“So you’re saying you want to have serious relationship with her, right?!”
“Of course I am!” Leaving himself to the flow, Lyon finally made it clear.
Good man. That’s what I wanted to hear!
“...Well, you heard him.”
“A-Ah...” Lyon shifted his gaze away from me and toward Olga, who was right by my side. Her face was beet red. Lyon had professed his feelings. Now it was Olga’s turn...
As she carefully chose her words, Lyon became stiff with fear. I moved closer to Olga and whispered into her ear.
“Don’t make it vague. Say either ‘I feel the same’ or ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t feel that way.’ Okay?” Her fox ears twitched a bit as she turned even redder. However, she was still able to word a proper answer.
“I-I feel the same...”
“Huh...? U-Uhm... S-So, you want to... go out with me...?!”
“Yes.” Olga smiled a bashful smile.
Lyon’s expression quickly went from worried to overjoyed, and a moment later, he let his emotions explode.
“H-HOORAY!!!” Overwhelmed by glee, he threw his fist into the air.
Seeing that, Olga smiled yet again.
Heheheh... just as I had planned... Well, no. I hadn’t actually planned any of that at all. But it all worked out in the end. Whatever the case, it’s pretty clear that the two needed something to happen or they’d have been stuck in limbo forever.
The knights all came forward and erupted into thunderous applause.
“You did it, Lyon!”
“Thanks!”
“Lad, you’re getting better at this! Nice work!”
“Well, what can I say, hahahah!”
“You’re making me jealous, damn it!”
“Haha, don’t worr— Wait, when did you guys get here?” Lyon looked at his fellow knights, who were now patting him on the back.
From the expression they made when Lyon asked them that, it was safe to assume they ran out of hiding without thinking things through.
“Good job, sis!”
“A-Arma?! Why are you here?!” Apparently, the innocent little sister was so happy for her sibling that she couldn’t help but come out and express it as well. Taken in by the flow of the situation, Yumina, Sue, Kohaku and Leim also came out and showed themselves.
The two — finally realizing that their date was observed — suddenly glared at me. Absolute terror engulfed the core of my being.
“Sir Touya! Explain yourself at once!” They yelled at me in unison, both red as beets. Wait, why are you acting like I was the mastermind behind this?! Though they were probably just hiding their embarrassment, Olga and Lyon began scolding me. This isn’t fair! This isn’t fair at all!
Seriously, I’m your cupid, you stupid lovebirds! If anything, I should be thanked!
Anyway, that was how the two began a serious relationship. They had regular letter exchanges over their gate mirrors, and on Lyon’s days off, he occasionally asked me to open a [Gate] to Mismede.
Of course, he made a point out of telling me not to follow them again.
The day after, His Beastliness, King of Mismede got a heavy scolding from Chancellor Glatz. Or so I heard from Lyon, who was told by Olga.
If only that was enough to make the beastking stop leaving the castle unauthorized. But I knew in my heart it wouldn’t be nearly enough.
I could only send positive vibrations out into the universe, and hope they’d give strength to poor old Chancellor Glatz.
Interlude II: Slime Castle
“Slime castle?” With a stern expression on his face, the old man — the mayor of a small village named Zeryll — told us about the place.
After moving to the capital, we had taken on a lot of quests. Even though I had quite a lot of money, a life without work wasn’t the kind of life I wanted, so we decided to take a quest or two every few days or so.
That’s how we found ourselves at the village. There was a monster situation that needed investigation, so Elze, Linze, Yae, Yumina, Kohaku, and I all made our way to this little place north of the capital. We got there in only two days and asked the mayor for further details.
It wasn’t hard to sum up what he told us.
There was an old fortress not so far from the village. Even though it was run-down and ancient, it recently received a new owner — a wizard, to be precise.
He had a strange obsession with monster research, with his focus being slimes.
Most of the villagers were freaked out by the weirdo in the castle and never made any effort to get close to him, but the wizard himself started visiting the village and buying food or things necessary for research.
However, ten or so years ago, the wizard stopped making his trips entirely. The villagers began gossiping. Some said he succumbed to an illness, others spoke that he got eaten by a slime that left no bones behind, while some even claimed that he cursed himself and transformed into a slime.
Uneasy about the presence of such a castle near their village, the people hired adventurers to investigate it.
But the adventurers that went to the castle would always return ragged, say that they failed, refused to give any details, and leave quickly as if running away from something...
“Did they ever say anything notable, though?”
“Mostly things like ‘The wizard in that castle is rotten to the core.’ They’d often say something like that with a disgusted tone and just take their leave after that...” Such messages would leave the villagers even more worried. It got so bad that some would panic just by seeing the smallest slime in the forest.
I distinctly recalled the guild’s field guide saying that slimes almost never attacked humans. Though, there were some dangerous ones, like the carnivorous slimes that could melt flesh, Venom Slimes, or Lava Slimes.
All-in-all, there were many kinds of slimes, and keeping track of them all was difficult. Many said that the dangerous ones had strong coloring, but that still wasn’t an absolute rule.
“That is why I want a party to go out and investigate the castle again...”
“I see.” I threw a glance at the rest of my party and saw them all — including Yumina — looking really uncomfortable.
Slimes weren’t exactly popular among women. That was because of the nature of the little monsters. Though there were some flesh-melting slimes, most slimes weren’t able to melt anything but clothes. And many required a lot of time and effort to do so.
Among such were those which, instead of liking meat, developed a taste for clothing.
Green slimes were particularly infamous for this. They really loved clothing made from plant fiber and didn’t hesitate to melt and feed on any sort of apparel. It had quite a strange diet, honestly. For example, even though they ate paper and cloth, they didn’t have any taste for processed wood or actual plants.
When faced with a green slime, female adventurers often ended up with melted clothing, but weapons and armor intact. These were quite the wonderf— Er, humiliating situations. Of course, men faced the exact same risks...
No adventurer worth his salt would ever leave such troublesome slimes to act as they wished.
“Very well! We will accept this task.”
“Ugh...” The girls expressed their disapproval with a united groan. I expected this!
“Do you intend to let these villagers live under the iron fist of fear?! Is that what we adventurers do?! Nay! I say we do not!”
“But... someone else could do it, too...” Elze pouted as she talked back to me. Won’t take much to wear them down if I put on a little bravado... Raising my hand, I adopted my most serious look.
“If one of the dangerous slimes left the castle and attacked the village, we would regret it our whole lives. Don’t you think so?”
“T-Touya-dono... that is true, it is... but...” Yae folded her arms and tilted her head with a pensive expression. Linze wasn’t too perturbed by the situation, though. Slimes had an extremely strong resistance to slas
hing, piercing, and crushing attacks, but had next to no resistance to magic.
So, unlike Elze and Yae, who weren’t casters, Linze had a way to fight back. Still, she wasn’t too keen on the idea of going headfirst into a hive of the creatures.
The other caster in our team, Yumina, wasn’t panicking either. However, she was piercing me with suspicious eyes.
“...Touya, are you thinking of something inappropriate?”
“Wh-What are you saying?! Are you stupid?! I have no such thoughts on my mind!” I’m being mostly honest, at least! A part of me does have something else in mind, I’ll admit it! But it’s also true that we can’t just leave the villagers like this.
Yumina’s gaze made a cold sweat drip down my head, but she eventually sighed and looked down in resignation.
“I suppose we have no choice. It’s not something that we can ignore, and though unlikely, if Touya’s nightmare ‘slimes destroy the village’ scenario becomes reality, we would never be able to live this down. It would affect my father’s reputation, too.” If something like that actually happened, there might be people who’d begin spreading slander about a princess who ignored the pleas of the people and led a village to destruction just to protect her own skin.
Not like anyone around there besides the party knew that she was this country’s princess, though. Then again, if they did somehow found it out, we wouldn’t have any counter-arguments.
And even if the entire world forgave her, she would never forgive herself. That’s the kind of girl Yumina was. Proud and sincere.
“H-Hmm... I suppose we have to do this, we do...”
“Bah... I really don’t like this at all, y’know...” With Yumina — the youngest in the group — being willing to go, Yae and Elze couldn’t let themselves bail on us. They reluctantly nodded, almost teary-eyed. YES! I celebrated internally.
“Did you say something, Touya?”
“I-I SAID NOT A THING!”
“Is that so...?” As Linze glared at me suspiciously, I forced myself to adopt my default facial expression.
Come to think of it, there might actually be really dangerous slimes out there... I have to be on the lookout for slimes I’ve never seen before.
...Green slimes get a pass, though.
The castle was on a hill about half a day’s walk away from the village.
Though small, it was just about good enough to function as a living space. However, with the walls ruined, it had no chance of being a proper fortress or anything.
We passed through the small gate and entered the courtyard.
To the right, I could see a bergfried-styled tower. It was connected to the residential building below. That was where people would’ve lived, while the tower was just a lookout. Anything below was for dungeons and the like... In normal castles like this, anyway.
“This place is super creepy...” Elze whispered while restlessly looking around.
Just as she said, it was damp and sodden. Clearly not the best place to live in. The courtyard, overrun with weeds, had several puddles here and there.
As we observed our surroundings, one of the puddles changed shape and began moving.
“Whoa!” My surprised voice made the puddle run away into the grass.
“The water moved, it did...!”
“That’s no water. It’s a slime.” A water slime, to be precise. They camouflaged themselves as water and captured any prey unfortunate enough to come close. Though dreadful, they were cowardly and never attacked creatures bigger than themselves. These slimes always opted to flee, so they weren’t much of a threat to humans.
“S-So there are slimes here, then...”
“Let’s be careful as we go. We don’t know what else this place might have.” I listened to Linze and Yumina as I walked on the damp ground and passed through the entrance arch.
We soon reached a large double door. I gently pushed it slightly open and created a small gap.
I looked inside to see daylight coming in through a window, lighting up what seemed to be an entrance hall. There was an old carpet on the floor, and on the sides, I could see sets of stairs that led to the second floor. It didn’t seem like there were any slimes there, at least not to my naked eye.
I cautiously walked inside.
“Seems like it’s safe. You guys can come insi—” Before I could call them over, a shockwave rocked through my head and I heard a great sound reverberate through the hall.
“Damn it, that hurts!” It didn’t hurt as much as the sound would make you expect, but pain is pain. Something fell from above and landed straight on my head.
The thing that fell on me bounced off and began to spin on the carpet at my feet.
A metal pot...?
An actual metal pot fell straight on my head just now? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! SOME KIND OF COMEDY ROUTINE?!
“A-Are you okay, Touya?”
“Yeah, I’m fine... It hurt a little bit, though.” Linze got worried about me, so I just waved my hand to signal that I was okay. It hurt, but not all that much.
The people in old comedy skit shows had wigs with metal in them, the metal pots themselves were relatively soft, and the height was kinda low, so it was quite safe for them to have stuff dropped on them during the skits.
But modern metal basins were hard and dangerous, so many major performers warned people about trying to recreate such skits. I remember reading about it on the internet once. Even in an entirely different world, painful things were still painful.
I’m pretty sure fantasy worlds don’t have any broadcast variety shows, so why would a metal pot from a popular Japanese skit of all things come down on my head...?
“Touya! The pot!”
“Huh...?” Yumina pointed at the metal basin, which changed shape into a lead-colored slime and scuttled away from the entrance hall.
“That was a slime, too...?”
“I’ve never seen or heard about a slime like this. This may even be a new species...” If Linze is right about that, did the wizard actually create it? Wait, what kind of use would a slime that does that even have?
There are wizards who had slimes as familiars, so maybe this one works for him directly... I took out my smartphone, ran a search for “human” and didn’t get any hits for anyone except us. It seemed the guy was no longer in the castle. I couldn’t tell if he had just left or actually died, though.
We went through the door on the right side of the hall, split up and started examining every room connected to the corridor. Most of them were completely derelict.
“The only thing left of the books are the covers. I suppose the slimes ate them.” In one of the rooms — likely the study — Yumina picked up one of the dusty book covers. Paper was also made out of plant fiber, after all. There could’ve been some green slimes nearby.
“Th-This book isn’t melted.” Linze took out one of the books from the remains of the bookshelf. It looked more like a set of notes than an actual book. It seemed to be made from parchment and displayed some unintelligible symbols. I could only assume it was written in Ancient Magic Script.
“Do modern wizards still use Ancient Magic Script?”
“I-I hear they do it when they deal with research and results they wish to hide...” Likely to prevent their secrets from being stolen, then. After all, these texts are useless to people that can’t read them.
Linze put her hand in her pouch and took out the pair of translation glasses I had given her a while ago. They were imbued with [Reading], a translation spell, and specified to enable the reading of Ancient Magic Script.
“This is... The log of his research results. Just as I had thought. It describes the natures of various slimes... The slime from before is here, as well.”
“The thing that fell on me? What does it say?”
“Uhm... ‘Metal Pot Slime. Takes on the shape of a metal pot and has a tendency to fall on people. This experiment was a complete failure.’ That’s all it says...” Wow, I actually learned nothing fr
om that! What an annoying slime! There were many more slimes in those notes, so Linze continued to read with great curiosity. Every now and then, her expression turned sour, likely because of a particularly vile slime.
“Let’s take those notes with us. They could prove useful.”
“You’re right.”
When we finished examining that room and began heading out to the corridor, we suddenly heard a thud from the other room.
The ones examining that room were Yae and Elze. We hastily ran to see that nothing bad had happened to them, but they walked out before we could enter. The two were rubbing their faces. Kohaku peeked out, too, looking slightly uncomfortable.
“O-Ouch... they caught me off guard, they did...”
“What happened?”
“One of those damn slimes was camouflaged as the floor... And when we stepped on it...”
“It trapped us both like an adhesive and made us fall face first... We hit right onto the floor, we did...” Yae explained the details, rubbing her reddened nose all the while. Again, eh? The slimes here have some really annoying attack patterns.
This is probably why the previous adventurers came back so battered.
“I’ve found it in the notes. It says ‘Birdlime Slime. Can camouflage and has a high adhesiveness. Cannot be used effectively due to its inflated ego. This experiment was a complete failure.’ Another failure, then...” Was the wizard failing on purpose or something?!
There didn’t seem to be anything else of interest on that side, so we decided to go back to the hall.
We opened the door to the hall, and when I took a step forward, a frustrating impact spread throughout my head and revived a recent pain.
“GOD. DAMN IT.” I held my head and crouched down. The metal pot on the floor turned into a slime and squirmed away from me again.
“Hold still, you little bastard!” At the limit of my patience, I took out my gunblade — Brunhild — and fired a few shots at the Metal Pot Slime. Unfortunately, the stupid thing smoothly evaded my bullets and escaped to the corridor on the other side.
Fast metal slimes have no business existing out of video games!
In Another World With My Smartphone: Volume 2 Page 19
