[Ding! The Autonomous Doll received your forced kiss. Favorability +5! Current favorability: 5]
[Ding! The Autonomous Doll received your forced pounce. Favorability +10! Current favorability: 15]
[Ding! The Autonomous Doll felt your desire to save her. Favorability +15! Current favorability: 30]
…
At the moment Lin Ran woke up, the system notification sounds burst out like bamboo shoots after a rain.
It seemed that while he was unconscious, the system couldn’t contact him, so it just piled up the prompt messages in the background and dumped them all on him once he woke up.
In any case… as for the Autonomous Doll’s favorability—
[Autonomous Doll—Favorability: 99 (She might attack you at night)]
[System Evaluation: 99 is the system’s limit, not the limit between you and her!]
Don’t use such terrifying metaphors to describe favorability!
Not only that, the system rewards were also piled up like a mountain in the system’s backend messages.
But Lin Ran didn’t plan to collect the rewards right now.
He decided to wait a bit.
After all, the scene in front of him was indeed a bit…
His dorm was almost filled with dolls.
It was the first wave, the non-evolved mini versions of the dolls, about the same size as a little slime after taking human form.
The Little Dolls near him kept scratching at him, completely harmless—the only thing he felt was ticklish.
Honestly, they were kind of cute.
—If only he hadn’t seen what they looked like after evolving in his dream.
Lin Ran already had PTSD.
Seeing them made him remember the dizzy moment when his head hit the ground.
The thought of what terrifying forms they would evolve into made him a bit nauseous.
As for Lim and the others, it seemed they had stayed by his side while he slept.
The moment she saw him awake, Lim threw herself onto him, crying.
“Uwah… I thought… I thought you wouldn’t wake up…”
At least this Lim was the real one this time…
Lin Ran could be sure.
—After all, the Demon Physique was still too terrifying.
Face slightly red, Lin Ran sat up and looked at the Little Dolls around him.
They were all small fry, after all.
Lim had killed quite a few of them while fighting, and there was no sign of evolution.
They were not on the same level as the infinitely evolving, increasingly terrifying dolls in his dream.
Lin Ran let out a long breath.
The system was back in effect.
The real Lim.
Dolls different from those in the dream.
Finally… he was back in reality.
Relaxing, Lin Ran picked up a Little Doll with a sense of revenge.
The Little Doll flailed its limbs wildly, struggling desperately.
[Target: Little Doll (Afraid state)]
[Love Potential: 11]
He had really done it—he was back in reality.
The Autonomous Doll in the dream didn’t need to die, perhaps.
But, he’d probably never see her again—
“I’m glad you think that way.”
“Actually, while you were asleep, I lay beside you the whole time…”
“…But I suggest you comfort Miss Lim first.”
At that moment, a familiar synthesized electronic voice came from behind Lin Ran.
This voice?!
Lin Ran’s body instantly stiffened, his heart skipping a beat.
He turned his head in jerky increments, like a rusty robot.
A white dress, silver long hair, and fine threads between her joints…
It was her.
It really was her!
The Autonomous Doll stood silently by the balcony, her face still expressionless.
Yet, facing this reunion, she simply shook her head, signaling Lin Ran not to worry about her.
Then, calmly, she raised her finger and pointed to the bedside.
Following her finger—
For some reason, Lim had curled up on the bed.
The other Little Slimes had also taken human form, arms akimbo, their faces full of blame directed at Lin Ran.
“What’s going on…”
Lin Ran blurted out.
He truly couldn’t understand the scene before him.
“In order to imitate Miss Lim, I directly synchronized thoughts with her during mind reading. That was most efficient.”
“I am now uninstalling that module, please rest assured.”
“But Miss Lim knows what happened in the dream, and before the module is fully uninstalled, she also knows what you just thought.”
Lin Ran used his not-so-large brain and thought hard for a while.
He woke up → Lim joyfully pounced on him → his mind was full of Little Dolls → he completely ignored the tearfully happy Lim…
And, the first thing he thought of was another woman…
What a scumbag!
“There’s already another woman who has replaced my value in Master’s heart… I’m useless now…”
“Tomorrow, I’ll crawl back into the sewer… The dark, damp sewer is most suitable for a slime like me that no one wants…”
“The new doll onee-san is so pretty too… It’s my fault… I’m not charming enough, my mimicry failed, I didn’t become what Master wanted, Master did nothing wrong…”
Lim grew increasingly depressed, and seemed on the verge of turning back into a slime and flowing into the sewer.
The Autonomous Doll quickly transmitted Lim’s thoughts to Lin Ran.
With a wry smile, Lin Ran sat down next to Lim and patted her soft, springy head.
“Since you saw what happened in my dream, then you should remember how I recognized you at a glance.”
“With such perfect disguise, such perfect acting, I could still recognize you.”
“Sorry for ignoring your feelings earlier, but Lim’s importance will never change.”
Lin Ran smiled, pulled Lim into his arms, and patted her to comfort her.
—At this point, it was even harder to mention that he recognized Lim because of the Demon Physique and system favorability.
But Lim’s importance was true.
“Really!! Yay!”
Before he even finished speaking, Lim had already recovered her smile, her eyes sparkling as she looked at Lin Ran, cheering.
Hmm… He’d have to reinforce anti-flirting education among slimes—this was too easy to cheer up! If this continued, he’d start feeling guilty!
[Ding! Lim received your comfort. Favorability +5! Current favorability: 90]
Moreover, not only did favorability not decrease, it actually increased.
But it was Lim’s innocent and straightforward nature that made him develop feelings for these non-human beings in the first place.
On the other side, the Autonomous Doll issued some kind of command, making the Little Dolls stop their attacks.
She then picked up a Little Doll that seemed to have been killed by Lim, turned its winding key a few times, and it started moving again.
Hmm…?
Winding keys, steam, electronics, threads…
What exactly are you all powered by!
Still, as long as the Little Dolls weren’t dead, they could be counted as his helpers.
But there were a bit too many of them—at this rate, the room would be filled up sooner or later.
Should he use the portal to send them next door?
No, no, Zhang Wei’s corpse was still there, and that room would be unusable soon enough.
Suddenly, an idea flashed through his mind.
Break time!
It was break time after the wave!
That meant, outside the dorm door, there might be new space to explore!
Maybe there was a way to solve the storage problem out there!
Lin Ran opened his phone, and sure enough, new messages had appeared in the freshman group.
[If you have time to open your phone and see this message, congratulations, you have successfully survived the second wave]
[The second rest period has begun. Please proceed to the outside world in a timely manner]
[Note, this rest world is rather special. Please bring as many “crystal cores” as possible]
Crystal cores?
Lin Ran remembered this item.
Student council member Chen Jing had mentioned that they dropped from monsters.
But…
He hadn’t killed any monsters yet…
Would entering without a crystal core be dangerous? Would he die instantly?
Lim, leaning against him, also saw the message on his phone.
She seemed to remember something, then spat out a purple crystal.
“It’s from Shari’s body. It should have been left on her after she killed my kind. After we ate her, I forgot to give it to Master. Ehehe.”
Lim scratched her head with a silly smile.
Lin Ran nodded.
With at least one crystal core, he probably wouldn’t die instantly upon entry, right?
“You guys wait here. I’ll go scout ahead! If I need you, I’ll call for you!”
Saying that, Lin Ran took the lone crystal core and headed toward the dorm door.
——White Light flashed, and the world shifted.
In the next moment, a wooden cabin appeared before Lin Ran.
…Hmm? Wait? Wooden cabin?
Again?
…