[Name: Jack Der Quiver]
[Species: Sanquilisme Slime (Blood-Healing-Weapon)]
[Level: 4 -> 7]
[Skills: Slime Throw Level 1, Blood Forging Level 1, Heal Mucus Level 1, Slime Pact Level 1, Slime Tentacle Level 1]
[Weapons absorbed: Rusty Nail]
[Titles: Husband of Jeanne D'Amain]
[HP: 40 -> 50]
[Mana: 10-> 20]
[Stamina: 15 -> 25]
[Strength: 15 -> 25]
[Intelligence: 10 -> 15]
[Handholding Points: 900]
--- 4 AM in the Elmsworth Manor.
"Why didn't I get ny points? I was holding her hand the whole time." Jack whispered to the system, observing Ella's sleeping form. The rise and fall of her chest was a mesmerizing rhythm of peace in the gilded cage.
[Sleeping participants cannot generate points as awareness is required for the metaphysical transaction.]
"Bullshit semantics."
He jumped off her hand.
[Would Host like to read the rulebook for more common sense knowledge?]
Jack scoffed. The system is treating him like some illiterate buffoon. He wasn't going to give in. He definitely wasn't going to check the rulebook.
"Yes please."
The slime swore he heard a chuckle inside his head but then he was mentally slapped with a book. Thousands and thousands of chapters.
"Page 1 out of 37 trillion?!" He squeaked.
Scrolling for any important tidbit, he instead was presented with so many useless rules.
"Handholding points will not be given if the host has consumed garlic within 24 hours," he read aloud in a squeaky tone.
"What the fuck."
Dumfoundly he spent the next 10 minutes skipping chapters about Handholding on holidays, different tax forms about gaining points from different species, and so much more.
"Okay enough."
Closing the book, he needed to focus on freeing Aria and getting the ghost hand skill, not on this joke of a system.
A slime squeezed itself under the door, leaving Ella's room and entering the silent, opulent hallway. The silence wasn't just the absence of noise; it was a presence, a thick velvet curtain muffling the very concept of sound. One figure appeared in his mind: Charles.
That old man surely was watching him from the shadows like a pervert. Jack wouldn't put it past him to be literally watching from behind a vase or inside a painting.
He passed by the dining room, keeping an eye on the painting of a stern-looking man with a pointed beard: Ella's husband, the inventor of slaver runes.
Recalling where the slave cells were, he slinked through the hallways. The mansion at night felt like a haunted house in an old horror film but cleaner.
Passing through another long hallway, Jack saw a suspiciously looking armor statue.
It smelled differently and he could feel small amounts of heat.
"Charles?" He squeaked.
The suit of armor didn't move. A part of him thought the butler had fused with the armor to become a terminator like butler. Charles was playing jokes on him.
"You don't have to scare me before killing me," Jack's slime quivered like jell-o.
To test his theory, Jack hopped in front of it and with all his strength he slime-threw a tiny glob on the armor's foot. He wasn't scared of the butler. Because he would scream like his life depended on it and dash straight to Ella. Who would protect him for that delicious secret she now cherished.
It was a trick.
The statue was just a statue.
"Phew."
He shook the jello in his non-existent bones, which caused him to wobble. But then he tensed. Footsteps.
The door to the Exotic Slave cages opened. A man, who looked remarkably similar to Ella's husband in the painting, was laughing with a familiar mercenary, Marcus. The mercenary he fought with earlier.
"Your men got killed by a slime?" Lord Ingelton said, holding his belly.
"It was no normal slime, my lord."
"It's a slime. They're brainless, just need a good smash and it becomes a rune ingredient."
Jack mentally scoffed.
"How about I turn you into a rune ingredient, you pudding pop," Jack muttered.
Unfortunately Jack couldn't back up that threat; they were heading his way and he needed to run away and hide. For each step they took, he had to hop 10 times. Their footsteps got louder.
"Shit."
One door was slightly open. It was a shade of pink and had a golden knob. He silently squeezed inside. Hiding under a fancy bed. The smell was sweet and it also smelled like Ella.
He heard the door close. Yet the footsteps got louder. They were coming towards the bed. Jack pressed himself further underneath the frilly bed skirt, praying to whatever gods might be listening that he was invisible.
A hand grabbed him. Not the strong grip of a mercenary or the cold precision of a butler.
"Aaaa!" he screamed.
His scream was so quiet it sounded like a whoopie cushion. His eyes were closed. The next second he was held up in the air.
"Quit screaming."
Hearing an unfamiliar voice, he opened his eyes. The person who grabbed him was not Charles nor Ingelton.
It was a small petite girl. Her maid outfit was unusually black. But the most distinct feature about her was her eyes; they were completely black. No iris, no whites.
"Who are you?" he squeaked in her tight fist. The maid didn't squeeze that hard.
She didn't answer but the system did.
[Lorena ???, Level ???] Jack squinted, but that was all he could read.
"You entered the young lady's room." Her voice was monotone, a flat line devoid of inflection. "Usually that is punishable by having your organs turned into fertilizer."
She raised him to her eye. Her black-as-the-void-eyes stared at him, as if peeling back the layers of his gelatinous being to see the pathetic reincarnated soul squirming inside.
"But... seeing as you reek of Lady Ella's bedchamber activities," she paused, her lips thinning into a disapproving line.
"I can make an exception. For a price."
His tiny little heart was pounding in his core. He was poor. He couldn't afford whatever she was offering.
"What is it?" he squeaked.
"Remembrance," she answered.
"Huh?"
She brought Jack's small frame closer to her ear.
"You will forever remember that I showed you kindness. That is the price."
The weird maid gave him a price to pay that wasn't monetary or a life-or-death situation. Jack tilted his head.
"Why does it matter if I remember you?"
Lorena shook her head.
"You are not important. The one who cares for you is."
Her eyes finally formed an iris. "I prefer not to antagonize them."
With that her eyes turned pitch black again.
"Nevertheless I will kill you should you cross paths with me again. Now, disappear."
With a flick of her wrist, she tossed Jack towards the door. Magically the door opened and he splattered against the wall in a familiar mosquito fashion.
"Can I get a skill to not get flattened against a wall," he asked himself as he pulled himself together.
The coast seemed to be clear for now. Time to head to Aria.
[Time left until Jeanne leaves: 15 hours.]