Harem Reborn

Chapter 206: Back To Normal, Whatever That Meant

I closed my eyes and felt the shift of worlds, my body change, the water around me. I opened my eyes to four smiling faces, the girls were all sitting around the bed I was lying on. We were back in the town, but I wasn't sure which one; this wasn't the same place we had stayed before, The Rusty Hook, this was a nice place.

"Girls, where are we?"

"Pendaria, Dave, it's civilization! With real people!" Grace exclaimed with excitement.

"Really? How do the rest of you feel?"

The girl's dog piled me in response, all trying to squeeze the life out of me, and coming close. After I was released from death's loving embrace the girls went back to their stupid infectious grins. The group were being a bunch of stoop pigeons, looking at me and then each other.

"Okay, I give up, what's so funny or whatever has got you all tongue-tied and smiling like clowns?"

I had to put up my hands to stop another dogpile, and the girls let out a collective sigh.

"We are great, thanks to you and your brother, Tenten told us all about Hyde," Kierra said.

I shot out of my bed and looked around. Tenten was here? How?

"Where is he?"

"Calm, Dave, he is literally on the other side of the door waiting for this very moment, go open it before he starts sparking with excitement!" Grace told me, moving out of the way and pointing to the closed door.

I rushed over and flung the door open hard enough to almost smash it off its hinges, and the floating tv had its back turned to me. Tenten slowly turned around and he had an ominous look on his little screen. 

"Dave, I think you are a dirty old man...I JUST KID DAVE! I don't have to be excited all the time anymore, but I wanted to show you so you would know how excited I am to be here with you!"

I grabbed the little TV and we spun around the room. I was so happy to have him with me, it was going to be like having another one of the guys around, but I wonder. I stopped spinning and then let Tenten's digital screen stop spinning before I asked him about what I had on my mind.

"So, If you're here, then that means that you came here with Ivan?"

Tenten let his eye roll all the way around the inside of his screen before answering, but his face froze. The screen became a wash of static, but the image fixed itself. Ivan was smiling on the other side with a bottle in hand. 

"Hey, shit stain you made it out alive, and you brought us with you!" Ivan held his bottle up to me and took a good long drink before speaking again. "You know, you got some real lookers with you, and I heard from the big guy that the boot licker was taken by you crazy fucking brother," Ivan said as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

"You're calling him crazy? You try to kill people and robots with drop pods! Just how bad could my brother be?"

"Bad? No, but there isn't a crazier son of a bitch in this game. I've seen him run into hordes of monsters with the Armory, but still use his bare hands because it was cooler. Man is as thick as a rock, and I like him! Maybe if you pulled the lead out of your ass, we might catch him? Yes?"

That was the plan, and I turned to the girls who were already standing up and looking ready to go. Aquina and Latisha were both in human form, but I had no idea what their beast form was. I looked at Grace who was smiling at me, not much had changed with them, but they all seemed happy, so what did the rest matter?

"Okay, girls, do you know what we're going to be doing? I know the world has been frozen, but there must have been some clue about where we could find a quest, right?"

"Yes, we found a bounty board, but it just said that we need to report to the local Shell Cop station to get more information. We looked around for a while and ended up finding one, but the world started back up when the girls got back. Grace and I went and found out you need to have a license to take bounties, and that means taking a course and then a test," Kierra explained.

"The best part is everything happens in the city! We are going to be detectives Dave! In the big city! Crime, Love, and passion mixed with the vibrant city life!" 

Grace was getting lost in herself as she spun and spoke. I caught her as she spun into my arms, the spin turning into a kiss. Grace gave me a deep kiss, but then pulled away, her eyes closed as she twirls more until Kierra yelled at her to stop after stepping on her feet. 

After everyone was ready, we headed out into the hotel hallway and walked to the elevator. The ride down included all the girls trying to molest me and I was only saved by a group of people wanting to get in when we got to the bottom. I squeezed out and passed the people, getting a short respite from the women that did not take more than two breaths to get back to my side.

"You all need to chill out, save it for later when we are all, not like we can do anything anyways!"

Grace and the girls all laughed at me as we all went for a walk in the new big city of Pendaria. The buildings around us were similar to what I thought was my homeworld was, and this was downtown so we were surrounded by skyscrapers galore. There were no cars or trucks, but many trains were moving around on rails that went all over the city. The streets weren't packed but this could just be a lull in the normal services, like between breakfast and lunch.

The people we did see on the street were all surprisingly human, but when I asked Alex about it, she said there was something that restricted us from changing. Being a massive mecha-leviathan was not something I wanted to accidentally change into in these close streets. No, I would just take her word for it.

The girls and I walked for about twenty minutes before I noticed the blue and red covered shell, The Shell Cop shop, this would be interesting I assumed. Sometimes being wrong feels better than being right. This was one of those occasions.

The old lady behind the desk took one look at me, and then at the girls. She told me to go sit down and wait for my turn. Something about standing in line already was about to come out of my mouth, but the old windbag cut me off before I could speak a word.

"In the back, they will tell you what to do from here." the old woman croaked, pointing to a closed white door.

I looked at the girls, but they just pushed me along and through the door, almost without opening it. Man, these women were getting pushy, I almost missed the hardwire personalities from before. At the same time, it was nice to see that they still care about me just as fiercely, if not more than before.

The room we walked into was... another waiting room, great. We all walked up to the lady at the desk, but before we could ask, the lady pointed to a red reel that was standing beside her desk. The lady didn't look up, but his kind of thing must have been standard for her. I reached over to grab a number, and the five of us went to sit down, finding an open row of seats big enough for all of us, but Aquina still came and sat in my lap.

I was surprised that none of the other girls made a peep about it, so I just enjoyed having Aquina close to me. I stole a kiss every now and then as we talked about the trouble the girls had getting us into the locked hotel room. Then they told us about explaining to the hotel front desk about wanting to rent the room we were staying in. It was really funny to hear Grace's explanation about Kierra telling the desk clerk that we really had enough of the look of the palace and how comfortable it was, but we just had to try it out before committing.

While the girls laughed and talked, I held Aquina in my arms, but my mind was elsewhere. Hyde, if he was my brother, What kind of person was he really? A great player if even Ivan praises him and MainFrame would go to such lengths to get back at him. He and the others had already beaten the entire set of words twice, one of those times was without any girl's help.

One day I would get to see him again, or meet him. I had no memory of him or what he might look like, but I'm sure he was some badass cool guy. I wasn't that badass that I could go in swinging barehanded, but I knew how to use the System, and that was going to be my strength. I also needed to see what was new with the Harem System.

'We can help you with that bud, just think the question, and either Mom or I will answer you!' -Dansei.

I was about to ask Dansei about calling Mom, Mom, but that was when our number was called.

'Everyone is calling her Mom, I felt like it would be weird for me not to, right' -Dansie.

I'm pretty sure I could feel Mom's eyes roll in her head as the girls and I stood up.