LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 42: Doctor, What Big Teeth You Have!
In a lonely shack, out in the middle of... some godforsaken swamp. A large pot boils with an alchemical concoction. The person stirring the pot can hardly be called a person, a rumor has it that thing used to be human. She was already ruthless before being thrown to the storm, now time and hardship has eroded most morals. The death of her team, the death of most of her ego, the death of the skin holding her head and torso together, all of them factors to build the monster that now inhabits these worlds. She is just done consorting with one of the most vile sentient races known to the worlds, demons. For many, meeting a demon would already be a monumental event in their lives worthy to pass stories to their children to. For Esstrey, she feels like it's a real Wednesday.
"Ugh, this smells disgusting. Why does imprinting some basic knowledge on a slime core have to smell so bad? Is this what teachers feel like around snobby brats?"
Truly, a monument to all the sins of mankind.
Esstrey takes a strip of water-resistant parchment, and dips it into the bubbling gray liquid. When she takes the strip out, lines of mana run across the strip, leaving small roads on it. A paranoid observer would usually believe it to be some strange language, but Esstrey has knowledge from one of the books, cluing her in on what it really is. An attempt to transfer knowledge, currently without placeholder.
"Next ingredient... brain? Who the hell tested these recipes?" Esstrey thinks back on the kobold prisoners she used to have, those would have been great for this, unfortunately someone ate their brains. Just as she prepares to chastise the parasite inhabiting her for gluttonous behavior, she feels something well up in her throat.
Searching around the area where the parasite is acting, she notices it making some sort of breach in her trachea and... proceeds to puke out a heap of gray matter. No prizes for guessing what kind of gray matter. Esstrey dry heaves and rapidly begins rubbing her tongue while spitting, trying to do everything in her power to get the taste out. Eventually, she resorts to downing a jar labeled 'ice honey'. Rubbing the freezing substance over her now numbed tongue, she finally relaxes a little.
"dho dha again, anh A wi' buwy ahs ah'ive" Esstrey has some trouble speaking with a numb tongue, but she's certain that she got the point across.
Not one to waste what is perhaps one of the worst experiences she's ever had, she dumps the gray matter into the cauldron. The substance glows for a bit, and the next time she dips in a strip of water-resistant parchment, it is instead decorated with miniscule descriptions on how to clear out buildings filled with hostiles in various languages. Esstrey quickly gets worried, fearing that the parasite stole a chunk of her brain without her notice, but an inspection with her blood reveals no missing pieces.
Leaving that mystery for another day, she unceremoniously dumps the dormant slime core in the sludge, stirs for 10 seconds, and carefully extracts it with some sort of trash picker. The old tool which has seen plenty of wear is now covered in bomb-making instructions, it would be much less worrying if those instructions weren't in French.
Dropping the core on the wooden floor, it doesn't react to any stimuli yet, or more accurately can't. Esstrey picks up a bucket of the blood harvested from the ghouls, and dumps that on the core as well. The blood starts congregating around the core sluggishly, and the slime is clearly having some trouble controlling it. Adding a bit of her own magic, Esstrey stabilizes the core into a coherent shape. The slime stays still as Esstrey works, and doesn't try anything else. It doesn't take long for Esstrey to have molded the slime into a smooth ball of blood.
Once Esstrey stops the molding, the slime slowly starts to shift its body to mimic Esstrey, but the weight of the blood causes the slime to not be able to change her lower body to fit, so she roughly imitates Esstrey's upper body instead while keeping the lower body in a blob.
"Who are you!? And why am I so heavy?" The first words of the nascent little creature are instant demands for clarification. Where did she learn to have an attitude like that?
"I'm a damn good blood mage, and you are heavy because you aren't really attuned to blood. It's kind of like trying to move around with half your muscle strength. Now hush, I have to go talk to some adults." Before the slime can protest, the door bursts open to reveal Kuda carrying a kobold covered in bone decorations.
"Great witch! I bring mother! Cure mother!" Kuda throws the apparently elder woman? (The kobolds look identical other than the decorations) on the ground, some of the bones snap and the brood-mother seems to grunt more in anger at the destruction of bone than being dropped like a sack of potatoes. Esstrey instantly gets to work by stabbing the kobold with her claws.
While impaling the kobold on the ground, she gestures for the slime to get closer. It does so, and looks to the small amount of blood leaking from the impalement.
"Right, I'm not going to be calling you 'slime' the entire time, do you have a name?" The little thing does its best to imitate a shrug, but some of the blood from the arms falls to a lower section.
"I dunno, I just got here." Esstrey thinks to herself for a bit, and Kuda begins grabbing at the liquid being while failing.
"Congratulations you are... Sofia. Now, for your first lesson, check the blood here and tell me what is wrong with it. You should be able to without having the affinity." Sofia just looks at Esstrey confused for a bit, before crawling on the kobold and seeping into the wound. Esstrey herself doesn't back away, and keeps her claw embedded firmly in the kobold.
"She... no... hold on... is that... ok... I think there is something in her blood which isn't blood. Like it isn't as pure as it should be?" Sofia looks to the titanic Esstrey for approval, who gives a so-so handsign.
"Something like that, her blood actually seems to be rotting while still inside her body. A rather common ailment called sepsis, life magic doesn't work that well on this since it also strengthens the bacteria inside. What we can do, is give her more blood to fight with. Fetch me Kuda will you?" Sofia slowly goes over to Kuda, who is too stunned to move at all. Kuda lets herself get dragged by the tiny blood slime.
Once she gets closer, Esstrey stabs and pins her down as well. For a moment, Kuda panics, but Esstrey forcefully shuts down the adrenaline response in the kobold.
"Magic is so fascinating, isn't it? Most mages I have met are so narrow in their magical practices, I suppose it's partially because of their elitist attitudes so often getting in the way of properly teaching generations" As Esstrey works, Kuda begins to look a little paler and more exhausted, while the brood-mother noticeably begins to recover somewhat.
"Mirya has seen light! Mirya thanks the dragon-kin for saving life!" Mirya sounds a lot more energetic than she looks, while Kuda still manages to give some side-eye while dozing off.