That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Vol. 3

by Fuse

  “I want you to go back to Lord Carillon and tell him what I agreed to.”

  “Sir Phobio?!”

  “But…”

  “Listen, you guys,” he said, stopping them. “I’m not gonna cause any trouble for Sir Carillon, so tell him I’m giving up my post in the Three Lycanthropeers and leaving the force. Nobody’s gonna whine about what I do if I’m just some magic-born unaffiliated with anyone. Besides…I’m going places. I’m going to be stronger. Strong enough to lay waste to the world. And I’ll make Milim recognize that!”

  Nothing could change Phobio’s mind—a mind that was almost unnaturally attuned toward revenge against the demon lord who slighted him. As if his unfading feelings of humiliation and anger were pushing him forward.

  Enrio silently watched him, thinking and observing as his companions exhorted Phobio to reconsider. After all the years he had been his closest confidant, he knew well that once he made up his mind, it wasn’t easy to make him reconsider. Phobio’s will was firm, and his heart could not be moved. So…

  “Very well, sir. I will report to Lord Carillon first. However, the strength of Charybdis is still an unknown. I would suggest you be careful with it—do not expect it to eat from your hand that easily.”

  And with that, he left, taking his companions with him. Considering the nonaggression pact the demon lords had with one another, Phobio picking a fight with Milim could become a serious crisis. Enrio needed to confer with Carillon and take countermeasures before that happened. It was with some reluctance that he left, but he couldn’t afford to do anything as foolish as let his emotions dictate his priorities. It was an order, besides, and one made with whatever reasoning power remained in his mind.

  Sir Phobio is not a fool. I cannot think he will be deceived for long by that strange duo. And even if this Charybdis actually exists, Sir Phobio should be able to tame it.

  He chose to have faith in Phobio.

  With Enrio on his way, the only people left were Teare, Footman, and Phobio.

  “Well, shall we be off, then?”

  “Yes! I can’t wait to show this Charybdis my power and smash it to the ground. And with our combined forces, we’ll turn that demon lord Milim into a sobbing baby!”

  “Yep! You sure will! I’m totally cheering you on, too, so don’t let your guard down! Ready to go?”

  Teare and Footman motioned Phobio to follow behind them. After a short journey, they reached a small cave, deep in the very heart of the Forest of Jura.

  “Charybdis is here?”

  “Sure is!”

  “It has not resurrected itself quite yet, you see, but you can still feel its lust for destruction bubble into the air. We love such emotions, so that’s how we found it.”

  There was an evil grin on Footman’s face as he spoke. Phobio failed to notice, enraptured as he was by the strange aura he could feel from the cave.

  “Now,” the clown continued, “let me explain how this works. Resurrecting Charybdis requires a large number of corpses. Charybdis is a sort of spiritual life-form, essentially like a demon. We have to give it a physical corpus, so it can exercise its power in this world. So…”

  He gave Phobio a sidelong glance. Phobio could read what it meant. He gulped nervously.

  “Wait. Are you…?”

  “Why, yes! We are! To tame Charybdis, you must instill it within your own body. You will become one with it!” Footman’s voice boomed, revealing his obvious excitement.

  “Mm-hmm,” Teare added. “If you want to stop, now’s your chance, okay? This seal won’t last for much longer, and when it breaks, Charybdis will wind up resurrected on some battlefield or monster fight or whatever. In fact, it’s probably gonna try using the remaining dregs of its power to cook up the monster corpses it needs to resurrect itself—and if that happens, we’ll have gone through all this trouble for nothing!”

  Was that true? It might be. There was a slight twinge of impatience to Teare’s voice.

  “If Charybdis automatically resurrects itself, I doubt we’d be able to control it. It’s just a pure drive for destruction, so it won’t take orders from anyone, I don’t think. Not even if we defeat it. So…we have to unseal it before it resurrects and take its powers away, or it won’t work,” she continued, choosing her words carefully.

  Her eyes turned straight toward Phobio. They stabbed into him, much as Footman’s had. There would be no more eloquent way to ask the question they were asking.

  “All right,” Phobio replied sternly. “I’m already committed to this; I ain’t gonna chicken out now. I am ready to make the power of Charybdis my own!”

  “Yeah! That’s the spirit!”

  “Hohhh-hoh-hoh-hoh! Well said, Lord Phobio. I really must thank you—and toast our good fortune as well for running into such a trustworthy partner!”

  So it was decided.

  Phobio ventured into the cave alone, eyes filled with the pride he held as a high-level magic-born. A finely purified will that believed in victory without fearing defeat. But sadly, his heart was still filled, deep down, with his grudge against Milim and his buried anger at his own immaturity.

  To the spiritual life-form known as Charybdis, nothing could be more delicious.

  The moment he fell for Teare’s and Footman’s sweet words, his fate was sealed—a fact he had failed to notice as he plunged into the cave’s darkness.

  Time passed.

  “He is gone, isn’t he?”

  “He certainly is.”

  “Hohh-hoh-hoh! Hohhh-hoh-hoh-hoh!”

  “Ha-ha-ha… Ahh-ha-ha-ha!!”

  The laughter came loud and fast once they were sure Phobio was fully inside.

  “Exactly the sort of person one would expect to be serving that blockhead Carillon, eh? And after all the excuses we practiced beforehand, he barely questioned us at all.”

  “Totally, totally! That monkey guy looked a lot smarter than him.”

  They had contrived a fairly extensive amount of arguments and strategies to convince Phobio to accept the offer from this pair of odd-looking strangers. But Phobio’s eyes were so clouded by rage and greed that it went far easier than predicted. They ridiculed him for it in his absence—so easy, it was almost a disappointment.

  “Is that the end of the job, then, Teare?”

  “Mm-hmm! All I heard from Clayman was to revive Charybdis and have it head for Milim.”

  “And no new business after that?”

  “Nope. This job’s all wrapped up! Oh, and how about we just dispose of the lesser-dragon corpses we brought in? We’re not gonna need ’em anymore.”

  “Indeed. We go through all the trouble to prepare a temporary body, and then that fool volunteers for the job instead! No need for these corpses, no.”

  So they tossed the bodies to the ground.

  There were a dozen or so lesser dragons in all; they had killed an entire flock of them for the job. Lesser dragons were not part of the draconic races that Veldora belonged to; there was nothing inherently magical about them. They were unintelligent creatures, incapable of handling magic, but they were protected by a tough body and strong scales, giving them a killer advantage in close-quarters fighting. The human race usually ranked them around a B-plus or A-minus, but not even such a powerful beast was any match for two high-level magic-born.

  Their lives were cruelly taken, and now they were being treated like garbage. Bringing them to a human town and selling the assorted parts from them could fetch a small fortune, but to Teare and Footman, they were just an encumbrance.

  Once they removed the corpses from their spatial-magic storage and dumped them on the ground, they left the scene, satisfied at a job well done.

  It had been several weeks since Milim arrived, and the time really passed by in a flash. Every day was a battle with her.

  Some days, she would check out our agricultural operations and even help plow the fields. I was willing to bet that we were tilling the fields created after clearing trees from the forest fas
ter than any modern farming equipment could manage. It was exhilarating, seeing how quickly the job was being done.

  Other days, she’d observe our workshops. Watching Kurobe forge a new sword practically made her swoon for the guy—and then she’d immediately get bored and whine about wanting to try doing it herself. He said yes, and of course, her approach was incredibly violent—one strike was all it took to almost destroy the forge space, anvil and all. It taught us all that Milim wasn’t really suited for delicate work.

  Chaotic days, to be sure, but at least they were peaceful now.

  Not much had changed with life around town after Yohm and his crew left. The only real difference was the guests we were now hosting. Kabal and friends were still staying here, as was Fuze.

  “Uhh, don’t you kind of need to get back home sooner or later? How long were you planning to stay anyway?”

  I decided to bring up the question with Fuze while Kabal and his gang were taking Milim out hunting. They got along pretty well with her, too; by now they were her second favorite after me. I needed to take advantage as much as I could.

  “Well, is it all right if I stayed a little bit longer? There’s, you know, a lot of things to tackle.”

  He wanted more time. He, too, had been walking around town, observing the assorted goings-on. He wasn’t liable to cause trouble if I took my eyes off him, unlike Milim, but it still made me nervous.

  “Oh, come on, you’re still not convinced that we’re not a threat?”

  The whole reason for his stay was because he was suspicious of us—or me, really. The longer he stayed here, the more concerned it made me.

  “Mmm? Oh no, I’ve long since dropped any worries I had about you, Sir Rimuru. It’s just…”

  His voice trailed off.

  “Okay, so why are you still here?” I pressed.

  Fuze scowled a little, then resigned himself to reveal the truth. “Well, it’s just comfortable living here, you know? Thinking about it, it’s been a long while since I’ve had a chance to rest and take it easy, so…you know, I was thinking this was a good chance to let my hair down for a bit.”

  What? Wow, talk about brazen! I’ve been on pins and needles worrying about Fuze, and he was treating this as a resort vacation?!

  “Uh, you realize I permitted you to stay here because you were going on about trying to ‘gauge us out’ and so on, right?”

  I was truly at a loss for words. All the politeness I extended to him at first now seemed like a truly stupid idea. And that wasn’t all—there was one other thing too important to forget.

  “Also, what happened to your promise that you’d help make Yohm and his band into champions?”

  “Oh, no need to worry! I’ve decided that I can trust you, Sir Rimuru, so I’ve already instructed my team to finish up the arrangements.”

  Apparently, he had already reported to Blumund and gotten everything set up for Yohm over in Farmus. Despite being on vacation, he was still handling his job for me. Shrewd of him, I guess—or maybe, indicative of the fact that I couldn’t let my guard down around him.

  “Really? Well, great, then. So you like it here?”

  “I should say so! This town is amazing! Having such a fine place to rest and recuperate so near to Blumund is truly welcome. Of course…I can’t help but think about the dangers involved in traveling between here and there.”

  I suppose Fuze really did see this town as a kind of health spa. Guess installing that hot-spring bath and working hard to improve our food quality paid off. It was more the work of Shuna and the three dwarven brothers than me, but still.

  Our diets, in particular, had dramatically changed over the past few weeks. It still wasn’t all that varied a menu, but each meal had started to taste quite a bit better. We didn’t have much in the way of seasonings, such as mirin or soy sauce, so no really strong flavors yet—but we did have salt, as well as something kind of like pepper and a variety of condiments from the fragrant grasses of the forest.

  These ingredients, combined with Shuna’s genius in the kitchen, were producing some pretty high-grade food.

  “Ahh, being able to consume such fine cuisine, day in, day out. I am a happy woman indeed!” Milim also approved.

  She had made friends with Shuna while I wasn’t paying attention, and the sight of her stealing—er, sampling—tastes of food in the kitchen became a regular occurrence. Shuna was fond of her, too, and sometimes I wondered if anyone saw her as a demon lord any longer. But hey, having friends isn’t a bad thing.

  We were also training apprentice cooks for Shuna’s operations. From both genders, too. Shuna didn’t have the analysis and assessment abilities that my unique skills provided; she had to rely on her five senses to make the food she did. The new cooks stuck to Shuna’s advice along those lines, working hard to keep bellies full across town.

  With all the different races coming in, our population was starting to swell. This naturally meant we needed to employ a large number of people to cover our food needs, along with keeping the peace, cleaning the rest houses, and doing the laundry. Everyone had their strong and weak points, so we had decided to divide the work into six categories: cooking, cleaning, upkeep, sewing, assistance, and miscellaneous. Rigurd was responsible for taking command and providing assignments. He was good at it, and the job he was doing bringing all the town’s monsters together was a wonder to see.

  Yohm’s band also had nothing but good things to say about our food. They liked their living quarters, too, along with the town experience in general. If it wasn’t for that, I’m sure they would’ve fled from Hakuro and his demonic training regimen long ago. Judging by the way monsters around town treated them, they must have enjoyed the work well enough. Once we started hosting merchants in here, I was pretty sure it’d work out just fine.

  It’d be great if we could all work together and turn this area into a tourist destination. I had certain plans along those lines, but nothing concrete yet. For now, our first priority was convincing everyone else that we weren’t dangerous.

  Danger on the roads, though…?

  That was probably a good point. It’d be exceedingly rare to run into something as big as a knight spider, but there certainly were a large number of monsters out there. A forest as deep and thickly vegetated as this one was no place for a human being to live—the monsters posed a danger, but so did getting lost and running out of food. Nobody was around to treat you if you hurt yourself, and the threat of illness on the road was also present. It took nearly two weeks to complete a one-way journey between Blumund and here, but you could expect to tack on a few extra days for all sorts of reasons.

  Having Shadow Motion and the like on hand made the distance something we could cover immediately, but that wasn’t available to adventurers. Even seasoned travelers like Kabal’s team needed around ten days to cover it, no matter how quickly they went. If they got in a fight and lost their bearings, it was a given in this world that they’d need to expend a few days getting back on track.

  I wanted to use the merchants to spread the word about this town for me. That was my plan, but there were still a few stumbling blocks to cover before we brought it to action.

  “Hmm… I see. It’d be quicker to build a new road, wouldn’t it?”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “Um, well, I’m having a crew pave a road between here and the Dwarven Kingdom, but I’ve also got another team handling building construction. Their work’s settled down lately, but I was thinking maybe they could put in a road to Blumund. It’d keep people from getting lost, at least.”

  “Wait, really? That’s kind of a big national operation, isn’t it? You’d need a ton of money to—”

  “There you go again, Fuzie.”

  “Fuzie? Something about you calling me that really creeps me out.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it, Fuzie. If we can build a road and pave it with gravel, that’d open passage to carriages and wagons and such. It’d save a ton of time, plu
s, it’d be useful for future relations, right? And we’d be happy to undertake this operation. Just one thing…”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to spread the word, like you promised. Just let everyone know that we aren’t a pack of dangerous monsters. And I’d also appreciate it if you could introduce me to an expert in customs and tariffs and stuff. I want to sell some of the goods we produce, so if I could get in contact with people who can help with all that stuff, that’d be great. How about it?”

  Right now, the path between here and Blumund was little more than a rough animal trail, capable of accommodating horses but not full carriages. We had started to build a road to Dwargon, but we hadn’t even gotten around to clearing the trees that dotted the path to Blumund. We hesitated to, because we were afraid of calling too much attention to ourselves, but that was before all the battles and such in the forest.

  Things were starting to calm down again, and I wanted to have some highways we could leverage to improve our trading activity. I was prepared to leave that issue alone if we were seen as “the enemy,” but if we were building diplomatic relations with other countries, we needed some real roads, fast. And since I ran things in the forest, it was up to us, I felt, to do all the construction work.

  I figured now was a good time to plead my case to Fuze about this, even if it sounded a tad patronizing, and have him do his job for me. It had the intended effect. Fuze looked honestly touched.

  “Sir Rimuru, you would really do all that for us? In that case, we’ll do our best to provide any kind of support you need!”

  Heh. That was easy. Fuze will probably be singing our praises to anyone who listens to him once he returns home. At the very least, if he didn’t have a narrow, prejudiced view of us, then I’d say I won this battle.

  If using some of our idle man power to build a road was enough to earn that much appreciation, it’s a pretty cheap deal for us, I think.

  Kabal and his friends were back by the time I had finished cajoling Fuze. Milim came running up to me, a big smile on her face.