He’d been abandoned in a dungeon. With one arm cut off.
Dojin clutched the forearm pouring blood and dragged his legs forward. The potion must have been wearing off, because the pain came surging back. He swallowed his breath and kept walking until the strength drained out of his legs and he went down right where he stood.
“Ngh...”
With his one remaining arm he barely managed to dig through his item box. One potion left. Not even a high-grade one, so there’d be no restoring the severed arm. All it would do was take the edge off the pain.
Hand shaking, Dojin tipped the potion into his mouth, then slumped back against the cave wall.
I knew my luck was rotten from the moment I woke up this morning.
He’d overslept and come in late, and spilled coffee on his keyboard. Then the dispatch alert went off, and when he showed up he found himself on a team with people you couldn’t even charitably call colleagues. That was the point where he should have smelled trouble and run.
What’s the use of regretting it now...?
Cursing his own complacency, Dojin let his head rest against the hard wall.
This was a special dungeon, the kind built so the exit only opened once the directive was carried out.
The directive: offer up one person as a sacrifice.
Which was how he’d ended up thrown away. While he was busy holding off the monster that showed up along with the directive, the rest of them offered him as the sacrifice and bolted for the exit. No apology. Not one backward glance.
Fucking hell...
In the dead silence of the cave he could hear nothing but the occasional trickle of water and his own breathing. But he knew better. There were still monsters in here. Maybe even a boss among them. It was a directive-type dungeon, sure, but he couldn’t afford to let go of hope.
Muttering curses, Dojin hauled himself back to his feet. Staying in one place too long was dangerous. The monsters might catch the scent and come swarming his way.
Every labored step dragged a horrific pain out of the wound. He gritted his teeth and kept going, stubborn about it, but his body wouldn’t listen.
Thud.
His vision blurred. The floor felt hard and cold. Am I going to die here? This is how it ends? Life really isn’t much of anything.
Blink. Blink.
Through eyelids that drooped weakly open and shut, he saw a round silhouette. It looked like an enormous water-drop jelly. The translucent thing tilted itself toward Dojin.
Even my life flashing before my eyes is showing me weird stuff. And with that, his eyes closed.
“...”
Drip.
Drip-drop.
“...!”
His eyes flew open. A pitch-black cave ceiling filled his whole field of vision.
He wiped the cold droplet off his cheek and started to sit up, then stopped short. His body wouldn’t balance.
Ah. My arm...
There was only one of something that was supposed to come in a pair. Dojin, his face bloodless, turned his gaze away, and then something struck him as off.
Where am I?
He was lying near a small pond. He’d never once seen a pond like this inside the cave.
And the pain in his body had dulled, too. He’d been avoiding the sight of the wound all this time because he couldn’t stand to look at it. Dojin slid his eyes toward it. Something thick and green had been slathered all over the cut.
Don’t tell me the team came back for me.
Hard to believe, but maybe leaving him behind in the dungeon had weighed on their consciences. Or maybe a support unit had made it in.
Then, all at once, Dojin felt how wrong that was.
This is a sealed dungeon. There’s no way anybody could get in.
Plink. Plink.
The sound of falling water echoed. Bit by bit, it sank in just how bizarre this situation was. Dojin’s palm went damp with cold sweat. And right as he curled it into a fist—
Rustle.
“...!”
At the sudden sense of something alive nearby, Dojin whipped around. His eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. He combed over every inch of his surroundings, but there was nothing to see.
What was that? Something was there just now, I’m sure of it.
He brought his hand to his waist. Thankfully, the item bag was still attached where it should be. He reached inside and closed his fingers around a familiar weapon. At the same time, he scanned his surroundings, sharp and alert.
Rustle, rustle.
Over there. Dojin whipped out his dagger. But there was something strange about the sound reaching him. The hand he’d drawn back to throw at the source of the noise came to a halt.
Squeak. Squeak.
An uninvited guest crept bashfully out from a gap in the rocks.
Squeak. Squee-eak.
The sound of something smooth rubbing as it moved. A round shape like a water droplet. A clear blue sheen, like jelly...
“...A slime?”
Boing!
The little slime gave a sprightly hop, as if answering him.
A-rank hunter Woo Dojin had lived an utterly, exhaustively ordinary life. At this very moment, he was in the middle of a genuinely rare experience.
Boing. Boing.
A translucent thing with a bluish tinge. The most common junk mob you ever saw in a dungeon.
No question about it. That was a slime.
Sitting on top of the slime’s head were a few long, thin blades of grass. Dojin’s gaze drifted naturally to the liquid smeared on his wound.
Is that weed some kind of medicinal herb or something?
He narrowed his eyes and watched, and the slime tipped itself left, then right, left, then right, walking, no, coming closer. Then it started bouncing in quick, shallow little hops.
Figuring he had nothing to lose, he plopped down onto the ground, and the slime, as though it had been waiting for exactly that, came crawling clumsily up his leg. Then it pressed itself flat against his broad shoulder.
Sssss.
With a strange noise, the blades of grass dissolved and soaked into the cut. Sap splattered all over his chest and stomach in a mess. The movements were unpracticed, but light enough that they never jolted Dojin’s body.
Dojin stared at the slime, mouth hanging open.
A monster, treating a human?
Every beast he’d fought up to now had done nothing but harm people. A monster behaving like this was something he’d never heard of and never even imagined.
Once the ointment was all applied, Dojin studied the water-drop jelly now boldly staking a claim on his knee. It was a far daintier size than any specimen he’d ever seen.
Is it a baby slime, or something like that? Though I’ve got no idea whether slimes even come in babies.
Sliiide.
Dojin gave his leg a slight shift. The slime twisted around as if to ask what the matter was. A transparent circle of gelatin, staring right up at him. Slimes don’t have eyes, so why do I feel like I can see eyes? Thinking that, Dojin slowly opened his mouth.
“Did you save me?”
Myu.
The slime made a blunt little sound and tipped its body slightly to one side. This time Dojin tried a different question.
“The person who brought me here, no... it was you, wasn’t it?”
Boing.
The slime gave one small hop on his knee, as if to say yes.
“...!”
I had a feeling, but. Does it actually understand what I’m saying?
Urgency got the better of him, and he grabbed the slime’s body in one hand. A pained Eep! burst out of it.
“How do I get out of here? The exit!”
Eeeng...
“Is there one or isn’t there? Give me a straight answer.”
When he let go and barked at it, the slime hopped a little, as if gauging his mood.
Boing, boing.
Unlike before, it bounced twice. One hop is yes, two is no? In that case...
“...There’s no way out of here?”
Boing.
Dojin straightened up without a word. The look in his eyes as he gazed down at the slime was dim as a deep cave.
Dungeons are generous to anyone who wants to come in. The entrance is left open for exactly that purpose, after all. But the moment you set foot inside, that entrance disappears, and an exit only forms once you complete the mission or wipe out the monsters.
...And right now, there’s a monster in front of me.
Dojin slid a slow hand into his item box. A honed arrowhead caught against his fingertips.
Trash mobs like slimes could be finished off easily with a single arrow like this. And if he got lucky and this thing happened to be the boss monster, the exit might open.
Myam?
Perhaps puzzled by how still Dojin had gone, the round little body tilted right, then left, then right again. After studying him quietly for a moment, the slime went bouncing busily off toward the edge of the pond. There it molded the top of itself into a hollow and leaned forward, as though about to take a dive. Clear water gathered in the dished crown of its head.
In that state the slime came squelch-squelching carefully back to Dojin. All at once, clear water was being held out right in front of his eyes. Dojin, lost in thought, faltered.
“...You want me to drink this?”
Pop.
Dojin watched the clean water sloshing there, then took his hand off the arrowhead and picked up the slime’s body. When he set his lips to it, cold water poured down his throat. Only then did he register just how thirsty he’d been.
Gulp. Gulp.
His prominent Adam’s apple rose and fell, and the sharp line of his jaw moved with it. After draining every last drop, he wiped his mouth and looked at the little monster sitting in his hand.
Kooh?
The transparent, rounded body was dribbling water from its top as it stared up at him.
I don’t feel like it.
Here he was, possibly about to die stranded in a dungeon, and he was balking at disposing of one lousy trash mob. He’d never known he was this soft. Dojin set the slime down on the ground and asked,
“Are you the only monster here?”
“...”
The slime didn’t answer. It only kept gazing up at him with a blank sort of look.
“I’m asking whether you’ve ever sensed the presence of another living thing besides you. Even faintly.”
Koong.
Only then did the slime jump, hesitantly. Somehow the motion lacked all confidence.
No mana, either. Might as well call it a pebble.
A boss monster is the creature with the strongest mana in a dungeon. In a place where the law of the jungle applied without a single exception, a weakling like this could never be the boss.
Right. A slime as a boss monster? Ridiculous.
