Chapter 292:
No Solutions Come to Mind
WE ARRIVED AT THE DUMP and watched Sol feed. Those same black orbs of magic energy were floating above the trash, and just like the day before, Sol was eating them with its tentacles.
“I’m really not sure how we should handle this…” I said.
“Neither can I.”
We were in a pickle. Try as we might to think of a solution for Sol’s meal needs, nothing was coming to mind. How would we even go about collecting magic energy anyway? I supposed we’d just have to ask Sol a bunch of yes or no questions and go from there.
“Sol, sorry to bother you during your lunch, but can we ask you some questions?” We probably should have waited until after it was done.
“Pefu!”
Oh, it answered me! So I guess that means it’s okay? But what should I even ask? Umm…I guess I should find out if it can eat anything other than magic energy. Something other than trash might work, too. If Sol can eat something that we don’t have to go out of our way to find, I’d much rather it eat that.
“Sol, are there other things you can eat besides magic energy? If the answer is yes, make a noise so I’ll know.”
It stayed silent.
Too bad, guess that’s a no. So it eats nothing but magic, eh? I looked at Druid, and he shrugged his shoulders back at me.
“You only eat magic energy, right?”
“Pefu!”
Mmmrrrgggh… As I feared. Okay, one more question.
“Does the magic have to come from trash?” Druid asked.
“Pefu!”
So it needed the leftover magic energy to be from trash.
“Sol, do you pull the energy out of the trash yourself?” Druid asked, picking up a piece of trash and walking up to Sol.
“Pefu!” Sol chirped, and black magic energy immediately wafted up from the trash Druid was holding.
It’s an amazing sight…even though it’s a black mist. Oh! Well, if Sol can extract the magic energy itself, then…
“Sol, could we transfer the magic energy you extract into something else?”
Sol’s silence told us that was a no.
So it can extract the magic, but it can’t put it into a different object.
“Arrrgh, another dead end.” Druid clutched his head in agony.
“Magic energy disappears when we touch it, right?” I asked.
“Right. It vanished into thin air the last time we tried to get our hands on it.”
Magic energy was sort of like air, and only Sol could actually touch it. I had the feeling that we wouldn’t be able to collect it no matter what methods we tried…unless we could solidify it into some sort of tangible shape?
“Sol, is there a way we could turn magic energy solid?”
Sol was silent. It stopped eating and looked bewildered.
Huh? Did it not understand the question?
“Um, if you could just squeeze the magic energy into a solid piece, we could carry it and keep it for you.”
No response.
“Is that a no?”
“Pefu!”
No, huh?
“I can’t say I’ve ever thought about solidifying magic energy before,” Druid said.
“You haven’t?”
“No, I haven’t.”
I guess that’s just what magic is like…
“Well, what should we do?”
“I don’t know.”
Druid and I looked at each other and sighed quietly. We really couldn’t think of anything. Oh, wait! Maybe there’s a magic item that can gather and store energy.
“Mr. Druid, is there an item that can collect magic energy?”
“An item that can collect magic energy? Hmm…not to my knowledge, no.”
If only we could collect magic energy, then we’d be able to store up meals for Sol. Oh, but that’s not right. Just collecting it isn’t enough. We’d need an item that can both store and release the energy.
“If something like that exists, Rose would know…” Druid said. “But we’d have to tell her why we need it.”
Huh? Does he not want to tell Rose about this?
“Wouldn’t it be okay to tell Rose about Sol, since she already knows about the others?”
“Knowing Rose, I trust that she wouldn’t tell anybody else about Sol. It’s just, first we’ve got three rare slimes, and now we want an item that collects magic… I’m just worried the shock might be too much for her.”
Yeah, it definitely would be a surprise.
“Since we’ll be stopping by her shop to drop off magic stones anyway, want to ask her about the item then?”
“Sure. Though I do feel bad that we keep asking her for so many favors.”
“Me, too.”
It would be great if she did have an item like that…but if she didn’t, we would have a lot to worry about.
“Pefu!”
I turned to look at Sol, who was gazing curiously at us.
“Sorry about that, Sol. We’re done asking you questions, so you can get back to your lunch. Thanks.”
“Pefu! Pefu!” Sol spun around and started eating again.
We didn’t want to bother it, so we wandered away to keep an eye on it from a distance. Meanwhile, Sora and Flame were eating at their own pace.
“Looks like I’ll have to melt some more snow off soon.”
“Yes, they all have incredible appetites, don’t they?”
They were all eating so quickly that day. Unless I was imagining things…
“Puuu,” Sora cried loudly.
I looked at the slime, and it was stretching its body vertically and horizontally. It had started its after-lunch exercises… Hm? Is it stretching out to the side? I stared hard at Sora, noticing something odd about its movements.
“It always stretched up and down before…but I guess it can stretch sideways, too.”
It was doing its usual vertical stretches before my very eyes, but it had added some sideways stretching to the mix. It kept switching back and forth between them, too, so it was difficult to describe the state Sora was in.
“The up-and-down stretches were already odd as it is, but those side stretches make it look kind of pitiful,” Druid said.
When Sora stretched sideways, its eyes and mouth got slanted, so it looked sadder than it did when it stretched vertically. But it looked like it was enjoying itself, so it was hard to describe.
“Well, I think it’s kind of cute, in its own way.”
“You think it’s cute?”
“Yeah. It’s so sad that it’s cute.”
Druid gave me a strange look. He didn’t seem to understand what I meant.
We waited for Sora and Flame to finish their lunch, then we gathered the magic stones Flame had regenerated. It had produced another huge load today.
“I’m always impressed by how many Flame regenerates. It’s so obviously making more and more each time.”
“Yeah, I wonder what we’ll do when Hatow no longer needs these stones?”
“Well…there’ll always be a need.”
He was right, but I was still worried. Ciel, who had wandered off in adandara form, joined us again.
“Hi, Ciel. Did you have fun out there?”
Mrrrow.
Perhaps it had found a playmate in the forest; it sounded incredibly happy. Sora, meanwhile, looked upset.
“We’re going back to the village, so everyone who can get in the bag, go on in,” I said.
Flame and Sol bounced over to me. Those two never showed any desire to travel back on their own. Their laziness was almost admirable.
“Hang on a second, I just have to wipe you down. You’re wet from playing in the snow.”
I took a towel out of my magic bag, wiped Flame, and put it in the bag. Next came Sol. I was a little scared to wipe the new slime, since it was so tiny. It was sturdy, though. After I finished wiping Sol, I added it to the bag. I snuck a peek at Flame then and saw it was already fast asleep. Even though they were a familiar sight, I still always laughed at Flame’s sleepy antics.
When we got back to the village, it was starting to snow lightly.
“It’s snowing. We’d better hurry,” Druid said.
When we were almost in view of the gatekeepers, I put Sora and Ciel in slime form into the bag. We greeted the gatekeepers and entered the village to see that Main Street was quite lively.
“Do you think something happened?” I asked.
“Yeah, there’s a lot of adventurers here.”
I followed Druid’s gaze and saw that there were indeed more adventurers than usual. Maybe they were about to go on a hunt? The sun was about to set, though. Curiosity tugging on us, we made our way to Rose’s shop.
“I hear somebody hunted a bearth.”
When I heard those words, my feet stopped in their tracks. As I looked toward the voice, I noticed Druid had stopped beside me and turned in the same direction. It was four ladies, engrossed in an excited conversation.
“Yes, I caught a glimpse of it. It was a nice big adult bearth.”
“Well, I can certainly see why the adventurers would get excited.”
“Of course they would! We haven’t seen bearth in years. They’re sure to get a good price for it.”
Apparently, they’d finished butchering the bearth, and its discovery had been made public.
“Aha. I guess we’ll have to be more careful going into the forest from now on,” Druid said.
“Yeah.”
A bunch of adventurers were sure to come into the woods looking for bearth to hunt. We’d have to stay on our toes to make sure Sora and my other monsters weren’t seen.
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