…Understood. The effects of “Resist Temperature” have successfully canceled flame-based attacks automatically.
I detected at least a bit of “You forgot all about Resist Temperature, didn’t you?” sarcasm to the voice.
Who asked you to speak up right now, you pile of junk?!
Yeah. I thought I got a “…” in response to that little outburst.
Hopefully that was just my imagination. The Sage had been completely faithful to me before now. It wasn’t even self-aware. It’d be stupid to think otherwise.
Ha-ha-ha. I’m just being silly. I’m sure of it!
Now, then.
Wait. It cancels flame-based attacks? So…
Dude, I have this in the bag, don’t I? Like, this is all part of the plan. I pretend that I’m on the ropes, then I turn the tables. Let’s go with that.
Right. Time to finish up, then.
“What was that?” I shouted as I silently unraveled my Sticky Thread across Ifrit’s body. He was done for. My Analysis already showed that he was using Shizu for his body’s core. I couldn’t have tied up a pure spirit beast like the salamanders with this string, but one with a physical core was a different story.
Next, I’d combine the Sticky Thread with some Steel Thread to get the benefits of both. Another product of my experimentation—and as a bonus, it adopted the same immunities I had, so it wouldn’t get burned up.
Checkmate. I know I sneered at you earlier, but you were probably sneering at me, too. Let’s call it even. You’re free to hate me for this if you like.
“I’m up next, right?”
Ifrit, in a panic, struggled to free himself. I expected that. But my “Sticky Steel Thread” was never going to let him. I took my sweet time, casually approaching.
It was time to land the final strike. On Ifrit, the monster that had probably taken Shizu’s body over.
No need for too much haste. I walked up to this flailing creature, who was trying to throw every attack he could to stop me. Sadly for him, flames didn’t work on me.
Then…
✦ ✦ ✦
Use unique skill “Predator”?
Yes
No
That’ll be a big ol’ yes, please.
A flash of bright light covered the area, then suddenly vanished.
All that was left was a lone old woman and me.
✦ ✦ ✦
Was this a dream?
My mother’s hand, cold.
Her cold eyes, gazing at me.
A warm smile and a pile of pure white ash.
All these memories did was torment me. I didn’t want to remember them—
But that was the path I walked.
If I hadn’t run into the hero, I doubt my soul could ever have been saved… But I was too awkward, too unskilled, to wind up like her. With so many people relying on me, too…
It was just that—
✦ ✦ ✦
It had been several years since I’d retired from the adventurer life. I was a full-fledged teacher, leading the next generation of our trade as I helped out the society with its work.
The Society of Adventurers, a group that crossed borders and had grown beyond the control of any single government, had built its headquarters in the kingdom of Englesia. I was no longer an adventurer, but if there was anything I could do for them, I wanted to help them with it. It had been the society, after all, that had given me a home of sorts when I had nowhere else to go.
There, I had a chance to teach a number of talented students. A young man with eyes that beamed with complete purity. A girl, her gaze tinged with hopelessness. More otherworlders, I assumed, just like me.
The two of them were exact opposites in so many ways. Yuuki was a bright, optimistic boy, while Hinata was insular and reserved, as if she carried all the darkness in the world with her.
Bandits had attacked her when she came here. At the time, I had thought that she would warm up and come around as the days passed. The bandits met their fates at the hands of some other assailant, which saved Hinata’s life, but I’m sure the incident must have scarred her.
I saw a bit of myself in the girl, after all. I had an affinity for her. It was apparently one-sided.
“Thank you for everything you’ve taught me,” she said. “There is nothing else I can learn from you. I doubt we will meet again.” Then she turned around and left.
I thought it might have been best to chase after her, but I couldn’t will myself to leave town. The society was building a new shared-assistance program with Englesia, a new organizational structure originally proposed by Yuuki. As a former hero, I was put in the position of representing the society in the requisite negotiations. It was something I wanted to see succeed, considering how it would define the society’s future direction.
So in the end, all I could do was see her off. “If you ever get lost,” I called to her, “I want you to rely on me.”
After agonizing over it, I decided to support Yuuki over Hinata. The girl had walked a similar path to mine, but she was always far more strong willed than I was. I figured that I should believe in her. That her iron will could clear the darkness in her soul and transform her into a great woman.
It was no great surprise when I learned, a mere few years later, that she had risen to an important position in the Church. I felt a little proud, a little lonely…and just a tad anxious.
Hinata isn’t feeling lonesome, is she? Is she doing all right with her life?
The questions overwhelmed me, but I figured I had no right to ask them. I once had the chance to grasp her hand, and I had refused it.
All I could do was pray for Hinata’s continued safety.
✦ ✦ ✦
Yuuki, on the other hand, was far more dynamic.
It was Yuuki who built the current system for the Society of Adventurers, now renamed the Free Guild. Thanks to him, the guild was able to build a successful cooperative relationship with nations across the world. He had forged new treaties with governments, earning the guild positions in their topmost of councils. His efforts had made the organization more powerful than ever.
I should have expected nothing less. Until then, every nation had been focused solely on protecting its own borders. When the Free Guild began taking on monster-dispatch duties, it lightened the loads of every other government in the world. And that wasn’t all. Adventurers—people who traveled the world, never beholden to any single country—were obligated to file reports on their journeys. The Free Guild then collated these reports to gain a grasp of how monsters were distributed worldwide. Danger levels were assigned to every region, allowing people to travel in relative peace.
The system had one other major effect. Knowing where and when to expect monsters made it possible to quickly detect anomalies—letting people discover and report on monsters not seen before or eliminate hordes in short order if they grew too numerous.
Whenever a monster that normally didn’t appear in a certain region suddenly menaced a nearby town, the guild was also obliged to send an expeditionary force to figure out the cause. Getting to the root of it early on let the guild and local governments assemble a dispatch corps far more efficiently than before.
Having this kind of organization made people’s lives both safer and more comfortable. Mankind found itself expanding its cities, and the overall population has grown rapidly in recent years. The institution of rankings assigned to monsters did much to reduce the number of deaths as well.
For someone charged with training new recruits, nothing could have made me happier. Thanks to Yuuki, the Free Guild was now an organization that neither the nations of the world nor its people could do without.
Yuuki, for his part, just laughed it off. “I was just imitating what I saw in this video game I played,” he said. “Though, of course, you can do anything you want in a game. You can have monsters that say, ‘I’m not a bad slime, you know’…or even have them join your party!”
He was always a joker like that. Monsters becoming your friends? That sort of thing could happen only in your dreams.
The world I was born in had almost been razed to the ground by war. Had it recovered to the point where it could create people like him—people who never seemed to have a care in the world?
He explained to me that these “video games” were children’s toys that let you experience a full story yourself…so if Japan had recovered enough to give children dreams to play with, it must have become a wonderful place.
So I listened to Yuuki’s stories, thinking to myself about a home I could never go back to.