“Huurgh!” Reysha cried out, as did her back. Although her body, naturally trained and pushed beyond its physical limitations through her feats of adventuring, was strong, her back very much agreed with her tone of voice. A jolt of pain let her know that she had just made a severe mistake, “Ow- ow- ow-!” the tiger girl made a series of pained noises as she moved along, despite the pulled muscle.
“My deepest apologies,” Aclysia flew over to her back and began gathering energy from the surroundings. A safe leaf’s magic was always easy to absorb, it helped that her mana was the same that laid on the foundation of this world. Through a simple touch, she eliminated the back pain.
“For not helping me lift this FUCKING HEAVY PIECE OF SHIT?!” Reysha screamed as she finally heaved Apexus body out of the wooden bowl and onto the flat floor of the reopened entrance. There was no easy way back to the entrance this time, neither would they have taken it if there was. With it being guarded, it was simply not the wanted escape route. “Or for being such a massive bitch lately?” she almost felt Apexus jab her in the side again. “Sorry, that was out of line.”
Aclysia swallowed down what was the first thing that came to her mind. If those last few days and the fact that her beloved had actually jabbed her multiple times had proven anything, then that the quick answer was not the one that lead to a desirable outcome. “I meant to apologize for the former, but I can apologize for the latter too if you so desire.”
“Nah, spare me, we both said things we didn’t need to,” Reysha said and thus the entire thing was done for her. She wasn’t one to dwell. “Why did he have to grow so much before falling asleep, though?!” having a much more present and physical problem definitely helped. “Not like it's hard enough to pull the fucker in the first place!”
Apexus was still knocked out and had put on at least ten centimetres. Theory had it that this substantial increase in size had come from the boss being largely made from wood, a material the slime’s physiology used more reliably to increase his mass. Either that or the slime had actually grown steadily the last four days and both Reysha and Aclysia had simply not given him enough attention to notice. Given how preoccupied they had been with bickering, their only real moments of interacting with Apexus being complaining about his voice at that point, that sounded all too possible.
“Now I have back pain and feel bad!” the redhead growled as she let out another sound of prolonged strain, taking a slow step backwards and dragging the semi-liquid body with her. Parts of the slime got stuck on bark or other uneven parts of the ground, ripped off and turned into harmless drops of water. The nucleus magic, taking what was once just water and turning it into a membrane around acid, evidently got lost the moment part of the slime’s body got properly separated.
Still, given how much surface area Apexus had, dragging him was a massive chore. It would have been already under normal circumstances, now that his elliptic smoothness had made place for, what Reysha would describe as, the aesthetic of a half-molten piece of cheese, it was just that bit worse. Didn’t help that there was no real place to grab the slime.
The wings were the first place she had attempted to pull him by, but there was no proper way to get a grip on that. Not without skewering her hands anyway, below the soft feathers laid their sharp quills after all. The second attempt had been to lift him, but it was downright impossible to lift something that was giving away under her hands. Which was also why Aclysia wasn’t helping, attempts to shove Apexus from behind had only been met by her bulging in the membrane until she actually mustered enough force to sink in.
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Reysha could have tried to get under Apexus and put him on her back, but she had no idea how to get there, if she even could lift herself up afterwards nor if she could secure the slime in position, given his back-heavy form, with the wings and the new carapace and whatnot.
In the end, she had found that the only way to move the unconscious blob was to put her hands into the wing-gap in his new back plating. This only enabled her to drag him sideways, since those slits were located on the broadest part of the slime, by putting both hands into one gap and then going backwards.
“Pretty stylish thing,” Reysha commented on the new Growth. Although originally birch wood, like any other permanently acquired part, it had changed quite a bit upon becoming part of Apexus body. The light blue, wood-like material was mostly smooth, only a few black cracks running through it and giving the segmented whole a cohesive feeling.
Although gapless in its protection of Apexus’s back, there was a clear separation of different plates both in length and width. The latter was much more visible, a thick middle row and two side rows that grew off it shortly behind Apexus’s ears. They were directly adjacent to the middle row for most of Apexus’s length, only a circular and complete parting present where the wings reached out.
The design had to compromise there and create that large opening for aerodynamic reasons. Showing the wings was nice and all, but they also needed to have the space to flap around. There were no such gaps along the length, though. Starting with a triangular one between his blue fox ears, the plates grew above the base of the ones succeed them, forming a protective ridge. They weren’t quite as well locked as the Archwood Roller’s had been, so Apexus wouldn’t be able to curl together like the boss had, but it was still a pretty great defence.
Reysha’s feet hit the brambles and she groaned. At least the bowl had been smooth. “Well, good thing you are unconscious, Apexi,” the tiger girl joked as the branch-woven ground tore more and more small chunks out of the slime until she finally succeeded in shoving the heavy liquid into the healing fountain. Aclysia had already tried healing the slime, but that hadn’t done anything. Therefore, they didn’t expect Apexus to wake up from this, but they couldn’t let him lie in the boss room either.
It seemed he had simply fallen asleep from exhaustion and no spell (at least none Aclysia knew how to use) could fix that. Since they had no idea how long he would sleep for, they couldn’t risk him laying there when a new boss spawned in. Also, there was a chance the slime was dehydrated or something, so they decided this was as good a place as anywhere.
. “…He can’t drown, right?” Reysha asked and hissed at Aclysia when the white-haired flying girl raised an eyebrow. “He is a batch of primordial soup that can grow fucking legs, I know he is basically made from water but how the fuck would I be sure?!”
“I did not mean to condemn your assumption with my glance,” the metal fairy apologetically lowered her head. “To the best of my knowledge, Apexus has been born inside an underground lake. This information is based on a conversation had on paper when he was less fluent with words, however, so it might be incorrect.”
“Well, we can ask him ourselves when he wakes up,” Reysha said and rubbed her exposed back while stretching like a middle-aged man after chucking wood the whole day. Just about twenty times more enticingly, since she pushed her fairly sizable chest out in process. The motion transformed into her stretching just about every limb she had. Tension falling off her as she yawned. “Alrighty, I am going to check if we got any rewards,” the tiger stated, since they had nothing to do but wait anyway. She headed back into the boss room. “Going to be back in a bit.”