Chapter 19
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Time to advance the plot.
“Samson…” I hedge, innocently.
Mouth full of green beans fresh from a first harvest on my farm—which is almost clear enough to be considered fully functional—Samson meets my eyes, chews, and swallows. “I don’t trust that tone. What are you plotting?”
“Plotting?” Aghast, I pull my body back from the dining room table, and our incredible meal of mashed potatoes, fish, and green beans. “How dare you suggest I, an innocent young woman, would be thinking up devious schemes of any kind.”
Humor tints the corner of his mouth as he cuts into his fillet. “Oh, so the plots are devious? That’s even more concerning.”
My lip juts.
“For the last time, we are not going to egg the forge. I find it appalling that such a waste of food was regular in your old world. Also Lia lives there, too, and she doesn’t deserve it.”
I bolster. “I heard your valid points the first time I suggested it, and I told you that I changed my mind about egging the forge en masse. Now I just want one egg, to throw, right at Austin’s stupid face.”
“That’s an entire breakfast sandwich, wasted,” Samson grumbles.
“But think of the morale it would boost.”
“No.”
Despondent, I sigh, then, as I’m carting a heaping helping of mashed potatoes to my mouth, I remember that egging Austin in the face is not at all what I wanted to bring up tonight. “You distracted me,” I murmur.
Sarcasm dripping from his voice, Samson says, “I would never.”
If living with my all-time biggest crush has taught me anything, it is that he is so much more vibrant in person than he was in the game. Seeing a cast of expressions that weren’t ever drawn will never grow old. Hearing the low hum of various emotions saturating his deep voice will always enamor.
Smitten.
I am still, and forever will be, smitten.
And I’m not saying it gets worse every day, but he also keeps feeding me, so, yeah.
Fresh milk, cream, butter, bread, and every masterful, homemade delicacy is detrimental to my heart’s health, clogging my arteries with unavoidable adoration.
Containing myself, I cross my ankles. “I was just wondering if you have ever considered getting a pet.”
He stares at me. Chewing. Gentle as possible after he swallows, he says, “Lemonade, we live on an animal farm.”
We. I’m never getting over that. We live together. On an animal farm.
“So you’re pro pet, I take it?”
The skepticism in his expression delves into me. “What pet are we missing?”
“Oh, loads. Sheep and horses for two.”
“Goats, cows, and chickens are plenty of work on their own.”
I lift my finger into the air. “You know, in the game you stock more animals as the player levels up. Including sheep, horses, and ducks, for three.” I’m so great at counting.
“I would consider ducks.”
“Duck eggs are more nutritious than chicken eggs, higher in protein, antioxidants, and omega-3.”
Samson lifts a brow. “Why do you know so many random facts about random things?”
It’s my turn to stare at him. “Slate’s game dialogue.”
“Ah.” He shakes his head and stuffs his mouth with more meat. “Makes sense.”
“Also, a fun thing called Google, which is a database for all the knowledge that exists in my old world. My obsession with this game bordered on clinically diagnosable. I’d spend hours learning about rocks, agriculture…husbandry…a-and all sorts of other things.”
While I’m once again thinking about how cruel it is that the dev made Samson a husbandman that you could not husband, he murmurs “Slate would kill for a Google.”
Let’s be real.
Slate would kill for a Dorito.
Anything new makes that man’s eyes light with crazy sparks.
“Slate must never know I’m from a different world.”
Samson nods. “Agreed.”
“And, also, you’ve distracted me again.”
He hums, amused. “No, I’m certain you distract yourself all on your own.”
I sigh. “Samson, I want to take down a queen slime lair, free the Mystic Forest, get a boss sword, then unlock the Sky Dungeon, which has two puppies inside it.”
He chokes on his salmon, which I caught myself, after Laumon taught me how to fish. Harrowing experience, that. Yet, I feel as though it built character.
Coughing, Samson reaches for his glass of water, and I wait patiently for him to gather himself. “Y-you—” He coughs again. “What?” He pours air into his lungs. “You only have a training sword.”
“Yes, which is why I want the Crystal Gem Blade in the Mystic Forest.”
“And next to no field combat experience!”
“What are you talking about? We’ve been in the mines every few days, and I haven’t lost a single HP. Not one. I’m basically a natural.”
“A queen slime is nothing like the pests we’ve been handling a few layers down in the mines, Citrus.” He glares at me flatly. “Where even is the queen slime lair? I’ll send a message to the city with Mimet to get the adventurer’s guild to handle it.”
My mouth drops open as I gasp. “No way! I need the Crystal Gem Blade.” Dropping my fork, I wave my hand in a slashing motion.
“Rainbow magic sparkles spray with every hit. It comes with a base damage of fifty, and by adorning the hilt with the right gems, it transforms into Verity’s Edge.
Base damage of ninety, crits in the one-twenties.
” I cross my arms. “No stinky adventurers are going to get my fancy sword.” In other news, it’s pink and yellow. So. Yeah. Made for me.
“Queen slimes are as big as you, probably bigger,” Samson grumbles. “They’re faster despite their size. They spawn hoards of tiny—” He swears. “—and they jump. High. One wrong move, and you’re stuck in acidic jelly that’s eating you down to your bones.”
“I completely understand the concern, Samson.” Somehow managing to not combust, I lay my hand against one of his perfect shoulders in a reassuring fashion. His muscles tense beneath my touch as I soothe, “However, I have cheat codes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Queen slime has one thousand HP.”
Samson cusses.
“But you can dismember her with a bomb, creating seven rainbow slimes each with only a hundred HP each.”
Tweaking out—eye twitching, fingers flexing, forehead vein popping—Samson echoes, “Dismember her with a bomb.”
“Mhm?” I squeak, more high-pitched than confident.
I don’t want to give the love of my life an aneurysm.
“Seven slimes with one hundred HP each is still seven slimes with a total of seven hundred HP. Your training sword deals, what did you say the first time we were in the mines? Five damage?”
“Three, unless I’m critting.”
“Three.” The word is iron hard and impassable. “Help me out with the math there… That’s how many hits?”
“Thirty-three point three infinity per slime, but normal slimes are stupid slow with paltry hops. It’ll just be a dumb grind.
No big deal. Bomb. Slime babies. Whack, whack, whack forever.
Sword!” I clear my throat, muttering an addendum, “Then, you know, special dungeon, retrieve puppies, open a fancier mine with better resources…perfect plan!”
“You’re delusional if you think I’ll agree to put you anywhere near something with one thousand HP while you’re armorless and your only weapon deals three damage.”
Being delusional is one of my best traits. It’s why I don’t cry myself to sleep every night after chatting with my stupid journal and seeing that Samson’s feelings for me maintain being summed up with ????.
I say, “Your weapon deals at least ten since you take down early-game slimes with one whack. That’s only ten whacks per baby slime, seventy whacks in total, and actually less since I’ll be valiantly helping.
” I brighten. “Or, or, consider, you let me borrow your sword. I should, after all, do most of the work if I want to earn the Crystal Gem Blade for myself, and I do. If you do most of the work, it really should be yours.”
“I have no interest in a sparkly sword.”
“Excellent!” I clap my hands together. “So it’s decided?
I can borrow your sword, and we’ll head to the secret passage in the morning?
You can throw the bomb, since that part actively freaks me out.
Blast radius is harder to determine with the realism mod, and I cannot tell you how many times I nicked my character using bombs to clear rocks in the mines in game. ”
The dry look on Samson’s face makes me think it is not decided, and he will be locking me in my bedroom tonight. “Your food’s getting cold.”
I pout. “Samson, we’ve been having terrible luck in the mines.
We need to accelerate our access to better resources.
A better sword and progressing the game’s plot will help a ton with that.
Not to mention, the drops in the mine that the Sky Dungeon unlocks are way better, so we might get the topaz we need for the elevator way faster.
Also, don’t forget about the puppies. They’re trapped, and alone, and sad. Don’t you feel bad for them?”
He shows zero signs of feeling bad for them. “What even is a Sky Dungeon?”
“It’s a sequence of puzzle rooms that unlock access to a mine with higher level enemies, better loot, and end-game lore upon conquest.”
“End-game lore,” he repeats evenly.
My pout intensifies. “You’re not being very supportive.”
“I support you not dying.”
My eyes roll. “I wouldn’t suggest something that would kill either of us, Samson.”
He jabs his fork toward me. “True, but you are a very optimistic person. Who thinks she can go into the normal mines alone as long as she can see. And who thinks she can take down a queen slime with a wooden sword.”
“And a bomb,” I offer. “Don’t forget the bomb.”
“I wish you’d forget the bomb. Because. It’s a bomb.”
My eyes roll. “Trust me. It’ll be fine.”
“I pride myself in not trusting someone with the life experience of a crab rangoon.”
My eyes widen as those words register.
Samson.
My Samson.
Just called me a crab rangoon.
I’m telling my journal about that one.
“Come on, Shoulders. I promise it’ll be okay. I know all the attack sequence timings.”
His eyes darken as he sets his fork in his dish.
Low, he says, “Citrus, I know you handle yourself well in the mines. I do. But I am really not okay with taking this kind of risk. One wrong move as far as we’ve gone in the mines up to this point, and there’s a chance of a little pain.
One wrong move with a queen slime, and you will die.
Maybe once you have armor and a better sword, we can revisit this conversation, but right now?
” His head shakes. “Please don’t ask me to pit my knowledge of this world against yours.
If there’s even a sliver of a chance reality differs from what you know, I am not willing to make that gamble with your life. ”
Muscles drooping, I lower my gaze to the few bites of food left on my plate.
Samson sighs. “If it’s that important to you, let me know where the queen slime’s lair is. I’ll suit up and conduct your plan myself.”
My knuckles crack as my fist clenches. “What? So I can gamble with your life?”
“I have more experience in combat. If from the first move of throwing that bomb, things don’t pan out the way you say they’re supposed to, I’ll be able to get away.”
Scooping up the last of my meal, I shove it in my mouth and stand to bring my dishes to the sink. Once I’ve swallowed and scrubbed off my plate, I say, “No.”
“I promise not to run off with your sparkly sword, Citrus.”
Stopping beside his chair, I smile, blindingly, down at him. “As if I care about that. No. I promise not to bargain with your life, either, Samson.” Dropping the smile, I fix my glasses. “Goodnight.”
With that, I see myself to the bathroom, wash up, and head to my bedroom.
Once I’m comfy in a pair of pink pjs, courtesy of Samson’s wallet and Ines’s skill, I snatch my backpack, fish out my journal, and skip to the empty quest page.
Hello, Citrus.
“Hi,” I whisper.
What’s wrong?
Slumping against the pillows, I mutter, “We’re still in early game.
We’re not making any progress. We haven’t even reached level five in the mines.
No topaz in sight. All I have is a bunch of quartz I need to work up the courage to sell and enough land cleared on my farm to keep Koalin’s store stocked for the town each day. ”
Funny. You just defined significant progress.
“Summer is in two days. I should at least be at level twenty in the mine and have enough money to be considering full gear upgrades, if not a house upgrade. I mean, come on. It’s Summer? And I’m still without a kitchen while sporting a rusty hoe?”
How will you upgrade your tools? You aren’t talking to Austin anymore, you said, the other day.
I huff. “And your crafting functions are stupid if you can pop out a whole chest but not an iron pick.”
I can make a pick. I can’t bless the pick, and if it’s not blessed, it will behave like tools from your old world. Do you want that?
A sinking sensation dips in my chest. Ya girlie was not built for the full-swing animations, to be sure. I mutter, “No…”
So…you need to reconcile with Austin?
I need a pink sparkly sword and for Austin to stop saying that I’m useless without Samson.
I know he’s not completely wrong, since I literally can’t see in the mines without Samson, but it still makes me sick to feel like I’m using him.
He’s been used his entire life. I want to take care of him now.
I just don’t know how to do that in this world yet.
“There’s a quest I want to take on. But… I need help.”
What quest?
“The Gem Sword. The Mystic Forest.”
That’s dangerous with your current loadout.
“I know all the cheats. It’s tedious with my current loadout, but not dangerous.” I clear my throat, hesitating, before I confess, “Not dangerous apart from the throwing a bomb thing.”
Foiled by your astigmatism, yet again?
My eyes narrow on the page. “Ah, so I’ve mentioned it.”
Once or seven thousand times. I’m not counting.
“You’ve got a big attitude for something so flammable.”
Hahaha. You’re great, Citrus.
Unable to help myself, I smile. “Okay, yes. Depth perception. Bomb. Problem. I’m proud of your calculation skills.”
If the bomb is the only issue you perceive…
The page clears of conversation text, and a single, simple quest appears:
Talk to Slate. He loves bombs.
Bring the scrawny mad scientist with me to fight a queen slime?
I’m certain that won’t have any repercussions.
“Promise me he’ll be okay? He’s not combat trained like Samson, and I don’t know how well I’ll be able to protect him against seven slimes. Slow or not, that’s a lot to juggle with a training sword. There’s no knock-back on a training sword, so I won’t exactly be able to keep them at bay.”
Trust me. Slate is nowhere near helpless.
Blowing out a breath, I nod. “Okay. I trust you.” My devious thoughts drift, and I murmur, “I would, however, trust you even more if you give me a Samson romance hint?”
Goodnight, Citrus.
I giggle. “Night, journal. Thank you.”
<3