The girl was buried in the earth.
She was a Silver Fox beastman, a servant in a noble's manor. A laundry maid, as they called her.
Perhaps that was why her master had taken such a liking to her—because she always smelled so nice. It was a preference that proved to be her undoing.
As if it were his birthright, he forced himself on her. With the safety of her family held over her head, she couldn't refuse.
It was a common enough story.
Once her dignity had been toyed with and he had grown bored, he slaughtered her.
A common story. Yes, a very common story.
...And yet, she was still barely breathing.
Her stomach had been gouged open. To mock her as a filthy woman, her master had shoved the internal organs from her lower abdomen into her mouth.
No attempt had been made to stop the bleeding; she would be dead soon. Even with the physical vitality she’d built up as a laundry maid, she had mere minutes of life left. Fortunately, she no longer felt the pain. She was only cold.
She didn't want to die.
She had so many regrets.
She had wanted to experience a happy romance.
But everything had been trampled into the mud.
And then...
"Will you offer everything to the Spirit?"
She heard a voice.
The girl couldn't make a sound. She couldn't even nod. But in the depths of her heart, she answered, "Yes."
"And that’s how I got my second one, ssu!"
Back at Penpen’s Home, a beastman maid appeared—the girl she had wanted to introduce to us.
She was a lovely young girl with short silver hair. She had fox ears and a big, fluffy tail. Furthermore, a Yellow Halo floated above her head.
"Wait... hold on a second. Why did Penpen secure a second character before us?"
"She's a cute maid, uo!"
"Actually, the second character unlocked the moment I paid off my debt, ssu. Nishishi!"
Penpen laughed with the pride of a successful prankster. Or rather, since Penpen-chan was standing right there next to her, I wasn't sure what to call the newcomer. Maid-chan?
Looking at their Halos, Penpen-chan’s was slightly dim, while the maid’s was glowing brightly.
"I wanted a combat maid, ssu! Her name is Ginko, ssu. Call her Gin-chan!"
"Uo-uo! Pen-chan and Gin-chan makes 'Penguin,' right, uo?"
"That's it, ssu! Oh, by the way, I plucked that shitty noble’s seeds and buried him right back in the dirt where he belongs, ssu. I did it totally in secret so no one would see. My VR Sneaking Action was a total success, so they're just treating it as a disappearance. This stays between us, okay, ssu?"
She also mentioned that she’d used SP to make Gin-chan’s internal organs brand new again. Apparently, after hearing from me that any defects from character creation would persist, she made sure to fix them properly.
"So yeah, my second character was a VR Sneaking Action, ssu! Man, forgive me for being gone for three days! I couldn't get in touch with you two at all during that time, so I was getting a bit lonely, ssu."
"...Uh, we just saw you yesterday."
"Exactly, uo. Since yesterday, uo."
"Dahaa! I had a feeling it was something like that, but it’s a Time-space Distortion, ssu! Seriously, what is wrong with this place!?"
Gin-chan looked up at the sky and slapped her forehead with a loud smack. Her appearance had changed, but the personality inside was undeniably Penpen.
Wait. Does that mean since she has a real job, it’s actually been three days in the real world from Penpen’s perspective? How does that even work...?
I realized that things were already so bizarre that there was no point in questioning it. This game is an absolute enigma.
"Alto. Is there a chance Penpen is living in a different timeline than us?"
"The possibilities are infinite, uo. But there’s something more important than that, uo."
"Hmm? What is it, ssu?"
"Now that we've unlocked second characters, we have the problem of what you should call us Spirits, uo!!"
Gin-chan and I both blinked in realization.
"True... until now, I called you Tria-shi and Alto-shi, but how should I address you once there are two of you, ssu!?"
"Penpen-shi, Gin-chan-shi... Hmmm. Should we use our handle names, uo?"
"I just called her Penpen naturally, but she’s Gin-chan right now... Actually, shouldn't we be using our Player Names? Though we never actually had to enter those."
That was true. Come to think of it, we hadn't. We entered character names, but never player names.
"Wouldn't it be fine to just stick with the first character's name, uo? Changing it to Gin-chan-shi now is a pain, uo."
"Maybe we should add a 'P' to the end, like the players in those idol games, ssu?"
"Penpen-P... Alto-P. It does have a nice ring to it."
"We're Spirits, so how about 'S', uo? S for Spirit, uo."
"I thought you meant the other kind of S for a second. But that's hard to say. Maybe a single letter with a long vowel at the end?"
"Hmm," we all groaned, holding a serious meeting.
We threw out ideas and shot them down. G sounded too much like those black bugs, so that was out. How about U? Hmm. After a long debate, we eventually settled on the conclusion that we would simply use the original names of our first characters.
"So, Penpen-shi is still Penpen-shi, even if she's inside Ginko, uo!"
"As I thought, the old way is the best way, ssu."
"I guess so. Hahaha."
The meeting was utterly pointless, but that was that.
...Wait. This doesn't solve the problem that things get confusing when Penpen-chan and Ginko are standing side-by-side. I’ll just pray someone on the Wiki figures it out for us.
And then.
"By the way, Penpen. Can I pet Gin-chan’s tail and ears?"
"Just a little bit is fine, ssu."
However, the moment I reached out, the Ethics Filter triggered. Unfortunately, I couldn't feel the fluff. The soft silver fur swayed right in front of me, just out of reach. Is this some kind of torture?
"I-Impossible. Fluffing isn't lewd! It’s not that kind of thing at all!"
"Huh? That’s weird, ssu. Pen-chan, let me try petting me, ssu!"
"H-Hyai! Thank you very much! Excuse me!"
Penpen-chan was able to pet Gin-chan's tail without any issues. Was it because they were characters belonging to the same player? Damn... I’m so jealous!
"Maybe I should make my second character a fluffy beastman too... Ah, but I want a Home as well. A beastman production class... are the requirements too high? Maybe I should pick something else..."
"Fufufu, you should hurry up and join me on this stage, ssu...!"
"It really is the 2nd Stage, uo... Well then, shall we start training our second characters today, too, uo?"
"Yeah."
Let’s get to it. Time for the second characters!