That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Vol. 2

by Fuse

  Copyright

  That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Vol. 2

  FUSE

  Translation by Kevin Gifford

  Cover art by Mitz Vah

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  TENSEI SHITARA SLIME DATTA KEN volume 2

  © Fuse / Mitz Vah

  All rights reserved.

  First published in Japan in 2014 by MICROMAGAZINE PUBLISHING Co.

  English translation rights arranged with MICROMAGAZINE PUBLISHING Co.

  through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2018 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Fuse, author. | Mitz Vah, illustrator. | Gifford, Kevin, translator.

  Title: That time I got reincarnated as a slime / Fuse ; illustration by Mitz Vah ; translation by Kevin Gifford.

  Other titles: Tensei Shitara Slime datta ken. English

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York : Yen ON, 2017–

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017043646 | ISBN 9780316414203 (v. 1 : paperback) | ISBN 9781975301118 (v. 2 : paperback)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PL870.S4 T4613 2017 | DDC 895.63/6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043646

  ISBNs: 978-1-9753-0111-8 (paperback)

  978-1-9753-0112-5 (ebook)

  E3-20180329-JV-PC

  What he saw was a king eternally tormented. A lone, anguished figure, his heart reaching out to his starving people, but all too incapable of doing anything to help them.

  The land had dried and withered, killing off their crops and triggering a massive famine. Just past the border, other nations were still prospering, bountiful. But there was no going there. It was the territory of the demon lord, and setting foot on it would be rebelling against the master of this land himself. No need to wait for starvation to take them then. He would kill them all before that happened.

  The land they lived on was surrounded by a great forest and three different territories, each with its own demon lord serving as leader. It would be impossible for a horde of low-caste monsters like them to invade from any direction. Which left only one option.

  A little beyond the border, the forest lay undisturbed. It was only natural that the king would turn to it for a chance—any chance—at survival.

  I’m starving…

  I need something… Anything…

  His people fell one by one, screaming their unheard pleas. Their numbers weren’t shrinking—if anything, they were multiplying. The starvation had stoked the people’s natural instinct to protect their species, resulting in a spike in the birth rate. It only made things worse.

  They had never seen the king smile, even as he distributed his own rations to the children who needed it most. Still, judging by their frail bodies and lifeless eyes, they would surely be dead the next day.

  Then the king committed a truly taboo act. He gave his own flesh, his own blood, to the one child he had left. And who could have prevented him from attempting to fulfill this all-too-fleeting dream? All he wanted was to save, at the very least, his own family.

  It was a crime that no one was able to warn him away from such an act. He couldn’t. He saw a world where no one ever ate their fill. And every night, he had the same dream. The king, a gruesome sight on the floor, and a child innocently chewing away at his innards. He wanted someone to help—to deliver them from this layer of hell, one that nobody saw any end to.

  That desire was firm in his chest as today, like any other day, began.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE START OF THE MAYHEM

  The rage in Ranga’s snarl was palpable. As if chiding him, two ogres, one with blue hair and one with black, leaped in response.

  A moment later, a shock wave formed a crater in the earth, sending piles of dirt and mud into the sky. The blast from Ranga’s Voice Cannon held enough power to atomize a group of goblins on the spot. But it would only work, of course, if it actually struck the ogres.

  The dodge did not unnerve Ranga. He was proud of his abilities, but seeing them avoided was the least of his concerns at the moment. He sprang off the ground, hoping to end any tandem attack from the blue- and black-hairs before they could unleash it.

  They were both still in the air, and Ranga took aim at the black ogre, reasoning this was the weaker of the two. Putting one out of the picture would rob them of the teamwork they seemed to be counting on in this battle.

  Ranga was halfway toward realizing his goal. What he failed to notice was that he had more than two opponents. The moment he was in the air, a wall of fire suddenly appeared before him. It resembled the spiritual magic conjured by shamans, but it was a different type—a so-called mystic art, part of the family of illusory magic. Mastering such a complex spell indicated exactly how advanced these ogres were—not some rabble living primarily off instinct, but those capable of learning and acting on reason, like the human race.

  The Flame Wall blocking Ranga’s path was not particularly harmful, but it did allow the caster to fully block a single enemy attack. Conjuring such a shield in front of an advancing foe could also serve as a smoke screen, earning the caster precious time to formulate a plan.

  And that tactic succeeded. Losing his target, Ranga was forced to land back on the ground.

  He didn’t enjoy engaging with such foes, who used tricks and feints to avoid a frontal assault at all costs. The illusory spell Confusion, cast at the start of battle, had also knocked his keen sense of smell off-line. At least the effects had not fully incapacitated him yet—though it had taken out most of his companions in battle, unable to resist the magic strike. The only ones who managed to fend it off were Rigur, head of the security team, and Gobta, Rigur’s right-hand man. The rest of the dozen or so hobgoblins that had been summoned here by an emergency call during a hunting run—along with their tempest wolf companions—were now de facto out of the battle.

  Ranga resentfully stared down the wall of flame and the pink-haired ogre caster who had taken out his friends. There were six foes in all—six ogres, higher caste among the residents of the Forest of Jura. They were nothing to sniff at in battle—not the black- and blue-haired ogres Ranga attempted to engage, nor the purple-haired ogress Rigur was tangling with, nor the gray-haired ogre elder Gobta was fending off. Certainly not the magic-wielding pink-haired one, so effortlessly giving her compa
nions a magical advantage, nor the red-haired ogre standing next to her, surveying the scene.

  Not a one could be left to their own devices for a single moment. They were working as a team to fight Ranga and his friends, a strategy no unintelligent race would employ. Easily B rank or higher, by the looks of things. Rigur and Gobta, as stout as they were, couldn’t hold out for long.

  If only my master, Rimuru, were here—

  Ranga snickered at himself over the thought. Relying on his master like that would be unthinkable. Then, as if wiping away any weakness in his body, he howled with the full conviction needed for the decision he had to make.

  Peace had returned to the village, and the hobgoblins had been acting remarkably calm and composed despite the Ifrit attack that leveled the place.

  The biggest surprise, I suppose, was how much of a born leader Rigurd, my newly appointed goblin king, turned out to be. Much more than I would’ve guessed. He had done a splendid job leading the work teams as they rebuilt the village while I watched after Shizu. Among Kaijin, the three dwarf brothers, and the four goblin lords, everyone seemed to be sticking to their duties, working efficiently for the other villagers.

  Really, I didn’t need to do much besides offer a couple words of advice. Overseeing our food supply was Rigur, whenever he wasn’t busy handling security. Garm, oldest of the dwarves, was responsible for clothing; Dold, the next oldest, for making tools; and Mildo, the youngest, for home construction. All production was overseen by Kaijin, while Lilina, one of the goblin lords, managed our inventory of completed goods—that’s how I figured we’d split the responsibility.

  The remaining goblin lords—Rugurd, Regurd, and Rogurd—became my ministers of justice, legislation, and administration respectively, all aiding Rigurd with keeping the local government together. Minister of legislation sounds like a highfalutin job, but all it really involved was taking whatever I blurted out and trying to turn it into coherent law. Simple, really.

  These were more intelligent monsters than before, but they were still monsters. When someone stronger than them was around, they listened, mostly. So for the time being, everything was going pretty smoothly. No big problems on the road to building a new country.

  But I had other things on my mind anyway. I had this human body now, and I wasn’t too hot on draping rough animal pelts over it. So I decided to have someone make me some proper clothes.

  Being a slime had proven to be quite useful, here and there, but it had its disadvantages. Apart from certain magical items, I was unable to wear any armor or, you know, grip a weapon. And slimehood itself didn’t suck, but being “naked” (so to speak) could potentially lead to problems. What if I got a paper cut on a leaf or twig or something as I was going through the forest, and then some kind of poison or virus infected me? It pays to be careful, and I figured some actual armor would assuage any anxiety I had about that. I had just about given up on it unless I was able to find just the right magic item, but now that I could turn into a human, the world was my oyster—and the dwarves were making all kinds of stuff from the magical ingredients they seized from monsters after a hunt.

  So I paid a visit to Garm, hoping to at least acquire a child’s-size outfit. He was stationed at our little clothing factory, a log cabin that had come into being when I wasn’t paying attention, and he was overseeing a small team of goblinas as they sewed away.

  “Yo, Garm! I could use some clothing for myself.”

  “Uh, you sure about that, boss? How are you planning to wear it?”

  “Heh-heh-heh…heh-heh… Haaaa-ha-ha-ha! That’s what you’ve got to say? If you think I was planning to be a slime forever, you’ve got another think coming, man! Haaaahhhh!!”

  “Wh-wha?! You’re…growing…? …Well, not too much actually, huh? Were you a child all along, or…?”

  “Eesh, I was hoping for a little more shock and awe… Ah well. I can be full-size, too, but this is a lot easier. So could you make an outfit that’d fit?”

  “Oh, sure, sure. Mind if I take some measurements? Hey, Haruna, let’s get the boss all measured up!”

  I was naked, of course, but I didn’t let that bother me as Haruna the goblina came up with a measuring rope. I was just a child, after all, and my body was genderless.

  “Oh my!” she exclaimed, blushing a little. “You’ve become so cute, my lord!”

  Cute? I mean, I personally thought so, yes, but did that still apply when it was a goblin’s worldview? And for that matter, did monsters have aesthetic standards like mine? If you went way down the food chain, they were related to fairies, so perhaps their tastes were closer to mine than I gave them credit for.

  So Haruna measured me, Garm told me to come back in a few days, and that was it. Having nothing more pressing to do, I decided to test out the skills I had obtained a bit ago.

  If I wanted to play with my new toys in peace, I needed someplace where people wouldn’t show up and bother me. I could only experiment so much inside my own tent, which prevented me from unleashing too much power.

  So I told Rigurd I’d be out, ordered him to make sure nobody followed me, and moved off—from the center of the village to the Sealed Cave. It was the place I first met Veldora, inside his vast underground space—pretty sturdily built and completely devoid of other people. Even the cave’s monsters didn’t dare draw near, as they were still so afraid at even the thought of Veldora.

  Once I arrived, I got straight to business. Consuming Shizu had earned me the unique skill Deviant and the extra skill Control Flame, both attacks that were already heavily associated with her in my memories. Beyond that, I had Ifrit’s trio of moves: Replication, Flame Transform, and Ranged Barrier. I had already used Replication to check out my human form, so that seemed to work well enough.

  So what to try first? Might as well start with Ifrit this time. First off, Flame Transform.

  Oops! Turns out that doesn’t work in slime form. That wasn’t the first time a skill was shut away from me due to some sort of incompatibility. I was starting to wonder what the reasoning for that was.

  Understood. Ifrit is a spirit, a being who lives off spiritual energy. Its Flame Transform uses its own body as a source of magical energy to unleash its full force. It thus cannot be used while in physical form.

  Mmm? So I can’t cast it if I’m still made of flesh or whatever? Would it work if I went into black-mist mode and gave myself a magical body, then? Let’s try it out.

  I turned myself into Ifrit and attempted to use it. This time, it worked without problem, although my core—the thing that houses me—didn’t seem to transform at all.

  So I needed to be magical, then, to make it work. But that didn’t mean I had to turn into Ifrit himself, necessarily, right? I turned myself into a grown figure and tried Flame Transform once more. This time, flame extended out from the tips of my fingers and toes.

  That seemed to prove it. I couldn’t work it very much in regular form, but if I temporarily made myself magical in style, at least, I could manage the Flame Transform well enough. And at temperatures upward of 1,200 degrees Celsius, too, just like Ifrit. What’s more, I could focus the magic on particular areas for extra heat.

  As an attack, it seemed pretty powerful. The only issue was that I’d have to use it inside a barrier; otherwise the energy outflow would be so huge I’d immediately drain myself of magic. It was hard to regulate. I’d need some more practice.

  Good thing I had Control Flame, too; that ought to help keep me out of trouble. Spiritual creatures like Ifrit couldn’t last long in the physical world thanks to all the magic they ate up, but with my physical form and Control Flame, a little practice should allow me to cap and unleash the flames as needed.

  That brought me to Ranged Barrier. This skill locked the heat of flames within a barrier, which I presumed prevented heat energy from leaking out—and, as my theory went, allowed spirits to manifest themselves for longer without wasting magic. Another unique property was that it contained certain physica
l durability, in case you wanted to keep anyone inside the barrier.

  I thought of ways I could use this. The largest barrier I could make with it extended out in a semicircle three hundred feet or so in diameter, although it didn’t affect anything beneath the ground’s surface. I could shrink it down until it was covering nothing but my own body, which didn’t reduce its effect at all and kept magic consumption at a minimum. This free control meant I could wear it like a sort of light protective layer. It could also prevent magic leakage during a Flame Transform—not that it would be much help, given that the flames never went beyond the barrier itself.

  So was heat leakage kind of like losing energy? Was that the reason it sapped my magic?

  Understood. Flame Transform consumes magicules and generates warmth in order to preserve a certain level of heat. The conversion of magic to heat means that leakage of either one essentially causes the same result.

  All right. I think I understand, a little. So if I keep the flames locked inside the seal, I don’t have to waste any energy because it’ll stay active without any further work? I’m pretty sure what I learned in physics class on Earth said something a tad different, but—hey—Newton didn’t have to theorize anything about magic over there. He had it easy compared to me. If I started asking questions like “How does it fully enclose the fire?” or “Won’t it burn out once it consumes all the oxygen in the barrier?” I wouldn’t get anywhere in this world.

  Besides, for now, the Flame Transform wasn’t as important as the Ranged Barrier as a form of self-defense. Would that work if I had it cover me alone, a form I decided to just call my Barrier for brevity’s sake? I had the perfect skill to test that with. Yep: Time for another Replication.

  I had been a little reticent to test certain aspects of my skill set, just in case I damaged myself in the process, but Replication provided an efficient answer for that. My copies, after all, had the exact same abilities I did, except for the unique skills. Those were exclusive to me, I guess, and while I could have my copies use those while they were close by, once they went out of my sight, that was it for uniques. All except for my consuming skills, which were closely entwined enough with my slime identity that even my copies could use them a little.