I’m Harumi the mimic! I’m just a regular mimic who happened to be able to grow limbs!
How was that for an introduction? Since I was wandering down a road, I figured I’d try making one.
A big blue sky, filled with small chirping birds, spread above me. The breeze, which carried the faint scent of manure, tickled me. As you could probably guess from that description, I wasn’t in the dungeon. I found myself in the sticks, some place full of farms and ranches.
Yep, I—a mimic with legs—was walking around on the surface without a care in the world. “But, hey, should that even be allowed?” I could hear a hypothetical voice ask. “There are so many problems with this scenario!”
Well, I’m sure that’s how some people would react, at least. But, hey—I had a super cute girl riding on top of me, so it was all good!
Er... Sorry, it’s not all good, is it? I’m sure that made no sense to you.
As for how I’d gotten myself in this situation... It all started a few days ago, during the beginning of the Aldora Labyrinth’s off-season. Let’s flashback!
✦ ✦ ✦
“EliMon...?”
I was completely caught by surprise when I was told to go to some EliMon Center. So surprised, in fact, that the dazzling brightness of Lord Aldora’s room didn’t compare.
Well, that’s how I felt, anyway. It wasn’t like I had a face to show it.
“Yes, for elite monsters. You know, like the Three Dragon Knights, or the Four Heavenly Kings, or the Multitude of Five, or Section Six, or the Seven Noble Leaders, or the Gathering of the Ten Greats, or the Twelve Demon Generals, or the Seventy-Two Pillars, or the Hundred and Eight Stars. You’ll become a candidate for a position like that!” Lord Aldora exclaimed.
She seemed like a super fluffy and soft type of character at a glance, but her swinging tail just barely made you realize she was actually a monster.
“But how great and strong are those people, really...?” I mumbled.
I really wanted to tell her to keep her examples concise. Plus, wouldn’t a multitude of five just be five regular people? And I thought the list would go through all the numbers, but she just started skipping around!
However, there was no way I could’ve said that to my boss.
“Anyway, we’ve always had a recommendation slot for EliMon open, but there was no one to give it to...up till now, anyway. I just thought maybe you could make it, Harumi. Oh, let me guess—maybe you’re thinking that you’re getting the short end of the stick? Like we’re just trying to get rid of you or something?”
“Not really, no. But I have no idea what anything you’re talking about means. I don’t even know why I was born.”
“‘Why you were born’? Not even I know the answer to a philosophical question like that,” she replied with a laugh.
Well, of course she wouldn’t.
Still, someone had created me. Wouldn’t that mean I’d been made with a purpose in mind?
“Ahh, is this about Marinnie’s whole explanation thing?”
Just in case some people might’ve forgotten—Marinnie, the arachne, was this place’s tenth-underground-floor boss.
I’d been promised an explanation if I survived my first season; when the time came, though, I was suddenly excluded, thrown out, and brought here instead.
“Yes. I was looking forward to it, but then she told me that it’d be meaningless. It was kind of a shock.”
Still, I could see what she was talking about now. She was saying that, since I was going to be leaving the dungeon, there wouldn’t be any point.
Wait, then is she implying that she doesn’t want me to come back?
“Contrary to appearances, Marinnie’s pretty high-strung and fussy. I don’t see the harm in letting you sit in, but oh well. I can just be the one to tell you!”
“Really?!”
“How about starting with what we, as monsters, are?”
“Ohhh, that’s exactly what I wanted to know! Basic stuff like that!”
“We’re beings who tease and play around with humans. Basically, we’re in a permanent skirmish with them!”
“What?”
Huh? Why’s this so different from what I was expecting? I kinda thought the answer would be like, “We need to pluck out the humans from their roots, mwa ha ha!” or something like that...
“Fundamentally, we’re a group of anti-human existences! Sure, we and the humans might fight and kill each other, but neither of us want to completely eradicate the other. It’s like...how should I put it? We’re close enough to get into fights at the drop of a hat, I guess? Like, it’d be pretty boring if we lost our only enemy...or something like that?”
“Do...the humans know that?”
“I don’t think they do. Well, to them, dungeons are a fountain of resources. In the end, their attitude’s still about the same as ours. Their god despises monsters, though. Oh, don’t misunderstand—it’s fine for you guys to slaughter them with everything you’ve got. Those up above—like the demon lord—do their best to place us so humans won’t die out, so we don’t have to worry about anything like that.”
I see. So Lord Aldora’s also on the lower end of the totem pole, and the demon lord’s on top.
“Then, what are dungeons?” I asked.
“A defensive monster base. Though, in reality, it’s more like a human harvesting machine. The dungeon gathers the souls and spirits of humans that die within it. Oh, do you know what souls and spirits are?”
Apparently every living thing, be it human, monster, or something else, had a soul and a spirit. As long as you were living and moving, you had one—also, “living” included the undead in this case. So, when someone died, their soul and their spirit scattered into the atmosphere.
The two words kind of meant the same thing, but they also differed in ways.
Souls were something like a fuel source that kept living creatures moving. It didn’t matter what sort of creature it came out of, it was treated purely as a source of energy. Apparently both humans and monsters got stronger by absorbing bits of their victim’s soul.
On the other hand, spirits were something like the root of an existence. It was also like a reflection of one’s personality and uniqueness.
At least, that was how Lord Aldora explained it. Somehow, I managed to wrap my head around it.
“When something dies in the dungeon, most of that thing’s soul and spirit are absorbed by the place itself. That’s why it’s so hard to level up inside one.”
“I see... I did feel like it was hard to level up...so it was because the dungeon was skimming off my kills.”
Oh, shit. I just blamed the dungeon for leeching off my exp. Will I be all right?
I glanced at Lord Aldora. It looked like I was safe. I guess she wasn’t the type to get offended by comments like that.
“That’s right. But in exchange for that, monsters are compensated with points. And we use the souls and spirits gathered this way to pay a stronger organization who controls even more land than we do.”
“Wow, tough world...”
“But this season, we managed to get the spirit and soul of a hero! I’m just over the moon!”
“Huh? Hero? Who was it?”