episode_0016

“Good.”

Our basket was filled to the brim with sticky, viscous clumps of slime.

Killua grinned and nodded, seemingly satisfied with the ample quantity of slime in the basket and its quality, which was better than expected.

“Your shoulder!”

Killua, having checked the basket, pointed out the slime wiggling on my shoulder, heading towards my neck.

At her remark, I quickly brushed my hand over the shoulder she indicated, knocking the squirming slime off.

The slime, fallen to the ground, didn’t give up and wriggled towards us, but as a precaution, I stomped it flat.

“It’s falling more and more often, isn’t it?”

Had we stayed in one place for too long? The frequency of slimes falling on our heads began to increase.

Killua and I continuously checked each other, quickly brushing off any slimes that landed on our shoulders or heads.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

The increased frequency of slimes falling on our heads meant that the slimes in this forest had noticed our presence.

This implied a higher possibility of more dangerous slimes appearing, not just these harmless, prank-like ones.

“We’ve gathered enough of what we need for now, so let’s retreat.”

Having confirmed that she had collected a sufficient amount of slime for her plans, Killua prepared to leave.

Sitting on a rock, Killua lightly brushed off her backside and tried to stand up.

“Huh?”

As Killua brushed off the slight dust from her backside, a result of sitting on the rock, she let out a small groan, pressed her hand to her forehead, and slumped back down onto the rock.

“What’s wrong?”

I had firmly secured the heavily weighted basket of slime onto my shoulder so it wouldn’t sway. I turned to look at Killua, who had slumped back down onto the rock after attempting to stand.

“Ah… nothing. Just a little dizzy…”

As I looked at her with worried eyes, Killua waved her hand dismissively, as if it were nothing.

And as she took a deep breath, seemingly trying to calm her dizziness, a clear blush bloomed on Killua’s cheeks.

“Are you okay?”

A clear blush on both cheeks and cold sweat on her forehead. Anyone could see that something was wrong.

I started to approach Killua to check her condition more closely.

“It’s here!!”

At that moment, the Hero-nim warned us with an urgent voice.

Simultaneously, the ground, covered in fallen leaves, began to heave as if it were a living creature.

As if prepared for this moment, the Hero-nim, who stood in front of us, gripped an axe coated heavily with sap in both hands.

“I’ll hold them off here! You go down first!”

“Wa-wait! What’s that suddenly?! What’s here?!”

Judging by the size of the heaving ground, the slime that had just appeared was beyond our comprehension.

Facing such an enemy, I couldn’t possibly follow the Hero-nim’s command to run away first, especially when we should be cooperating.

“You’ll just be in the way! Go first!”

Thud!

The Hero-nim suddenly swung the axe and struck the ground beside him.

With the impact of his strike, a slime’s tentacle, severed by his axe blade, flew into the air and writhed.

The severed tentacle desperately squirmed, trying to exert its last strength to reach Killua.

“Ugh?!”

The tentacles, cleverly hidden between the fallen leaves and soft ground so we wouldn’t notice them, were clearly targeting Killua and me.

I hadn’t noticed the slime tentacles hiding under the shallow ground or within the leaves at all.

However, the Hero-nim seemed to have noticed their movements, as he continuously swung his axe, severing the tentacles that tried to sneak towards us.

“Get out of here quickly!”

After severing five tentacles and noticing the oil coating on his axe blade wearing off, the Hero-nim skillfully applied beeswax powder, which he had tied to his waist, onto the blade.

Grrroan…

Perhaps frustrated that his tentacles were blocked by the Hero-nim’s axe and rendered useless, the gigantic slime’s main body slowly began to rise, overturning the ground.

A slime three times the height of an adult slowly rose, as if threatening us, but the Hero-nim showed no signs of intimidation, re-gripping his axe firmly with both hands.

“What should we do?!”

Realizing that staying here wouldn’t be much help in his fight, I looked at Killua for advice.

But even in the sudden crisis, Killua seemed slightly out of it, exhaling trembling breaths and gripping my clothing as she stared blankly at the ground.

“No way…”

Then, the Hero-nim’s warning came back to me. Slimes that knew well how to incapacitate humans.

And that one small slime that had definitely gone into the folds of her clothes but couldn’t be found.

Even the treacherous movements of the gigantic slime’s tentacles, openly targeting the incapacitated Killua as they snaked in.

“Damn it!”

Killua had definitely been subjected to some trick by the slime.

And the cunning slimes were prioritizing the incapacitated Killua as their target.

Realizing that staying here with her, who had already been marked as their target, was dangerous, I wrapped my arms around Killua’s waist, who was still dazed and disoriented, and lifted her forcefully onto my shoulder.

“Oh… I’m dizzy… Ugh!”

The moment I wrapped my arms around her waist and lifted her, she shrieked and gripped my arms around her waist.

“Do-don’t… shake me…”

As I carried her on my shoulder, the swaying motion seemed to amplify her current dizziness, and Killua mumbled in a weak voice.

“I’m sorry! But getting out of here is the priority!”

After offering a unilateral apology in the urgent situation,

I turned my back on the Hero-nim, who was confronting the slime, and frantically ran back down the mountain path we had ascended.

“Ugh… Ughhh…”

Killua, slung over my shoulder, groaned in agony every time her body swayed significantly.

She was enduring the poison eating away at her body with difficulty, biting her lower lip tightly and gripping my forearm so desperately that her nails dug in and blood began to seep out.

“Just bear with it a little longer!”

How far did I have to run to be safe? In this forest, saturated with slime mucus everywhere, there was no safe zone in sight.

All I could do was run until I was completely out of breath, putting as much distance as possible between us and the gigantic slime that was targeting Killua.

“Pant… pant…”

The adrenaline that surged in the moment of crisis only made me forget fatigue for a short while.

I had run quite far, and with no dangerous-looking slimes immediately visible, the fatigue, forgotten due to adrenaline, suddenly rushed in.

“Phew… Phew, damn it…”

I still had to run for another hour to get out of the slime forest.

But unfortunately, I wasn’t someone with extraordinary abilities like a novel’s protagonist or a legendary hero.

Just an ordinary person. A mere three-minute gritted-teeth sprint was the best I could do.

“I can’t… I can’t go any further…”

Moreover, with a basket full of slime on my right shoulder and Killua on my left, my body reached its limit.

My trembling legs no longer moved as I willed them to, and my ragged breath carried the metallic taste of blood.

“A place where slimes can’t mimic objects…”

Somehow, I looked for a place to rest to calm my ragged breath and trembling legs.

I found a flat, hard ground with no rocks or stones for slimes to mimic, and no fallen leaves to hide in. I almost collapsed onto the ground.

“Phew… Phew…”

And as a precaution, I took out the leather pouch containing the beeswax powder the Hero-nim had given me, opened it, and pulled out an old sword from the workshop, sticking it into the ground so I could immediately swing it.

Finally, after scanning the surroundings for any dangerous or unusual movements, I let out a deep sigh and was finally able to calm my ragged breath.

“Killua-nim. Are you okay?”

Once the surroundings were confirmed safe, I carefully laid Killua, whom I had been carrying on my shoulder, onto the ground.

Killua then clutched her chest with her left arm, struggling to let out shallow groans as if in pain.

Her body was burning hot, like a ball of fire.

“Killua-nim! Snap out of it!”

Ignorant of illnesses and medicine, I had no idea what condition Killua was in.

I only understood one thing very well: given her burning hot body, groans mixed with agony, and rough breathing, some kind of poison was tormenting her.

“Don’t… don’t shout… I feel like I’m going to throw up…”

Thinking her consciousness might be hazy from the high fever and pain, I shouted to rouse her.

But Killua slightly furrowed her brow and glared at me with narrow, hazy eyes, as if my voice was clearly audible and she was telling me to shut up.

“Is it poison, perhaps?”

The first thing that came to mind was poison.

It was common for wounds to become infected and worsen due to slimes that had consumed sewage and become contaminated.

But I had never heard of slimes naturally producing potent toxins that could incapacitate a person like this.

“It’s not poison… Ugh…”

Her burning red lips parted with difficulty as she tried to calmly answer my question.

But each word seemed to cause her pain, and she covered her mouth, dry heaving lightly.

Swallowing the nausea that had risen to her throat, she once again regulated her ragged breathing and parted her lips.

“It feels… It feels like I drank a lot of alcohol…”