Chapter 25
No One Is Born a Hero (10)
“You certainly know how to speak well at times like this.”
He clicked his tongue and turned his head to check the corroded part of his armor.
A brief contact with the mimic’s digestive fluids isn’t a problem anyway.
Ethan’s iron armor made a loud noise, but there was no actual damage.
I really did forget about it for a moment. Thanks to Ethan carrying me, I didn’t have to touch the walls.
As I stood still with an expression that said there was nothing I could do, Ethan let out a light sigh and finished drinking his water.
…Was I too harsh, considering I made him do something I should feel sorry for?
What could I do instead?
Looking around, I spotted the corpse of a slimy monster that looked like a mix between a reptile and a cephalopod.
‘…This might do. Let’s see…’
It wasn’t gigantic, but it was larger than average, though not terribly huge.
Its insides were transparent, allowing a clear view inside.
Upon closer inspection, a purple stone glimmered inside the soft outer skin.
Found it.
This was information I hadn’t intended to share just yet.
If I did, Ethan would likely throw himself at monsters even more recklessly.
‘But I have no choice now.’
However, in a dangerous situation like this, it could be helpful somehow.
I owed him a debt, so it was right to provide information within my capabilities.
He was also our greatest asset in this situation.
I manipulated my mana like a sharp blade to cut through the outer skin, and extracted a purple stone coagulated with viscous body fluids from inside.
A curved purple lump, barely the size of a fingernail, glimmered.
“…?”
Ethan watched me with a puzzled look.
I poured all the remaining water from the canteen to wash off the dirt stuck to the stone. Then I confidently approached him, who was neither leaning against the wall nor standing completely straight.
“Could you break this for me?”
“…This?”
As if I was asking for something strange, Ethan lifted the stone I handed him to eye level to examine it, then lightly cracked it using just his finger strength.
Crack.
‘He’s breaking the stone like it’s a nut…’
Slightly impressed, I accepted the split stone pieces he handed back to me.
“There are plenty of stones around. Why bother?”
“It’s not the stone I need.”
“…Then?”
Through the cracks in the stone pieces, a purple liquid was barely visible in the hollow inside. It was just a small amount, barely enough to feel some moisture.
Since the stone was quite small, it might amount to just one drop at most.
I swiped it with my finger and smeared it on Ethan Behemoth’s lips. Ethan flinched at my finger, touching his lips, but didn’t completely pull away.
A sharp gaze slowly traveled from my finger to my shoulder. That gaze seemed to be gauging what I was doing.
Well, what of it? Did he think I’d do something bad to him? I raised an eyebrow in response.
He asked slowly.
“…What’s this?”
“Lick it.”
“What?”
“I said, lick it.”
As if asking if he needed to be told twice, I demonstrated by licking my own lips first. Seeing this, he hesitated but finally slowly licked his lips.
“…!”
And his expression became subtle.
“This is…”
“It’s like an elixir, isn’t it?”
Ethan nodded and unfastened a piece of armor on his arm to examine it.
It seemed an attack had penetrated a gap in his armor, as the leather armor worn underneath was torn, but the flesh inside was regenerating.
Though at a very slow rate.
‘Well, the amount was so small.’
“What… is this?”
“It’s from the monster. It seems to be the monster’s core.”
I said with a straight face. It’s easy once you’ve already wet your lips.
“The monster’s core? …Is it safe?”
“Probably not.”
“You’re feeding me something that’s not safe?”
“And what about Young Lord Behemoth who accepted and ate it?”
“You never miss a word, don’t you?”
“Well, it probably won’t kill you right away. Remember it when you’re in a pinch.”
I smiled as I pulled up the corners of my mouth, while Ethan narrowed his eyes at me.
Still, this is my way of repaying a debt. Do you think there’s anyone else who could give you this kind of information?
While he caught his breath, I rambled on about my thought process to avoid suspicion.
“Despite the mimic and monsters on our path being dead, the mana concentration in this space is so thick it’s uncomfortable to breathe.”
“I vaguely felt that. But…”
“Yes. We’re inside the mimic’s stomach after all.”
“Right. It’s not strange for the mana concentration to be high, is it?”
“But while being carried, I carefully observed our surroundings and noticed that the mana flow was concentrated on something in between the corpses.”
As I held up the broken stone piece while speaking, his gaze fell on it. No, he seemed to have realized it wasn’t just a stone.
“Then that ‘core’ you mentioned…”
“Yes, it’s bone. Though it’s as hard as stone.”
“…It could be quite useful.”
He’s quick to accept changes. Nodding along with him, I added words that sounded like an excuse.
“Of course, this was experimental. Since it was my first time seeing it too, whether it would be helpful to humans or not…”
Ethan muttered.
“You fed me something that was still in the experimental stage.”
“……”
…He’s leaving me speechless.
I knew it was safe when I gave it to him, but still.
There was no choice but to maintain a confident attitude.
“Well, I thought that even if something went wrong, Young Lord Behemoth would somehow endure it…”
“……”
Is this not enough? I narrowed my eyes like him and acted as brazenly as I could.
“Should I eat it instead?”
“…Haa. No… …It’s fine.”
He gave up.
Anyway, it’s not like I did something harmful to his body. I have nothing to feel guilty about… Oh.
“But considering it’s concentrated mana, please keep in mind that frequent consumption could strain your body. This is absolute.”
The Ethan in my memory, the youngest Swordmaster and war maniac, drank that like water, but even so, eighteen is still too young.
He nodded slightly with a reluctant expression.
“…Alright.”
“Well, judging by Young Lord Behemoth’s reaction, it doesn’t seem like you’ll be tasting it again.”
“Of course not. Something like ‘that’. It’s dangerous. Edith Crowell, you really…”
As if he had finished resting, he replied while putting his armor back on.
Mixed in were some annoying words like “don’t consume it recklessly” and so on.
Well, fine. He should still have his share of elixir left anyway.
But when a desperate situation comes and he needs even ‘something like that’, he might be dying to thank me.
Just then. From somewhere far away, a thunderous boom that shook the entire cave was heard.
It sounded like something breaking, or maybe exploding.
Ethan quietly listened, then murmured softly.
“We need to run.”
“…Yes.”
The shockwave vibrated through the cave, causing rock debris to fall from above.
As I created a barrier over our heads to deflect the falling rock pieces, my thoughts became complicated.
‘What was that sound?’
Could something have happened to another team?
Just as a vivid, undeniable intuition pierced my mind,
Ethan, who was quickly making a path in front of me, suddenly stretched out one arm to block the way.
“Stop!”
And just as I stopped, I almost collided with his arm.
Boom!!!
Right in front of us, the cave, no, the mimic’s stomach wall, exploded and was swept away.
It was so close that if I had taken even one more step or stretched my head out a little more, I would have been caught in the debris.
…As the heavy stone dust quickly settled, faint moonlight poured in through the broken gap in the cave.
Through that scene, something that looked like the tail of a giant monster swayed.
The thunderous sound that had seemed distant was suddenly right next to us.
As the cliff crumbled like a landslide, the monster’s form was fully revealed.
Its steel-like silver skin reflected the moonlight, shining brilliantly.
With legs as hard and sharp as jewels, it tore through the ravine as if it were ripping through a bundle of straw.
The giant thing I had thought was a monster’s tail based on seeing only a part of it, there were eight more of them.
Gigantic Arachne. A giant spider monster.
‘It’ that had once driven the subjugation practice team to annihilation had appeared.
To make matters worse, there were countless winged monsters roaming the sky, too many to count on both hands, and monsters crawling on the ground, avoiding the legs of the Gigantic Arachne, roared.
The sound of the ravine collapsing simultaneously, the sharp cries of all sorts of monsters pierced my ears.
‘…It starts now.’
Since other things didn’t go according to my memory, I should have considered that the Gigantic Arachne could appear earlier than I thought.
The one that had annihilated almost all the personnel mobilized for the Academy’s subjugation practice, and was barely subdued when two battalions of the Imperial Knights, arriving late, had to throw themselves at it all at once….
‘That’ was the very thing in front of my eyes.
A type of gigantic monster, the Gigantic Arachne.
🥀
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