Chapter 38

The four of us were looking at the newly transformed mimic standing naked in front of us. At least I think it's still a mimic.

Torien still looked wary, "You sure it won't attack us now? I don't even know what you did to it." She quickly put her hand up. "No, don't tell me what you did. It's probably better that we don't know. Is it still a demon?"

It was twisting and turning to look at itself, she was more interested in her new form than paying attention to what we were saying. I poked its shoulder to get its attention. "Does your status still list you as a demon?"

It tilted its head for a moment before replying, "My status says I'm a 'Succubus Mimic' now instead of a 'Demon Mimic. My body looks weird now, I've never been able to turn into something I've never seen before." It was opening and closing its hands staring intently at them.

"What was your normal form before the change?"

"I looked like the demon mimic that birthed me, a candlestick like I was before."

"Hey, how did you know I was a succubus?"

It's ruby eyes looked up at me. "I have a skill called [Perfect Identify], I use it to understand something's qualities so I can transform into it. Afterwards, I can use my [Alter shape] ability to- Oh! My [Alter Shape] ability turned into [Racial Specialization: Shapeshifting]! It says I can change into any form I can support with mana now, even living things!"

It looked at me intently before its form turned into a copy of my own. I was looking at an identical copy of myself. But when it tried to move the illusion completely fell apart. The colors didn't stay consistent, occasionally it would flash it's normal gold and silver tones. The way that it moved looked a little unnatural, like it wasn't used to bending the way that it did. Its eyes looked glassy like the mimic didn't really understand how we were actually looking at things.

Bella looked really uncomfortable, "Lilith tell it to stop, it's creeping me out."

Suddenly it snapped back to its humanoid form and started panting heavily, "Wow, it's cool that I can turn into one of you but it's really hard and weird. You things are moving and talking all the time. It's super hard to focus on so many things at once." It started looking at it's hands closely again.

Morrigan inched closer, "You're doing it right now. You look like a... well kind of like a beastkin, isn't that the same thing?"

"I only look like one of you things on the outside, I'm normal on the inside. See?" An unnoticeable seam on its stomach opened up into the signature gigantic mouth filled with the sharp teeth you'd expect on a mimic.

Morrigan paled and jumped back, for a moment I even saw a swirl of fire mana. It seems that it was just an impulse rather than a hostile action though since she let it dissipate a moment later.

"Can't you just make the outside look like one of us?" I asked.

It tilted it's head to the side, which looked kind of cute despite its expressionless face and gem eyes. "It doesn't work that way. Maybe I could do something like that but it would take practice. Besides moving around like this is exhausting. I think I want to sit still for a while." It immediately reverted back to the familiar candlestick and sat completely still.

"So uh, what should we call you?" Bella asked the candlestick.

"I don't know, I don't have anything in my name slot like you four. I've never even seen anything in the name slot before you."

Torien raised a hand. "Uh, should we give you a name then? Are you a boy or a girl? You seem to have... both parts..."

There was a silence for a moment before the mimic responded, "I don't know what that means, what's the difference?"

After a moment Morrigan awkwardly replied, "Uh boys... fertilize girls and girls give birth or lay eggs."

"...It doesn't work that way for mimics. When mimics collect mana and make it dense enough they can compress it into another mimic. Then when the second mimic gets big enough the first one can eat it to collect its mana back plus anything the new mimic collected itself. If the first mimic waits too long though the second mimic can escape or even eat the first mimic if it's big enough. I don't... really like eating the others though so I just try to avoid them. They always try to eat me and they don't speak like you guys so they're boring anyways."

I cut in, "It sounds like your species is genderless but it's kind of awkward for us to call you 'it' all the time. It makes it sound like you're not a person to us. Would you prefer if we picked one or should we avoid it and just call you they instead? It's up to you."

"I don't really care, all that sounds silly. Are all of you boys or girls?"

"We're all g-girls..." Bella squeaked out.

"Okay! I'll be a girl too then."

"Are you sure?" I asked again.

"Yeah, I don't care anyway. If it makes it easier to think of me as a girl then that's fine with me. I don't plan on making any other mimics though, eating the others makes me feel bad."

"Uh, yeah. I'd prefer if you didn't make any others. At least until you understand some things a bit more first."

"Okay!"

I looked around awkwardly. "So about your name then?"

Morrigan's tail suddenly jumped in excitement. "Oh! Since we're thinking of her as a girl anyway how about Mimi!"

Bella smiled. "That sounds cute..."

"Okay! My name is Mimi, Mimi the Mimic!" It giggled cutely.

I struggled really hard not to roll my eyes at the name. I looked down at the stationary candlestick again. "Well, that solves that problem but what are we going to do about you? You don't seem to want to walk around with us much but I don't think we can carry you around very easily while trying to protect ourselves." Suddenly a thought occurred to me. "Oh! how about this!"

I pulled the broken sword from its sheath and laid it on the ground, Mimi shifted back into her humanoid form and looked down at the sword before peeking over at the sheath on my belt.

I continued, "If you shift into a sword I could carry you around comfortably and you could stay stationary while riding along."

"Yeah! That sounds fun! B-but... I don't want you to hit things with me. I don't think I'm dense enough yet for it not to hurt."

"Oh, yeah I wasn't really thinking about actually using you as a sword..."

"Okay! Sounds fun to me. So then, can I eat this?" she says pointing to the broken blade hilt. "[Perfect Identify] says it's broken and it would help me understand what I'm doing."

"Sure, if it'll help. Also, since it's broken I'll show you the difference between the broken one and my current sword." I laid my Claymore down next to the broken blade. "You can look at this sword too but don't eat it."

"Hmm hmm, interesting. Should I be a cursed sword too?"

I froze. I had been a bit concerned about that but after using it for a while I didn't think it was actually cursed.

"Lilith's blade is cursed?! What kind of curse is it?" Torien asked quickly.

"Hmm? It says its a curse of hunger, [Cursed Claymore of Hunger], this sword will slowly consume the sustenance of its wielder when fighting and convert it into magic damage."

"Oh, that actually doesn't sound that bad." Morrigan said.

Bella's eyes met mine and it clicked. "Oh shit, that makes sense."

"What? I've barely seen you eat anything since we came in here!" Torien put her hands on her hips.

"Succubi don't actually need to eat much... We get sustenance from uh, something else." I was suddenly very curious about Mimi, did she have [Sexual Appetite] like me and Bella or not? I'll have to make a point to ask later.

I picked up my apparently cursed sword and rested the blade on my back. Somehow I actually felt more comfortable with it now that I knew exactly what it did. Actually, it didn't seem like a cursed sword so much as just a magic weapon with a small drawback. Still I should be careful with it and take its drawback into consideration when fighting. It's probably not a good idea to get too horny and go into heat in the middle of combat if I can avoid it.

I looked down at the broken blade, "Anyway, go ahead and eat the broken sword. Make sure you're short enough to actually fit in this sheath though." I pointed to it on my waist.

"Okay!" Mimi's huge maw opened wide and she threw the sword hilt inside with one of her hands. The mouth closed, it didn't make any other noise but the sight was still a bit grotesque. I almost expected to hear awful metal grinding noises.

Morrigan looked a bit pale again. "That will never not be disturbing."

Mimi looked at Morrigan and tilted her head, "Hm? Does eating look gross to you?"

Morrigan looked put on the spot. "Oh uh, no, what I mean is just that I'm not used to seeing, uh, someone's stomach open up and swallow things. It looks kinda scary."

"Scary?" Mimi asked turning her head the other way. "Sorry, I'll try to eat more discreetly in the future then." She then focused on the scabbard again. "Okay I'm going to give this a try. I think [Shapeshifting] lets me make modifications to my form now so I'm gonna try being a prettier sword.

Her form melted into a puddle of liquid metal and she shifted into the shape of a sword laying on the ground where the broken blade had been. Mimi's sword form looked very ornate but functional. It looked like a sturdy sword with a mirrored shine and a very decorative looking handle. The crossguard had etched designs with gold and silver veins in intricate patterns, the handle itself looked like it was wrapped in well crafted leather and the pommel had a ruby gem that matched the eyes of her humanoid form.

I reached down to pick her up. "Oh god, you're heavy." As the words escaped my lips the sword suddenly became light as a feather and I almost fell back from he difference in weight. "Whoa, what happened."

Mimi's androgynous voice came from seemingly nowhere but was clear to all four of us based on the looks of my party members. "I can adjust my density and weight based on how much magic I have on this side of my pocket dimension. I wasn't sure how heavy to make the sword so I made it as heavy as the cursed one."

Pocket dimension, Now that's going to have to be a conversation for later. "Uh, that sword is heavy because of how much metal there is, this sword shouldn't be nearly that heavy. It's a bit too light right now though. Can you just make it as heavy as it would be if the blade was the same weight and density of the broken blade? No wait, actually make it a bit heavier than that."

"Like this?" The weight suddenly felt perfect. It was a bit heavier than Mark's old sword but I actually preferred that. I swung her around a bit to get a feel for the balance. "Bu-but don't hit things with me! I'm just going on a ride remember?"

"Don't worry, I remember." I sheathed the sword in the perfectly fitted scabbard and gripped the handle gently with the muscle memory stolen from Mark. "This feels rather comfortable. Can you see okay in there?"

"Yep! I don't need to look at things with my eyes to sense them but since I put one on the pommel anyway I can see great from here!"

"Uh good..." The ruby gem was one of her eyes like I suspected. It probably shouldn't creep me out as much as it does. "Does it bother you if I touch your ruby eye?"

"No? Why would it? Makes it a bit harder to see I guess."

"Right, well. Sounds good then. We should probably get moving."

This was going to take a bit of time to get used to.