The teenager thundered up the stairs and burst into the closest room, her legs shaking as she was met with a shocking display. Chairs and tables sat destroyed on their sides, with the caret being ripped into two. In the middle of the room sat someone familiar, but Elizabeth couldn't believe that was Pudding.
She walked closer, her legs shaking as she took in that it was her baby companion. But it was much larger and much wider, the size of a kitchen table all of a sudden. Her darling slime baby had turned into a huge ball of goo and was crying. Globs of liquid were falling on its face as it sobbed against the knees of a worried Yuki.
The woman looked over, her veiled face scrunched up in frustration from having to deal with the slime's tantrum. She let out a sigh of relief once she saw it was Elizabeth and waved her over before looking at the slime again. It was obvious that she'd struggled to control the slime and had resorted to desperate measures.
“You're gonna be alright, Pudding. Look who's here.” Yuki told the slime who just continued to make an agitated chirping noise as it sloshed around.
The slime mound looked over and Elizabeth gasped. It had formed more emotive eyes that were sloshing around like Yin and Yang signs. The slime had somehow leveled up without her knowing which puzzled her.
Before she could really think of the sudden change, the teenager was lifted off of her feet. The slime toddler had rolled over to her and knocked it to her. This sent the brunette into the air and she let out a surprised yelp. Thankfully, her pet caught her with its slime body and the teen belly flopped on its top.
Her body was shaking as she prepared for herself to sink into its sludge. To her shock, she didn't. The slime was incredibly solid despite its appearance so she wasn't able to go under its skin and instead, she was just laying there.
Elizabeth wiped her sleeve against her forehead as her veiled woman sat with an equally pale expression on her face. Everything had happened so fast that to the teenager's horror, Yuki had unsheathed her broadsword.
“Don't hurt it!” Elizabeth cried instinctively wrapping herself around what she could of the blob. She didn't want her pet to be hurt due to her stupidity.
The veiled woman stood up and sighed. Her hand was still firm on the handle of her blade as she stared at the scene before her. Elizabeth felt nauseous as she watched the giant debate slicing up Pudding. Sweat dripped on her face as the woman took a step forward, her heeled boot crunching on a piece of a broken chair.
Pudding looked up from the noise and Yuki grew tense as the slime let out a scared chirp. Elizabeth was staring at her guildmate with wide eyes, her heart beating a mile a minute. Thankfully, the tall woman calmed down and put her broadsword back in its place.
She had a frown on her face as she shook her head, her veil shifting on her face. The woman quickly repositioned before Elizabeth could see her eyes and sat down on the chair that still resembled a piece of furniture.
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There was what had to have been ten minutes of silence as the two women just stared. Yuki stopped frowning and gave an apologetic smile to her friend as she talked.
“I'm sorry for scaring you. I wasn't going to hurt either of you, I just didn't want to risk being unprotected if anything happened again.” Yuki began to explain herself as Elizabeth sat and listened. “Pudding began to act agitated after I logged in. I don't even know how it evolved so fast. You came into the room right after I managed to subdue it and then everything happened.”
The brunette lay there and swallowed thickly. “I understand so there's no hard feelings on my part. I should have looked more into domesticated slimes before taking one in. I'm sorry for all the destruction I've caused.”
Yuki waved a gloved hand in the air. “Hey, I should have looked into it when I offered to take care of Pudding while you were gone. All that matters now is keeping it under control for the guild's sake.”
Elizabeth felt enormous guilt from Yuki's words. She had four other people to worry about and she couldn't have Pudding rampaging everything she logged out. If Pudding did see her as its mother, the tantrum made a lot of sense. It reminded her of a story her mother told her about her antics as a little girl.
When she didn't get a toy she wanted she would throw her body onto the ground and scream at the top of her lungs. Her mother would be left with two choices; acknowledge her or ignore her. But the slime baby wasn't a little human boy. It was a mob that she had domesticated so she had to notice and address everything that happened with it.
The teenager had been slacking and this was all her fault. She needed to spend some time in and out of the game researching how to raise a slime. This meant she would have to take a break from fighting mobs and leveling up for the time being. The brunette groaned, wiping her hands against her face as it set in.
Yuki noticed her sudden anxiety and quickly piped up. “Eliza, it's alright. The others won't be angry at you about this. This is just a game.” Her words were nice but the teenager still knew that she had to take responsibility.
“I'm going to sit out of the next two missions you guys do so I can learn how to properly take care of Pudding. I spoke to my mom about how long I play and I promise to take more time off. This means Pudding will be left alone with you guys more often. I can't risk it getting worse.” Elizabeth said with a worried glance down at the now sleeping slime companion.
“You play twelve hours straight, right.” The teenager nodded and Yuki nodded her head. “I get why your mother spoke to you then. I'll talk to the others about you sitting out and warn them about Pudding's sensitivity.”
The relief the teenager felt was unimaginable. “Thank you so much.”
She could only hope that the others wouldn't be upset about the emotionally unstable slime in their guild base. There was the possibility that Pudding couldn't be trained and that scared her. Because she'd grown attached to the slime ball.
Right now, it was fast asleep with a >_< expression on its cute face. You wouldn't have known that minutes earlier it had been destroying the room in a fit of sadness. Elizabeth rubbed its head and it softly rumbled. For now, Pudding was in deep sleep and wouldn't be a threat to anyone.
“We managed to register while you were gone. There's a limit to guild members when the majority is under level fifty so we can add two more members."
"Selene was thinking about going alone to hunt for another median-level player like Catherine to join us. Someone whose level is sixty or above who can one-shot anyone if we need them to.” The meek teenager understood the fox's thought process even if Yuki seemed annoyed.
They wouldn't always have Catherine with them to bail them out. “That makes sense. Though I think we should all grind together and on our own so we aren't depending on someone to solo when there's five of us.”
Yuki shrugged, looking to the side. “I don't think we need anyone else if we can just grind together. But, you and Selene may have a good point bringing up to us.” There was a lot left unsaid but Elizabeth didn't want to ask her.
Instead, the two women spent a good amount of time cleaning up the room. They had to discard a lot of the furniture which left Elizabeth feeling shitty but Yuki shushed her about this. The older woman shared some of her real life with the teenager as they cleaned.
Elizabeth was shocked to learn that the veiled giant was a mother herself. The woman didn't share specific details about her child but said that she saw some of them in the teenager. This made the brunette blush and feel fuzzy in her chest.
Yuki told her that she shouldn't get mad at her mother for not taking Frozen Hearts seriously. Their parents grew up in a different era of gaming whe VR was a dream. This resonated with Elizabeth deep down and the older woman noticed by how quiet she'd become. The woman patted her on the shoulder, smiling.
“I know this game feels like your entire life, kiddo. But you have other things that you should care about and people to depend on. So, don't worry about any of this. It'll all be alright in the end.”