A Strong Body Houses a Strong Spirit (1)

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I'd also overlooked the existence of open chat, and on top of that, I'd phrased the question as "What is Partia?" instead of "Who is this girl named Partia?" — which meant I'd walked straight into a deranged history nerd who dumped five hundred seventy thousand one hundred fifty-one characters into a chat window with a thousand-character limit.

Like it or not, that left me with no choice but to post my question on the gallery.

Shaking off those wandering thoughts, I poked around the gallery window open in front of me, hit the Write button that felt painfully awkward after so long away, and carefully composed my question post.

Hmm. That should be fine, right?

Looking over the carefully written question post — complete with a disclaimer that this was not a flex — I figured it was good enough. I gave it one last once-over, hit Submit, and while I waited for replies to roll in, I decided to spam the complete button on the pile of quests the pirates had brought back.

But right after I'd knocked out maybe thirty quest completions, a cheerful little ding-ding of notification chimes started ringing in my ears as I sat on the command throne hammering away.

Oh, faster than I expected.

Grinning at the surprisingly quick reply alerts, I opened the gallery window and tapped my post — only to find…

All these bastards had offered as "replies" was the single fact that Partia was worshipped as the gallery's Gallery Queen.

Frustrated beyond belief, I demanded an actual answer.

What came back was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠essentially "She's good, so just raise her."

Looking at that, I was left with a deep, profound sense that I understood absolutely nothing.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The answers carried a distinctly ominous vibe — a very, very strong one — but the common thread was that if you raised her, you'd be satisfied with the performance.

If the performance is good, a plain exterior doesn't really matter much.

Still a little puzzled, I decided that since this was the SSS-grade superhuman I'd been hoping and praying for, I would go ahead and draw up a proper training plan for Partia.

And whether my question had somehow triggered their mysterious meme-behavior toward their "Gallery Queen," it wasn't long after I posted before the entire gallery erupted in a flood of baffling Partia-related fetish posts and assorted nonsense…

The contents of that post and its comments were so hard to parse that I felt my head tilting on its own.

Or rather than tilting — more like the kind of headache you get when you come face-to-face with a subtle, deeply wrong fetish.

I had no intention of wrecking my precious mental health over idle thoughts, so I scrubbed that grotesque post from my mind and decided to push ahead with the training plan for our newly recruited Partia, just as I'd intended.

But barely a day after settling on that resolve, I came to understand — with painful, visceral clarity — exactly why the gallery users had been so insistent that I raise Partia…

"Oh, so Body's here."

"What's going on that you'd reach out via telepathy all the way from there to here?"

Normally Oxianor only handed out quests when we went to her in person — yet for some reason, today she was the one contacting us. It was unusual enough to be interesting, though it might simply have been the result of steadily accumulated trust. I accepted her telepathic link with genuine pleasure, and whether that feeling carried through the connection, Oxianor began explaining her reason for contacting me with a touch more warmth than before.

"A serious problem?"

"Hmm."

The moment I heard those words, a new quest message appeared before my eyes.