- Shari -

"Aaaargh! You brat, I am not your goddamn servant!" (Elin)

What did I say?

"Hey! We're back!" (Shari)

Immediately someone storms in our direction.

It's Elin.

"Great; then you can take over!" (Elin)

"What the hell is wrong?" (Shari)

"What is wrong?! As soon as this brat realized that I'm not going to harm him his complete attitude changed for the worst! Now he demands me to cook for him, entertain him, and who knows what else!!! I thought that torture would make people more docile! Maybe we should give it another try?" (Elin)

Well, he's a noble, if only a small one.

So it's very possible that he falls into old habits.

Still...

"We need his favor. If he tells his dad that we took good care of him, this would be the best for us." (Shari)

"I am saying this now! I have no idea how much longer I can endure this before I explode!" (Elin)

"You only need to persever until we reach his estate." (Shari)

"I am not sure if I can keep it up." (Elin)

"Anyways, I've brought some flesh. Would you be so kind to slice some bite-sized chunks for me?" (Shari)

"Now you too!?" (Elin)

"Do I really have to remind you that there is quite much you have to repay us for?" (Shari)

"No, no. I'm going." (Elin)

With this, she leaves and I can finally tend to something I had to prepare.

I take one of the flasks I obtained from Tamarah.

Then I concentrate as much as possible to gather the most energetic and dense structure possible where my hand would be.

I need to be careful, as even if the glass is strengthened it cannot take too much pressure from the inside.

Nonetheless, I can fill it to a good degree.

The bottle really got much heavier.

And I feel totally weird when I put a cork on it while I still maintained the connection to the inside till this moment, which then suddenly cuts off.

Furthermore, it was difficult without any hard body parts to push this thing on the bottle.

Yet I could figure out that rather than pushing, I was able to apply constant pressure by pulling the mass around it down.

I am amazingly strong if I just have enough time to figure out how to do things.

I repeat the same with the second bottle.

Now I've got two fast-replenishing potions.

Tamarah was right in this regard.

I can refill myself to a good degree by dissolving our provisions.

But in case I have no time I could just open the bottles and get access to what is inside.

Stored potential!

As long as Liqu doesn't get the bottles with my slime inside into her grasp.

Shivers!

And now to the reason why I had Elin prepare some chunks of flesh in advance.

Since I've lost the amount of mass I stored away I need to dissolve enough to get it back.

And for this, we have the flesh.

And Elin, our new personal cook.

An offer I will gladly take her up on.

I head to her and see that she's already done with her preparations.

For me, this has the advantage, that they are mouth-sized.

Well, some are a little large, but I won't even have to take off the clothes.

Also, as much as it pains me to say this, the size of my mouth is not really fixed.

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It can be as big as it needs to be, giving credit to the fact that it's just a makeshift construction in the first place.

All it needs is that whatever I want to eat comes into contact with my body.

I could just as well stuff it through my eyes, nose, ears, or just directly into my belly.

As the mere thought of those possibilities distresses me deeply, I obviously won't even consider them.

So having Elin for this is nearly enough to ignore her past transgressions.

It was also the reason why I was willing to give her the money to buy cooking equipment.

Minding the aforementioned mouth problem I try not to give a clear view of it while eating.

Though, the pieces are really big.

Especially concerning is that I eat them together with the bones.

Yet the marrow inside those has quite some nutritional value and I hate waste in any form.

Also, I dissolve slowly since that saves energy.

The downside is how disturbingly aware I am of the process.

This might be the first time that I have enough mental fortitude to not just hush over the process.

And I knew why I did it before.

You never feel so much like a slime as when you dissolve things and change them into what you are.

Okay, maybe being a blob was worse, but this is surely close to the top.

Feeling how something inside you ceases to be is disturbing at best.

And it calls forth memories about what I did to Chris.

At least it goes fast with sized portions.

With this, I am done with all my preparations.

Now we just have to depart when it gets dark.

Yet at one point I notice that Liqu came close.

Since we are all here it's not necessary to guard the boy all the time, so it should be fine if she's around.

Yet she fidgets in a way that shows clearly that she wants something.

But at the same time, she seems to be too uncomfortable about it to approach me.

So I have to take the initiative before this goes on for hours.

"Liqu, you are translucent, not invisible! What is it? You clearly have something on your mind." (Shari)

"Ehm, right, well, yes..." (Liqu)

"Please, just say it." (Shari)

She looks totally embarrassed, which causes bad premonitions on my side.

And every second this continues it gets worse.

"Y-you know, I... You are important to me." (Liqu)

"Did you mess something up?" (Shari)

I hope the boy is still alive.

"N-no, don't think so! R-right. It's just... Here, for you!" (Liqu)

She presents me a dagger.

It looks high quality and rather sharp.

While mine is around twenty-five centimeters and made for stabbing, this one is rather fifteen centimeters long, maybe a bit more, but far broader.

Obviously, it's made for cutting things.

I lack the strength to effectively cut something and a slash is easier to block which would render me unable to resist a counterattack.

So I rather went for stabbing.

And now this slime presents this to me.

Wait!

Presents?!

Don't tell me!

"Liqu. Is that..." (Shari)

"A gift... For you." (Liqu)

Okay, right now there are just too many questions coming up.

Let's settle with the first that comes to mind.

"Why?" (Shari)

"I... hoped you would be happy." (Liqu)

Okay, that was a given.

Did she ever have another motivation, aside from self-preservation?

"Th-the money was from Elin, yes?" (Shari)

"Mhm-glrrrrrb." (Liqu)

Can she be any more sheepish?

"And why? Why did you buy this?" (Shari)

I won't even ask if something happened during the ordeal.

"I thought... You see... You always use one like this. But you form two arms. And there is no reason why you would have to restrict yourself, so one stayed free without reason. And I thought that if you have another one you could defend yourself more effectively. This one looked good and you... you wouldn't need to use dissolving as much. I know you don't like it and I don't want you to be unhappy. A-Also it was said to be sharp, so you can maybe cut things by yourself with it. Since you have problems with dissolving big stuff." (Liqu)

So she is considerate...

This is actually... nice.

She thought about what I would like and not what she expects from me.

This is...

Damnit, I'm touched!!!

She got me!

Damnit!

Don't let her see!

"W-well, you already bought it, so it would be a waste not to use it." (Shari)

...

"Thank you." (Shari)

I think I can grant her this.

She meant well and behaved recently quite decent.

So maybe it is okay that she knows her efforts were well-received and let her rejoice about this.

.

.

.

And how she does.

Literal streams are gushing down her eyes, flowing awkwardly back in, creating a disturbing cycle.

"Aren't you overreacting a little?" (Shari)

"NO!!! I am happy! You like it! This is so great! Elin was right! Wonderful! I won't dissolve her!" (Liqu)

Well, she is happy and this is no problem in particular if you think...

Heck, what!?

Killing Elin was still in question!?

Should I tell her that she just got her neck out of this?

Better not, as doing so could scare my new cook away.

As things are now I have instead to deal with an extremely happy slime, that still crying jumps up and down in excitement.

Some calm hours would have been asking too much, huh?

It takes some time until it settles down enough so I can resume planning our trip.

Fortunately, Elin also got a new map with my money.

Just a local one, but enough to point the location of that noble's estate down.

With this, we can estimate the way we have to travel.

It is along the road to the capital but not too far away.

I guess we should arrive there in around two to three days.

This is already a bit of a stretch, as a long journey with a kid could become a true nightmare.

Well, maybe not as bad as those where a monster abducts you and does terrible things to you in its lair.

Okay, maybe I'm still not over it.

However, we still have to wait for the night.

There are some very convincing reasons why we shouldn't try to walk with that noble boy through the gate.