84 – Return

“Ugh…!”

“….”

“J-just a moment… too fast…”

“….”

“Agh… damn it!”

After that, there was no dialogue.

For even if that thing chattered away on its own,

if no reply came, it couldn’t be called a conversation.

From my mouth, no words emerged.

I simply swung my arm in silence.

With each swing,

chunks of flesh poured out in heaps.

I didn’t bother to think about where I was cutting.

Because this place where I stood was inside its body.

It meant I only had to tear everything to shreds,

up, down, left, right, everywhere.

“Wai…t, sto…p─”

“….”

The thing’s reaction was undeniably

starting to improve from before.

The sudden, vivid pain it felt

seemed to be showing on its face.

*Hurler et Désoler*

The Dragon Tongue, uttered instinctively.

It held no particular benefit for me.

Only that its agony was felt all the more keenly.

For the thing that could only manage a groan even as its body was torn,

it was a debuff that suited it perfectly, and its effect was certain.

Because I could feel that its voice now held a different quality than before,

a quality filled with pain and agony…

“Wai…t, senior… what are you do─”

“….”

Ignoring the thing’s voice,

which rang again in my ears, I accelerated.

I sank my blade deep into the wall of flesh,

and then, running forward,

from the faceless, mouthless mass,

A warped scream burst forth, and from the floor beneath my feet, an innumerable host of tentacles erupted.

Each one angled in a different direction,

flaunting its own unique mass.

A sight that would’ve drawn at least a shriek from most,

yet I didn’t bat an eye.

Calmly, I placed a hand at random,

infusing it with magic.

Deep, so deep.

After all, this entire place was its body.

Casting magic anywhere, it would reach him.

Of course, magic, too, was ineffective against a slime that shrugged off every attack.

It knew it, and didn’t bother trying to

stop me.

But the magic I was using wasn’t for attack.

“…Eh?”

“….”

“Ah…ah-ugh…keh-hek…keh!”

Just before the spot my hand touched,

a spiky pillar like an awl shot upward.

A stone pillar of the kind you’d only see in ruins.

No matter how great the mass of the tentacle,

there were still limits, surely.

It couldn’t possibly push away a

stone heavier and harder than itself.

“Keh…keh-hek, think I can’t handle something like rocks?”

“….”

Probably not.

One way or another, you aren’t human.

It seemed to choke for a moment while continuously coughing,

he flicked his chin once.

The stone pillar that had stood so proudly

sank downward in an instant.

Not because the space beneath the pillar was empty.

But because it had melted away so quickly.

“…I may look like this now, but

“I was, originally, a slime myself, see.

Those paltry rocks, doesn’t matter how many you bring,

I can melt them down in an instant, you hear?”

“….”

The mass of tentacles comes rushing back.

More of them than before,

Red tentacles much larger and heavier.

Dodging the swarming mass, I scrape at my surroundings.

Scratching, cleaving, tearing.

Plucking out, crushing, trampling.

Stabbing, mincing, grinding.

Each time my dagger gouges into its flesh,

Its face twists a little,

That much I could see now,

But neither was I in any pristine condition.

Even using Dragon Speech had its limits.

Forcing a body that wasn’t whole to begin with

To move by sheer will.

In my arm, I began to feel like someone was

Poking me repeatedly with needles,

And my legs were barely holding me up,

And the mental exertion was no joke either.

If I lost focus for even a moment,

Tentacles would graze my flesh in passing.

Underfoot, torn chunks of flesh

Kept threatening to make me stumble,

And the tentacles that sprang forth from everywhere,

With almost no warning, reacting to them all

Required a level of concentration far beyond anything I’d imagined.

But I grit my teeth and endure.

And if even that’s not enough, I’ll endure out of spite.

It wasn’t as if this had never happened before.

There were definitely times when I’d been given

Missions that were impossible with my own strength alone.

But I, each time, found a way.

If success was impossible, then at least a way to survive.

The flying tentacles, I made them

Miss or graze me by a hair’s breadth,

Evading the rising tendrils,

I continue to conjure structures.

“Ghk…Ghkeh…! Ah, seriously, enough already─”

“….”

As if angered by a little pain,

attacks, noticeably faster than before,

hurled themselves at me, but I did not halt.

That reaction of his only served to

further accelerate my actions.

So I tear, then split again,

dodge the onslaught, and create something.

Ten minutes pass in this way, and

a sigh escapes from the guy’s voice, which clearly sounds weary.

“Hah…Hah, shouldn’t I…shouldn’t I be collapsing

soon? Goddamn…this is agonizing─”

“….”

Another twenty minutes pass.

Fear began to

slowly seep into his voice.

“Damn it…please…please!! Just die, already…!!

You son of a b*tch!!”

“….”

Finally, as an hour seemed to be passing,

no more words could be heard.

Both of us, we kept our mouths shut.

One of us unable to properly close his mouth

due to the unending agony,

the other wiping away sweat

that flowed like a river, conserving energy.

Time passes, again.

Second and minute hands constantly meet and part.

I no longer had any sense

of how many hours had gone by, and

before I knew it, masses of flesh

lay strewn beneath my feet, so that everywhere I stepped

only the sound of something bursting could be heard, and

wherever I wandered, the coppery scent of blood

continued to linger at the tip of my nose.

My hands trembled, and on my legs…

It felt like I was burdened with weights, countless of them.

My head spun as if trapped inside a centrifuge,

whirling, whirling at an impossible speed.

Perhaps I’d used too much focus,

for a thin film of blood began to bead in my eyes.

I was on the verge of collapse,

in a state where even a seven-year-old child could best me.

I felt I would be helpless against even the smallest tentacle,

unable to resist its assault,

but that did not happen.

No, it *could* not happen.

The creature before me had lost consciousness, its head

limply dangling, lolling back and forth.

It seemed the unending pain had finally broken it,

leaving it truly ugly and pathetic.

I walked slowly forward,

towards the head dangling from the neck.

The squelching sound of blood and the

grisly obstruction of flesh snagged at my feet,

but I ignored them and kept walking.

I ignored, too, the thick, cloying scent of blood

that clung to the tip of my nose,

and the red tentacles, still twitching slightly.

My leg seized up midway, freezing in place,

but I forced it to move with the power of Dragon Words,

and at last, I stood before it.

The unconscious creature’s face seemed so at peace.

Like a newborn babe.

Like a child delighted by the taste of candy.

Like the benevolent smile of a long-lived elder.

The kind of smile that only those who truly feel happiness

can wear rested on its lips.

Unlike my own, clamped shut,

it was an enviably beautiful smile.

“…I envy you, creature.”

I tossed the dulled, dripping blade into a corner

and conjured a new one.

Then, I did just that.

I sliced open the corners of its mouth, from either side.

“A…aaagh!!”

“….”

His lips stretched, pulled wide into a crescent moon.

A smile, destined to last, hung on his face,

and a scream, in stark contrast, erupted from his throat.

By the time his eyelids flickered open, it was far too late.

I already knew the locus of his power.

As expected, his gaze snapped to my hand the instant he saw me,

and his mouth, now impossibly large and torn, gaped.

“H-How…?”

“I’m not an idiot. Having wandered about this long,

anyone would have figured it out.”

“….”

A stone of amethyst, radiating,

reeking of an ominous, unsettling energy.

The core, you might say, his very heart.

It rested in my palm.

With just a little pressure, small fragments

scattered with a soft, pattering sound,

and the creature’s reaction to the sight

was more intense than I’d anticipated.

“W-Wait! Senior, I was wrong!

I seem to have miscalculated…!”

“….”

“I-I’ll never eat humans again!

I won’t even approach them!”

“….”

“S-So… if you just give me one more chance─”

It launched.

His head, launched skyward.

Inverted.

The world must have been inverted in his vision.

Because I’d just kicked his headless body, with every ounce of my strength.

I kicked it with such force that his flying head

bounced amidst the splattered gore,

and a scream, involuntary, ripped from his lips.

I seized his head, now soiled by the pool of blood

spreading across the ground and contorted in agony,

and forced it to meet my gaze.

“Again.”

“Gu… Guh-ack…Y-Yes! Yes, I’ll do it again!”

“Th-That is…I did wrong, I did!!”

“…”

“From now on, not just humans, but no living thing

will I harm recklessly…!!”

“…”

“From now on, I won’t even show myself to sunbae… Gheheck.”

My blade entered the b*stard’s mouth,

protruding sharply through the other side.

At the same instant, his eyes widened,

staring directly at me, and

the words that would come from my mouth were preordained.

“Again.”

“J-Just…a li’l b-bit of m-mercy—”

“Again.”

“Kkeaaack!!!”

Gripping the blade that jutted out the other side,

I pulled it straight through; the b*stard’s reaction was a sight.

Similar to the sound

I had heard when twisting a chicken’s neck.

I pulled him back up, locked eyes,

and spoke to him, again, with a touch of kindness.

“Again.”

“..Shibal.”

“…”

“Shibal, was it that big of a mistake?

You b*stards also do as you please… aaagh!!”

“Again.”

“I won’t, I won’t do it, you shibal son of a b*tch!!

You lot live as you damn well please, and now

when I try to do something, why the hell are you making a fuss?!”

“…”

“You guys always eat delicious food.

Force others to do the hard labor.

Do whatever you want, as much as you want!!”

“…”

“Why is it that when *I* do it, you say it can’t be done?

I was so jealous I was going insane… Keoheok!!”

“Seems you’re laboring under a misunderstanding.”

I tore the corner of the b*stard’s mouth a little further.

Until both cheekbones grazed the tip of my blade.

There I didn’t stop, but gouged at his eyes.

Gouging, digging, twisting.

“What I want to hear from you

is not why you did this.”

“Kghaaa!!!”

“Whatever you envied in humans,

that’s no concern of mine.

It’s not like the dead will return.”

“Agh…sh…it..aaagh!!!”

“Didn’t I say so from the start?”

“Kh…Ugh…”

“What you need to say is just the name of that woman,

that elf, that’s all.”

The pupil of his one remaining eye

grew larger and larger, filled with terror.

As if he now grasped the predicament he was in.

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of time.”

“S-Senior, I remember..!

I remember that woman’s name…aaagh!!”

“If you want to live even a little longer,

lying is also an option.”

Though you’ll be found out, one way or another.

I finished speaking while slicing off his nose,

and his eyes rolled back in their sockets.

Overcome with terror, he lost his mind and fainted.

I didn’t bother trying to wake him.

“..Kkyaaack!!!”

“….”

He’ll wake up on his own eventually.

After that, time passed again.

Second hand, minute hand, then hour hand moved.

The only difference from before was that our mouths

continued to move.

Speaking with opposing voices –

fear and composure.

Afterwards, the time I returned to the Great Forest

was 7 hours and 23 minutes after I disappeared.

Clutching in one hand a barely identifiable

lump of orange fur.