Chapter 324 – Mother and Daughter (Two-in-One)
In a strange space rendered by a light green halo, Fisher’s agile body continuously ascended. As he climbed higher, he discovered that the jelly-like green objects surrounding him functioned like the walls of this space, and beyond those walls lay denser and larger jelly-like matter, writhing as if some peculiar life form was moving.
Why does it feel like this space is inside a slime’s body?
As Fisher ascended, the previously muffled voices from the bottom grew clearer. It turned out that two young ladies were talking, both clad in black robes, standing on the green walls while tearing at and insulting each other.
“It’s all your fault! Why didn’t you check if there was anyone in the room? Couldn’t you wait until they left before stealing the ice cream?!”
“Huh? We didn’t divide the tasks, so why should it be you who does this?! I’m the elder sister; you should listen to me!”
“Corya! I’ve had enough; I’m going to tell Mom on you!”
“Go ahead, you little snitch! You should be out on the streets with her. My brother used to like me the most. If it weren’t for you sleeping with me, he would have taken me when he left!”
“I’ll kill you!”
As soon as Fisher arrived, he saw the two women sticking together in a very strange way, continuously bumping against each other. Although both ladies looked human, their bodies bent in an extremely bizarre manner as if they lacked bones.
Is this what Emhart referred to as the slime race? Then they must be wearing a layer of false skin; this isn’t their true form.
“Thieves, so you were trying to steal the ice cream?”
Fisher suddenly drew his Fluid Sword and leaped onto the green wall over a hundred meters high. He looked coldly at the two black-robed ladies, who, upon hearing his voice, immediately got scared and separated, instinctively kneeling on the ground and bowing their heads to him.
“No, no, no! We weren’t trying to steal—it’s all a misunderstanding.”
“It was her who wanted to steal the ice cream. I don’t know her at all! If you’re going to arrest someone, it should be her! I’m innocent.”
“Connie! I’m your sister; how dare you say that?!”
“Nonsense! The one who secretly kicked me out of bed at night isn’t my sister!”
Seeing that the two were about to fight again, Fisher hastily slammed the Fluid Sword against the ground, producing a thunder-like sound that startled them back into their original position, carefully eyeing him.
“This is my space, why are you two idiots so afraid of him?! You’re both worthless! You bring people in here and then argue!”
Just as Fisher prepared to ask a question, a voice from above suddenly came, revealing a voice of an old woman. He frowned slightly and looked up, witnessing large clumps of green jelly-like matter suddenly stirring into activity, twisting and contorting into a giant hand that lunged downwards.
“Oh right, we totally forgot.”
“It’s all Corya’s fault for talking so much that I got dizzy!”
The eyes of the two girls lit up, and the next second, their skin suddenly split open, erupting two jelly-like substances, one red and one blue. These substances twisted in mid-air like flowing water, forming the semi-transparent curves of two girls.
“Gululu~”
Two strange jelly-like humanoid creatures with blurred features appeared before Fisher. Inside them, bubbles made a glurping sound as if they were creatures with no organs. Yet, with Fisher’s sensitive spirit realm sight, he immediately noticed that their structure had two layers.
One layer was the outer, skin-like sticky jelly substance, while the inner layer was liquid, with magical circuits spread across the jelly body. This jelly structure appeared quite odd, making the slimes appear semi-transparent, obscuring the organs wrapped in the liquid inside.
The jelly-like substance felt to Fisher like a clothing covering all the internal biological structures of the slimes; they should essentially still be mammals.
“Haha, you dare to come here and die. Once we catch you, we’ll sell you to Shivali’s brothel!”
As the eerie jelly hand drew closer, the two sisters, who were just begging for mercy, put their hands on their hips and shouted excitedly. Fisher raised an eyebrow slightly; he gently extended his hand, and the Fluid Sword suddenly stretched out, its sharp gleam instantly cutting the approaching giant hand into hundreds of pieces.
A large amount of green liquid gushed out, causing the smiles of the blue and red slimes before him to stiffen as they huddled together.
“Just now, my sister was joking, hahaha.”
“Boom!”
As the green hand was sliced apart, the green wall they stood on also gradually became soft. The walls and the ground began to writhe, flowing with a light golden liquid that symbolized the entire space becoming extremely active.
On the writhing walls, arms or swords grew, all pointing at the defenseless Valentina below, who still hadn’t engraved her magic on the ring in her hand and could only use her fire pistol to defend herself temporarily.
Fisher glanced at the space below and, with excellent eyesight, accurately locked onto the panicking Valentina who nervously grasped the wheelchair’s armrest. He hesitated no longer; he thrust the Fluid Sword at the two slimes, wrapping them tightly, and simultaneously shouted towards above,
“Stop, or your two daughters will die by my hand.”
“Ha, if you want to kill those two useless girls, go ahead! I’ll give them to you; I just want the ice cream, the precious ice cream!”
Fisher slightly raised an eyebrow, turning his head to look at the two pitiable slimes he had captured, and the one named “Corya” could no longer restrain herself and shouted upwards,
“Kexiening! You money-grubbing wretch, you don’t even care about your daughters! No wonder Brother Colin stole your things and ran away, you cold-blooded bastard!”
Kexiening? Brother Colin?
Wait, these characters are family members of that circus leader, and it seems there are some serious family conflicts?
But Fisher didn’t have time to concern himself with such matters; he decisively pulled the two bound slimes downwards, and a ring in his hand grew brighter, faintly creating a thunder-like radiance.
“Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah! We’re gonna die!”
“Shut up.”
Fisher coldly yelled at the two screaming slime sisters as they descended, frightening them into quickly covering each other’s mouths. They appeared a bit silly and cute, but Fisher had no time to mind them; the electricity in his hand grew brighter, soon invoking an echo from the illusory world, summoning a massive arc of thunder.
“Boom!”
Seven-Ring Magic, 【Thunder Arrow】.
“Valentina, duck!”
“Huh?”
Valentina below was momentarily taken aback, instinctively ducking her head, as Fisher no longer hesitated. He swung the magic in his hand, smashing down onto the ground behind Valentina, and the substantive lightning instantly pierced through the writhing green ground, calling forth a bizarre pull like the beginning of chaos.
“My space! Ugh!”
Simultaneously, a shrill scream suddenly erupted from above. With the intense pull and piercing screams, Fisher gripped Valentina’s wheelchair tightly, and in the next moment of a dizzying spin, they were violently ejected from some place, crashing onto the cold ground of the Northern Region.
“Ouch, that hurt!”
Fisher slid for a long distance in the snow, holding Valentina who had fallen from the wheelchair. Just as he grasped her, he realized Valentina was not only petite but also very light. He looked down at Valentina, who had her eyes tightly shut, then raised his head to look ahead.
Under the bright moonlight, it was starting to snow again over Miya, and the outline of the hotel they had stayed in could be vaguely seen in the distance. It seemed they had been taken out of the hotel.
In front of them, the wheels of Valentina’s tilted wheelchair were slowly rotating, and behind the wheelchair were the two dazed red and blue slimes. Further away, an old woman in a black robe was coughing on the ground, continuously spitting out clumps of green jelly-like substance.
It appears they had just run out from that old woman’s mouth.
“Ha, the slime spaces are stored within each slime’s body; she has nothing of value left. So, that space shattered upon contact.”
Emhart had resumed standing on Fisher’s shoulder and disdainfully glanced at Valentina, who was still recovering in Fisher’s arms, explaining to Fisher like this.
Valentina, holding her forehead, lifted her face, slightly dazed as she looked at her current movements. Then her cheeks flushed as she pointed at the wheelchair in the distance, quietly saying to Fisher,
“The… wheelchair.”
Fisher took two steps forward, propping the flipped wheelchair upright and carefully placing Valentina back on it. As soon as she left Fisher’s embrace, the cold of the Northern Region hit Valentina, making her hug her own arms as she felt the loss of Fisher’s warmth.
But of course, Valentina couldn’t bring herself to ask Fisher to hold her again; she simply gritted her teeth and endured.
“Please spare me. Spare me!”
Fisher shot a glance at the cough-stricken old woman, stepping closer while holding the Fluid Sword, asking her,
“Who is Colin to you?”
“You know my unfilial son?! Where is he? I want to tear him into pieces for stealing everything from me, that little thief!”
Upon hearing Colin’s name, the old woman, who had been begging for mercy, perked up instantly, ignoring the green liquid she was spitting out, staring intently at Fisher, seemingly desperate to know Colin’s whereabouts.
Fisher’s gaze shifted slightly, but looking back at the freezing Valentina, he gently extended his Fluid Sword, binding the three slimes together,
“Let’s go back to the hotel to talk; it’s too cold here.”
Valentina nodded, as she really couldn’t endure the cold night in the Northern Region anymore. Fisher used the Fluid Sword to push the three—no, three slimes—as he escorted Valentina back.
Feeling Fisher’s steady steps behind her, Valentina looked down at the wheelchair moving at a leisurely pace and suddenly asked,
“You just jumped so high; that shouldn’t be magic, and it doesn’t look like a move a human could make. How did you do it?”
Fisher heard her question but didn’t intend to tell the truth, mainly because the explanation would be a bit troublesome, and he felt somewhat resistant to admitting he was a half-blood of some subhuman race. For so long, others had guessed, but he had never admitted it, so he replied to Valentina,
“Everyone has a secret, Miss Valentina; I am no exception.”
“…Oh.”
Valentina secretly puffed out her cheeks at this perfunctory answer, rubbing the ring on her hand out of Fisher’s sight, responding thusly. Clearly, she was a bit dissatisfied with his response and had some resentment over the scene she had seen through the ice cream.
However, with Fisher’s steps behind her remaining unchanged, under his constant support, this little thought and displeasure quickly dissipated and vanished somewhere.
“So, the young lady went out to meet Fisher at night and ended up being attacked by these three slimes?”
The hotel lobby was brightly lit, with numerous Turan family security personnel standing behind. Headed by Heidi Lin, dressed in a long black coat, she held her forehead, looking somewhat troubled.
She had intended to come to serve Valentina when she rested, but upon not finding her in the room, she notified other staff only to discover that Fisher was also missing. After searching for a while, she learned that the two had brought back three strange individuals together.
Valentina felt somewhat embarrassed by Heidi Lin’s words of “meeting up,” shaking her head to try and explain, but at the sight of Heidi Lin’s not-so-pleasant stern expression, she gave up. Instead, Fisher spoke for her,
“These three slimes attempted to steal ice cream; it just so happens that we were in the room.”
“So what were you and the young lady doing there at this hour? Why did you go to the room where the ice cream is stored?”
Fisher had just wanted to respond when Valentina glanced at him, her meaning clear that she couldn’t let her ability to predict from the ice cream be revealed to the family. So he put on a plain face and fabricated a lie,
“We were chatting.”
“At this late hour, just a man and a woman, you expect me to believe you were chatting in a closed room?”
Heidi Lin raised an eyebrow. Valentina also became somewhat embarrassed, covering her face, feeling too ashamed to articulate further. Why did it feel like this person was making things more complicated and weird?!
“The issue isn’t that; what’s crucial is how to deal with these three slimes. They attempted to steal the ice cream; we don’t know if they were instructed by someone else or what, and hadn’t you been looking for slimes this whole time? Now they come knocking at your door; it’s highly likely they know clues about the mark.”
Seeing Heidi Lin’s black hair nearly bristling in anger and inclined to transform into some fearsome monster, Fisher quickly interjected to redirect the conversation back to the main issue. Meanwhile, Valentina quickly chimed in, cooperating with him seamlessly,
“Yeah, the difficulty of finding the slime mark is second only to that of the troll mark. I’ve heard that slimes have special ways to communicate with their kin, so although they’ve been scattered for all these years, they unknowingly form a united front. Through these three, we should quickly acquire the slime mark.”
Heidi Lin squinted her eyes at the serious Fisher and the young lady sitting in her wheelchair, their tandem banter left her original intended words stuck in her throat. She sighed, extending her finger to point at the two of them threateningly,
“Miss, you absolutely cannot go out alone at night again, especially with a male. It’s not to restrict your safety; what if something happens to you? How would I explain this to the family? I won’t report this matter to the family, but for the sake of my job, you must reflect on this!”
“I understand, Heidi Lin.”
Valentina turned back and winked at Fisher, her fingers playing with the ring more cheerfully, looking like she had successfully schemed something. But upon turning to see Fisher looking down at her, inexplicably, her cheeks turned slightly red, and she turned her head away, quietly instructing Fisher,
“Alright, Fisher, let them go; I want to understand the situation.”
“Mm,”
As soon as Fisher released the three slimes’ bodies, the one named Kexiening hadn’t uttered a word yet, while the other two red and blue slimes had already approached Fisher adorably,
“Benefactor~ I’m innocent; you must see the truth. This theft has nothing to do with us; it was all her plan!”
“Yeah, yeah, wuwu, thanks to the benefactor, we were saved from that villain; she starved us and made us pitiful. Please take me in; I eat little, work fast, and can sing; it’s a good deal~”
“Scram! You filthy beast, didn’t you just say you’d send the benefactor to Shivali’s brothel?! What a lying dog!”
“Hey, you heard wrong.”
The two soft slimes drew close to Fisher, smiling. Though they looked a bit strange, their bodies were far softer than humans, and even in the cold of the Northern Region, they felt warm, now pressing against him like two large hot water bottles.
Fisher’s expression didn’t change as he tried to shake off the clingy slimes, but Valentina, seated in the wheelchair, already aimlessly raised her fire pistol at them, releasing the safety, causing the two smiling slime sisters to stiffen and obediently kneel back next to the old woman.
“Thieves who attempted to steal, and you have the nerve to sweet-talk here. Return to your forms; we have questions for you.”
Upon hearing Valentina’s words, the old woman slightly trembled, as from her skin, pure green jelly-like substance began to ooze. Once she reassembled, she transformed into a larger green slime woman than the two daughters. Different from them, her pure green body flickered with faint golden spots, shining like gold.
Standing on Fisher’s shoulder, Emhart looked down and quietly explained,
“The older the slime, the larger it grows. When they die, their internal fluids burst out, and all that’s left is the outer skin. Slimefolk generally bury just that outer skin. Moreover, this slime has many signs of valuable use within it; those golden spots inside explain why that previous space was so vast.”
The massive green slime Kexiening bowed her head, speaking softly,
“I truly didn’t know this ice cream was temporarily stored by the Turan family. I thought it was in the custody of the military of Miya. My daughters and I haven’t eaten well for too long; we lost our heads for a moment and made this astonishing act. Please be lenient, Turan family; we will do our utmost to help in any way we can.”
In reality, if Valentina and Fisher hadn’t happened to be in the room, these slimes might have truly succeeded. Kexiening’s method of directly storing the ice cream in her space was particularly strange; it didn’t even trigger the alarms in the room, and Valentina learned later that they had taken things from a distant room upstairs while still outside the hotel.
However, the farther the distance and the more items packed, the higher the value consumed, and today they had spent all the vast money given by that gentleman from Shivali on this scheme without even having dinner before stealing the ice cream. They could be said to have wagered it all.
After Valentina confirmed their identities, she glanced at Fisher beside her, who understood all too well upon seeing the two slimes on their knees giving him flirty looks. He sighed and asked,
“You three are stealing such a treasure as ice cream, and ordinarily we could immediately execute you. The Turan family’s might should be something you don’t doubt. However, now there’s an opportunity; we are looking for the markings of the slime race, and I want to know if you have any clues. You’d better think it through before you answer.”
Valentina shot a glare at Fisher, who was using the Turan family’s authority as a bargaining chip. Anyone who didn’t know would think he was someone significant from the Turan family, coercing them so well.
The two daughters were just scared, having no idea what Fisher was talking about, while only Kexiening, the green slime, had her features subtly contort. She knelt on the ground without regaining her composure and, lifting her head, showed a hint of difficulty,
“There are clues regarding the markings… But it might not be easy to obtain them.”
As they were conversing, no one noticed that from Kexiening’s shed black robe, a small deformity-like insect suddenly emerged, cautiously peeking out and then quickly disappearing into the hotel’s ground.
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(End of Chapter)
