[12] Slimes killed by party member Trin

Experience result :

+0.2% progress to next endurance point for Trin

+0% progress to next endurance point for Leave

We got ambushed by slimes on the way, well, ambushed isn't the right word as we kind of walked right into them, and she started slaughtering the poor things with her bare hands. I didn't really participate much, I kinda felt bad actually, that and my soul doesn't really need all that extra experience.

She wipes some goo off of her jacket, "You know, people don't really like fighting slimes, but I think they are kind of underrated. Endurance is not that common on monsters." She then pulls out a metal jar, and the moment it touches the slime, all of it is sucked up inside the container. With a snap of her finger, the jar then disappears to what I assume is her inventory.

"Sorry for not helping." I answer, feeling a little bad I made her do everything again.

"Eh, it's low level monsters, you wouldn't have gotten much out of it anyway. Slime goo is useful for a few things, though." She answers nonchalantly.

I don't know why I even feel bad, I guess being a burden isn't that fun, even if my goal IS to piss her off.

"Hey, so I was wondering, why do we have to go all the way around that forest, sounds like a waste of time," I ask, pulling out the map she bought for me.

"Are you-" she takes a deep breath, and looks at me like she's a parent that has to explain to their child that jumping in front of a car is not a good idea. "Are you asking me why going through a place called "The Forest of a Thousand Curses" is a bad idea?" She rhetorically asks while somehow managing to not sound too condescending.

"Surely it can't be that bad, right? Can't we just put...anti curse shields or something?"

"Curse mitigators, there's no way of fully protecting yourself against a curse. Also, believe it or not, the "thousand curses" part of the name is an understatement, there's way more than that in there. So you'd need to somehow know all the curses that are there, make the best mitigators for each one, and keep them up the entire way through." She explains.

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"It sounds like a fun place, tough..." I pout.

"Ugh, don't give me those puppy eyes, come on..." she looks at my map for a few seconds over my shoulder, getting uncomfortably close in the process. She then presses her finger on one spot on the map and draws a line towards another spot. "If you want a fun place, then that will both cut some time on our journey, and it's a great place to explore!"

I didn't actually expect her to find a compromise, but I'd be a fool to say no to more adventure.

"What's in there?" I ask, lightly pushing her away.

"An abandoned tunnel, lots of ancient ruins here, artifact of unknown power, and a lot of monsters guarding them!" I'm pretty sure she's hyping this up so we don't go to the forest, which just makes me want to go there more. But I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and play along for now.

She simply smiles when she sees my silent agreement. Her soul also...changed? It's really hard to tell emotions by observing the soul alone unless it's a very strong emotion, but I swear it shifted to something else before it became pure hunger again.

"Is there something on my face?" She says with a worried look as I snap out of my thoughts.

I shake my head and we both start to walk again in silence.

Wait, silence? That can't be right. I spent an entire universe in silence, I brought her along specifically so I could talk to someone, but I can't think of anything interesting to say.

So I just start talking about random universes I've been in, hiding the details of the stories that would give out the fact they are from a different world. Friends, enemies, losses, happy and sad moments. It's strangely liberating to be able to talk to someone about those things instead of doing it all in my head.

She doesn't seem to mind, but of course it's not like I can tell anything from her body language alone. She nods, ask questions on random things to prove that she's actually listening. I know it's probably an act, that she doesn't actually care,She's doing this just so she can get closer to me. But it's fine, I don't mind.

I then ask her about what type of life she lived, and she tells me about the people she met. About a cruel noble who met a woman and decided to become better out of love, of a talentless violinist who met the one person that appreciated the effort he put into each song. About a beggar who became a hero and saved the people who previously shunned him.

Those stories were never about her, like mine, they were ultimately about someone else. And yet, she seemed so proud of that fact, as if every single great thing that happened in those tales was indirectly caused by her. They probably were, and she was simply omitting a few details like I was. But I enjoyed listening to them nonetheless.

The night came, and we had to set up camp. She prepared the tent while I made a fire so we could cook a few things. It was very comfy. She prepared slime soup, and we burned bits of meat on a stick by the fire.

"We only have one tent unfortunately," she sighs, "So we'll have to sleep together-" She covers her mouth with her hand. "N-not like that obviously, although I only have one sleeping bag..."

"Couldn't you have bought one more?"

"I had to pay for everything, I expected you to have your own." she pouts.

"I sleep on the ground usually anyway, don't worry about it."

She shrugs and takes one last sip of slime soup before we both go to sleep in the same tent. I expected sleeping next to each other to be a lot more awkward, but it isn't much different from the sleepovers I had at P's house. You know? The protagonist from the pipe place? I miss that guy, I hope A's doing okay too.

I'm doing okay.

So why do I feel like something's not quite right?