Chapter 9, Episode 20: Prep
The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, I kept the fire going so I could try out spells to help the Undead move on from this realm. Soon enough, Glen came back from his outing—dodging Undead in his path—with a huge swarm of humanoid and animal Undead on his tail.
“Welcome back,” I greeted him calmly. “How did it look?”
“I did a lap around the village along the walls. Like you said, the house as big as a castle in the center is the nest—more Undead the closer you get to it. I thought there was a swarm here, but it’s nothing compared to the horde up there,” Glen said.
“That many?”
“I didn’t even try to count them. From what I’ve seen on my run, the human Undead go out to hunt too.” Glen had seen zombies and skeletons building traps and hauling back their game from hunts. They gathered their prey in the plaza before the central manor where they were butchered, divvied up, and devoured. After their meal, the bones of their game were carried into the manor before reemerging as new Undead. As I’d expected from knowing the abilities of the monster that dwelled in the manor, Korumi was going down the same path as the City of Lost Souls.
“The City of Lost Souls, huh? I’ve heard of the place, but I’ve never been,” Glen said. “There was a whole Undead settlement around the big house. And these Undead seem more...human than the ones in other places.”
“I noticed that too. I was trying to lure the Undead in with magic and purify them. Some zombies and skeletons moved away from me like they knew what I was doing.”
Remily had told me that some Undead retained memories from their life. From what I’d been told, the monster in the manor didn’t just create Undead, it chained down the souls of the dead and bound them to the village—a process that left the Undead with more of their memories intact, although not enough to retain their humanity.
“We need to deal with the source,” I said.
“About that. Whatever’s in there is whacked out. I can’t touch it,” Glen said, much to my surprise. Although I was hoping Glen would take a back seat, I thought he was going to go all charging bull. Glen must have read that thought on my face, because he said, “You think I go around pummeling any strong thing that crosses my path?”
“You don’t?” I asked with genuine disbelief.
“I’m not going to chicken out just because someone’s stronger than me, but I’m not fighting something I can’t land a punch on. There’s all sorts of strength in this world. I got a bad matchup against the type that sets a bunch of traps or keeps running no matter what. The monster in that house is something I can’t punch, right? That’s the feeling I get.”
Glen was right. Its power lay in manufacturing the Undead and powerful Dark magic specialized in seizing the minds of its enemies and showing them hallucinations. Its magic was so powerful that it could overpower any magical item designed to shield the wearer from mind attacks—armor would be useless against it. Trying to outnumber the monster would be too dangerous—allies could be turned on each other by the hallucinations. That’s why the gods told me that I—with my resistance to attacks against the mind—was better off alone than the best army in the world would be.
Although I doubted that Glen saw through that much, he seemed to have sensed how dangerous this particular monster was. “I wasn’t born this strong,” he said. “I’ve lost to plenty of humans back in the day, and I know to pick my fights sometimes. If you’re still going up against that thing, I got no right or reason to stop you. Can’t help you if things go south, though.”
“That’s all right. Even though I have no intention of dying, I’m not going to drag you into my suicide mission.”
“But you do think it’s suicide. What’s your plan, then?” Glen asked.
“First of all, let’s get rid of as many of the Undead as possible. There are probably more inside the manor, so I’ll draw out as many as I can. The fewer there are to interfere, the better my chances will be. The monster lurking in the manor won’t leave its nest because it can’t. If we cause a ruckus outside its door or damage its walls, it’ll probably send out whatever Undead it has to protect its den.”
“So I just have to crush everything that pours out of there,” Glen said.
“Some of them, perhaps. We can be more efficient about it with the help of the grave slimes.”
To simplify my plan, I would prepare a giant pitfall with grave slimes at the bottom, then guide a horde of Undead into it. Glen and I would bait the Undead and keep them from running.
“I’ll dig the pitfall,” I said. “All I’d like you to do is to run around the village to lure in the Undead, use your hammer to pick off any that try to run away from the pitfall, and stay out of the manor.”
“Easy enough. Speaking of traps, I saw that flower from yesterday at the opposite end of the village. What was it called, the expensive one that makes a rare dye or something?”
“The rafflesia hotel.”
“That’s it! A whole section of the wall was covered with them. The flies didn’t get me because I ran straight through, but they swarmed the Undead chasing me. Can you use them?” Glen asked.
I could imagine that the slow zombies—literally walking dead meat—were the perfect meal for the gluttonous flies. The abundant food source could have contributed to the overgrowth of rafflesia hotels. I’d been told that the monster of the manor could resurrect fallen Undead, but seeing how many Undead were in the village—and that the grave slimes wouldn’t be able to contain them all at once—it might be worth it to put a dent in their numbers before cornering them into the pitfall.
“Let’s do both,” I agreed. “I’ll start on the grave slime pitfall. Can you try and lure some of them to where the gluttonous flies are?”
“You got it! Do you mind hooking me up with that barrier from yesterday? It’s annoying when they buzz into my face,” Glen requested. I obliged, and he bolted into action without hesitation. “I’ll be back for lunch, whether it works or not! Have it ready for me!”
And he was gone, demanding a meal on his way out. Not that I minded, since he was helping out and I knew how much fuel—food—his body required. I’d been planning to do all this on my own, so I appreciated any help.
“Let me get to my work, then.” First, I’d need to pick out the right spot for the pitfall. Although my bait-and-drop strategy was simple enough, I wanted to set it up a little closer to the Undead epicenter.
“Cutting Tornado.” With the merged and enlarged grave slimes in tow, I left our bubble of safety and ventured into the center of the village. While I’d gotten the hang of fighting humanoid Undead, zombie beasts—particularly smaller ones that hid in the underbrush—were harder to deal with.
That’s why I was clearing my way with the Wind spell as I went. Funny enough, this was the first time I’d used this attacking spell to actually attack something, even if I still doubled it up as a lawn mower. I wasn’t hung up on that, though—the spell was wonderfully convenient.
“There it is.” In the distance, beyond the bushes torn to shreds by miniature tornadoes, I could see the old manor towering over what used to be the houses of other villagers and the remnants of a barricade. The manor—if I could even call it that—was enclosed by fortified walls in all directions, watchtowers looming at each of the four corners. The relatively short watchtowers with few windows reminded me of prison towers I’d seen in movies. The rugged fortifications were surrounded by a fancy brick and iron fence adorned with ornate designs. What seemed so out of place was the perfectly manicured garden between the walls and the fence. After watching for a while, zombies emerged from the manor and began weeding and cleaning the garden.
“Undead servants still keep the manor...!” I realized. That was confirmation enough that the Undead retained their memories. I turned on my heels, deciding to dig the pitfall at around the halfway point between the manor and my grandparents’ house.
Once I was there, I got straight to work. I called up my usual roster: soil slimes, spider slimes, an emperor scavenger slime, huge rock slimes, and huge bush slimes—amalgamations of weed slimes. I instructed each group of slimes on their task: the huge bush slimes would clear the grass for the pitfall and replant it to hide the trap once it was done; the soil slimes and I would dig the pitfall with slime magic while removing any weeds, roots, and rocks; huge rock slimes would eat the dug up rocks and reinforce the pitfall by detaching parts of their bodies; emperor scavenger slimes would support and guard the other slimes while they worked; and the spider slimes would help camouflage the pitfall once it was finished.
Once we started, the slimes worked as efficiently as heavy machinery. The huge bush slime, for example, stretched itself as wide as it could and cleaned up a huge square that was twenty meters wide on each side. It wasn’t surprising, since the huge bush slime was as large as an emperor slime to begin with, but it was impressive that it could still move around in the shape of a giant, flattened square. It was oddly satisfying, too, to see a wide area of grass vanish at once as it slowly swept across the overgrown patch of land like one of those industrial agricultural machines. The magic of the soil slimes alone dug up the earth as fast as a fleet of construction machinery, and the huge rock slime could reinforce the side of the pitfall with beams without needing concrete. With all of them working together, they managed to dig a fifteen-meter-wide and four-meter-deep square hole in the ground.
“This could practically be a dungeon on its own,” I said, impressed all over again by the abilities of my larger slimes in particular. I’d talked with Reinhart about construction projects like building new roads and villages. My slimes could drastically shorten the timeline of those projects. Finishing public projects too quickly could cause problems on its own, though, so I wouldn’t offer my slimes’ service unless they asked me to.
“We just need to dress it up and we’re done. I’ll have the grave slimes wait in the hole, and have the huge rock become a central pillar, just tall enough to peek out above the ground...” Weed slimes spread out atop the web the spider slimes wove between the central pillar and the edge of the pitfall. Encouraged by the emperor scavenger slime’s fertilizer and my Wood magic, vegetation sprouted from the wood slimes. Once the soil slimes coated the area, I couldn’t tell the difference between where the pitfall was and the rest of the village.
“It’s so perfect that I’m afraid I’ll fall in if I’m not careful... Maybe I should make a safe house.” I had the spider slimes weave layers and layers of their web between a pair of heatwood trees close enough to the pitfall. Then, I laid the tree roots dug up from the pitfall onto the web. By volume, even ordinary spider silk was five times as durable as steel. It felt like spider slime silk was at least as durable. Once I further solidified the wooden floor, threw a roof above it with the same process, and used the weed slime vines to reinforce and camouflage the platform, I’d whipped up an instant tree house!
“The silk shrunk a little bit, maybe from the humidity... Still feels sturdy, though.” Most Undead would be heavy enough to fall into the pitfall on their own, and the huge bush slime could make the smaller ones fall manually. Now, I only needed to lure the Undead here... I know who can help. “Come on out, mimic slime!” Excited by my bright new idea, I called it out of Dimension Home. The slime that emerged from the bright portal was decently bigger than it was when I’d completed the contract, thanks to the variety of food I’d given it last night to see what it liked.
“Self-defense or not, I did cut you in half... I’m glad you’re back to full size.” Although the mimic slime turned out to be omnivorous, it showed a preference for meat. I’d mostly fed it raptor meat—which I had in abundance after taking down so many on my journey—but it seemed to enjoy all meat equally, except for rotten and Undead meat.
My guess was that its diet tied into its ability to shape-shift. Because it shifted its internal organs and bone structure as well as its appearance, I imagined the mimic slime shaped its body according to the DNA of its target, rather than simply masking. If only I knew more about this stuff... All I could do now was make an educated guess.
“No sense lamenting about that when I can’t do anything about it.” I turned to the mimic. “Can you transform into a luring ostrich?”
The mimic slime immediately shifted into the ostrichlike monster—we were communicating just fine. Once it memorized the shape of a target, it clearly didn’t have to ingest its meat again to transform into it. I wondered what conditions had to be met for the mimic to “memorize” a target’s form. Perhaps it had to intake a certain amount of their meat, or remain transformed as the target for a certain amount of time.
“Can I ride on your back?” I asked, and the mimic bent its ostrich knees so I could climb on more easily. I straddled its warm back, covered in feathers as soft as down. No one would guess that I was riding a slime. “Take a few steps for me. Do you think you can run like this?”
It began trotting one, two, and then three steps. We didn’t have much room in the tree house, but it was enough to see that the mimic could easily move with me on its back. Actually, I was more nervous about my ability to stay on the unsaddled ostrich. Could I stay on as long as it didn’t run too fast?
“Only one way to find out,” I muttered, using Space magic to transport us to ground level, and told it to do a short run to my grandparents’ house and back. As soon as I gave the instruction, the mimic slime zoomed into a mad dash! I was screaming on its back as it bolted through the village. I hadn’t expected the mimic slime—well, the luring ostrich it had morphed into—to have such powerful legs. We were backtracking the route I’d walked that morning at—ten times the speed? Twenty times?—I couldn’t tell. The world around me whizzed by, just like the time I shared my vision with a limour bird. That had been like watching the view from a bullet train window. Now, I was riding it. Soft feathers cushioned me enough that the ride didn’t quite rattle my teeth. I feel the Gs, so it’s more like riding a rollercoaster... I considered. A rollercoaster with no safety restraints. If I fall off, will I survive? I was no longer straddling the ostrich but holding on for dear life. Anxiety fueled the beat of my heart as we whipped through the dense woods.
It had taken me about ten minutes on foot to get from my grandparents’ house to where the pitfall now waited. Although it felt like I was on the back of the mimic slime much longer than that, it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two. I’d reached two conclusions from my ride: one, the mimic slime was an efficient mode of transport; two, I would never use it to run around and lure in the Undead—it was too dangerous for so many reasons.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login