The maid stood before them, posture perfect, face emotionless—like she’d been carved from disappointment itself.
Then, she spoke. Flat. Direct. Brutal.
"You four are the most dysfunctional party I have ever seen. If you’re in a guild, I suggest you quit immediately and take up a new hobby—perhaps collecting trash with your teeth. Together, you don’t even amount to half a functioning brain cell. And that’s me being generous."
Each word landed like a frying pan to the soul.
Chestelle didn’t react. She was still gnawing on a leaf like a starving goat.
Lickthorn blinked slowly from her spot on the ground, giving a lazy thumbs up was the greatest day of her life.
Majestria? Completely ignoring everyone while fixing her hair like it was a divine artifact being reassembled.
He stood there like a kid who just confessed his crush in front of the whole school only to be laughed at and told he had "loser breath."
"You threw knives at us with crazy precision! What the hell were we supposed to do?!" he blurted, arms flailing in disbelief.
The maid didn’t even blink.
"Not run around like idiots high on crack."
’Of course there’s crack in this world?!’ Finn thought in pure mental defeat.
"That is not true! I’ll have you know we took down a demon squad and a giant chicken!"
The maid didn’t miss a beat.
"Correction: I am high on Methgasmite and having wild hallucinations, believing I defeated demon soldiers. I am so mentally unwell, I need to be locked up in a padded magical cell and spoon-fed soup through a container."
Finn’s jaw dropped. ’W-What the hell is Methgasmite?!’
He turned desperately to Majestria, who was now working on the left braid of her hair like it held the secrets of the universe.
He whispered, "What the hell is Methgasmite?"
She glanced at him with goddess-level judgment. "How do you not know? It’s a hardcore drug made from crushed magical crystals and... orgasm juice."
Finn reeled back like he’d been slapped. "Oh my god, you could’ve just said ’ew’ and stopped talking..."
’She knows what drugs are but not anything actually important or worth knowing. Goddess my ass.’
That was it. Finn had reached his breaking point. His soul had been sautéed, flambéed, and served on a dish of existential dread.
"You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about—" he began, but the maid cut him off.
"You have zero redeeming qualities. Your only saving grace is that hat. Without it, you’d look like a bum begging for copper coins in the slums, despite having a fully functional body and—presumably—a brain, though I have my doubts."
Finn’s soul visibly left his body.
And his pride (whatever crumbs he had left), was now buried six feet under a pile of shame and verbal abuse.
There was nothing left.
Just a hollow boy in a cool hat.
The maid finally continued.
"Before I let you go, I need to know something."
That somehow got some attention. Lickthorn stopped giggling. Chestelle paused her leaf-snack. Even Majestria blinked once, which was basically a gasp coming from her.
The maid stood silent for a second—probably debating if it was even worth asking such a dumb group.
Then finally, she asked:
"Have any of you seen those small slime sinkholes?"
Finn didn’t even bother asking what a slime sinkhole was.
He’d had enough emotional trauma for one day.
And besides—if he asked, the maid would probably just dropkick his self-esteem one more time for sport. At this point, it was like kicking a corpse that already got curb-stomped by the entire Football roster.
But the word "slime" alone was already triggering.
The Horny Slime—that gelatinous demon of jiggly despair—had left a scar so deep in Finn’s soul, it might as well have filed a permanent residence form.
He never wanted to hear about anything slime-related ever again.
But then—like a dumb, adorable angel descending from heaven—Chestelle tilted her head and softly asked:
"What’s a slime sinkhole?"
Finn turned to her like she’d just taken a bullet for him.
’You beautiful idiot. My dumb, chaotic saint.’ He smiled slightly. Maybe everything wasn’t awful.
The maid’s eyes slid toward Chestelle. She didn’t move her head—just her eyes. Like an owl who’s also incredibly disappointed in life.
She sighed. Loudly. Like explaining anything to this party made her physically ill.
"There have been multiple incidents of slime sinkholes forming in this area. They open up in the ground and allow slimes to crawl out and attack travelers. Some claim to have seen a humanoid slime figure in the distance, but we have no confirmation if those sightings are real."
Chestelle blinked. Then blinked again. Then nodded slowly, like her brain was buffering the information at 144p.
The maid turned to Finn.
He instantly looked away. Nope. Not doing this. I’m not even here. I’m a hat rack.
The maid let out another deep sigh.
"It’s what you saw me in. That’s a slime sinkhole."
Finn blinked. He looked back toward the spot she had jumped fifty feet out of.
"That tiny thing is a sinkhole...? Weird-ass world," he muttered. ’Still better than the ones on Earth. At least these don’t swallow entire houses.’
After thinking for a bit, he finally asked a real question, the kind that usually came from people with functional brain matter.
"Do people know what’s causing this?"
The maid’s eye twitched slightly.
For a second, she looked almost... impressed? Or at least surprised that the party clown could form a sentence with a question mark.
"No. Unfortunately, we do not. That’s why we’re investigating it."
Finn narrowed his eyes. "We...?"
The maid looked at him, weighing whether he deserved the info. Then decided: Screw it, these morons aren’t threatening anyone anyway.
"I’m part of a company called Haus Silbertraum—also known as House of Silver Dream. The founder said it was in an ancient and Cineplex language that no commoner would understand."
Her voice had a tinge of pride now, just barely enough to taste.
’You gotta be kidding me. That’s just funking German.’