Author’s Corner: When life gives you lemons, squeeze them and throw the juice back in life’s eyes so that you can steal life’s wallet while he’s doubled over in pain.

After leaving Celeste’s room, knowing full well that she was about to start practicing karaoke with her new mic-- need I remind you all that thing is technically a weapon-- I wandered around the ship for a bit. It felt good to get up and just stretch my legs, though I did end up eventually setting a destination for myself. Seeing Celeste and her AI children got me thinking about my own illegitimate offspring.

“Daddy!” A certain slime girl launched out of her room and gave me a tight hug as soon as I walked up to her door. Right… gotta remember that they can still sort of sense me through the companion link...

Still, it was different for her to call me ‘daddy’ instead of ‘papa’. Maybe this was a result of her not being around me as much lately? She used to always sleep in my bed, until Sharon and Yin took over that job. Now she has a room for herself. Speaking of which… “Hey, Yo. I haven’t had the chance to see your room yet, and thought I’d stop by.”

Hearing that, Yo puffed her cheeks out slightly, which made me laugh because they actually formed bubbles on the sides of her face. “If I knew daddy was coming by, I would have cleaned up! It’s still a mess!” Well, her speech seems to be maturing a bit, so that’s good.

“That’s fine.” I said, reaching up and patting her head. “Can’t be as bad as my room when I was your age.” And that was true. When I was only a year old, my room was a royal mess! Or so I have been told.

Yo gave a slight nod and stepped out of the way so that I could enter her room. When she said a mess…. She really meant a mess.The entire room was covered in… well… Yo. Slime was dripping from the walls, the ceiling, everywhere. If she wasn’t standing right next to me, I would have assumed she exploded in the center of her bedroom.

“Okay… maybe I was wrong.” After I said that absently, Yo again puffed out her cheeks. However, the frustrated response was entirely lost when the bubbled cheeks refused to hold their shape and popped.

“I told you so!” She said, grabbing my hand and pulling me back out of her room. “So, how are you today, daddy? Mom said you were starting to feel better?”

“M-mom?” I couldn’t help stuttering that word out. “Uhm… Yo… who is ‘Mom’?”

“Mommy is mom, silly! Auntie Celeste told me that mommy was the one that daddy sleeps with. That’s why I’m not allowed to sleep with daddy anymore. I’m lucky, most people only get one mom, but I have two!” She said that last part with a small hop and a wide smile.

“Uh… right.” Okay, so she meant Yin and Sharon… good… was sort of afraid that Celeste would put it in her head that she was the mom. “Anyways, did you like going down to the planet? You seemed to have fun in the reports I read.”

“Yup! The ‘dungeons’ were fun! Though… the ghosts hurt.. I didn’t like playing with them. Auntie Celeste also said I shouldn’t, so I only played in the others.”

I furrowed my brows at that, but Celeste provided me an explanation. The ghosts in the undead dungeon were capable of attacks directly against the target’s soul. That damage would spread back to the main body if it wasn’t treated, and we didn’t have very many people capable of treating it. I’d have to make a note of that next time, only send teams to that dungeon when they are capable of safely handling the second level.

“Are you getting along with the crew okay? Making any friends?” Okay, I had to at least try to act like a dad to Yo, once in awhile. She was technically my daughter, right? I haven’t been very fatherly to her lately, and I had to admit that I missed her while I was in the time bubble.

“Mmmuuu… no…” Yo slows down her walking speed, pouting slightly. “They are all so serious, and never have any time to play. The only time we get to have fun together was down in the dungeons, but everyone is still so serious down there.”

I stepped back to match her new pace, rubbing her back lightly. Since her ‘clothes’ were still made out of slime, I was pretty much rubbing her bare back, and this has absolutely nothing at all to do with what I was saying so let’s move on. “That’s okay. In the next planet, maybe we can find someone for you to play with?”

To be honest, I suddenly had the idea of testing out what would happen if an item with a soul but no intelligence was eaten by a slime like Yo. Would she be treated as the consciousness of the weapon? Likewise, if she ate a weapon with both a soul and a mind, would the mind coexist with her, or would she override it? While I wanted to know the answers to these questions, I couldn’t ask her to undergo such dangerous experiments.

Naturally, that meant I would do them myself. After all, I had Celeste in my head to fight off an invading mind. Would not be the first time it happened, and her AI is far more advanced than anything we would be using for the test. The problem was that I had no buffer. I had an easy, and somewhat cheap method to make one, but I wasn’t sure if it’d work.

“I’d like that.” Yo smiled at me, leaning over and hugging me tight. And when I say tight, I meant she was starting to mold around me before she let go.

So, mental note. Ask Sharon if she has uncovered any monster combinations with her summoning magic. If not, use Celeste’s data to create monsters, and farm them for experience. Slow, but effective. “Noted.” Celeste’s voice chimed up in my head after that thought. Thank you mental notepad.

“Okay, that’s settled then! So, what do you usually do around here for fun?” I was somewhat hesitant about asking that question after seeing what her room looked like, but I figured this was part of the father thing.

“Hmm… usually I just play games. But sometimes when I get bored I’ll bounce around…” As she said that, she actually changed her body into a ball, about one meter in diameter, and bounced a few feet in the air. So that’s where the slime came from…

“Ah… We really need to get you some playmates.” I smiled slightly to her, and we spoke a bit longer before parting ways. My next stop had to be Yang. I had spoken to her a few times briefly since I came back from Hydra, unlike Yo, but I hadn’t had a proper conversation with her yet.

Naturally, when looking for Yang, my first stop was the hydroponics lab. I expected to find her singing under a tree like she usually is, but to my surprise she was nowhere to be seen. I asked the elf in charge of the lab, and it seemed like Yang hadn’t been there all day. As such, I could only call Yin and ask her where her sister was. It turns out that Yang was in the cargo bay, working on her nature crafting.

Making my way there, I found the angelic woman kneeling on the floor, her four wings spread out around her as she leaned forward. From the entrance, I could hear her singing soft, sad notes to herself. Yin was sitting on a bench against the wall, near the door that I came in at. “She’s been spending most of her time in here since the dungeons.” She spoke quietly, not wanting to disturb Yang.

I nodded my head to the human-shaped stormbird, and made my way to Yang. “You okay, there?”

I heard a low sniffle, before she turned her head to face me. “I’m… I’m fine, Master. I’m just working on my skills.”

Looking in front of her, I did see a wide assortment of materials. Bones that seemed to have shaped themselves into daggers, swords, or shields. Wooden armor, leather, even a large bone axe. And more than a few rings made of plants, hide, and bone.

Sitting down next to her, I reached out and gently stroked one of her wings. “Okay, what’s wrong? Are you upset about having to go down to the dungeons?” I asked softly, trying my best to console her.

Her response was a slight nod, so I continued. “You didn’t like seeing all the fighting, right?”

“Yes… well… not entirely that, but yes. It’s just… Master, everyone is so willing to die… Even… even if they are fake bodies… they are still life. It’s like they don’t care… I just… I don’t understand it.” From this, it seemed like Yang was starting to mature mentally as well. At least her conversation skills were getting better.

Thinking about what she said, though… she does have a point. Once we get in those clone bodies, we recklessly endanger ourselves. I should know better than anyone that being in a clone does not mean you are necessarily safe. There are any number of ways to kill someone from a clone body. Soul attacks, mental domination, or heaven forbid time control. Any one of these could completely kill or incapacitate someone through a clone, without giving them a second chance.

“I see…” I said, still petting her wing. It seemed to calm her a bit to do that. I can’t really say that we’ll stop doing that, seeing as how I’m the chief offender, and have already made plans for another reckless experiment in the near future. “Your clone hasn’t died yet, has it? If I remember right, you never actually entered the fights.”

Yang nodded her head, so I continued. “It’s not so much that they are willing to die. You still feel every bit of pain you normally would when your clone is killed, if you don’t manage to log out in time. Naturally, people will do their best to avoid that pain.”

I myself was likely an exception to this. Not because I had some incredible tolerance to pain… but more because I’m a gamer. I’ve been recklessly endangering my life since I was a teenager. Going into high level dungeons alone, and dying repeatedly just to get one good item to sell, even if the game had a high pain setting. To me, I guess that death just doesn’t mean the same thing when I know it isn’t final. I can see myself panicking if my main body is put in that kind of danger, but if it’s a clone I will calmly do insanely dangerous things for almost no reason at all.

“Then… then what is it?” She asked, her voice shaking as she set down the misshapen bone ring she was working on.

“It’s more that they want to do whatever it takes to get stronger. Before we went to Hydra, this crew was a joke in terms of strength. Most of them barely had levels higher than ten, and some hadn’t even gotten their class yet. They were chosen to be part of this crew based on their loyalty and their skill. Just one of Sharon’s wolves would have been enough to tear through this entire ship before.”

“But, because they were willing to endure the pain, they were able to grow stronger. We’re out here because we want to save other worlds. But the elves… they are out here because they want to save their families.” I looked back towards Yin. “Tell me, if Yin or I were in danger, and you were the only one that could help, wouldn’t you be willing to put up with any level of pain to save us?”

I saw Yin smile to me as I asked that question, and Yang slightly nodded her head. “Yes, Master… Of course… whatever it took. You two… are too special. I don’t want to lose you.”

For the first time since I entered the cargo bay, Yang made a large movement. The wing I had been petting extended slightly, moving to wrap around my body and pull me closer to her. Reaching over, I slid my arm around her waist and gave her a hug. “We all have something we can do to help. For us, it is to fight and grow stronger so that we can protect you. But for you, it is to make the items and equipment that will be protecting us.”

Yang lifted her head, looking at me with her bloodshot eyes. Likely, she’s been dealing with this for a while. I had expected Yin to give her the pep talk, but that might be hard for the taciturn bird girl. Yang, however, nodded her head with resolution and stood up, bringing her hands up to wipe the tears from her face. “Yes… I… I’ll protect you, Master.”

The angelic woman smiled after saying that, her wings stretching out to their full lengths as she brought her hands up together at her chest. When she sang this time, they were no longer sad notes, but light, determined ones. Her voice echoed through the cargo bay as if she were her own choir, a soft and sweet voice that lingered on. The items in front of her began to shift slowly in response to her new tune. The bone rings became more smoothe, the swords sharper. Vines wove together in the wood armor like muscles to support their frames. Even the staffs seemed to become more firm and solid under her direction.

I wasn’t quite sure how she was using her voice to convey her magic, and was especially curious how she was doing so with so many items at the same time. Using my Aura Sight, I saw Yang as a beacon of light, which pulsed with every sound she made. This light wove through the air all around her, but ultimately sent itself into the many items laid out before her. This was the power of a Nature Craftsman, and it seemed like Yang was finally willing to accept that.

Looking back at Yin, she was closing her eyes and nodding her head in time with the rhythm, her legs swaying softly. I wasn’t able to understand the words that Yang was speaking, since they seemed more like exaggerated humming to me, but it seemed her sister knew. When I moved over to sit next to her, Yin spoke up without opening her eyes. “She’s singing about you.” Her hand moved over to my own, grabbing it lightly as we listened to Yang’s song.