Squishy's stand-in stream showed everything through Smartass's eyes. At first, the viewers accepted it as a substitute for the slime's offline stream without much complaint. As time passed, however, the grumbling gradually began.

▶But why isn't Squishy streaming directly? It's safe now, so can't it turn its stream on?

▷Don't want my appearance shown. Already asked Squishy. Its stream stays off until it leaves my den.

[Noblesse Fire]▶Nobody's curious what you look like, you know?

[Gothic Luxury Bone]▶Haven't we already found out you're a fellow undead anyway?

▷There's a big difference between showing part of me and showing all of me. Yep.

▶“Big difference,” my ass.

As he had decided beforehand, Smartass intended to ask the slime to keep its stream off until it left his secret workshop. After all, if the slime started streaming, his appearance would naturally be visible too, and he could easily imagine the viewers mocking him over it.

Having watched all sorts of streams, Smartass knew these damn viewers were experts at finding the strangest things to nitpick and turning them into material for ridicule whenever they got bored.

'I'm not giving them ammunition myself!'

No matter what the viewers said, Smartass planned to pass the time quietly like this. He understood that they wanted to see the slime, but as far as he was concerned, they should be grateful he had even opened this stand-in stream for them.

Besides, while keeping an eye on the slime, Smartass could simply watch his usual streams! His own system windows wouldn't appear on the broadcast anyway, making them perfect for killing time.

Before long, however, Smartass faced a new problem. Having finished its workout, Squishy bounced over to him and posted in chat.

[Squishy]▶Hungry!

[Squishy Queen]▶You scoundrel, Smartass! What are you doing?! My kin says it's hungryyyyyy!

▶Look how worked up she is lmao.

▶It is mealtime, though.

▶Does Smartass even have anything to eat at home?

▶Couldn't he just give it his bones?

▶Wouldn't Smartass die then?

▶He's already dead. Who gives a shit?

▶Lmaoooo.

[Gothic Luxury Bone]▶That's anti-undead hate speech.

The problem Smartass had forgotten was the slime's meals. As an undead, he could go without eating, but the slime couldn't.

▷Squishy, what would you like to eat?

[Squishy]▶Meat! Paulen said! When you exercise! Have to eat meat!

▶Can't say no to meat.

[Noblesse Fire]▶The little thing's come a long way from eating nothing but grass.

'Meat...' Smartass considered the problem. How was he going to get some?

Obviously, he couldn't go to a human village to fetch it. Even in disguise, the aura of death he emitted as a lich would frighten people, whether they were clergy or not. He would plainly be discovered in no time.

But he couldn't send the slime outside to hunt for itself at every mealtime either. From what he had seen, it was intensely curious, and once something caught its interest, it tended to act impulsively and charge straight ahead. Going outside might make it kick up a fuss about not wanting to stay in the workshop. More importantly, if it happened to encounter a human, it was very likely to follow them.

Unlike in the beginning, when Body Slam had seemed to be its only ability, the slime now had many talents. It could become a glow-in-the-dark slime, use Detoxification, and even extend tentacles to handle tools.

Word of such a slime would naturally spread even in an ordinary village. If rumors spread before enough time had passed, they would only put it in danger. People might suspect that rather than quickly losing interest and releasing it, the lich had done something to it before letting it go. At least when an undead as formidable as a lich was involved, the Church's response was that extreme.

In the end, Smartass chose to...

▷Please wait here, Squishy. I'll go hunting and come back.

[Squishy]▶Okay!

...hunt animals in the forest himself.

+++

With Smartass gone, the slime was alone in the secret workshop. He had left his magical lights on, so the interior was bright.

It had already exercised, and it couldn't eat until Smartass returned.

'Want to see more!'

The slime decided to finish exploring Smartass's secret workshop, which it had only briefly looked around earlier.

BOING! BOING!

Using its springiness, the slime bounced up onto a desk in the secret workshop. Once there, it turned slightly to look around. Although slimes could see in every direction, focusing their attention in one direction allowed them to see more clearly and distinctly.

After looking over the workshop, the slime thought:

'So much dust!'

Just as Madam Cat's Cradle—the Arachne—had said, a considerable amount of dust had accumulated in the secret workshop. The shelves holding equipment for magical experiments, the desk the slime stood on, and even the floor were all covered in dust.

The only relatively dust-free spot was the chair Smartass usually sat in. His robe covered the seat, keeping at least some of the dust off.

An undead life required neither sleep nor meals, and without muscles, sitting still couldn't leave his body stiff or sore. On top of that, streams provided a constant source of entertainment. Apart from occasionally developing a new spell, he had scarcely moved—and the dust-covered secret workshop before the slime was the result.

Looking at the dusty room, the slime thought of a new game that seemed even more fun than further exploration.

'Cleaning!'

It would clean away all this dust.

The slime recalled the servants cleaning Count Rudendion's mansion with dusters, brooms, and rags. They shook off the dust and scrubbed things squeaky clean to keep dust from collecting. Now, imitating them became the slime's new game.

POP!

Extending a tentacle on either side, the slime immediately used Tentacle Transformation. It pictured a duster.

But...

'Can't do it!'

Although it had acquired the skill, the slime still couldn't reshape its tentacles into something as complicated as a duster.

That didn't mean it intended to give up cleaning.

'Make it wide!'

If a complicated shape like a duster wouldn't work, it could simply choose another shape.

Next, the slime chose the square cloths the servants had used to clean windows. The ends of its tentacles became thin, square pieces of cloth. With its cloth-shaped tentacles, it began by wiping the desktop around it.

'Squeaky clean!'

As its tentacles swept across the desk, the dust began to come away. The clear trails they left made it feel that it was accomplishing something.

'Fun!'

That feeling soon turned into delight.

After briskly wiping all the dust off the desk, the slime bounced down to clean the desk legs and the chair's seat. It loved seeing the dust disappear and everything become clean wherever its tentacles passed.

But wiping didn't get everything clean in one go.

'Huh?'

After all that cleaning, its tentacle cloths were covered in dust.

No matter how much it wiped, the dust no longer came off neatly as before. Instead, patches remained. Tilting its body in puzzlement, the slime turned a tentacle cloth over.

'Wow! So much dust!'

The slime marveled at the amount of dust clinging to its tentacle cloth. All that dust was proof of how hard it had worked at cleaning.

Looking at its dust-covered tentacles, the slime thought for a moment. What should it do with the dust stuck to them? It tried shaking them like dusters, but that only dropped the dust onto the floor.

'Water!'

Its next idea was to wet them. When the servants cleaned windows with the cloths it had imitated, it had seen them dip the cloths into a bowl of water and wring them out.

But...

'No water!'

No matter where it looked, there was no water in the secret workshop.

'Hmmmmmm...'

As it pondered the clumps of dust, the slime came up with a solution: absorb them itself.

Concentrating, the slime absorbed the dust through its dirty tentacles. It had started out eating moss in a cave, and now it could absorb poison without ill effects. Something like dust couldn't harm it at all. Once the dust had been absorbed, its cloth tentacles were as spotless as when it had first made them.

'Clean!'

After admiring its cloth tentacles in satisfaction, the slime resumed dusting.

+++

'This should be enough.'

Smartass, who had left the secret workshop to get the slime a meal, looked down at the animals he had hunted.

'I never imagined there'd be so many animals nearby.'

He had emerged right at the entrance to his secret workshop. The world outside looked nothing like he remembered. The site he had chosen for the workshop hadn't originally been particularly wooded. Now, trees large and small grew thickly enough that roots reached the area around the entrance. Not only that, but wild animals, once relatively scarce, were easy to find.

'I did build it somewhere people rarely went, but...'

He had never imagined it would change this much after thirty years.

Even as he marveled at the changes time had wrought, a new concern occurred to him.

'... Will Squishy actually eat this?'

Squishy had eaten moss and poisonous herbs in the beginning, but since then, it had been eating food prepared by humans. Would it happily eat meat from these animals now?

'I can roast it, but...'

Smartass had cooked many times during the journey to slay the black dragon. He knew how to cook, but...

'I don't have the ingredients.'

Meat and fire alone wouldn't solve everything. He could somehow prepare the meat with magic, but he had no salt, spices, or other ingredients. Getting hold of spices and the like would be difficult.

He had an emergency stash of money in the secret workshop, set aside just in case, but no way to go to a village and buy anything. His aura of death would inevitably give him away, and he couldn't take the slime along either.

'I'll make do with this today and work out the rest later.'

Deciding that satisfying the slime's hunger came first for now, Smartass felled a nearby tree and returned to the secret workshop.

And then...

"Huh? What's this?!"

The transformed workshop startled Smartass so badly that the flames in his eye sockets flickered. It had been dusty enough to draw criticism from the Arachne. Honestly, even after hearing her comments, he'd merely thought, Hmm, is it really that bad?

But now the workshop was different. Before, the accumulated dust had given the entire room a gray cast. Now, the distinct colors of each object stood out clearly.

SQUEAK! SQUEAK!

In the transformed workshop, the slime was still wiping a dusty spot with its cloth tentacles when it turned around.

'Huh? It's Smartass!'

BOING! BOING!

Delighted that Smartass was back, the slime bounced over to greet him.