New Guy: Page 2

Lucas's POV

I was jolted awake by Lexi shaking me and whisper yelling at me.

"Lucas, wake up! There's a new guy!"

"Duh fuck?"

At her insistence, I got dressed and stumbled into the living room. Tius was standing in the living room, speaking to the pink-haired boy standing in the living room.

"-so that's why we have a rule about polymorphing people into vtubers. Any questions?"

Before he could respond, Tius noticed us.

"Ah, this is Lucas and Lexi, our striker and support respectively."

He gestured at the new guy.

"And I'll let Ashton introduce himself."

He turned to face us fully and I took a moment to look him over more thoroughly. He was short, about 5ft 4 (166cm), and slightly chubby in a feminine kind of way. He was wearing a plain white tee and tight jean shorts that left most of his pale thighs bare. Not that I was looking at his legs or anything. There was a moment of awkwardness when no one said anything. He rolled his eyes and pointed up.

Floating above his head was Illusory Script, magical letters spelling out a message.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Ashton. But you can call me Ash. I'm a cleric."

I looked between him and the words and made the connection a moment later.

"Oh, you can't talk, can you?"

"Nope."

"Well, it's nice to meet you too, Ashton."

He blushes a little bit, which was cute. I mean, uh, like charming kind of cute.

"Anyway Lucas, you two should get acquainted. Until we can get a bed in the guest bedroom he'll be staying in your room."

"Wait what?! Can't he just take Lexi's room and she and I can share?"

"Nope. Guild has a rule about putting guys and gals in the same room. Last thing I need is HR paying us a visit and giving me a lecture on Guild policy. I don't care about your late-night visits, but that's as lenient as I can be, dude."

"There's only 1 bed in my room!"

"Sorry dude. You're welcome to sleep on the couch if you want."

I sighed, massaging my temples.

"Come on Ashton, I'll show you where to put your stuff."

I spent the next half hour chatting with Ash, helping him put stuff away and connect his console to the tv. He was shy, but clearly passionate, and thankfully easy going. But I still have no idea what a vtuber is

Layer that day I was scrubbing dishes when I heard a voice in my head. Not Vedra, but Samara.

"I'll be borrowing Lexi tonight, so don't intrude if you want to sit down regularly tomorrow."

Tempting, but I wasn't in the mood to have anything up my butt that night. I tossed the sponge into the sink in frustration. My options were sharing a bed with another guy or sleeping on the couch. Neither sounded particularly appealing.