Daily Life of A Caretaker-Chapter 163: Arc 6: Drama In Life - 11

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Cross-over from various games, books, anime, manga, and movies.

The familiar characters you see here belong to their respected authors and owners.

"Speech"

Arc 6: Drama In Life - 11

It didn't take long. Just a couple of minutes channeling spells through the Solomon's Gates, and most things snapped back into place.

Well, almost everything.

"Pl-Pleasseee! Turn me back to normal! I beg of you!" Ricardio wailed, his voice trembling with absolute fear. "I'll go back to the Ice King! I swear it!"

He wasn't exaggerating. Ricardio now existed as a quivering, sentient cube of white tofu—smooth, expression-ridden, with anxious eyes and a trembling mouth. No limbs. No movement. Just a soft, gelatinous body squirming uselessly on the polished floor like a forgotten side dish caught in a divine prank.

His form shimmered faintly at the edges, not just from magic, but from reality itself refusing to settle, as though the universe still wasn't sure whether to laugh or recoil in horror.

"Why tofu?" Elizabeth asked, the word escaping her mouth as if it personally offended her understanding of reality. Her brow furrowed slightly, not in confusion, but in that dangerous, analytical way she reserved for paradoxes that refused to be solved.

She swept her gaze around the room, the full absurdity of the situation settling in. Unconscious bodies of Princess Bubblegum, Finn, Jake, and the scattered, sprawled-out remains of the Candy People lay like colorful punctuation marks across the ruined floor.

"And are you sure you want to have this conversation here?" Elizabeth arched a single brow as she gestured vaguely at the room we're in, the same one we didn't leave. "We didn't even relocate. Not that it'll make much difference while they're out cold, but still. Kind of bad form, don't you think?"

"Because I don't want to smear tofu back in our house." I replied with a shrug, deadpan. A smile tugged at the edge of my mouth, but I bit it back—barely.

"Jin-sama... what are you going to do with him, like this?" Shirahoshi asked softly, her voice barely more than a whisper, fragile enough to dissolve into the air. She stared at Ricardio's trembling, tofu-like form—a pathetic lump of magic and regret, her wide, gentle eyes full of quiet confusion and hesitant worry.

She shifted her weight, then cast a nervous glance toward Elizabeth before returning her gaze to me. A small, uncertain nod followed, like she was trying to summon courage from the air itself.

"A-And... I agree with Elizabeth." Shirahoshi muttered, her fingers knotting together in anxious loops. "M-Maybe we should relocate? I-I don't want to be here when they all wake up and... see us like this."

Her voice trembled at the end, not out of fear for herself, but for them. Her gaze flicked to Princess Bubblegum with a ghost of unease, then to Finn and Jake lying still amid the sugar-smeared wreckage. Her expression softened into something achingly tender, the kind of pity that came not from superiority, but from a heart that ached too easily. She didn't like seeing anyone suffer... no matter who they were.

Finally, Shirahoshi's eyes drifted to the Candy People: delicate, oblivious, scattered like fragile ornaments across the room, as if they had fought for their lives. She blinked slowly, taking in their stillness, their vulnerability. Then she looked back up at me, her voice trembling just enough to break the silence without shattering it.

"Let's... go somewhere peaceful, Jin-sama."

The moment hung there—soft, quiet, almost sacred—until it was obliterated like a glass vase beneath a sledgehammer.

"Awwww... everything's GONE?!" Paimon shrieked, floating over the now-empty dessert table like she'd just witnessed the fall of civilization.

In a blur of sparkles and indignation, she zipped right up to my face, cheeks puffed, tiny nose dusted with rainbow shimmer, frosting streaked across her chin like war paint from some catastrophic sugar conflict.

"Hey, Creepy Face! Paimon wants more tasty sweets!" She barked, jabbing a glittery, frosting-sticky finger at my chest as if I had personally insulted her sweet tooth. "Paimon isn't satisfied! Paimon wants more! Cakes! Tarts! Pudding mountains!"

She spun in midair, a whirling tantrum of sugar-fueled fury, forming a brief halo of powdered sugar and unreasonable demands, a miniature goddess of dessert chaos raining down confectionary judgment.

"Yeah..." Elizabeth muttered, her voice low with concern and just the faintest trace of judgment. "I think she had way too many sweets."

She didn't bother to move, just shifted her weight slightly and aimed a long, calculated stare at Paimon. It wasn't angry, or even especially alarmed. It was the kind of look that carried a silent accusation: this is your fault, and you know it.

"You might want to do something about her, Jin." Elizabeth's eyes never left the glitter-coated whirlwind of chaos. "Before she starts trying to eat the Candy People or something."

I blinked slowly, staring at Paimon with a vague sense of disconnect. I couldn't recall any moment in the game where she went this far off the rails with sugar, not even close. Either something inside her had finally snapped... or Princess Bubblegum had laced those sweets with something a lot more unhinged than simple frosting.

Either way, I was pretty sure Paimon might not be part of the Eldritch pantheon or even considered being offered to switch over. I'd rather not deal with a very hyper Paimon at all.

"Alright, let's end this part." I snap my fingers.

With a flicker of intent through Boundary Manipulation, Paimon drops like a glitter-dusted rock, out cold, just like Princess Bubblegum and the rest. I exhale softly. frёeωebɳovel.com

"Right. Let's leave the Candy Kingdom for now."

Another snap. A gap opens wide, big enough for all of us to step through. I pick Paimon up along with Ricardio, then walk through the gap with everyone.

The world bends—and we're somewhere colder.

The Candy Kingdom vanishes behind us, replaced by the frosted silence of the Ice Kingdom. More precisely, the Ice King's castle: a frozen mess of bizarre contradictions.

We appear in the main living room. There's a fancy, overdecorated bed shoved haphazardly to one side. A drum kit rests near it, half-buried in snow. Some weightlifting gear lies unused and neglected. Scattered around the room are crusty underpants, fossilized pizza boxes, and a stale, lingering musk of sad bachelor energy.

A metal cage sits in the corner, the one he used for kidnapped princesses. It's empty now.

And there, barely moving, is the Ice King himself.

He's sprawled pathetically on the icy floor, arms trembling as he weakly tries to crawl toward the exit. His robe is rumpled, his beard tangled, and his crown slightly crooked.

"Ah... er, hey guys... what you guys doing here...?" Ice King wheezes, his voice weak and undisguisedly full of fear.

He doesn't even try to hide it. His eyes flick to Ricardio's tofu form. Then to me. Then to the others. I could almost hear the sound of his survival instincts giving up.

"Hey, Ice King. This is your heart, turned into tofu." I hold up Ricardio for him to see, letting the light catch the pale, jiggling cube. "Want it back?"

I make no move to get closer.

Ice King's eyes widen with a strange mixture of desperation and hope, even as his limbs refuse to support him. He's still sprawled on the ground, breathing heavily, his fingers twitching weakly toward Ricardio.

"Wh-What do I have to do?" He croaks, voice brittle and cracking. But there's a faint spark in his eyes, a hunger for wholeness, maybe. Or just for something familiar.

Ricardio, meanwhile, is writhing in my grasp, his tofu body jiggling in panic.

"No! Nooo! Please don't give me back to him!" He shrieks. "I want to be free! I've changed! I don't belong to him anymore!"

I raise an eyebrow, amused. "What do you have to offer?" I ask Ice King, casually tossing Ricardio into the air like a squeaky toy.

He lets out another high-pitched scream, flailing helplessly midair before landing back in my hand with a soft, undignified squish. The sound is oddly satisfying. Almost musical.

Ice King licks his dry lips, trembling. "I... I don't know...? What do you want from me?" His voice trembles with honest fear. "Ju-Just tell me what you want... I'll give it to you...!"

"How about Ninjas of the Ice: The Art of Fridjitsu?" I ask, smiling down at Ice King.

He stares at me, wide-eyed, clearly not expecting that. But the moment it registers, he nods with almost frantic eagerness, as fast as his feeble body allows.

"Great." I say, casually flipping Ricardio in my hand again. "Show me where the manual is, and I'll hand over your heart. I'll even revert it from tofu so you can stick it back where it belongs."

"What the heck is Ninjas of the Ice... whatever-you-said-in-the-beginning?" Elizabeth cuts in, her eyebrows drawn so tightly together. She looks at me like I've just explained quantum theory using interpretive dance and crayons. "And besides it being some kind of manual or whatever... I'm gonna need way more context before I pretend that made sense."

"Maybe... it's something very important?" Shirahoshi mutters thoughtfully. Her gaze is soft, distant, like she's trying to understand something profound or the nonsense around her. But her daze doesn't last. A sudden shiver runs through her slender frame, and she gasps softly, arms hugging her body. "Ah—i-it's so chilly..." She whimpers, rubbing her arms in slow, trembling circles. Her long pink hair flutters slightly in the cold, and her lips quiver as she looks at me, cheeks flushed with frost. "Jin-sama... c-could you make me not so cold again?" Her voice is small and hopeful. "I-If you could make things feel warmer... even just a little..."

I snap my fingers.

I shift the boundaries with a quiet pulse of power; the cold no longer affects her. Or Elizabeth. Or the unconscious Paimon, who's drooling on a pillow of ice cream cake remnants, somehow stuck on her back.

Shirahoshi blinks, then smiles faintly in relief as the chill lifts from her bones. Elizabeth rolls her shoulders once, exhaling like someone who didn't want to admit she was cold but definitely appreciates not being cold anymore.

Somehow, Ice King finds a burst of strength—maybe desperation is an energy source all its own. He groans, dragging himself to a nearby wall. With a shaky hand, he slaps it like he's playing the world's saddest game of tag.

The wall rumbles. Then, with a sharp crack, a portion of the ice collapses inward, revealing a narrow, shadowy doorway.

A hidden passage.

Without a word, I walk forward, stepping through the threshold. The chill feels heavier here, denser. Inside, the room is filled with all manner of ninja-themed objects: throwing stars made of crystallized ice, katanas forged from glacier steel, faded scrolls pinned to the walls, and a long rack of ridiculously cool yet impractical masks. It's like a frozen dojo designed by a weeb with an overactive imagination.

And there, on a pedestal in the center, sits the manual: a white book with the title Ninjas of the Ice: The Art of Fridjitsu etched in both English and Japanese script.

I reach out and pick it up, brushing frost from the cover. The pages hum with a strange chill, like they remember being sealed away. I tuck it under my arm.

Then I glance back at Ice King.

With a muttered phrase under my breath, I undo the spell on Ricardio. The tofu shimmer fades, and the shriveled, screaming heart returns to its original, grotesquely animated self.

Ricardio's tiny limbs flail as I casually toss him across the room.

"W-Wait! No! Nooooo—!" He howls.

Ice King lets out an exhausted but triumphant laugh and catches him, just barely. Then, without hesitation, he peels open the gaping, heartless cavity in his chest.

"Home sweet home!" He wheezes, and with a sloppy shove, he crams Ricardio back inside.

The heart lets out one final, terrified scream before it disappears into Ice King's chest cavity. The gap seals shut with a wet squelch and a puff of frosty mist. Ice King wheezes again, but this time with relief, as though a piece of him has finally been restored... even if that piece is a self-absorbed talking heart.

Ice King slumps against the wall, breathing hard, a weird little smile on his face. "Ohhh... that hit the spot."

"That's just gross." Elizabeth comments on this sight.

Now, I'm curious what those who know about Blake would say if she were to learn from this manual?