episode_0062

Even though Ariel’s magic was said to have enhanced my physical abilities, it took almost an hour to chop through the waist of the giant tree with an axe.

“This is… the last one!!”

Sensing the final blow, I twisted my upper body, drenched in sweat that poured like rain, and delivered the last swing of the axe.

Boom! Crackle…

The giant tree, deeply cut at its trunk, began to slowly tilt, letting out a loud roar befitting its size.

As I watched the tree begin to fall, the taut tension in my body loosened, and fatigue rapidly surged.

Overwhelmed by a crushing fatigue, as if heavy chains were wrapped around my entire body, I sank weakly to the ground before the slowly falling tree.

“You did great! You really pulled it off!!”

Ariel, who had been concentrating behind me to maintain the enhancement magic applied to me, smiled brightly with a loud exclamation of admiration as the tree fell and approached my side.

“It’s thanks to you. That enhancement magic… it was really good, wasn’t it?”

My hands, which had gripped the axe handle, were covered in blood, and my overused arm muscles trembled… but without Ariel’s enhancement magic, it would have been impossible for me to fell that huge tree alone.

At my reply, Ariel, smiling widely, approached my side and sat down on the ground similar to me, saying,

“Ahahaha… You really are trusting. Do you think I used enhancement magic?”

“What? No, what are you talking about? I clearly felt warm magic wrapping around my arm?”

Startled by her absurd words, I touched my arm, which I had felt enveloped in her magic with a warm sensation.

I had clearly felt her magic warmly embracing and permeating my arm.

At my reply, Ariel lightly massaged my shoulder as if to say I’d worked hard, and said,

“Ah~ That was just a simple warming spell. It felt warm, didn’t it?”

“Wh-what?”

“Do you know that magic to enhance someone else’s body is incredibly complex and difficult? It requires injecting your own magic to manifest the enhancement spell without interfering with the target’s existing magical flow. Killua-nim might do it as easily as eating cake, but ordinary mages can’t easily accomplish it.”

At Ariel’s explanation, I looked at her with disbelieving eyes.

Her explanation wasn’t wrong.

That’s why it was common to cast blessings that enhance the body with divine power, which doesn’t greatly interfere with magic, rather than using magic to enhance another’s body.

“Felling that tree was entirely Jazel-ssi’s own strength. All I did for you was… give you a little belief and courage.”

At her words, I looked at the tree I had felled with the axe.

The tree trunk had many empty spaces inside, as if eaten away by slimes, more so than a normal tree, but still, I had felled a tree so thick I couldn’t embrace it with both arms, all by my own hands.

Ariel slowly stood up and touched the tree I had felled.

“Honestly, I didn’t expect you to be able to completely fell this tree. Its interior is riddled with holes now because of the slimes, but this tree is hard enough to be used for building.”

“I believed you had used enhancement magic on me, so…”

“Hmm~ I don’t recall saying I would use enhancement magic on Jazel-ssi~”

Ariel turned to me, sticking out her tongue slightly and flashing a mischievous smile.

As she said, she had only stated that she would use magic, not that she would use magic to enhance physical abilities.

At her reply, which wasn’t technically wrong, I let out a deflated sigh and looked at my arm, trembling from accumulated fatigue and shock.

“This is the side of Jazel-ssi I like.”

Ariel, who had approached me, lowered herself to meet my eye level and warmly clasped my trembling hand.

“It’s a noble heart and a healthy will that can firmly trust others without suspicion.”

“That’s… foolish and pathetic.”

I mumbled softly, recalling past memories where such trust had led to loss or hurt.

“No! That’s only from the perspective of those wicked people who try to exploit you. How precious is someone with a noble heart and will like yours!”

At my small grumble, Ariel spoke with narrowed eyes, as if angrily defending me against all who had tried to exploit me.

“Do you know what I thought when I saw Jazel-ssi’s back, diligently swinging the axe, believing my magic was enhancement magic?”

Hearing her question, I tried to imagine it from her perspective.

My appearance, sweating profusely and strenuously swinging the axe solely with my own strength, firmly believing that her warming spell was enhancement magic… it must have seemed truly pathetic.

“You didn’t laugh, did you?”

“No way!!”

At my question, Ariel vehemently and strongly denied my words, as if a trigger had been pulled.

And as if she couldn’t believe I’d said such a thing, she firmly gripped both my shoulders with her hands, looking me directly in the eyes, and said,

“It was incredibly moving! I wanted to tell you that you’d done enough and to stop, but… you kept swinging the axe with resolute eyes, believing my words without wavering, so I couldn’t stop you!!”

“Uh… that’s… thank you for seeing it that way.”

I faced her with a bewildered expression at her unexpectedly strong reaction and praise.

Then, Ariel, who had been staring at my face, nodded slightly with resolute eyes, as if she had decided something.

“As a reward for Jazel-ssi’s trust, for diligently working based on my mere words of magic… I should show you something, shouldn’t I?”

Ariel carefully rose to her feet, taking a deep breath as if it were not an easy decision.

And as if preparing her magic, she quietly closed her eyes and began to concentrate.

However, contrary to my thoughts, she didn’t seem to be preparing magic; the mana circulating around her body maintained a gentle flow without showing any changes.

Rustle…

Then. The tree I had felled began to rustle.

This was Lime Forest, where almost all living creatures had been preyed upon by slimes, practically exploited by them.

In this place where not even birds or animals, let alone insects, existed, the tree wouldn’t rustle without reason.

“Ariel!!”

Instinctively sensing danger, I squeezed the muscles of my fatigued body, as if heavy chains were weighing me down, and sprang to my feet.

And the moment I aimed the axe in my hand at the rustling leaves.

Swish!

Piercing through the bushes, a slime’s tentacle shot towards us like an arrow.

“Ugh!!”

I wasn’t confident I could block a tentacle shooting like an arrow with the axe I held, like a hero or a legendary swordsman from a novel.

“Kyaa!?”

Without hesitation, I wrapped my arms around Ariel’s shoulders, who was unaware and concentrating with her eyes closed, turned my body, and blocked the tentacle shooting towards us with my back.

And the moment I clenched my eyes shut, bracing for the pain that would soon pierce my body.

Peck.

A soft sensation of skin touching my cheek, accompanied by the sound of a small kiss.

“Uh… wh-what?”

Instead of the pain of being pierced in the back, I began to cautiously open my closed eyes with a bewildered gasp, feeling a soft touch and warmth tickling my cheek.

“I really like such devoted actions, you know.”

Before my eyes, Ariel was there, a slight blush on her face, laughing playfully, seemingly feeling no sense of danger from the sudden slime attack.

“No… but a slime clearly…”

Confused by this change in situation, I cautiously turned my body to check the slime’s tentacle that had attacked us.

“What is this…”

The slime’s tentacle, which had shot forward as if to pierce a human body, stopped right in front of us and swayed gently from side to side, as if showing it held no hostility.

As I stared, entranced, at the tentacle swaying gently from side to side before my eyes, Ariel, who had been in my arms, carefully slipped out and touched the swaying tentacle in front of me.

“This is my secret.”

Following that, she waved her hand towards the bushes beyond the fallen tree from which the tentacle had shot.

Then the bushes shook loudly, and a huge slime, which had been hiding, slowly began to rise.

“Reaper…!”

The slime that revealed itself was a giant slime known as the Reaper, which had attacked its poisoned victims with its massive body and cunning movements.

The Reaper, which appeared with most of its tentacles wrapped around its injuries, as if the wounds from Rai hadn’t fully healed, gently wrapped a tentacle around Ariel’s hand as if greeting her.

“How… how did this happen?”

At the appearance of a slime that had threatened Killua-nim and me until now, and Ariel’s display of intimate connection with it, I strained my almost exhausted muscles intensely.

“It’s quite a long story to explain, and it’s a phenomenon I don’t fully understand myself…”

Ariel, who had been quietly gazing at the slime’s tentacle wrapped around her hand and contemplating for a moment as if organizing her thoughts, slowly continued speaking.

“Perhaps it’s the effect of supplying mana to the slimes for five years? My thoughts and will gradually became embedded in the slimes’ growth and evolution.”

There was a theory that mana was a type of soul power.

The theory stated that during the process of mana flowing in nature being processed through the human body and materializing into a magical form, a person’s will, memories, and personality would become embedded within it.

It was said that if the attributes of that will, memory, or personality matched the attributes of the magic being materialized, its efficiency and destructive power would increase.

“So, the slimes’ strange growth and changes… their bizarre evolution was all due to your influence?”

“Instead of lethal neurotoxins or effective paralytics… you can tell by the strange alcohol-inducing poison, can’t you?”

As if even she found it absurd, she gave a bitter smile and slowly looked at the undulating Reaper.

“Besides this, creating Reapers that patrol the territory, and encouraging a single powerful evolution rather than indiscriminate proliferation. All of these were my ideas.”

“What on earth…”

Her frank confession left me speechless.

Her confession essentially proved that she was behind the slime incident in Lime Forest.

“That was the best way to minimize damage to the village.”

With a small sigh, Ariel withdrew her hand from the tentacle that had wrapped around it.

“I created beings called Reapers that attack and abduct animals, preventing countless small or uncontrollable slimes from indiscriminately attacking humans or animals.”

As Ariel said, we had only been attacked by the Reapers; other slimes had not attacked us first.

Rai had handled a few slimes that blocked paths and remained still, but besides the mucus monster and the Reaper that sealed and guarded Ariel, no slimes had actively attacked us first.

“And I encouraged evolutions that consumed an unnecessarily large amount of energy, preventing slimes from proliferating more than necessary.”

Even after absorbing the immense mana from the pendant fragment, the slimes maintained a relatively small population, contrary to Killua-nim’s expectations.

This was because the slimes had consumed all the immense mana they had consistently absorbed over five years as energy for their own evolution.

“But if they had succeeded in evolving…”

“Then it would have been a true disaster.”

At my words, assuming the worst-case scenario, Ariel shook her head bitterly, as if she didn’t even want to imagine that moment.

“Anyway… this is my secret!”

Ariel smiled brightly, as if telling me not to imagine unnecessary and ominous futures, and leaned comfortably against the Reaper’s massive body.

It seemed like an incredibly dangerous action… but surprisingly, the Reaper didn’t swallow Ariel’s much smaller body. Instead, it merely guarded her surroundings with a few small tentacles, as if assisting and protecting her.

“My connection with the slimes hasn’t been severed. Rather, it’s become even clearer, I’d say?”

Snap!

As she snapped her fingers for me to see, slimes that had been mimicking wood, ground, and small stones in the surroundings began to squirm and reveal themselves.

“Ha… haha… Well, that’s something…”

I looked at the squirming slimes around us, moving according to her will, with an expression too complex to describe.

“So, this is how you accurately pinpointed the toxins in my body.”

“Yes. There were tiny traces of slime tissue remaining in the toxin mass.”

Now that she had revealed everything to me, she disclosed the secret to tracking the toxins in my body, as if it weren’t a big secret anymore.

“Good heavens…”

At her words that she could command slimes as if they were her limbs, and her actions demonstrating it, my tension released, and I collapsed weakly to the ground.

“You’re very surprised, aren’t you?”

Then Ariel waved her hand again, making the revealed slimes move away from sight.

Subsequently, the giant Reaper, several times larger than her, also quietly disappeared beyond the dense bushes with just a few hand gestures from her, telling it to go back.

“In many ways… you’re engraving a memory I’ll never forget.”

Ariel, who smiled brightly and approached at my bewildered and admiring murmur, extended her hand towards me as I sat on the ground.

“If this unique ability of mine becomes known to others… I won’t fare well, will I?”

At her question, I stared at her intently.

The ability to control surrounding slimes.

At first glance, it might seem useless, just the ability to control insignificant slimes…

But slimes were beings with endless potential depending on how they were used.

The fatal flaw was merely that they were single-celled organisms incapable of delicate control, and unable to distinguish friend from foe, except among their own kind.

However, Ariel’s ability resolved that fatal flaw without any side effects.

If her ability became known to others, especially mages, they would salivate over its potential and try to uncover the secret of her power by any means necessary, even dissecting her body.

“Why did you tell me such a secret?”

I gently clasped her outstretched hand and asked why she had revealed such a potentially fatal secret to me.

“Because I trust you.”

She uttered a short answer for the reason, then pulled firmly on our clasped hands, helping me, who was still sitting, to stand up.

“Jazel-ssi doesn’t seem like the type to blackmail others with their secrets. And…”

Ariel, who had been silent for a moment as if pondering her answer, continued with a playful eye-smile.

“It’s like… a bit of an ability appeal, in preparation for when you weigh Killua-nim and me against each other later?”

“You… you’re serious.”

At my words, Ariel burst into laughter.

“Did you perhaps think I was trying to tempt Jazel-ssi with a light joke or a fleeting fling? I was always serious!”

At her cheerful and bright laughter, I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh myself.