In the evening at the camp of Zarba's group, the bonfire cracked with an orange hue in the center of the camp, illuminating the four people sitting around the fire as they currently had dinner together while the campsite was being guarded by the Zar-Bros, who kept watch of the surroundings with a magic lantern in their hand.
The temperature of the Zenobia plain was quite chilly in the evening, as the cries of insects and small animals could be heard constantly around the campsite as Zarba, Xin, Nadia, and Mormon had a small talk while they ate the simple vegetable soup, bread, and some roasted meat tonight.
"What have you been brewing since the morning, Mormon?" Zarba, who dresses in a short-sleeve brown shirt and black trousers, asks the goblin girl, who is currently stuffing her face with bread and soup, about what she has been doing all day with curiosity since he saw her making something with the alchemy equipment after he and the two women were done playing around in the bathtub.
"Mmh-mghhn!" The goblin girl in oversized white pajamas grunted as she quickly chewed and swallowed her food before looking at him with the "I have been waiting for this" expression, then she picked up a small tube of glass with a cork and clear liquid inside from where she put it with the alchemy equipment and showed it to the people around her with a smug face.
"Behold," Mormon announced with a high-pitched voice, her trimmed and manicured claw fingers waving around the vial in her hand as the liquid inside almost glowed with an orange hue from the firelight. If one looks closely, the acid has quite an eerie viscosity that made Xin, who was sitting next to Zarba and dressed in white pajamas and a brown fur coat over it, glance at the vial in Mormon's hand with interest as the goblin girl explained what she made. "This is my secret original recipe acid; it is very potent. Just one drop melts through steel armor, and with two drops even a troll will turn to sludge."
"That's what you've been busy with all morning? Acid?" Nadia, who was dressed in a white shirt and pareo skirt, snorted softly while tearing into a roasted rib in her hand. Her purple eyes flicked to the vial with casual disinterest, though her mind was evaluating its combat potential, and she had to admit that it was the most suitable weapon for the small goblin girl to use since Mormon isn't really warrior material.
"Hmph, this is not just acid; this is SUPER ACID!" Mormon's grin widened, revealing her sharp canines. She then uncorked the vial with a dramatic movement, causing the others' noses to wrinkle as a scent like burnt sugar laced with iron wafted out.
"It's sticky and clings stubbornly to whatever it touches! This acid only requires a dozen seconds to kill a man!" She proclaimed while playfully tilting the vial precariously over to Nadia's lap; the warrior stiffened, roasted rib frozen mid-air as she narrowed her eyes at the goblin girl while Mormon taunted the muscular woman. "Want a live demonstration, hmm?"
"You want a beating?!" Nadia snarled in annoyance, slapping at the vial of acid without thinking, but Mormon had already expected that and yanked the vial away out of her reach, cackling mischievously. The goblin girl was swirling around the acid in the glass tube with a naughty expression as she quickly walked away from the angry muscular woman.
"Relax, you horny muscle-brain. I wouldn't waste it on my precious ally." Mormon recorked the vial with a pop before tossing it carelessly toward the curious Xin, who used a magic spell to catch it midair with an invisible magic hand, also known as a telekinesis magic spell, while the liquid inside the vial seemed to be shimmering from the sudden movement, casting prismatic flecks across the half-elf's intrigued expression.
"What are the ingredients that you used to make this?" Xin asked, rotating the vial slowly with her telekinesis spell, watching how the liquid clung to the glass like syrup before turning back to normal. From what Mormon has boasted about how strong the acid is, Xin doubts it can be produced in a large quantity.
Mormon smirk with the "I have been waiting for this" expression again after Xin asked about the ingredients to brew this acid of hers. She knows that the half-elf is thinking that she can't possibly produce a lot of the super acid, but she's wrong, as the ingredients for the acid are just the common items you can easily find. It's one of the reasons why Mormon is so proud of her recipe.
"Crushed lemon, vinegar, salt, water, and ambient mana," she said, raising her fingers one by one as she listed the surprisingly common items she used as the ingredients before she then jerked a thumb at a half-empty wine bottle nearby, "and mixed with alcohol and powdered limestone I randomly pick up!"
"You made such a strong acid like you claim from those things...?" Xin made a skeptical expression as she wondered if the goblin girl was messing around. She doesn't really dabble in alchemy, so she can't really tell if it's possible.
"What? You expected dragon scale and unicorn blood? Alchemy's just cooking with better fancy branding!" Mormon giggles as she holds her small waist and starts speaking about her past exploits with alchemy. "Listen well, little girl; when I was a beautiful young maiden, I had already mastered the alchemic art of element manipulation..."
"Is that so...?" Xin hums as she automatically tunes out and only pays a small amount of attention to the goblin girl's boastful noise while she moves the vial telekinetically to the alchemy equipment where it belongs. Xin thinks that even if half of the things Mormon is saying are nonsense, they would still have a half-decent alchemist with them, so it is already enough for her that the goblin girl is actually capable of pulling her own weight in their group.
"Oh~! You are so amazing, Mormon!" On the other hand, Zarba actually praises the goblin girl with a gentle smile as he claps his hands like he's praising a kid, which makes Xin and Nadia snort with amusement.
"Eh, ah, y-you think so...?" Mormon turns to Zarba with a surprised look on her face before she stammers with a flustered expression in response to his words, as she doesn't expect such honest praise from her casual boast.
"Of course, you tried your best to make it, didn't you? Why won't you deserve praise for such honest effort?" Zarba said as he looked at the small goblin girl's big blue eyes as he beckoned her to come to him.
"Ah, ahh-oh-um-okay, I-I guess...?" Mormon feels weirdly good and warm in her chest as her legs unconsciously carry her in front of Zarba while she averts her blue gaze from him.
'W-What is this? Why does this feel so embarrassing?!' Mormon cried out in her mind, as this is the first time someone actually genuinely praised her for something.
"Come here," Zarba said as he patted his lap, inviting Mormon to sit on his thighs as he smiled warmly at her, which made Xin and Nadia raise their brows before glancing at each other with amused expressions while Mormon froze in place with her blue eyes widening after hearing what he wanted, or rather, misunderstood what he wanted.
"W-WHAT?! Y-You want me to... I-It won't fit, you know...?!" Mormon squeaked in a high-pitched voice before her words got cut off when Zarba casually grabbed her arm and pulled her small body onto his lap like she weighed nothing, his hand pulling her against his body as he gave her a warm hug.
"Good girl, you did great, you are the best..." Zarba murmured praise against the crown of Mormon's head, his hand patting her back gently as her fingers dug into his shirt sleeves. The goblin girl's entire body stiffened, with her big pointed ears twitching, before she eventually melted against him with an involuntary whimper of confusion and embarrassment.
Meanwhile, Xin smirked into her soup bowl while Nadia rolled her eyes, though neither was surprised at what was going on since they noticed that the goblin girl was acting just like an attention-deprived brat in need of acknowledgment for awhile now.
'Heh, why am I comforting a centuries-old woman like a little girl, I wonder...' Zarba smiles wryly as he keeps the goblin girl in his arms while petting her small back. Zarba just couldn't help himself, seeing Mormon obviously craving for someone to acknowledge her efforts—he had seen this kind of person before, back in his old world.
'There's also a sign of it in her dialogues in the game, but the devs didn't really get deep into it; she's just a side character after all...' Zarba thought back as he remembered some dialogues of Mormon, who made it pretty clear that she wants an acknowledgement of her efforts of helping the protagonist but always gets brushed over by unfortunate circumstances as a comedic relief moment.
"Hehehe..." Zarba glances down at the goblin girl in his arms and sees she is grinning with a silly expression as she basks in the praises and attention she has craved for so long while rubbing her face against his chest.
'I'm glad that the girls around me are all so easy to please...' Zarba is so grateful for the reasonable women around him; it's one of the great things he loves in his new life, as he doesn't have to deal with the difficult and confusing women like in his old world anymore...