—–

Okay, hold on for a second, I am a slow woman, so I have to process what’s going on.

We were leisurely going around the forest, and then my Raven found out that there were two kids running away from a giant wolf chimera thing. This wolf chimera thing intends to capture them with a purple slime that comes out of its open stomach?! What?!

Then, I became a catapult and sent Lucifer away to the rescue. He managed to splatter the entire slime against the ground just as I had totally predicted (I didn’t). Now, as I’ve captured the wolf chimera thing, there’s a little black box in it speaking to me.

“Okay, fine, sorry about that, buddy. I’ll bring you back the kids. Where do you live?” I asked.

“Phew… You’re such a good person. It is tough to find people as decent as you- Hold on a second! I won’t fall for that! You want to know where I live!”

Damn it.

“No! I just want to bring them back to you, man. I know how hard it is to find your kids when they get lost. Especially when they’re these… chimera kids,” I said.

“I am not falling for that! Who do you think I am?!”

“Then we are breaking negotiations, little man,” I said.

“I am not little! I am just a halfling!”

“I see, a halfling.”

“Ah! S-Shit…”

“Anything else to tell me? We can go on a date if you have the right eye color,”

“Stop messing with me!”

“Okay then, bye-bye~,”

“W-Wait! What are you doing-”

CRASH!

I crushed the black box because his old man voice was very annoying to my phantasmal ears.

“GRAAAWRR!

Suddenly, the wolf chimera freed itself from my shadow entanglement and began to slash at me with all its strength!

SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!

“Ouch!”

I ended up losing over half my HP with three of his attacks which were faster than I could even react to.

Damn! This thing is fast as heck! I quickly conjured a Shadow Wall, but not for me… it was for him!

CLASH!

The entire shadow wall fell onto it and pressed it down against the ground.

“Again! Again! Again!”

CLASH!

CLASH!

CLASH!

Three shadow walls were consecutively conjured as they stacked over the poor chimera thing, which was barking monstrously at me. It even opened its jaws and released a poisonous gas, but I was totally immune to it.

“You’re pretty pathetic now, huh? Little pupper? How about it, wanna join me?” I asked.

“GRAAWRRRAAARRR!”

Oof, he’s definitely not going to become my puppy, I guess. Wait, is this thing even alive? It has the head of a skull, but it has a beating heart and blood. It is even kind of warm, so it is definitely alive… but it also has a skull as its head. It’s quite creepy. It is as if it were a living organism stitched together.

“So, what do you do for a living?”

“GRAAAR!”

“I see, being a dog… Understandable,”

I looked towards Lucifer and saw he was beating the slime to a pulp, but even as pulp, the thing was still somewhat alive. It lacked a core like other slimes, so it was a mystery on how to kill it, but after checking its status, I saw its HP was slowly going down with each hit it received. After that, I noticed Emeraldine healing the two kids.

The stars of this little show were two very strange kids. They looked “human” in appearance but had black horns, and their hair color was multi-color, like, they had different patches of color, which made them look a bit weird. The boy had red, black, and white hair, and the girl was brown, blonde, and orange. I asked Kuro and Partner to slowly chip down the wolf chimera as I went to check on the kids.

“Who are you guys?” I asked.

“Ah! Maria, they were very wounded… They’re so young and they were chased down by monsters… what could this all be about?” wondered Emeraldine.

“Hmm… I don’t know. That’s why I asked them,” I said as I kneeled and looked them in the eyes.

“Ungh… W-We… we are experiments….” Said the girl.

“Huh?”

“Guinea pigs… we were being used… since children… since babies….” She continued.

“What? By who? For what purpose?”

“W-We don’t know….”

“…”

Hmm… This is iffy. We might be jumping down a dangerous rabbit hole.

“Do you know where you two came from?” I asked.

“I… I think I might remember… the way back,” She said.

“I see… Well, for now, you two should rest- Oh, she’s asleep,”

The girl fell asleep in Emeraldine’s embrace.

“They’re very tired. Please, Maria, don’t ask them any questions for now….”

“Fine, let them rest- Ah, we should clean them and give them proper clothes… which we don’t have,” I sighed.

“Oi, Maria, this thing keeps saying that he’s sorry all the time,” Said Lucifer.

“Huh?”

I walked towards Lucifer and found out that the giant purple slime was about to die.

“I am sorry… I am sorry… Sorryyyyyyy…”

“I’ve never seen a slime that can speak!” Shouted Emeraldine, dumbfounded.

“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” I said.

“How odd, I can feel within its soul that it has memories… Is this thing a chimera? Perhaps the results of necromancy of some sort… It has the soul of someone else inside,” Lucifer muttered.

“How tragic…” I sighed as I created a shadow spear and ended its misery.

SPLAT!

“Guegh…”

“Did you have to do that?!” Asked Lucifer.

“Yeah, it was suffering, so I put him out of his misery,” I said, grabbing the slime’s soul and inspecting it.

It resembled the faint figure of a man.

“I am sorry… I am sorry….”

“Can you stop being sorry?” I asked.

“Aghhh…! Aaaahhh…! AAAGGH!”

I guess he can’t.

“Emeraldine, purify him for me….” I sighed.

“Exorcising,”

FLASH!

Emeraldine conjured her magic, and the soul was cleansed of miasma before ascending somewhere. It even seemed to have sighed in relief.

“Well, that’s that… Let’s continue for now. It would be nice to get to town so we can find proper beds for the kids. Also clothes, and probably something for their scars,” I said.

—–