Dojin shoved the slime hard to one side. The instant it rolled clear, there was a dull crunch and his body slammed into the cave wall.
Kkyuuu!
The slime’s scream came from somewhere far off.
“Don’t come over here!”
One hit, and his ribs went. But there was no time to waste on that.
Dojin grabbed one of the big rocks lying around and hurled it at the beast with everything he had. That long vertical slit of a pupil had been rolling wildly, hunting for the weaker thing hidden deeper inside the cave. Now the eyeball fixed on him again.
“Fuck! I said over here!”
Dojin roared it and broke into a sprint.
Shaaaa. A rush of water loud as a falling waterfall, and then the thud of that enormous body dropping to the ground. Dojin tore like a madman into the pitch-black tunnel ahead of him.
I can’t let it anywhere near the slime. The slime would die on the spot.
He ran without a single pause, gripping the side where his ribs had snapped. Had he ever run this fast in his life? Adrenaline flooded him, and for that stretch of time he forgot that his body was wrecked, forgot he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days. His five senses were honed to a razor’s edge, and every one of them was locked on the beast.
As he ran, Dojin raked through everything he knew about the cave. The place he gathered food. The place thick with clammy damp. The tunnel strewn with bone fragments. And... the stone terrain, all of it bedrock and boulders.
No time to hesitate. With a destination settled, Dojin pushed his speed even higher.
If I can’t match it in sheer size, then I use the ground.
That thing came out of the water, so it’s got to be a hydro-type monster. Even if it’s the master of this dungeon, I’m better off picking somewhere as far from water as I can get.
“Hah, hah.”
The moment he reached the rock tunnel, Dojin swept it for anything that could serve as a weapon. Way off to one side he spotted a stone knife with a sharp point. He stretched a hand toward it, and a huge roar erupted.
Kwaang!
Dojin threw himself sideways into a roll. A deep gouge opened in the spot where he’d been standing. The destructive force was monstrous. He didn’t need to appraise it to feel that the thing in front of him was A-rank, or higher. Watching that thick trunk of a body slide along with such fluid ease, Dojin blinked.
Silent Imugi (S)
...Fuck, is this a joke? If you had something like this in here, you could’ve given me a heads-up! S-rank means it’s a boss monster!
Pouring out resentment at no one in particular, Dojin planted a foot and jumped. Bang! A massive tail hammered into the wall and sent a shower of rubble clattering down.
“Hurk.”
...The situation was absolutely, categorically bad.
In his current state he had nowhere near enough to handle an S-rank monster. He’d left his item bag — the one with the subspace storage — back at the nest, and his condition was garbage besides. All he could rely on right now was his own pathetic, empty-handed body. And yet...
I can’t lose.
There was something he had to protect. The thing that had saved his life, precious beyond anything he could trade for it.
As long as this thing is alive, the slime doesn’t survive.
Anything but that.
Dojin charged forward fast, as if he meant to throw himself straight at the beast. The skills he had were speed, and the brutal destructive power he could wring out of it. Nobody in the guild could keep up with him in either.
Right before the beast’s attack landed, Dojin let his momentum carry him into a slide on his back and stretched his hand all the way out toward the stone knife he’d marked earlier. Once he felt the hard shape settle properly into his grip, he rolled and got his balance back.
Heavy, and the edge is keen. Good. This’ll do.
Dojin moved along the wall. Light and fast, the way he always was.
The imugi came after him with its three-pronged purple tongue flicked out long, like it meant to swallow him whole.
Screw it, let’s just do this.
Muttering it to himself, he stepped onto a rock jutting from the wall and jumped high.
His body shot up like it had taken flight, and Dojin flipped the stone knife in the air and caught it with the point angled down. Then, on the way back down, he drove it through the beast’s soft, yielding innards.
Shhunk.
Kkeueueueueuk!
An eardrum-splitting shriek burst out. Pop. With the sound of a thin membrane tearing, blood ran in a thick trickle from one of Dojin’s ears. His eardrum had ruptured. Ignoring the hot throb of it, Dojin shifted his grip on the stone knife once more.
This is the chance. I have to finish it now.
He used the opening while that colossal body thrashed and flailed to spring up one more time. Landing dead center on the imugi’s back, Dojin raised his hand high. But the monster had noticed the uninvited guest clinging to it, and it was a half-step faster.
The imugi slammed its own body violently into the wall.
“...Kuheok!”
Bright red blood sprayed out of Dojin’s mouth. He let out one strangled cry and collapsed to the ground. A broken rib had punctured his lung. Breathing turned abruptly, brutally hard.
“Hah, haaah. Hah.”
Dragging in breaths that bubbled with bloody phlegm, he hauled himself upright at once. Then he ran for the blind spot he’d scouted in advance.
Shwaak-
The imugi bent its body at a grotesque angle, as though it had folded itself clean in half. Dojin couldn’t even blink. In a heartbeat, the imugi’s yellow eye was right in front of his face.
Thup.
“Ugh...!”
He flung himself aside just in time and dodged the sharp fangs. But a stinging sensation welled up in his thigh. Under the torn fabric, he could see the skin swelling up a bluish color.
Silent Imugi (S)
Traits
- Venomous Body
- █ █ █
Fuck.
Dojin tucked the stone knife under his armpit, then used his teeth and his one hand to rip his shirt apart. He tried several times to bind the strip of cloth around his thigh, but the vicious attacks kept coming, and he was so busy dodging that he managed neither a real attack nor any first aid.
I knew it’d be a stretch, but I didn’t expect to get this thoroughly outclassed.
The kid’s in here. I can’t do this. Not me.
Kwaang!
Dojin smashed his fist into a big rock nearby. Luckily, he still had that much grip left in him. In the moment the roar and the geyser of dust blurred the imugi’s senses, he ducked behind another large rock. Then he cinched the strap tight around his thigh.
How long can I hold out? Can I even last five minutes?
This was the worst of it. Forget killing the monster — he was about to die alone and leave the slime behind. After everything that kid did to keep me alive. No. Can’t happen. The least I can do is be worth one man’s life before I go.
Dojin whipped around and climbed up onto the rock he’d been hiding behind. Shhk. Ssshhk. The imugi came sliding toward him, making that skin-crawling sound. Dojin didn’t move from the spot, not even when it was right on top of him. A little more. A little more...
The imugi’s body came flying in.
Kwaang!
The wall collapsed with a roar. At the same instant, the enormous stalactite that had been hanging above came down on top of the imugi’s body.
Pu-uuk—
“Kgheeeeeeek!”
Dojin didn’t waste the opening. He drove the stone knife into the gap between the imugi’s eye and its mouth. Blood burst out of the thing’s face with a wet pop and soaked Dojin’s cheek. A horrible scream rang through the whole cave, and right after that—
Thup.
The imugi clamped down on one of Dojin’s legs. The poisoned one. Agony arrived. The kind so extreme he just wanted to die right there and be done with it.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
It was while that animal scream was pouring out of his own mouth.
Kkuuuuu!
It was a tiny sound. But Dojin’s one remaining ear caught it. He barely managed to turn his head, and there, standing at the mouth of the cave, was a small round shape.
“Kgh... d-don’t... come...”
Kkuuuuu!
The slime sounded like it was screaming. It couldn’t talk, it had no expression, and of course it had no eyes — and yet somehow it looked like its face was twisted up in pain.
Don’t come. Go... please, go...
But contrary to everything Dojin wanted, the slime came bouncing toward him without a shred of hesitation. There was no way the imugi would miss that little stir of movement; one of its eyeballs rolled with a sickening swivel. The monster’s body heaved, and the stalactite buried in it shuddered along with it.
This thing. It’s going to pull free. Dojin shouted through the terrible pain.
“Khh... go... I said go!”
Kkuuuuu!
But the slime didn’t stop running. Dojin’s eyes went wide as he watched it close the distance.
The item bag.
The item bag was sitting right on top of the slime’s head.
As the slime shrank the gap, the imugi flung the Dojin it had been biting roughly aside and moved for the small living thing instead.
No!
In that instant, the slime split into three. I’ve never even seen it do that. Dojin’s eyes went wide. Two of the little slimes burst under the imugi’s attack. And that left one last droplet.
Pong — it sprang high into the air, and Dojin threw out his hand and snatched it. Feeling that soft body stick properly to his palm, he pulled the slime into his chest in one motion and laid his hand on the item bag. With the strange sensation of touching twisted space, his fingers closed around the weapon that had gone everywhere with him like a part of his own body: the Immortal Sword.
Stalactite still skewering its body, the imugi gaped its jaws wide and lunged. Dojin took the sword — already beginning to glow hot — and rammed it up through the imugi’s lower jaw with everything he had.
An imugi is a great serpent from Korean folklore — a lesser dragon that has not yet ascended.
