VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 137: The Home away from the Home away from Home

They flew for a suspiciously long time, Percy refusing even still to tell her where they were going. Eventually, after nearly three hours of flight (half of which Valerie slept through) they started their descent.

Percy nudged Valerie a few times, causing her to snap awake and sit up in her seat, her hair slightly messy on one side as a little bit of drool ran down from her mouth.

"Wh-wha? I’m up. I’m here. I’m ready to go!" She muttered drowsily as she took a few seconds to purge the sleep from her body before looking over to Percy with confused eyes and drooping eyelids.

He chuckled softly at the sight of her and gestured to the window over her shoulder.

"Take a look, your new home for the next week. Or as long as you want to spend here, that is."

Valerie raised her eyebrow, rubbing the last of the sleep from her eyes as she shifted in her seat and pressed herself against the window.Vibrant green filled her vision, and if it were not for Dawd, then this would have been the most greenery she had ever seen in her life. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

There was no streets, no oppressive buildings squished together and no looming Corpo-blocks.

This was one of the few last bastions of nature that existed in the world. All of it circled around a hill that displayed a wonderful wooden mansion that was pretending to be a quaint and rustic cabin.

Even if it had just two floors, that ’cabin’ looked like it had twenty rooms per floor, with plenty of those rooms each taking more space than her entire apartment.

All of this was contained under a glass dome, protected from the outside world and contained into a little bubble of wealth that could never pop.

"That’s... real, isn’t it? Real grass and trees and... Is that a river? Your house has a river?" Valerie whipped back to Percy, completely flabbergasted with shock.

He blushed deeply, giving her a sheepish grin as he rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment,

"Yeah... The river feeds into the underground pool and gives it a nice waterfall effect."

He said with a nervous laugh, feeling the sheer intensity of her stare, before sighing.

"Technically it’s my parents house. Their third vacation home, for when they don’t want to use the island retreat or the ski lodge, which is rare. Honestly they probably visit this place like once every few years, if ever.

Which means we will be practically alone here, and there is plenty of space for practice. If you think it’s too much, we can go somewhere else..."

Valerie softened her expression, hiding her shock and tilting her head slightly as she looked at Percy in a new light. He was almost looking... embarrassed? Or perhaps it was even closer to ashamed.

Yes, that seemed to be it. He was ashamed. Ashamed of bringing her here, but why? He hadn’t done anything wrong. This was great! Much more than she was expecting, like holy crap she was expecting a dinky warehouse she wasn’t afraid of blowing up, not a personal mansion retreat!

Did he... think she would be mad? That she would feel he was flaunting his wealth and looking down at her somehow? That was stupid, but then so was he sometimes.

Looking at this idiots stupid face, as he gave her the look of a guilty puppy that peed on the carpet, Valerie felt that he looked quite... cute.

She reached over, patting his cheek softly,

"It’s great Princess," She said with a smile, before leaning back, "So long as you don’t mind your ivory floors being dirtied by my peasant wheels, that is. Much harder to wipe on a doormat than shows."

Percy’s face lit up, his anxiety being banished away by the sound of his laughter as he focused again on controlling their descent.

"They are marble, actually, but they have been waiting for someone to dirt them for a while. That’s what a floor is for, after all. Better than it sitting around empty for years on end."

Valerie smiled at him again, unable to stop herself from smiling after seeing his mood lighten up, as she let out a contented sigh. Her eyes drifted back to the window, but this time at a normal distance.

Which meant that this time she caught sight of her reflection, and immediately let out a choked squeak at the absolute mess of her appearance.

Her hands flew to her head, quickly fixing her hair and wiping the spit trail from her face, all while Percy laughed beside her like it was the most hysterical thing he had seen in his life.

"You. are. such. a. dick!" She shouted, punching him in the arm with every word, which only hurt her hand from punching those stupid muscular arms. Damn those vanity muscles!

"You couldn’t have told me I looked like that before now?"

"I could have, yeah, but that wouldn’t nearly have been as funny."

After another minute of Percy laughing and Valerie sitting in a huff, pouting like an angry child, they finally landed and Valerie’s mood quickly improved.

Percy collected her chair from the boot and helped her get into it. She instructed Jinu to take the bags from the car and deposit them inside the house, by the front door. Then she made sure to take the black case before Jinu could touch it, as she knew better than to let him handle anything delicate.

Leaving the android to its work, Percy pushed Valerie into the ’quaint cabin’ and began to give her the grand tour. Showing her all of the bathrooms and bedrooms, of which there were more than a dozen of each which was just stupidly excessive, as well as the underground pool that he had mentioned.

It was situated in an artificially created cave underneath the main body of the house.

She had to admit, it looked as good as he said. With the waterfall cascading down into pool, bouncing off the black rocks of the cave walls and making them shine like obsidian before the water landed in the pool that was - once again - larger than her apartment. Something that was a bit of a recurring theme, as she was noticing.

"So where is it we are supposed to train? In the fields? I rarely get to see trees, never mind real ones. I don’t want to burn them down Princess."

Percy laughed softly, shaking his head. His eyes glowed with a soft blue light as he accessed the house’s controls with his implants. After a few moments of silence, there was a deep rumble before the waterfall began to split in half and a door disguised as just another stone wall began to open behind where the water had obscured.

"Ha, I should have known." Valerie muttered with the shake of her head, as Percy nodded and finished her thought.

"There’s always something behind the waterfall. You can never beat a classic."