When Eli arrived home that afternoon, the house echoed with the accompanying song shown to the child.
Eli didn't find it funny and didn't open his mouth to taunt Middendorffi but asked, "What are you learning?"
Middendorffi often drew information about human society from various videos, and it was no surprise that she was watching anything. But this time, the purpose wasn't to learn; he turned off the video on his tablet and returned, "I want to see if the 'invaders' will come."
This refers to the entity in parenting videos, the "intruder" that may arise and take the child away when the infant or toddler is left alone. If a parent listens to a video brought to them by this entity for an extended period, suicidal intent can skyrocket.
"You want to see it for yourself?" Eli wasn't surprised by the response, "And then what? Eat it?"
Middendorffi nodded, "If I may."
"When we first met, you were keen to be alone for a while." Eli said, "Is that when you wanted to try and see it?"
Middendorffi nodded again.
"Simulating a baby shouldn't be difficult for you at your current level." Eli said, "But would it not be able to tell the difference between a real human and a mimic you? The 'Collector' said it could tell pseudo-humans apart, and aren't pseudo-humans mimicking humans?"
"I don't know, I'll just try." Middendorffi said, "Not coming."
"Intruder, Red Moon, it seems you wouldn't be idle if left alone." Eli said, "Red Moon might be mechanical, though, not edible. You shouldn't expose yourself easily to it if you don't have to."
Middendorffi let out an "Oh."
Eli asks again, "So what are you eating now? The energy of human food should be a drop in the bucket for you."
"Not much." Middendorffi thought momentarily, "When I first came here, I ate two things humans couldn't see. Haven't eaten any since becoming a Middendorffi ... until yesterday."
"You're a real ..." Eli said, "If I hadn't come, were you planning on just going out and consuming slowly?"
"There's nothing that would consume me here." Middendorffi looked at his hands, "I don't generate much consumption by maintaining this now. There's no danger in being a normal human in human society."
Eli said, "You want to be an ordinary human?"
Middendorffi looked at him and didn't answer.
"... Well, it's my fault, I wasn't clear. At that point, I thought ... forget it; I don't make excuses." Eli said, "So, since I'm here, I'll come get you food later, right?"
Middendorffi suddenly came to an epiphany, "The more you gave me the other day was for me to eat?"
"Otherwise? You even ate the brat, and that ore hasn't been eaten yet?"
"Nope." Middendorffi said, "I'm afraid it's hard to explain if you ask. The brat could have said he accidentally opened the cap and let it go."
Eli was helpless, "You don't think I can't tell who you are, do you? That Zhang Dao could tell, am I not as capable as him?"
"At first, I thought I'd fooled you." Middendorffi replied frankly, "Then I thought you should have seen it. But you may have been unsure, or perhaps you prefer human friends..."
"I didn't expose you because I saw you having fun acting, and I thought you just wanted to be human!" Eli had the rare feeling of wanting to grit his teeth. He closed his eyes, then opened them and stared at Middendorffi, "I don't see who you are, that I would get this close to you, that I would talk to you about having a connection, that I would give you things and casually joke about borrowing money? Is that the kind of person I am to you?"
Middendorffi returned, "I haven't seen much of you interacting with other people normally."
Eli choked on him again.
How, he thought he was being reasonable, but Middendorffi was right. Even Eli, who believed he knew Middendorffi best, sometimes overlooked that Middendorffi was essentially ... not a human. He can simulate human beings but may need help understanding the logic of human emotions. Eli can not force Middendorffi to be able to read and understand the ideology of all his own words, as well as the deeper emotions.
Middendorffi understands things and often sees what he knows, which is as high a level as a non-human, even an ethereal entity, can achieve. The psychiatrist's comment that he has a low level of empathy is very polite; Middendorffi is simply mimicking the behavioural standards of other humans, and if you ask him if he has any emotions of his own, they can be so low as to be negligible.
--except for Eli.
Eli knows that Middendorffi cares about himself and only himself. So, being misunderstood by Middendorffi, Eli couldn't blame Middendorffi even though he felt wronged.
He could only give a silent sigh, ''I don't blame you that you would misunderstand me like that. From the beginning, let me explain what I thought and what happened after we parted ways."
Middendorffi nods.
Eli added, "Go ahead and eat the ore you were given; don't keep it to look at; that's what I'm saving for you to eat. The rest will be slowly given to you as snacks later."
With that, Middendorffi turned his head, went into the bedroom, and came back out again, just as if he'd gone for a stroll. Eli knew he'd swallowed the ore, though, and it wouldn't take Middendorffi a second to devour something like that. He was willing to walk in as a human and was already very used to being human.
The two then sat side by side on the couch and began to talk.
They didn't need to eat or rest regularly, and the conversation continued for a long time.
***
Eli and Middendorffi met in a barren, chaotic and brutal world.
Compared to that world, the world where the two now meet again is far, far too peaceful.
Middendorffi is the "original inhabitant" of that world; at that time, he still did not have any fixed shape of the fog, born in the formless, can only be called "it". He didn't know how he was born, but by the time he became conscious, he had already established a pattern of surviving by devouring other energies.
This sounds simple enough; in a dim place, it is like a natural fog, easy to hide. But in this world of scarce resources, anything that could exist was not weak. The black mist was imbued with energy; how could an expert not know that? So the Black Mist, like any other existence, the Black Mist lived a life of either eating others or being eaten; oh, they didn't have much of a concept of living a life at all.
Until one day, the black mist came across a demonic beast that was about to die and instinctively pounced on it to devour it. However, an extremely terrifying force arrived instantly the next moment, directly splitting the black mist in two. The black mist in the middle was cut down to nothing by the sword energy, just like the "Moses parting the sea" that Middendorffi knew later.
If it weren't for the black mist dodging in the nick of time, it would have faded away.
"Dare you rob me?"
Eli, who came over with the sword, was covered in a horrifyingly hostile aura. With another strike of the blade, the black mist, which had its power partially cut away, immediately ran away like a black tumbleweed.
Eli didn't bother to chase after him, only digging out something from the belly of the magical beast. Then, he stopped caring about the massive mountain of corpses and turned away.
The black fog spread back again when he was far away, wrapping up the entire corpse. The black mist was still a little thin around the edges after wrapping something this big, and the contents could be vaguely seen. However, after the black mist swallowed the corpse to the dregs, it vaguely became more solid.
From then on, the black mist was far behind Eli.
After Eli killed those demonic trolls, he only took the parts he needed, usually just a little bit, and left the rest where it was. These were useless to him but just right for the black mist. The black mist that followed him was like a scavenger, sweeping away the tattered remains and cleaning up the traces left by Eli. he was wary of it at first, but after a long time, he got used to it following him around. Sometimes, there were just too many colours to see in the wilderness, and Eli would make a point of returning to the black mist to find something different.
After that, the fog got closer and closer, and when Eli was resting, he stayed there, pretending that he was lowering his guard and the mist wouldn't come near or affect him without permission. Eli knew this wasn't quite "taming", but having a peaceful presence in this dangerous world still gave Eli some vague comfort.
So, when the kills weren't so big, Eli started throwing the rest of the unused parts directly to the black mist to swallow.
Even the first time he threw it, the black mist didn't hesitate to devour the entire corpse of the magical beast without any crumbs left. Eli quietly watched, his heart shallowly rippled. This black mist trusts itself like this and is not afraid of adding something to it.
--Or perhaps it simply needs to understand these intrigues and tricks...
In any case, the relationship between the human and the black mist eventually became closer and occasionally became like walking side by side. Although the black mist has become a "soft food, eat leftovers" lying flat faction, the size of the real continues to grow, and the colour also continues to deepen; Eli feeds it, and I feel like I am throwing things into the endless abyss as if to be provided forever.
After feeding it for a long time, Eli also thought about whether or not to turn the black mist into his contracted beast. But he didn't even understand this Black Mist, so how could he talk about a contract? He could only give his mind a rest.
They went on like this for a long time; one day, after all, as powerful as Eli, they also encountered an excellent opponent.
The beast has both physical and legal attacks; the sense of intimidation is very strong; Eli cannot attack for a long time, but it also becomes a life-and-death battle that can not go. Just as the beast took advantage of the gap, opened its bloody mouth and rushed straight to Eli, when it was too late, the black fog swooped in front of Eli!
Instead of taking the opportunity to swallow Eli, it lunged straight at the behemoth and wrapped around it! The solid, corrosive, and devouring power hurt the beast momentarily, hissing and frantically shaking it off. The manipulative wind power inherent to its body curled around the black mist, breaking it up wildly and making it difficult to merge. When most of the black mist dispersed and only the thick ink-like core remained, the giant beast opened its mouth wide and instantly swallowed it in its stomach!
At that exact moment, Eli's re-coalesced terrifying strike also arrived, the sharp longsword plunging straight into the behemoth's back-
"Spit it out!!!"