episode_0038

The next morning.

“Alright. You’ve waited a long time, haven’t you? I’m all ready.”

At Killua’s words that he had found the location of his former fiancée’s remains, Rai appeared without a shred of doubt, fully prepared to explore the Lime Forest early in the morning.

“Aren’t you preparing too thoroughly?”

He had his usual bow and arrows, two small bags filled with various tools, and the bundle of throwing knives he always kept on one thigh, now abundantly and neatly tucked into both thighs.

“You never know what might happen, so you have to be ready for anything.”

He lightly patted a small bag hanging from his waist. The small bag swayed heavily with his taps, as if packed to the brim with tools.

“By the way, aren’t you calling the Hero?”

Although their opponents were lowly slimes, this was an exploration trip to their stronghold. It seemed that if there was even one more person capable of dealing with slimes, the exploration would be safer.

“The Hero… I didn’t call them because they seem to have some strange ulterior motive towards Killua.”

To my question of why they hadn’t called the Hero, Rai explained the reason with a reluctant expression, as if it was uncomfortable to say it themselves.

“Well… I can understand that.”

They had allowed Killua to be poisoned by slime venom by neglecting damage that could have been prevented with a very simple preventative measure. Although I didn’t know why the Hero had acted that way, Rai didn’t seem to want uncertain variables involved in a dangerous exploration trip to the slimes’ stronghold.

“Alright. So, everyone’s ready, right?”

In response to Rai’s question, Killua held a sturdy wooden staff that could help with climbing and at least push back slimes. I firmly gripped the large felling axe I had received from the Hero.

“Then…”

Seeing that we were ready, Rai put a hand into a leather pouch and grabbed a handful of beeswax powder. Then, skillfully, he carefully applied the beeswax powder to my and Killua’s necks.

“Is this the preventative measure?”

It was simply the act of applying beeswax powder to the neck, an area not easily seen but where skin was exposed. He had said this would prevent small slimes falling from trees from burrowing into our clothes.

“Small slimes will dry up completely, losing their stickiness as soon as they touch the beeswax powder. You just need to check how much beeswax powder is left on each other’s necks from time to time.”

It really was a very simple preventative measure. A small surge of anger belatedly rose in me regarding the Hero’s actions, having left Killua and me exposed to danger without even such a basic preventative measure.

“Alright. Let’s go. I’ll lead the way!”

As the atmosphere threatened to dampen due to resentment and anger towards the Hero, Killua, who had actually suffered the most, spoke with an effortfully bright and cheerful voice, leading the way into the Lime Forest.

“Here. Just in case, you should have one too.”

As we followed Killua into the Lime Forest, Rai handed me a small bag generously filled with beeswax powder.

“Thank you.”

After tying the bag of beeswax powder he handed me to my waist, I took a handful and applied it to the grooved surface of the felling axe I had received from the Hero. Thanks to the grooves, which seemed to be for some artistic or magical purpose, applying the beeswax powder to the axe surface and securing it wasn’t very difficult.

“I hope we don’t have to use that axe.”

Killua, who was walking ahead, mumbled in a worried voice as she watched me apply the beeswax powder to the axe head.

“Don’t worry. I know these slimes in this forest well, and I’m ready to deal with any slime that appears.”

Rai walked over to Killua, who was muttering words of worry, and gently patted her shoulder as if to encourage her.

“Hmm~ How reliable.”

Killua also looked at Rai, who was patting her shoulder, and smiled brightly.

“……”

Watching the two from behind, I simply matched my pace, walking about two steps away, so they could have a good time.

————————————-

The exploration was smooth.

“Hoo!”

In a moment of crisis for Killua, his archery skills, which had accurately hit the wolf’s brow, seemed to be no mere luck; he struck a slime hiding in a tree with astonishingly sharp archery.

“There are more and more of them, aren’t there?”

The deeper we went into the Lime Forest, the greater the proportion of slimes disguised as slime-like substances rather than just slime. Furthermore, dangerous slimes that mimicked tall trees or rocks to ambush prey also appeared.

“How do you distinguish slimes?”

Killua, surprised by Rai’s sharp eye that had discerned a slime perfectly mimicking a rock, asked for a tip on how to tell them apart.

“Slimes produce small bubbles on their surface when they digest their prey.”

Rai explained the trick as if it were nothing, then notched another arrow to his bowstring and pulled it back forcefully.

“No matter how much they mimic rocks or slime, they can’t hide the bubbles that surface.”

Thwack!

The arrow he shot hit a mass of slime hanging from a tree on the path we had to take. As soon as his arrow hit, the slime twisted its body as if in agony and then powerlessly fell to the ground.

“Still, there’s quite a lot of it, isn’t there?”

Rai approached the fallen slime, drew a throwing knife from his thigh, and casually threw it at the slime. The sharp throwing knife he threw pierced through the sticky slime, accurately severing the slime’s core hidden inside. Then, with an unpleasant gurgling sound, the slime’s form collapsed.

“How much further?”

“We should only need to move for about three more minutes.”

Rai nodded at Killua’s answer, picked up the arrow embedded in the slime and the throwing knife that had split the core, and roughly shook off the clinging slime.

“By the way… that one isn’t here, is it?”

“That one?”

Looking around, I brought up the slime that had left a strong impression on my memory and had been bothering me anyway.

“The giant slime that attacked Killua.”

“Ah… that one!”

At my words, Killua also exclaimed with a startled expression, as if she had forgotten about it for a moment.

That one was a giant slime with a massive body and numerous tentacles that had tried to attack Killua when she was poisoned by slime venom. It was fortunate that the Hero had blocked its attack alone; without them, we would not have noticed the approach of the numerous tentacles hiding among the ground and leaves, and would have been helplessly struck. A cunning creature like that, capable of secretly using such a huge body and numerous tentacles, seemed like a bad match for Rai, who was skilled in precise pinpoint shots with his bow and throwing knives.

“Ah. You mean the Harvester. Don’t worry about that one.”

Was Rai calling that giant one the Harvester? He gave a relaxed smile, as if it wasn’t much of a threat.

Rumble…

“Whoa?!”

At that moment, as if to prove the saying, “Speak of the devil and he shall appear” [a proverb about something appearing when spoken of], the ground vibrated, and tentacles hidden just beneath the surface emerged.

“Tch!!”

I had been holding my axe, prepared for that one’s appearance. The axe, coated with beeswax powder, not only easily severed its tentacles but also prevented their rapid regeneration due to the powder’s effect.

“That one is actually much more timid than it looks.”

Unlike me, who was fully prepared, Rai calmly and skillfully swiftly pulled out two arrows he had prepared beforehand. One had its arrowhead tightly wrapped in black cloth, and the other had a small paper pouch filled with beeswax powder attached.

“Whoosh!”

With a light exertion, he swiftly fired two arrows in quick succession at the giant slime, the Harvester, which had just revealed itself.

Boom!!

The moment the first arrow, tightly wrapped in black cloth, hit the slime, it burst through the slime’s sticky and tough outer skin with a loud explosion.

Bang!!

The subsequent arrow, containing beeswax powder, burst, scattering the powder into the slime’s interior where its outer skin had been peeled off by the explosion.

Gurgle!!

Then, as if feeling its life was in danger, the giant slime’s body began to heave violently. And it urgently retracted the numerous tentacles it had extended to capture us, using them to wrap around the area wounded by Rai’s arrows.

“Get away!!”

Rai again pulled out two more identical arrows, aimed them at the slime, and shouted.

Gurgle… Rumble…

But despite Rai’s warning, the Harvester did not move, instead heaving its body and making strange, booming noises as if to threaten us.

“What? Usually, it would have retreated by now?”

When the Harvester didn’t back down, Rai frowned as if finding it strange. But just because it wouldn’t retreat didn’t mean we could stop moving. When it still didn’t back down despite his warning, Rai unhesitatingly released the tightly drawn bowstring.

Boom!!

This time, Rai’s arrow hit the left side of the giant slime.

Rumble!!

The slime, a mere mass of liquid, could not resist or counterattack Rai’s assault. With a large explosion, beeswax powder scattered through the torn surface like salt on a wound, and it groaned with a louder tremor than before, retreating backward.

“Good. Might as well take care of it now.”

His momentary bewilderment at the Harvester not retreating lasted only briefly. Rai seemed to think this was an opportunity to finally deal with the always-fleeing Harvester, and he reloaded his bow with a new arrow.

“It looks a bit pathetic, doesn’t it?”

The Harvester was desperately wrapping its tentacles around itself to stop the bodily fluids flowing from the large wounds on its left and right sides caused by Rai’s arrows.

“It might look like that, but it’s incredibly cunning.”

Rai, drawing his bowstring taut, narrowed his eyes as if to precisely aim for the core this time, glaring at the Harvester struggling in vain.

Realizing that Rai’s arrow tip was aimed at its core, it belatedly squirmed its body desperately, trying to escape and hide deeper into the forest. However, unlike before, most of its tentacles were being used to cover the wounds from which its bodily fluids were flowing, so its movements were pitifully slow.

“Enough. Let it go.”

Just as Rai was about to release the bowstring to finish off the Harvester, Killua reached out and stopped his action.

“Huh? Why the sudden change?”

At Killua’s movement stopping his action, Rai looked at her with a flustered expression and lowered the arm that had been pulling the bowstring taut.

“Even if you physically eliminate a slime, their spilled bodily fluids just clump together and new slimes are born from them, aren’t they?”

“That’s… true, isn’t it?”

Even if a slime’s core, made of liquid, was physically removed, the slime wouldn’t completely disappear. Their bodily fluids, which had collapsed after the core vanished, would clump together again and regenerate, forming a new core. Therefore, simply removing the core with physical force was only a temporary solution. To perfectly eliminate a slime, the only method was to completely evaporate its bodily fluids with magic.

“What if you get rid of this timid one… and it resurrects as an extremely ferocious one?”

“That’s… a point.”

The moment such a giant slime’s core was removed, the immense bodily fluids forming its mass would seep into the ground and create another new giant slime. It was unknown whether a giant slime newly formed by a regenerated core would possess the timid personality of the current Harvester. In the worst case, if it gained a genocidal personality intent on annihilating all life, it would undoubtedly become a more serious nuisance than the current timid Harvester.

“And that cave over there seems to be our destination… I think it would be problematic if it died and its bodily fluids scattered everywhere.”

Following that, as the massive Harvester fled, Killua pointed to a cave that had been hidden from view behind its back.

“A cave?”

Seeing the cave Killua pointed to, Rai frowned in confusion and tilted his head.

“What’s wrong?”

Given his strange reaction upon discovering a cave where his fiancée’s remains supposedly were, I couldn’t help but ask for the reason.

“She was attacked by slimes in the west of the forest and went missing there.”

At Rai’s words, Killua and I looked in the western direction he indicated.

“Typically, slimes devour their victims on the spot; they don’t bother moving them to a lair or hideout.”

He then explained in detail why he was puzzled.

“Her fiancée’s remains will definitely be in that cave.”

But to Rai’s question, Killua emphasized that her judgment was not mistaken, her voice full of conviction. I also had not an ounce of doubt about her magic, so I nodded, agreeing with her words.

“Alright, well… I guess we’ll know once we go inside.”

Rai nodded, then took out a sturdy wooden stick from nearby and a cloth from his bag, beginning to prepare a torch to illuminate the dark cave.

“Something feels unsettling, doesn’t it?”

However, Rai’s words were not something to simply dismiss. There was no way a slime would be intelligent enough to carry the heavy corpse of a victim such a long distance. Therefore, finding her remains in a cave quite far from where she went missing was an utterly improbable scenario.

“Wait, Killua.”

I called out to Killua in a low voice so that Rai, who was preparing the torch to enter the cave, wouldn’t hear.

“Killua?”

Slowly turning to me at my call, Killua was biting her lower lip hard, her pupils trembling, showing an uneasy expression.

“Are you sure you detected the remains of his fiancée, I mean, the corpse?”

“No… to be precise, I detected a trace, a sign.”

Hearing her answer, an ominous and unsettling future formed in my mind. “Surely, she’s not ali—“

“It’s been five years since she went missing… five years. Don’t say such unsettling things.”

She hastily turned her head away as if to avoid me, stopping the most unsettling future from spilling from my lips.

“Alright. Let’s go inside.”

In the meantime, Rai, who had prepared the torch, lit it with a match from his pocket and began to lead the way towards the cave.