WE VISITED A SLIMELESS DESERT
One day, Flatorte and I made our way into the village of Flatta to stop by the guild.
“’Scuse me, Natalie!” I called out as I stepped inside, leaving the door open behind me. “I have some magic stones I was hoping to trade in!”
“Yes, of course! I’ll be right with—,” Natalie began, only for the smile on her face to freeze when she turned to look at me. I figured her reaction was probably due to Flatorte having stepped through the still-open door with a truly enormous wooden chest in her arms. Oh, and to be clear, when I said her smile froze, I didn’t mean that Flatorte froze it with her cold breath!
“This thing’s full of magic stones. Thanks in advance!”
The thud when Flatorte set the chest down was so tremendous, it almost seemed to shake the guild itself. Magic stones were, well, stones, so their weight added up pretty quickly. I don’t think anyone other than a dragon could’ve possibly lugged that thing all the way down here.
Actually, I probably could’ve carried it, if I’d tried. I would’ve split it up into a few loads rather than go to the trouble, though. Flatorte, on the other hand, viewed any daunting task as a test of her strength and tended to just jump right in. She hadn’t volunteered for the task this time, however—carrying the gems was one of her chores.
“Buying magic stones is part of the guild’s responsibilities, so I can certainly help you…,” said Natalie. “But why do you have so many…? Did one of you start working as an adventurer recently?”
“I, the great Flatorte, got bored and spent a whole day battling monsters in the mountains! It was a great workout!” Flatorte declared, hands on her hips and head held high.
“That’s pretty much the whole story,” I confirmed. “She just got the impulse to go out and fight monsters, then came back a day later with a box full of magic stones.”
I hadn’t needed any more of an explanation than that, honestly. Sometimes, you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed and wound up grumpy all day for no reason. It seemed logical that you could wake up one day and feel the irresistible urge to do battle for no reason as well.
…Does that make sense? It’s never happened to me, but I can’t rule out the possibility that it’s happened to other people.
Anyway, the long and short of it was that Flatorte went and fought her heart out, then came back the next day and slept in until noon. She had a way of taking things to extremes.
“I suppose that would explain why there aren’t many of the usual slime stones in here,” Natalie said as she glanced through the box. “Most of these are from larger varieties of monster that don’t live in this area.”
I usually only kill slimes, so that’s what I bring in most of the time.
“None of the monsters around here are worth fighting. I want some stronger foes to show up!”
If something strong enough to challenge you showed up, it could level all of Flatta, so I really hope that wish doesn’t come true. Flatta was a calm, peaceful village (aside from the sudden surge in weird shenanigans we’d been seeing over the past few years), largely thanks to the fact that only weak monsters like slimes inhabited the region.
“It’s going to take me quite some time to count all these, so would you mind if I paid you a few days from now? I estimate the full payment will be at least three hundred thousand gold,” said Natalie.
“I, the great Flatorte, couldn’t care less! Pay us whatever you want—it doesn’t matter if it’s three hundred thousand or thirty thousand!”
“I would most definitely get fired if I got caught paying you a tenth of what you were owed, so no thank you! You’ll be paid exactly what the stones are worth!”
Real adventurers were professionals, so they were probably fussy about their wages. Flatorte, on the other hand, couldn’t be bothered. Her goal was to get some exercise, and the magic stones were a fringe benefit, at best.
“Oh, that’s right!” said Natalie. “Seeing the great Witch of the Highlands herself just reminded me of a very strange quest that came in the other day.”
I turned my back on Natalie before she could say another word. “Nope! I don’t like where this is going one bit, so I’ll see you later!”
“Ah—no, wait! I’m not going to try to talk you into taking the quest, I promise! I was just making small talk!”
And just like that, I changed my mind. I had to be careful about these things, given how ridiculously high my stats were. Otherwise, I’d end up as the guild’s conveniently overpowered errand girl before I knew it.
“I think it would be faster to show you this map before I explain the quest’s particulars,” Natalie said as she laid a rather large map on the counter. It wasn’t a local map, either—it seemed to depict the whole world, just about. “In the far, far, faaaaaar southern reaches of this map’s territory, there is a region that gets so ridiculously hot, it’s basically unlivable. There’s no cold season, either—it’s hot year in and year out.”
“I’m losing energy just listening to this…,” muttered Flatorte. Being a blue dragon, she preferred chilly weather.
Natalie pointed to a spot on the map. It was indeed far to the south, and it seemed to be a desert. “This region is called Namhadd, and recently, a traveler from far away who happened to end up there noticed something strange about the area.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“It seems there are virtually no slimes to be found in Namhadd!”
“…Okaaay. Cool,” I said. I really didn’t know how else I was supposed to react. What was she expecting me to make of that?
“No, wait, think about it! Isn’t that strange?!” said Natalie. “Slimes are one of those monsters you can find literally anywhere! I don’t know much about the demon lands, for example, but my understanding is that slimes are just as common there as they are here!”
Fighsly’s training gym sprang immediately to mind. “Yeah, they have slimes there. They’re all over the place,” I said.
“Exactly! Slimes are thought to exist in all corners of the world. Now, this isn’t to say there are literally no slimes at all in Namhadd—supposedly, you’ll see one every once in a blue moon—but they’re not all over the place like they are everywhere else. Isn’t that strange?”
“All that means is that it’s a part of the world with a small slime population. I don’t see why that’s such a big deal.” The world’s a vast place. Slimes probably just aren’t native to the region.
“Maybe. But the thing is, the moment you leave Namhadd, slimes start showing up absolutely everywhere again, just like normal. It’s only the Namhadd region where their population suddenly drops off. That’s weird, right?!”
“I guess, but I can’t say it’s particularly interesting,” I said. I felt bad about being such a killjoy, but I just couldn’t bring myself to get invested in a conversation about slimes, of all things.
“Well, people from a university decided to study the phenomenon and find a scientific explanation for it, but they still haven’t come to any conclusions. Finally, they decided to contact the guild and offer a cash reward to anyone who can track down the cause!”
“Good for them. Okay, see you later!”
“…You’re being awfully curt today, great Witch of the Highlands.”
“Can you blame me…? I’m not interested, I’m no slime researcher, and this isn’t an emergency, so why would I care?”
It was like the unidentified flying creature incident all over again. Sure, some people would probably be interested, but as far as I was concerned, it was so unimportant it went beyond “someone else’s problem.” This was just “some random slime’s problem,” if you asked me.
Plus, I knew if I pretended to be interested, I’d risk getting Natalie’s hopes up. I didn’t want to let her down by revealing in the end that I didn’t care, and I definitely didn’t want to get roped into actually solving this mystery. Some people made a point of playing along and being all, Oh, cool! I’m so curious about what’s going on! when they didn’t actually care at all, and even when it was obvious they were just being polite, there were always other people who’d take that sort of lip service seriously. As far as I was concerned, that just seemed like a good way to disappoint people for no reason, and I tried to avoid it whenever I could.
So that was why I made a point of not showing any interest in the tale of Namhadd and its lack of slimes. It just wasn’t my thing. I killed slimes on the regular, but killing them and wanting to learn about the deepest secrets of their nature were two totally different matters.
“All right, then,” said Natalie. “I really did just bring it up as small talk, so I don’t mind changing the topic.”
“Great. Sorry, Natalie.”
“Instead, we can talk about all the ways the guild’s been getting on my nerves lately!”
Ugh! That’s even worse than slimes!
In the end, our conversation about the land without slimes fizzled out before it even got going. That said, I lived with a pair of slime spirits, and I decided to mention it to them over dinner that night. Falfa and Shalsha weren’t exactly slimes themselves, but they certainly had a stronger connection to the monsters than I did, and I thought there was a chance they’d find the topic interesting.
In the end, someone in my family really did latch on to the conversation—but it wasn’t Falfa or Shalsha. They were slime spirits, sure, but that didn’t mean they were interested in researching slimes. No, the one who took an immediate interest in the topic…was Halkara.
“Oh, Namhadd? That sounds great! That region’s famous for being incredibly hot, you know.”
“You’re curious about the slimes, Halkara? I’m a little surprised.” I’d never gotten the impression that she had any interest in them.
“Oh, no, not the slimes! I couldn’t care less about those. You just never know what sort of unique medicinal techniques you’ll find in faraway lands, so I was thinking it might be nice to go and see what it’s like there.”
Oh, so she was thinking about medicine-making! Of course.
“Namhadd’s so far away that it’s hard to even imagine traveling there on foot, right?” Halkara continued. “I’ve never been there, but I’d be glad to have an excuse to visit.”
“You have a really positive outlook when it comes to these things, don’t you, Halkara?” I said.
“I guess it’s a habit I picked up back when I was Halkara Pharmaceuticals’ only employee! I had to travel to all sorts of places for my work, and I always made sure to do some sightseeing and track down a few local delicacies everywhere I went, even if business was my top priority.”
You know, she has a point. Having an excuse to go somewhere you’d never visit otherwise does sound kind of nice. Going on a trip to a stupidly hot desert and complaining to everyone back home about the weather might be kinda fun, too.
“So, Laika,” said Halkara. “Would you mind carrying me to Namhadd sometime soon?”
Oh, right. Halkara’s proactive enough to follow through on a trip like this, even after it only came up in conversation.
I guess Namhadd is one of those places we’d never go to without an excuse, and this is the perfect reason to get up and go there.
“Certainly,” said Laika. “That will be no trouble whatsoever. Whenever you are able to take time off work, I’ll—”
“I’ll go, too!” I said. It was time to be proactive and put myself out there as well.
“I thought you didn’t care about those desert slimes, Mistress,” said Flatorte, a puzzled look on her face. She wasn’t wrong—I’d really flip-flopped on this one.
“Yeah, I really don’t care about the slimes,” I replied. “Traveling somewhere far away’s a goal I can get behind, though.” You don’t get that many chances to go to deserts, after all.
Oh, right! Considering the guild’s got a quest in the area, I know exactly who else I should invite.
Some time later, I set out on my journey—a fairly long one, this time—aboard Laika, who had returned to her dragon form.
I was accompanied by Halkara and Wynona. It had been too long since I’d gone on a trip with Wynona, and since she was an adventurer, I figured she could try to solve the slime mystery and score some points with the guild while we were there.
Well, that was my intention, anyway.
“I hope you appreciate, Stepmother, that we adventurers are far too busy to waste time worrying about slimes. I bet that quest hasn’t been left unresolved for so long because the mystery is so perplexing. It’s been ignored because there aren’t any adventurers who consider it worth their time.”
We’ve only just set off, and she’s already shooting down my ideas! “So the adventurers see it that way, too, huh… I’m starting to think Natalie’s the only person who finds this mystery interesting.”
“The number of slimes in a region hardly matters, whether that number is large or small. I suppose an excess of slimes could potentially be a problem, but Namhadd has the opposite situation on its hands. Surely the lack of slimes hasn’t caused any trouble.”
“…I’m not gonna disagree. I actually think you’re right.”
I made a mental note that the guild’s employees saw these things in a very different light than its adventurers did.
“Now, now,” said Halkara, trying to soothe Wynona’s irritation. “It’s not every day you get to visit a great big desert like Namhadd, right? We might as well enjoy it!”
“Yes, that’s true,” Wynona admitted. “The area’s nothing but a desert, so it never occurred to me to go there before now. If it weren’t for this, I doubt I ever would have. There’s so little reason for me to go, it felt like a waste to turn down this opportunity.”
“I know, right?” said Halkara. “It’s famous for being hot, boring, and nothing else! How could we pass up a chance to experience that nothingness for ourselves?”
I can’t believe you two agreed to visit a place you have nothing nice to say about… I guess it’s such an unattractive destination that its unattractiveness became attractive ? This seems complicated.
“Out of curiosity, have you ever been to Namhadd before, Laika?” I asked.
“I’ve never had anything to do there, so no,” Laika replied.
It was starting to sound like the whole purpose of our trip was to bask in boredom. I really hope that by the time this is over, we’ll be all, I heard that place was a nothing destination, but it was actually really cool! I’d rather not spend this whole trip bored to tears…
“Also, just to be certain, you wish me to land a short distance away from Namhadd rather than within the region itself, yes?” asked Laika.
“Right,” I confirmed. “Flying straight to our destination wouldn’t be interesting! Halkara and I decided on that together.”
Our plan was to start our journey at the edge of the desert, about five days away from Namhadd on foot. Considering our walking speed, though, I wasn’t expecting it to take quite that long. I figured we could make the trip in three, as long as we kept up a good pace.
“That’s right!” Halkara cheerfully replied. “Sometimes it’s best to take your time and do things the slow way! We’ll get a nice, long taste of nothing!” I, on the other hand, was really hoping we’d find something—anything—of interest.
We arrived at a settlement that served as a common entry point into the desert. Before us, a vast sea of sandy dunes stretched all the way to the horizon, and above us, the sun glared mercilessly down onto the earth with its searing light.
“Ahhh, what lovely weather! I’m almost tempted to turn back into a dragon and have a nice bake in the sun!” said Laika. She was perfectly at home in this climate…but the rest of us were already dripping with sweat before we’d taken so much as a single step.
“This is awful…,” moaned Halkara. “I think I’m gonna pass out… I’d rather explore a miserable, clammy cave than deal with this… Worst quest ever…”
“So it’s that bad, even from an elf’s perspective, huh…?” said Wynona. “This is the sort of place you’d expect to be exiled to.”
“Come on, you two,” I replied. “We basically came here just to experience this, right…? Try to be a little more positive about it.”
“How can I be positive in this heat…?” Halkara grumbled. “I’m not an adventurer or an explorer, you know…”
Wynona took a few tottering steps toward the desert. She, at least, had apparently found her resolve. I’d been worried she might suggest we turn right back around and go home, so I was glad it hadn’t come to that.
“I’ve heard that Namhadd proper is even hotter,” she said. “Supposedly, it’s the hottest region in the whole desert…”
The color drained from Halkara’s face.
“Um, can I drop out of this expedition…?” she asked.
“C-come on, don’t be like that!” I insisted. “It’s not every day you get to visit a desert, right?! Let’s go, let’s go!”
And so our journey began.
Before long, I noticed something out in front of us. The sand seemed to be shifting on its own.
“What is that? Some sort of local monster?” I wondered aloud.
A moment later, my question was answered as a slime leaped out from the pile of sand.
“So there really are slimes here! They weren’t kidding about those things showing up literally everywhere!”
Not only was the creature a slime, but it didn’t seem any different from the non-desert slimes I was familiar with. It looked exactly like the ones I saw around the house in the highlands.
“It seems the slime population in this area is still perfectly ordinary, Lady Azusa,” Laika explained as she dispatched the slime with a single punch. “Their numbers are only supposed to lessen in the vicinity of Namhadd.”
Needless to say, the defeated slime dropped a magic stone. Most adventurers would probably think it was too heavy to be worth carrying around, but to Laika it was barely more than a pebble, and she stowed it in her bag.
“Okay, let’s get a move on!” I said.
Halkara, however, had stopped in her tracks.
“I’m, um, already a little thirsty. Give me a moment; I need a drink,” she said as she pulled out her water bottle and took a few deep gulps. “Ugh, this water’s so warm, it’s like I boiled it…”
We’ve only been walking for about two minutes. Are we going to make it…?
The four of us pressed on through the desert. It was sand as far as the eye could see, which made it pretty difficult to tell where we were going, but we sucked it up and forged ahead.
“There’s no wildlife at all in this vicinity, is there?” Laika observed. “I suppose it is because of the scorching heat.” Her family of red dragons lived by a volcano and bathed in hot springs built into the mountain itself. It made sense that the temperature didn’t affect her.
“There’s actually a lot of creatures living in the desert. They simply don’t come out during the daytime,” Wynona explained, pointing toward the ground. “The majority of them shelter underground during the heat of the day. They’ll start coming out in droves around dusk. Moles and other similar creatures are quite common.”
“Huh! You sure know your stuff, don’t you?” I said. “Leave it to an adventurer.”
“S-spare me the flattery, Stepmother. It won’t do you any good…”
Despite her attitude, all it took was one little compliment to make Wynona pleased as punch. Not that she would ever admit it, of course. In any case, I made it a point to compliment Falfa, Shalsha, and Sandra whenever I could, and I wasn’t about to make Wynona an exception to that policy.
“Oh, and in the desert, many local plants adapt in unusual ways to help them maintain their water content and prevent evaporation.” This time, Wynona was pointing out ahead of us at what I quickly identified as a cactus.
“Ah!” Halkara yelped with excitement. “That’s a medicactus! They have incredible medicinal properties! I’ve never seen one growing in the wild before!”
That’s an elf for you. Spot one plant, and she’s over the moon.
“Plants like this are the whole reason I came to this desert! I have to take a closer look right away!” Halkara said as she sprinted off through the dunes toward the cactus.
“I, um, wouldn’t recommend rushing like that,” Wynona cautioned. “It’s dangerous… The sand’s going to trip you.”
Halkara, however, was far too excited to take her advice. “Oh, no need to worry! There’s nothing but sand around here anyway, so even if I trip, it won’t hurt a bit! I’ll be totally fine!”
Halkara was getting carried away, and I had a terrible feeling about where this was headed. Come to think of it, don’t most cactuses have a ton of pointy spines…?
“I really think you should be careful, Halkara!” I called out. “At least slow down once you’re close to the cactus!”
“Are you worried about me hurting myself on its spines, Madam Teacher? It’s fine! I know all about those!” Halkara shouted back.
Oh! So she already knew.
Halkara closed in on the cactus…then tripped in the sand, pitched forward, and collided with it face-first. She’d more or less full-body tackled it.
“Oooooow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow! Ouch, ow, ow, ouch, owie!”
“You knew all about the spines, and you got stabbed by them anyway?!”
That’s even worse!
“Ooouch, ouch, ouch! But wait, I think some of the spines are sticking in just the right places! This might be good for me, actually! The good spines are canceling out the bad ones!”
What is this, cactus acupuncture?! “How are you even talking with that many cactus spines in you?!”
“Stepmother,” said Wynona, “the spines of the medicactus are known to have a rejuvenating effect on the bodies of those stabbed by them.”
“The spines are the healthy part?! I thought it’d be the sap or something!”
I’d assumed it was like aloe, where the slimy liquid inside the plant had beneficial effects if you rubbed it on your skin. But clearly I’d been off the mark.
“I understand it strengthens the digestive tract,” Wynona continued. “Reportedly, the effect is significant enough to change a light eater into someone who could compete in eating competitions.”
“That’s impressive and all, but a light eater entering an eating competition can’t be a good idea.” That sounds pretty unhealthy, cactus or no!
For the time being, I was just glad to see that Halkara was unharmed. That said, the sight of her stuck full of cactus spines was still freaking me out every time I looked over.
“Wow! It feels like all the toxins are draining out of my body…”
“If you think you might collapse, please stay away from me, okay…?”
I decided to walk a little farther away from her, wary of secondhand stabbing.
Our journey through the desert continued, and eventually, we arrived at a single, solitary inn out in the middle of the dunes, where we decided to spend the night. Part of me wondered how an inn stayed open in a place like this, but apparently, it was used as a relay point for merchants moving goods through the desert. It was also handy as an emergency refuge for anyone who happened to take ill over the course of the trip.
“I wasn’t aware people did business in remote places such as this,” said Laika. “Clearly, I need to broaden my range of experience.” I didn’t know anyone as devoted to self-improvement as Laika, but in this case, I felt the same way. I also found getting firsthand experience with unfamiliar cultures fascinating.
There were a ton of camels tied up next to the inn. It seemed merchants rode them to cross the desert, and Halkara and I got the chance to try riding one of them ourselves. The meals the inn served were less exciting, unfortunately. Most of their food was dried, and the rest was pickled or fermented. Considering the costs of transporting food out into the desert, I couldn’t really complain. I figured it was the same problem faced by mountain lodges. Water was especially precious, meaning we couldn’t guzzle it down freely, either.
“Mnhhh. I’m still thirsty, but I guess there’s nothing we can do about that,” said Halkara. She’d sweated most of her water reserves away and was rather let down by the amount we’d been served with our meal.
“If you’re really feeling dehydrated, I can share some of my water with you,” I offered. I wasn’t nearly as worn down as she was. At times like these, I had to appreciate how strong I’d inadvertently become.
Of course, the liveliest of us by far was Laika. I could only assume that after living most of her life in a hot climate, her body had acclimated to retain its moisture.
By the time we finished dinner, night had well and truly fallen. Thanks to the light of the moon, however, it was still pretty bright out.
“Well then—I’ll be taking a nighttime stroll,” Wynona said, standing up from her seat. I got the sense she’d been planning on this from the beginning.
“Deserts are supposed to be nice and cool at night, right?” I said. “In that case, I think I’ll tag along.”
In the end, all of us followed Wynona outside. And the instant I stepped out of the inn, I noticed something.
“There’s actually some slimes out here!”
Slimes were all over, hopping around on the sandy ground.
“Lady Azusa, it seems these slimes take shelter during the heat of day and come out at night when it gets cool,” said Laika. “I suppose even ordinary slimes have enough intellect to make that sort of judgment.” She made a face that said “I learned something new today.”
We knew some very clever slimes—possibly the product of mutations, though I couldn’t say for sure—but all of them were, in the end, just exceptions. You could gather up a billion slimes, and you’d be lucky to find even one like them.
“I can’t comment on the slimes’ intellect, but it’s true that they instinctively come out during the cooler part of the day,” said Wynona, pausing to take some notes. “Slimes are just as uncomfortable in the heat as we are, I suppose. Also, it seems there are still plenty of slimes in this region.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. “This place is lousy with them.”
At the rate things were going, I worried we’d make it to Namhadd only to find that there were plenty of slimes there, too. What if they were all just buried underground, and nobody had noticed them?
Our main objective might be sightseeing in the desert, but since we’d brought Wynona along with us, it only seemed right to make like adventurers and solve the mystery of why there were so few slimes around Namhadd. If it turned out that the people of Namhadd were simply mistaken, it’d be a pretty big letdown.
Halkara leaned over and inspected the slimes as they bounced.
“I guess the fact that there are slimes here means they have no problems living in the desert,” said Halkara. “Actually, these slimes seem more energetic than the ones around the house in the highlands!”
Wynona picked up one of the slimes. “It feels quite cool, maybe because it was underground.”
I feel like if they didn’t live in the desert at all, the researchers would have already figured that out, made their conclusions, and moved right along.
“In any case, once we arrive in the slimeless land of Namhadd, we’ll have to keep an eye out for any factors that differ between here and there,” said Wynona. “As an adventurer, I’d certainly like to get credit for the quest, but even if there were nothing to gain from it, it seems worth doing.”
She’s gotten a lot more laid-back since we joined that adventuring tournament with her, hasn’t she?
“Just don’t complain too much if we don’t figure anything out, okay…?” I said.
“No need to worry, Stepmother. I’ve had low expectations for this trip from the start.”
“I feel reassured, but also a little let down…”
Wynona released the slime, then scratched her neck uncomfortably. “I’ve come to think that it’s worthwhile to take pointless journeys in between the meaningful ones, every once in a while,” she said. “That’s something I learned by watching how you live your life.”
“I know that was probably meant as a compliment, but it still sounds condescending.” Or wait, no—she’s just embarrassed, that’s all! Or so I choose to believe.
“In any case, they should be coming out soon,” said Wynona.
“‘Coming out’? What will?”
“The other inhabitants of this desert, of course. The ones besides slimes.”
Just then, something began to stir in the sand by my feet. A moment later, a creature that looked like a little white mouse, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, poked its head out.
“Whoa! There really was something buried under the sand!” I exclaimed.
“There! Yes! A white desert mouse! Yes, yes, yes!”
With a mighty—and very abrupt—shout, Wynona leaped forward and caught the creature she’d called a white desert mouse in her hands. You could tell from the way she moved that she was a skilled and experienced adventurer. The mouse had no time to run.
“Oh wow! It’s so much better seeing the real thing in person! Sadly, there’s a little bit of pink on its back, but it’s still quite cute! And even though it spends most of its time underground, it’s perfectly white and clean! What an incredible find!”
Ooh… I think I know why Wynona decided to come along on this trip now. She just wanted to see a white animal that only lives in the desert…
“I would love to bring it home with me, but the environment around my house is simply too different. It would probably be hard to keep it there. It’s heartbreaking, but I’ll have to give up and leave it here.”
I wanted to ask her how Grand Duke Polar Bear was doing in that case, but I’d seen polar bears in zoos back in Japan, so on second thought, he was probably just fine.
Wynona spent quite a while frolicking with the white desert mouse, while the rest of us decided to leave her behind and head back into the inn.
We spent another day traveling through the desert and then stopped at a second inn to spend the night. A new day arrived, and we forged on through the desert, before passing the night at a third inn. Walking through the desert landscape had felt new and exciting at first, but after three days of the same thing, I was well and truly tired of it.
“No matter how far we walk, there’s never anything new to see…,” I moaned. “Talk about tedious…” The scenery was so unchanging, I began to wonder if we were caught in a time loop.
When we arrived at the third inn, I went straight to the common room and plopped down in the first chair I could reach. I wasn’t so much tired from all the walking as I was done with the whole trip in general.
“We should reach Namhadd tomorrow, Madam Teacher! It’s the biggest city in the whole region, so just hang on until we get there, okay? Plus,” Halkara said, lifting up a rather large cup, “it looks like this inn has plenty of water to spare! I never realized how good a nice glass of water could taste! It’s a little bitter, but I still love it!”
There were a number of full cups lined up on the inn’s front desk. Considering how precious water was out in the desert, it struck me as quite generous of the inn’s owners… But I knew there was no such thing as a free lunch in this world, and the warning posted nearby proved me right.
“Oof, yikes… Are you sure you should be drinking that stuff, Halkara…? I’ve got some serious doubts about the hygiene situation here…”
“Oh, don’t worry!” she said. “It’ll be just fine. And this time, it’s not just a guess!”
Does that mean that when she says everything will be fine, it’s usually just a guess? I’d better not mention that, though, or I’d derail the conversation.
“My evidence: this spine!” Halkara said as she held up a small, slender thorn between two fingers. “I got jabbed all over by that medicactus, so my stomach’s in better shape than ever! There’s no way a little muddy water will give me a stomachache today!”
“That’s pretty flimsy evidence, if you ask me. But you already drank it, and a stomachache’s better than dehydration, so I guess it all works out…”
Just then, Wynona—who had stepped aside to pay for our night’s stay—returned to us.
“It seems there’s a strange phenomenon in this area that causes empty buckets left on the ground in the day to fill up with water,” she said. “The downside is that drinking that water tends to make people sick. It’s something of a gamble, from the sound of it.”
“What sort of phenomenon is that?” I asked. “Buckets filling up on their own…? Is that really possible?”
Taking the story at face value, it seemed downright miraculous.
“Why not? The world is vast, and stranger things have happened. Regardless, you don’t have to risk drinking it. I’ve bought regular, potable water for us to have instead.”
I guess they do sell water from the oasis in Namhadd, so there’s no reason for us to drink the mystery water.
“I imagine many of the locals prefer to drink water with less dubious origins,” observed Laika. “That’s probably how they can sell water despite also giving it out for free.”
That seemed like a good enough explanation to me. The locals knew all about the mystery water making people sick, after all.
In the end, all of us except Halkara stuck to the water we’d purchased.
We set out again the next morning, and soon arrived at the city of Namhadd, which was built up around an oasis in the middle of the desert.
“This place sure is lively, huh? And we’re still on the outskirts, so it must be pretty big,” I observed. The city proper was protected by a large, gated wall, but there were plenty of market streets and buildings set up outside the gates as well.
“It’s the only real city in the whole region, so no wonder,” said Wynona. “I imagine those walls were built less for defense and more to keep sand from blowing into the city.”
“You really know your stuff when it comes to geography, don’t you?” I said.
“Ugh… There’s nothing pleasant about receiving an offhanded compliment like that…”
Nice try, Wynona, but I can tell you’re pleased. Anyone could, it’s so obvious! Looks like I’ll have to keep laying on the compliments from now on.
“I’m so curious about all the medicines people make in the desert! I’m going to stock up and research everything I can find!” said Halkara. I was impressed by her attitude.
It was nice, I reflected, that this journey had multiple objectives. Even if we failed to achieve one of our goals, we could simply focus in on another one.
And come to think of it, if Halkara’s acting this upbeat…
“It looks like drinking the mystery water didn’t have any ill effects, huh?” I noted. I’d been sure she would wake up with terrible stomach cramps halfway through the night.
“Nope! I’m just fine! I can put up with a little subpar water, no problem! Besides, I can always just disinfect my stomach with alcohol afterward… Kidding!”
“In your case, I think you’re more likely to drink so much you empty your stomach, bad water, alcohol and all… But anyway, I’m just glad it didn’t make you sick.” Oh, and since she’s completely in apothecary mode right now, I should make sure she pays attention to our other goals while she’s looking around. “Tell us if you see any slimes, okay? We came all the way here, so we might as well try to solve the mystery if we can.”
The problem (if you could call it one) was that there weren’t any slimes around, so I wasn’t expecting her to find one right away, of course.
“Ah! Lady Azusa, look! A slime!”
“Seriously, Laika?! We only just got here!”
“Over there! It’s blue, and it’s hiding in the shadow of that merchant’s tent!”
“Wait, where…? Geez, you’ve got good eyes, Laika…”
Laika started walking toward the tent she’d indicated. It was so far away that part of me was sure she’d been seeing things. If she was right, then her eyesight really was incredible. Maybe dragons are just naturally better at seeing far away?
The rest of us followed after Laika, and when we arrived at the tent, we discovered that there was indeed a slime sheltering in its shadow.
“That’s incredible, Laika! I guess this place has slimes after all,” I said as I stepped toward the monster…but suddenly, I noticed something off about it. Normal slimes were round and plump, and this one looked awfully flat to me in comparison.
Apparently, the slime was spooked by my approach. It jumped to the side, clean out of the tent’s shadow and into the blazing sunlight. The sandy ground was boiling hot in the daytime…and the moment the slime touched down, it let out a sizzling noise as it melted away before my eyes!
“Wait, what?!” I yelped. “Did that slime just evaporate?!”
The only thing left in the slime’s wake was a magic stone. Slime stones were never big, but this one was quite small even by slime standards. I had yet to touch it, and it already looked cracked and brittle.
Wynona pulled out her notepad once again and started scribbling away on it. “It seems the heat did it in,” she said. “They say that Namhadd is the hottest city in the world, and I suppose that heat makes it unsuitable for slimes. Considering how small a magic stone it dropped, I imagine most of them get lost in the desert sands.”
“I guess that means the stories about there not being many slimes here are true…” I muttered.
“I see…,” said Laika. “The temperature was indeed lower in the part of the desert where we began our journey. Perhaps somewhere between there and Namhadd, the ambient temperature passed a critical threshold that slimes can’t survive. That would explain the lack of them in Namhadd’s vicinity quite handily: They simply boil away before anyone sees them.”
Laika, ever the clever one, had put the pieces together in no time at all. Her theory made total sense to me, and I had no reason to question it…or at least, not until I recalled something I’d seen at our inn the night before.
“Hey, Laika…? There’s just one tiny question I have about your theory… Though maybe I’m just being paranoid.”
“What is it, Lady Azusa?”
“Getting boiled away by the heat would kill a slime for sure…but what if they were melted, not boiled?” I asked. “Would they still be alive as a liquid…? In that case, they’d still have to evaporate to fully die.”
“That does seem possible,” said Laika. “It would stand to reason that they would melt into a liquid before evaporating into a gas. The slime we just saw evaporated after jumping onto the hot sand. But when it was in the shadow, it was still alive.”
“And maybe they can reform and basically come back to life even after they melt, as long as it cools down again. Slimes are pretty much bouncy bags of water to begin with, so maybe melting is more like entering suspended animation than dying for them.”
“That’s a very strange theory, Stepmother,” said Wynona, who seemed less than impressed by my speculation. “Is there some line of evidence that’s led you to believe that?”
“I was just thinking…what if when it gets hot, the slimes all decide to crawl into buckets because they’re cooler than the ground…then stay there to wait until night falls and it’s cool enough for them to leave again…?”
Like, for instance, the mysterious water that appeared out of nowhere in buckets left on the ground by the staff of a certain inn.
I turned to look at Halkara. Wynona and Laika turned at almost the same time, an expression of shocked realization on both their faces.
“W-wait a minute… You’re not saying that the water I drank yesterday was actually liquefied slimes, are you…? No way, right…? You just have an overactive imagination, that’s all…”
Just then, a strange noise came from Halkara’s stomach.
Grrugrrugrrugrrugrrugrrugrr, grrugrrugrrugrr!
“Whoa! What the heck was that noise?!” she yelped.
“I knew it! Something’s definitely wrong with you!” I shouted. “You should take a laxative or something while you still can!”
We should probably go find an apothecary in Namhadd. I’m sure they’ll have something she can take to get all that out of her system.
I reached out for Halkara’s arm…but I barely even managed to touch her before suddenly, she was gone.
Boing!
Halkara leaped almost three meters ahead of us. She didn’t get a running start or anything—she just jumped straight forward from a standing position, much like a slime would.
“I didn’t realize you had such a springlike physicality, Miss Halkara. You would be excellent at the long jump,” said Laika, who had picked a very weird moment to be impressed, especially since I was pretty sure Halkara couldn’t usually pull off a jump like that.
“Hey, Laika…? I want you to take a close look at Halkara’s eyes,” I said nervously.
“Ah!” Laika gasped and clasped a hand to her mouth.
Halkara’s eyes had started looking like slimes!
Boing!
Halkara jumped again, even farther than she had the first time.
Oh no—we’re going to lose her at this rate! We have to catch her! Wait up, Halkara!
“None of this makes sense, Stepmother!” Wynona shouted as we ran. “Even if the water in those buckets was liquefied slimes, the worst side effects should be a stomachache or diarrhea! If Halkara’s symptoms were normal, everyone would know about this condition!”
“You’re right about that!” I said. “The thing is…there’s one other factor that makes Halkara’s case special.”
For most people, the side effects of drinking a slime would have been exactly what Wynona had described. There was just one reason why things might have turned out differently for Halkara.
“What factor is that…?” asked Wynona.
“Halkara’s stomach was in tip-top shape after she got stabbed by the medicactus! That’s why she didn’t get sick and purge the liquefied slimes, allowing them to stay in her body for long enough to start causing more side effects!”
“Th-that can’t be… Or actually… Maybe it could? I’ve heard of some cases where healthy individuals suffered longer from food poisoning because they didn’t throw up quickly enough…”
To make a long story short, we eventually apprehended Halkara just as she was leaping out into the desert. Then we force-fed her a laxative and made her drink a boatload of water, which turned her eyes normal again, followed by the rest of her body.
“I feel like I just had a very, very weird dream… For some reason, I was a slime…”
“Yeah, that makes sense. Trust me, we believe you.”
Thanks to Halkara accidentally making herself into a guinea pig, the medical community gained another case study of the effects of ingesting slimes on the body. A few days later, Wynona wrote up a detailed field report on heat tolerance in slimes, which apparently led to various advances in slime science.
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