“Look, Vivi. It’s your new friend~”

Erika smiled fuzzily and held Blobby in front of Vivi.

“Like, get that thing away from me! I’ll rip it apart!”

Vivi twisted her face and charged wind energy throughout her arm.

“Oh, don’t be like that~ Look how small and harmless it is~”

“Hmph, you Vessels are idiots. Like, why’d you want such a stupid thing as your familiar?”

Vivi glared at the harmless blob with clear disgust. Blobby studied the pixie with his crystal green eyes, then raised a hand.

“Pyu!”

Blobby shot water out of his palm.

“A-ah!!”

Vivi turned pale as she examined her soaked body. She trembled from fury and her voice exploded.

“N-now you’ve done it!!!”

“Calm down, Vivi.”

Erika shielded the little criminal in her arms, afraid of Vivi’s wrath. With patience at its boiling point, Vivi wished to rend everybody asunder. However, for once, she put effort into subsiding her anger.

“Hmph!”

She arrogantly turned away and darted forward along the road. It wasn’t the prettiest or smoothest of exchanges, but Erika sighed in relief; at least she didn’t lose her new familiar five minutes after taming it.

“What was that good for? Bad Blobby!”

Erika lightly flicked Blobby on the head like a scolding mother.

“P-pyu...”

Blobby lowered his head and a confused icon circled around him. It seemed like the baby didn’t harbor any ill intentions when he sprayed Vivi. It may have been a form of greeting among blobs, as they absorbed water better than sponges.

Or, maybe Erika simply couldn’t imagine a baby with such a round, chubby face doing anything bad. Even if Blobby submerged half of the world with a tsunami, Erika would forgive its cute baby face.

“Don’t do this again, okay?”

“Pyu...”

Blobby answered something vague, but Erika wanted to believe he understood the message. She patted the blob’s head and went on to catch up with Vivi.

With short and chubby legs, it was difficult for Blobby to keep up with the pace. Nonetheless, he did his best and run forward, tripping and standing up every couple of seconds. It made mommy very proud.

When they finally caught up to Vivi - disaster struck again.

“Pyu!”

Blobby sprayed water again.

“Ack! Y-you! Like, do you have a death wish!?”

Vivi barked and channeled wind force into her palm.

“No fighting!”

Erika put herself in front of Blobby, serving as a meat shield. She was prepared to be blasted to shreds... but Vivi lowered her hand.

“Hmph, fine! But like, you tell that idiot to not mess around with the great Vivi, lest he wants to water the grass!”

Vivi lifted her chin and crosser her arms. If Erika hadn’t interfered, then Blobby would have been dead by now, no question about it.

“Bad Blobby.”

“Pyu...”

Blobby lowered his face, expressing genuine regret. It seemed that Blobby understood he was scolded and he truly felt bad about it. However, he didn’t understand what crime he committed.

Therefore, even after being scolded twice... Blobby splashed Vivi. Again. Erika had to rescue the blob for the third time in 5 minutes.

I wonder if he’ll understand me better after I level up [Communication]...?

At its current level, [Communication] couldn’t translate Blobby’s squeaks into coherent language. The same may have applied backwards as well, preventing Erika from properly explaining herself to Blobby. Either that, or the baby lacked the necessary intelligence to process her words.

Erika kept Blobby by her side as they walked, ensuring that the baby stayed out trouble. Glittering puddles were scattered beside the road, giving birth to more adorable Water Blobs. Any blob which wandered near a Waterflora was scared away by Erika, thus avoiding the terrible fate of turning into a flower’s soft drink.

While the urge to wipe Waterfloras out of existence was growing stronger, Erika began wondering about her recent fights. Her trustworthy Silver Knife didn’t help her at all in these battles. Instead, she relied on her bare fists and busted through the Waterfloras to a great success. She emerged victorious, but she didn’t understand the underlying game mechanic behind it.

“Say, Mini. Why did you suggest punching against the blue flowers?”

“Because fuckers instantly regenerated when ya whooshed ‘em. Ya gotta try other shit in such a case, like wham ‘em”

In other words, Mina didn’t know squat; she relied on her instinct to carry her through. Since GoVe was originally designed with the mindset of a fighting game, mechanics of this sort felt natural to Mina.

It wasn’t the same for Erika, however. For one reason or another, GoVe provided tips about every little thing she wished to know, expect for proper combat advice. She had no choice but to rationalize this with RPG terms.

She both slashed and stabbed with her knife, but that didn’t bear any fruits. The Waterflora’s liquid body quickly reformed after each assault and there was no noticeable injury. Compared to that, Erika’s fists didn’t slash or stab anything. They smashed the Waterflora’s face made the flower chough water.

In terms of gameplay mechanics, the RPG veteran translated this into “attributes”. The same way magic had elements like “fire” and “water”, physical attacks also had different attributes in some games. It wasn’t a very common practice in MMORPGs, but Erika played normal RPGs which distinguished between “slash”, “stab” and “blunt” attacks.

If she reasoned this way, then the whole mystery was easily resolved. Warerfloras were resistant to “slash” and “stab” attacks, but not to “blunt” strikes.

Even though they looked like palette swaps of each other, Windfloras actually had opposite properties from Waterfloras. Erika had to dish out many punches to fell a single Windflora, making it clear that the flower had resistance to “blunt” attacks. On the other hand, Erika’s deadly knife made quick work of the Windflora’s stem, exposing its fatal weakness to “slash” attacks.

Satisfied with her deductions, Erika proceeded along the road with newfound confidence. These realizations were small things, but gamifying the harsh virtual reality made Erika feel better. She didn’t possess the same combat instincts as Mina, therefore deconstructing “fighting moves” into “RPG mechanics” made her feel at home.

“Pyu...”

Blobby’s sad voice resounded from behind. He was doing his best to run after Erika, but his tiny legs weren’t fast enough.

“Ahahaha! Look at this idiot! It can’t even walk!”

Vivi held her bursting stomach every time Blobby tripped. She also didn’t forget to shoot complaints every now and then, criticizing how stale their progress became. Indeed, Blobby was slowing them down.

“My, you’re such a slowpoke~”

Erika decided to spoil Blobby and carried him in her palms. The baby gazed at the passing scenery with curiosity, but he didn’t try to run away to explore; he was an obedient kid.

The realism of virtual reality became a nuisance, as simply holding Blobby was taxing on Erika’s thin arms. In real life, Blobby would easily fit into Erika’s palm. However, in her child avatar, she had to carry the baby with both hands, and he wasn’t exactly light for her weak muscles.

This led Erika to retry an old trick. She opened the DiVe and put Blobby on top of the floating island. He was small enough fit and the DiVe didn’t throw any errors. It wasn’t possible to stuff NPCs into the DiVe, but there were no objections regarding storing familiars in the inventory.

Erika closed the DiVe and the island vanished into thin air, along with her baby. She immediately opened the DiVe again to confirm Blobby’s safety. He was properly sitting where she left him, and that allowed her to sigh in relief.

On top of being an airplane to transport Blobby, the extradimensional DiVe was also a safe haven for the fragile blob. While Blobby was hidden in another dimension, no sadistic flower could possibly gulp him like a cheap soft drink.

Familiars were normally expected to aid their master in combat, but Blobby was too small for that kind of action. Mommy had to take care of him instead~

Vivi mentioned that Water Blobs had a dangerous evolution process. However, until Blobby evolved into a legendary Leviathan, Erika deemed it best to keep him out of danger and carefully raise him.