Slime Tensei Monogatari Chapter 17

Chapter 17 Communication

After arriving in the cave, the butcher checked and confirmed that there were no problems with the girl. I gave a sigh of relief when it mentioned that she would naturally wake up as time pa.s.ses.

And again, when the butcher laughed due to his amus.e.m.e.nt, I had seriously tried to cut him but, that is just a digression.

The girl can not be left alone, and somehow I ended up stronger in this one day. I understand that my time is limited, but physically, I am already tired so I imitated the girl and took a rest.

The extent of recovery that herbs provide are mainly for wounds and damage but loss of stamina and mental fatigue will acc.u.mulate. A reckless decision to continue will then increase the probability of a mistake in judgement.

But, there are times where the girl wakes up and it is just before dusk now. It is still too early to sleep.

As such, I will work on confirming the effects of the skills that I have spent the entirety of today to obtain. If I ask the butcher, it would be instant but, since a compensation is needed, I absolutely refuse to do that.

It is should be fine to just ask him about the things that I don't understand from the research. That way, it would not be useless.

After trying and finishing the confirmation of various things, I was encouraged by the manipulation of tentacles which are almost becoming a habit. But it is not enough to deal with the angel rabbit yet. Perhaps, if the girl wasn't there, the angel rabbit might have already escaped.

But it is not an opponent that is encountered normally. Till my hits connect, if I keep training, it should work against any enemies. Since I have a goal now, I am motivated to aim for that.

At times in the form of a spear, at times in the form of a whip, I use my tentacles to practice hitting trees nearby the cave. The figure of a slime wholeheartedly attacking trees, no matter what you think of it, it is plain weird. It will not even be a funny joke.

"Fuu, this should be enough"

I ended when the day is over and it became dark. In this world without street lights, the night really became totally dark. As expected, the training is done with this, isn't it?

When I returned to the cave, the totally unmoved two people were still there. I understand that the girl was unconscious and sleeping but why did the butcher remove his tattered clothes, he looks like a dead body left with white bones when he does not move.

"From your appearance, it seems that nothing happened"

"Indeed, it is about time she wakes up"

I don't know where the girl came from but she is sleeping lightly and comfortably. Looking at her peaceful sleeping face, you wouldn't think that she was knocked unconscious.

By the way, the girl is covered by a blanket, which was what I bought from the butcher.

I had forgotten when I arrived but, the entire cave is filled with protruding rocks which makes it not suitable an environment for a slime, nevertheless a girl to live in just like that. Even if I wanted to move to another place, I don't know of other safe places and as a result of pursuing comfort, I bought it.

He could have just given me one or two pieces of blanket free, but he shrewdly asked for meat in return; He is a rotten merchant indeed. Though there isn't rotten meat.

"……Nn"

While having those stupid thoughts, the girl's body twitched. And then, she slowly rose up.

"……"

Half opened eyes and sluggish movement. This, is totally half asleep.

The girl takes her time to look around her surroundings, and the moment she makes eye contact with me,

"Eh!"

Her eyes opened wide and she solidified. Its great that her consciousness has fully awakened.

"Good morn'”

Nothing will convey properly even if I said anything, so I threw sarcasm at her. For now, It is a night illuminated only by the moon. Its impressive how she had managed to even sleep till this hour.

In her panicky state, the girl threw the raised up blanket to act as smokescreen.

Then, she reached for her bow left nearby and finally, she realised that the arrow was not on hand. It would be troublesome if she suddenly went violent so I placed her arrows, daggers and everything that could become weapons by the Butcher’s foot.

It became a situation where in order to retrieve her weapons, she has to do a kamikaze attack. As long as she is not willing to bet her life, she probably won’t be doing reckless things anytime soon.

The negotiations after she has woke up is left to the butcher. I can’t talk even if I want to anyways.

"My goodness, young lady. Why don’t you first calm yourself down and listen to us instead of jumping to conclusions?"

The voice caused the gaze of the girl to move from me to the butcher.

"For there to not only be a slime but a skeleton too"

The girl muttered. It seems that the reason for her temper is also proof that she sees us only as monsters. I knew that this was the case as expected, but it is still tough.

But, although the girl stopped moving, she was anxious. No, It seems that she can’t move. In a situation where one wakes up without weapons and two monsters in point blank range, normally it is a desperate situation for that fellow.

"We are not your enemies so please be relieved. Tte, even if I say that, there ain’t a meaning so hurry it up!"

"I understand. However, before that, It seems that the lady has received too much stimulus from seeing the figure of a man in the nude indeed"

"In another meaning, yes."

So you have a gender? That’s my first time hearing about it.

The butcher swiftly wore the tattered clothes that were by his feet. No matter how much he hides his body, It is plenty stimulating in that meaning when his head is just bones.

"So let’s start again from the beginning with self.introductions. About this white bones, tte- what’s wrong?"

"Oi, are you alright?"

Unintentionally, I managed to convey my voice even when I knew she would not understand. Because the girl's appearance did an about-face.

Up till just now, the panicking one's hostility was on full display while considering how to escape till the moment the butcher wore his clothes. She turned started shaking and turned pale. No matter how you look at it, It looks like she was shaking from fear.

The butcher that is wearing his clothes in front of her vision, just what did you do?

"Butcher, what did you do?"

"I haven’t done anything. You should know that too since you are here."

"Then, why is she suddenly in that state? Didn't you sneakily do something in the shadows after all?"

"Just this time, I have honestly done nothing"

Even if he says that, he is not trustworthy.

"Don’t lie. For a girl to be this fearful of you on her first meeting is as expected, quite a bad hobby."

"As I said"

This conversation continued to go round for a while, but even after all that, he does not admit to it. It seems that he does not know anything. If so, why did she end up in that state?

"I can’t think of what may have happened here but, are you sure you didn’t perpetrate something when saving her?"

"Why did it come to that? No later how you look at it, she started shaking when she saw you."

"When you saved her from the spark fish, are you sure you didn’t give her a slow acting paralysis or poison?"

"Of course I didn’t, I don’t even know that it is possible to do such delicate control"

I managed to gain good information in this shrewd manner.

Tte, that isn’t the point, me.

But, no matter how much we talked, we were not conscious of our error in a.s.sumption and so, we can only ask the girl later.

When we looked at the girl at the same time, she is being careful of the butcher’s gaze as expected. The girl, while shivering, was pointing at the butcher while muttering something.

"W-why is there a lich(rich) in this sort of place"

Obviously, It is not about a rich person so the answer is pretty much confirmed. The butcher’s species. [SK: Just a really bad pun]

"Aah, so it’s about that. Excuse me"

"Don’t be convinced by yourself and explain what is going on"

To talk about the butcher, the lich is a higher ranking species of the butcher and has considerable power such that humans are quite fearful of them. Amongst them, especially the elf species, because of their figure and compatibility, liches are treated as death G.o.ds and baseless rumours such as even looking at them is simultaneous with death are spread around.

Certainly, if the death G.o.d is in front of your eyes, such reactions are acceptable. To her, the butcher is akin to death itself.

In fact, he is actually just a greedy merchant with restricted battle actions and a rotting personality. He is more than enough to be the worst.

"More importantly, the elf is that elf?"

"I don’t understand the intent of your question but, she is an elf. Its obvious once you look at the ears"

Certainly it is too sharp to be a human’s. Now that he says it, it should be obvious on first sight.

"Hey you, even though this guy has that kind of form, he can’t execute battle actions so it’s alright"

As I said before, even if I say anything, there is no meaning after all. The other person is a human so even if she doesn’t understand, I accidentally speak according to my usual senses.

To speak with the butcher, the girl sheets her gaze,

"Um! …… is it true that he can’t fight at all?"

"Eh?"

A idiotic sound was let out. That girl just, managed to understand what I just said?

I should not make hasty conclusions, it’s still possible that it was a misunderstanding.

"Although I think that it’s impossible, are my words being understood perchance?"

My voice is shaking. I thought that this would not be the case but at the same time, there is also another me that wants this to be the case.

"I, I understand.  As long as it is just listening to what you are saying, uhm, slime…… san is fine right? Were you the one who saved me?"

Our words can connect, for me to be this happy over something like that. The butcher is, how should I put it, has a monster form, obviously too unique an existence so I was more or less happy, but not moved at all.

But, if you look at it at it, It feels as if I am conversing to another normal human and I returned to being human; I remembered such an illusion. To find someone who is able to converse with a slime this early, the baseless a.s.sumption that there just might be people whom can converse with slimes spring forth hope.

(Calm down, be cool headed)

What I should do now is to talk to the girl and, I can feel touched and other stuff later.

"Yoshi, if my words can be conveyed, the talks will be faster. I am……"

I realised I never did think about what to call myself. Slime is the species name, I should use my name from the previous world here,

(Name?)

The name when I was still a human, yes, my name. But I can not remember what was it.

It feels as if only a few days has pa.s.sed, and in the first place, It is not as if I have forgotten it due to time. Even if that was the case, only my name seems to slip from my memories.

Now that I think about it, for me to not realise it up till now is also weird. It might be an effect of reincarnation.

As if under the illusion that a chill went down my spine, and the two noticed the unusual happening of me going silent.

(This is bad, I have to shelve this matter for now)

"…… As you can see, I am a slime so what should I say. Maa, just think of me as a unique monster that has been hunting the monsters in the vicinity to survive. And, this white bones whom is technically my ally is butcher. His skill prevents him from committing any battle actions so it’s fine to not worry I think"

I managed to calm down somehow and fudged it over by choosing my words.

If I show a weird att.i.tude now, it will only add to her unrest. She might be a valuable conversation partner, so I want to avoid that as much as possible.

"Yes yes, this is the proof"

The butcher picked a good timing to hand over his status to the girl. When she saw it, her vigilance was loosened.

The butcher mentioned that the status of this world can not be forged, skill effects are also absolute. It serves as a proof of ident.i.ty as well as proof that he can not fight too.

"Ano, both of you are monsters right? If so, why did you save me?"

The girl speaks to us normally but her tone and expression are still hard. Naturally, we are not trusted yet.

From the girl's perspective, she keeps talking only to maintain her life, she has not determined fully if we were fully safe. It's more or less good that she understands that her life has been saved, but in the end it is just 'more or less'.

(Fuu)

For a moment the image of letting out a big sigh was visualised and my heart calmed down. Don't think about unnecessary stuff, me.

"To speak of the truth, it was just on a whim that I saved you. I don't understand why but, i was born with a heart similar to a human's, if I abandoned you, it would ruin my sleep. Nothing more nothing less."

I will keep quiet about reincarnating. I can not imagine what will happen, nor should it be touted. I should keep it a secret as far as this matter is concerned.

The girl contemplated if my words could be believed. The offensive atmosphere disappeared and so, we could slowly talk from now on.

In any case, it is already midnight. It would make no sense to have saved the girl if the girl was released outside the cave at this time. Although she more or less has experience in fighting, she is still a girl in her teens. I can not allow such a dangerous action.

"Maa Maa, I understand your feelings but until dawn, you can't go outside anyways, so let's take this time to slowly deepen our understanding of each other. And, I would like you to tell us your name, is it ok?"

The butcher read my thoughts and made that remarks. It is scary how he seems to have read through me in this case.

The girl heard the words and,

"…… I understand"

She sat on a nearby handy rock, and did deep breaths.

"Once again, thank you for saving me. I am Mira Grant von Lact, it's obvious if you look at me but I'm an elf"

Through this course of events, it resulted in my and the elf girl Mira's meeting.

Editor’s note:

Nohma here, sorry about the delay, this was supposed to be released on wednesday but I’ve been busy with work. And about this chapter, isn’t this slime some kind of gentleman? I hope all slimes would be like that.