Chapter 14: Chapter 14: Settling in

Chapter 14: Settling in

Thomas ran, Karl following him. He had tried to get the slime to run on its own, but Karl had simply blinked at him, until Thomas had taken off running.

This morning, the brown-eyed adventurer had been happy. The scales showed him 107 kilograms and 800 grams. Considering that he had not been in the forest for more than a couple of hours before finding Bull's Horns Ranch, he knew for a fact that he had lost 800 grams in a single day.

True, most of that, if not all, was water. Lucius's booklet had let him know that the first week, he would be purging himself from the extra water. Still, Thomas felt happy.

He figured that, some exercise before breakfast would do him much good. So, instead of trying to explain to Karl that he had to run around the ranch on his own, Thomas let the slime-dragon chase after him.

If the slime wanted to, it could easily bypass him. Yet, it trailed two steps behind him, and stopped when Thomas stopped. What the summoner wanted was for him to make a full turn around the fence. So far, he had been running for an hour, with breaks here and there, and the end of the fence was nowhere to be seen.

Finally, the human's legs gave out from under him, and he toppled to the ground. Huffing, he stared at the fence, which was not even repainted in this stretch.

"Karl, I think that we won't be able to reach the end today," Thomas stood, and then climbed over Karl's back. Making himself comfortable, he tugged at the horns.

Karl moved back the way they had come from. They passed a meadow with wild flowers, and Thomas got an idea.

"Karl, stop," the summoner patted Karl on the head three times. Their signal for stopping. Then, Thomas got off.

If he kept feeding Karl cucumbers and gave him just one bucket of water per day, the slime was never going to become a big dragon. Currently, it just looked like an overgrown lizard. Still, Thomas believed that it could become better, bigger, stronger.

"These will be your hunting grounds," Thomas said, as he pointed at the meadow. "You will stay in here."

Karl tilted his head, his eyes blinking up at Thomas. The man sighed, went to the nearest plant, bent down, and pretended to eat it. Karl ran up to his summoner, and took a chomp out of the flower.

No matter how many times Thomas saw it happen, he still found the process fascinating. The things that the slime ate were whole in his stomach. Until the acid that made up the slime's innards began to dissolve them.

"Stay and eat," Thomas commanded. Then, he turned around as he heard Karl chomping down on a tree, and walked back towards the ranch.

Owen was waiting for him by the gate, with a basket, the bucket with the paint, and a brush.

"I expect for you to come to work earlier," Owen chastised. Thomas looked up at the sky, and noted that it was very high up.

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"Sorry, I lost track of time. It won't happen again," the adventurer assured the old man. Owen handed him what he was carrying, and went behind the farm house to do what he did during this time of day.

With more than a little curiosity, the brown-eyed man looked inside the basket. There was the same as what he had eaten for dinner, down to the portion size. He grinned, and polished the food off.

Then, he washed his hands with the water of a bucket that was on the side, and he took the bucket with the paint and the brush, heading to where he had stopped painting the day before.

About an hour in, Thomas decided that there had to be a better and faster way of doing this. Lucius's words that he needed to practice his mana control came back to him.

The adventurer touched the bucket, and poured mana in. Then, he made it go up and out of the bucket, together with the paint. After which, Thomas made the paint spread itself across the fence. His mana, much like the brush, was being made to move the paint.

It took a lot of concentration out of him, but the newly painted area didn't look any different from the formally painted one. With a grin, Thomas went and took another bucket and repeated the process.

Ten buckets later, he was out of mana and the fence still looked endless. He grinned at his handiwork. Yesterday, he had worked from noon to sundown, and had managed to empty just two buckets. Now, he had gone through eleven.

Thomas still got up and took the twelfth bucket, and began to paint the old-fashioned way. There was still plenty of time before sundown. The more he got done, the faster he would see the end of the fence.

Deciding to get some more practice in, the former receptionist decided to try and get a feel for the surrounding mana. He could feel every insect, the farm animals, and something massive where he had left Karl.

Now that Thomas thought on it, it had been risky to let Karl get as much biomass as he wanted. The slime liked to put him to the test. Sure, they had a contract, but that didn't mean that Karl wouldn't try and attack him, if he deemed him too weak.

Sundown came, and he returned the fourteenth empty bucket to where he took the buckets from. Then, he went to the meadow where he had left Karl.

What he found there was something he would never forget. The meadow was bare, and all the surrounding trees were uprooted and gone.

In their place, was Karl. As big as a small hill, and sleeping. The slime-dragon cracked an eye open, and nosed its way towards its summoner. Thomas touched the slime nose, and noticed that Karl was trying to give him the balm feeling again.

"You will have to stay in here, Karl," Thomas told the slime. "But, not alone. Wait in here while I have dinner. Then, I am coming to sleep next to you."

It was not like he was going to leave his dragon behind. No way in hell. Karl blinked at him, but didn't follow when Thomas went back towards the farmhouse. One day, Thomas hoped to have a conversation with Karl. After all, dragons could speak.

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