episode_0173

“Now now~! Don’t be scared…. I won’t kill you, so don’t worry….!!”

“Uuuuuugh…!!”

The slime couldn’t open its eyes to look. Aria was slowly trying to stab its core with the staff she was currently pushing into its body. Then, Aria suddenly pulled the staff out and shoved it into another spot, trying to stab its core again. Aria seemed to know well that if its core were to get even a scratch, it would be a critical blow, yet she was toying with its core…

“Alright, alright…. What will happen if I put it back in like this? Or… this time, if I put the staff somewhere else… will you feel pain….?”

“St-stop…!! Please stop it…!! I told you I was wrong!! Please save me…!!!”

“I told you I wouldn’t kill you….? Don’t worry….!!”

“Uwaaah! Then please stop toying with my core!!! It’s scary!! Aaaahhh!!!”

Aria repeatedly said she wouldn’t kill it, but the slime couldn’t believe her. The slime absolutely couldn’t trust Aria, who was toying with its core, which was like a human’s heart or brain. This was no different from torture, playing with its life as if repeatedly trying and failing to stab a human’s heart with a knife, so the slime couldn’t help but be terrified. Furthermore….

“Please don’t look at me with that smile!! And don’t force my eyes open!!!”

“No way~! The fear you’re going to feel… there’s still more left….? So… forever… forever… slowly…!! Try to feel the pain…?”

“Huuuugh…. Uwaaaaaaah!!!”

When Aria said to feel the pain forever, tearing through its liquid-like skin with her staff, the slime, finally reaching its limit, opened its eyes wide and woke up from the nightmare. The slime was greatly flustered to see that it was already dark, and when it saw Aria and me eating dinner, startled, the slime screamed in terror.

“Hiiiiiik…!! Uwaaah! Monster… mon-mon-monster!! Monster!!!”

“…From our perspective, you are a monster, Slime…. Anyway… I don’t know what kind of torture you received from Aria, but….”

“Uwaaaaaah!! Why did you give that crazy monster permission to do whatever she wanted to me…. Aaaah! I don’t want to remember it again… Ugh… My… my core!! My core is fine, right?!”

“Co… core…? Why suddenly the core…? Wait… You don’t mean… the torture from earlier was…..”

“Hehe.”

As the slime desperately asked me if its core was fine, I finally realized what kind of torture Aria had inflicted upon the slime and looked at Aria with a bewildered expression. Aria chuckled softly with a gentle smile, and I grimaced, setting down the bowl I was holding on a nearby rock and sighing deeply. Good heavens…. To think she had tortured the slime’s core, which was like a human’s life…. Moreover, for the slime, who had realized Aria possessed overwhelming power, the time Aria spent playing with its core… it must have been more than just torture….

“Uuuuuugh…. Uuuuuugh… To think I’d feel such fear from a human…. Humans… why do humans always make me so unhappy….!!”

“Hmph. That happened because you disregarded Zeke-nim so carelessly! How many times do I have to tell you that Zeke-nim tried to show you goodwill?!”

“Now now…. Calm down, Aria…. Well… it happened because of personal aversion….”

“That’s precisely what I don’t like!! Besides, Zeke-nim, have you forgotten what the slime said earlier?! This slime has already killed humans!! Don’t you know what happens if you keep showing mercy to such a being?!”

…I know very well… Because not only this slime, but Cecilia, Yuria, Tiavel, and even you have killed people before…. Aria tried to separate the slime from me by any reason, but her reasons not only applied to herself but also to most of the people we had met so far, so it didn’t work on me at all. I let out a dry laugh and, ignoring Aria’s opposition, scooped stew from the pot into a bowl and offered it to the slime, saying:

“First, calm down and how about eating something? You must be very hungry after being unconscious for half a day…. Oh, but it’s proper etiquette to ask first if you can eat human food…”

“…!!”

“…?”

When I suddenly tried to offer the slime a bowl of stew, it flinched. Then, as I belatedly realized my mistake of offering the bowl without asking if it could eat human food and became flustered, the slime, which had been suspicious of me, softened its expression and looked greatly surprised. Then, with a bewildered expression, the slime bowed its head to avoid my gaze and said:

“I can eat….”

“Ah, that’s a relief. But… Aria? Did this slime perchance eat your food….”

“Hmph! You were going to give it to him anyway, even if you hadn’t asked my permission, weren’t you?! I should have brought herbs that can dissolve a slime’s body… Uuuuuugh…!!”

Aria, anticipating that I would have given the slime food anyway without asking her permission, greatly regretted not having brought herbs that could dissolve a slime’s body. But do such herbs even exist in this world…? As Aria ate the stew with great indignation and resentment, the slime took the bowl from my hand and slowly began to eat Aria’s stew. So, with Aria in a huff, I resumed my meal, and during the meal, I asked the slime various questions.

“So… you’re really a slime, not a human?!”

“Yes…. I’m not a human who turned into a slime. I learned mimetic abilities on my own and transformed into this human form. I learned language by observing your species for a long time.”

“A long time…? Then… if it’s not rude, how old are you now…?”

“This year… I’m probably 215. I was 2 years old when I decided I wanted to mimic humans….”

“…Huh?”

When the slime revealed its age was around 215, Aria and I simultaneously dropped our spoons, utterly shocked. No… no, 215 years old?! Un… unbelievable…!! A slime that can live that long doesn’t exist in this world…!! Then, could it be a being from another dimension, like the 20 Mana or Estur…?! As we were greatly astonished that it possessed an age no ordinary slime could, the slime sighed and said to Aria:

“What, you didn’t notice? You were toying with my core, yet you didn’t realize I was a real slime….”

“No… I had no idea at all…. Usually, the slimes humans know are….”

“Not that intelligent, and their lifespan is only about 10 years, right? I know that well too. But listen… don’t you humans also rarely have humans born with special characteristics? I’m that kind of classification. To put it simply… you could call me a variant.”

“Variant…?”

Yes… I’ve heard of it. Even a snow woman like Yuria is said to be a human variant… But it’s extremely rare for variants to appear among monsters, and they’re all different species. For example, a salamander and an Asra salamander are the same race but different species, so they are treated as separate entities. But a variant with such extraordinary vitality and intelligence compared to other slimes… there aren’t supposed to be any like that!! The slime explained that it was a variant and thus different from ordinary slimes, but we still couldn’t accept it. Seeing our reaction, the slime suddenly looked blank, and Aria poked its shoulder with her staff, saying:

“Why are you spacing out again? Is there something on our faces?”

“…! Ah… no…. It’s just… it’s been a really long time since I’ve seen that kind of reaction…. By the way, do you really want to hear my circumstances? No… not a lie or anything?”

“Excuse me, Slime-nim… I’m not threatening you, but if you keep being suspicious, it seems Aria’s patience will reach its limit again….”

“Huh…? Ah.”

When I cautiously warned that Aria’s patience would explode again if it kept being suspicious, the slime saw Aria’s forced expression of suppressing her anger again because it had been suspicious, and it turned pale and began to tremble in fear. Then, it exhaled deeply to calm itself down and asked Aria:

“Huuuuuh… Haaaaah…. Before I tell you… I’m curious…. Do you really like the man next to you right now?”

“Of course, I do…!! I’m already in a really bad mood these days because other women are circling around Zeke-nim… If you show that kind of attitude too…..!!”

“Don’t worry, human Saintess…. Haaah…. I’m also in a relationship. With a human man. So, you can rest assured that I won’t ever try to flirt with your man.”

“…Huh?”

“…?!”

When the slime explained that it already had a lover and wouldn’t flirt with me, Aria and I were greatly flustered by its words. No, that person… no, that slime who hated humans so much earlier, has a lover?! And a human lover?! As we were greatly astonished that it had a human lover, the slime sighed as if it had already expected such a reaction and poked the bonfire with a branch, saying to us:

“And you keep calling me slime… I have a name too, you know? The name Esti.”

“Esti…?”

“It’s a name my lover gave me, but I don’t know what it means exactly.”

The slime… no, Esti, revealed its name to us, saying it had one too, and Aria flinched upon hearing it. Then Esti said that her lover had given her the name and that she didn’t know its meaning, which left me puzzled. Then shouldn’t she just ask her lover what it means…? Why…. Just as I was puzzled, Aria seemed to remember something and flinched, saying to Esti:

“Ah…! So that’s why you were muttering something about a range earlier…”

“That’s right. My lover is in this forest.”

“Then… shouldn’t you ask your… lover what the name means? Ah… you don’t have to ask if you’re not curious, though.”

Just as Aria remembered hearing Esti muttering about the range of her abilities earlier, I asked Esti if it wouldn’t be right to ask her lover directly if she was curious about the name’s meaning. Esti’s hand, which had been poking the bonfire with a branch, stopped and began to tremble, and her expression started to darken. Then, with a weak voice, she said to us:

“He died.”

“…Huh?”

“He died. My lover…”

When Esti replied that her lover had died, we froze, taken aback by her unexpected answer. We immediately intuited that Esti’s strong hostility towards humans was clearly related to her lover. Just as we intuited this and couldn’t open our mouths, Esti threw the branch she had been poking the bonfire with into the fire, raised her head, and looked at us, saying:

“Seeing those expressions, you two are definitely different from the humans I’ve seen. Haaah… Honestly, human Saintess… I thought you’d be indifferent after hearing this, though?”

“Even though I look like this, I’m learning various things thanks to Zeke-nim, you know?”

“…Surprisingly, you have some similarities with me too… I also learned a lot of things through him. And… I also learned that loss is this painful…. You said you were curious about my story, right? I’ll tell you everything. If you genuinely want to hear my story.”

Esti opened her mouth to explain everything to us: what happened with her human lover, and why her lover died, if we genuinely wanted to hear her story. So, we began to listen to Esti’s story, and winding back time to two days ago. In Grovel, Kriton region, Dio V Runner, Yuria, and Tiavel were squatting outside, sighing. Then, Yuria glared at Dio V Runner and began to argue.

“I told you to explain it properly…!! Why did you say something like that and only increase their suspicion?!”

“I have nothing to say. Haaah… I should have just stated our real purpose. To say something like that needlessly and only increase their suspicion….”

“No, but if you outright say you’re from another world… would they believe you?!”

One hour ago, Dio V Runner had honestly explained that he was a being from another dimension, which only increased Merzel’s suspicion towards Dio V Runner’s group, and thus Dio V Runner’s group had been kicked out of Grovel. Yuria, recalling this, sighed deeply as if still exasperated and argued with Dio V Runner:

“Ugh… Are you really someone who has lived a long time? No… are you really someone who has visited many different dimensions?!”

“…Now that I think about it, the R.S guys sometimes made mistakes like this too… I guess they felt this way every time, those guys….”

“Sigh… When even one person’s strength is needed, to be branded as untrustworthy people like this…”

“…? Who are you people, squatting outside the graveyard like this…?”

“Huh?”

Just as Yuria was arguing with Dio V Runner and venting her frustrations, a woman’s voice was heard, and Dio V Runner’s group looked up to see the woman standing before them. Dio V Runner flinched and said, seeing the woman before them, with long purple hair, wearing black clothes, and having horns and wings:

“What is it…? Lugra…? No… it’s a demon…? A demon here, not in the demon world…?”

“Demon…? A demon, you say…? Ju-just a moment…!! Then perhaps you…!!!”

“…?! Wha-what’s wrong suddenly?! Why are you suddenly grabbing my hands?!”

When Dio V Runner realized that the woman standing before them was a demon, Yuria, hearing that, remembered something and was greatly flustered, then suddenly stood up and grabbed the woman’s hands. The woman was greatly bewildered when Yuria suddenly grabbed her hands, and Yuria stared intently at the woman, swallowing hard in nervousness, and said:

“By any chance… is your name Cecilia…? The succubus of Ogposria…!!”

“Yes… Yes? M-my name is Cecilia, but… who are you that you know my name…?”

“Do you know the names Zeke Luprian, Aria Litra…?”

“Huh…? Wait… what did you say?! Ze-Zeke?! Aria!? You don’t mean you… you know those two?!”

Yuria, realizing that the woman who approached her was Cecilia, whom Zeke and Aria had described to her previously, mentioned Zeke and Aria’s names, and Cecilia was startled, then asked Dio V Runner if they knew those two. Dio V Runner quietly nodded, and Cecilia, seeing that reaction, trembled and tears streamed down her face as she asked Yuria in a slurred voice:

“Is Z-Zeke… doing well now…? And Aria too…?”

“Hey, don’t ask while crying like that. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Haaah… You still haven’t left, you people? Your voices are like the dead…? Cecilia?”

“Uwaaaaaaah!! Merzeeellll!! Zeke… Zeke and Aria….!! Uwaaaaaaah!!”

“Huh…?”

Just as Dio V Runner was nagging Cecilia for asking questions in a slurred voice, Merzel walked slowly towards the gate, annoyed. Merzel, seeing Cecilia crying at the gate, was greatly flustered and bewildered as Cecilia wailed loudly and said something to him in a slurred voice.