Star Awakens
『No, she should be. It's been 3 minutes since the timer reached 0. It's possible that I've miscalculated, though』
"Oh, come on. An AI? Miscalculate? A preposterous proposition. No, but actually though, did you?"
『You can test her yourself』
"Try to wake her up?"
『Yes』
I thought of a way to wake her up from her sleeping slumber. Star has been lying down here for the past hour. She's started to breathe normally and even snore occasionally. She's even breathing from and out of her mouth; there's no way she's still dizzied.
How should I approach it? If I wanted to meme it, I could just throw some water at her. But the closest source of water is the slime puddle; I'm not dealing with that. Although, I notice that my pockets are incredibly full of slime. The melted remains of the enhanced slimes were still stuck to the crystals.
I couldn't get this goo off of the crystals, meaning my pockets feel really sticky right now. It's like having a pocket of boogers and snot. Urrghh… That's just gross. But that's perfect.
I scraped off some of the goo from my pockets and smothered it all over her face. It's like a free makeover, right? Girls use weird stuff for makeup, so I'm assuming someone has to test slime goo. People have used snail slime after all, this shouldn't be so bad.
By the end of it, her skin was tinged in blue and covered with sticky goo. Honestly, I would've mistaken it for a face mask if I hadn't known any better. Even then, she seems to have not woken up. It could be that she's still dizzied, but I beg to differ.
Right as I was doubting myself, Star suddenly moved positions. She lay sideways on the hard grass, using her own two hands as a pillow. She's definitely off the effect.
I wanted to do a final prank on her that'll for sure wake her up. I took more snot out of my pocket and giggled at my mischievous plan. Making sure I got as much goop as possible on my two fingers, I shoved them hard up her nose.
Immediately, Star recoiled and sneezed my fingers out. Her sudden reaction caught both of us off guard. Celeste even audibly flinched, which is something I didn't know she could do. I couldn't help but laugh at her as she cluelessly woke up.
"Mmhmm…" She yawned as she stretched out. "Fuu… What time is it?"
She looked around with her still droopy eyes. Her face filled with confusion as she noticed my giggling. She tilted her head and said, "Hmm? What's so…" yawning again before continuing, "… funny?"
"Pfft. Nothing… nothing…" I replied.
She kept looking left and right and up and down, trying to gather herself and notice her surroundings. I didn't know she's this klutzy when she wakes up. Makes me wonder how she brings herself to school every day.
Gradually, she becomes more lucid and aware of everything around her.
Then, after all this waiting, she finally rubs her eyes. She immediately went through 5 stages of grief in a short amount of time. "Ah…" She must've felt how sticky her face was when she rubbed her eyes.
She looked closer at her hands as she noticed the stickiness and played with it. She must've realized suddenly that the stickiness came to her face, as she touched her face again and rubbed it with her whole palm. "Ew!! What is this?!"
I laughed so hard when she became repulsed in that moment. She looked back at me and said, "What did you put on my face?!" I could barely breathe as her face looked more disgusted by the second. I'm crying.
"Awh, dude!" She stood up and ran down towards the slime puddle.
"Whoa…" I tried shouting in between all the laughter. "Hey, wait!"
『Don't worry. She won't attract the slimes』
What? Why so?
『Slime goop masks her smell for a certain period of time. Unless she punches one actively, she won't aggro any of the slimes』
Oh… You can do that? I still aggroed the slimes when I was fighting them.
『You aggroed them because you cast Ameliorate. It's also likely that just applying it on the hands doesn't count as applying the slime goop』
Could've told me that sooner, to be honest.
『I saw no reason. You had an easy time killing the slimes until that last Ameliorate』
"Could've also told me that before I accidentally did it."
『Well』
Star ran past all the slimes straight to the puddle. It was just as Celeste said; there wasn't a single slime that came in her way to stop her. That's a relief considering I do not want to babysit for another hour.
Once she was done washing the goop off, she came back with wet hands, wet clothes, and a wet face. Her face screams, "You a-hole!" and her hands are crossed as she walks closer and closer to me.
"You dirtbag! That was your doing, wasn't it?!" She yelled.
"Dunno," I teased. "Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't; who knows—"
"Who else could it be! Ugh! That's so gross!"
"I wanted to test something, that's all," I replied.
"Hmph!" she pouted.
She was utterly mad at me for that prank. But luckily, I had just the perfect thing to calm her down.
I put my hand into my slimy pocket and took out the crystals I'd farmed. The clinks and clanks in my hands legitimized my yield as I showed it to her. In that moment, her breath was taken away by the wind that blew through the field of grass. Her anger immediately gone, her hands immediately took the crystals for a better look.
"This is…!"
"Yeup."
"But how did you… How long was I out?" I could feel the surprise through her shaking voice.
"One hour."
"But that's… no… impossible. How lucky were you?"
She kept glancing back and forth between the crystals and me. Her eyes showed it all. I should tell her.
『I wouldn't』
Sorry, what?
『Ameliorate casts on every type of monster. Aren't you afraid she'll use it at the wrong time? You know it yourself that you got hit and were almost incapacitated by a single shrapnel of a spike when you fought a mere slime』
But I can trust her. She won't take it too far, right?
『As an AI, I've established through your eyes that your girl friend is an idiot』
She's not my girlfriend.
『Don't tell her, unless you want her to get hurt, of course』
I had the choice in front of me. If I tell her now, then our mob drop collecting quests would become way easier. But she definitely could use it improperly. Truthfully, if I hadn't had Celeste's warnings, I would've been mush way before I could kill the slime. Star doesn't have the privilege, which makes fighting harder mobs more difficult.
Celeste is right; I can't tell her.
"Well… You can say that I'm pretty lucky." I said confidently.
"That means we can turn it in! Let's go!" Before I could reply, she had already grabbed me and pulled me away back to town.
"Wait! Let me pack up properly first!"
----
Star pulled me into the city, where people had their own business in this busy world. It had been an hour or so since we left town; I can't believe I missed the loudness of the crowd. I figured I didn't need to check my map for the quest place; Star seems confident enough, as always.
She dragged me through rocky streets, alleyways, under a bridge, on top of a bridge; it was a maze of a journey. But finally, she stopped in her tracks and released her grip.
"Tadaa! The Town Hall!" she exclaimed.
She presented a large building with a seemingly large number of floors. It was an open building; there were no doors or entrances. Large and thick marble pillars held each floor up. Every part of the building was white. Even the furniture inside was white.
The building was elevated up by a wall of rocks. This is why most people are forced to enter the building by using the stairs. It was a genius bit of design in my opinion. Outside of the building was a garden filled with alien plants I'd never seen before. It felt somewhat Greek in my opinion.
I followed Star up the stairs and into the building, though personally I would like to try climbing from one of the sides someday. She led us to a receptionist lady in the middle of the first floor.
The lady wore a pretty dress that ought to catch any man's eyes with just the slightest reflection of light. She stood firm and ready for anyone that was willing to ask her for help. Today, though, we only came to turn in a quest.
Star placed the quest paper and 10 slime crystals on the table. "Turn in, please!" she said.
"Okay. Please wait for a moment while I confirm the validity of your completion." The lady replied.
After a few seconds of reading a book, the lady looked back at us and said, "Thank you for your completion. Here's your reward." She pointed vaguely at the book and smiled.
"Ah, look at this," Star said while nudging me. "You're gonna love what she does next."
Snap!
The lady snapped her other hand at the air. At that moment, something started glowing on the receptionist's table. Shiny dust particles collected at the table, creating sounds of a harmonic song in the air. Finally, something burst out on the table with shiny glamour as the symphony of dust ended.
There lay our rewards. Just as the quest paper said, 50 Gold and some artefact item. Star quickly bagged all of the items and pulled me out of the building.
The receptionist lady gave us a final goodbye as we ran out, "Thank you for your work!".
----
"Hey! Where are you taking me?" I asked. She was pulling me with much haste; I had to wonder why she was doing that.
"Do you know anywhere we can rest undisturbed?"
"What? Huh?"
"Just anywhere is fine as long as there aren't many people."
『Go to the Social Hub. There's no one resting there currently』
Wh—Are you sure?
『Trust』
I guess I had to trust her then. I barely know this city. "Social Hub!" I said.
"Okay!"
"Wait, do you even know where you're going?"
----
Turns out, she did know where she was going. We arrived at the fountain not long after. All of her dragging took every bit of breath out of me. It must be for good reason that she ran us all the way to the Social Hub. "Why… Fuu… Why did you bring us here?" I asked.
"Well, I didn't want anyone to steal our gold. And we have an artefact that I want to keep safe."
"That's it??"
"Yes."
…