“That might work,” Panda said after I’d finished translating Lordie’s plan.

  “I think the versatility is a good idea,” Bee added.

  I looked to Cooper, Chris, and James.

  The boy jumped up and down excitedly. “Mech! Mech! Mech!”

  Chris put a hand on his brother’s head to calm him down. “I think it’s a good idea too. Given that it seems like getting a lot of the same material might be difficult, this compensates for it quite handily.”

  “Did you mean to make that pun?” I asked him.

  Chris grinned. “Possibly.”

  “Meow,” Lordie said.

  “He approves of hand-based jokes,” I translated.

  Lordie’s idea had been quite brilliant, which was no surprise since he was an evil genius in a lot of ways. Fortunately, he was on our side. Although he had tried to get us killed once, so perhaps that wasn’t entirely true. And he was a creature born of literal sin, so…

  Anyway!

  Lordie had said that he was actually on board with Bee’s original idea of shoving him into a flesh mech. As for the design, he wanted to make a giant seven-fingered hand, basically just giving him a larger version of his own body that he could control from within. The main downside was that he would be piloting it, which meant that if our Monstrosity was defeated, he would die. And if Lordie died, then I would die.

  Probably.

  Unless Reap This or Rules of Anarchy protected me.

  “Yeah, no chance,” Panda said.

  The main benefit of his idea was that, since we didn’t know if we’d have a reliable source of Monstrosity materials, we could make each of the fingers from different things, in turn giving each finger a unique power. Or that was the general gist, at least. We didn’t really know if it would work that way or not, and though Mammon lounged nearby in a floating golden bathtub full of doubloons, he wouldn’t tell us if our design idea was possible.

  “How big are we making it?” Cooper asked, looking at the pile of frog meat we’d collected. “If that’s just for one finger, won’t it become enormous?”

  “The bigger the better!” I insisted.

  “You cannot go above 10 meters in height and length. And girth, width, and whatever other measurements you have,” Mammon said.

  “If we use all the frog meat for a finger, then it would be maybe 4 meters long, making the whole hand 8 or 9 meters,” Bee calculated roughly.

  “Alright, let’s go get some more materials then,” I said. “Who’s coming with me?”

  “Me, me, me!” James exclaimed.

  He and Chris had been watching us from the screen that Mammon gave them, as per Panda’s advice. Despite what they must’ve seen, the little kid still wanted to come.

  “Sorry, lil guy,” I said, patting his head. “When you’re 18 you can come along for a good old romp through a monster-infested city.”

  James looked at Bee. “Why does she get to go? She’s a kid too, right?”

  Bee frowned. “I’m not a kid.”

  “She’s uh, a special case,” I muttered.

  Bee smacked me on my left arm.

  “I’ll stay here if you want to go, Chris,” Cooper said.

  Chris gave him a disapproving glare for putting him on the spot like that. I knew he didn’t want to leave his brother and had a strong risk aversion, but it was hard to say that to Cooper who’d tagged along with us already. And if he didn’t go, he would fall behind in levels and become unable to protect his brother down the line.

  “Fine, I’ll go this time,” he then ultimately decided. “Keep an eye on my brother.”

  “Of course,” Cooper told him. He’d recovered most of his composure after returning to the base, but it was clear he would be hard to bring with us again.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Bee had a strange look on her face suddenly and then turned to me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “All-Mommy told me you should use your Whale Bacon before we leave,” she said.

  Panda cringed at the nickname. “She’s talking to you?”

  “Yeah.”

  I brought the Whale Bacon out of my inventory. I’d been rewarded it for blasting through the CPS hive ship and striking one of the seas on Earth with my Pow Punch, killing a bunch of ocean wildlife.

  [‘Whale Bacon’ x ]

  Item

  Popular in Japan, this bacon comes from a baleen whale and is eaten raw.

  I don’t think papa approves, since most of his spawn are whale-like in appearance.

  Don’t worry though, I won’t tell him.

  To access the power within, you’ve gotta do the only thing you do with bacon.

  That’s right, make a ball out of it and throw it at your nearest friend!

  Weight: approximately one

  “What a waste of good whale meat,” Panda muttered.

  The whale bacon had appeared in my hands on a plate with chopped spring onions and grated radish on the side. I picked up the thin slices and rolled them into a ball, then I threw it at Cooper.

  Quick as an insatiable Labrador, he jumped to grab it in his mouth, swallowing before even registering what it was.

  Cooper licked his lips.

  “What did I just eat?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  [Choose your reward! x ]

  It may be worth telling Cooper that he is now marked for death by Nwetrou, Leviathans of Leviathans, Devourer of Suns, the Dweller in the Deep, and Lord of the Abyss.

  I had no idea that papa could tell when someone ate a creature he liked, but apparently he can. I guess that’s why he’s the primogenitor of Gluttony Demons. Also explains why he’s so upset with me, since I’ve eaten a lot of Void Whales…

  My bad on that one.

  But don’t worry, your friend will probably die before papa can get to him.

  Pick one of the options:

  ‘Skippy!’ | ‘Whale’ | ‘Let’s Go Whaling’

  “Sorry about that, Cooper,” I said.

  “What? Why?”

  “Don’t worry about it, actually.”

  [‘Skippy!’ x ]

  Ability

  You’re already familiar with Skippy, since you summoned him to kill one of the Flayed Lady’s pawns. He seems pretty cool with being summoned by you. Just keep in mind what summoning him entails.

  Summon Skippy.

  Cooldown: 5 hours

  [‘Whale’ x ]

  Passive

  I wasn’t aware that this is also a word you call people when not referring to their literal size, but instead the figurative size of their affluence. Odd.

  Immediately obtain 10,000 GAME Coins.

  Every time you spend money, people will make fun of you and you will gain 10 kilos of fat, regardless of the amount spent.

  [‘Let’s Go Whaling’ x ]

  Passive

  Both papa and PETA greatly disapprove of this Skill.

  But that’s part of the fun, isn’t it?

  You have to crack some eggs to stick it to an Absolute sometimes.

  Gain a 50% damage boost against enemies weighing more than 3 tons.

  Gain a further 100% damage boost if they are peaceful.

  Gain an even further 150% damage boost if they are whales or whale-based creatures.

  Every kill of a whale or whale-based creature makes you receive an angry letter from PETA, and the Patron God of Whales will send his servants to hunt you down.

  I showed Bee and the others the options.

  “Who is Skippy?” Cooper asked.

  “Remember that big black lake we reached before the event started?” I replied. “That was caused by me summoning Skippy and using him to kill this powerful enemy we encountered in our last dimension.”

  Cooper gave me a look that said he only understood half of what I’d just said.

  “I think you should grab the whaling passive,” Chris advised.

  “It would work well against the Queen of the CPS too,” Panda remarked.

  “I think you should pick Skippy,” Bee said. “I think that’s also why All-Mommy wanted you to use the Whale Bacon.”

  I nodded. “He might be able to help us out against the big monsters in the Singing City,” I agreed.

  “Or we could harvest him for materials,” she said. “It probably won’t kill him permanently and we would have enough time to harvest him twice before the Collection Phase ends.”

  Everybody gave her a worried look.

  Even Mammon was frowning.