Jelly Town's roads weren't roads at all. They were strips of pale green mucus, soft beneath one's feet and sinking slightly under pressure without sticking to the soles. After walking a few steps, the black cat merchant noticed the pattern—the darker the mucus, the more weight it could bear. The lighter-colored areas were where the residents moved around, and stepping there might mean stepping on someone.
He lowered his head to look at the ground. A fist-sized pink slime was slowly rolling past beside his paw, with a tiny core faintly visible inside its body, like a piece of candy sealed inside jelly.
"Sorry." He shifted aside to let it pass.
The pink slime paused. A small bump rose on its surface, as if it were looking at him. Then it continued rolling away.
The black cat merchant glanced back at Lolo. She was picking her way carefully along the mucus strip, all three heads lowered and all six eyes fixed on the ground. Every step was tentative. Each time one of her paws touched down, the mucus gave a tiny pop, like a bubble bursting.
"Relax," he said. "You're much lighter than they are. You won't damage it."
The head on Lolo's far right lifted to look at him, its expression clearly saying it didn't believe him.
The buildings looked even stranger up close than they had from a distance. The translucent, round houses hadn't been built so much as "grown" from the ground—their bases connected directly to the earth, without thresholds, while their entrances were oval openings whose edges slowly contracted and expanded, as if breathing. Some houses had signs hanging on their surfaces, but those signs were translucent too, with the writing embedded inside. You had to get close to read it.
He followed the mucus strip deeper into town, encountering slimes of every size along the way. Some were sunbathing by the roadside, spread into thin cakes. Others were stacked together like a wobbling tower. One particularly large pale-blue slime occupied half the road, several objects floating inside its body—a wooden spoon, two bowls, and a string of dried goods whose nature was impossible to identify—like a mobile general store.
The sweetness in the air grew stronger.
It wasn't the damp sweetness of the marsh. This was a cool, milky sweetness. The black cat merchant's nose twitched, and his ears turned toward the scent.
"That way," he told Lolo.
At the end of the mucus strip stood a gigantic swamp banyan, its roots submerged in water and its crown spread wide like an umbrella. Beneath it was a shop unlike the other buildings in town. It had a wooden frame, as if someone had deliberately constructed it, but the walls and roof were still made of translucent slime, glowing softly from within.
A wooden sign stood outside the door. The lettering on it was unusually neat:
"Bobo Ice Cream. Made with one hundred percent natural slime base. Won't melt, won't drip, won't lose its chill."
Beneath that was a smaller line: "If it melts, come back for a free replacement."
The black cat merchant stood at the entrance and looked inside.
The shop wasn't large. Four low tables stood inside, their tops made of smooth stone slabs. The chairs were round, plump gel cushions that looked as if half your backside would sink into them when you sat down. A handwritten menu hung on the wall behind the counter, listing more than a dozen flavors. He understood some of the names—Marsh Mint, Sourberry, Moss Honey—but others made no sense at all, such as "The Seventh Layer" and "Dad's Tears."
There was no one behind the counter.
"Hello?" He knocked on the doorframe.
A voice rose from beneath the counter, soft and sticky, as if speaking underwater:
"Coming, coming. Just a second—"
Then something rose up behind the counter.
It was a slime, but not quite like the others in town. He was taller and more upright than most slimes, with a clearer outline. Rather than slumping shapelessly like the others, he maintained an upper body resembling a human form—an arc where the shoulders would be, the shape of a head, even the suggestion of a chin. His body was a very pale amber, highly translucent, and at his center was a core larger than those of the other slimes, glowing a warm orange.
But the most striking thing was the hat on his head.
A black top hat, its brim tilting slightly upward, with a tiny dried flower tucked into the hatband. It sat firmly atop his head, though it was impossible to tell how it stayed there. A slime's head should have been sticky, but the hat didn't slide down. It looked as if it had grown there.
"Welcome!" His voice was much clearer than before, brimming with the enthusiasm peculiar to young people. "You must be from out of town. My name is Winston, and I run this shop."
As he spoke, the surface of his body trembled faintly with his tone, like ripples on water.
The black cat merchant stared at the top hat, paused for a moment, and then smiled.
"Nice hat," he said.
Winston's core brightened, as if he were smiling. "Thanks! My dad left it to me. He said anyone in business ought to look the part." He paused. His tone didn't change, but the light in his core dimmed for an instant. "Although he wasn't very good at business himself."
He brightened again almost at once. "What flavor would you like? If it's your first time, I recommend Marsh Mint. It's the classic. Or would you like to try Sourberry? It's a little tart, but the aftertaste is sweet."
"Two Marsh Mints and one Sourberry," the black cat merchant said, then pointed outside. "There's someone else out there. Three heads, one bite each."
Winston leaned out to look through the doorway and saw Lolo. She stood at the entrance with all three heads squeezed into the doorframe, all six eyes staring straight at Winston behind the counter.
"Wow," Winston said, pure wonder in his voice. "What a beautiful dog."
The ears on Lolo's middle head twitched.
"Her name is Lolo," the black cat merchant said. "She's a ghost hound. She doesn't bite."
"Do ghost hounds eat ice cream too?" Winston was already taking things from beneath the counter. He moved quickly, stretching one part of his body toward a bowl on the shelf while another part stirred something at the same time. The way slimes worked was completely different from that of other races—he didn't need to walk back and forth. His body itself was a set of tools.
"She eats anything." The black cat merchant sat down on a gel cushion. As expected, half his backside sank into it, but it was surprisingly comfortable, like being supported by a very large hand.
Winston brought out three bowls. They were made of stone, and the ice cream inside wasn't piled into scoops like ordinary ice cream. It resembled a puddle of frozen water, its surface smooth enough to reflect a face. Its color fell somewhere between translucent and milky white, with tiny green particles faintly visible as they drifted slowly inside.
"Marsh Mint." Winston pushed two bowls toward him. "The Sourberry is still being made. You'll have to wait for that one; it has to be mixed to order."
The black cat merchant picked up a wooden spoon and took a bite.
His ears shot straight up.
The instant the ice cream entered his mouth, it wasn't cold but cool—a coolness that spread from the tip of his tongue throughout his mouth. It wasn't sharp or numbing, more like a breeze blowing through his mouth from the inside. Then came the smoothness. The traveling merchant hadn't been exaggerating: it was so smooth that eating it felt less like eating and more like swallowing a mouthful of liquid air. The mint flavor wasn't tasted so much as "felt." It wasn't on his tongue. It was in his nasal passages, deep in his throat, in every gap between breaths.
After he swallowed, a thin film remained on his tongue, cool as if he were holding an invisible shard of ice in his mouth.
"...That's good." Genuine surprise colored his voice, an emotion that seldom appeared in it.
Winston's core shone like a little lantern. "Really? Thank you!"
The black cat merchant took another spoonful, eating more slowly this time and letting the ice cream linger in his mouth. His two tails swayed gently behind him, the movement small but rapid—the way they moved only when he was in an especially good mood.
He carried the other two bowls to the entrance and set them on the ground. All three of Lolo's heads lowered at once, and all three tongues darted out at once. With astonishing coordination, they began to lick.
Winston carried the third bowl of Sourberry outside. Watching Lolo eat ice cream, he rippled even more vigorously—that was how he laughed.
"What do you do for a living?" He set the Sourberry on the table beside the black cat merchant, then sat down on another gel cushion himself. The way he sat was unusual: his lower half simply melted into the cushion, making it impossible to tell where the chair ended and he began.
"I sell medicine," the black cat merchant said. "All kinds of medicinal ingredients, potions, and magical artifacts."
"A medicine merchant!" Winston's hat tipped sideways. He hurriedly straightened it with a length of tentacle. "That's perfect. Our town happens to be looking for a medicine merchant. Did you know that?"
"I heard. Acid burns?"
Winston's core dimmed. This time, it stayed dark longer than when he had mentioned his father.
"Yeah." His voice grew softer, and the tremors in his body weakened. "It started a few months ago. Some residents suddenly began developing burn marks on their bodies, as if they'd been burned by strong acid. But our own bodily fluids are only weakly acidic. They shouldn't be able to hurt us."
He paused, then said, "Three residents have already suffered damage to their cores because the burns were so severe. A slime with a damaged core... can't maintain its shape."
The black cat merchant set down his wooden spoon.
"Take me to see them," he said.
Winston looked at him. Beneath the top hat, inside his amber body, the orange core slowly brightened, as if confirming something.
"You're willing to help?"
"I'm a medicine merchant." The black cat merchant stood and pulled his straw hat lower. "Where there's illness, there's medicine. Where there's medicine, there's business."
He paused, then added, "The ice cream was excellent. Consider me in your debt."
Winston's entire body brightened, and his hat tipped sideways again. He hurriedly steadied it with his tentacle and rose from the gel cushion—or rather, "separated" from it. A small puddle of him remained on the chair and was slowly drawing back into itself.
"I'll take you there," he said, his voice once again filled with youthful enthusiasm. "It's on the east side of town. First, I'll tell the mayor—we'll need to let her know. The mayor is my mom. She's been taking care of the injured residents."
He went to the entrance, then glanced back at his shop and hesitated.
"I won't close the shop yet," he muttered to himself. "It's not like I have any other customers."
Then he settled his hat, straightened his body, and slid toward the east side of town. He didn't move by walking. His entire lower body became a flowing strip that glided along the mucus road, moving much faster than a person could walk. Yet the top hat remained firmly perched on his head, perfectly still.
The black cat merchant watched him go, the corner of his mouth twitching.
"Interesting," he murmured.
Then he turned to look at Lolo. She had already licked both bowls completely clean. A thin layer of white mucus coated all three heads, and all six eyes were half-closed. She looked as if she'd just awakened from a very good dream.
"Let's go," he said.
All three of Lolo's heads opened their eyes at once. She licked her mouths, then obediently followed him.
The black cat merchant walked along the mucus road, one hand holding his straw hat in place and the other feeling for the little notebook inside his leather satchel. He had already begun making a list in his head—acid burns, non-self-generated acid, core damage, three cases. He had brought abrasive compound made from stone-eating bug shell residue, but if the acid's source wasn't external...
He wrinkled his nose. The sweetness still lingered in the air, but now he detected another scent, faint and hidden beneath it.
Acidic.
Not the mild acidity of slime bodily fluids. This was sharper, deeper, like acid seeping up from underground.
His ears turned in a circle, and his two tails slowly lowered.
Beneath his cloak, a third tail quietly slipped out.