He twisted the stalks the way he had before, then tried to join them to the next ones. The slime couldn’t help. Not with his erosion ability on the fritz. But it wasn’t as though Dojin had no problems of his own.
Weaving a whole object out of multiple stalks with one arm was no small task. He tried binding them using his mouth and his feet, but that was useless against a hole that size. On top of that, the stiff stalks tied badly and came undone almost immediately.
Thunk. The stalks and leaves kept slipping out of his hand. After that happened a few times, a strange feeling came over him.
Why am I even doing this?
It’s not like I’m going to eat any of it. So why do I have to make this thing? The slime can just go over there and eat on his own.
Once he thought that, it all turned pointless in an instant. Making a food basket. Eating anything at all.
Why do I have to? I’m never getting out of here anyway. Nobody cares whether I’m holed up in this place alive or whether I’m a corpse. Nobody’s coming to save me. And when I do eat that stuff all I get is nausea and a headache. I’m going to starve to death in here regardless, aren’t I?
All at once the darkness he’d kept buried down below seemed to come surging up. Dojin sat there blankly, the stalks dropped from his hand. What nudged him out of it was the slime.
Moong, moong, moong...
The slime circled the food basket, round and round, fidgeting. Dojin dropped just his eyes to watch him, not bothering to move his head.
Is he anxious because it looks like I can’t make the food basket? Because he won’t be able to gather much food? A sneer slipped out of Dojin.
“What. Worried you won’t get fed?”
...Myu?
The slime stopped short and tilted his body to one side.
“You can just go over there and eat. What do you need junk like this for?”
...Moong!
The slime started to cry out something, and Dojin cut him off.
“None of this would’ve been necessary if you hadn’t wrecked the thing in the first place.”
“...!”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to live with one arm? Have you ever had to?”
The slime stared blankly up at Dojin. He had no eyes, no nose, no mouth, and yet he looked utterly stricken. Seeing it, rage shot up out of nowhere.
He’s been making that face for a while now. Startled, like he’s looking at something he’s never seen before. Like meeting my eyes would be the end of him, like I’m about to kill him. Touch him even a little and he goes into fits and bolts, hides and shivers.
...Like he’s seen a monster.
The moment it hit him, his teeth ground together and everything in front of him went black.
“I’m asking if you have any idea how goddamn infuriating it is to make this garbage with one arm!”
At the sudden roar, the slime’s little body flinched and trembled. But Dojin didn’t stop shouting.
“Why’d you wreck it to begin with? Did you do it on purpose? Huh? To make me feel it too, because I killed your friend, that’s it, isn’t it? Huh?”
“...”
“I’m right. You’ve been avoiding me since that day.”
The slime, whose mouth usually ran just fine, kept it clamped shut, unable to say a single thing, and only stood there stock-still, looking at Dojin.
Dojin didn’t even register that he was losing his grip; he just kept bellowing at the small creature in front of him.
“Is it funny, me with one arm? Huh? You think it’s funny, don’t you? Fuck, you think it too, don’t you, that I’m going to die, right here, right here in this place... that that’s what’s going to...”
Dojin couldn’t finish. He sank down where he stood, almost as if dropping to his knees. His head spun, and pain surged up sharply from the severed stump. Dizziness came, and with it nausea. Dojin clutched at the ground and retched.
“...Urgh...”
Kku, koong!
The slime came closer, alarmed, but Dojin barely managed to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand and glared at him.
“Don’t come near me.”
“...”
“I can’t stand the sight of you, so get out of my face.”
“...!”
He said it coldly, then turned away without sparing a thought for the startled slime. He didn’t want to be with anyone. For this moment at least, he wanted to be completely alone.
He could feel the slime’s gaze fixed on his back without having to look. But it didn’t matter. He could do without something like a slime.
A little while later came the sound of something dragging along the ground, and it gradually grew fainter. After that there wasn’t a trace of anything. Dojin closed his eyes.
It was deep dark by the time Dojin opened his eyes again. He checked the second hand of his wristwatch, then pushed himself upright.
Haa.
His stomach burned. Hardly surprising; he hadn’t eaten a thing in days. Add to that the faint dizziness and the pain in his arm. In truth he’d been feeling his body going wrong for a while now. All he’d eaten since coming here were small fruits of unknown origin, so it wouldn’t have been strange for him to collapse from malnutrition at any point.
Dojin looked around.
It was quiet. Not a trace of presence, not a sound, not even so much as the dripping of water that caves always had.
He sat there dazed for a while, then turned his head without thinking.
The slime.
And in the same instant he realized. That the slime wasn’t here anymore. That he himself had driven him out, coldly.
...Doesn’t matter.
He was the kind of man who found being alone easier and more natural anyway. Having someone beside him was the stranger, more unfamiliar state. This was no different from things going back to how they’d always been — this was normal.
Dojin lifted his black eyes and slowly stood. Step by step, the short walk to the pond felt endlessly far. He barely made it there, wet his parched mouth, and came back to the same spot.
With nothing he needed to do and no one he needed to look after, all that was left was to kill time like this. Very easy work.
“Ugh.”
A sudden stomach cramp woke him out of a shallow sleep. He propped himself against the wall with effort and retched, but all that came up was sour bile.
Feeling his insides turn over, Dojin leaned his back against the cave wall and shut his eyes. After waiting a little, it seemed to settle somewhat. He turned his head and looked toward the entrance of the nest.
No one there.
“...”
He stared blankly for a moment, then straightened his head. He deliberately went looking for something else to think about.
Maybe I should scout out another food source.
He’d already finished searching every part of the cave. He still hadn’t found anywhere that could serve as a food source. But you never knew. There might be a spot he’d failed to check, or he might run into a new monster the way he had last time. And if he got lucky, maybe he’d come across something with real flesh on it and get some protein into himself.
Rising unsteadily to his feet, Dojin let out a dry laugh at himself.
He’d been carrying on like a man waiting to die, and now that it was actually right under his nose, was he feeling some craving for life after all? Even while he felt nothing but revulsion toward himself for finally entertaining the idea of filling his stomach with the monsters he so despised, Dojin didn’t stop walking.
When he reached the entrance of the nest, a small object caught his eye.
Two little wooden bowls, hollowed out with a groove.
He didn’t have to walk over to know. He knew exactly who had set them there.
...Useless.
Dojin walked right past without laying a finger on them. Like a man who hadn’t seen a thing.
The two small wooden bowls stayed where they were, sitting forlorn in that empty spot with no one around them.
Bbiiik-!
Watching the small insect-type monster thrash with his blade buried in it, Dojin creased his brow. This again today.
He’d been roaming around all this time like a man possessed by the hunt, and he hadn’t turned up a single beast-type monster. Still nothing but a few small monsters killed for no return before he headed back.
Thrash, thrash.
His hand was rough as he yanked the weapon out. He picked up the monster, already starting to crumble into powder, and was lifting it toward his mouth when irritation flared up out of nowhere; he flung it down hard and ground it under his boot.
Bbik!
With that small noise, the monster evaporated without a trace. Dojin looked down at it, expressionless, and raked his hair back with his one hand.
No one was disturbing him, that much was certain. Whatever he did, whatever he killed, it was his to decide. Nothing stood in his way, nothing pestered him. And yet, strangely, something came bubbling up from somewhere deep inside, and with it rose a restlessness.
“...”
In the end he threw the weapon in his hand down on the ground any which way and hung his head.
What the hell is making me this irritated?
Being alone was exactly the same as it had always been. So he couldn’t work out why it felt like something was scratching and gnawing at his nerves.
Lips pressed tight, Dojin didn’t move from that spot for a long while.
Rustle.
A small sound lodged itself in his ear before he even registered it. He whipped his head around. The place he looked was completely empty. Even so, Dojin couldn’t take his eyes off it for some time.
Day four.
He was certain now. There were no beast-type monsters in this place. And there was no other food source either. This dungeon held nothing but things that were utterly useless.
Back at the nest, Dojin sorted through his item bag as always and saw to the weapons he needed for combat. Partway through, something cold brushed his fingertips. He stopped, took hold of it, and a familiar chain came out with it.
His dog tags.
Ever since he’d been with the slime, he’d kept even the dog tags put away inside the bag. Nothing had been an immediate threat to his life, and he’d stuffed every single object that called the outside world to mind into that bag as though he were sealing it shut.
Dojin looked at the cold metal thing for a moment, then hung it around his neck.
Maybe now’s when I need it.
Once he’d finished cleaning the weapons, his face wan, he was shoving the bag against one wall when a cluster of fine scratch marks caught his eye and his hand stopped.
It was none other than the place where the slime had been practicing his jumps.
