"Lymphadra?" Dylan frowned as he thought about it. I try to copy the facial expression without much success. My face isn't really designed to... move, per se.

[Why do you want to know about Lymphadra?]

[The ant colony is there, remember? I could probably join them if I became powerful enough!]

[Why would you want to join a colony? Wouldn't you rather - right, you're an ant, not a human. Sorry.]

[It's all right.]

"I mean - yes, I know where Lymphadra is, but why would you want to go there?" He seems rather curious about it, looking up at me without very much of the fear left in his eyes. It seems as though once a human realizes you're not going to eat it, it relaxes almost immediately. I would have opened with an attack, just like the cat-eared human. I really would like to get to know her better. Her violence is familiar.

[There's a colony of giant ants there. I'm hoping that I can powerful enough to join them.]

He nods, a finger on his chin, as he thinks about it harder. "Well, they're quite a bit bigger than you are, but your power seems way higher if anything. We don't really know that much about them," he explained. "They're an entire hill full of lesser B-rank monsters, so unless you've got an S-ranker on your team, we try not to antagonize them."

Joule shivers in my head. [Do you think he even noticed the pun he just made?]

[Should I kill him?]

[No, I don't think he meant to do it.]

I return my attention to the Dylan human. [What do you mean by B and S? What are ranks?]

He seems quite happy to explain these. "Xanem separates its fighters and threats into ranks so that we know what we can and can't handle. You're probably a superior A-rank since you defeated the stucat Ruler so fast."

I decide to tactically not mention that I don't know how I beat it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

[What rank are those two?]

Dylan turns to look at them. The cat-human is back on her feet now and seems to be no worse for wear, though she's glaring rather intensely at me. The big human in the black clothing is, thankfully, explaining what's going on to her.

"Uhh, I think they're both B-rank. I don't know if they're lesser or..." He trails off, looking at something between my legs, and I check underneath me.

[Oh. This is Bubbles, by the way.]

The slime hops up onto my head and deflates happily, burbling in pleasure. Dylan starts stammering again, and I sigh. Again, such a helpful gesture.

"Th-th-that's a Void Slime! Those are usually lesser S-rank threats - why are you letting it sit on your head?!"

[It's Bubbles.] I say it as though it explains everything. Doesn't it?

[He's a lesser S-rank? That makes sense, actually. There were a couple of disrepancies in his stats that I didn't really understand.]

I turn back to Dylan. [Joule says that makes sense.]

He takes a huge breath, mashing his fingers together, before continuing in a slightly panicked tone. "Okay, maybe that's normal. I'm just going to assume that this is normal." I nod helpfully.

The big one walks over. "Ehhh... you're not going to eat us, are you?"

I rapidly breathe out in a short, repetitive method, laughing. [No. If I were going to eat you, I would have.]

It doesn't seem to relax him very much for some reason. "I'm just going to take your word for it."

They seem to be doing that a lot. [Thank you, I guess.]

[Null? Can I talk to you?]

[You already are.]

[That's not what I - look, I don't think we should trust these guys very much.]

[You're the one who told me not to kill anyone, and they know where Lymphadra is. I don't really have a choice here.]

The cat-ears walks forward and just hisses in my face, not saying anything else.

[We really need to find out more about the cat-human. I like her.]

[You-] Joule short-circuits for a moment, then talks in a strange tone. [What do you like about her? Is it the cat ears? Or is it the fur?]

[No, it's definitely the violence. She hates me for no reason!]

[Why do you sound happy about that?!]

[Her survival instincts must be so well-honed!]

[...I'm just going to ignore this.]

I turn to Dylan. [Why are they helping you? You're definitely the weakest one here.]

He flushes for some reason before he responds with a little anger. "They're just protecting me because they're getting paid to do it, and I'm only here because I wanted to make sure Xylphys doesn't get destroyed!"

I'm immediately interested. [How much is gold worth?]

He's a little thrown by the instant question, but thinks about it for a moment. "It depends on the gold. How pure it is, its size, the currency type. It's all..."

He trails off as I pull the bag of gold Kerem gave me out of my subspace, letting it drop to the ground and spill over the dirt. I can see it reflecting in the eyes of all three of them, and they all have the same expression that Kerem had when I first saw him.

[How much is all of this worth?]