episode_0009

After a light warm-up, we prepared to leave the small workshop set up on one side of the clearing for our respective tasks.

Rai, the hunter, fastened a bow and arrows, and a leather bag containing medicinal herbs for emergencies, to his waist to find food for the villagers.

“This… and that. Oh! I think I’ll need this too!”

Killua chose the items she would need for her gathering work from Rai’s workshop.

Following closely behind her, I began putting the items she chose into my backpack or carrying them in my arms.

The items Killua selected were a large wooden basket big enough to carry on one’s back, a scraper for scraping things, and a long wooden pole with a metal hook at the end.

“Just in case, take this with you.”

Rai, who had been quietly watching Killua pack various items from behind, took out a whistle, seemingly crafted from bone, from his pocket and handed it to her.

“If anything happens, blow it hard. I’ll run to you as fast as I can.”

“Ah. Thank you!”

Killua didn’t seem to dislike Rai’s concern for her; she smiled brightly, took the whistle he offered, carefully tied it to the end of her cloak’s fastening strap, and ostentatiously shook it.

Perhaps somewhat reassured by Killua’s actions, Rai, with a faint smile, waved goodbye to us as if wishing us a safe trip, and was the first to leave the workshop.

“So, if there’s danger, I should blow this, right?”

Watching Rai’s retreating back, Killua, a strange smile playing on her lips, fiddled with the bone whistle she had received from him.

“Why on earth did he make it so eerily out of bone?”

Once Rai had left, I reverted to formal speech with Killua and eyed the bone whistle with suspicion.

Lime Forest yielded plenty of good quality timber. There was no particular reason to make a whistle out of bone in such a gruesome way.

“Well… it’s probably due to indigenous beliefs or strong traditional meanings. You can’t nitpick about the culture of this small village, can you?”

In response to my question, Killua sided with Rai and offered a reasonably logical answer.

I could only nod with a grimace at her irrefutable answer.

“Alright… then let’s get going!”

Convinced that she had packed enough items, Killua flung open the workshop door and led the way, walking out towards Lime Forest.

Following behind her, I shouldered the equipment and tools she had chosen and walked into the forest as she led.

———–

Since lumberjacks had frequently traveled back and forth for logging in the past, the forest path leading from Eaton Village to Lime Forest was neatly cleared and easy to walk.

Although a slight steep incline posed a hindrance, there were at least no annoying obstacles like twigs or stones to trip over.

“Huff… Hmph…”

Killua’s steps, which had confidently led the way up the mountain path, gradually slowed.

However, perhaps not wanting to appear tired in front of me, she was sweating profusely and biting her lower lip, forcing down the ragged breaths that threatened to escape, as she resolutely climbed the next incline with trembling legs.

“Whew… Killua-nim. Let’s rest for a bit.”

Unable to bear watching her unsteady back any longer, I finally let out a big sigh and sank to the ground as if exhausted.

“Sh… shall we?”

As if she had been waiting for my words, Killua let out a deep sigh, perched her small bottom on a suitable rock, and began to steady her ragged breathing, suppressing her sounds as much as possible so I wouldn’t hear.

“It seems we’re slowly entering the slime’s territory.”

Looking around, lumps of slime-like excretions, virtually identical to slime itself, began appearing everywhere.

Slimes consume anything containing organic matter, regardless of whether it’s animal or plant.

For such slimes, the good-quality trees of Lime Forest, brimming with life, were naturally an ideal food source.

“What is our objective?”

I waited until Killua caught her breath, and once her breathing stabilized, I asked her the purpose of our journey to the forest.

Killua wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead with her sleeve, and, still seemingly unable to speak freely, raised a finger and pointed to one side of the forest.

“Hmm…”

I began to observe closely what her fingertip was indicating.

I thought it might be a bush, but it was just meaningless weeds.

Then a tree? But I had seen countless trees like that on the way up here.

There was no need to climb such a steep incline just for a tree. So, what was left…

“Could it be that slime?”

The last remaining thing was the green slime clinging to the tree.

“Alright… I’ll tell you how.”

Without refuting my answer, she let out another deep sigh and composed her ragged breaths, and finally, she began to speak.

She pointed to the long pole with a hook hanging beside my backpack and said,

“Poke the slime with this pole. If it moves, it’s a living slime, so ignore it. If it doesn’t move, it’s the slime we need to collect.”

“Collecting slime?”

Slime mucus.

It was essentially the excrement left behind by slimes after finishing their meal, clustered organic matter or unnecessary residue.

At Killua’s words that we had to collect such a thing, my complexion began to turn stark white.

“Exactly. Once you confirm it’s the right kind of slime, vigorously scrape it with that scraper and put it in the basket.”

“Th… Killua-nim? The true nature of this slime is directly, the slime’s…”

I trailed off, unable to bring myself to utter the truth.

Killua, who had been silently watching me, shook her head scornfully and said,

“Don’t think of it as excrement. Think of it as a byproduct. Like cow’s milk or bee’s honey. That’s not excrement, but a byproduct created by a creature called slime.”

“Bu… but you know very well that common sense says otherwise, don’t you?”

Slime mucus is excrement produced by slimes.

That was a general and universal common sense that even a 5-year-old child knew.

No matter how stubborn one was, there was no way that common sense, known since birth, could be easily overturned.

“If you don’t want to do it, don’t. I’ll do it.”

In the end, Killua, perhaps too tired to bother persuading me with words, stepped forward herself.

She snatched the pole from my backpack and, using only her left arm, precariously poked the slime clinging to the tree.

Even though the sharp hook pierced deep inside, the slime didn’t move. So Killua pulled out the pole she had used to poke the slime, took the scraper from my backpack, and walked fearlessly towards the green slime, saying,

“The reason people think slime mucus is slime excrement is because the mucus from slimes that devoured all sorts of filth in sewer systems smelled terrible.”

Approaching the slime, Killua gestured to me as if telling me to bring the basket.

As Killua took the initiative, I couldn’t just stand by. So, following her gesture, I reluctantly walked over to her side.

And I held the basket beneath the slime, ready to catch the mucus she would scrape off with the scraper.

“In a forest like this, the mucus from slimes that only consume fresh herbs or trees doesn’t smell bad at all; in fact, it usually has a subtle fragrance!”

Shouting triumphantly, she jabbed the green slime with the scraper in her hand.

And the moment she boldly scraped the slime vigorously from top to bottom with the scraper.

“Ugh!!”

“Gasp!!”

Making a mockery of her bold assertion, a terrible stench erupted from the cracks in the slime, so awful it reflexively stopped my breath.

The stench was so horrific that Killua threw down the scraper she was holding, covered her nose and mouth, and recoiled.

I, too, was startled and sank to the ground, covering my nose and mouth against the intense stench that made my eyes and nose sting.

Ooze…

The green slime she had scraped from top to bottom slowly parted, revealing the dark red slime hidden within.

The source of this terrible stench was the dark red, sticky slime, wrapped and hidden within the green slime.

“Ki… Killua-nim?! That is…”

As the dark red slime slowly parted and began to flow downwards, a stark white skeleton, undeniably identifiable as human bones, creaked out from within.

“Ugh…”

It was a skeleton cleanly digested by the slime, with not a shred of flesh remaining.

The slimes in Lime Forest, with an abundance of things to consume, had simply excreted the hard bones which contained relatively few usable nutrients.

“Ki… Killua-nim?!”

As it flowed down with a sickening stench, the slightly tilted, empty eye sockets of the skull seemed to stare at me, as if piercing my very soul.

Unlike me, who recoiled in surprise, Killua, while clutching her nose against the terrible stench, glared intensely at the skull’s eye sockets.

“Let’s go back.”

Killua, who had been staring at the skeleton for a moment, picked up the scraper she had instinctively thrown away due to the surprisingly terrible stench.

On my behalf, as I stupidly sat there, she vigorously shook the basket, dumping out the severely foul-smelling dark red slime that had gotten inside.

Then, as if to help me, who was helplessly slumped on the ground, startled by the horrific stench and the skeleton, she extended a hand towards me.

“I… I apologize for showing such an unsightly display.”

As I took her outstretched hand, she used the recoil of her entire body to pull my arm up, helping me, who was larger than her, stand up.

Thanks to her, I easily got back on my feet. I took the basket she had been carrying, shouldered it myself, and slowly began to descend the mountain path.