“Eminently reasonable. Let’s get on with it.”

Enserric begins the lesson. He covers two more spells this time: Charge Weapon, a white spell which  causes a sword or other weapon to strike with greater force, and Heal, a black spell which heals wounds somewhat more efficiently than simply willing them back into place.

“Notably, Heal is not strictly superior to natural healing; you’re trading mental exhaustion for physical. If you overuse it, you may lose the focus necessary to keep casting in the middle of a pitched battle, which can be a death sentence. But if you’re about to collapse, it’s good to have something to fall back on. And when you return to your own, less civilized universe, this should continue working when natural healing does not.”

"Yes, it will be very useful in my uncivilized universe that never got a rape-monster problem. Thank you, my sharply-witted sir!"

“The demons aren’t the universe’s fault, that’s all on the hubris of mankind. But point taken. Would you like to start exploring now?”

"Yes, yes. I want to find the alchemist and see about purifying the honey."

"Good idea. You should probably eat something, at that; you must be getting hungry by now."

"Yeah, my replicator did produce the food bars from the fruit I put yesterday. I was thinking if I should get someone else to try them first."

"It won't do you much good, unfortunately. You're an alchemical blank slate, and therefore much more susceptible to alchemical transformations than pretty much anyone else around. Your mouse friend might be able to eat three or four canine peppers before any transformation occurred, but you'd get them after just a bite. So unless you're proposing that someone eat a crate of your food bars and see what happens, your best bet is to try them yourself."

"Oh, joy. I will eat the pure food I got from Milliways then and try this one tonight." He does that.

"Shall we be off?" Enserric asks once he's done.

Last nom. "We shall."

The lake is very, very large, and with only "along the lakeshore" as a location, the alchemist isn't easy to find.

An hour or so after they start looking, a woman made entirely of transparent blue gel oozes out of the lake. She burbles inquisitively and cocks her head to one side.

"A slime girl," Enserric diagnoses. "Not intelligent in any real way, but they'll still take advantage if you give them a chance."

"Ah, okay. Are they hard to kill?" He takes a combat ready stance regardless.

"They go down as easily as anything else."

The slime girl turns one of her hands into a vague, gloopy sword and mimics his fighting stance.

"Is it capable of mimic magic?" And for that matter, if he takes a step back, does it take a step back also?

"No. Magic requires force of will or emotional bandwidth, neither of which it has."

She steps forward when he steps back, and then she slaps him with her sword-arm, leaving behind a trail of slime that makes his skin feel oversensitive and hot.

Of course it does. He tries to shake it off and then cut the arm off.

The slime stays on, sinking into the skin. Its effect spreads across his skin and downwards toward his crotch.

The slime-girl giggles as her arm flops to the ground, then sprouts a new one and tries to embrace Teo.

No, no, no. Shit, his fancy armor was supposed to be hydrophobic.

Can he bisect the thing with a Charge Weapon attack?

To be fair, the slime girl is probably not made of water per se.

It's very difficult to focus on the calculations necessary for white magic right now, but he can just about manage to charge up his sword and then- yep, the slime girl falls to the ground in two separate pieces, the larger of which shudders and turns back into the shape of a girl. It stays on the ground, though, wiggling slightly and making a soft, watery noise almost like snoring.

So it passed out. Time to kill the lube construct?

If he can muster the firm and considered belief that this thing should die, then yes!

It turns out that killing non-intelligent rape monsters is something is quite willing to do.

Eminently reasonable!

When killed, the blue slime composing most of her body flows away into the sand of the shore, leaving behind a round purplish blob of more solid gel.

"Refreshing," Enserric comments. "That slime core may prove useful, if you've got the pocket space for it."

Teo looks between the gel core and the sword.

"Am I in a video game?"

"I have no idea what that means," comments Enserric, "but probably not."