Afraid of Dying, Really?

"Might as well be riding a bicycle—this is way too slow! Is this even flying? It's practically crawling!" Mousse grumbled, patting the Homie's forehead over and over with his tiny hand.

Charlotte Linlin smiled broadly at the adorable sight. Unable to resist, she jumped down from Zeus onto the Stone Tablet Homie's head, scooped Mousse up, and rubbed her face against his.

Mousse finally discovered that the Stone Tablet Homie's flight ability was not entirely useless. "Huh? Mom herself weighs nearly ten tons, and with the force of the fall, that's at least equivalent to several dozen tons of weight. Yet the Stone Tablet Homie didn't even wobble. Maybe it could carry several hundred tons!"

After teasing the underage child for a while, Charlotte Linlin looked at her still-dejected son and teased, "Didn't I tell you? Something this big would definitely be slow even if it could fly. Regretting it now? Want Mom to remake it for you?"

Charlotte Linlin meant well, but she forgot that the Stone Tablet Homie beneath her was terrified of death. It immediately began trembling in fright.

Fortunately, Mousse was nestled in Charlotte Linlin's arms rather than sitting directly on its head. Otherwise, he might have slid off and fallen to his death. There happened to be an island below them instead of the sea.

Sure enough, Charlotte Linlin also lost her balance and slid off. But with such a thick cushion of flesh protecting him, Mousse merely got to experience bungee jumping. He was scared out of his wits, but not even a scratch appeared on him.

Charlotte Linlin herself was fine as well. With the greatest defense in the world, let alone a drop of a few dozen meters, she would not so much as scrape her skin even if she fell from ten thousand meters in the air.

Still, even without being hurt, getting startled was unavoidable. Furious and embarrassed, Charlotte Linlin summoned the Stone Tablet Homie before her and punched and kicked it for quite a while before she barely calmed down.

Meanwhile, Zeus, who had once again failed to save his master in time, decisively flew into the sky at the sight and disguised himself as an ordinary cloud, saying nothing so Mom would not notice him and hold him accountable.

"Mom really has high defense but low attack power. If Garp were the one hitting it, he'd either break the stone or hurt his own fists if he couldn't. How could it end up this awkward? It looked so lively with all that banging, but after it was over, neither side had a damn thing wrong with them." After looking over both sides, Mousse could not help making a few snide remarks. Then goosebumps suddenly rose all over his body.

Mousse finally realized that he had actually started thinking of Charlotte Linlin as "Mom."

Thinking it over carefully, Mousse felt that perhaps it was an effect of the trip to Pharaohs.

After personally witnessing the near-destruction of Pharaohs, Mousse had at least subconsciously come to understand that in the New World, where human lives were cheap as grass, having a mother like this—one who did not know how to care for her children and could even be dangerous at times, yet possessed the power to protect them—was actually far luckier than being born into an ordinary family.

The Stone Tablet Homie was indeed highly intelligent. Though it did not hurt at all, it still cried out cooperatively and acted as if it had been beaten badly, finally allowing Charlotte Linlin to vent her anger.

However, it remained deeply worried by what she had said earlier, constantly glancing sideways at its creator, afraid she might say something else terrifying enough to scare a Homie to death.

Fortunately, Charlotte Linlin was soon occupied answering her son's questions about Homies and did not bring up remaking the Stone Tablet Homie again.

"Mamamama, little Mousse, you need to understand that however much soul is put into a Homie at the beginning, that amount will always remain the same. But your own soul will keep growing, so its proportion will naturally keep shrinking," Mom explained clearly, but Mousse developed a new confusion after hearing it.

"Didn't you say before that Avatar Homies wouldn't affect my own growth? Why are you now saying that the soul put into a Homie won't change unless the Homie merges with new material? Are Avatar Homies no exception?"

"It won't affect your growth! That's because an Avatar Homie's soul is actually still your own soul, while an ordinary Homie's soul is completely separated and becomes an independent individual." Charlotte Linlin explained at length, but Mousse only became more confused.

In the end, the Stone Tablet Homie, driven by a strong desire to survive and eager to prove its value, cut in with an explanation. "Let me explain! Let me explain! Suppose I currently have four portions of the soul, while Master has six portions left. Since our souls have not been split apart, your growth base is still calculated as ten portions rather than six. But if those four portions were made into an ordinary Homie, then your future growth base would only have six portions left."

"I see." Mousse finally understood completely. Then he could not help feeling a little embarrassed and annoyed. He had always prided himself on being clever, yet he had not caught on as quickly as a stone. That was rather humiliating.

So Mousse immediately seized on a loophole in the Homie's words and counterattacked. "But by your logic, your soul should still be my soul, right? If so, why are you afraid of me taking it back?"

Unexpectedly, the Stone Tablet Homie answered with complete confidence. "The soul does indeed belong to you, Master, so I cannot disobey any of your orders. But my personality is my own, so naturally I have the instinct to survive!"

"Fine, you pass. But if your abilities turn out to be useless, don't blame me for melting you down and remaking you." Mousse could not help laughing. He stopped pressing the matter and let it go.

Still, Mousse casually frightened the Stone Tablet Homie again at the end. If he had not already boarded Zeus with Charlotte Linlin—Zeus had failed to escape and been called back down—he probably would have fallen again.

Mousse scared the Stone Tablet Homie again not only to vent his irritation, but also because he felt the fellow was far too cunning. Unless he frightened it like this, he might not be able to force out all of its abilities.

Perhaps Mousse's strategy truly worked, because the Rock Assimilation ability the Stone Tablet Homie displayed afterward was even stronger than he had hoped!

"That was a hill over a hundred meters tall! It assimilated the whole thing, and this giant must be two or three hundred meters tall, right? A shrunken Mahabys is nothing special, but a shrunken Pica is another matter entirely. Its combat power isn't weak, and it has enormous strategic value!" Mousse's large, adorable eyes sparkled with delight. This Homie took up a bit more soul than expected, but it seemed to be worth it.

However, after watching the Stone Tablet Homie display its Mountain Pulling Divine Power—not metaphorically; it had literally pulled up a mountain—Mousse could not help feeling a trace of doubt. Didn't Mom say that giving this guy flight would seriously weaken its attack power? But judging from its movements, it was no slower than Pica in Dressrosa. How could its strength be so weak?