Why won’t this woman let go of me…?

She keeps making these weird giggling noises as well.

…

How long do I have to put up with this?

There was a small vibration on her desk, she then picked up this glass tablet.

Laviel swiped it a few times before sighing.

“Looks like they got caught.”

“Who did?”

“Esther and that other one with the black hair.”

“Risible?”

“Oh, is that his name?”

She held me with one of her arms as she slowly scrolled down the tablet.

Wait- how did she know Esther’s name-

“Are you able to communicate with them?”

“...”

She looked down toward me, her eyes glaring at me playfully.

Laviel then placed her tablet down on her bed and started poking me.

“C’mon~ answer~”

She made a bit of a pouting face while rubbing her face against me.

It felt so irritating.

“Fine. Yes, I can.”

“Good boy~!”

G-good boy…? I feel like I’m her pet or something.

I want out…

“We’ll leave tomorrow alright~?”

“To where?”

“Cyconis of course. I’ll guide you~”

Laviel hugged me tighter before falling asleep.

I really wish I could bang my head against the wall right now.

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

“Deadeye, you and Levin start making your way toward the World tree.”

<What about Cyn though?>

“It’s fine, you’ll just have to meet him there.”

Ode swiped through his different screens, he then pulled up a map of the Elven continent. Ode pulled up another screen with a radar on it and merged the two screens together. Around the bottom right corner was a small red bleep, moving toward the center was a small light-blue beep, and the final two were toward the middle left which was a yellow-green bleep and a white and light-blue bleep.

Ode swiped through a few more screens before stacking some off to the side. Six and Harbinger were behind him sitting on the couch. Harbinger was taking a nap, while Six was groggily reading his manga.

The map shrunk down with a few taps of his finger and it slid over to this section in the middle of the ocean.

There was a dark red bleep moving at a relatively high speed, it was close to the beastmen continent. However, it still had a way to go until it arrived.

“Four, you there?”

<Huh-? Uh, yeah…?>

There was a yawn over the intercom.

<Sorry I’m a bit tired, this whale is slow as fuck.>

“Slow progress, huh?”

Four was gliding along the water at a moderate pace, he was still standing on his slime surfboard as his legs shook slightly.

…

<I’m going to eat the whale.>

“Huh- uh- wait don’t do that yet, you’re almost there.”

Ode said it in a reassuring way trying to get Four to settle down.

<Hmm… but I’m hungry… and I want to try whale~>

Four started smiling while licking his lips, his sharp shark-like teeth shining.

“Listen, just hold on until you can at least see the continent.”

<Yeah, yeah~>

Ode closed out a bunch of his currently useless tabs and relaxed back in his chair.

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

The military officers loaded Esther and Risible into this prisoner airship, forcing them to sit down. The airship took off and started flying toward the center of the continent, the World tree. 

Esther leaned closer to Risible and whispered.

“Why? We could have easily escaped…”

“Just go along with it for now. We have to go there anyway.”

She glared at Risible for a second before giving in.

“But seriously though? Alcohol?”

“It’s necessary.”
“Really?”

“Really.”

As night arrived the city lit up in bright neon colors. It was vibrantly colored, though none of the stars could be seen… the darkened sky was plastered with holographic ads.

The airships blared over the city, flying close to the World tree. One of the walls just above them transformed and opened up into this aircraft hanger.

The prisoner ship landed and soon after the military officers started dragging Esther and Risible along these white metallic hallways. There was a side hall that had triple locked cells, they were both thrown inside as the door slammed behind them. A number of clicks happened before this weird compression noise was heard.

Esther looked around for a second before looking at Risible.

“Now what?”

“We wait.”

…

She stared at him blankly before sitting down on one of the beds. Esther sighed and tried using some form of wind magic in her hands, it was extremely weakened and she could barely see the current.

Magic’s limited here, huh? Of course it is…

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

The night passed by slowly as Ode, Six, and Harbinger slept.

Risible and Esther sat in their cell.

Deadeye and Levin went undercover, slowly traveling toward the World tree.

Four’s gluttony for trying whales grew stronger… and…

Then there was me.

Stuck in the arms of some elven girl that dragged me away.

She was peacefully sleeping now, so I could probably look around and get some leads on what’s around me.

I split a part of my body off and grew it into a cloned body. I swapped into it, leaving my spherical form in Laviel’s arms.

I walked out of the bedroom carefully before starting to explore her penthouse. She had this sort of streamer set-up in a corner, there also seemed to be a bunch of electronic devices around. I guess I should have expected it since this continent was way further advanced than anything that I had seen so far.

I looked out of the large windows, seeing the bright vibrant cyberpunk city. It was really a sight honestly. Something I could have never seen on Earth even if I lived for hundreds of years.

Day and night in this place was such a large difference.

I spotted a remote on this small glass table and picked it up, I scanned the buttons until I saw the red power one.

After I pressed it this holographic screen appeared on the wall behind me. It was this livestream… run by Laviel?

There was footage of Levin and I fighting against Vorhees, I could see the lightning vortex we had made on screen. Laviel had some commentary over it… I sat down on a nearby couch and watched quietly.

I reached the point where Deadeye and Levin shot a rod into Vorhees’s core. The mech fell and the footage swapped back to Laviel again, she was talking a bunch… and she called us ‘cute’? She then announced this thing called a ‘super reactor core’ which shot into Vorhees’s corpse. I’m assuming that was ‘541’s core being slammed into it… The mech was then revitalized and you could see it shoot a rod through my chest.

I started watching more intently… I knew shortly after this part… was when ‘World Ender’ activated, and I wanted to see exactly what happened.

The footage then showed me completely destroying the mech, I grew a second set of arms and was charging purple beams of light. I had destroyed its legs, tossing it up and out into the open area next to us. Around that point is where I blacked out… so…

I watched myself as my body started charging four condensed fireballs. At this point I think is when ‘541’ had taken over because I noticed his movements change. I saw myself nearly kill him with this intense desire, it kind of creeped me out…

When it swapped back to Laviel… I saw her directly staring at the slime tentacles that I used to absorb the mech… with pink eyes?

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

Laviel’s eyes groggily opened as she heard noise from the other room. She looked down to see that there was still a spherical slime blob in her arms.

She noticed that the core was missing though…

“Cyn?”

Laviel whispered groggily.

I didn’t answer of course since I was the one in the other room.

She got up slowly while still holding the blob in her arms.

Laviel tip-toed to the door and peered out slightly. She saw me sitting on the couch watching something on her tv.

She couldn’t tell visually what it was since her door was at an odd angle compared to the screen, but she heard her own voice so she could guess.

She quickly rushed out of her room, dropping the slime blob as she ran. Laviel reached her arm out for the remote in my hand, my vision focusing on her instantly.

Laviel jumped for the remote, I raised my arm and looked back toward the screen to see her walking back on with this ruler. She held it in the air before saying something cheerfully. I then glanced back down to see her now sulking with her head on my knee.

I tilted my head a little since I didn’t know what she was doing.

“You said your name was Laviel, right?”

“Yeah…”

My head felt clearer compared to earlier.

“So can we get going?”

“Heh-”

Laviel’s eyes glanced over at her clock, to see that it was three in the morning.

“B-but it’s three-”

“Yeah, bright and early~!”

I said it joyfully, she was looking at me with a bit of shock written on her face.

Her eyes turned to a gray color before she started walking back to her room, she was dragging her feet as she went before she turned back toward me.

“Make me breakfast.”

Now me personally.

I’ve never heard of a kidnapper asking the person they kidnapped to make them breakfast…

I was going to comply though since she hadn’t done anything, plus she was going to guide me to Cyconis. Which… I think I could make it on my own, but I’m assuming it’s more than just breaking in.

I walked over to Laviel’s kitchen… to be honest I didn’t even know where to start.

I sifted through her cabinets for a bit, trying to find something that I could use. I ended up finding some eggs… so Imma make an omelette!

I have no idea how to make one, but it should be fine right?

After making a few bowls and a few tools like spatulas out of my slime, I got everything I thought I would need.

I cracked some eggs and emptied them out into a pan made of slime, I then started cooking. I moved the eggs around… they seemed to still have the yolk in the center so I broke it and stirred a little.

A few minutes passed and the texture for the eggs began changing. I tossed some vegetables in the air before dicing them up quickly using a sharp slime knife, and threw them on top of the eggs. Then I wrapped the omelette using my spatula, and slid it onto a plate.

It smelled pretty good which I think was a plus, I then grabbed this small glass container that looked like pepper and poured it onto the food.

Laviel came out wearing this white dress shirt, she had this green colored scarf and these thin blue jeans. Her silver hair was now back in a sideways ponytail using the red ribbon in her hair, the metal pieces behind her ears still sticking up.

I heard her sigh as she sat down at the table next to me, I placed the omelette in front of her. Laviel’s eyes locked onto it as her stomach grumbled. She grabbed her fork hastily and took a bite.

“Urk-”

The food sat in her mouth as her eyes went wide.

Her face started turning a slight purple as she quickly spat it out, she looked at it again… it didn’t look wrong. However, literally everything taste-wise went to complete shit.

“Cyn… you’ve never cooked before have you?”

“Nope~ not really.”

She was looking at me with gray eyes as they returned back to an emerald green.

“We’ll just get something on the way over.”

“Is it-”

“Yeah, let’s make our way to Cyconis.”