Ch.249[Chapter 249] Escape

Sir Dominic was staring back at the black slime that was looking down at him.

The black slime, which had grown as large as an apartment building, appeared to be final boss material based on size alone, but for some reason, Sir Dominic didn’t feel the urge to point his shield at it.

To be precise, the slime showed no signs of aggression whatsoever, so Sir Dominic didn’t feel any need to fight it.

“…!”

The slime wriggled and began to slowly approach Sir Dominic.

“My goodness, what is that?”

Aaa was terrified by this new variable.

No matter how you looked at it, this slime was at least a field boss, or more likely a raid boss, or perhaps even an invincible boss created solely for scenario progression.

Aaa took two steps back.

His mind was filled with thoughts of escaping through the portal if necessary.

Aaa was a person specialized in speed runs, not boss rushes.

Fleeing from a boss wasn’t something that would tarnish a speed runner’s honor.

However, unlike Aaa, Sir Dominic took three steps forward.

Somehow, he felt as if the slime was calling to him.

Of course, this was just Sir Dominic’s intuition, but his intuition was generally quite accurate.

“Sir Dominic?”

Sir Dominic ignored Hime’s attempt to hold him back and moved closer to the slime.

“Go ahead without me! I have business with this creature!”

As Sir Dominic shouted to Hime and approached the building-sized slime, the slime wobbled its massive body as if showing affection.

Of course, given its size, even such minor movements could be dangerous, but the slime had no intention to attack, and Sir Dominic had enough defense and damage reduction abilities to withstand any accidental impacts.

Finally reaching the slime, Sir Dominic touched its black skin.

A soft, chewy sensation transmitted through his palm.

“!”

“…What’s this?”

The slime reacted to Sir Dominic’s touch by spitting something out.

Sir Dominic picked up an object that looked almost brand new, and he was quite familiar with it.

It was the phone that Sir Dominic had dropped.

The reason he described himself as “quite familiar” was because Sir Dominic still didn’t understand mobile banking, hotspots, or airplane mode.

“Could it be that you went to retrieve this?”

Sir Dominic remembered the slime that had suddenly run off somewhere when he rescued Hime.

If his guess was correct, the slime had remembered Sir Dominic’s lost phone and gone to pick it up.

And after retrieving the phone, the slime had appeared before him to return it.

He wasn’t sure what had happened in between, but the slime must have eaten various things to grow to its current size.

“Thank you for finding it.”

Sir Dominic stroked the slime once.

The slime wobbled happily.

It wobbled so excitedly that Hime, who was standing behind, had to shout.

“Sir Dominic? You might be able to endure it since you’re a tanker, but we can’t hold on any longer!”

When Sir Dominic glanced back at Hime’s cry, he saw craters created by the slime’s body as it stretched out and returned to its original form.

Apparently, only Sir Dominic could afford to be so relaxed.

“Why didn’t you leave first?”

“Because of that slime!”

Sir Dominic looked in the direction Hime was pointing.

There was slime stuck to a rock, preventing Hime and Aaa from leaving through the portal.

Sir Dominic realized then that he needed to calm the slime down.

“Can you reduce your size? You’re so big that you’re causing problems even without meaning to.”

Sir Dominic shouted loudly toward the slime.

He wasn’t sure if the slime had ears, but since it had shown signs of understanding his words so far, Sir Dominic believed it would respond somehow.

“!”

The slime wriggled slightly as if in agreement, then spat out a small lump containing its nucleus.

The small lump curled up into a ball, then climbed up Sir Dominic’s leg and entered the phone he was holding.

As the slime entered the phone, the S.P.Y app automatically launched.

Along with a system window saying [There is a new update for the S.P.Y app. Would you like to update now?]

“We should get out of here first.”

Sir Dominic first checked on Hime and Aaa’s condition.

Hime and Aaa were staring blankly at the gradually disappearing black slime, and between Hime’s legs was a deep hole created by the rampaging slime.

If Hime had stepped back a moment later, she might have been seriously injured.

Fortunately, after confirming that Hime and Aaa weren’t badly hurt, Sir Dominic glanced at the massive black slime.

With its nucleus gone, the black slime’s mass began to lose its cohesion and flow downward like it was melting, before most of it dispersed into the void.

Some remnants remained, but even those would disappear after a little more time.

“I, I thought I was going to die.”

Hime stood up awkwardly and sighed with relief.

“It wasn’t that dangerous.”

“It’s different for non-tankers, you know!”

Hime thought to herself, “That’s tankers for you,” in response to Sir Dominic’s words.

Unlike Sir Dominic who had been quite relaxed, Hime had been on the brink of death.

This was a chronic problem for fragile damage dealers.

Unlike tankers who could take dozens of hits with ease, fragile damage dealers felt each hit as potentially fatal.

While Sir Dominic was relaxed enough to consider the slime’s movements as cute, for Hime, each movement was a matter of life and death.

“Anyway.”

Hime peeked under the rock to check if the black slime was still there.

“What on earth was that? A boss for the next update? A ghost created by a glitch in Glitchburg?”

The slime’s core had already entered Sir Dominic’s phone, and only its outer shell of slime had disappeared, but Hime didn’t know this.

That’s why she thought the black slime that had appeared threateningly and then vanished was a boss or a bug.

“Well, it’s probably nothing important.”

Sir Dominic considered explaining about the black slime to Hime but decided to keep its existence secret.

If only he were involved, it might have been different, but to explain about this black slime, he would also have to explain about the other half of the nucleus in Sir Dominica’s phone.

Sir Dominic pushed the phone deeper into his pocket.

“Anyway, shouldn’t we get out of here?”

Aaa interjected between Sir Dominic and Hime’s conversation.

“We don’t know what other variables might appear if we stay any longer.”

“Indeed. Let’s leave immediately.”

“I agree.”

Sir Dominic, Hime, and Aaa all threw themselves into the portal without hesitation.

Sir Dominic experienced a bright light temporarily whitening his vision before his sight gradually recovered.

“…We’re back.”

Sir Dominic found himself in a familiar space that somehow felt strange.

It was the Story Mode lobby.

[1-7 Clear!]

[404 Not found!]

[If you happened to fall into 1-7 by chance, please contact the Executive branch and System Industries.]

Along with the familiar system window.

Sir Dominic looked around for a moment.

Blue sky, white clouds, and a bright sun illuminating the world between them.

Having become accustomed to darkness and limited visibility, Sir Dominic felt refreshed by the wide-open view that extended far into the distance.

“Are we back?”

“Yes, we’re back.”

Sir Dominic wasn’t the only one who had returned.

Hime and Aaa had also arrived in the lobby and were filling their lungs with Gachaland’s fresh air.

“Excuse me, what year is it now?”

“…? I’m seeing a crazy person. Are you cosplaying as a regression character?”

Hime asked a passing citizen a strange question and was treated like a crazy person, but she didn’t mind.

That’s how unsettling Glitchburg had been.

“Anyway, now that you’ve returned to Gachaland, I’ll be going. I need to practice my speed runs. And check out the changed 1-7 too.”

Aaa said this and left.

Perhaps out of habit from Glitchburg, he bounced forward in a zigzag pattern, but unlike in Glitchburg, there was no speed increase.

Probably blocked by the system.

At that moment, Sir Dominic’s phone began to ring loudly in his pocket.

When Sir Dominic took out his phone to check why it was ringing so much, he found it filled with messages and missed calls that had accumulated while he was in Glitchburg, outside the service area.

Looking at that enormous number of messages and missed calls, Sir Dominic finally realized that they had truly returned.