NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter Thirty Four
“...What are you saying now?”
=You know, pets! Lil’ things you take care of?=
“I… don’t? I don’t understand what brought that topic up.”
Yeah, I guess it was kind of out of nowhere from his perspective.
=Well I was thinking, how about you take me as your pet plant? You wouldn’t have to water me all that often, and I’m self feeding. Think I’d be good company, don’t you?=
I could see Til narrowing his eyes at me like I was crazy, but I guess that doesn’t really matter. Let’s let the man think.
“...But why would you want to be my pet?”
Oh, that’s simple!
=I like you! You’re handsome, and I like looking at you! Plus, you know, I’ve been a little lonely lately.=
Also I want some more of his blood, but I guess I shouldn’t say that. I could stay here eating this humongous monster and soaking up all this dead elf blood for about a week probably, but that’s finite. And besides, it’s not as tasty if it’s not in my mouth!
If I stick around Til, there’s a chance I’ll get to taste more of his blood sometime!
“Oh…”
Til looked a little awkward, as if he didn’t know what to say, but then his eyes narrowed again, and he shot me another distrusting glare.
“But that’s still no reason for you to want to be my pet. You could easily just follow me and accomplish the same goals.”
=Ehhh, but then you won’t let me follow you home! If I’m your pet, you’ll have to let me in. Plus you’ll have to care for me!=
“Care for you how…?”
Oooh, that’s a good question, one that brought a little bit of evil laughter from my non-existent lips! If I could make faces, I’m sure I’d be making a particularly dubious one right about now and scaring the elf. Ah, nope, my creepy laughter was already enough it seems; Til was giving me a reproachful look, as if he thought my thoughts were gross.
I promise, I wasn’t (overtly) being a perv!
=It’s not like thaaaat! I just want a bit of your blood sometimes is all!=
Yup, that didn’t do anything to get rid of his reproachful face. If anything, it just added a bit of fear to it, as well as making him start to struggle for his life again!
=Okay, calm down cutie, it’s not what you think-=
“You literally just told me you want my blood!”
=Well yeah, but it’s not like I wanna hurt you or anything, it’s just tasty is all!=
Okay, now the fear is totally winning out on his face. He’s so scared or shocked or whatever that he even stopped struggling! I guess telling him about how tasty his blood is was the wrong answer here. My bad.
“...You’ve tasted my blood?”
=Huh? Oh, yeah, I did it before I healed you. Wouldn’t have had enough nutrients to, otherwise.=
Til’s face grew grim and serious. Yeah, really thinking I might be choosing all the wrong dialogue options here.
“...Are you going to kill me?”
Whaaaat? What made him think that?
=No silly, of course I’m not! I don’t wanna eat you at all!=
Although eating your blood is another story entirely~!
“But…You said you want my blood.”
=Yeah, I do! But it doesn’t have to be all of it! I can be reasonable… sometimes.=
Yup yup, he totally looks like he doesn’t believe me.
=Really, it would only be a little bit, I promise!=
“...And how much is a little bit.”
I moved some of my tendrils to gesture some vague, small amount, like you would to signify something small with your fingers, but it didn’t earn a laugh like I’d hoped. Darn.
=Uh… Well how much are you willing to give?=
Til’s face twisted uncomfortably at the thought, but eventually he turned serious, and he tossed out an offer.
“I could give you… 5 drops.”
Whaaat? But that’s so stingy!
=10 drops!=
“...6 drops.”
=11 drops!=
“What? That’s not how haggling works-”
=13 drops!=
“You can’t just keep going up-”
=11 drops!=
“So you are listening to me-”
=13 drops!=
And Til just sighed, as if he was so horribly done with me.
Yeah, I really do think I like him~!
~~~
The haggling fell apart, of course. Til didn’t want to give me nearly as much blood as I wanted, and besides, apparently I’m not ‘trustworthy’ enough for him or whatever. Lame. It’s to the point that I’m seriously debating whether I should just find another mega-hot elf to feed me some blood. But judging from those corpses he buried, I don’t think it’ll be easy to find another elf as hot as Til.
Why should the hotness of the elf supplying the blood matter, you ask?
Would you want the cup you drink from to look gross?
It’s a moot point anyways; I actually really like Til’s company. Not every elf is going to have a personality I like, even if I manage to find one as hot as him.
Anyways, we agreed to stop haggling because his stomach started rumbling all loudly, so now I’m off looking for things to feed him, even though he told me I didn’t have to. It’d be so simple if he could just eat that darn monster’s meat, though!
Guess I was moving a little too fast, too, because sometimes he’d scream and tell me to stop.
Hehe, messing with him by sling-shotting myself through the trees was really fun!
In the end I found a decently sized bird to feed him, although I stole its eggs away to eat for myself. I don’t care how big I get or how delicious humans, elf blood, or orcs were, eggs would always be special to me. Always.
Oh, huh, that brings up a question.
=Hey, Til? Why don’t I want to eat you?=
Til looked at me for a while like he was double-checking if a predator was watching him, but then he looked away.
“Well, that’s because us elves are blessed by the forest.”
=Oh. But then why is your blood so tasty?=
He grimaced for a moment, but quickly tried to replace it with a stoic look. How cute! Guess I must really be worrying him right now, hehe~!
“...It’s probably because we have a lot of magic flowing in us.”
Oh, is that why? He did say that we corpse plants aim for things high in nutrition and magic, so I guess that makes sense. Didn’t people feed fertilizer mixed with blood to plants all the time in my past life? Pretty sure that was the inspiration for the ‘Feed me Seymour’ plant, too.
=But then why don’t I want to eat the rest of you?=
“I told you, it’s the blessing of the forest. The forest accepted us, so we naturally belong here. L’Lan’e’frea are only meant to go after things the forest doesn’t recognize as its own. The only reason you even know you want my blood is because you tasted it, otherwise you would never have realized that the things inside of us are so rich with magic.”
Oho, the things inside of you, you say…?
=I see. So then… What about the other things, besides blood?=
“...What?”
I’d slightly unwrapped Til earlier to let him cook and eat the bird I’d found, but that doesn’t mean I’d completely removed my tentacles from him.
Reeling him in closer to me just with the one tentacle I’d left around him was a breeze.
I brought him within arms-reach of me and asked the question again.
=What about the other things you make, besides blood?=