Chapter 85
And the Demons.
How Reckless...
Translator : PolterGlast
"...Eh?"
Suddenly, a man
appeared right in front of me.
--Vejasha
That was his name.
Lotus's childhood friend, the first demon we encountered in Cloudy Country. And
probably the one who had been trying to capture me. Huh? Who's there? You
weren't here a second ago. Specialist in teleportation? Ichi and the others
were bewildered. And then, their three voices overlapped in a shriek,
"It's a deeeemon!!!" After all, his eyes were bright red.
He was looking at me,
yet not seeing me. They were strange eyes. I was confused. So, the first thing
I did was clench my fist and thrust one arm straight out. When I thought about
why I did that later, I realized it was probably meant to be a fighting stance.
It was a completely meaningless action, but maybe that just showed how confused
I was.
I had been bracing
myself for something to happen, but Vejasha suddenly averted his gaze. It was
as if he couldn't see me at all, which was unexpectedly anticlimactic. He just
kept staring blankly outside the wall, and all I could hear was the sound of
the swaying lantern. What's with this atmosphere?
Could he see me? Or
maybe not? Or rather, did he even exist? All these questions were unraveled by
San's valiant action.
--Ora ora, we're
veteran cleaning slimes! A demon's nothing to us!
Hey, hold on a second,
stop that! Didn't you just tremble in front of Yuko a moment ago? Was he the
type to be tough only within his own territory? While performing the difficult
feat of whispering "S-Sannnnn!!" I reached out my hand towards San,
who had jumped out, but his smooth, jiggly skin slipped through my fingers far
too easily.
Jiggly, jiggly.
Jiggly, jiggly.
"That guy messed
up," Ichi and Nii commented, as if watching a comrade being sent off to a
battlefield, "He's gone." Meanwhile, San bounced vertically in front
of the demon called Vejasha. He was showing off his plump, jiggly body to the
fullest. Bobon-boyon-boyon.
After repeating the
vertical jump several times, roughly up to the height of a young man's waist,
Vejasha glanced at San. Then he went back to looking at the night view as if
nothing had happened. "He can definitely see him!!!" Ichi, Nii, and I
all agreed at that moment. San continued to jump valiantly after that, but he
was completely ignored, so he returned, dejected.
--Sannnnn!!!
--He went too far...
--To think there's
someone who can resist touching that jiggly body...
Behind us, San was
pretending to cough up blood, but slimes didn't have blood. If anything came
out, it would probably be water. No, wait, (He could see San...!?). That was a
huge problem in itself. Right now, Ichi and the others were covered in illusion
skill to hide their appearances. Just in case, I checked if the skill was
turned off, but all of Ichi and the others' statuses showed "in
illusion."
"Why..."
I muttered in a daze.
I hadn't expected an answer. And I realized one thing. He had absolutely no
interest in me.
He had said he would
come to get me, so I had been thinking about how to deal with him when we met
next. But if he had no interest in me, then I could be bold.
"Um, you're
Vejasha-san, right?"
I didn't have the
courage to suddenly drop the honorific, but something felt a little off. I
still couldn't tell if he could hear me or not, but I continued.
"Hey, what do you
mean by 'come to get me'?"
He had said that
amidst the light pouring down from the various-colored, glittering stained
glass. Would he remember? It had been three years ago. As expected, there was
no reply. Was he okay? ...Was he even alive? I was starting to get worried. Was
he even breathing properly?
Vejasha's mouth
opened. The three slimes and I held our breath. But then it closed again. I
lowered my shoulders. Then he opened his mouth again. His pacing was incredibly
strange.
"............Because,
it is decided."
But he spoke. He...
spoke... Ichi, Nii, San, and I all felt the same thing. Maybe he didn't talk to
people much. His way of speaking was strangely punctuated.
More importantly, what
did he mean by "it is decided"? Veda had mistaken my skill for
foresight, but maybe he was the one with that skill. I had thought so, but seeing
Yuko, I realized there was another possibility. Could it be, "A-are you
also, from another world... or something?"
I asked hesitantly.
The corner of his eye flickered towards me. I craned my neck with Ichi and the
others to try and see his expression, and he had a strange wrinkle between his
eyebrows. He clearly had a "what the heck is this guy talking about?"
face. Okay, please forget my previous words. I decided to forget my own
question too. Let's retry without incident.
"Um, but even if
it's decided, I didn't go to you. But does it not matter anymore? It means it
doesn't matter, right?"
Maybe he had no
interest in the past. This time, Vejasha fell silent. Well, that's no good. But
of course, I had no intention of letting him escape here. I had hesitated a
little, but it was much better than letting him get away. I took a slow breath.
It was then.
"Vejasha-sama."
A boy appeared from
the darkness, all alone. Where had he been? If I had used my detection skill, I
might have been able to react a little. It was too late now, but I hurriedly
turned on the skill. I had never seen this boy before. And yet, I felt like I
had seen him somewhere. He had red hair and a quiver on his back, and his eyes
were clearly visible even in the dim light. The red color was proof of a demon.
There was no doubt he
was Vejasha's companion.
He glanced at me. I
thought his eyes were much more human-like than Vejasha's, but that was
probably because Vejasha's were so lifeless. In contrast, his silver hair
glittered even in the night and fluttered in the wind.
"I found it. Over
here."
What he held was the
remains of a sand scorpion. When monsters died, their bodies gradually
disappeared, so no corpses remained, but this one was probably in the process
of disappearing. Only one claw remained, dangling from the red-haired boy's
hand.
(Sand... scorpion...?)
They had probably
infiltrated Kasei to look for that. I gasped.
I had thought sand
scorpions were naturally occurring monsters in the game, but there was no doubt
that they had attacked Kasei in such an orderly formation, so systematically.
In other words, I had thought it was the work of demons, but they probably used
some kind of skill or tool. What they found was one that Lotus had defeated.
That sand scorpion had been controlling all the others.
--Why, something like
that...
Even if I asked, he
would probably just say it was decided.
As if following the
story of the game, shaping the game, Vejasha and the others were moving.
Just like when I had
faced Yuko a moment ago, a queasy feeling rose in my chest. "Was I always
this irritable?" I wondered, feeling strangely off.
"Because it's
decided, you attacked Velvect, Kasei, and my hometown? What's with that!?"
"Vejasha-sama
have no obligation to answer. This is none of your business."
It was the red-haired
boy who replied. He looked young, but his voice was surprisingly low. Maybe he
was older than I imagined. At least older than Socius.
"There's no need
for you to deliberately speak about things that are already decided. We will
put an end to everything."
"Mark."
Vejasha quietly called
out to the boy, no, the young man. Mark, as he was called, immediately stopped
talking. "Yes," he replied respectfully and nodded. Then, as if their
purpose had been achieved, the two of them turned their backs. No, wait a
minute.
"B-but I haven't
heard anything yet!"
In the first place,
there was no such thing as something being decided. Even if this world was The
Tale of the Land of Five Leaves, Lotus's story had already deviated from the
main plot. No, even thinking about what the main plot was in the first place
was strange. His life was only one. So, I took a deep breath.
I inhaled. And then.
"Lotuuuuussssss!!!!!"
I shouted at the top
of my lungs. I had originally decided on a signal with him.
It was supposed to be
used during my conversation with Yuko, but that didn't matter anymore. Lotus
was in a place where he couldn't hear our conversation, but shouting loudly was
a different story. If I called his name, he would rush over with a speed that
made it seem like he was flying. It was just a moment.
Lotus and Vejasha were
childhood friends. And Lotus had always thought he was dead. I had been worried
about Lotus's feelings at the sudden encounter without any preparation, but
that was probably none of my business. At least, it was much better than
letting them escape now.
It was because I had
Lotus, my hidden trump card, that I had been able to talk so nonchalantly with
both Yuko and Vejasha. Well, of course, it was also because Ichi and the others
were there.
Looking down at my
feet, the slimes were mysteriously swaying their bodies, and they seemed to
have acquired a new skill recently. Secret Art: Barrier. By shaking their
bodies at light speed, they turned into sonic waves that returned all impact,
and wrapped themselves in it... no, what was that? Nii was currently explaining
Ichi's skill, but what was that? Why had they acquired something more useful
than me without me even noticing?
"...El, what are
you doing?"
Why were you trembling
without putting out that barrier for Yuko? While I was stretching the cheeks
(or what looked like cheeks) of Ichi and the others, it was Lotus, with his
ridiculously high agility. He landed perfectly on one foot from some mysterious
place and questioned me.
Huh, did Lotus come
from the sky? Leaving aside San, whose (what looked like) eyes were trembling
with pure curiosity. "What happened?" he asked, wondering if there
was a problem. You could tell just by looking, the problem was huge--and yet,
when I looked around, no one was there.
Of course, my
detection skill didn't pick up anything either.
"Nn,
nnnnngh...???"
"What is
it?"
It was true that I
hadn't been paying attention because I had been fussing over Ichi and the
others. It was my own carelessness, but it shouldn't have been enough time for
the two of them to disappear right before my eyes. No matter how I checked,
there was no sign of anyone on the mud-covered bricks, the remnants of the
daytime. All that remained were the footprints that had definitely been there
just a moment ago.
"H-huuuh...???"
"So, what
happened?"
"So many things
happened, it was incredible..."
Including my
conversation with Yuko, at least, I feel like I received more information than
I have in the past three years. But despite that, it felt like I was grasping
at clouds. It was there, yet it wasn't.
I groaned, wondering
how in the world I should explain this to Lotus.
***
Meanwhile, as I was
filled with new questions and confusion, a gray cat poked its head out from an
alley in a certain town. Its entire body was gray, except for its pure white
belly. Its tail was quite kinked. And--it had bright red eyes.
"Unya."
The cat yawned once
and tilted its head, listening to the humans' conversation. Apparently, sand
scorpions had appeared in a capital city a few days' journey from here. Sand
scorpions. It had never seen one before.
"Is it edible,
nya?"
The human in that
place suddenly looked around. "What's wrong?" someone asked.
"No, I just heard a voice nearby. Like a child's voice." "We're
the only ones here. What are you talking about?"
"Yeah, you're
right," the man said, scratching his head as the gray cat leisurely walked
past his feet.
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