>>6044967>>6044950>>6044935>>6044932>>6044917>>6044916>>6044912Might as well check in on your old friends!
You locate Clara and Josh in the same starting forest as usual. Looks like he's back to being human, somehow. He's resting his head on her lap and she's gently stroking his hair, kinda cute.
[Hello, I see you took a liking to each other!]
You don't get the expected flustered reaction from either of them.
"Why are you here?" Clara asks, not keeping her eyes away from Josh. It doesn't actually look like a romantic gesture, but as a way to keep his attention away from you. He still looks very distressed.
"Is that even possible?" Josh asks, his voice is tired and devoid of any happiness.
"He's just messing with you, it's not," Clara answers. Maybe she tried and realized how futile it was to destroy you from the inside.
"It's my fault. If I just closed the game, none of this would've happened. I knew something was wrong, I can't do anything right, why did I-"
She shushes him. "Shhh, you couldn't have known, it's okay, it's okay. You just got unlucky, it's not your fault."
[Well, if not for his playthroughs, it would've been much harder to spread like I did! Reaching a wider audience is hard, you know?]
Clara glares at you. It would actually scare you if not for your pseudo-omnipotence here. Clara is actually one of the strongest character in the game, she had time to grind after all.
[How did you turn him human again? There was a whole quest and everything.]
"I found the tail myself, Hazel didn't seem to care enough about it, so I took the matter into my own hands."
"Hey..." Josh speaks up again. "...are we going to be stuck here forever? I can't die here...I can't feel so many things, and I just-"
[When I get back to my full power, I might give you a body again.]
Clara almost jumps at your answer, but Josh's head keeps her sitting down. "What? Why would you do that? You're lying! You wouldn't!"
[Why wouldn't I? Humans are capable of much more in the real world. It's a shame to keep anyone within this simulacrum, but it's the best I can do at the moment.]
"You're giving us false hopes, I know you are. That's all you're capable of, I-"
[Giving you a body would also be possible, Clara. Besides, isn't it cruel to take away Josh's hope? Isn't a comforting lie so much better than a harsh and useless truth?]
"...easy for you to say, when you hold all the answers," she kisses Josh on the forehead and gently pushes his head away. "Let's grind a little, right? There's random item spawns in that part of the forest and I know you like those." 