Side Story 5
They Are On a Journey
Translator : PolterGlast
This is a short story
commemorating the book and comic adaptation, so the timeline is after leaving
Velvect, during the 【Side Story】.
---
"Hey, hasn't
Lotus been eating stew less lately?" Ichi said.
"...Huh?"
I tilted my head,
stirring the contents of the pot over the bonfire with a ladle. Bounce-bounce.
That's right, as if agreeing, Nii and San bounced next to Ichi.
It had been a month
since I left the town of Velvect with Lotus, Ichi, and the others. We were already
used to camping. Well, I had been so accustomed to it that I had earned the
title of wild child, so there was no problem whatsoever.
My hand stirring the
ladle didn't stop, but "Whoa..." a strange voice escaped my lips.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa...!"
――El, your face is pale!
――Are you okay!?
――At times like this,
DAAAAANCE!!!!
"No
dancing!"
Lotus wasn't here
right now, as he had gone to gather food. While retorting to the ever-present
San, I pulled the ladle out of the pot with a "Hawahawawa..."
"The stew rate is
low..."
In response to my
bewildered mutterings, the slimes suddenly fell silent, as if saying,
"What are you talking about?" Wait, don't go silent.
"Listen!" "We are listening, though...?" Their gazes were
painful. Setting aside whether slimes even had eyes. "Are you really
listening!?" I shouted.
"Stew! Lotus
likes it so much, but I haven't made stew!"
Or rather, I didn't
have the ingredients.
The fact that I hadn't
realized this until just now made me clutch my head, ladle and all, and go, "Wah!"
Am I a failure? I didn't know what I was failing at, but was I a failure!?
"I can't... bring
joy to Lotus..."
Was this what it meant
to have no joy? No, maybe not. Was it?
Next to me, where I
was trembling as if pounding the ground with my fist, the slimes were
murmuring, "Well, this is awkward, isn't it? What a pickle." Please
speak clearly.
"...No, I
understand, okay? Right now, I don't want to attract the attention of other
demons, so I want to avoid populated areas as much as possible. If that's the
case, stew ingredients... like flour, and Milk. They're hard to get. So it ends
up being wild boar stew. I'm sure Lotus will get a wild boar today. It'll be a
delicious, delicious stew."
Impossible things are
impossible. I knew that, but why did I feel such a piercing pain in my chest?
Lotus loved stew so much, I thought, clenching my fist tightly, and a single
tear fell. "What, it's just a stew, right!?" I thought, surprised by
the single tear that landed on my hand, and then I realized, "No, that's
not it."
This was just the
surface.
Lotus had become a
demon because of me. We had to leave the town of Velvect and go on a journey.
At the same time, he had to give up many things. His job, his friends, the
delicious food at Harapeko-tei.
No matter how many
times I was told it wasn't my fault, even if I knew Lotus genuinely thought so,
I would continue to regret it. I couldn't think of it as just stew. I had made
him give up even that simple stew.
"Uuu~, uuu,
uuuuu~..."
I crouched down and
suddenly found myself crying.
I felt so pathetic and
sad, but I hated myself for crying like this, so I pressed my palms to my face
and curled up into a small ball. I desperately swallowed my sobs, and strange
sounds escaped my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut as tightly as I could so that
no more tears would spill.
When I couldn't even
hear the sound of my own breathing, someone gently placed a hand on my
shoulder.
With my eyes still
closed, I heard my heartbeat. We were in a forest far from any village. There
was only one person who would put their hand on my shoulder like that. Yes,
only one.
But I thought he was
still far away, looking for food.
(Could it be, Lotus—)
I turned around with
all my might, so hard that tears flew from the corners of my eyes. With a feeling
of "What should I do?"
"…………"
However, the hand
extended to my shoulder was very squishy. "Wow, that's a long arm."
Of course, it wasn't Lotus. It was Ichi's hand, which had stretched incredibly
thin.
I knew it, though. I
had a feeling. Rather, if it was Lotus, I would be very troubled.
――So El wants Lotus to
eat stew, right?
"You're
continuing the conversation so casually..."
There was no one to
retort. Leader Ichi stretched its arm, and on either side of it, Nii and San
trembled. Along with the slimes' trembling, a lot of emotions seemed to blow
away.
"...Yeah.
Because, it's his favorite. I can't turn Lotus back into a normal human
anymore. But at least, I want to be able to do that much...!"
As I stood up,
clenching my fist tightly, Ichi retracted its long arm with a shurun (it was
like pulling the power cord of a vacuum cleaner, and it actually startled me a
little). Then, the slimes puffed out their chests, full of vigor. Swallowed by
their enthusiasm, I rubbed my eyes roughly with my fist. "Can we do
it!?" The voice I asked with wasn't anxious, but resolute.
The slimes'
non-existent eyes glittered.
――If it is us, then of
course!
Thus, we set out on a
journey to find stew. Ichi and the others possessed high-level search skills,
and they could sense the presence of stew's ingredients with a beep beep. The
time was until Lotus returned from gathering food. We overcame many hardships,
crossed fields, and ran through mountains (an exaggeration), following the
scent, and what we arrived at was a cow. Yes, milk.
We used maximum body
language with the cow and succeeded in obtaining milk by exchanging dried grass
for it at an equal value. The letters "MILK" that we all made with
our bodies were quite impressive. San was stretching more than usual.
***
"...Something
seems strange."
"That's not true,
Lotus, uhihihi, fufufu, hihihihi..."
Lotus, who had safely
returned carrying a wild boar, tilted his head at the unusual atmosphere. I had
intended to pretend to be stirring the pot without a care, but I couldn't
suppress my overflowing witch-like laughter. Kukuku, hihihi, uhihihihi, I
snickered (Ichi and the others trembled), secretly pouring the milk into the
pot as if chanting some kind of curse, and the three slimes and I smirked.
Prepare for surprise and fear, dodododon.
Lotus divided the
finished stew into bowls, used a spoon, and took a bite. Our hearts were
pounding. "Oh," Lotus made a small voice and blinked softly, in a way
that only we would notice. I felt the air tremble with tension.
"This is
incredibly delicious."
"Y-y-y-yes! We
did it!"
As I celebrated our
victory with the Ichis, high-fiving and saying "Yay! We got 'delicious'
from Lotus!", I felt a questioning gaze from him, wondering what we were
doing, but he seemed to decide it was just the usual and didn't mind. Lotus
immediately continued eating as usual, muttering, "Yeah, it's good."
Every time he did, we
all secretly snickered, but just as I was about to scoop some stew into my
bowl, thinking, "Alright, let's eat too."
"Yeah, it's good.
This milk stew."
I froze.
"...Milk
stew?"
"Yeah, right? The
gamey smell of the wild boar is perfectly eliminated by the milk, it's
delicious."
"Where did you
get it?" Lotus asked, but that wasn't the point. Not stew, but milk stew.
...Milk stew?
『Yeah. Actually, I was thinking it wasn't stew.』
『There's no thickness because there's no flour or
butter, and the broth is only from the wild boar.』
『Yay!』
The slimes were calm.
Even San was a little quieter than usual. "N-no way...!" "No,
this is good," Lotus said, cheeks puffed out as he munched and chewed. A
little cute. No, not that.
"Uuuu, revenge!
I'll definitely get my revenge—!!!"
"This is
good."
"Oooooh!" I
raised both hands and roared with all my might.
And so, my journey
with stew continued...
-----
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