(MC POV)
I woke up to the feeling of something pressing against my chest.
I looked down to see Cai Hong nuzzling against me in her sleep, the little dragon purring softly as she did so.
So cute.
Then I noticed that Xun Guan was in her slime form on the chair near the bedside. That was odd since she never leaves my side unless I told her to, so something must have happened for her to do so.
"Xun Guan? Did something happen?" I asked.
She wiggled, "Oh! Good morning Master! Before I say anything, could you tell me what a good girl I am?"
I smiled wryly at her, "Really? What's this about?"
"Fufufu~ Could Master praise me first, please?"
"Hmm… Fine. You're a good girl, Xun Guan."
"Ehehehehe~ Master praised me!"
I coughed, "Ahem. So what's this about?"
"Oh! Right! Last night that Dark Sect slime came by. I believe it was trying to control Master like how it was controlling everyone else. So I captured it!"
Oho? That's weird. Did it know who I really was and thus tried to control me? How odd.
I doubt it would have succeeded anyway since I did have protection inscriptions in place to prevent this from happening. I had already expected such a possibility after knowing who our enemy was, but it seems like such preparations were unneeded since Xun Guan dealt with it easily.
But still, I'm surprised Iris didn't wake me up.
'Ara? Why would I wake Master up over something so trivial? If this slime thing Master is keeping as a pet didn't have the capability to protect Master from such trivialities, I wouldn't even have allowed her to get close to Master. And if she didn't, then the other slime thing wouldn't have existed either.'
Ah, I see. I suppose that's a compliment since Iris does trust Xun Guan to protect me.
'Oya? I suppose it is~ Although if it had woken Master up while I was admiring your sleeping face, I would have Ended its existence too~"
This woman...
I reached forward and patted the slime girl, "Good work, Xun Guan."
"Kyaaa~~ Master praised me twice! This is the best day ever!"
No wonder she wanted me to praise her first, this sneaky girl.
"So where's that slime now?"
"Ehehehe~ I consumed it and held it in stasis inside me, Master. Should I spit it out now?"
I shook my head, "Let's do this in the sitting room, give me a moment…"
I moved Cai Hong onto the bed slowly, making sure not to wake the little dragon up before climbing out of bed myself.
Once free from the little dragon's cuddle, I gestured for Xun Guan to follow me to the sitting room so that we could begin interrogating the slime.
Xun Guan moved to the centre of the room before her body expanded and shrunk quickly, shooting out a red puddle in front of her.
The red puddle stayed there for a few seconds before it reformed into the shape of a slime blob, looking quite disoriented.
"Whe… Where am I?" The red slime muttered.
"Hello there," I greeted, causing the slime to recoil away from me.
I'm not sure what those little wiggly things that appeared around its body were but I assume it was adopting a fighting stance.
Seeing that I have its attention, I gave it a little wave, "Yes, hi. I believe you were trying to control me or something and got your ass handed to you, yes?"
The red slime moved slightly.
It's hard to tell since it didn't have facial features, but I believe it was looking at Xun Guan who was sitting smugly on my lap.
Since it didn't answer me, I continued, "We can do this the easy way where I ask you questions and you answer them truthfully. If you do, I may let you leave here in one piece. Or, if you'd rather, we can do this the hard way where I will still get the answers I seek, but you may be begging me to kill you by the end of it."
The red slime ignored my words and made its body rigid, then it slowly melted into a red puddle.
"Oh, it actually went ahead to shatter its own slime core. That's got to hurt," Xun Guan commented casually, still busy rubbing herself on my chest.
Well, can't say I didn't expect it to do that and Xun Guan must have known I could deal with it committing suicide so she was being quite casual about it.
I mean, if I really wanted to, I didn't even need to ask it to spill the truth, either omniscience or Iris could have just told me but where was the fun in that? Isn't it better to wring it out from your enemies themselves?
So I snapped my fingers and removed the Origin of the slime shattering its own slime core, causing it to come back alive as though nothing had happened.
"Eh?" It let out a surprised gasp.
I smiled at the slime, "Welcome back to life. I can do this all day, just to let you know, so let me know when you're ready to talk."
Like I had expected, it was not interested in talking and tried to impale me with some kind of water spike shot out from its body.
It wouldn't have hurt me even if it hit anyway but Xun Guan intercepted it nonetheless and even gave the red slime a slap with her own tentacle. I knew that slap was meant more as an insult to the red slime than an actual attack.
The red slime wanted to try again but Xun Guan slapped it one more time before it could, the slime girl obviously enjoying the torment she was giving it.
The red slime then gave up trying to attack me and shattered its own slime core again, killing itself one more time.
I waved my hand over it and altered its Origin again, returning it back to life.
The slime did not waste any time in killing itself once more, not even giving me a chance to say anything.
This continued for about ten more times before it finally paused long enough for me to speak to it.
"You think I'm kidding when I told you I can do this all day? Do you even know who I am when you tried to control me?"
The red slime was radiating an aura of obvious anger, "No! Why the hell would I care about who you are?!"
"Oh? And here I thought you wanted to try and control me because of who I am. Guess I was wrong about that."
"Who would care about a nobody like you?!"
"Huh… So why did you even want to control me?"
"Grrr… You're close to the phoenix aren't you?! I don't know if I could control her completely so I wanted to use you to spy on her first!"
"Oh, so you're willing to talk now eh?"
"Fuck you!" It roared, spitting out several water spikes at me.
All of them were intercepted by Xun Guan midair before the slime girl slapped the red slime again, radiating an aura of boredom as she did so.
I let the red slime fume for a while before smiling and tapping my chest, prompting the Xun Guan clone to reveal my real face dramatically.
The red slime immediately stopped moving once it recognised who I was, even I could tell it was terrified despite it not having a face.
I smiled serenely at it, "Now… Do you still want me to do this the hard way, or the easy way?"
