Chapter 113: Event Preview.
Chapter 113: Event Preview.
Hello. This is Emergency Rations.
I am the house’s spirit, and my name is Emergency Rations.
Fourteen years have passed since I was born. If I were human, this would be the height of adolescence.
If there are parents who name their child Emergency Rations, that kid is guaranteed to run away from home.
During adolescence, they’d have a wild and stormy time.
So you really should choose a good name.
Honestly, I’d like to run away and have my own stormy youth too, but as the house’s spirit, I can’t even go outside.
Speaking of going out.
The owner has been busy and hasn’t come home for a while.
He drilled a hole in the floor and connected a passageway, so why isn’t he coming back!
He can come home anytime he wants!
If that’s the case, why did he make the hole in the first place!
Does he know how much I held myself back when he was drilling that hole?
No matter how much I ask for popcorn and cola, the owner never notices, so I doubt he knows!
Not only does he have no sense for naming, he barely comes home at all.
What a useless owner.
Well, at least he came back safely.
Having a curse writhing inside is just an everyday thing, so yes, he was safe.
But this time, I have to say something.
Owner, are you an idiot?
What on earth are you carrying around with you?
If you’re going to take it out, just take it out and leave it somewhere, or stuff it deep in a corner where nobody can see or hear it.
What’s with that half-baked state!
That curse is a curse, too.
It’s burning furiously, so what’s it smiling about?
It’s creepy!
As expected, curses and evil spirits are things you should never get involved with.
Just thinking that I might have become something like that if not for the owner is horrifying.
What are you looking at?
What are you splitting?
Are you trying to pick a fight?
Bring it on.
The house’s spirit is unbeatable at home.
My only regret is not meeting the owner sooner.
If I’d met the owner earlier and been born as a holy spirit, I would’ve grabbed that curse by the hair and shaken it around.
But I’m the house’s spirit.
Unless it’s about cleaning the house, I don’t have the strength to do anything directly to the owner.
That curse is a part of the owner.
There’s nothing I can do.
If that curse ever attacks the house, that’s a different story.
I’d shout that the best defense is offense and fight back.
But there’s not even a hint of that happening.
Looks like, once again, all I can do is watch.
It’s sad.
***
The man opened the front door and let in the air conditioner installer.
Early June.
It’s still a bit early to actually use the air conditioner, but it’s a great time to get one installed. The price is low and the installers aren’t busy, so you don’t get pushed to the back of the line.
The man said goodbye to the air conditioner that had died last year and had a new one installed.
He briefly considered toughing it out with the penguin set, including the Raincoat Slime, but that just wasn’t possible.
The precious furry family he raises at home would collapse from the heat.
“Thank you for your hard work.”
Once the installation was safely finished, the man closed the front door, which had been open the whole time.
But when he turned around, a door he’d closed was now open.
With a sense of dread, the man hurried into the room.
“Cheol?”
He called the name of his gray schnauzer, but there was no response.
Normally, just calling would have the dog running over wagging his tail, full of energy.
“Cheol?”
He searched every corner of the room, but the dog was nowhere to be found.
“Cheol!”
The man frantically called his pet’s name and started searching the house.
But the gray furry one was nowhere to be found.
He ran outside along the usual walking path.
Still, there was no sign.
Even as he trembled with anxiety, he forced himself to stay as calm as possible.
He contacted the stray dog shelter and made flyers to hand out.
A nerve-wracking 24 hours passed like that.
-Are you Cheol’s owner?
“Yes, yes! Has Cheol been found?”
-We’ve found a similar dog, could you come check? I’ll send you the location now, so please come by.
A text arrived soon after.
‘Slime Land? Why would Cheol be there?’
Maybe he’d fallen into the Tunnel Slimes.
Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter.
The man just hoped Cheol was safe as he headed to Slime Land.
After passing through the Tunnel Slimes, what appeared before him was a wide pond.
From there, a mascot wearing a dog mask slime rose up.
The mascot, with a long white beard like a mountain spirit, was holding a dog in its arms.
“Is this the dog you lost?”
It looked a lot like Cheol, but its mouth was more yellow.
“Ah, no.”
The man turned away in disappointment.
“Is this the dog you lost?”
The slime dove under the pond for a moment, then brought up a new dog.
This one looked a lot like Cheol, but its fur was whiter.
“No.”
The slime dove into the pond again.
“Is this the dog you lost?”
“Cheol!”
When the slime set Cheol down at the water’s edge, Cheol happily ran over and jumped into the man’s arms.
“For answering honestly….”
“N-no, it’s fine!”
The man, who was about to end up adopting two more schnauzers, quickly declined.
“I was going to recommend the food Cheol was most interested in out of thirty-two value-for-money brands. You don’t want it?”
“Uh… I’d be happy to hear.”
“Take it.”
The slime handed the man a slip of paper with the name of the food on it and disappeared under the pond.
-Sorry for the prank. Sometimes people pretend to be the owner, so we have to do a verification process. The recommended food is-.
On the note were words of apology written in a polite tone, along with recommendations for food and snacks.
It was such a subtle difference that it would be hard to notice unless you were really the owner.
The man bowed his head toward the pond.
“Thank you so much for finding Cheol!”
Bubbles rose to the surface of the lake.
Not long after Cheol’s owner left, someone similar came looking.
This time, the slime in the pond appeared wearing a cat mask.
“Is this the cat you lost?”
After that, many people came to Slime Land searching for their missing pets.
As news kept spreading that lost pets were being found at Slime Land, people began to wonder.
‘Just how many dogs and cats are there in Slime Land?’
According to the verification process, there were always at least two more dogs or cats of the same breed as the found pet.
Maybe somewhere inside Slime Land, there was a place filled with dogs and cats.
-These days, we just send the protected animals over there.
This suspicion began to burn even brighter after a testimony from a stray animal shelter worker.
There must be a place somewhere inside Slime Land filled with animals.
People with such dreams set out to search.
“Paradise exists!”
The person who discovered a place where countless cats roamed freely shouted with joy.
A passing mascot who saw the scene laughed.
“This is paradise.”
“The ones here are the calm ones, aren’t they?”
“Honestly, if those cats rushed me all at once, I wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Me neither.”
***
Many theme parks around the world have zoos inside, but I decided not to make one.
If you want to see a tiger, there’s a tiger-shaped slime and a mascot slime wearing a tiger mask.
If you want to see an elephant, there’s a slime and a mascot slime wearing an elephant mask.
If you want to see a penguin, just look around.
I have no intention of bringing in animals just to keep them.
Still, there are some animals that I brought into Slime Land.
Abandoned animals and those with nowhere to go.
I accepted them inside Slime Land.
After all, there’s plenty of space inside Slime Land.
Besides, these days, selling <Slime> all over the world has made funds plentiful.
Of course, it’s impossible to take in and care for every stray animal in the world.
Still, there are enough resources to provide food and shelter for animals wandering the streets of Korea.
Mostly, I sweep up animals that end up in shelters, but even so, many animals come into the <Tunnel Slimes>.
Lost pets almost always end up here.
Animals naturally look for safe places, and it seems the inside of the <Tunnel Slimes> feels safe to them.
It might also be partly due to the effect of the [Evangelize+] skill.
For pets that have an owner who comes looking, we work to return them to their owners.
There are also many without owners.
Those are treated differently depending on their personalities.
If they like people, we make sure they can spend time with people.
But we made it so they’re not too easy to find.
Honestly, I could have just told everyone.
‘It’s always more precious to find something with your own strength.’
Even if they can’t find them, people who don’t give up searching must really love dogs or cats.
There’s little chance of harm. Plus, the sense of achievement when they find them is greater, and it feels special.
As for the ones that dislike people, we just let them live as they wish.
And then there are the aggressive ones.
These are currently being trained to fight, equipped with <Slime>.
I don’t plan to use them as hunters.
The original intent behind starting the training was to prevent fights.
Whenever the aggressive ones got bored, they would start fights.
Even though the land is vast and food is plentiful, they still fought.
If I stopped them from fighting, they’d get stressed, so instead I tossed them slimes to chase.
Then, instead of fighting, they started hunting for fun.
They even shared and developed their hunting methods.
One Hunter who saw this said,
“Watching these guys, I think it’d be better to just arm them with <Slime> and have them fight.”
It sounded like a joke at first, but other Hunters started seriously researching it.
Maybe it’s the effect of the [Evangelize+] skill.
Not just dogs, but even cats follow my instructions well.
Once I put <Slime> on them and taught them a few things, they started obeying not just me but anyone who gave commands.
If they didn’t like it, I would’ve stopped, but the dogs and cats seemed to think of it as a fun game.
Just like a dog brings its leash when it’s time for a walk, they would put on <Slime> themselves and practice hunting.
They even taught other dogs and cats how to hunt using <Slime>.
If left unchecked, they could be dangerous to people, so full-scale training began.
At first, I focused mainly on training the dogs.
Dogs are pack animals.
They instinctively got used to hunting together very quickly.
In the process, their hierarchy was properly established, so there were no more disputes.
After a bit of training, the cats could do similar things.
Unlike dogs, whose main weapon is grabbing and holding, cats’ main weapon is their claws. They also don’t have a habit of group hunting.
Because their fighting style is different, they seemed a bit weaker against large slimes, but against small slimes, they did better than the dogs.
And so, a small army formed that I wondered if I’d ever actually use in Slime Land.
There was already a powerful force of retired Hunters.
If Mother and I started advancing together, wouldn’t we take over Korea in no time?
***
Beauty W-tuber BeautyLime, who became popular by sharing ways to use <Pack Slime>, <Raincoat Slime>, <Towel Slime>, and more for decoration.
These days, she’s more of a <Slime> reviewer than a beauty W-tuber.
She was such a huge fan of <Slime> that she would line up in front of the Alchemy Center every day to buy it, even if she didn’t need it, so Slime Land was nothing short of heaven for her.
After they started selling <Slime> inside Slime Land, she started going there every day instead of the Alchemy Center.
After buying slimes and putting them in her storage box, she would wander around inside Slime Land.
As expected, the [Slime Course] was her favorite, but the other places were fun too.
In [My Own Story], she even saved the heroine from an old novel she’d read.
In the [Adventure Course], she found a <Coin Slime>, put it in a frame, and displayed it in her room.
In the [Family Course], she enjoyed treating her viewers as family.
The [Scream Course] wasn’t all that fun, but the viewers’ reactions were great, so it was fun in a monetary sense.
Slime Land is easy to get to for people living in Seoul and the surrounding area, but for those elsewhere, it was quite a hassle to visit.
Even though admission was free, it still took time to get there and back, so it wasn’t easy to just pop in on a whim.
When people can’t visit in person but want news, the first thing they do is watch other people’s videos.
The Slime Land experience videos BeautyLime filmed racked up plenty of views.
She enjoyed herself, and filming videos meant she was working at the same time.
This was truly the perfect match of hobby and job.
She ended up spending more time in Slime Land than at home.
Honestly, she didn’t want to go home.
For the first few days, she even stayed at the accommodations inside Slime Land.
As expected of accommodations made by PengRhyme, the facilities were no joke.
Not only were they comfortable, but there were also rooms with all sorts of different concepts.
There was even a room decorated to feel like you were on top of the clouds.
Another room felt like you were under the sea.
There was even a room so packed with Slimes that you had to squeeze your way through them.
To top it off, every room had a top-tier computer coated with Slime parts, so you could even edit videos there.
BeautyLime thought she would love to just live here forever, but it was impossible.
The accommodation fees were expensive.
No matter how much she added the money she earned from filming the rooms to her bank account, it was so expensive it almost made her cry.
The idea of sleeping rough briefly crossed her mind, but she couldn’t risk it in a place where PengRhyme might pass by at any moment.
So BeautyLime returned home with tears in her eyes.
She just didn’t want to leave, but her house was close to the Tunnel Slimes, so coming and going was easy.
“Aren’t their reactions cute?”
Today as well, she was playing around in Slime Land, giving Rock Slime a massage.
A Penguin Slime passed by her side.
There were lots of mascot Slimes that looked similar, but BeautyLime was convinced that one was PengRhyme.
However.
“It’s a hologram?”
It wasn’t the real PengRhyme, but a hologram PengRhyme.
That PengRhyme was carrying a dessert stand with dozens of tiers on its back.
On that dessert stand were cakes BeautyLime recognized, like Mont Blanc and shortcake, as well as cakes shaped like logs or giant pieces of injeolmi that she didn’t know the names of.
PengRhyme walked along, taking a piece of cake and eating it one by one.
“Is that maybe a Mukbang?”
-GiveMeInsole: Reports are coming in from other places right now too.
A viewer relayed news from elsewhere.
It wasn’t a hallucination or a special service only visible to BeautyLime.
She wasn’t disappointed.
Because PengRhyme had finally broken through the screen.
BeautyLime had met SLimelove before, but she had never met an SLimelove in the shape of PengRhyme.
Just being able to see a 3D PengRhyme made her heart race, and the thought of monopolizing it never even crossed her mind.
-WhereAmI: Why am I at home right now?
Just being here was luck enough.
BeautyLime turned her camera toward PengRhyme and stared with her own eyes.
The tall dessert stand swayed from side to side, and sometimes cakes fell to the floor.
“That’s being dropped on purpose.”
There’s no way PengRhyme, who does all sorts of stunts for Mukbangs, would drop food on the ground by accident.
To prove it, the cakes landed perfectly upright on the floor.
Then, as if slowly soaking into the ground, they disappeared.
Rather than dropping cakes on the ground-
“It’s like they’re planting cakes in the ground.”
Leaving a cake behind each time, the 3D PengRhyme kept walking forward.
BeautyLime followed after.
The 3D PengRhymes, gathered from all directions, formed a circle.
All at once, they grabbed the dessert stands on their backs with both hands.
At the same time, they slammed them down toward the ground.
From the center, a giant tower rose up, looking like a wedding cake with dozens of layers.
-WhereAmI: There’s a new video up on the PengRhyme channel right now.
-WhereAmI: The event teaser is out!
“I’ll turn off the stream for a bit.”
BeautyLime stopped her broadcast and went to PengRhyme’s channel.
Just as the viewer said, there was a teaser announcing an event for tomorrow.
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reading this feel more like fever dream, i wonder how’s the POV of the staff working there