Chapter Text
Idia was just about to start their new Premo fic, for real this time, no more procrastinating, when they were interrupted by a knock on the door. They considered just ignoring it, but it might have been Ortho. Their brother had his own room key, and could just let himself in, but he never did when he knew Idia was already inside. Sure enough, Ortho’s voice piped up from behind the door. “Idia? It’s me, I want to ask a favor so can you open the door?” Premo would have to wait for another time.
Unfortunately for Idia, Ortho was not the only person outside their room. Next to him was some normie they didn’t recognize, until he said hello, and they placed his voice. It was that annoying prefect that had fast-talked their way into moderating the weekly housewarden meetings. He had also talked Ortho into helping with this whenever Idia joined via voice call, but outside of that they knew next to nothing about him. They weren’t even completely sure if Yuu was even a guy, since if the black carriage fucked up badly enough to summon someone with no magic it could totally have fucked up in other ways, and the prefect managed to hit that sweetspot of androgyny without even needing to rely on baggy clothes or anything. Seven, it made Idia jealous. They shot Ortho a quizzical glance. “A favor?”
“Well, it’s not really a favor for me , but for Yuu here. They were telling me about how they got into that game you’re always playing, but Ramshackle isn’t wired for internet, so I said you might be able to help!”
Idia eyed the normie critically. “What, for real? You gotta be, like, a turbo extrovert to befriend almost all the other housewardens as fast as you did. Why on Twisted Wonderland would you willingly spend enough time alone on a computer to get invested in an MMO?”
Yuu raised an eyebrow at the description of him as an extrovert, but didn’t comment on it. “Well, I was telling Hornton about some of my favorite games, and he mentioned-”
“Hold on, does Sir Malleus even know what a video game is?”
“Surprisingly, yes. Apparently it’s because-”
“You know what, I don’t actually care. I’m sorry to disappoint Ortho, but I have neither the time nor energy to help you with this. I’ve seen Ramshackle, and that place is only up to code in the loosest sense of the word. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t burned down by now, there’s no way I’m introducing another cable to the mess that’s probably in your walls.”
The prefect let out a resigned sigh, “Yeah, I went to replace a lightswitch one time, but I had to stop and go do some deep breathing exercises as soon as I saw what the wiring looked like. There’s no way I’m touching any of that without an expert, and Ortho said that was you. By the way, he also said you guys have a bunch of PCs set up in the Ignihyde common room. Since this whole thing was a wash, do you mind if I-”
“Yeah, sure, whatever. I’m going back to work.”
Idia shut the door before Yuu could respond, and more importantly before they could see the disappointed look that Ortho probably had. Ortho could definitely have analyzed Ramshackle House on his own and come to the same conclusion Idia had, and then just offered Yuu use of the common room. Him trying to get Idia to help anyway was probably another attempt to convince him to socialize more IRL. He probably thought that the person who managed to befriend the reclusive Malleus Draconia might also stand a chance at prying Idia out of their shell. As if someone who had a pet name for an actual royal prince would want to waste time on a creepy, cursed shut-in.
They eyed the blank doc as they sat back down. Their entire train of thought was gone. Idia sighed, and logged into his game instead. Premo would have to wait. Again. Once they finished collecting his login rewards and checking his dailies, they had two new DMs, one from their closest brother-in-arms, Muscle Red, and one from some n00b he didn’t know. He checked the latter first, curious who this Shrimpie was and what they wanted.
<Shrimpie> Hey, it’s Yuu
<Shrimpie> Ortho gave me ur id
Idia rolled his eyes, and clicked on the other message.
<Muscle Red> Greetings
<Muscle Red>I thought you were going to be busy today?
<Muscle Red> I’m afraid I can’t farm with you right now, I’m helping a friend I introduced to the game
<Gloomurai> np i dont have anything planned
<Gloomurai> all ur student spots are full rn right?
<Gloomurai> i can mentor them for u
<Muscle Red> Thank you very much, I’ll send you their ID.
Idia looked at the player ID number Muscle Red sent him. Then he looked back at the prefect’s identical ID. He looked back and forth between them as if willing a digit to change. They opened the chat with Shrimpie again.
<Gloomurai> u know Muscle Red???
<Shrimpie> yeah, u cut me off before i got to him
<Shrimpie> i can finish explaining if u wanna listen now
<Gloomurai> no
<Gloomurai> IRL stuff stays out of here
<Gloomurai> dont tell people other people’s real names.
<Shrimpie> understood.
<Shrimpie> and dw, i haven’t told muscle i know u yet
They sat back, and considered their options. They could tell Muscle Red that they couldn’t mentor his friend after all, but he might ask why, and Idia couldn’t think of an excuse. He’d definitely accept it if Idia just declined to answer, but then he might ask Yuu if anything happened, and they didn’t know if the prefect was any good at deflection. In addition, if Idia thought Ortho was being obvious about trying to get Yuu to befriend him before, giving him Idia’s ID blew away any doubt. If he played along, and let Yuu wear himself out on a lost cause, then Idia wouldn’t be the one Ortho would be disappointed in when the inevitable happened. That settled it.
[Request <Shrimpie> to be your student?]
[yes] [no]
Once Shrimpie accepted the request, he formed a party with him and Muscle Red, and fast traveled to the lower level fields.
<Gloomurai> kk i just set ur assignments
<Gloomurai> do them to rank up my mentor lvl + ur student lvl
<Gloomurai> u can exchange student coins for cosmetic items + we both get rewards based on ur student lvl when u graduate
<Muscle Red> Additionally, you receive student coins by playing in a party with your mentor, and an exp buff for playing with higher leveled friends
<Shrimpie> got it
<Shrimpie> so 1st task is to do this dungeon, right?
Shrimpie did seem to have some experience with this type of game. Either that or they had some kind of preternatural ability to intuit game mechanics, which didn’t even bear thinking about. Despite admitting upfront that they didn’t normally pick DPS, they had a fairly decent starter build for their pyromancer (which was basically a standard elemental mage but they put every skill point into the fire spells), and when Idia or Muscle Red gave advice on what gear they’d probably want to aim for, they’d carefully read through the descriptions to check which suggestions best fit what they were going for. They also had hilariously terrible luck, getting only the most common drops from every dungeon, world boss, anything with an element of RNG they tried. If Idia was having this much of an unlucky streak, he’d have rage-quit ages ago, but Shrimpie said it was “best I work off the bad luck now before the next time I almost die” which was. Morbid. But that really didn’t concern him.
Eventually, Shrimpie had gotten far enough in the main story that they got their first alternate cosmetic outfit, and immediately started scrolling through the menu, checking all the options and their unlock requirements. Muscle Red was answering their questions and giving pointers, which was… Well, Idia loved- Idia greatly valued Muscle Red’s companionship and respected his skill at the game. They did not, however, respect his fashion sense. Every time he decided to change his look, without fail, he would pick the gaudiest outfit imaginable, as if he possessed no sense of taste and was just guessing at what humans liked. And if that rubbed off on Shrimpie…Idia shuddered, and pushed the thought down. At least with those two occupied planning outfits, he could sit back a bit and unpack what he learned today.
- Firstly, Yuu knows Muscle Red IRL
- Given that Yuu was only summoned to Twisted Wonderland this year, they have had limited opportunities to leave Sage Island
- Therefore, Muscle Red was most likely a resident of the island.
Idia’s train of thought screeched to a halt. Oh no. What if Muscle Red was an NRC student!? They might have already interacted, and if he ever put the pieces together, or Yuu spilled the beans, he could connect Gloomurai to Idia, and he’d know what a creepy loner his friend really was and, and… An even worse thought occurred to them, and they hurriedly texted Ortho.
“yuu knows im gloomurai!!!”
“Yes? I’ve been watching them play, you’ve known this for 3 hours, 48 minutes, and 19 seconds.”
“im only out as nb online! theyll know as soon as they check my bio!
what if they freak out?
what if they tell people!?!?”
“I sincerely doubt that the former will happen, given that they are themself agender. Additionally, I project that they have a 97% chance of understanding completely if you simply inform them that you do not wish to be out at school.”
Idia blinked slowly.
“theyre what.”
“You didn’t know? They asked one of your classmates, Cater Diamond, to ensure that as many people on campus as possible knew so they wouldn’t have to come out to every individual person they meet.”
“hearing things on the grapevine requires talking to normies
thx for clearing things up tho
i’ll msg them”
Well, that was mortifying. Figures that someone so social would come up with the most extrovert possible way of coming out. Though, if Idia could present gender as well as Yuu did, he probably wouldn’t mind strangers knowing either. They glanced back up at the screen to see where the conversation had got to.
<Shrimpie> why not just marry gloomurai?