by Fuse
The demon lord, apparently pretty sure of his own victory, was now trying to melt me, looking every bit as elated as I was. I could take advantage of that, pretending to be rotting away—weakening—as my body fell apart. Apart, and over him.
From my opponent’s palm, through his arm…
And by the time he noticed, the operation was under way.
Letting my instincts take the wheel, I had engaged my enemy the way that slimes naturally do. Concern now crossed his face. He tried to peel me off, but he couldn’t—I was already all over his body.
“You see now? Sorry, but all that strength of yours doesn’t mean too much now, does it?”
“Gnh… No…?! What are you trying to…”
“Heh. If you thought you had an exclusive license on consuming stuff, you’re wrong.”
Nailed him. And Geld knew it. He winced at my words.
But I still wasn’t necessarily at an advantage. We were, for the moment, at a stalemate. He was using his healing skills to resist my Predation, and I was using Ultraspeed Regeneration to keep afloat over his Rot attack. We were eating away at each other, like an ouroboros come to life. The Great Sage was too much of a perfectionist to ever come up with something like this, but it was exactly what I wanted.
Whichever side consumed the other was the winner. The rules were so easy to understand. And getting myself into this situation in the first place was a requirement if I wanted to win. It wasn’t that I came up with the idea after the Sage’s tactics failed; I just followed my instincts, and this was what resulted, really. Instead of relying on unfamiliar, unseasoned skills, I relied on whatever my instincts willed for me, at the root, and executed what they told me. The slime’s Absorb and Dissolve skills had been merged into Predator, and so I was doing what those instincts wanted for me. I am, after all, a predator.
Geld, your Ravenous is a powerful unique skill, I’ll grant you that. But you’re not a predator. You’re a scavenger. You can eat anything, which is incredible, but I’m adapted for catching and consuming. And that gives me the advantage. If we’re gonna keep eating at each other, I’ll be the one to gain new skills from it first.
My Predaceous instincts will it to be done! I can analyze and obtain skills even from living creatures, but you, Geld—you can only steal them from their corpses. And that’s what will decide this.
It was hard to say how much time passed. We were still consuming each other. I concentrated on Predation, assured of my victory, when I started to hear the strangest voice.
I can’t afford to lose.
I ate my own comrades.
I can’t afford to lose.
I have to become a demon lord.
Because I ate Lord Gelmud.
I can’t afford to lose.
My comrades hunger.
I can’t afford to lose.
I must eat until I am full!
The thoughts flooded my mind. They belonged to the demon lord, I assumed.
Talk about stupid. Think whatever you like, I’ve already won.
But I can’t afford to lose…
I ate my own comrades.
I committed…a terrible crime…
I can’t afford to lose.
Look, can you forget it already?
Lemme tell you.
This world’s all about survival of the fittest. And you aren’t fit enough.
So you’re gonna die.
But I can’t afford to lose…
If I die, I leave the sins of my crimes to my comrades.
I don’t mind if I, alone, am sinful.
I did whatever was needed to avoid starvation.
I will become a demon lord.
I will accept all the hunger in the world. So no one else has to feel this famine!
I know I can.
I am an Orc Disaster.
The consumer of all.
Aaaaand you’re still gonna die.
But don’t worry.
I’ll eat up all those crimes for you.
You…what?
Eat…my crimes?!
Mm-hmm.
And not just yours…
I’ll eat the crimes of all your friends, too.
The crimes…of all my friends…
How greedy of you.
You think so?
Yeah. I am greedy.
Does that make you feel better?
If it does, then just rest a bit and let me eat you already.
Ah…
I couldn’t afford to lose.
But…
I am tired. It is…warm in here.
Greedy one.
You know there will be no tranquility down the road you travel.
But you are still willing to take on my crimes…
I thank you.
My hunger…is sated.
He was Geld, the Orc Disaster.
And now, his consciousness had vanished within me.
Confirmed. The Orc Disaster has disappeared. The unique skill Ravenous has been absorbed and merged with the unique skill Predator.
So I win.
There was no way someone as hungry as he was could beat me without starving himself in the process.
I opened my eyes, carrying the weight of him and all his orcish comrades on my back.
In the quiet, I declared my victory.
“I have won,” I said. “Rest in peace, Orc Disaster Geld…”
I could hear the cheers from the goblins and lizardmen, along with cries of anguish and despair from the orcs. Their conquest was over. They knew it, and from the thoughts they shared as they cannibalized one another before, they knew it was all caused by Gelmud’s nefarious plans.
What bothered me most was that the person or persons controlling Gelmud were quite likely still alive. He talked about having a demon lord patron backing him up, and there was no way to tell if that was the truth or not.
I’d probably need to be careful—but careful about what? I had no idea. And I could hardly leave these orcs to their own devices. We had problems left to solve.
The next day there was a very important meeting—one that would go down in history as the one that established the Great Forest of Jura Alliance.
CHAPTER 7
THE GREAT FOREST OF JURA ALLIANCE
The man sat alone, relaxing in an impossibly ornate room. He smiled, which was visible through his mask.
Elegantly, he waved a hand in the air, directing his servants to exit the chamber. They bowed to him, every motion carefully practiced, and left without a word. Just as they did, a jovial-sounding voice resonated from the previously empty sofa against the wall.
“Well, so much for Gelmud, huh? After all the help we gave ’im, he screwed everything up right at the last minute.”
The voice belonged to Laplace, bizarre clothing and eerie-looking mask still intact. The news he brought was grim, but he didn’t sound particularly affected as he walked up to the man.
“Pfft. It is not an issue. He died without breathing a word about our relationship.”
“True ’nough,” Laplace observed as he took a seat across from his conversation partner. “But after all that work setting it up, it’s gotta hurt that it didn’t result in a new demon lord, isn’t it? You wanted a demon lord that’d serve as your faithful servant, rather than having to work as equals with the others. That was the whole point, yeah?”
The man gave Laplace a fatherly nod. “It would be a lot easier,” he observed, “if you were willing to take that role for me.”
“Ooh, no thank you! Can’t say I’m up for taking on that kinda responsibility, no. Those guys’re a buncha monsters! If something went wrong, it’d be my neck on the line. I mean, the last demon lord that was born…”
“Demon Lord Leon. The human—Leon Cromwell.”
“Yeah…”
They could feel the temperature palpably drop around them.
The one thing that any would-be demon lord had to bring to the table, above everything else, was strength. Real str
ength.
Nobody in this world was stupid enough to call themselves demon lords. Anyone who attempted it would attract the ire of the current ones at the top of the food chain and probably not live for much longer. But there were some out there who could rile a demon lord, then actually fend them off in battle. These were also recognized as demon lords for the force they so clearly wielded.
But for the past few centuries, no demon lord had been born with such latent strength. The last one was the former human Leon Cromwell. His almost eerie charm allowed him to attract an army of magic-borns to his side, one after the other, before he declared himself the lord of his little frontier territory.
This enraged one nearby demon lord, known as the Cursed Lord, and he immediately declared war on Leon—only to be beaten back, at great loss of life. Not by Leon’s army, but by Leon himself, acting alone. That was enough to make the “demon lord” title permanent.
Such a debut, based purely on shows of force, was a rarity. In most cases, if you wanted to safely stake your claim to the title, you needed the backup of at least three current lords. That way, if anyone tried fighting the new candidate, they’d have to tangle with his allies at the same time—so the theory went, at least.
Then a demon lord came along who figured he could game the system a little. Instead of engaging in tense negotiations and forming alliances with other demon lords, why not will a demon lord to life who was perfectly willing to do whatever you asked of it? It was a tempting thought, even if it risked the ire of one’s peers.
That was how this plan worked, then—to make the new demon lord birth look as natural as possible, so no one could possibly question its authenticity. Gelmud was key to that, and it was also key to make sure his own ambitions were stoked as much as possible along the way.
“Well,” the man said, ignoring the sudden chill in the conversation, “enough of Leon. My real concern is that we have already reached out to two demon lords about this. I am sure they will be very disappointed to hear that the plan failed at this rather late stage.”
The plan was meant to be put into motion a full three hundred years after Veldora’s disappearance, set to unfold carefully over decades. But it was all over now, and the man would be lying if he said it didn’t pain him.
“Okay,” Laplace countered, “but look at these, will you? They’ll show you something pretty crazy.”
He produced a set of four crystal orbs. Three contained the stored visual records of three orc generals, while the other one contained Gelmud’s. Laplace had linked an orb to Gelmud without his knowledge as he handed him copies of the three others.
Watching what the orbs contained, the man’s eyebrows arched upward in clear surprise.
The orc general orbs retold all their valiant glories in battle. Each one ended with the sight of the magic-born people who apparently defeated them, showing off overwhelming power as they did. They were ogre mages, a high-level race that the more elderly ogres might evolve into once every few centuries. With their abilities, they held the potential to be just as powerful as orc lords, even. They were fabled to crush the earth, rend the skies apart. And there were three of them recorded on these orbs.
That, and a magical beast the likes of which he had never seen before. It wielded lightning and gale storms with ease, putting it in the upper echelons of the animal kingdom. Perhaps a direwolf that had undergone some manner of untold transmogrification, but it was hard to tell from the visuals alone.
It was certainly well beyond A rank, though, and that meant there were four monsters in this battle that shot right past A and into the stratosphere. Gelmud never had a chance out there.
The real concern, though, was what the fourth and final orb showed. A single human being, standing tall in front of Gelmud. A child, it appeared, wearing a mask. But nothing at all was normal about him. It was more accurately a monster transformed into a person. If not that, a newly born hero.
Both men in the room knew that human summoners and otherworlders could often be gifted with astounding abilities. But a child would be too immature to take full advantage of them—and he or she certainly wouldn’t be participating in a war between magical beasts and creatures. Thus, by the process of elimination, they assumed this was some manner of monster in disguise.
It appeared from the visuals that this child had the four enigmatic creatures under his control. When the situation turned to battle, it was clear Gelmud was far out of his element. The image went black quickly—no doubt when some attack landed a telling blow upon him.
When all the orbs were sifted through, the man leaned forward and let out a long, deep sigh. Gelmud, an A rank, one of the greatest of those born of magic, had been overwhelmed by a child. A child with four upper-level magic-borns of his own. He was still unclear about the ultimate fate of the orc lord, but with this kind of force at play, he doubted there was much hope for him.
This kind of force. A force that could no longer be ignored.
“Pretty crazy, eh?”
“Yes, very interesting,” the man ventured with a smile. “So…what now?”
Laplace took a moment to answer. Two demon lords, just as powerful as he was. And the person he had mentioned the potential birth of a new demon lord, too. There was much to consider.
“Well, keep the ship afloat for now, is what I’d say. If you think you need any help, you’ll get my regular discount, okay? Take care for now, Clayman.”
He disappeared, leaving the man—the demon lord Clayman—alone in the room. He replayed the orbs several times over, thinking quietly.
The battle was over.
That was…yeah, pretty rough. If he had fully completed his evolution, I don’t think anyone could’ve beaten him. I won precisely because we made it to him in time—just in time, as it turns out. It would’ve been so much easier pre-evolution, too; I was still kicking myself over that. But I had it coming. I should’ve killed him fast instead of getting all cocky. It was more than half luck that earned victory for me, in the end.
But the rewards I reaped from it made all my regrets look like a drop in the bucket. That’s right—it’s unique skill time!
I had obtained my fourth unique skill from the spirit of the demon lord Geld, although I guess it got merged into Predator without so much as a peep. The Great Sage gave me the rundown after the battle:
Report. Following the merger of the unique skill Ravenous with the unique skill Predator, the unique skill Predator has evolved into the unique skill Glutton.
The Sage had the habit of combining skills that resembled one another a fair bit, although everything was still downward-compatible. I analyzed this new skill, then closed my eyes.
This skill, Glutton, consisted of four old abilities—Predation, Stomach, Mimic, and Isolate—combined with three new ones—Corrode, Receive, and Provide. The new ones worked like this:
Rot:
Performs Rot on the target, decomposing it if it is organic. Monster corpses partially absorbed in this manner will reward the user with part of the monster’s skills.
Receive:
Gain the ability to obtain skills from monsters under your influence.
Provide:
Grants part of your abilities to monsters under your influence or linked to your soul.
Giving each the once-over, I had to say, this was some pretty damn sweet stuff. My Stomach got a huge upgrade—it felt maybe twice as big. And Rot sounded downright scary, although handy for things like destroying armor.
Receive and Provide were the real plums, though. This meant, basically, whatever new skills people like Benimaru and Ranga earned when they evolved, I could get ’em for myself, right? And redistribute them to anyone on my team I wanted?
Understood. You may interpret it as such, yes. However, there are restrictions to providing abilities. You will not lose the original skill, but if the receiver is not capable of making full use of the skill, they will not be able to obtain it.
Seriously…?
; It appeared that my underlings tended to grow stronger whenever I did, and vice versa. Giving skills to them seemed to offer no disadvantage, but I guess the receiver still needed to have whatever latent talent the skill required for it to work. I couldn’t just pass around skills willy-nilly, in other words, which was fine with me.
In a way, this skill was pretty scary, too. I couldn’t use it to share personal knowledge or magic spells, and I would still need to put in the daily effort to raise my level, but still, it was really something. I gotta hand it to that Orc Disaster. I was kind of pissed that he got Gelmud and all, but if anything, this was an even better bonus. The more I put into it, the more I got out.
By the way, it appeared that Analysis, originally part of Predator, had been merged into the Sage itself while I wasn’t paying attention.
Huh? I don’t remember being asked for permission on that, much less giving it. But ah well. I’m probably just overthinking it. No way the Sage—nothing more than a skill, really—would do something on its own volition. Analysis always seemed a little weird for the Predator umbrella anyway. No point giving it much more thought than that, I figured.
Still, the battle was over, as was all the joy and sadness and despair that swirled around the battlefield. Hoo boy. I can’t help but think this every time, but the cleanup’s always much more of a pain than the battle itself.
The day after the demon lord Geld fell, representatives from all the races were gathered inside a temporary tent pitched in the central part of the marshes.
On my end, I was with Benimaru, Shion, Hakuro, and Soei. Ranga was inside my shadow, as per usual, and I was sitting on Shion’s lap in slime form. I had pretty much revealed what I really was when I defeated Geld, so there was no point hiding it now.
Treyni was here to represent the immobile treants. She had appeared without me having to toss a Thought Communication her way, claiming she caught the “waves” the two of us released or something. What a case. She was hiding just as much power as I was, I supposed.