” she says, folding her hands innocently beneath her chin.

  “You act like you’re running a charity.”

  “So I am,” she winks at me. “In a way. Though, it’s not entirely charity, either.” Then to my surprise, she opens a trade window, and deposits 12 gold. I feel my eyes might bug out of my head at the sight.

  “Wh-wha?”

  “Just a small present from Misa-pyon’s fans. Chuuu—” she says, and leans in to plant a red-lipped kiss on my cheek.

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  A present, she says? I just spent three hours farming gold and she gets it thrown at her for flirting with guys? Forget taxing their quest earnings, I need to figure out how to tax this e-girl’s donations! Just how many fanboys does Misa-pyon have? She’s only been playing the game for 5 hours!

  Welp, I guess with Grandpa in the guild, we won’t be short of gold any time soon… At least the old pervert’s good for something, I think, depositing the gold straight into the guild bank.

  “Kya! A boy!”

  I look up in surprise to see KassInFlight has also teleported into the base. An undead with slate colored skin, his clothes are more punk coded than fantasy, with ripped jeans, a short canvas jacket and a checkered scene belt. On his right arm he’s tied a bright orange sash, and he grips an enormous greatsword in his fist, which he immediately puts on his back.

  “Hey, Lin—I mean, Kass,” I say a little awkwardly. Before he can respond, Mrs. Claus has him in her grasp.

  “Haiiii boy!” Misa-pyon gloms onto his arm the same way she did mine. “Wanna touch my oppai? Or maybe my feet? Misa-pyon doesn’t judge!”

  “Leave him alone, Gramps! He’s not—not built that way,” I say, afraid of offending Link by calling him out immediately as AI.

  Misa-pyon’s face gets gray once more and she releases him. “Misa has no interest in gay boys,” she says flatly.

  “Who’s the one going around hitting on guys? You’re gayer than anybody here!”

  “How dare you?! Misa-pyon is a beautiful young girl! Misa-pyon is not listening to your lies! Meanie!” She sticks her tongue out at me and I slap my face in disbelief. Then she stomps off to deal with Yock, and I heave a sigh of relief.

  “Sorry about Misa. She can be a little…forward.”

  “You called her a man.”

  “That’s because in the real world, she’s—”

  I stop myself. Link probably doesn’t want to be reminded of what he is in the real world. In fact, it seems bad form to even speak of it here, inside this richly rendered fantasy. Perhaps I owe Misa-pyon an apology after all… Then I look over, and see her doing pafu-pafu with Yock to get a discount, and I immediately regret that thought.

  “Anyway, never mind that person. Was there a reason you came to the Whale Base?”

  “I noticed 5% of my quest reward was diverted to a guild bank, so I came to investigate.”

  “Ah. Yeah, I built the bank as you suggested. I set the tax to 5%. I felt that was, er, fair…”

  Kass nods stoically, just looking around the place without reaction.

  He’s almost less emotive now that he’s in the game, I notice. What’s worse, I don’t really know how to talk to him. Before when I met him as my alt character, I couldn’t make myself speak to him at all. But it’s a little different this time, I tell myself. I’m more comfortable as Revelator. I feel more at home in the game, and less like ‘Austen’ his boss. I’m not infringing on his gaming experience, since he came to this place, and now speaks to me of his own free will. I’m not lording myself over him, but interacting with him as an equal.

  “It’s kind of exciting, don’t you think?” He looks back to me with neon pink eyes. “Meeting like this.”

  Kass watches me a moment, then repeats, “Exciting…”

  “When you level up more, I hope we’ll get to play together. We can even run a dungeon, once we get one more member.”

  “I will not be joining you on dungeon raids.”

  “Oh?” I scratch the back of my head awkwardly. “Right. Got ahead of myself, I shouldn’t have assumed. Stupid of me…”

  “It is not that I would not wish to join the rest of the guild in a dungeon raid,” he qualifies, still without expression. “Only that the game forbids it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He indicates to the orange sash on his right arm. “Those like me, who wear this sash, are permitted to join guilds, but not raid with them. We also cannot join parties, or participate in PVP arenas.”

  The sash. The sash is significant. ‘Those like me…’

  I get it. The system made all AI characters wear the brightly colored sash on their arm to identify them as non human players. On one hand, I can understand it, since an AI is going to have a significant advantage over a regular human player. Having one on your team would make walking through dungeons or power leveling a breeze, and of course they’d be an impossible opponent in PVP. But on the other hand, it feels wrong, somehow. Discriminatory.

  So Link can play the game, but even in this world, he is shackled by programming. While he wears this sash, he can never truly be one of us.

  So much for being ‘unbound,’ I think as I watch him with a strange sort of pain in my chest. So much for being human.

  “However,” Kass continues, unaware of my thoughts, “I am able to join guilds, as you can see, and assist with the defense of guild bases. So please call on me in the event of such a raid.”

  “Right,”I answer, hoping I sound like my normal self. “Will do. Thanks, Kass.”

  The faintest hint of a smile touches the corner of his mouth to hear me use his in-game name, and he replies, “My pleasure.”

  Just then, and to my immense surprise, a third teleportation shimmer appears, and with it, Sherbie, glasses in hand. He’s absolutely soaked.

  “Rev!” he cries. “As soon as you left a downpour started! It’s raining so bad I can hardly see.”

  “Never mind, it’ll clear up—” I start to say, only to have my line interrupted by a squeal from Misa-pyon.

  “Kya! You didn’t tell me we had another girl on the team!”

  Before I can stop her, she makes a beeline straight for an unsuspecting Sherbie, wearing a definite dirty old man expression just before she crashes straight into him.

  “Misa-pyon loves girls! Do you love Misa-pyon? I know we’re going to be the best of tomodachi! Let’s go take a bath together, don’t be shy if your oppai are small! Chiisai chichi, suki-desu!!”

  “Ex-excuse me, um,” Sherbie stutters, looking between Kass and me helplessly as Misa-pyon rubs herself all over him like a cat. “Um, help?”

  “Sherbie,” I clear my throat, “allow me to introduce our new guild members…”