Chapter 621: The Things Are Still Alive

"This is interesting..." Mara announced to us during our lunch time as we were gathered in the kitchen after finishing our meal.

It seems like she got the results of the scans of Renata’s liquid matter and had been reviewing it earlier.

Curious, I went over to her while Renata hopped along behind me cutely.

"What did you find?" I asked, peeking over her shoulder.

On the personal terminal she was holding, I was looking at a bunch of charts, numbers and words that I didn’t understand so I was hoping that she could explain it to me.

"Hmm... If I had to put it simply... At first glance, there should not be a problem eating what she makes using her body..." Mara started, swiping through her screen. "There’s only one problem though... It does seem like whatever she makes may look like the real thing but... They aren’t."

Ries reacted to that news the most as she suddenly popped up beside her, "WHAT?!"

Mara didn’t seem surprised by her sudden appearance and merely nodded her head, "It might look similar and even feel similar and an ordinary person might not be able to tell the difference... But someone who is experienced with it would definitely feel that there’s something off about it."

Ries gasped, "So I wasn’t wrong when I thought the iron bar she made was not an actual iron bar?! But... It even functioned like one! Had the same melting point and properties and everything!"

Mara nodded, "It does function like a real item but I believe... Hmm... Do you still have the object she made for you?"

Ries nodded, "I only melted it down to make some spare materials but I made sure to keep them separately from the others since I wanted to test them first. Do you want to see them?"

"That would be great."

Ries pulled out her personal terminal and started tapping away which I assumed was her commanding one of her drones to pick it up from her workshop to deliver it here.

In the meantime, Renata was looking at Mara with a tilt of her head, "It’s different?"

Mara nodded, "I only know this because I compared the original body and the things you transformed for me. Despite them all being different objects, there’s just one particular scan that had given the same result despite all of them being different, which would normally be impossible."

"And what scan is that?"

She gave me a serious look, "The blob showed up positive when checking for life signs..."

Renata huffed, "Well of course it should show positive results on that! That ’blob’ you’re talking about is still me!"

"It shows positive results even on the things that had been transformed out of the blob."

"Huh? That’s also obvious right? It’s still me~"

All of us just stared at her.

Right then, the door slid open and a drone carrying a box of spare parts floated over to us and deposited the box on the table before floating off to a corner of the room.

Mara then wordlessly picked up one of the iron plates from the box and placed it on the table before she pulled out some handheld scanner looking device to scan the iron plate.

A green light scanned the plate before a voice came from the scanner.

[Scan complete. Life signs detected.]

All of us turned to stare at Renata once again.

She tilted her head quizzically at us, "What? Like I said, those still came from me so obviously it’s still alive?"

Ries pointed at the metal plates, "I melted those down... Like literally melted them down using high heat... Did you not feel anything?"

"Oh! You’re asking if I am able to feel pain. I can choose not to have any pain receptors so right now I don’t feel any pain at all!"

"So... If you had any... You would have felt yourself being melted down?"

"Of course!"

Mara gestured at the pile of metal on the table, "What about all of these? Are they still you?"

Renata nodded her head enthusiastically.

"Then... Does that mean you can still transform these things into you?"

"Yes! Look, look!"

She stretched out her hand and the iron plate that Mara had scanned wobbled before turning back into a grey blob.

It then bounced from the table to land on her palm before it was absorbed into her.

Ok... So basically even when she creates something using the liquid matter, she isn’t creating something new... She’s basically just changing herself into that thing that she was mimicking.

The thing itself, however, never stops being her.

Which brings up a rather scary thought.

"So if you were to transform into... Maybe a piece of steak? Then I cook it and then eat it... Would that mean you would be inside me?"

Renata paused and her eyes widened.

I thought for a moment that the idea horrified her when her demeanour changed.

She leaned over the table and gave me a sultry smile, "Mmm~ Daddy~ Do you want to eat me? Then I can be inside you~ Why don’t you eat a piece of me right now, Daddy?"

I shuddered, "What happens when you’re inside someone then? Like if it’s food... It gets digested right? Then it should get absorbed by the body... Do you just remain inside?"

Renata’s face changed back to normal again as she tapped on her cheek thoughtfully, "Hmm... That’s a good question? I’m not too sure since I’ve never tried it before. Does Daddy want to try?"

Thankfully, I didn’t need to answer her because Mara interrupted, "I would recommend against that. Renata. Let’s try it on something else first, perhaps some kind of animal or something and see what happens before we attempt it on ourselves?"

Renata pouted, "Mnngghh... Fiiiiine."

I wonder... Could this be that kind of situation where something starts to take over your body bit by bit until it completely replaces your body and you are not yourself anymore but instead, the thing that replaced you instead?

Yeah... I think I’ll have to pass on that...

Although... Now I’m wondering... If somehow she doesn’t remain in the body after being eaten... Would the person who ate her feel satiated or would they still be hungry?

You know what? I think I’m thinking too deeply into it so let’s just forget about it.

"Where would we even get an animal though?" I pointed out. "It’s not like we could just go somewhere and grab one, right?"

"There’s plenty of alien creatures out in space. We could even land on that planet where we found her in where we found those bovine-like creatures."

Oh right, we did encounter that.

Amber, who had been listening in the entire time from the kitchen, spoke up right then.

"I’ve got a better idea! We’ll just find the next pirate, board their ship, abduct maybe a few of them and then use them as test subjects~ Easy!"

Right... The person who was subjected to human experimentation just suggested we resort to human experimentation to test this out. I wonder if anyone else here sees the irony in that?

I’m just going to keep my mouth shut though.

Yumiko also joined in, "In that case, you can just grab some of them from the station that we’re going to. There’s bound to be some pirates and other lowlifes hanging around that station. They will not be missed."

Amber turned to grin at her, "Mmm... I really like you~"

"Err... Thank you?"

I turned to Yumiko to shoot her a concerned look, "Wait... Just checking... The place that we’re going isn’t actually another pirate base, right?"

"Well... Err... Technically, no. But there are a few smugglers and pirates who have made it their base, that is true."

"How big is that station?"

"It’s not really a big place. Like I said, it’s a mining station that also doubles as a trading station, so most of the people staying on the station are miners. But as you might know... Wait no... Mistress probably doesn’t know since you came from another universe... But space mining is really depressing work. Depressing in the sense that it’s mind-numbingly monotonous. So the miners usually resort to taking drugs and other other vices just to stay sane. So there’s going to be drugs, gambling and probably sex being unregulated on the station."

Great... So we’re basically just going to a smaller Denibi station I guess? And probably one that has an even worse state of law and order than Denibi...

"Is it a good idea to be selling a whole bunch of weapons there then? Wouldn’t that... I don’t know... Instigate them to start killing people since they have access to weapons?"

Yumiko giggled, "Oh Mistress. They already have access to weapons. And we’ve done that all the time after our raids. You can just think of it as the people there wanting to preserve that delicate state of equilibrium because if it is not preserved, everyone’s livelihoods will just go up in flames and nobody wants that."

Right... Well whatever. Even if they do start killing each other, as long as we aren’t there, it won’t be my problem to worry about.