A proxy broadcast of Squishy, now shown from Troll's perspective.
At first, people thought it was just a substitute for the shut-off slime’s stream and didn’t complain much, but over time, dissatisfaction started to rise.
▶ Why isn’t Squishy just turning on the stream himself? Isn't it safe now? Can’t he just go live?
▷ I don’t want to show myself. I already asked Squishy for permission. Until he leaves my nest, he won’t turn it on.
[Noblesse Fire] ▶ Nobody’s even curious what you look like, okay?
[Gothic Luxury Bone] ▶ Wasn’t it already revealed that you’re also an undead anyway?
▷ There’s a big difference between showing a little and showing everything 🫨.
▶ Big difference 🥱.
Troll had planned in advance to ask the slime not to turn on the broadcast until he left the secret workshop.
Because once the slime started streaming, Troll’s own image would obviously appear too, and he could easily imagine the teasing reactions from the viewers.
Troll had watched enough broadcasts to know.
These damn viewers were experts at turning even the smallest quirks into material for mockery whenever they got bored.
‘I’m not giving them any ammo myself!’
No matter what the viewers said, Troll planned to just spend time quietly like this.
He understood people wanted to see the slime, so even providing a proxy stream should be something they were thankful for—that was Troll’s view.
Anyway, while they were watching the slime, Troll could just watch whatever stream he wanted.
His system screen wasn’t visible on the broadcast, so it was perfect for killing time.
But not long after, a new problem came knocking for Troll.
After finishing its exercise, Squishy bounced over to Troll—boing! boing!—and typed in the chat.
[Squishy] ▶ I’m hungry!
[SquishyQueen] ▶ You rascal Troll! What are you doing!
my kin says he’s hungry, don’t you hear?!
▶ Look at that fiery response lololol.
▶ It is mealtime...
▶ But does Troll even have food at home?
▶ Just give it one of his bones, maybe?
▶ Wouldn’t that kill Troll?
▶ Already dead, so who cares?
▶ LOLLLLL.
[Gothic Luxury Bone] ▶ That’s an anti-undead hate comment.
Troll had forgotten one crucial issue.
That was the slime’s need for food.
As an undead, Troll didn’t need to eat, but the slime did.
▷ Squishy, what would you like to eat?
[Squishy] ▶ Meat! Paulen said so! If you work out, you have to eat meat!
▶ No one can resist meat.
[Noblesse Fire] ▶ The one who used to eat only grass has grown a lot.
‘Meat, huh...’
Troll started thinking.
How was he going to get meat?
Of course, he couldn’t just go to a human village to get it.
Even if he disguised himself, the deathly aura radiating from Lich-Troll was enough to make people afraid—even without a priest—so he’d be found out immediately.
And he couldn’t just send the slime out to hunt by itself every mealtime either.
From what Troll had seen, the slime was curious, impulsive, and bold once it fixated on something.
There was a chance it might throw a tantrum and say it didn’t want to return to the workshop once it went outside, and more dangerously, if it accidentally ran into a human, it might follow them.
Unlike in the beginning when it only knew how to body slam, the slime now had many specialties.
It could become glow-in-the-dark, had detox capabilities, and could even summon tentacles to use tools.
A slime like that would surely attract attention even in an ordinary village.
If rumors about the slime spread too soon, it would actually be in danger.
People might not think the Lich just got bored and let it go—they’d suspect he pulled some scheme before releasing it.
At least when it came to anything involving a powerful undead like a Lich, the Church's reaction was always extreme.
So, Troll decided on a solution.
▷ Squishy, please wait. I’ll go hunt.
[Squishy] ▶ Okay!
▶ He’d go hunt animals in the forest himself.
***
Now, the secret workshop was left with only the slime.
Troll had left the lights on with magic, so the workshop was still bright.
The slime had already exercised and couldn’t eat until Troll returned.
‘I’ll explore more!’
The slime decided to continue exploring Troll’s secret workshop, which it had only glanced at earlier.
Boing! Boing!
Using its bounce, the slime jumped up onto a desk inside the workshop.
Once on the desk, it shifted slightly and took another look at the space.
Though slimes could see in every direction, concentrating their awareness in one direction allowed them to see things more clearly and vividly.
After another scan of the secret workshop, the slime had a thought.
‘So dusty!’
Thread-Lady
Just like the arachne had said, there was a lot of dust in the workshop.
The display shelves with magical tools, the desk the slime was now on, and even the floor were all covered in dust.
The only relatively dust-free item was the chair Troll usually sat on.
Because the robe draped over the seat blocked some of the dust.
No sleep needed, no muscles to get sore from sitting still, and no meals necessary—such was the undead lifestyle.
Plus, with streaming as a constant source of entertainment, aside from occasionally developing new spells, Troll spent most of his time completely still—resulting in the dusty secret workshop the slime was now seeing.
Looking around the dust-filled space, the slime came up with a new game that seemed even more fun than exploring further.
‘Cleaning!’
That’s right—cleaning up all the dust.
The slime recalled the servants at Count Ludendion’s mansion cleaning with dusters, brooms, and rags.
They dusted thoroughly and scrubbed everything to a shine.
To the slime, imitating them now became a new kind of play.
Pop!
The slime summoned tentacles on both sides and immediately used tentacle transformation.
It imagined a feather duster.
But—
‘Nope!’
Though it had learned the skill, the slime still couldn’t reshape its tentacles into something as complex as a feather duster.
But that didn’t mean it was going to give up cleaning.
‘Wider!’
If a feather duster was too complex, it could just choose a different shape.
The next form it picked was the square cloth that the servants used to wipe windows.
The ends of the slime’s tentacles turned into thin, rectangular cloths.
Using its rag-shaped tentacles, the slime started by cleaning the desk area around itself.
‘Scrub scrub!’
As the slime’s tentacles swept across the desk, dust began to vanish.
Clear marks were left behind, giving the slime a sense that it was really accomplishing something.
‘This is fun!’
It soon turned into pure fun for the slime.
After wiping all the dust off the desk, the slime bounced—boing!—down to the floor and started cleaning the desk legs and chair area.
The slime enjoyed seeing the dust vanish and everything becoming cleaner with each swipe of its tentacle.
However, it didn’t become spotless all at once.
‘Huh?’
As it kept cleaning, the slime’s tentacle-rag became completely covered in dust.
No matter how hard it wiped, it couldn't clean as well as before, and patches of dust began to remain.
Tilting its body in confusion, the slime flipped over its tentacle-rag.
‘Whoa! That’s a lot of dust!’
The slime marveled at the amount of dust stuck to it.
The sheer amount of dust was proof of how hard the slime had worked to clean.
Looking at the dust-covered tentacle, the slime paused to think.
What should it do with the collected dust?
It tried shaking it off like a duster, but the dust just fell to the floor.
‘Water!’
Then it remembered the water.
It had seen servants dunk rags in water buckets and wring them out when cleaning windows.
But—
‘No water!’
Looking around, the slime found no water in the secret workshop.
After thinking hard about how to deal with the dusty mess, the slime came up with an idea.
It would absorb it itself.
Focusing its consciousness, the slime absorbed the dust through its tentacle.
This was the same slime that used to eat moss in caves and now could absorb poison with no problem—dust was nothing to it.
Once it absorbed the dust, the tentacle-rag became just as clean as it had been when first created.
‘Clean!’
Pleased with its spotless rag tentacle, the slime continued its dusting adventure.
***
‘This should be enough.’
Troll, who had left the secret workshop to gather food for the slime, looked down at the animals he’d hunted.
‘I didn’t expect this many animals to be around here.’
The place where Troll had gone was just outside the entrance of the secret workshop.
But the area outside looked completely different from what he remembered.
The location he had chosen for the secret workshop hadn’t been all that forested originally.
But now, trees big and small were thickly clustered around the entrance, with roots visibly spreading.
And unlike before, wild animals were much easier to find.
‘I mean, I did pick a remote place to begin with, but…’
Still, he didn’t expect it to change this much in thirty years.
As he marveled at the effects of time, a new worry crept into Troll’s mind.
‘…Will Squishy actually eat this?’
Squishy had once eaten moss and even poisonous herbs, but ever since, it had only been eating cooked food made by humans.
Would it still be okay with raw animal meat now?
‘I mean, I can cook it, but…’
Troll had cooked several times during his journey to subjugate the black dragon.
He knew how to prepare meals.
‘But I don’t have ingredients.’
Meat and fire alone weren’t enough.
While he could clean the meat with magic, he had no salt or spices.
Getting spices was the real problem.
He had emergency funds stashed in the workshop just in case, but no way to actually buy anything from town.
If he went himself, people would sense his death aura.
And he couldn’t exactly take the slime there either.
‘I’ll just make do with what I have for today and figure the rest out later.’
Deciding that feeding the slime came first, Troll cut down a nearby tree and returned to the workshop.
And then—
‘Huh? What is this!’
Troll was so shocked by the changed workshop that the flames in his eye sockets flickered.
The secret workshop, once so dusty even the arachne had commented on it.
Even then, Troll had dismissed her warning, thinking, “Eh, how bad can it be?”
But now, the workshop looked nothing like before.
Once blanketed in dust and colored in dull gray, the workshop now showed off the vibrant, unique hues of each object.
Squeak squeak!
And there, in the newly transformed workshop, was the slime—still wiping the remaining dusty spots with its rag-tentacle.
‘Huh? It’s Troll!’
Boing! Boing!
The slime bounced happily toward the returning Troll.