Ackster hurriedly shoved the Doppelganger Slime into the bathroom. It would all be over if the kitchen staff so much as caught a glance of Ackster's replacement for tomorrow's battle. He had gone through so much to find and get his hands on the Doppelganger Slime. He couldn't let it all go down the drain because of a moment of carelessness.
Thankfully, he had gotten so far in teaching his replacement that it wouldn't matter if he changed his expressions and movements while locking it in the bathroom.
Ackster took a moment to collect himself before he opened his door with a sour expression. It was his last day before the duel with The Hero. It was only natural that Ackster was in a bad mood, even if only because he was basically on house arrest and not because he was going to die.
Well, everyone except the original Ackster would have been convinced of Ackster's death. But the original Ackster Phileam was the kind of character who didn't even accept reality even in the face of death. He was the kind of character who would die, blissfully unaware of even their own death since he had provoked someone whose movements he couldn't even see.
"What the fuck is this? Your mother telling you to lose weight doesn't mean you should bring me less food. It means you should stop stealing food from the kitchen."
Ackster angrily grabbed the plate from the kitchen staff's hands before berating him and motioning for him to get more.
Since Ackster seemed to be in an especially bad mood based on his even more hurtful words and the tired look on his face, the kitchen staff hurried away and hurried back with another couple of plates of food.
"Am I fucking rabbit? Why are you giving me grass to eat? Give me some proper fucking food before I turn you into a vegetable."
Since Ackster would need some food rich in minerals and a little heavier on the protein side for what he was going to spend the day doing, he didn't hold back in the amount of food he told the poor guy from the kitchen to get.
He was a little worried that the sudden increase in his food habits would attract some attention. But he hoped that no one would look into it. Not that they would find anything, even if they tried. At most, they would discover that Ackster's body was good at consuming food, which wasn't that strange considering everyone knew he had a body-strengthening skill.
It would also be too late to verify anything by the time anyone decided to realize Ackster had eaten for four people's worth with each meal without gaining that much size. Well, at least if Ackster's preparations worked.
When the kitchen staff finally came back with several steaks, medium rare, some poultry, some pork, and a few pieces of more exotic meat, Ackster began the next part in the Slime-preparation phase of his survive-the-Hero plan.
It would have slipped Ackster's mind if he hadn't been reminded of it when he subdued the Doppelganger Slime, but it needed blood to make the whole performance perfect.
When Ackster had first hit the Doppelganger Slime, he was surprised by it since Doppelganger Slimes couldn't mimic blood. They replicated blood vessels and the internal structure of the being they observed perfectly, but they couldn't copy the way blood worked when injured.
It would have been a glaring weakness with the Doppelganger Slimes' infiltration ability if there wasn't a relatively easy way to circumvent the Slimes' lack of blood.
The Doppelganger Slime had probably done it accidentally when mimicking the poison goblin, but it had somehow ingested blood. And that was what Ackster was going to do now. He was going to give the Doppelganger Slime a bunch of his blood.
The only problem was that it would take a lot. To make it perfect, he would have to use all the blood in his body since that would make things the most realistic.
Ackster felt his face pale before he even started drawing blood as he thought about what he would have to do. It wouldn't be something as simple as training a bit or remembering phrases and words that the original Ackster had used.
It also wasn't something that he could force himself to accept as the only way, even if he knew it was. It wasn't like the arm he had broken in a fight. He would have to open himself up and pour out all the blood inside him.
It wasn't something he looked forward to doing.
But he knew he had to, even if his body didn't agree. Good thing it wasn't his body.
Ackster sighed and resolved himself to go through with it. If he wanted to survive both this encounter with The Hero and the future, he couldn't let something like this stop him.
He grabbed all the food and entered the bathroom, where he stripped.
He only had a day and a night before the duel. He didn't have time to waste.
So, even if it felt weird, he would be eating the food naked.
Even if it were sticky and greasy, he would eat the food with his hands.
Even if it were unpleasant, he would be eating the food while sitting in the tub with the Doppelganger Slime, who looked exactly like himself if one disregarded the fact that one was clothed and one wasn't.
Even if it were revolting, he would be eating the food while bleeding like a gutted pig.
Ackster didn't have time to waste. He also couldn't bet on his body using the energy of the food for musclebuilding or regenerating older injuries if he ate it before he cut himself. And he definitely couldn't bet on his body surviving through the extreme blood loss and that he would be able to eat the food afterward.
He could eat a little before and a little afterward. But the logistically most reasonable decision, made without taking Ackster's personal feelings into account, would be to eat while his body broke down.
The energy and nourishment in the food would go to supplementing the energy he lost while regenerating the blood.
Without giving himself time to hesitate further, Ackster grabbed the knife he got for cutting the meat – the serrated edge was perfect for leaving wounds that wouldn't close up too quickly – and plunged it into his leg.