At some point when I was lost in thought, DH1M and GDR departed together. With them gone, only me and midget White remained.
She'd been unusually docile in spite of how I was treating her.
"When are you going to stop acting and let me down, you defwective NPC?"
"Acting, what do you mean?"
"Don't play dumb."
"Little girl, what is your name?"
"Wha… you really don't know?"
"No, did you introduce yourself to me before?"
The little girl in my arms suddenly fell silent. I could tell she was seriously weighing her options. To clench her teeth, take one for the team, and act like a good little girl so she could potentially squeeze information on how to trigger the main storyline out of me, or to reveal her identity, and lose out on this wonderful opportunity; that was the great dilemma she currently faced.
"Uncle, my name is Blanc."
"Blanc? What a weird name for a little hero." How cute, you couldn't think of anything better so you went with french for white. Do I look like an idiot to you?
"Uncle, I may look little, but I can definitely beat you in a fight."
"Oh? You think you can beat me in a fight? Well, aren't you just adorable?"
"Then I'll prove it, let's go outside the village and compete to see who can kill the most monsters."
"I don't know about that. If we aren't careful, you might just die and have your character wiped you know." Hehehe. It might be fun though. I could let her get 'accidentally' surrounded by high-level mobs and wait for her to beg me to help her. Though, looking at her face, I knew she was also scheming something. I already had a pretty good idea of what it was.
Hehehe. We were both plotting against each other. It was truly a wonderful world.
Well, as long as it's me I could ensure our safety no matter what she tries.
"Please, Uncle, I really want to try fighting some mobs. I'm new to the game and just started."
"Oh, you're new? Hmm, I guess we can take on a few low-level mobs so you can at least get the hang of things."
"Yay! Uncle is the best." I didn't miss the sinister intent hidden within her words. However, with her not facing me, she certainly never noticed the sinister smile that had formed on my face.
"Hahaha. Such an adorable child."
"No, no. Uncle is such a handsome man."
"No no no. It's you who is too cute."
"Hehehe." She laughed innocently, playing the part of a naive little girl perfectly.
"Hahaha." I laughed a jubilant laugh, playing the part of the ideal role model uncle.
If someone were to look at us, all they would see were two crazy people laughing sinisterly, ready to betray each other at the drop of a hat.
We were truly two psychotic peas in a pod. Some might even call us a dynamic duo.
I carried the girl in my arms out of the beginner village. We arrived at a field filled with a bunch of low-level Slimes.
"Uncle, put me down now so I can fight the Swimes." She bit her tongue again.
"Okay. Just be careful. Only fight one at a time so you don't get overwhelmed."
"Yeah."
I finally let her down and she took out a beginner sword from her inventory.
"How about this, if you kill more Slimes than me in ten minutes, I'll give you a better weapon."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Don't regret your words, Uncle."
"Don't worry, I won't. There's no way a little girl like you can kill more Slimes than me."
Midget White pouted but remained silent. She had an attitude of, 'Keep running your mouth off, you'll soon be eating your words and regret underestimating me, you defective NPC.'
White ran up to a Slime with a beginner's sword in her tiny hand and unleashed a vertical slash into it. The Slime lost a quarter of its HP but immediately launched an attack in retaliation. The midget skillfully side-stepped the Slime's attack and instantly launched a spinning horizontal slash.
With the Slime down to half HP, the midget jumped back right as the Slime jumped up in the air to ground pound and deliver a small AOE attack in all directions. When it landed on the ground, its body compressed as it utilized the natural elastic properties of its body, converting the kinetic energy from its downward fall into a horizontal force in a circular rebound attack.
As soon as the Slime's body receded, little White jumped forward and quickly landed two successive slashes in a cross shape.
While she was in the middle of doing all that, I'd casually walked over to a Slime while she wasn't paying attention and I… spit on it. The Slime instantly died the second my spit landed on it.
When her Slime died, she turned to face me with a complacent smile, however, as soon as she saw the remnants of the dead Slime at my feet, her expression stiffened.
"Cheater, when did you kill that Slime? How did you kill it faster than me? It only took me 13 seconds to kill mine. How could you be faster when you're level 1 like me and I have the advantage of being a hero while you're just a guide?"
"Well… I kind of just spit on it and it died."
"What?"
"You see, I've smoked so much in my life that it seems my spit has become extremely toxic to Slimes." A natural lie, of course.
"No way! Do it again. I don't believe you, you must have cheated."
"If you say so, but should you really be slacking off? You'll lose you know."
"Ugh."
She immediately ran to another Slime but kept a close eye on me. When I spit on another Slime it instantly died.
"Man, what should I do? Such a problem... I might run out of spit at this rate."
She nearly tripped in the middle of killing a Slime when she heard my complaint. She retorted, "Then fight them normally, you cheating Uncle!"
"Eh? No way, I'm no hero. I'll die if I do something like that."
"Tsk. Uncle, you're being mean~ You're bullying an innocent little child like me." She pouted cutely and put on the act of a pure child, but I still didn't miss her lip twitch. She really was going all-in on this little farce of ours.
"Oh no, my back. I think I pulled a muscle. Whatever will I do? I won't be able to keep up with your pace since I'll take too long to get to each Slime." I gave her a bit of hope by slowing down my pace.
The two of us continued killing Slimes for the next ten minutes. When there were only 30 seconds remaining, she'd killed 31 Slimes while I'd killed 32. She'd been edging her way deeper into the forest the entire time. I gave her a warning every now and then to not venture too deep into the forest. That was just for show, I couldn't care less for whatever she was trying to pull. Of course, she naturally never heeded any of my half-hearted warnings.
It was only now when time was almost up that she made a move. She'd been secretly pulling agro for mobs in the distance for a while now by throwing small pebbles at them. They were starting to close in on us. She thought that I hadn't noticed a thing, but I was no moron. I knew she was plotting against me long in advance, but I did nothing as she was doing exactly what I wanted her to.
Hehehehe.
Just wait you brat, you'll begrudgingly be calling me your father with deep respect by the end of this.
"Ah! Where did all these mobs come from? Uncle, help me!" When she noticed she was surrounded she ran toward me in a fluster. She'd pulled quite the number of goblins, some were perched up on tree branches overhead, while others were on the ground closing in on us.
"I told you to not go in too deep. We need to get out of here."
"Yeah."
When I turned around, my eyes opened wide. Our path of retreat was also blocked off.
"Crap. This is bad."
"What do you mean, Uncle?"
"We can't escape the way we came. Mobs have respawned close together behind us. There are also wolves that snuck up on us from behind."
"What? Oh no, what do we do?" She asked in a panic. Hehehe. You think I'm fooled by that fake look of fear in your eyes?
"Wait. Uncle, I have an idea on how we can escape."
"Really? What is it?"
"Uh, but Uncle has to promise to do one thing for me."
"Haaaah. I can already tell what your plan is. It won't work though."
"Eh? What do you mean you know what my plan is?"
"It's alright, you don't have to do it."
"Do what? Wait, Uncle, can you please listen to my request first?"
"No, it's fine. It was my fault for bringing you out here like this and getting you into this sort of situation. I was careless. I should have stopped you from wandering too deep into the forest. I didn't think it would turn out like this."
"No... Uncle, really, please just listen to me for a second."
I squat down to eye level. I looked her in the eyes with a deep expression of care.
"You really remind me of her."
"Remind you of-"