“Hmm, to think you’d be so generous as to order food for me too.”
“Who cares? That’s just how this thing turned out,” I said. In honesty, it felt weird to eat on my own and just give the leftovers to the other person with me. “Plus, well, I didn’t imagine going out for lunch with you.”
“Indeed, I feel the same.”
It was a bit late to say this, but I’d pretty much gotten used to the idea of a talking slime. Not that I was any closer to finding out why it could speak.
“Hey, seeing as we’re here, I’ve got something I wanna ask,” I said.
“Of course. Depending on the question, I may need to ask my lady for permission.”
“If you can’t say, then I can just ask Leen straight. I wanted to know where you two were heading. Leen said to Krauna that you were going to Chromrorm.”
Chromrorm was in the northern reaches that lay even beyond the northern continent of Altaria. It was the farthest wastes where life didn’t take root; the ends of the earth. I’d heard of the place, but I’d never thought to go.
“Yes, our destination is indeed Chromrorm.”
For what it was worth, if you looked at the map, Esma was on the northwestern edge of Corsueny. If you headed to the east, you’d reach Clovel from where you could cross the seas to another continent. However, no ships traveled to Chromrom, so you’d first have to head west to Lirabell. From there, you’d head north to cross the continent, traveling over the mountains, and take another ship even farther north to Altaria. It exhausted me just thinking about it. If you took the most direct route, it would take you a good decade or two by foot.
“So what’s in Chromrorm? You’re not visiting a gravestone or anything, are you?”
“In order to explain, I’ll need to go back to the first Lingreen,” the slime said, extending its body upward before falling back into its normal shape. “My lady told you about witches and demons, did she not?”
“Yeah, during a real long lecture.”
“Then were you not intrigued? To know why the first Lingreen formed a pact with a demon to become the first witch?”
“Well...”
I had thought about it, but the main topic that day was learning about the history of witches and demons, so I didn’t really pry into that part of the story. Leen said that witches were born out of a desire for something. So what did the first Lingreen want?
“You remember the story of the first Lingreen, do you not?”
“For the most part. Lingreen went to slay a rampaging black dragon, right?”
“Accurately speaking, she did not slay insomuch as seal it.” The slime interrupted me as I drew my hazy memories to the surface. It went on, “Spoken of in fairy tales, the first creatures to be born into this world were the five dragons. Among these, the black dragon Chromrorm was the most avaricious, the most powerful, and the most wicked. The truth is that Chromrorm still lives to this day.”
A black dragon bearing the same name as the northern reaches. No, that wasn’t right—considering how places were named, Chromrorm must have been named that after the dragon that was sealed there.
“Chromrorm was a living calamity that did not believe any other creatures deserved to live. If it were to awake from its slumber and see how many more living things now populate this world, I doubt it would so readily accept things. That is why the Lingreen family of monstermancers have fulfilled their role over the past two thousand years to this very day.”
“Uh-huh...”
It wasn’t great, but this was hardly a relatable story for your average adventurer. To be honest, it felt like Leen was getting involved in way too much pointless stuff for someone with such a grand role.
“Lad, you don’t believe me, do you?”
“It just feels kind of surreal.”
“I will have you know that without the Lingreens of the past, this world would have long since been destroyed. It would behoove you to show a little more respect.”
“Yeah, yeah. Thank you kindly. If that’s true, shouldn’t she stand out a bit more?”
If Leen was on a journey to protect the world, then surely she ought to make a big show of it and receive support from the various nations she passed through. That would make the process a lot smoother in my eyes. A journey that would take over ten years on foot could be done in a flash with an airship. But the slime shook its head(?).
“That would not work in this present age, where none are aware of the threat of Chromrorm. If the Lingreen family were to suffer due to political maneuvering, swaying influences, or even the authority of individuals, then the world would surely perish. There are those who understand her circumstances and lend their aid, however.”
“Well, I guess...”
Even I, someone who had been with the strange person that was Leen, couldn’t really swallow all this sealing dragon stuff, so I supposed the average person would struggle to relate too. I imagined that compared to some unknown threat from two millennia ago, people would find someone who could tame all monsters far more threatening—and also useful. Everyone in this world in a position of power would want someone like that.
“That is why a monstermancer’s role is to maintain balance. She cannot let personal feelings weigh too heavily on one side of the scales. I hope you understand the difficulty of her position a little more now, lad.”
“Uh, Leen seems to act based on her feelings a lot, in my eyes...”
“Ha ha ha... Yes, all the Lingreens were like that.”
So that means the world’s balance is totally out of whack! I thought, but made sure not to say aloud. I needed to steer the conversation back on track.
“Anyway, it’s pretty impressive they managed to seal away this Chromrorm if it was so strong.”
“It was too avaricious, and that was its demise.”
“It got greedy?”
“Indeed. Chromrorm tried to devour all of the mana in this world.”
“Excuse me?”
“All the mana that flowed throughout the world...it tried to hoard it within itself. You understand what that entails, don’t you?”
In general, monsters with more mana were stronger than those with less. Adventurers were much the same. Our Spheres bonded with us, and through our careers, the Sphere would accumulate more and more mana.
“The other dragons realized too late to try and emulate this—over half of the world’s entire mana supply had been devoured by Chromrorm at that point. In order to combat the black dragon, the other four dragons shared the remaining half of mana. As a result, the world was drained dry.”
If that was the case, just how strong of a monster did this black dragon become? No, wait a second—although too much mana was poisonous to people, we needed it. While more human settlements would grow with the loss of mana, mana crystals and other resources necessary for life and production would be lost. Magic would become unusable, so infrastructure that used purification magic to treat wastewater would cease to function. I didn’t know the exact details, but the natural world would see huge implications too.
“And yet, Chromrorm’s tyranny did not end there. It sought further power and thus wrought open a hole to the hinterworld and ate the demons there.” As the slime said this, it shook more than it had been before. “This was not like the contracts witches made with demons where they merely borrowed their strength. This was one-sided exploitation, utter pillaging. Chromrom consumed the second-rank demon and one of the Hepta Maligna, Vellzevuv Vevivelvavev, attaining unrivaled power. No one could subjugate this dragon; none could fight back. Even with all the dragons combined, they couldn’t scrape off a single scale. It was the birth of a veritable demonic lord.”
“Yet another name I’d bite my tongue trying to say!”
I was surprised that this slime, too, could say these names with a straight face, just like Leen. Not that the slime had a tongue to accidentally bite.
“But, lad, this greedy consumption was Chromrorm’s biggest mistake. You know why, don’t you?”
The slime asked me this as if it were testing me. I thought back to Leen’s lecture. Witches, demons, ranks, lineages...
“You said that Chromrorm consumed a second-rank demon, right?”
“I did.”