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Chapter 6: New Word - STOP!

  I was unceremoniously transported back towards my room. Whitey seemed a little obsessed with petting my head, as he didn’t stop the entire time, and ended up sitting on the floor of my room, gently messing with my ears and tail. Annoying.

  It’s not like it hurt or anything, and it’s not like I’ve never met individuals who were curious about a humanoid form with ears and a tail and wanted to touch them, but it wasn’t particularly pleasant. It’s not about the sensory feeling, more the social abhorrence. To be treated like something cute and cuddly is not a pleasant experience.

  Unfortunately, squirming and scratching wasn’t getting through to this probably mostly well meaning alien. I mean, Whitey gave me cake, they have to be nice. That’s the rules. No, I do not have any internal biases, I am always perfectly impartial.

  Running out of regular options and getting increasingly irritated, I did the extremely reasonable thing: resorting to violence. My violence of choice was heat. After making sure my clothes were protected with a barrier, I started releasing energy, converting the vast majority of the mana to heat.

  For the first few seconds, Whitey held on just fine, even though I was glowing and heating up. He did drop me like a hot coal pretty quick, although these aliens are clearly more resistant to heat than most. He dropped me at around 200 degrees Fahrenheit (93 degrees Celsius, for the rest of you), which was a little impressive.

  I made a perfect landing on the floor and backed away from Whitey. They looked disappointed but didn’t reach for me again, so I’ll take that as a win. I stopped making myself red hot.

  Now free, I looked around the room again. The blanked had been replaced with a clean one and a large bean bag-like object was in the corner by the window. The plates of unusual foods had been removed, replaced with a much smaller bowl of water and two plates: one with fruit and another with more mystery leafy vegetables.

  What, are they trying to take care of my health now? A vegetarian diet? In this economy?

  Well, to be fair, I don’t know what the food situation is on this spaceship. They might be mostly eating nutrient packs or protein slurry rather than solid food. I’ll accept the situation for now, as long as I can sneak out and eat more cake occasionally.

  Whitey went to leave the room, and I followed him, fully prepared this time. Whitey didn’t seem to notice me gathering mana in my legs, so I waited out of arms reach until the door slid open. Once again, They placed one of their hands on the center of the door and it slid open.

  I activated the mana, converting it into explosive force, and shot out of the room, sliding right between Whitey’s legs and colliding rather forcefully with the wall across the hallway. I heard a quick “? Mikatil, ? ?” from above me, but I ignored it and darted down the hallway in the opposite direction that I had travelled earlier that day.

  Running down the curving hallway mostly showed closed doors. There were a couple of signs I couldn’t read, utterly thrilling discoveries, of course. I eventually ran into an open archway that led to some machinery and more closed doors, but there was nothing else to see so I moved on.

  A second open archway led to, you guessed it, more closed doors! I think I hate doors now. Luckily for me, there was also a common room or something with a curtain covering the entryway. I pushed through the thick, fuzzy black fabric and ended up in a dark room.

  Waiting for my eyes adjust to the lack of light, I eventually saw what looked like massive bunk beds. What was this, a communal nap room? I jumped up onto one of the lower beds, feeling the plush mattress between my toes. I still didn’t have any shoes, not that I really minded.

  I pulled back the covers and poked at one of the pillows, confirming this was a normal, albeit giant, bed. Definitely comfortable, especially because I had no way to control the lights in my room. Or more specifically, there was probably a lightswitch, I just couldn’t find it.

  Finishing my inspection of one of the beds, I left the room and continued down the hall, only to emerge at the cafeteria once more. Hmmm… so the hallway was a giant oval. Interesting. With exploration complete, I decided I might as well eat something, and walked into the cafeteria.

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  Inside sat the alien with the split dyed blue and black hair, who I will call Splitsy. Hopping up to a chair, I could see that Splitsy was eating something that looked and smelled like cooked meat! I had to have some. But when I jumped up on the table, Splitsy suddenly picked up his plate and held it in the air, warily eyeing me. Damn.

  Could I jump for it? I could try, but I doubt I’d stick the landing, especially if he moves the plate. What other options do I have? Begging? That’s beneath me. Acting cute and pitiful? Even worse. Engaging in polite conversation? I could try, but he wouldn’t understand. I was stuck at an impasse.

  “Hey Splitsy, won’t you share some meat with a hungry friend? C’mon, pretty please?”

  Yes, he didn’t understand a word. He twitched slightly at the sound of my voice though. I guess it is the first time he’s heard me speak.

  So there we were, in a standoff of sorts, staring at one another. I continued trying to coax Splitsy into putting the food back down, language barriers be damned. It wasn’t working.

  Our informative discussion on the benefits of feeding fexels meat was interrupted when Whitey and Phony entered the room. Uh oh. They didn’t look happy to see me, which is unusual. Who wouldn’t be happy to see me?

  So there I was, in the middle of a three alien standoff. Atop the table, I could clearly see Whitey and Phony spreading out their arms, trying to prevent my escape. I scoffed. I wasn’t going to get caught again! Why would I let that happen? I started backing up towards the still immobile Splitsy.

  First, I darted off the table, jumping onto the floor. I moved to the back of the room and waited, watching their legs, while they spoke to each other.

  “Mikatil, ?? ?? ? ? ???.”

  “??? ? ?? ?? ????”

  “?, ? ?? ???”

  Hmmm. I’ve been hearing the word ? a lot lately. Maybe I should learn it. I definitely can’t pronounce it well, but I muttered it under my breath until it was approximately correct. I had eaten a lot today, I could afford a bit more magic.

  “What does 《?》mean?”

  Ah. that makes sense.

  “Stop ??? ? ? Mikatil ????” said Phony.

  “??? ? no ?? ??? ??.” That voice was from Whitey.

  So ? means Stop, no, or not. Well, that makes sense I guess. I now had a pounding headache and a bit of a nosebleed. Ugh, the lights are too bright.

  They don’t tell you esoteric knowledge always comes with splitting headaches. I guess I shouldn’t use that translation magic more than once every couple of days. Overusing it made it feel like my brain was going to melt out my nose.

  I walked out from under the giant table, no longer in the mood for a fight. I tilted my head back to stop the bleeding, and licked the drip of blood off my face. I squinted, trying to dim the lights as Phony walked over to me and noticed the blood.

  She was still expressionless, but she pulled out an oversized tissue and stuffed it at my face. I tore it into a couple smaller pieces and rolled one up, stuffing it into the offending nostril. She then herded me towards the door, specifically not trying to pick me up.

  “??not ?? ?? Mikatil,” she said. Riveting conversation, I have to admit.

  I was herded back into my room, which I accepted. All I wanted to do right now was curl up and sleep. Whitey followed along, and I ended up in a now slightly cramped room with two giant aliens.

  Whitey pointed me towards the beanbag in the corner, and picked up the blanket. I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but I semi-obediently walked over to the beanbag and poked at it. The beanbag was pretty soft and squishy, but my head still hurt.

  I climbed on and sank into it, before the blanket was thrown on top of me.

  “??? ??? ?? ?” said Whitey.

  I wrestled with the blanket and stuck my head out from under it. What was up with them? Did they think I ran into a wall or something? Whatever.

  The lights of the room turned off, by some mechanism I wasn’t really paying attention to. The darkness was a lot better for my migraine. I grumbled and curled up on the comfy beanbag, rearranging the blanket to lie neatly on top of me. I was a lot more tired than I thought, probably because I spent a lot of the day running at full speed. That will tire anyone out.

  Drifting off to sleep, I thought about my plans for tomorrow. First order of business, eat a lot. Second order of business? Start warp portal experiments. I don’t want to be stuck on this spaceship for much longer.

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