Ugly Bastard

“Hey, folks! We’re back.” Said Dany loudly as she walked into the house with Noah. Immediately the sound of scrambling was heard from the living room and Samantha, Kate, and Lily rushed out to meet them.

However they stopped in the doorway as if frozen from surprise as they gazed at Dany with bewildered expressions.

“The hell ya all glarin at with those dumb faces?” Said Dany cheerfully. “I was gone for just a few minutes and you all became dumb o sumthing?”

“Dany!” Shouted all three and rushed to hug their team's ranger, slamming into her with their collective mass so hard, they almost crumbled to the floor.

“You’re back!” Said Samantha as traces of tears showed in her eyes. Kate and Lily outright cried a bit as they hugged their friend.

“Yeah.” Said Danyella quietly, understanding what her friend really meant. She wasn’t herself these past months. Now that she showed the traces of her old self, Sam was finally relieved.

“Sorry, it took a long time. I am better.” Said Dany, quickly glancing in Noah’s direction before averting her gaze quickly.

Samantha looked at Noah and saw him scratching his cheek bashfully. She could not find a away to help her friend for months, and it only took Noah, what? A few minutes alone with her. How? Well, she wasn’t gonna question it for now. She was just happy to see that her friend is better.

“Thank you.” She formed with her mouth silently as she locked eyes with Noah.

Danyella was always a firecracker in their team. Cheerful, loud and hyperactive. The more worrying it was looking at her for the past few months as she sat silent, distant and detached. Her latest attempts of self harm made Samantha think that Dany’s case was getting only worse. So this sudden step to improvement was a gulp of fresh air to suffocating person. 

Dany still seemed a bit down in mood and her smile was a bit forced. Slight circles under her eyes were still present, but at least she went on communication with them. At least from here they would be able to talk it out and find a solution. It was this first step that Samantha could not reach. She'll know what to do once she can communicate with her friend again. So Samantha finally breathed out in relief.

“Alright! Enough of this mushy-mushy feeling session. You will get my jacket all wet with yer tears.” Said Dany finally pushing the girls off herself, and straightening her clothes. Lily cought the fact that she actually had a different pair of pants now but only raised an eyebrow at it and did not mention it aloud.

“Let me see this strange house from inside. Never seen a design like that.” Said Danyella changing the topic as girls wiped off their teary eyes. “The lock on the door is quite interesting. Never seen anything this delicate. I kinda want to try to lockpick it. Can I?”

“Maybe another time.” Said Noah squinting an eye.

“Ok. What else ya got here?” Said Dany waltzing into the house as if it was her own place, with girls following after her.

"Wow? What's all that? And these windows. Nice design. All this open space. I like it. You designed it, Noah?" It seemed that Dany could go a hundred mile per our in her conversation.

Noah sighed walking into the room where his whole family except for Nu was now in assembly.

“Whatzzat?” Asked Dany, picking a TV remote control and pushing buttons.

“Remote control.” Said Ugy. “And you can’t use it if you have no access. So put it back down, please."

“Tsk.” Voiced Dany throwing the remote back on arm chairs seat then grabbed the plush bear lifting him up. “What are you? Why you can talk?” She asked twirling him upside down in her hands.

“Hey! Do you mind?” Said Yuko grabbing Ugy and snatching him out of Dany’s hands as she stared at Dany angrily. “Only I can bully him. So hands off. Ok? Find yourself your own target to bully.” 

“Woah. Sorry girlfriend. Didn’t mean to step on your feet.” Said Dany raising her hands and glancing at Yuko’s spider abdomen and legs.

“Calm down Dany. I’ll give you a tour a bit later. First of all we need to discuss something with that plush ass.” Said Noah.

“Hmmm? Me? What do you want to hear?” Asked Ugy pretending to be surprised.

“This world. Getting conscious people into here while bypassing several strict rules. What does it mean and how is it possible?” Asked Noah.

An uncomfortable silence spread in the room as everyone looked around at each other. Dany noticed the uncomfortable mood, as if everyone were aware of some secret except for her and Noah and they did not want to share it with them.

“I see. So he did use this chance to have a private talk with you all.” Said Noah glancing at Tessa.

“Noah. Do you trust me?” Asked Tessa.

“Yes.”

“Then let's discuss this topic after you finish your training in Dryad forest. It’s not convenient to trouble you with it right now.”

“You sure?” Asked Noah.

“Yeah. I believe this is the right choice for now. There is no immediate danger and so it's not really a concern for near future. It's better if you don't worry about it for quite some time. In fact this may turn out to be quite a good thing for you.” Said Theressa.

“Alright. If you say so.” Said Noah, nodding. Theressa was, by far, one of the most proficient people in scheming and analyzing situations, he has ever met. Even in a high level crowd that consisted of other Guardians, High nobles and even old monsters such as an Archdukes, she could come up on top in her skills of scheming and analysis. So if she decided to follow Ugy’s plea to hold off some information from him, Noah believed she analyzed many factors that he himself could not even see and came to the decision that this was the best for him at the moment. So he wasn’t going to argue with that. If she thought it was best. Then so it was. After all he had no doubt of his mates’ love for him.

What more he also saw Dahlia in a corner nod as well. So two of the most knowledgeable in magic and spirit magic women in the room actually agreed on this, which made him reassured even more.

“Also…” Said Tessa contemplating her words. “What chapter are you in in the story you are currently cultivating with?”

“Don’t really remember, fifteen hundred or something.” Said Noah rubbing his chin, trying to recall the number. He was sure there were over 5000 chapters there and he wasn’t even at the midpoint.

“Start a new one.” Said Tessa 

“Wait what? But I spent weeks in it. That Meng Hao guy is finally out of his 500 years seclusion and was just about to rock some devine…”

“Yes. That’s why. You are too deep into story. For now only read them in initial chapters and put them off for later after a few hundred chapters or so.” Suggested Tessa.

“What? There isn't even a point to it then. Cultivation stories barely begin at the hundredth chapter.” Said Noah, throwing up his hands.

“This is necessary for now. Please.” Said Tessa.

“Fine.” Sighed Noah heavily.

“These stories you are talking about…Can we see them?” Asked Kate.

“Well. We could. So no reason you would not.” Said Brianna.

“Yes, you can, only it has no effect on your systems. For you all it is no different from a very realistic theatrical performance.” Said Ugy. “For user it's an illusion with all 5D of realism. For you all it’s 3D at most.

“What’s D?” Asked Lily.

“Oh I know!” Said Yuko before Ugy could answer. “Ugy told me before. It’s breast size.”

““Huh?”” Sounded collective outrage.

“Why is illusion realism measured in breast size?” Asked Dany, her eyebrow twitching slightly. The breast size topic was a bit of an irritating topic for her.

“Oh I think it's like with breasts. The more D, the better. Ugy said that D is good. 2D is awesome and above it is beyond magnificent.” Said Yuko proudly explaining what she knew, without paying attention to Ugy poking her into the side and 'shh’ing' her to make her stop talking.

“Huh? D is good? What if it’s bellow that…D?” Asked Dany.

“Oh, yeah. According to Ugy, what’s below D should not even be considered breasts. It’s just slightly different from flat planks.

“And how much is this D?” Asked Samantha squinting her eyes.

Yuko raised her hands showing the approximate amount of it and several angry piercing gazes pointed at Ugy as if trying to burn him with their eyes. Then they glared toward Noah, making him shiver.

“Below that is not breasts?” Huffed Dany crossing her hands under her chest with an angry face.

“Tha…that’s not my words. Even small breasts are fine for me.” Said Noah raising his hand.

“So anyones breasts are fine with you?” Asked Kate covering her breasts with a hand.

“Pervert.” Said Lily.

“So you say we have small breasts?” Said Samantha.

“Pervert.” Repeated Said Lily.

“What about color?” Asked Zinnia pushing up her breasts that made a huge greenish cleavage in her sexy maid outfit, making Noah gulp involuntarily.

“As I said. Pervert.” Said Lily once again.

“No…I…Fuck. Ugy you asshole this is literally an unsolvable riddle you dunked us in. No matter what I do I’ll be an asshole here. I’ll remember that you bastard.” Hissed Noah glaring at Ugy.

At that moment Noah noticed how Dahlia bent to Zinnia’s ear and whispered something to her, which made Zinnia’s eyes sparkle with excitement. Aster quickly joined their whispering and soon three Dryads were snickering and whispering in their own corner.

Lily also gazed at them before turning to look at Noah with squinted eyes. As Noah caught her gaze he could not help looking as if he was caught red handed in something.

“Pervert.” Said Lily once more.

“Can we drop the topic of breasts?” Said Noah rolling his eyes in expression of annoyance. “Realism has nothing to do with breasts, ok? The measurements are different. Don’t mind Ugy’s stupid blabberings. Alright?” However his speech did not have much effect so he decided to turn their attention to something else.

“Ok then, which story should I start?” Said Noah grabbing remote and sitting down on the couch.

“Hold on, dear. We would have to take care of the stolen armors and weapons first, so that no one would recognise any markings on them.” Said Tessa. “It’s almost morning outside and if you want your newly assembled adventurers team to be of use to us as soon as possible, we’ll need to readjust the items by the time they get ready to set out for a hunt. So Bri, Cil and I will have to do our best to prepare at least the five needed sets of items for them in time.” Said Tessa.

“Right. Thank you. I’ll send you out then. What about you girls?” Asked Noah, turning to Samantha and the others. “You haven’t caught a proper wink since last night too."

“Yeah. To be honest, I am too exhausted to enjoy any of that story you mentioned.” Said Lily, yawning. Just as he mentioned it, girls felt how exhaustion caught up to them and also started to yawn one after another.

“I see. I’ll send you all back to the mansion then.” Said Noah and a bit of disappointment could be heard in his voice.

“Don’t be sad dear, we all would love to watch these stories with you. We’ll try to be as quick as possible and return, Samantha, Kate, Lily and Danyella would also be more pleased once they see them when they are less exhausted.” Said Tessa.

“Yeah. I know. Only, I would need to get back to my training and it’s in Dryad core forest, so…”

“Oh. That would not be a problem with the current state of things.” Said Ugy. “Earlier we could not allow the others to be consciously in our mind realm while we were in Core Forest, even your mates. But now that we can get others with their bodies here…I think it would doable.”

“I would be able to transfer somebody to the Dryads Core Forest?” Asked Noah surprised.

“No. That’s not what I mean. As long as you want to get them into this mind realm then it’s doable. But letting somebody exit out of the mind realm into Core forest is still unreal.”

“So we can be here with Noah, while he trains?” Asked Brianna excitedly.

“Yes.” Said Ugy. "At least when he enters here with his mind. His real body need to be within the barrier wall to train."

“This is wonderful news!” Said Theressa jumping up and hugging Noah. “We missed you so much.”

“Umm.” Voiced Priscilla and Brianna in agreement, as they hugged him from the sides as well.

“I missed you all too.” Said Noah happily.

“Ok. Let's go out then.” Said Tessa and a whole group of women walked out of the house, leaving only Yuko, Ugy and Zinnia.

“Wait, Zinnia?” Thought Noah looking at the Dryad with surprise before turning to look at Dahlia that went out with Aster and all the other. As if she sensed his gaze, Dahlia turned to look at him, before smiling a cunning smile and winking at him.”

“It’s Zinnia’s turn, Master.” Said Dahlia before closing the door of the house after herself.

Noah squinted his eyes in suspicion as he gazed back at Zinnia, who looked at him with an amiable smile and no doubt had a few more buttons on her uniform open than when she first came here, presenting to Noah’s view a gorgeous cleavage. There was at least one D there before. But now there seemed to be a quite a lot more.

“These girls…” Muttered Noah with a sigh.