What a happy little slime. Who would ever want to destroy a cutey like him, huh? Huh? If the universe had it out for him, then that made it a cruddy universe! Cuteness made the world go ’round, no matter what world you were in!
Anyhoo, I didn’t have much time, so I had to turn to other, more urgent matters. I needed more talismans, but the general store lady didn’t sell them. Instead, I had bought up all the components to make them myself.
“With a model to copy and the right materials, it’d be all too easy to make rip-offs and charge a killing… But I feel a little bad for ripping off my friends left, right, and center. Tell you what. I’ll give everyone a friend discount. It wouldn’t hurt to have a heart for my classmates.”
I had the Alchemist title, the calculation and analysis skills of Wisdom and Jupiter Eye, and the “Sorcerer’s Crown: Intelligence + 50%. Sorcery Boost (hyper). Seal Spawning. Sigil Spawning. Skilled Sorcery.” I was primed to be the cheap knock-off king. But with such a treasure trove of Skills and spellstone powder, surely I could aim higher. I mean, look at how OP the rest of my consumables were—surely I shouldn’t settle for the lowest common denominator. And the Talisman Flower Crown had literally saved my life, even though I’d never expected it to be more than a good-to-have-around sort of thing. If there was anything that could give my classmates a higher probability of not winding up dead, then I was all for it. I, freelance production line extraordinaire, had no excuse not to make more crowns!
“And if everyone’s going dungeon diving tomorrow, they’ll have plenty of cash to spare! Small profits and quick returns are time-consuming. Ripping off rich girls is a faster, more lucrative strategy! And who’s richer here on the frontier than the girls? (And the nerds, I guess.)”
The orphans made me a flower crown, too—real flowers, real wishes for my safety and fortune woven into every twist of daisy. And that made it a real treasure, something to be put into the item bag for safekeeping. If I wanted this world to have more bright, happy picnics, then I needed weapons. Armor. Gear to fight for the right to go picnicking, gear to protect the children and their right to make beautiful flower crowns. (And also gear to pay off my lodging fees…)
“Writey, writey, write. Drawy, drawy, draw.”
The stronger the output, the better—but if the equipment consumed too much MP, it defeated the point of the item altogether. I needed many, many subtalismans and a keystone talisman… Whoever’d come up with the Talisman Flower Crown was a real genius, an alchemist of much arcane knowledge. They knew how to make a piece of gear that balanced output and energy efficiency. A merchant may have wanted to prioritize the pursuit of profits above all else, but an artisan could be unrelenting in their pursuit of perfection. Not everyone was cut out to play both roles.
“Designing goods for the general public is always a trial. How do I take this carefully constructed balance, make a knock-off of it, and spin it for personal use?”
I was amazed at the way the crowns’ creator had devised such intricately detailed consumable items. They wouldn’t have been so efficient, really, had they not been consumables. I could feel the resolve to save a life in them—and the knowledge of just how truly difficult that was.
“Mixey, mixey, mixey? Paintey, paintey, paintey?”
I sketched a sigil on paper with spellstone powder ink. I still needed to research the magic charms the talismans used, so I used a sigil for now. To make a very complex process very simple, the nigh impenetrably unintelligible autoactivation schematics had to be activated at a precise instant for fear of causing unintentional and unwanted activation which, as it turned out, was really hard to do?
“Yup, the creator dude must’ve been a genius. They knew when to cave and when to keep going. They pushed maximum performance out of these puppies without destroying that sweet, sweet balance. Major props to this person’s alchemical chops, but I’m even more impressed with their artisanal skills. Their consideration of the end user in tandem with the production of a brilliant final product is nothing short of revolutionary.”
I hadn’t designed many one-and-done products before. I’d never considered gear that let you get hit, and it was an eye-opening experience. This item was designed to be destroyed. I never would’ve considered that design philosophy had I not run across it in the wild. Could I improve on the design, turning it into an even more powerful piece of equipment? Sure, but that would tank the MP efficiency, and I couldn’t afford that. I wasn’t going to squander the value of an item meant to protect, and I also simply couldn’t afford to make endless replacements.
“Foldy, foldy, foldy? Trimmy, trimmy, trimmy? Oh wow, I made a crane out of faux flowers. I…don’t think I should make a thousand flower cranes to sit on someone’s head. That’d probably be too heavy. Foldy, foldy, foldy… Hey, I made a samurai helmet! Now that could go on someone’s head, but presumably you’d only have one helmet at once… Wait, wasn’t I supposed to be making flowers anyway? Okay, foldy, foldy, foldy… Ta-da! It’s…well, it’s kind of a flower. A flower someone sat upon, maybe. Oh, I know what they’re called. Dahlias!”
Maybe these flat dahlias were just the thing after all. The girls had no room for huge 3D flowers on their heads. All the ones who wore armored headgear had giant helmets anyway.
“But 2D origami dahlias are nice and compact. All I need to do is dab on a little paste, and voila. They stick. Not bad for a first try! Tomorrow we’re going dungeon running, so I’ll sell these samples along with the spare equipment I’ve got stockpiled. What do you think, Slimey? Sound like a plan?”
Wriggle wriggle.
Yeah, dahlias were nice. In flower language, they meant elegance and beauty and all that junk. Most people gave dahlias as thank-you gifts these days. However, dahlias could also signify betrayal and fickle, capricious whims. Not at all inappropriate, I reflected from under a pile of girls, as they surged into the room in an elegant, almost beautiful stampede of shoving, backstabbing, and running from item to item in fickle fits of whim-laden greed.
“OMG! New stuff!”
“Yay! He picked up so many cool things in the Cathedral.”
“Ah yes, the usual excuse… I’m sure there were lots of monsters to provide ‘drop items’ in the Cathedral’s treasury.”
It’d been so long I’d forgotten how these scenes played out. The girls were all fresh out of the bath, flushed and sweet-smelling, and wearing far too little clothing. (The lack of nearby nerds will do that to a girl’s inhibitions.) The twins held their own in the bargain bin battle royale, with Bunny Girl kicking and leaping and Wolf Girl darting in and out like an eel to snatch up treasures. This was anyone’s fight, said their animal instincts. A girl had to look sharp or get slashed!
“I wish I had instincts that’d tell me that! Or Wisdom!”
Acting quick, I activated my qi and magic and tried to use Qing Qigong to escape the pushing and shoving fiesta. This did not entirely work. Yes, I leaped out of the way, but only to leap headfirst into something soft and round and suspiciously squishy, whereupon I’d rebound off like a pinball and be thrown back into the surging waters of Girl Rapids. Without a working body, I was a sitting duck! There was no escape for me anywhere!
“Hands off, bub! The red and pink one’s mine!”
“It’s actually not yours until you’ve purchased i—”
“We only get three?! That is so unfair.”
“Uh, you only have one head? Why would you need thre—”
“No, no, wait. Let me swap this for the blue one. It matches my cape.”
“So? It goes on your head. You won’t be able to see i—”
“Ring me up, counter boy! Before the others come along and snatch the goodies right out of my hands!”
“Sure thing, but could you not stand on me firs—”
With my head so bereft of dirty thoughts it was squeaky-clean and my vocal chords so very crushed they were just regular squeaky, I suffocated under a veritable hell of squishy, squooshy girl flesh. Thank god for special qi powers, because I was no longer so easy to crush to a pulp—and curse special qi powers with every fiber of my being, because it meant I was never released from squishy, squooshy hell into the sweet silence of unconsciousness.
“Why are you not wearing enough clothes—why are you not wearing bras when I went through all that trouble making them for you?!”
“We just got out of the bath! Who wears a bra straight out of the bath?”
“Ooh, I want a yellow one! And a pink one!”
“Hey! I had my eye on the pink one!”
“Can the nerds show up right about now? Could the idiots quit making out with their girlfriends and haul their sorry asses back here? Can I not be the single boy in this entire room?!”
“Shut up and fill these orders, Haruka-kun! Chop chop!”
“I want all seven colors of the rainbow, and that’s final.”
Without a bra to keep those weapons of mass destruction at bay, the sproinginess factor rapidly approached fatal levels. Suspiciously pointed objects were on full display. The wombo combo of booba and nipnops dealt me so much psychic damage I was moments away from KO!
“Ugh. I forgot how bad it gets back at the inn.” Squorsh. “Okay, I am concentrating. I am focusing so hard. I am using Qing Qigong and becoming light as a leaf.” Bo-yoing! “Wagh! OH-KO! My unparalleled psychic defenses have crumbled in one hit! Two hits? Of considerable brute force?” Squnch. “Dash my fashe? Shcould shoo not? Shorget me, shese boobsh should shbecome light ash a leaf…” Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiidle. “Don’t rub your boobs across my hands?! Excuse me, that’s a—” Wubbbbbb. “Guh-hyah?! Not the virtue of chastitty! Watch it. Haruka Jr.’s getting ideas—” Smush. “Don’t—” Jigggggle. “Stop—” Gwwrrrp. “No! Help! Wagh!” Shaka shaka shaka shaka shake. Rub rub? Rub rub rub? …Sploosh.