episode_0178

Unexpected Encounter

“…. What a clumsy tombstone.”

“Aria…!! I told you not to say that…”

“It’s not wrong, so I don’t mind, Zeke. I knew humans made tombstones like this… but I didn’t know how they made them. I still don’t know, actually…”

The place Esti guided us to, saying there was something to show us, was a crudely carved stone tombstone deep in the forest. It had many uneven parts and wasn’t a perfect tombstone, but seeing it, I felt a connection within my heart. I realized that Esti had already felt sadness before, and that she herself hadn’t noticed it at all. Thinking about it this way, it feels quite bitter….

“Surely you didn’t call us here to ask us to polish this tombstone, did you, Esti?”

“Of course not… What I want to show you isn’t Rezef’s grave…. This grave… I just happened to stop by on the way… because I wanted to say something….”

“What do you want to say?”

When Esti explained that she had stopped by Rezef’s grave briefly on the way because she wanted to say something, I asked her what she wanted to say. Esti nodded, then slowly approached the grave, knelt, touched the tombstone with her hand, and began to speak in a low voice.

“Rezef. I… it’s too late, but I’ve finally realized what you wanted. So, there’s no meaning in telling you this now, and no meaning in regretting everything I’ve done until now… But I… I’ve been able to learn many things through these humans… no, these children behind me. Especially, I’ve come to understand self-reflection, you see? So… if… you still trust me… if you’re watching me from the sky… then… Hoooo…”

“….?”

Esti was saying something to Rezef when she suddenly sighed deeply, lowered her head, and stayed silent. I was puzzled, wondering what was wrong with Esti. Was she very nervous? As I worried about Esti, thinking of various reasons, Esti raised her head again and continued speaking to Rezef.

“Honestly, I still don’t have the confidence to get along well with humans. But the reason is a little different now, you see? Before, I simply saw humans as insignificant, so I had no desire to get along with them… but now, my arrogant past self keeps coming to mind… and all the atrocities I’ve committed keep resurfacing, so I don’t have the confidence to get along with humans. Still, if you’re still watching me… please watch me as I slowly progress. It might take a long time… but as you wished, I… I’ll reflect on my past and try to reconcile with other humans, worthy of the name you gave me. So… please watch over me, Rezef… And I’m sorry… because I was a fool…”

“Huh…? E-Esti, your…”

“Ah, sorry. Aria… did I talk too long? Sorry… I had so much to say to Rezef… Ah, what I said, maybe it was a bit…”

“No, your… body…”

“Huh? My body?… Oh…”

As we stood frozen, dumbfounded by the sight of her, Esti thought we were shocked by what she had said. But when Aria mentioned her body, Esti looked at her own hand and realized it had turned like slime. She then began to examine her body. Esti then realized that her body was in human form, but still composed of slime, and stammered as she spoke to us.

“My body… it’s become slime again…. Huh…? I-it can… it can happen again…!! I can switch between human and slime form again…!!”

“It seems that her broken mind was indeed the cause. Just as divine power changes its potency according to the state of one’s heart, Esti’s transformation ability also seems to work or not work depending on her mental state, Zeke-nim. Simply put, her transformation ability became rigid because her mind collapsed.”

“Interesting…. But it seems she can’t return completely to her slime form? Look at her. She looks flustered.”

When Aria speculated that Esti’s transformation ability, like her own divine power, seemed to depend on her state of mind—that is, her mental state—I pointed out that Esti seemed unable to revert further, stuck halfway between slime and human form. Aria stared at Esti. Then she shrugged, and with a snort, as if that state were natural, she said:

“Of course. Cecilia and Yuria were able to get back on their feet thanks to Zeke-nim’s encouragement and advice, but they couldn’t stand up perfectly, could they? So it’s only natural, in a way, that Esti, like those two, hasn’t fully resolved the knots in her heart and her mind isn’t completely sound yet.”

“So if she can’t use her transformation ability properly as before… that makes sense. But what about you, who received my encouragement and advice just like those three?”

“Me? I’m different from those three; I perfectly received Zeke-nim’s heart, and my mind became perfectly sound, didn’t it? Surely… you’re not comparing me to those unstable three, are you…?!”

“…. Because otherwise, I can’t explain all the extreme things you’ve done until now…?”

“….!! That’s too much, Zeke-nim!! How can you compare my love to those three?! I was like this even before I received Zeke-nim’s encouragement… no, even before I became a Saintess!! So I’ve returned to normal, don’t compare me to those three!!”

As Aria puffed out her cheeks and angrily told me not to compare her to Cecilia, Yuria, and Esti, claiming she was always this way, I burst out laughing at the sight. Seeing me laugh, Aria thought I was playing a mischievous prank and grabbed my cheeks, yelling:

“Eeeek…!! Why are you laughing, Zeke-nim!! If you keep acting like this, I won’t hold back, even if you are Zeke-nim!!”

“Ah… Ahahahak…!! Ah… Hey, wait!! Ouch… it really hurts!!!”

“Eek!! Why didn’t you believe me, Zeke-nim!! If you keep this up, I’ll keep playing mischievous pranks too!!”

“Aaahk!! I wasn’t joking!! Aaahk!! My cheeks!!!”

“…..!”

As Aria pulled my cheeks, angry that I didn’t believe she was normal, and I screamed in pain, Esti, watching this scene, was startled to see something in our bickering that overlapped with a memory. We didn’t know it, but our bickering reminded Esti of how she used to complain to Rezef. She momentarily suppressed the tears that threatened to fall and looked back at Rezef’s grave. After a moment lost in thought, Esti nodded and approached us, saying:

“Can you two stop fighting now? I called you here because I wanted to show you something, but if you keep fighting like this, I won’t be able to show you anything.”

“Aaahk!! Esti!! I’m being unilaterally attacked!! Please save…”

“I also need to vent some of what I’ve held back until now!! Hyaaaap!!”

“Aaahk!!”

“Oh…”

Seeing Aria tormenting me, even using joint locks, Esti recalled how she herself used to do the same to Rezef. She seemed speechless, wearing a flustered expression, and simply watched me suffer. After enduring various pains from Aria for a while, I was finally freed from the torment thanks to Aria’s anger subsiding. Once Aria let me go, Esti began guiding us somewhere else again.

“What exactly do you want to show Zeke-nim that you’re guiding him into such a dark forest?”

“The items that the humans who set foot here before had. They all wore the same attire and were procuring the same objects.”

“The same objects? And the same attire?”

“Right. Zeke, it might not concern you… but I thought Aria, who has a somewhat similar aura, might know a lot about these.”

“Me? Wait a minute… Zeke-nim, this can’t be…”

As soon as Esti said that Aria might know a lot, that they had a similar aura to Aria, and that everyone wore the same attire and procured the same objects, we immediately guessed who the humans Esti had defeated were and were horrified. Then, when Esti pointed her finger in a certain direction, we saw the shattered statues and effigies of Goddess Camilla at the end of her finger, and we were certain. The people Esti had killed until now were… Saintesses and Priests?! Come to think of it, Esti started killing humans who set foot in this area five years ago, didn’t she? In that case….

“Why are you all suddenly making such bewildered expressions? Surely you all don’t know what those statues are, do you?”

“Excuse me, Esti-nim… Were all the humans you’ve killed until now… Saintesses or Priests?”

“What? You know what they are too, Zeke? Oh… that’s right, isn’t it? Originally, Rezef built a cabin here with me because it was a place where almost no people came. But about five years ago, some Saintesses and Priests kept setting up strange statues here, so I attacked them.”

“In that case… Aria, can you help me examine those statues?”

“Understood, Zeke-nim!”

Realizing that the humans Esti had killed were none other than… well, not exactly innocent Saintesses and Priests, I began examining the statues with Aria. Esti, confused and unaware of why we were so flustered, watched us investigate the statues. With Aria’s help, I realized that these statues contained divine power, which greatly surprised me. As expected… it seems that since they were made using Tiavel and other ores from the Revarude facility, they contained divine power…!!

“It seems that, as expected… they are planning something using these statues….”

“They are truly troublesome people. To interfere with Zeke-nim’s journey and make him worry so much… Ugh… If I catch them, I want to twist all their backs…!!”

“…. It’s good that you’re getting angry for me, but please, don’t actually do that….”

“Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt your important conversation, but I’m also curious about what’s going on.”

As Aria continued to express her furious determination to not let the Saintesses and Priests who were interfering with my journey off the hook if she caught them, I was greatly flustered and tried to calm Aria, telling her not to actually do that. At that moment, Esti wondered what we were talking about. Upon her words, we turned to face Esti, exchanged glances, and nodded in unspoken agreement before explaining everything about the Saintesses and Priests to her without omission. Esti then realized that the humans she had killed until now were people with some foul intentions, and she was greatly bewildered.

“So the humans I’ve killed until now were those kinds of people? Then I’ve been working to thwart their plans all this time? Without even knowing it?”

“You certainly did well. Thanks to that, there’s one less thing for Zeke-nim to worry about.”

“…. What an incredible coincidence…. To think that the humans I killed were actually people trying to control the world… And also… meeting you two is an unexpected encounter. If you hadn’t taught me so much, I would have continued living frozen in time…”

She realized that the humans she had killed were, incredibly, people who didn’t know how to treat other humans, and she was amazed that meeting us, who taught her so much, was an unexpected encounter. Indeed… if we hadn’t come here, Esti would have never been able to open up about her resentment to anyone… not even herself….

“That’s true… But Esti-nim, it seems you can’t return completely to your slime body…”

“Are you worried about me, Zeke? But it’s okay. I calmly thought about why I can’t leave my human form… It seems, as you said, I can’t forget Rezef, so subconsciously I don’t want to let go of this form I had with him. It feels like that’s how it’s always been… And now that I’ve realized it… every time I make up my mind, I feel a reluctance to return to my slime form…”

“…. It seems Esti-nim’s identity… might have been formed since the past when she admired and studied humans.”

“And as you said, I was a fool who acted like an idiot because I learned nothing… a complete idiot… Just a moment.”

Esti admitted that she was an uneducated idiot who ruined everything, and that she didn’t want to stray far from her human form because she admired humans and loved Rezef. Then, she plunged her hand into her chest and began to rummage. Seeing that, I made an awkward smile, feeling slightly disgusted, when Esti handed me a perfectly regular tetrahedral blue gem from her body and said:

“This is my crystal. Humans value these crystals so much that they find it incredibly difficult to obtain them from monsters, right? Sell this and eat something delicious, just the two of you.”

“Crystal…?! Wait, then Esti-nim…”

“Don’t worry. Slimes don’t die as long as they have their core. Besides, magic stones and crystals are all substances formed inside a monster’s body, so you humans misunderstand them as our life stones. The crystal will regenerate in my body later too. So don’t hesitate, take it. This is my repayment for the kindness I received from you.”

Esti told me not to worry, explaining that magic stones and crystals weren’t their life stones and would regenerate inside her body, as she placed her crystal in my hand. To think that I, in my life, would directly receive a monster’s own crystal… Was this a dream or reality? Even thinking again that this only happened because Esti was the only intelligent monster, this experience was truly… incredibly bewildering, to the point of being speechless.

“….. I’m speechless…. To receive a magic stone or a crystal directly from a monster…”

“Is it a burden?”

“No. I’ll cherish it, Esti…. So, will you continue to stay here?”

“Yes…. I want to live at least near where Rezef’s grave is…. Although I’ll have to learn alone now, I plan to live around here by making the cabin and furniture that I used to live with Rezef myself. I have a good memory, so I remember exactly what furniture was there at the time and what the cabin looked like.”

“I see….”

When Esti said she would recreate the cabin where she lived with Rezef and live there, I nodded in agreement. As we left the forest and headed towards the Criton region, Esti saw us off. Once we were out of sight, she plodded over to Rezef’s grave. Then she collapsed onto Rezef’s grave, touched the tombstone with her hand, and said:

“Rezef. Actually… what I said earlier about trying to live in harmony with humans… honestly… I don’t have the confidence. I don’t have the confidence to do other things either… But… I will definitely try my best with this ‘self-reflection’ that Zeke and Aria taught me… Also… when I saw those two, their bickering reminded me so much of us… and I realized that even then, I had vaguely felt some emotion. So, Rezef… it’s too late, but… I really want to say just this one thing.”

Esti realized what she and Rezef were like through our actions, and what emotions she had harbored back then, saying she absolutely wanted to say something, and then lay down. She smiled and looked up at the sky, then said:

“I love you.”