Tim said
"Are you late for work? I mean, I can always re-schedule for later."

"Ah, no, I work here." Spooky shows the apron he was wearing with the Septembers logo on it. "My lunch break's in a few hours, but that might be too long. Now's fine." Hisoka performs his neck-rub once again, continuing his interested gaze towards his shoes.

It was odd, but he hadn’t even closed his eyes for more than a minute when the headache all but disappeared. It didn’t even fade away gradually, but it was more like the moment he thought of the pain, Ryutaro realized he wasn’t feeling it anymore. He thought about it for a moment and realized that in every game he had played, while health recovery might have occurred over time, any item that dealt with status effects were instantaneous. A tired sigh escaped as his eyes fluttered open, wondering what to do now. “Status,” he muttered and the window popped into existence in front of him. He glanced over the information quickly before dismissing it. His mana seemed to be regenerating again, and the [Headache] status was no longer present.

With a clear head, and thus no reason to be laying about, Ryutaro sat up and looked around the room. He still needed to finish the day’s readings and what not, but after that unpleasant experience he wasn’t looking forward to hitting the books so quickly again. Figuring it couldn’t hurt, he picked himself out and headed downstairs, intent on seeing if there was anything worth watching at this time.

Surprisingly enough there actually had been something worth wasting a few hours of his time; some of the latest anime had been airing. Afterwards he read what he could of his assigned readings before taking care of things and then heading off to bed. Ryutaro wondered briefly what the meeting tomorrow would hold before he shook his head to dismiss the thought; he’d always been good at doing that much at the least.

---

The morning before the meeting wasn’t anything other than the usual; he woke up a bit earlier to get ready from the morning practice, ran to catch the train over to Port Island, performed fairly at the practice, and then headed off for class. Normally he would have just stayed on the island for the two and half hour break in between lectures, but he had a meeting to attend, so Ryutaro had to run to catch the hourly train from off the island; making a quick excuse to the friends he normally ate with as he dashed away.

As the train’s doors clicked shut, Ryutaro finally allowed himself a sigh of relief. It wasn’t exactly a short run from the university to the train station and, if his breathing was anything, he had pushed himself a bit more than he would have liked. Standing straight as the train left the station and picked up speed over the water, he turned to the window and fixed up his hair a bit; there hadn’t been a chance since morning practice so it was a bit messy.

The train ride didn’t take more than three minutes to reach the port and Ryutaro hurried off to avoid the rush of passengers. Not wanting to waste what little time he had before classes resumed, Ryutaro took off at a brisk pace through the station, bag slung over the shoulder. He might have gotten a bit too close to some people as he jogged past them if the glares fired at him were any indication, but he hadn’t done anything necessarily wrong, so he just ignored them with a grin.

The massive Septemberes came into view quickly enough, dominating as the centerpiece for the district. Signs were abound, ready to light up once night fell, while advertisements and the like were plastered anywhere he could look. While he might have paid a bit of attention had he simply been wandering, there was a reason he had come to the mall after all, so best get to it.

As he entered Msdonalds, there was one particular person who stood out, even before he looked just a tad up and noticed the tell-tale <Gamer> under her name. ‘Really now...’ he thought to himself as he approached the table she sat at, ‘if you don’t want to stand out, wearing a hoodie with the hood on inside a restaurant isn’t the best idea.’ Approaching straight forwardly was so boring though, and after a bit of thought, he made his way around the restaurant, trying his best to keep out of her sight. Ryutaro didn’t know if she had already seen him when he stepped inside, if she had then the gig was already up. If she hadn’t though? Well, maybe he would get a little jump from her. Sliding a chair out from the table behind her, he took a seat, his back to her, and asked, “Waiting for someone, Ms. Nakamura?”

Tim was very surprised when he missed the fact that Hisoka had a giant Septemberes logo on the front of his apron, not to mention the fact that he was wearing one. Normally he wouldn't miss something obvious, but maybe, now that he was practically implemented into a game, maybe he had to raise some sort of observation stat before he could see things like he used to.
"Well, we better get going," Timothy said turning to the door, "We can't stand and chat here forever, even though that's what we'll do at the café. But the sooner we get there, the sooner we'll finish, and the sooner you can get back to your job." The moment he put the emphasis on you he spun around to face Hisoka, he then finished, "C'mon Hisoka and Yoshida, let's get on with adventuring!" He turned back out the door, and began walking in the direction he presumed was the nearest maid café, and on the way he snickered, and muttered to himself, "heh, adventuring..."

Gaming Session (DEX Roll): 73 - 8 DEX = 65

Sasha would game as hard as she could in the difficult dungeon and it would be difficult. It took all that you had and unfortunately it just wasn't good enough. The dungeon was just too difficult to be completed on your own. Unless Sasha would be able to try multiple times she would die a good number of times in the dungeon, it just being too difficult to solo on her own. She did a little bit better than she normally would while soloing, but unfortunately that slight improvement just wasn't enough or that huge of an improvement to make a difference in clearing the tough dungeon.

---

Staying Up Late (VIT Roll): 84 - 3 VIT = 81

No matter what, 12 hours straight was way to much. By the time it was 12 hours passed Sasha would be incredibly exhausted. As she prepared to go out she would see an alert window appear in front of her.



She would be quite tired, but would have no time to rest since she needed to make it to her meeting. When she would get there at 11:30 to eat her happy meal she would still be tired due to not having rested all that much. However, after 30 minutes of waiting for Ryutaro, not that she knew his name to get here, she would notice that her fatigue was gone since sitting there while relaxing and eating was actually quite restful. In fact, that thirty minutes made it as though her fatigue was never even there. She would still probably need to get some proper sleep later, but for now her fatigue was indeed gone.

Sasha was popping a chicken nugget into her mouth when someone spoke up behind her. She whipped around, startled. There was a man sitting still behind her, facing the opposite direction. Ryutaro Eikichi, the Gamer. Sasha's panic meter spiked irrationally, but she forced herself to remain calm. He couldn't do anything weird in this crowded restaurant. Or could he? Suddenly Sasha felt like a fool for being so naïve: common sense didn't apply when she could use an invisible inventory like a video game.

"Y-you. You're the one who emailed me, right?" she said nervously. "What do you know about the gamer business?"

What am I getting myself into, she thought. She was still holding onto a chicken nugget, now with nowhere to go. Her face was partially covered in the shadow of her hood, and none of her tied-up hair was showing.

‘Okay then…” he thought, her response making Ryutaro think he hadn’t made the best choice. Considering she was going through the same thing as he was, surprises probably weren’t very welcome. He sighed quietly before standing up and moved to the opposite of his own table so he faced her while creating some distance between the two of them. “Sorry about that,” he apologized as he sat down in his new seat, “guess you aren't the easily startled type, but yes. Selestial right?”

“Not much more than you do I’d guess,” he continued with a small shrug. Interestingly enough, she didn’t have a title like his own - ‘Jack of a Few Trades’. He guessed it had something to do with the lives they had lived - he had been exposed to and dabbled in a number of activities over the years. That aside, he took a moment to take a good look at his “fellow” <Gamer>, being careful to not stare though. The hoodie did a fair job at hiding her appearance, but from what Ryutaro could see and the fact that she had something to hide probably meant she had some fairly striking traits; perhaps a foreigner or the like.

“I’ll just sum things up so we’re both the same page if you don’t mind. Four days ago I woke up and found this,” pointing at the <Gamer> tag above his head, “had appeared. Apparently life is now a game and we can access several menus like Talents, Status, Skills, etc. Still haven’t had luck with a mini-map though… Anyways, I’ve actually gotten a quest before this, and it gave me 3 Exp on completion; they seem to show up at random for tasks that require some effort. Status effects are also present, although they seem to have been “balanced” for a lack of a better word.” He finally paused to take a breath after that spiel, and nodded to himself. “Sound about right? Oh, and I know you can already see it, but I’m Eikichi, Ryutaro. Hope we get along.” And he really did mean that last bit, it wasn't like he knew anyone else he could talk to about this.

Sasha listened to the man speak. She noticed the untouched nugget she still held and finished it. Aside from his strange entrance, Ryutaro appeared to be a regular person. He couldn't be much older than she was. As far as she could tell, he was telling the truth and was in a similar situation as she was.

"Likewise. I'm Sasha, nice to meet'cha," she said. Social norms demanded that they introduce themselves to each other despite the display over their heads. "I haven't gotten a quest yet, aside from the 'others like me' quest. Oh, and I got a 'fatigue' status for staying up through the night, but it seems to have disappeared when I wasn't looking."

Sasha took a long sip at her soda. So he didn't have much additional information than she did. That disappointed her a little. "Looks like this mystery will take longer to crack. I was hoping you knew more… I guess there's no helping it. We can keep each other posted about new discoveries. But really, this thing is so weird. It's like magic. I can make things appear out of thin air."

She called out her inventory window. Aside from the pepper spray she had also stored some paper napkins. She took them out from the menu and waved it in front of Ryutaro.

Ryutaro nodded at Sasha’s introduction, glad that for despite how he had greeted her, things seemed to be progressing smoothly nevertheless. “I suppose I was just lucky then,” he murmured, and thinking about the quest he had received now, he could say it was a fairly rare occurrence to stumble across someone’s lost purse.

“Huh… I was hit with ‘Headache’ for studying too hard apparently,” he muttered in an annoyed tone as he recalled the ringing that had hit him last night. “Took some aspirin instead of just waiting it out, but the medicine cured the ‘status’ instantly. It’s what I meant by they seem to have been balanced a bit. I mean normally fatigue wouldn’t just fade away, it would get worse.”

Shrugging in response to her disappointed tone, there wasn’t much he could do about the situation. Despite how strange it was, he still had responsibilities and couldn’t just take time off to experiment. This weekend however…

Before he could propose the idea to her though, Sasha yanked a number of paper napkins out from what looked like thin air, but Ryutaro knew to be her inventory. Already privy to the knowledge of their hyperspace inventory, he nevertheless had a brief moment of panic and motioned for her to stop. “Stop that, what if someone sees?!?” While he was confident in people’s ability to dismiss and forget the unknown, he didn’t want to push his luck too much.

Sighing a bit, he leaned back against the chair and threw out his idea. “Anyways, I haven’t had much of a chance to explore this ‘system’ we’re under. Having someone else would probably be better than trying to figure things out alone, so are you interested Sasha?” Even if she wasn’t, she was still another <Gamer> so it would be useful to stay in touch. With that in mind, he briefly whispered under his breath, “Contacts, Friends, Acquaintances, .” Hopefully one of those would bring up a menu, and if they didn’t well then phones were still a thing.

Investigating the <Gamer> (INT Roll): 25 - 9 INT = 14

None of those words did anything or made anything appear. Still though, the thought wasn't an impossibility. If he indeed was like a Game Character, or more specifically like an MMO game character, then a Friend List wasn't impossible. Yes, those were the correct words that Ryutaro would need to utter. Usually stating the exact name of the window from Ryutaro's experiences before with investigating his windows would bring it up. So if Ryutaro went by this assumption and said 'Friends List' instead a window would appear in front of him.



The window would be completely devoid of names, but at the bottom were three buttons. 'Add', 'Message', and 'Delete'. The buttons would be touch activated like Ryutaro had experienced before with other windows that had buttons upon them. Still, it was clear that with this new window adding people to a Friends List was a possibility, as was apparently sending them messages.

"My thoughts exactly. It would help if we pool our findings together," Sasha said. She was already feeling much better about the situation. This was just a peculiar mystery to solve. "If you find anything just email me."

She finished her meal and wiped her fingers clean on the paper napkins she had just taken out. If she remembered correctly, Rutaro said he had classes to attend soon, didn't he? Judging from his appearance he was probably in college now. Sasha would have been, if she hadn't opted out of it.

"If there's nothing else, I'll be going back," she announced, eager to continue Dungeon Busters. After a nap.

When nothing popped up, Ryutaro held back a sigh of frustration. He was about to give up, but recalled the rather picky nature of the system before he did so. The second day of all this when he had received his first quest, the Quests window hadn’t appeared unless he said, “Quests,” in plural. Going along that vein of thought he racked his mind for something more specific. It came to him soon enough, and he muttered, “Friends list.” To his pleasant surprise, the window finally popped up in front of him and he grinned at the success.

“Just one thing actually,” he mentioned to her as he tapped the <Add> button in the window. Unperturbed when a keyboard actually appeared underneath his fingertips along with the entry field, Ryutaro quickly tapped out <Sasha Nakamura> before hitting <Accept>. The field closed on itself with a soft sound, and where the window had previously been empty, something new had appeared.

Pending Requests said Sasha Nakamura - Sent 1 second Ago

At that he looked up to try and catch her reaction. “I figured this could work if we needed to get a message to each other in a hurry, like if a boss decides to show up or something,” Ryutaro explained while waiting to see if she would accept or decline.

Upon pressing the Add Button Ryutaro would be prompted to give the person's name that he wanted to add, having to speak it out loud since it didn't seem like the strange <Gamer> ability was going to give him a keyboard as of yet. The exact window saying:



Upon giving Sasha's full name, either muttering or speaking it out loud, whichever he preferred, a window would appear in front of Sasha now.



If she would choose to accept her own Friend List would appear in front of her now showing Ryutaro's full name in it along with a small green circle right next to it. If she declined, the window would simply disappear and nothing else would happen. If Sasha did accept then Ryutaro's own Friend List would be immediately updated, showing Sasha's full name as well as a small green circle next to the name. It was unclear as to what the circle's meant, but it would now be possible, not that either of them had tested it yet, to maybe send messages to each other since a <Message> button was present.

Before she could leave, Ryutaro asked her for a moment. He raised his hands and began gesturing with his fingers. Sasha realized that he was operating his menu. After several seconds he gave a sigh of frustration and muttered something she couldn't quite catch. Then his expression lit up and he said her name. Sasha gave him a puzzled look until a panel popped up in her vision.

<Ryutaro Eikichi> has sent you a Friend Request. 

<Accept (Y)> <Decline (N)>

"Wow, hahah! Of all things why didn't I think of that?" she jabbed 'accept' without a second thought. Figuring Ryutaro had called up some sort of friend's list earlier, she tried to do the same. The menu appeared after a few tries, and it had one single name in it. Ryutaro Eikichi.

"That is so cool! Way to go! Let's try this," she exclaimed exuberantly and pressed the message button after selecting his name. A keyboard appeared before her. Gleefully, she typed 'hey this is crazy so message me maybe?' at lightspeed and pressed send. The whole process was so familiar, so much like any conventional messaging application, yet defied all common sense. "Did it appear?"

The window was quick to change, and the text quickly appeared within his Friends List - Sasha’s full name alongside a small green circle. Typically that meant that the other person was online in a game, but what it could represent here… well Ryutaro had no idea. Shrugging to himself, he turned his attention towards the now ecstatic Sasha and couldn’t help but grin a bit. Her mood was quite infectious really.

He raised an eyebrow at how fast her fingers danced over, what he assumed was, a keyboard. Not a moment later, a small dialogue box popped up in front of his face with a small pinging sound. “Yup,” he told her before taking a glance at what she had sent.
‘hey this is crazy so message me maybe?’
He gave her a pointed looks as if to say, “Really?” Nevertheless though, he tapped the reply button which caused a chat window to open. Her name was displayed in the upper left corner, while there was a space for him to type his message at the bottom, and a display area above. All in all a fairly standard chatbox. The keyboard was fairly interesting, though he didn’t spend time examining it, figuring he could save it for later. Tapping out his message, though no where close to as fast as Sasha had, he sent it over once he had finished. ‘Sure this is crazy, so have a message.'

He hit the close button, and the chat window snapped itself shut, before he said, “Well, we managed to figure something out, so that’s good.” A quick look at his phone told Ryutaro that he was going to be cutting it close, so he stood from his seat and gave Sasha a nod. “Anyways, have to get back to class now. See ya around.”

Sasha could barely believe her eyes when she got a reply, and laughed out loud. This thing was almost like telepathy. Or maybe a magical cell phone, although that made it sound a lot more mundane. The thought of even more inane discoveries made her giddy.

"Yeah, bye, see ya," she said to Ryutaro absently, still absorbed in her thoughts. She looked up to see him walking out of the establishment. She had no reason to stay either, and promptly left. With the meeting over, she had the day to herself again. Her original plan was to go home, but it had been some time since she had come to Septemberes. A brief stroll around the place seemed like a good idea to her.

Of course, Sasha's plans to go for a stroll and Ryutaro's plans to get back to class would be seemingly delayed. While MsDonalds was a part of Septemberes, it wasn't physically connected to the large super mall, so to get back to Septemberes a person had to exist MsDonalds and go through one of the main entrances. Right as Ryutaro and Sasha were about to go their separate ways after exiting MsDonalds the surroundings would suddenly 'disappear'. All lights from the buildings and street signs went out and the streets, that were normally packed with people, were now completely devoid of them.

The only people that were now in the strangely lonely streets were Ryutaro, Sasha, and two other <Gamers> who happened to be nearby, one who was in front of a nearby maid cafe and one who had just arrived on the scene. Something strange was indeed going on, but before the now gathered four <Gamers> could even greet each other strange chittering would be heard in the area. Not too far from their location four strange creatures appeared.

Above their heads, in red text instead of the common light blue text, was Imp LV. 4. While these creatures, who were about half the size of them, seemed pretty weak they didn't seem friendly though as the small group glared at the group of <Gamers>, preparing to go and attack them. With no idea of what could possibly be going on the <Gamers> would have one of two choices. Either fight these creatures or run. Either way it was clear that something dangerous was going on here.

Spooky follows Tim out the door to the plaza, finding himself in a strange scene with four other people, each one of which bore the coveted <The Gamer> tag. A chittering noise filled the air as four monsters appeared, startling Spooky, who quickly remembered his horror-movie resolve and attempted to pull himself together to fight.

[deleted]

There was an oppressive silence in the streets outside MsDonalds. Despite it being the middle of the day where thousands of people should be walking by, there was no one. No one except her and Ryutaro, and two other people. With a sinking feeling she checked their names. What she saw didn't surprise her at all: they were 'Gamers' too. She glanced quickly between them and wondered what was going to happen.

Sasha didn't need to wonder very long. Four beings appeared a short distance away. They looked vaguely humanoid, and none too threatening with their short stature. According to their titles, they were 'LV4 Imps'. Sasha almost laughed out loud.

"Are you serious. What is this, a monster encounter?" she said out loud, so that the other gamers could hear her. In her own mind she quickly calculated her next move. Logic dictated that she should run away. After all, these were still unidentified monsters they were dealing with and the Imps were higher leveled than she was. Even though they now had stats and levels similar to a game, they were still in the real world. Death… probably still resulted in death.

The second option was to fight. As insane and utterly dangerous as it was, Sasha found herself intrigued by the idea. She called up her inventory and retrieved her pepper spray. She held up the small aerosol can in her hand and peered at it. Little would she have expected to use it against strange monsters instead of the possible criminal she had in mind. Would the pepper spray even work against them?

"So guys. Who's with me?" Sasha said as she walked towards the Imps. She didn't know what she was doing. She didn't care.

First Day

On the first day, Zahira awoke with a splitting headache and a plethora of embarrassing memories to carry to her grave. She wasn't usually one to drink herself to passing out, surprising as it might see, but last night had been different - even if still an accident. She'd been spending time at a local bar after a particularly taxing day at work, when a guy her age had taken a seat next to her. And boy, it had not been any guy, it'd been a total cutie of a man! Of course she had needed to try and show off her liquor holding skills - or, as it turned out, her lack of them. Luckily her best friend'd been there to drag her back home before she'd done anything irreversible, but not before she'd drank enough to adamantly try and claim that the decorative horse statue in the bar was her pet cat Cedric and needed to come home with her.

Long story short, she owed her friend one, and she was never drinking again. Especially since she hadn't managed to get the guy again, just this headache and a stomach that tried to take every opportunity it had to empty itself over whatever stood in front of her at the moment.

Somehow, she managed to get herself up from her bed in the end and exert herself enough to get to the bathroom. And it was when she looked at the decorated mirror in front of her that she saw that for the first time; a peculiar text, floating just above her head and proudly declaring her name, as well as the word "lv 1", whatever that meant. She thought nothing of it at the time, passing it off as just the hallucinations of a hangover woman, and just continued to go about her morning as usual, every now and again breaking into sobbing fits over having embarrassed herself in front of a hot man the night before.

She was late from work that morning, but through profuse apologies (ones delivered with enough volume to startle neighbours all the way across the street) she had somehow managed to keep her job. Perhaps it was the desperation on her face or her boss just desperately needing workforce, she didn't know. But there she was again in a minute, changing into work gear and accepting her first request for the day.

And that's when it happened again; no sooner had she received the details of her first order, when text popped up into her vision again, this time written in a strange window straight out of one of those games the boys used to play back in middle school. She blinked once and she blinked twice, and the second time around the text had disappeared, only to be replaced by what seemed to be a better detailed explanation of what she saw earlier. She squinted.

"Event... quest...? Time limit..." She mumbled to herself, eyes wide and confused. "Rewar - ah!" It was then that she stopped, her simple mind easily impressed. "Ah, so the reward is praise! And, and exp. I don't really get it but exp... that's the same as points...? So then-"

"Zahira, the food's getting cold!" She heard the booming voice of her employer and quickly snapped out of her thoughts and almost stumbled forward.

"Ah, yes, sorries, going right now mister, sir!"

And as she did, the window disappeared as if never there.

The next window wouldn't appear until the very evening, when Zahira was returning home from work with a skip to her step and a hum on her lips. Not only had she received a lot of tips today, she had gotten positive feedback from her boss, and that surely meant that her score as a human being had gone up, too. Tomorrow, she'd need to call her friend and tell him about this. And he said she was a hopeless case!

The last window informed her of a mission accomplished, as well as exp earned, and Zahira figured that perhaps these drunken hallucinations weren't such a bad thing after all.

---

Second Day

... Until she realized they were still there the second day.

A look in the mirror still showed her name and her "LV", whatever that meant (loveliness vector? Lonely... uh...) and fun as it that had been yesterday, it was just a little nerve wrecking today. What if she had drunk enough last night to permanently destroy brain cells and make her stupid?! She called her friend early in the morning to cry to him about the matter, and with a sigh and a groan she'd been convinced she couldn't get any stupider no matter what. So, relieved, she hung up the call and headed for work.

Once there, she figured the only way to make sure she wasn't being a silly-but about this all was to simply ask. So she did, from her coworkers to the customers staying in the shop to eat, to random passersby that mostly ran away at her frantic approach. It didn't matter who she asked though, as the reactions were pretty much the same throughout; everyone raised a curious brow, shook their head and offered no answers for her to carry home. They told her they saw nothing. They told her she was being weird. She would panic and try to wave her hands and explain away her point, and she would receive chuckles and smiling faces in response - even if neither was what she was really looking for.

With a sigh, Zahira slumped down on a chair in the few spare minutes she had from her deliveries. Nobody saw what she did... what was-

She couldn't finish that thought when another window appeared, directly followed by another. They mentioned something about a skill, whatever that meant, and seemed to both be positive. The second window displayed a small Sherlockian hat.

Zahira almost fell back in her chair at the text, but bizarre as it was, she couldn't help but feel a small stroke of pride bound in her chest. Basically, the text was telling her that she was smart, right! It had the picture of whatshisface's hat and all! And that guy was smart, right? So, so she was like a detective too now! She rather liked the thought, and proud enough to forget how nonsensible the situation was, the easily excitable girl jumped up and went to tell her boss she was smart. In response, she got another package to deliver shoved into her arms.

She figured it was her reward and was just about to start eating, when a coworker pushed her out the door and back into work.

---

Third Day

All Zahira had wanted the third day was a burger, possibly topped with extra cheese to remind her of her home country, even if he quality of said dairy product here was clearly inferior to what she was used to.

What she had gotten instead, were-

"Monsters!" She screeched at the sight of strange red creatures crawling their way into her vision, a bright text above their head declaring them as 'imps'. Out of reflex, she turned to look around her, only to realize that the usual masses of people she was used to seeing were gone. There were only four people in the area. Four people and these... creatures...

Creatures that, by all account, should have freaked her out more than they did. Sure, her heart was beating rather fast, but it... wasn't the panic she'd expected. Huh... Huh, oooh, she was such a badass! Maybe because she was possibly dreaming. Had to be.

"Are you serious. What is this, a monster encounter?"

She heard someone say just then, and as she turned, she noticed one of the few people present walking towards the imps. Zahira flinched. No, no, no, that was a bad idea! Why would anyone do that? Did she want one as a pet...? There were better pets! Like... like kitties and puppies. She had to do something, what if those things were dangerous, and what if she took one as a pet and made it breed and then there would be more of them and - eww.

"W-wait!" She called out before she realized it, running up to the other girl and waving her hands furiously as she tried to get her attention. "Wait, that's a bad idea! If... if you want a pet, I know a place with cute kitties instead, we can go there together, or, or- something! Just don't take these ones, they're really ugly!"

It was then that she noticed the can the other girl was holding. What was that...? Paint? Painting the monsters probably wouldn't make them cuter, though. Maybe if it was pink paint...

She quickly got lost in that thought.