It was hard to calm the enraged fox, but Lisa wasn’t 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 I’ll make you walk, or roll, all the way to our destination!" she said angrily, but in the end, she hadn’t denied what he’d 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?!
’Even though I can treat this as if I were on VRChat, she only has an animal avatar; it’s not even like she chose to be a furry.’ He thought, finding the situation amusing.
And even though he didn’t know what Lisa looked like in the real world, that didn’t 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 he’d once had, and he wouldn’t care one bit about it.
After all, how hypocritical would it be to become exactly the kind of person he’d always hated?
Even though his appearance was improving every day, it wasn’t something that went to his head, as if he had some standard that he’d 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 didn’t think he’d 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, couldn’t he someday get something to help her lose weight? Or make her more beautiful?
And even if he couldn’t, Lohan didn’t have high standards; just having good company by his side would already be incredible for him.
What he didn’t know was that even if he raised his expectations several times over, Isabella would still manage to meet them all!
"We’re 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 Rabbits’ 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 Lohan’s sensors. "Lisa, to our left! I’m 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.
’Is that... literally the Soru movement from the Pirate Navy?!’, Lohan thought, shocked yet amused, recalling the locomotion techniques he’d seen in the other world. ’They use their hind legs like combustion pistons to achieve that speed.’
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, I’m going into Living Armor mode! I’ll need [Non-Newtonian Resilience] to disperse the shock from those kicks!" Lohan said via mental link, expanding his blue biomass and covering the fox’s 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 Lisa’s side with a sound that wasn’t 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 wasn’t completely nullified... it traveled through his gelatinous mass like a subsonic shockwave, striking the slender body of the fox beneath him.