Cursed Heroine

Chapter 66: After-bath and evolved slime

Scarlet and I woke up famished. Last night’s bath had purged a great deal of the impurities from our bodies and we were now desperate to refuel. We both ate about three times what would be considered a normal portion for us.

Thessa stopped by to pick up her belongings. As expected, she is going to be moving in with Az. In accordance with Scarlet’s ‘share your pain’ strategy, Az and her will be coming over tonight to experience the new bath.

After eating our fill, Scarlet was very pleased with the end results of the bath last night. Her skin is now much fairer, soft as silk, pliable like cream and not one blemish can be found. Also, our muscles are still a little tender, but have otherwise been softened while retaining every bit of strength from before.

“Mistress, do I get my reward now?”~me

“You do realize you’re drooling, right?”~Scarlet

“Of course I am! The bath compressed your muscles and gave your skin a renewal. If before, you were an athletic beauty. Now, you’re a lascivious beauty with abundant curves and toned but mostly hidden muscles.”~me

“Complimenting me like that is cheating. Fine, you’ve earned a reward. Nothing too excessive though, I’ve got to be able get up for work the next morning at least.”~Scarlet

“Yay! Don’t ask about my request now, I’ll give you a pleasant surprise tonight. Fufu.”~me

Scarlet started working like usual and I started doing the chores. During which, I decided to check on Tish. She had already finished her evolution and was rolling around a bit in her box.

[Enz-Slime(Scavenger Slime Variant)]

My assess is still at level one, so all I get back is its species. At level two, I should be able to get a general description of what I assess though. However, I’m pretty sure of what it would tell me. Enz-Slime is embarrassingly a quirky way of saying that this is an enzyme slime. Its description probably says something along the lines of ‘good for digestion’.

While I’m evaluating all this, I’m also pretty sure I just got a vision from the goddess. One with Kat laughing her ass off at me once again until she can hardly catch her breath. Her antics are  starting to feel more and more like harassment!

“What’s up?”~Scarlet

Feeling my embarrassment through the link, she inquired about my situation. I told her truthfully and immediately regretted it when I heard her laughter echoing up the stairs.

“Know any researchers that would want it?”~me

“Thessa might. We can ask her next time we see her.”~Scarlet

“What’s she up to right now anyways? Did she manage to figure out what familiar she wants?”~me

“She said that she did, but didn’t tell me what. I do know that she decided to only go for a smaller one though; doesn’t what to have to feed some large familiar, even if it could tank for her while she does her magic.”~Scarlet

“Not a bad idea. At level four, she’ll get the dwelling subskill that will allow it to hide within her and feed off her own energies. She can get the next familiar slot just two levels later.”~me

Az and Thessa came over for dinner that evening and took a bath with us. Things went much smoother this time, now that I knew what to expect. I was able to get us all out before anything bad happened and me and Scarlet were able to move around shortly after. It would seem that the first time is the most tiring because the other two passed out pretty much immediately after our bath. I made sure to give them some recovery magics and massage before tucking them in, in the now spare bedroom; what used to be Thessa’s room.

Me and Scarlet took some time to load up on some extra food that we knew was going to be needed and then went off to bed to exercise a bit. Just enough to max out the dual cultivation advantage of the collar though as we were still plenty weakened due to the bath.

We woke up the next morning to the sound of ravenous beasts in the kitchen. It was Az and Thessa of course.

“Did we look like them yesterday morning?”~Scarlet

“I may have, but you were worse, Mistress.”~me

“Hey! Since when is a servant allowed to insult the mistress?!”~Scarlet

“Just speaking the honest truth. If you’ll remember, you ended up wearing most of the food that you tried to cook while mine...ARGH!”~me

‘Dammit! I forgot she put that thing on auto-mode. It will trigger when I annoy her too much.’

“And whose fault do you think that is! By the way, you didn’t seem to have claimed your reward last night?”~Scarlet

“Mnm, I’ll be sure to do so when we have more energy...or time. If I’d redeemed my reward last night, you wouldn’t have been able to get up today.”~me

“You seem scary sometimes when you smile like that. Now I’m starting to worry.”~Scarlet

I made up breakfast quickly for our starving company and we got on with our day. Our guests were quite satisfied by the results, especially when they heard that it was much less drastic after the first time, and arranged to come over again in a few days.

Cleaning up the dirt in the tub is pretty easy. Just a little earth spell that gathers up the particulates in the water into a small clump. Though, this bath has a LOT more than a normal bath would. I managed to pull out more than two fist sized wads of black gunk which I fed to the bathroom slime. Not Tish, another scavenger slime.

Ah, yes. Something I should probably mention is that there is no such thing as toilet paper in this world. It’s not really even needed. Scavenger slimes love to eat excrement, so they are considered an everyday household creature. People will sit right on top of them to go, leaving zero mess to clean up.

The bathroom slime started to evolve! Two days ago it wasn’t anywhere near evolving. After several years of service in this house, just two wads yesterday and a little less than three today and the thing evolved! I feel like gagging. How filthy exactly must those wads be to let it evolve so quickly?!

“Upstairs bathroom is out of commission until further notice.”~me

“Oh, why’s that?”~Scarlet

“Slime is evolving.”~me

“Huh, I thought that Tish finished already.”~Scarlet

“She did. The bathroom scavenger slime is evolving now.”~me

“Isn’t it too soon? How did that happen?”~Scarlet

And so I tell her, much to her regret. Not warning her first might have been me taking a little revenge for her earlier laughter.

One of Thessa’s researcher friends came over later and took Tish away. Her name is Roselie, Rosy for short, and she’s an absolutely adorable catkin and dwarf half. A deadly combination of lolific tsundere and feline cuteness!!!

Rosy has white hair, red eyes and is just indescribably cute! She spent a good deal of her visit on my lap being cuddled. It seemed as though she had given up long ago about rejecting such treatment, but she drew the line at not allowing me to touch her ears and tail directly. Fortunately, petting was still fine so long as I didn’t let my hands linger around the ears too much.

Though she found it kind of strange and was a little weirded out, I managed to get a small vial of her blood in exchange for Tish. Since I keep pretending to be catkin, it would be weird if I don’t even have any of their traits. I gulped it down after she had left, not exposing my vampiric nature. She promised to come back in a few days to see what the other evolved into.

[Trait acquired: Feline’s Grace] Impeccable balance and aesthetically pleasing optimizations.

After a little bit of experimenting I’ve found that I have a perfect awareness of my body’s orientation and can right myself with the ground easily from any position. Also, I make some cat-like gestures unintentionally from time to time. For example, while I was stretching after my experiments I had noticed that my back tended to arch way more than I usually did.

I also had an increased appetite in regards to fish. Nothing too brainwashy, just that my taste buds seem to be slightly altered and now fish seems tastier. It would be fine to go without, but I would definitely crave it if I don’t eat it every few days.

On another note, I woke up the next day with some real cat ears. Kat must have been paying attention and force-activated my blood manipulation trait once again to have them replace the last of my disguise equipment.

Still didn’t get to redeem my reward. Though it’s becoming less and less taxing each time we bathe, I think I’ll stake my claim tonight though as tomorrow is the start of the weekend and she will have more shophands available in case of over-indulgence.