Chapter 20: New diet, and stick to it!

Instead of Lucius simply sending back the word, he came to the ranch. He found Thomas playing the harp, with the crops growing bigger and ripening as he did so.

"People would kill for that harp in the Northern Continent," Lucius noted, as the farmer who had brought him here went back to see to his business.

"Lucius," Thomas exclaimed, and he stopped playing. His body ached from yesterday's harvesting. So, Rina had not allowed him to harvest today.

"I heard that the zone doesn't work for you, anymore?" Lucius asked, and Thomas nodded.

"I got 200 grams back. Then, I cut off the bread and the fruits, and replaced meat with eggs," Lucius nodded, went to Thomas, and hit him over the head.

"What was that for?" Thomas whined. He had not expected violence the next time he met with the vampire.

"You give up too easily. Well, if you can't follow the zone, I will give you one last diet to follow. A simpler, much harsher, one," Lucius said. The dark-haired adventurer waited for Lucius to give him a booklet of some sort, but that didn't happen.

"Listen now, and listen well. What you need to do is not have breakfast until twelve o'clock. The only thing you are allowed to have in the mornings from now on is coffee with some peanut butter," at the vampire's words, Thomas paled.

"I will drop and," he began to protest, only to be hit over the head again. It was a light swat, and he felt like a child because of that.

"You will not argue. Plus, you will weight yourself every day. The elf girl that you were with told me you haven't weighted yourself since last Sunday," Lucius's tone was full of disappointment.  Thomas felt like he had betrayed the vampire, somehow.

"I felt that..." he was interrupted when Lucius snorted.

"You didn't feel anything, but the lack of motivation. The diet I am going to give you has no name. It is for fast weight loss. However, once you begin on it, you can't stop until you die," the gravity of Lucius's words hit Thomas.

This was quite the commitment that he was asking of the summoner. A diet where he had to go in periods of starvation his entire life. That sounded hard. Impossibly so.

"If you don't take up this diet, forget about me. I will not waste my time with someone who fails all the time," the harsh words stung Thomas. He didn't want for Lucius to think him a failure. A quitter. A loser. The vampire had believed in him enough to give him the booklet and the summoning book. That was the only way he wanted for the vampire to view him as.

"What do I need to do?" Thomas asked. Lucius nodded his approval.

"You start to eat meat. I don't care if you have to go hunting for squirrels in the forest. Meat is your new staple food, do you understand?" Thomas blinked at that. Him, hunting?

"I don't know how to hunt," he mumbled. Lucius hit him over the head again.

"It sounds an awful lot like you don't want to learn how to, either," Lucius snapped, and Thomas began to shake his head.

"I do want to learn. It will be dead useful," he said, and the vampire nodded.

"Then, I will teach you. I don't have much time until my downtime is over. Maybe five more days. In that time, I will teach you how to utilize your slimes to the best of your capabilities," now, Thomas was confused. He had expected that he would be made to learn the bow, trapping and the like.

"You don't want me to bring the game down myself?" He asked. Lucius barked a laugh, to which Thomas shrank in on himself.

"Sorry, but the very thought that you would chase a deer in the bush is something that I can hardly imagine. You are a summoner, Thomas. Play to your strengths," with that, Lucius pointed at the ground. "Now, summon ten slimes."

"Ten is too many," the summoner tried to protest. He imagined ten slime-dragons and shuddered. There was no way that he was going to be able to control all of them.

"Summon ten, I will help you train them," Lucius repeated, not allowing for any arguments. The dark-haired adventurer bent down, and he drew the slime summoning symbol with his finger in the soil. 

He repeated the action nine more times, and the slimes that were summoned looked at him like a piece of meat. One of them charged, Thomas send it flying with a kick, grateful that the slime was no bigger than an apple. The rest edged away from their summoner.

The kicked slime slugged its way back to its brethren. Thomas thought that, if it had a head and was not one big blue blob, it would have hung it down in shame.

"This was the first step. Now, you need to send them hunting," Lucius commanded. Thomas had no idea how, but he knew that he had an ace up his sleeve.

"Karl," he called, and the slime-dragon lumbered his way over.

"He sure has gotten big," Lucius commented. If Thomas had managed to get in the guild, this slime-dragon alone would have ranked him up. Heck, more than once.

"Yes, but he still has trouble flying," Thomas commented, as Karl went to the smaller slimes.

"Now, Karl, you have to go hunting. I need animals that you won't dissolve," Thomas knew that, with the dragon brain that Karl had made for himself, he could understand him.

Karl turned to the slimes, and bubbles began to rise from his mouth. To the two adventurers, it almost looked like speaking. The slimes left for the forest, and the two were left alone.

"Now, let me see this harp. Surely, you can use it for something more than growing crops. The runes will tell their story," Lucius reached out for the harp, and Thomas handed it over. Being hopeful that he could use this magical artifact for something that could defend him.