The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 4 - Chapter 190

Chapter 190:

Flame, Too!

We passed through the town gate and headed toward the forest.

“Wow…I sure am tired,” Druid said.

“Me, too. I never thought it would be this exhausting just to walk to the forest.”

Druid sighed. “I appreciate the gatekeepers’ work ethic, but still…”

“I’m sorry. But do you think they’d let us out of the gate without a fuss if we told them the truth?”

“No, I think they’d act the same way, even if they knew about Ciel. That’s what they’re like.”

I was excited to see Ciel after two days away from it, but we’d had to stand and listen to the gatekeeper lecturing us for over ten minutes. They were just doing their job—there had been increased reports of gurbar sightings—but it was still exhausting.

I’m so glad Druid came with me. If I’d tried to go alone, they definitely wouldn’t have let me through.

I checked on the conditions of the forest as we walked to the dump. We’d only been away for two days, and there were already many more tracks from big monsters here and there. They were probably gurbar tracks, since all the claw and paw marks were the same size.

“We should be on guard. They’ve come pretty close to the town.”

“Yes, sir… Oh! Ciel’s come out to meet us.”

We stopped and looked around. After a little while, Ciel gracefully jumped down from overhead.

“Huh?!” I looked up while I patted Ciel’s head and saw an empty space between the trees. In other words, there was no tree where Ciel had come from.

After a long, awkward pause, I finally asked Druid, “Mr. Druid…do adandaras fly?”

“No, I never heard of such a thing. Maybe it jumped down from that tree over there? All the way to this spot…”

I looked where Druid was pointing. There was a big tree about a dozen meters away from us. It was quite a long distance, but judging by Ciel’s muscles it might be able to make the jump.

Mrrrow.

“Oh, sorry, Ciel. Good morning.”

Mrrrow.

Ciel’s eyes darted to the top of Druid’s head. I followed its gaze…and my eyes froze. Sora was dancing on Druid’s head. It wasn’t the vertical stretching exercises or the sideways jiggles—it looked like full-on dancing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Um, Sora is…dancing on top of your head.”

“What?! Are you sure it’s not the usual vertical stretches?”

“No, sir, it’s bobbing up and down, swaying left and right, and bobbing up and down, and shaking its…er…hips?”

I tried to describe Sora’s dancing, but…I couldn’t. Slimes didn’t even have hips. But from the way Sora was moving, it did look like it had upper and lower portions of a body.

“Ivy, it’s okay, you don’t need to describe it to me. It’s moving in a way you’ve never seen before. That’s what you mean, right?”

“Yes, sir. I haven’t seen anything like this. Do you think it’s another evolution?”

“No, I don’t think movement has anything to do with slime evolution…except…Sora is special.”

The phrase “Sora is special” suddenly made everything make sense to me. As I intently watched Sora, Ciel nuzzled up close to me. Was it jealous that I was giving Sora all the attention?

“Ciel, look. Sora’s doing something really neat. Do you think it’s happy to see you?”

Mew?

Ciel was so cute when it meowed like that. While we walked to the dump, I told Ciel everything that had happened the past couple of days.

“I really worked my butt off, Ciel.”

Meowww.

Ooh, that’s a meow I haven’t heard before. It sounds like it’s saying, “I’m proud of you, kid.” Aww, you’re so sweet.

When we arrived at the dump, it looked exactly the same as the last time we were there a few days ago. Maybe that was because no one was allowed to leave the town much these days. But boy, what a big dump this was. It had everything we needed.

“Ciel, could you watch Flame for me?”

Mrrrow.

I took Flame out of the bag and gently set it down at the root of a tree. I kept scolding it to stay awake longer…and I was epically losing that battle. Was there a way to make Flame stay awake longer? It was a hard nut to crack.

I walked to the dump to find that Sora was already there, bouncing around. It certainly had gotten awfully good at jumping around the dump. In the past, it would always get itself buried or stuck in the trash. But since Druid was nearby, Sora would be okay no matter what happened, so I went a few paces away to look for potions…

“Puuu.”

Hm? I turned in the direction of the strange sound Sora had just made…and saw it had gotten stuck in the trash and Druid was helping it out. Apparently, it did still do that.

I collected blue and red potions and put them in my bag. Since I’d brought an empty bag with me, I was able to carry home a lot of them. Druid kept an eye on Sora as I added several swords to the bag. And Sora was…in the middle of a meal. Every time I looked at Sora, it was devouring a different sword. How many could it even eat anyway? I looked over at Flame and Ciel…and for some reason, Ciel was in the trash. Did something happen?

“Ciel, what’s wrong?”

“Something happen?”

“Puuu?”

We all moved over toward Ciel, who was staring intently at something. We followed its gaze and saw that Flame was eating something. Um…what is it eating, exactly? It doesn’t look like a potion…

“Is it okay? Oh, is that Flame? How strange. It’s not usually awake.”

“I know. Um…Flame is eating rocks.”

“Rocks?”

Apparently, Druid couldn’t see it, but Flame was indeed eating rocks. Rocks, of all things.

Druid moved over next to me. “Whoa! It’s true,” he exclaimed when he saw it with his own eyes.

If Flame could eat rocks, did they have to come from the dump? Come to think of it, why were all these rocks by the dump in the first place?

“Mr. Druid, why are there so many rocks around here?”

“Oh, well, these were originally magic stones.”

“Magic stones?”

“Yes, when you use up all their magic, they become like normal rocks.”

Wait, I’ve heard about that before. Okay, so these used to be magic stones. I picked one up and looked closely at it…but it looked like an ordinary rock to me.

“Are these still rocks? Or are they something else now?”

“I guess they aren’t technically rocks. If you focus magic into them, they’ll turn back into magic stones again.”

“Oh, really? Then why do people throw them away?” What a waste. They could always reuse them.

“You need someone with a high-density magic power to imbue the stones with magic.”

High-density magic? I’ve never heard of anyone like that. I wonder where you might find them?

“By the way, people with such special magic are apparently born only once every several hundred years.”

Aha…so they could technically be reused, but nobody’s around to fill them with magic.

“Teryu-ryuuu.”

I turned to look at Flame and saw that it was jiggling more intensely than usual.

“Ryu! Ryuuu, ryuuu.”

“Flame, are you okay?”

“Ryuu,” it moaned a little louder.

Something’s definitely wrong. Did eating those rocks cause some sort of problem?

“Ryu… Pong!” Something flew out of Flame’s mouth. I took a closer look…and saw a beautiful green stone. But Flame seemed to take no interest in the pretty new rock. Instead, it turned around to eat another former magic stone.

“Mr. Druid…”

“Yeah…”

He had told me barely a minute ago. The ones who can imbue magic stones with magic were quite rare. We looked at the thing Flame had just spat out, and it looked exactly like a magic stone to us.

“Ryuuu.”

My shoulders flinched at the sound of Flame’s voice. Again? I braced myself for another surprise…but Flame just seemed to be upset that there weren’t any more rocks nearby.

“Oh, I’m sorry! Sit tight.”

Druid and I gathered a bunch of rocks and piled them up in front of Flame, who jiggled with excitement at the sight of them. Then it began to dissolve the rocks with the same vigor as it did potions. As we watched Flame eat, we picked up the green stones it spat out.

“Mr. Druid, are you sure these are magic stones?” I handed one of the green gems to him.

He checked it over carefully. “Yes, no mistaking it. This is a magic stone.”

Er…so Flame followed in Sora’s footsteps and evolved into a super-rare slime.

“Ryu! Ryuuu, ryuuu, ryuuu… Pong!”

If Flame keeps eating rocks, will it just keep turning them into magic stones? What’s more, if it just keeps spitting them out as magic stones, I have a feeling it’ll never get full…

“It’s okay, Flame, you don’t need to work so hard. We have enough magic stones.”

If it stops spitting them out, it’ll definitely get full. I hope.