A proxy broadcast of Squishy, now shown from Troll's perspective.
At first, people thought it was just a substitute for the shut-off sli’s stream and didn’t complain much, but over ti, 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 sli not to turn on the broadcast until he left the secret workshop.
Because once the sli 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 ti quietly like this.
He understood people wanted to see the sli, so even providing a proxy stream should be sothing they were thankful for—that was Troll’s view.
Anyway, while they were watching the sli, Troll could just watch whatever stream he wanted.
His system screen wasn’t visible on the broadcast, so it was perfect for killing ti.
But not long after, a new problem ca 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 alti...
▶ But does Troll even have food at ho?
▶ 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 comnt.
Troll had forgotten one crucial issue.
That was the sli’s need for food.
As an undead, Troll didn’t need to eat, but the sli did.
▷ Squishy, what would you like to eat?
[Squishy] ▶ at! Paulen said so! If you work out, you have to eat at!
▶ No one can resist at.
[Noblesse Fire] ▶ The one who used to eat only grass has grown a lot.
‘at, huh...’
Troll started thinking.
How was he going to get at?
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 imdiately.
And he couldn’t just send the sli out to hunt by itself every alti either.
From what Troll had seen, the sli was curious, impulsive, and bold once it fixated on sothing.
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 sli now had many specialties.
It could beco glow-in-the-dark, had detox capabilities, and could even summon tentacles to use tools.
A sli like that would surely attract attention even in an ordinary village.
If rumors about the sli 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 so sche before releasing it.
At least when it ca to anything involving a powerful undead like a Lich, the Church's reaction was always extre.
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 sli.
Troll had left the lights on with magic, so the workshop was still bright.
The sli had already exercised and couldn’t eat until Troll returned.
‘I’ll explore more!’
The sli decided to continue exploring Troll’s secret workshop, which it had only glanced at earlier.
Boing! Boing!
Using its bounce, the sli jumped up onto a desk inside the workshop.
Once on the desk, it shifted slightly and took another look at the space.
Though slis 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 sli 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 sli 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 so of the dust.
No sleep needed, no muscles to get sore from sitting still, and no als necessary—such was the undead lifestyle.
Plus, with streaming as a constant source of entertainnt, aside from occasionally developing new spells, Troll spent most of his ti completely still—resulting in the dusty secret workshop the sli was now seeing.
Looking around the dust-filled space, the sli ca up with a new ga that seed even more fun than exploring further.
‘Cleaning!’
That’s right—cleaning up all the dust.
The sli 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 sli, imitating them now beca a new kind of play.
Pop!
The sli summoned tentacles on both sides and imdiately used tentacle transformation.
It imagined a feather duster.
But—
‘Nope!’
Though it had learned the skill, the sli still couldn’t reshape its tentacles into sothing as complex as a feather duster.
But that didn’t an 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 sli’s tentacles turned into thin, rectangular cloths.
Using its rag-shaped tentacles, the sli started by cleaning the desk area around itself.
‘Scrub scrub!’
As the sli’s tentacles swept across the desk, dust began to vanish.
Clear marks were left behind, giving the sli a sense that it was really accomplishing sothing.
‘This is fun!’
It soon turned into pure fun for the sli.
After wiping all the dust off the desk, the sli bounced—boing!—down to the floor and started cleaning the desk legs and chair area.
The sli enjoyed seeing the dust vanish and everything becoming cleaner with each swipe of its tentacle.
However, it didn’t beco spotless all at once.
‘Huh?’
As it kept cleaning, the sli’s tentacle-rag beca 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 sli flipped over its tentacle-rag.
‘Whoa! That’s a lot of dust!’
The sli marveled at the amount of dust stuck to it.
The sheer amount of dust was proof of how hard the sli had worked to clean.
Looking at the dust-covered tentacle, the sli 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 rembered the water.
It had seen servants dunk rags in water buckets and wring them out when cleaning windows.
But—
‘No water!’
Looking around, the sli found no water in the secret workshop.
After thinking hard about how to deal with the dusty ss, the sli ca up with an idea.
It would absorb it itself.
Focusing its consciousness, the sli absorbed the dust through its tentacle.
This was the sa sli 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 beca just as clean as it had been when first created.
‘Clean!’
Pleased with its spotless rag tentacle, the sli continued its dusting adventure.
***
‘This should be enough.’
Troll, who had left the secret workshop to gather food for the sli, 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 rembered.
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 an, 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 ti, 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 at now?
‘I an, I can cook it, but…’
Troll had cooked several tis during his journey to subjugate the black dragon.
He knew how to prepare als.
‘But I don’t have ingredients.’
at and fire alone weren’t enough.
While he could clean the at with magic, he had no salt or spices.
Getting spices was the real problem.
He had ergency 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 sli there either.
‘I’ll just make do with what I have for today and figure the rest out later.’
Deciding that feeding the sli ca 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 flas in his eye sockets flickered.
The secret workshop, once so dusty even the arachne had comnted 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 transford workshop, was the sli—still wiping the remaining dusty spots with its rag-tentacle.
‘Huh? It’s Troll!’
Boing! Boing!
The sli bounced happily toward the returning Troll.
User Comments
0 comments from readers