Chapter 283: Mochi’s Mysterious Discovery

"Hey, wait! Where are you going, Mochi? You’ll get lost!"

"Hm? Mochi?"

Igor and Viktor also turned to look in surprise. Mochi paused briefly, as though it might stop, but then it immediately resumed bouncing away from them.

Mochi was usually very obedient and had never once rebelled against Qiu Nuoya. Whenever Qiu Nuoya told it not to do something, it would listen without complaint. It had never behaved so independently before, so Qiu Nuoya hurried after it in a panic.

"Hey! What’s gotten into you, Nuoya!?"

Igor and Viktor followed after him. Meanwhile, Mochi showed no sign of stopping. It bounced through the crowds as though leading them somewhere, slipping between people and making it difficult for them to keep up.

"Mochi, stop that! Come back here!"

[ Qiu~ ]

Mochi’s voice echoed inside Qiu Nuoya’s head, but the slime bouncing ahead of them showed no sign of stopping.

More importantly, where on earth was Mochi going while calling out Qiu Nuoya’s name?

Before he knew it, they had wandered into a back alley.

"Nuoya, it’s dangerous to wander off on your own! What on earth has gotten into you!?"

Viktor grabbed Qiu Nuoya by the arm and stopped him, finally bringing him to a halt.

"But Mochi..."

"Your slime has been sitting on your head this entire time."

"...Huh?"

At Viktor’s words, Qiu Nuoya reached up and felt a familiar, squishy sensation beneath his hand. At the same time, Mochi’s carefree voice echoed in his head.

[ Nuoya~ Where are we going? ]

No way. Had he really mistaken another slime for Mochi!?

It was true that telling individual slimes apart was difficult. Even so, Qiu Nuoya had never once confused Mochi with another slime before. That was because Mochi’s color was subtly different from that of every other slime.

His Mochi was slightly greener than the others, with a beautiful, fresh shade of light green. Qiu Nuoya had always been certain he could recognize it perfectly.

And yet, it seemed he had mistaken a different slime for Mochi.

"Ahhh, I’m so sorry! Sorry, Mochi! I got you mixed up with someone else!"

[ Nuoya, did you want something from the me over there? ]

Mochi wriggled in Qiu Nuoya’s hands and tilted its head, or what passed for one.

"The you over there?"

Qiu Nuoya tilted his own head in confusion.

[ That me from earlier was a piece of me. ]

???

Qiu Nuoya had absolutely no idea what Mochi was talking about. However, the slime he had mistaken for Mochi had apparently been one of Mochi’s own fragments, so it hadn’t been an entirely unrelated slime after all.

Still, Qiu Nuoya couldn’t quite accept that explanation.

After all, he had never mistaken one of Mochi’s fragments for Mochi himself before. Yet he had been completely convinced that the slime he’d seen earlier was Mochi.

"Do you know where that little one went?"

[ Hmm? I don’t know! ]

"Huh? You don’t know? Usually, you can tell where the others are through something like shared senses, can’t you?"

[ We were apart for a long time, so I don’t know. If we stick back together, I’ll know. ]

They had been apart for a long time?

That meant the fragment of Mochi must have separated from the main body quite some time ago. It couldn’t have been one of the fragments that Mochi had split off recently.

"Nuoya? You’re looking rather troubled. Are you all right?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Well, actually..."

Qiu Nuoya shared what he had just learned about Mochi with Igor and Viktor. Igor could only give a wry smile.

"Slimes really are impossible to understand, aren’t they?"

Slimes had no concept of male or female. They were amoeba like creatures that reproduced by splitting into multiple individuals. But if that was the case, Qiu Nuoya couldn’t rule out the possibility that every slime in this world had originated from a single individual.

Come to think of it, when he had checked Mochi’s status a long time ago, he vaguely remembered seeing something along the lines of a fragment of the ancient slime.

Qiu Nuoya looked down at Mochi, which was repeatedly stretching and contracting in his palm. Even so, Mochi was still just Mochi, and nothing more.

[ Hey, Nuoya~ Something over there smells delicious~ ]

"Hm? Something delicious?"

Qiu Nuoya looked in the direction Mochi indicated.

There, a huge hole gaped open before them.

A large hole gaped open before them, with water flowing out of it. An iron grate had been fitted across the entrance, presumably to prevent intruders from getting inside, but there were no guards stationed nearby.

The hole was fairly large, just wide enough for Igor to stand and walk through, though only barely. However, since water was flowing out of it, it wasn’t exactly somewhere Qiu Nuoya wanted to venture into willingly. The water didn’t look particularly clean, either.

And yet, his gluttonous tamed monster, Mochi, was eagerly bouncing toward the hole, apparently intent on going inside.

"Hey! Hold on a second!"

Qiu Nuoya hurriedly grabbed Mochi’s squishy body and lifted it up.

[ Nooo~ Why not? Something over there smells delicious~]

"What smells delicious? It’s dangerous to wander into a strange place all by yourself!"

[ But we’re all going together, so it’ll be fiiine~ ]

"All of us?"

Just as Qiu Nuoya tilted his head in confusion, Mochi’s body suddenly melted and collapsed into a puddle. In the blink of an eye, it split into numerous slimes, all of which eagerly rushed toward the hole.

"Come on! I told you not to!"

[ We’ll come right back after we eat~ ]

In all the time Qiu Nuoya had known Mochi, he had never seen it this stubborn before. He didn’t know what to make of it.

Whatever this delicious smell Mochi had mentioned was, it seemed to be so enticing that it could even make slimes ignore their master’s orders. Curiosity got the better of Qiu Nuoya, and he leaned forward to peer into the hole after Mochi.

However, the inside was pitch black, and the tiny slimes quickly disappeared into the darkness.