It was late at night, Jack, Jeanne and Aria were sharing a house with three seperate bedrooms. He was lying on the bed, thinking about what Jeanne said. The slime didn't want to lose her.
He was on the fence. To make her happy would require him to sacrifice his chances of getting stronger. But for the first time since coming here, he considered making someone else happy without gaining anything in return.
Then the system played a cruel joke on him.
[Fluid Absorption Skill Learned Level 1]
[Handholding with Solana rewarded 0 points as there was no core fusion]
Jack sighed.
"Are you saying I need to have a child with an elf to get points?"
But then the thought came to him; 'child' of an elf meant something different than what he was used to. It was a seed.
[Elven mating results in a seed which until planted remains inert.]
Before he could ask further the system chimed again with another notification. This one a different color, a stark, alarming crimson.
[Fluid Absorption and Blood Absorption have partially mutated from interaction with Flower Elf reproductive fluid. New Combined Skill: Synthethic Bloom Level 1.]
Jack blinked. That wasn't on the evolution shop.
"What the hell is Synthethic Bloom?" He mumbled to himself.
[Synthetic Bloom is a skill derived from ancient flower slimes. By absorbing a variety of bodily fluids and organicmatter, the host can evolve into previously incompatible evolutionary paths.]
That was the answer. A very complicated and unsatisfying answer. It gave him options, but it was so broad it might as well be useless.
[Host's Floral Slime Evolution Progress: 20%]
[More biological fluid absorption and specific floral components may increase this progress.]
He sighed.
"So I have to keep fooling around with Solana to evolve into a floral slime?"
[Yes.] The system answered, its usual neutral tone making it sound somehow smug.
The idea of gaining evolution through that wasn't a bad one. It did mean he could never make such a monogamy promise to Jeanne. The thought of it stung more than he expected. He pictured Jeanne's face when she learned of this new development and cringed, a wave of cold dread washing over his gelatinous body.
Rolling off the soft moss bed, Jack hopped across the room and went to Jeanne's door.
He was about to knock, to maybe have a conversation but he noticed the candles were on in Aria's room. The faint light shone beneath her door.
On his left was Jeanne's door and on his right was Aria's door. On one hand was a chance at a relationship, on the other was a chance at maybe absorbing ghost liquid and a ghost evolution.
Jack was pulling his hair, or rather what little slime acted as hair.
His wobbly body trembled.
He thought for a moment, what would he do as Jack Der Quiver, the high-school student with a 6th dan in Kendo? That guy would go for a chance at love. But now he is a slime in a world of gods and monsters, a world where being pragmatic was rewarded more.
"Ugh, why does this have to be so complicated," he squeaked.
Shaking off the hesitation, he steeled himself and entered Aria's door. He found her sitting on the floor, facing a single, flickering candle, her hands resting in her lap. She wasn't practicing a sword form or sharpening her fangs. She was just… watching the flame dance.
He didn't greet her instead, he hopped over to her desk. A brown mug made of clay was there, empty.
Grabbing it, he hopped over to Aria. The vampire was watching him with one eye open like a cat.
"What are you doing?" Her voice was a low murmur, almost lost in the candlelight.
Jack handed her the cup.
"Pee in it." He commanded.
Aria stared at him, the one open eye narrowing. She didn't laugh; she didn't get angry; she was simply baffled. For a full minute, neither of them spoke. He could hear the soft rustle of leaves outside the window.
Shaking the cup in front of her like keys was the only way to pull her out of her trance.
"Slime to Aria."
With a sigh, she snatched the mug. Her face held the blank expression of someone who had witnessed far too much strangeness in her life for this to even register in the top ten.
She went to a corner and glanced back at Jack.
"Privacy please?" Her tone was flat.
Jack turned around and hummed a little song from Earth while waiting. After a few splashes, a faint scent of iron and something faintly herbal filled the room. And finally a few drips, sealed the deal.
Aria placed a mug in front of him. It had a yellow-ish liquid swirling in it.
"Bobo was never this weird," she said shaking her head. She looked into Jack's core as if she were searching for something more than just a slime. She returned to her spot on the floor.
"You're not going to ask me what I need it for?" Jack curiously asked. He wobbled over to the mug, extended a tentacle and dipped it inside.
The liquid was surprisingly warm. But he didn't drink it yet.
She sighed, "I've seen stranger things than a slime with a piss kink."
Her gaze returned to the candle flame, the ghostly light making her crimson eyes seem to glow from within.
With the mug in his tentacle, Jack left Aria to her meditation. In the hall a cold wind made him shiver.
Standing between the two doors again he couldn't believe he was actually going to do this. For his wife who wasn't really his wife. His gaze darted between the yellow liquid and the door. His core was doing backflips.
Taking a deep breath he entered the bedroom where Jeanne was sitting. The priestess was polishing a small, silver locket with a piece of cloth. The faint moonlight made the locket glimmer.
Jack hopped onto her bed with the mug; he was now higher than Jeanne who was on the floor. He took a sip. A tinglingwarmth spread through him.
[Skill interaction detected. Urine of a Vampire-Ghost hybrid combined with Synthetic Bloom.]
He pushed that out of his head.
"Jeanne... look," he began, the words feeling clumsy as he sipped the mug. "I want to talk about earlier."
She turned, her face now in the faint moonlight. Her expression wasn't anger, just quiet.
"I am willing to not engage in these... activities... for a month," he offered. A grand sacrifice, or at least, it felt like it.
"To give us a proper chance." He tried to keep the hopefulness from squeaking into his voice.
Jeanne stood up, the locket forgotten.
"A chance?" Her laugh was a brittle, sorrowful thing.
"Yes we can get to know each other without death chasing us and without other people." Jack tried again. He was wiggling a little.
"And what about after that month, Jack?"
He sighed, "I'll go back to fully focusing on getting stronger and maybe you'll come to understand why I have to..."
She sat down on the bed, the mattress sighing under her weight. Jeanne let herself fall onto the bed, accidentally causing the mug to splash a bit of liquid on her.
"Okay. One month." Her agreement was quiet, but there, a single thread of hope in the wreckage. "One month for you to act like a husband."
Warmth spread through Jack's core. He was happy with the compromise. He jumped on her stomach. Not thinking, not using a tentacle or anything, he just placed himself on her chest like a warm little blue blanket.
She rubbed his head with a small smile. Which suddenly faltered.
"Jack is this piss?" Jeanne looked at the mug and then to the yellow splashes on her clothes.
"No..."
That night Jack had slept in her stinky sock.