It was hard to calm the enraged fox, but Lisa wasnāt unreasonable and let it slide as long as Lohan promised not to give any more massages without her consent.
"So if you agree, can I wrap you in a cozy hug and relax you with a soothing massage?" Lohan asked with a mischievous tone, holding back a laugh as he noticed the fox freeze for a moment.
"Shut up, Halon, or Iāll make you walk, or roll, all the way to our destination!" she said angrily, but in the end, she hadnāt denied what heād said.
Just as this sensation was very new and interesting to Lisa, to Lohan it seemed even cooler.
As someone confined to a hospital bed in the other world, despite his high intelligence, his extreme physical limitations were a major obstacle to finding people to connect with.
Even friendships were hard to maintain, with everyone interacting with him only out of interest in getting close to his family, or acting out of pity after discovering how frail he was.
If having ordinary friendships was already difficult, the closest he could get to a romantic relationship was when he watched movies, TV shows, anime, or read novels.
He always dreamed of living out his youth the way he saw in the movies, going to parties, meeting girls, kissing someone on the mouth, but that was never possible.
Who would have thought that his first romantic interaction would be with a fox in a virtual world?!
āEven though I can treat this as if I were on VRChat, she only has an animal avatar; itās not even like she chose to be a furry.ā
He thought, finding the situation amusing.
And even though he didnāt know what Lisa looked like in the real world, that didnāt bother Lohan in the slightest.
Given how pleasant her company was when they were together, Lisa could be a girl who completely defied aesthetic standards, whether in terms of weight or physical issues like the ones heād once had, and he wouldnāt care one bit about it.
After all, how hypocritical would it be to become exactly the kind of person heād always hated?
Even though his appearance was improving every day, it wasnāt something that went to his head, as if he had some standard that heād only date women more beautiful than him, or something like that.
Appearance might even be important for creating that initial connection, but for them, who were already connecting emotionally in such a subtle and pleasant way, Lohan didnāt think heād care if one day he met Lisa and discovered she weighed twice as much as he did.
Sure, that might surprise him a little, but with all the Evolutions he was getting, couldnāt he someday get something to help her lose weight? Or make her more beautiful?
And even if he couldnāt, Lohan didnāt have high standards; just having good company by his side would already be incredible for him.
What he didnāt know was that even if he raised his expectations several times over, Isabella would still manage to meet them all!
"Weāre here. I think this is where we can find their burrows," Lisa said as she slowed down and looked around alertly.
Lohan also stopped daydreaming and focused on his tracking skills, searching for any living creature.
The section of the Mythlorien Forest where they found themselves seemed, at first glance, an idyllic habitat for leporids, filled with dense clover and low-lying berry bushes.
However, Lohan noticed small craters of scorched earth scattered across the ground, as if micro-explosions had occurred there recently, a clear sign of the Explosive Rabbitsā presence.
Lohan wasted no time and activated his qualitative tracking stack, using
[Instinctive Perception Lv 15]
in conjunction with
[Spatial Echo-Location]
. He utilized the
[Parallel Processing Core]
to filter out wind noise and focus exclusively on the vibrations traveling through the subsoil.
For eight minutes of absolute concentration, the Slime remained motionless above Lisa, mapping the environment in 360 degrees.
Suddenly, a violent, rhythmic frequency hit Lohanās sensors. "Lisa, to our left! Iām sensing three thermal signatures moving at high speed!"
Shadows with metallic-gray fur burst through the vegetation, followed by sonic booms.
It was the Explosive Rabbits! Lohan watched, amazed and impressed by the anatomy of these creatures.
Their hind legs were disproportionately muscular and saturated with Mana. As they moved, the rabbits pounded their feet on the ground in a rhythmic and frantic manner, with the accumulated impact generating a small pressure blast that propelled them forward in a blur of terrifying speed.
āIs that... literally the Soru movement from the Pirate Navy?!ā
, Lohan thought, shocked yet amused, recalling the locomotion techniques heād seen in the other world.
āThey use their hind legs like combustion pistons to achieve that speed.ā
The monsters showed no fear.
Unlike ordinary rabbits that eat only plants, these Explosive Rabbits were entirely carnivorous, and upon spotting the duo, the rabbits changed their trajectory at sharp angles, striking the ground simultaneously to execute a very well-coordinated charge.
"Lisa, Iām going into Living Armor mode! Iāll need
[Non-Newtonian Resilience]
to disperse the shock from those kicks!" Lohan said via mental link, expanding his blue biomass and covering the foxās flanks with the
[Obsidian Exoskeleton Lv 7]
at the same time.
Lisa growled, her paws already emitting the white glow of
[Spiritual Fire]
as she prepared to intercept the first gray blur flying toward her.
Seeing the speed these rabbits displayed, Lohan felt a bit of envy and anticipation, wondering if he could absorb this evolution of these creatures!
The first gray blur struck Lisaās side with a sound that wasnāt that of a direct, sharp thud, but rather the sound of a muffled explosion.
Lohan felt
[Non-Newtonian Resilience]
activate instantly, hardening his membrane at the point of impact to disperse the kinetic energy. However, to his horror, the force of the kick was so massive that the pressure wasnāt completely nullified... it traveled through his gelatinous mass like a subsonic shockwave, striking the slender body of the fox beneath him.