Chapter 291: Slimo, Where’s the Temple?

"Are you going to say anything or just stare at your destruction and just gawk?!"

Slimo cleared his throat.

"Stare at the destruction and gawk."

Squabee slapped her face.

"Truthfully, I don’t care you destroyed this place, but did you really have to do it while Sarah and I were STILL INSIDE?! How do you think Lidia is going to feel about this?!"

Sarah brought a finger to her chin.

"Ah. So that’s what those sounds were. I thought they were fighting another leviathan."

"Please don’t tell Lidia it was me! Just say it was another Leviathan or something!"

"Like hell! You owe me big time if you think I’m not going to blab about this!"

Slimo ran his hands through his white hair.

"Gah! Please Squabee! I’ll do anything!"

Sarah raised her hand.

"If you and Jacob were fighting, where is he?"

Slimo dropped to the ground and lifted Jacob by the back of his shirt.

"He’s right here. I won the fight that we had."

"How old are you again?"

"It doesn’t matter! We both wanted to fight so we could become stronger. To be honest, I feel so much strength coursing through me it’s crazy. I’m sure Jacob was feeling similar before I knocked him out."

"Why would you knock him out?"

"Neither of us were planning to stop the fight until the other couldn’t fight anymore."

"Does he need to be healed?"

Slimo stared at him.

"It would probably be best if both of us were healed, but let’s wait for Lidia and Maria to come back so we can fuel you up a bit."

Sqaubee helped Sarah walk over to where Slimo was before sitting down on a large stone.

"Wow, Slimo. You sure did struggle a lot for fighting a dude half your age."

"Jacob is practically a demi-god! I’d like to see you do what I can do in my shoes."

"Well, for starters, I wouldn’t go around beating up little kids to make myself feel stronger."

Slimo grit his teeth.

’Don’t say anything. Not even a word, Slimo. Your life is in her hands.’

After waiting around for three hours, a massive spiral of blue flames erupted above their heads. Sheeby was flying above them with Maria and Lidia on her back. There were massive leaves wrapped around something with vines being used as string to tie them to Sheeby.

"They’re back!"

As they landed, Lidia looked at the rubble, distraught.

"The temple! What the hell happened while we were gone? We thought we heard fighting, but we didn’t realize it was you all!"

Slimo immediately jumped up and rushed over to Lidia.

"Oh, just a rogue leviathan again. But thanks to Squabee, we were able to kill it no problem! By the way, I noticed Sheeby’s scales are back to normal. Did she get a new power?! How are you feeling, girl?!"

Slimo walked over to Sheeby holding his arms out wide. Sheeby waked him in the head with her large tail, but it didn’t do nearly as much damaged as Slimo had expected.

"Ow. Nice to see you too."

"Why did you lie to me?"

Slimo’s heart dropped.

"Lie? I didn’t lie about anything! I just saw Sheeby’s scales and made an observation!"

Sheeby slapped his head again.

"Damn it, Sheeby. Stop that!"

"You just lied again! What really happened to this temple?!"

"What?! I promise I’m not lying!"

Sheeby was reeling her tail back.

"Wait! Fine, I’ll tell you!"

Sheeby slowly put her tail down.

"How the hell do you know it’s a lie anyway?!"

"Tell me what really happened and I’ll tell you."

Slimo sighed.

"Well, Jacob and I kind of had a small training session and-"

Lidia grabbed Slimo’s collar.

"Small?! You call this SMALL?!"

"That’s what I said, Miss Lidia! You should have seen them go at it! They destroyed the place with me and Sarah still inside!"

’Damn you, Squabee! You’ll pay!’

"They WHAT?!"

"It was Jacob’s idea!"

Slimo got smacked once more in the back of the head.

"Boys are so stupid sometimes... I would punish you, but we need to eat this food before something else comes after it. It also seems like you’ve been roughed up enough by Jacob. Sheeby managed to kill this infant leviathan while we were out. Go help Sarah cook it. NOW."

Slimo nodded his head and helped them carry the giant dead monster carcass over to Sarah.

"By the way, how did you know I was lying before?"

"Oh, that? That’s Sheeby’s new power. Her and I can also communicate with each other now! Isn’t that just wonderful!"

Slimo’s eye twitched.

’I got my cover blown by that damn dragon?! Is her mom still fighting me from the grave through her daughter?!’

He cut up the giant monster into thousands of small meat cubes after carving out a massive bowl made of stone. To his surprise, Sarah was capable of constructing and starting a fire by herself. She even managed to create skewers for some of the meat. Slimo couldn’t believe his eyes.

"Your skills are impressive as ever, Sarah. I should have had you train me a bit on improving my dishes."

"Thank you, Slimo. This is still a strange adjustment though, I must admit."

Slimo walked over to Lidia who was holding her stomach.

"How are you feeling?"

Lidia smiled.

"I’m feeling anxious, truthfully. I think that last fight we had scared me a bit. That creature was very close to harming this baby."

Slimo sighed.

"I really didn’t mean to break the structure, Lidia. Jacob and I were also affected by that loss pretty badly. We were simply trying to hone each other’s skills. However, I think this last experience gave me an idea on what we need to work on next."

"Really? What would that be?"

Slimo raised his fist and looked at it.

"Currently, Jacob and I attack with no thoughts behind the punch or kick. Because of that, if we miss our marks, the area’s around us take the force of the hit in its entirety. However, I think in order to make our attacks much deadlier, we need to concentrate all that force on a single point."

He stood up and raised his hands for a demonstration.

"I was on the cusp of learning it during out fight. I went for this uppercut on Jacob’s chin like this."

He made a clean motion upward, and with it, a small gust of wind kicked up around him.

"But I wasn’t accurate enough. Jacob dodged easily and sent a counterpunch into my face. All that force I carried through my legs was sent through my whole body instead. He really nailed me even though his punch wasn’t accurate either."

Slimo rubbed his face slightly as Lidia enjoyed his demonstrations.

"Even that attack wasn’t dense enough. My punch was still carrying energy from around itself rather than exploding on a certain point. However, if we manage to master such a concept, we can implement it on almost every part of our body and even adapt it to our weapons."

Lidia was still quietly watching him trying to perfect his form. He turned to face her after a few more practice punches.

"Does that make sense?"

Lidia chuckled lightly. Slimo blushed seeing her laugh at him.

"W-What? I’m being serious!"

"Sorry. You’re just very cute when you get excited about your ideas."

Slimo smiled back and practiced a few more swings.

"I’ll get in eventually. I promise."

"Will you not break everything around you anymore if that happens?"

"That’s the idea behind it. More potent attacks with less destruction of the area around us if we miss. Obviously, we didn’t do a good job the other day. In fact, I think we managed to spread to force of our attacks as wide as possible. I blame Jacob for that part though!"

Sqaubee was helping Sarah throw meat into a giant stew she was brewing.

"So, what exactly do you see when you open your eyes?"

Sarah tried looking in Sqaubee’s direction.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Well, I’ve always wanted to know what blind people see! Is it like just black or do you see a certain color all the time?"

"...Squabee. Are you absolutely sure you want to ask me that question?"

"Yes! Does that offend you?"

"Squabee, I’m blind. I don’t see anything at all."

"Not even a color?"

"Why would I see a color?!"

"What about black?"

"Well, I guess I see nothing but black, but that practically means nothing! Black is like the absence of color anyway!"

"Well how was I supposed to know what you can and can’t see?!"

"Because I’m BLIND!! Why would I see something else?!"

"Hey, we have a dragon who can talk to humans and we’re in the middle of a jungle infested with leviathans. Anything could be a possibility at this point. Especially thanks to me and my stupid power!"

"Can you tell me color the broth of the stew is, Squabee? You were supposed to remind me three minutes ago."

"Sure thing! Uhm... it looks like it’s dark brown. What does that mean?"

"...Squabee."

"Yes?"

"Go get Slimo to help me cook."