“So…” I said, glancing between the uncle-nephew pair seated opposite me. “To be fair, Aksal, Kylan did choose to follow after you rather than sign up to become an adventurer.”

He glared crossly at me, something I hadn’t seen from the good-natured [Alchemist] over the last month. Unbidden, a nervous grin was stubbornly plastered on my face. Damn that little tic of mine! It had gotten me into plenty of trouble back on Earth, and here on Vergence, it was going to take its toll once more.

Aksal held his gaze for several more seconds, breathing heavily, before turning back to address Kylan, who was adamant that he had done nothing wrong. They had argued for some time, not letting me get in a word edgewise as the carriage was secured and we made our way to the inn of the small village that Aksal had chosen for us to spend the night before continuing on to Grynasar the next day.

Truth be told, I was on Kylan’s side. Being cooped up at home was boring stuff. The only reason I’d survived quarantine was because I had books and all sorts of material on isekai.

Of course, I wouldn’t dare tell Aksal that, because man was he scary when he wanted to be. Better to have his fury directed at Kylan than myself, eh?

“I’m not a kid anymore, Uncle.” Kylan’s meal was still untouched, choosing to stubbornly continue his argument over taking his dinner. He slammed his fist on the table, starting some of the other patrons of the inn. “Damn it, I’m Level 14! There are adventurers out there lower-levelled than me!”

“Why won’t you understand?” Aksal seethed. “Settle down in Hawksmoor, start a family of your own! Give up on this whole business of adventuring or chasing grandeur! You know what happened to Palas and Kera!”

Kylan’s face darkened at that, and I winced, quickly grabbing a bite of chicken to cover up the awkwardness I felt at intruding into their family business. From the many contextual clues I had been privy to over the last twenty minutes of alternating argument and cold-shoulder treatment, I figured enough to know that those were the names of Kylan’s parents, who had been adventurers that went on a mission north over a decade ago, never to return. The details were sparse, and though an investigation had been launched by the Guild, the beginnings of demon activity in Yhorm just a few years after halted any further progress on that front.

Since then, Aksal had taken it upon himself to take care of his nephew, and settle down away from Grynasar where he had once been a reputable [Alchemist] in the guild.

Incidentally, the chicken I was now eating was the first non-Slime-derived food I had eaten in a month, as penny-saving as I had been. After going so long without the tastes and subtle textures of meat, the meal was heavenly as it tickled both taste and olfaction, but certainly didn’t fit the stormy mood at the table.

Kylan breathed heavily, closing his eyes momentarily, before speaking with a calm, level voice. “I’m not going to end up like them, Uncle,” he said. “Deities above, I’m not even asking to become an adventurer! I just want to get out of Hawksmoor and see what the rest of Everach is like! You can’t just keep me cooped up there forever!”

He turned to face me, gesturing with a long, spindly thumb fit for a [Trickster]. “Besides,” he said, continuing on before Aksal could raise an argument. “You heard it yourself, Eric here wants me as his assistant.”

Yeah… in hindsight, perhaps that wasn’t the best thing to say when Aksal first discovered his little stowaway. In my defense, though, I had been led to believe that Kylan was part of our little entourage to Grynasar.

Kylan knew the advantage he held over his uncle, and he was pressing the offensive. Ultimately, Aksal needed me to help guide his little smallpox-like eradication regime, which meant that my words held the final say. Kylan knew that.

And though the little shit had been borderline sadistic in how he wielded his power, I sorely wanted a lab assistant of my own, and I was confident that I could get him to tone down his more questionable tendencies. At the very least, perhaps I could get him to [Distract] others instead of myself.

Now that I thought about it, seeing Aksal repeatedly [Distracted] was an amusing thought.

“Come on now, Aksal,” I said. Now that Kylan had redirected the focus of the conversation toward myself, I had to commit to one side. “Besides, don’t you think that maybe you might, umm… be a bit overprotective over Kylan?”

I followed up quickly, trying to convince Aksal to see reason. Kylan’s skills were prime study material, and besides, detouring to Hawksmoor and back was going to waste two full days. That would be two full days of SCIENCE(!) that I would never get back. “Look, think of it this way: who knows, maybe if he becomes my lab assistant, he’ll become a [Biologist] too, and you know that my class skills are piss poor for adventuring use! You get to keep an eye over him in Grynasar, I get a lab assistant, Kylan gets out of Hawksmoor, and Slime-bro gets a new friend! Everybody wins! Science saves the day, am I right?”

I winked awkwardly, sending finger guns at the stoic man in an attempt to defuse the situation. Alas, the meaning of the gesture was completely lost to the locals of Vergence, meaning that I just looked like an utter fool. The smile forcibly plastered on my face hardened.

Ever since Kylan’s (rather unfair) victory over me with the use of [Distract], Slime-bro had been curiously prodding at Kylan’s feet, observing the [Trickster] as though an interesting specimen. I had no idea what was running through his mind, but the cuteness factor he brought to the table was surely a thing that would help convince Aksal! No one could resist the power of –

“SLURRRP!”

Slime-bro bounced excitedly in wild circles around Kylan, then leapt up onto my lap, before making a final dramatic bounce to the tabletop. He mewled pitifully, staring at Aksal, deliberately making its ways wide, little streams of extra-reflective Slime-liquid streaming outward.

I was impressed. I knew that Slime-bro was intelligent enough to master the structural reorganisation of his membranes and to alter their permeability, but this… this was taking it to another level!

“That,” Kylan began saying, eyeing Slime-bro with unease, all animosity toward his uncle temporarily forgotten. “Is beyond unnerving.”

“I’m on your side!”

“And I’m starting to wonder whether that’s a good thing,” Kylan shot back readily. “Why in all of Vergence did the summoning ritual choose to bring you along with the Hero?”

“Ehh, experimental errors happen all the time,” I said, shrugging. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve done what was supposed to be a simple cloning protocol, fired up a quick PCR amplification, and then ran a gel only to end up with no bands, too many bands, bands of the wrong size, or the ugliest bloody gel in all existence; and God forbid technical replicates giving completely different –“

“Psst. Chairs.”

Wisely, I fell silent. Even that word alone was sufficient to send shivers down my spine. Uneasily, I eyed the nearby chairs that the inn’s patrons were currently seated on, already anticipating that rush of ideas pertaining to the mundane and yet all-powerful chair.

Kylan gave a smug grin. “I thought so.”

We’ll see who’s laughing last, once I get you to start on benchwork!

Heh. Benchwork.

“Eric.” I looked over toward Aksal, whose tense expression had somewhat lessened. “Be honest with me. Do you really want my nephew as your assistant?”

I shrugged. “More hands are always welcome.” Then, I frowned, considering deeper. “Although, considering that I’m mostly without equipment, and most of my measurements are taken with [Bio-Analysis] at the moment, I’m not sure what Kylan would be able to do beyond basic tissue culture management. I’ll find something, or see if we can dig a bit deeper into [Distract] and his other skills.”

They exchanged blank looks at that.

“You know that none of what you said makes any sense, right?” Kylan pointed out.

“Ehh, you’ll learn on the job,” I said. “I pretty much have no idea what I’m doing half the time either.”

There was a brief pause, before Kylan looked over at his uncle. “Are you sure we can trust this person’s cure for the Blighted Curse?”

“Eric is… unusual,” Aksal said, delicately phrasing his words. “But I’ve seen him cure Arlett with my own eyes.”

“Even so,” Kylan pressed. “No one else in the Alchemist’s guild has, and you haven’t been back in Grynasar for a long time. How do you know they’ll believe either of you?”

“That…”

Ooh. Pretty observant; but no surprise, considering that he was a [Trickster].

Not my problem, though. Aksal swore he would get me a lab, and that was all I wanted. If they spent their days arguing over whether my vaccine was legitimate, it meant more time dedicated to my own experiments.

Aksal did make some rather tall promises, but even if he couldn’t fully deliver on them, I wouldn’t be too upset. He did have a point: Hawksmoor was boring, and an artisanal hub like Grynasar would probably present more curiosities that could get my scientific juices flowing.

And no, that was not an innuendo!

“Eric?”

I blinked, snapping out of my distraction. “Huh?”

“Your Slime is doing something,” Aksal repeated, pointing.

Slime-bro? I glanced over at him, curious. From where he had been poking around by our feet, he had somehow wrapped his way up the table leg, dragging himself upward in a bizarre macroscopic recreation of amoeboid movement, landing up on the tabletop with a ‘plop’.

“Slime-bro?”

“Meeurp?” he mewled, his body lengthening and twisting, looking at me while pointing at the food with his leading edge.

I gasped. Crap! He hadn’t been given his dunk in slime-broth yet! But the rest of my equipment was still stashed away in the carriage –

“Eeeurp?” he repeated himself.

“You want to eat that?”

He nodded cheerfully, bouncing on the spot.

…could he do that? I knew that naturally occurring Slimes didn’t gorge themselves on the blood of their fallen kin as Slime-bro did, instead sustaining themselves through fallen leaves in various states of decomposition.

“Go ahead,” I said, waving him along as I cut a small piece for him. “Careful not to puncture yourself.”

With a cheerful yelp, he lunged forward, enveloping the piece of chicken, reorganising his membrane topology. It was bizarre, to say the least, as the slice of chicken remained contained inside a vesicle-like pouch visible through his translucent slime-fluid.

Huh. How would that become digested? Did he even have the right digestive enzymes? I had checked with my regular batches of Slime-broth that they were pretty much just a simple nutrient mix. Was Slime-bro different in that aspect as well?

“How is he doing that?”

“No idea.” I shrugged. “You could ask him yourself, you know, since you’re going to be co-workers in my lab and all. Our lab, I mean.”

That was how team cohesion was built, right?

“I don’t speak Slime.”

“He understands you, though.” I reached out to pet Slime-bro. “You do, don’t you?”

Slime-bro nodded in agreement. Kylan continued looking disturbed, but also with some morbid interest, as the enveloped piece of chicken floated around inside Slime-bro’s body.

Aksal laughed, slapping Kylan hard on the shoulder. “Best you get used to it, nephew. It’s either this or going back to Hawksmoor, eh?”

Hmm. I eyed Slime-bro suspiciously. Come to think of it, he was the one who first made any progress in helping diffuse the tension between the other two.

Was Slime-bro some crafty genius pretending to be this cute little amorphous blob all along? Were his innocent looks meant purely to deceive?

Was he the Demon Lord lurking around in disguise?!

Slime-bro tilted his head, having noticed me staring at him, before guiltily retracting a pair of filopodia that had been creeping slowly toward another bit of chicken.

…nah. No chance of that.

I chuckled at that silly line of reasoning, handing another slice of chicken to the most awesome Slime in the world.

-x-x-x-

I dreamt.

Dendritic cells and T cells holding hands, bound by an attraction beyond mere fate, a picture of perfect unity. The presentation of the antigen; a union that tugged the heartstrings more than that of marriage, the peptide-MHC complex extended outward more priceless than any engagement ring.

It was bliss. The purest, unadulterated image of love.

“– ERIC! KYLAN!”

– and then I woke up.

“What?” I gasped, sitting upright. It was still dark outside, but even in my half-dazed state rapidly adjusting back to the waking world, I could hear shouts of panic coming from outside.

Something was wrong.

“Goblin raid!” Aksal was fishing around in his belongings, withdrawing flasks and satchels. “They’re organising the guards! I’m going to help with potions and what spells I can spare, but you need to get out of here!”

Goblins?

Something about the tenseness of his voice kept my thoughts clear from considering anything remotely related to academia surrounding the subject of goblins. I was on my feet at once, reaching for my backpack. Slime-bro slithered over, perching himself on one shoulder.

It was hard to believe this was real. I’d been sheltered pretty much all my life, the most dangerous thing to ever happen to me being workplace hazards. The last month had been spent quietly working on my experiments, happily ignoring the fact that this was a fantasy world where a war raged between demons and the other races.

Now, though…

Shit.

I wasn’t prepared for this! This was supposed to be the Hero’s job, not a damned [Biologist]’s! I could barely even –

Chairs.

That thought abruptly steered me out of that spiral of panic.

[Distract]?

“Wha –“

“You were shaking.” Kylan was standing by the doorway, a grim expression on his face, a set of daggers held in his hands. “Uncle, I can –“

“No.” His voice was firm, and I hadn’t heard him speak in such a tone before, even when he had been berating Kylan just the evening before. This was the [Alchemist] who had once seen days of combat, and who now accepted no argument. “You two – get to the hilltop on the other end of the village. Join the other non-combatants. The sentry didn’t report many of them, but in the worst-case scenario, you run. Got it?”

“Got it?” he repeated, louder this time.

“Right!” I glanced over at Kylan, who reluctantly nodded.

“Good. Go!”

I didn’t remember much from there. The moment we headed down the stairs and ran out the inn’s doors, I simply followed the crowd of people fleeing from the sounds of battle that were just beginning to rage from behind us.

By the time we reached the hilltop, I was panting with exhaustion, cursing the fact that I’d never been particularly athletic. Down below, I could see the crossroad village’s able-bodied defenders bearing arms, Aksal somewhere in their midst. From this vantage point, indistinct dark shapes were visible just beyond the village’s wooden walls, illuminated by the flickering flames of torches the raiding party held.

There weren’t too many of them, but still they outnumbered the few dozen or so defenders. There were far less of us up on the hilltop. With each tense passing second, those fighting down below were forced to give up ground before they became surrounded. The remaining few village folk fleeing with us were huddled up, indistinct murmurs of fear and uncertainty breaking out among them.

“We should be down there,” Kylan hissed, watching as the goblins continued surging past the gates.

I had no idea how Kylan fared in combat, but considering he at least had his daggers, and was adamant on becoming an adventurer, he probably knew his stuff. As for me, however, I was practically useless in combat. All I had were an untested Boom and Bang, for which I had yet to find a satisfactory mechanism of safely wielding in battle –

Wait –

They were giving up ground.

My eyes darted to one side. From the gates, the village’s defenders were now pushed back. Some goblins had begun attempting to stray off from the main group, and though the townsfolk cut them off where they could, it was obvious that they could not keep that up for long.

“Shit,” I swore under my breath. I pointed toward the stables. “The carriage!”

Kylan whirled upon me with rage. “You can’t seriously be thinking about running away?”

“Not that!” Funny. Despite my sense of self-preservation, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. “Our belongings are still in there! They’ve got torches!”

“So what?”

“I’ve got filled tanks of Bang and Boom in there! All my grenades are there as well!”

“What?”

Shit. I hadn’t yet told him about Bang and Boom, but this was hardly the time. I didn’t know exactly how much explosive power there was in that stock, but it would be enough to deal significant damage to the village.

“We need to get down there,” I said, sounding uncertain even to myself. “If they start torching the place, it’s all going to blow up!”

Kylan hesitated for a moment, deliberating between Aksal’s previous warning, and the change in circumstances. “You’re sure about this?”

“Not at all,” I said grimly. “But we have no choice.”

Slime-bro gave a sharp cry. I looked over to the side. When had he hopped off from my shoulder? He was standing by the edge of a pond, one portion of his body extended outward.

Then he dunked himself into the water, and enlarged in size. From smaller than an infant, he became the height of size of a grown adult in a matter of seconds.

“Slime-bro? What are you doing?”

He steeled himself, and then launched himself against a nearby tree.

… did Slime-bro really just perform a tackle attack?

It wasn’t anything particularly powerful, but it was stronger than any punch I could throw out. Right now, Slime-bro was more useful in combat than myself.

“Let’s go,” I urged.

Together, we headed back down the hill, ignoring the shouts of the townsfolk behind us, making a beeline toward the stables where the carriage was.

“Wait!” Kylan ordered as we neared. “This way!”

He dragged behind the cover of a nearby building. “What is it?” I asked.

“I’m better at ambushes,” Kylan said, peeking past our cover with narrowed eyes, tracking the green-skinned goblins made visible by torchlight. “I should be able to [Distract] them from this distance if they try to make it to the stables. Better odds that way. We’ll be able to thin them out a bit before they start noticing my skill’s effects.”

I nodded. It seemed like a sound plan.

“I could sneak over and get one of my grenades,” I suggested, eyeing the main raiding force. “They still aren’t coming this way yet.”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “Too risky. You’ll draw attention.”

“Meeep!”

Slime-bro was compacted against the ground, as though a small puddle that spread out a wide distance, near invisible to anyone looking from afar.

Of course.

“Slime-bro will slither there and get it for us,” I said. “He can handle it safely.”

“You’ll trust your Slime?”

I didn’t answer Kylan. Instead, I turned to Slime-bro. “You can do it, can’t you?”

His flattened body wobbled and rippled. I assumed that to mean a determined agreement. “Be careful,” I warned. “Remember, no excessive force. Get the grenades and get out of there.”

Silently – with a speed that surprised even myself – Slime-bro trailed outward, creeping along the sides of buildings and under the cover of shadows, circling around into the stables.

Several tense seconds ticked by. Tens of seconds. More ground was being lost, and the goblins were fanning out.

“Here they come,” Kylan warned quietly. “I’ll handle this. You better not scream.”

And with that, he scrunched up his eyes in focus as he peeked just past our cover, luring a group of two goblins over.

The light of the torches they held grew brighter as they neared. I was profoundly aware of the thumping of my own heartbeat, but I forced myself to remain silent. The goblins were just as I’d imagined them to be – grotesque-looking creatures, and though I had no idea whether all of their kind were malicious, this group evidently delighted in the suffering they were causing. Kylan’s grip was tense, watching carefully as they passed the intersection.

Then something caught my eye. Strange. One was limping slightly, and the other bore signs of old wounds that had scabbed over. Why –

Kylan lunged forward.

A dagger found its mark at the back of one goblin’s neck. The second dagger was plunged into its side, and as its fellow goblin began to react, Kylan was already spinning into motion, launching the soon-to-be dead goblin free from his knives, using its body as cover as he sprung forward.

I had no benchmark against which to compare how he fared in combat, but Kylan was good. Within instants, the second goblin was down.

“Hurry!” Kylan urged, grabbing one by the feet, dragging it out of sight. “The blood will still be there, but the [Distract] should still work another time before the next group notices something off!”

It was all I could do. I wrapped my hands around the remaining dead goblin’s side, ignoring the dampness of its blood where one of Kylan’s daggers had buried itself deep into its flesh, throwing it behind our cover.

“How’s it looking?” I asked, as Kylan watched the main battle continue.

“Goblins should be retreating soon,” Kylan replied, a grim smile on his face as a transient series of white flares appeared from that direction. “Guess Uncle Aksal’s [Magic Missile] still packs a punch.”

Sometimes, it was hard to remember that he was a Level 27 [Alchemist]. That number certainly wasn’t for show, if he was able to manage himself in combat, despite being a member of a class that mostly dabbled in potion-brewing.

“Seeerp!”

I hadn’t even noticed Slime-bro’s return. He joined us from behind our cover, little Slime-limbs outstretched, handing two of the Fire Eel grenades to me.

“Nice one,” I praised, then turned to Kylan. “Aksal said that one of these is about as potent as a Level 12 [Flame Acolyte]’s [Firebolt].”

“We came back for this?”

I shook my head. “The tanks in there have about another six hundred or so grenades’ worth.”

It took a moment to set in. Kylan stared at me momentarily, before deciding that I wasn’t joking. “Ah.”

“Yeah.” I nodded understandingly. “That’s why we came back.”

“How do you use it?”

“Just throw it hard. It activates when the central chamber experiences an impact. It should explode about half a second or so after the trigger mechanism is engaged,” I said. “I haven’t yet managed to troubleshoot a way of fixing the problem of accidental activation, but –“

“Give me one.”

“Be careful,” I stressed, feeling uneasy even as I handed it over. “I’m not kidding. It could blow up in your hand.”

“Best hope it doesn’t.” He looked past the corner again, then cursed. “Damn. A hobgoblin.”

I didn’t need to be told that to recognise the creature. It stood the same size as an adult human, probably larger than myself, covered with red skin that contrasted against the green of its lesser kin.

Wait, were they even kin? Some fantasy worlds had goblins eventually mature into hobgoblins, but other worlds had them as a separated goblinoid race altogether that enslaved their weaker distant cousins.

Kylan swore once more. “No good. He’s resisting my [Distract]. This weapon of yours better work!”

And with that, he brought his arm back, aimed, and threw the grenade.

There was a flash of bright light, a now-familiar explosion, the smell of singed flesh, and a blood-curdling roar of rage.

The next instant, he was rushing at us.

“Damn!”

With a flash of gleaming steel, both daggers were held in Kylan’s palms once more, as Kylan leapt out from behind the building, engaging the hobgoblin in combat. He had to be using some [Trickster] skill, because his daggers became enshrouded by an inky darkness, and as he struck at the hobgoblin, he stumbled back momentarily.

Though injured and singed, the hobgoblin was now wary, his stance tense, as he eyed Kylan’s every move carefully. The hobgoblin was wobbling on the spot, its gait awkward. Just what had Kylan’s skill done?

I hesitated. What could I do? Should I throw the remaining grenade? But if I missed –

In my moment of indecision, the hobgoblin's eyes darted over toward me.

And then it lunged, and my panic intensified. I couldn’t move, couldn’t think –

“SLURP!”

Slime-bro tackled it bodily from the side, both of them sprawling onto the ground in a heap. The hobgoblin snarled, a massive, gnarled hand reaching to grab and peel Slime-bro off him, but he could not find a firm grip.

But the hobgoblin was intelligent. Slimes were common creatures.

With the blade in his other hand, he thrust in toward Slime-bro from the side, puncturing past his membranes.

“SLIME-BRO!”

Fluid leaked out, and Slime-bro shrank rapidly. I could practically feel Slime-bro’s panic, as he struggled to patch the hole in his skin, to fuse his flesh together before he lost too much volume.

Slime-bro couldn’t fight any longer in his shrunken form. He retreated, dripping fluid, but at least he seemed to have sealed the puncture wound shut. Kylan still held his ground, but he was tiring quickly, and there was no more room for the ambushes he excelled at. I had the grenade, but I wasn’t certain I could be on target, much less keep us all out of the blast radius.

It would be all that we needed. The first had clearly taken its toll on the hobgoblin, and if the second one struck, it wouldn’t be able to remain standing for long. Kylan could finish up the rest.

But the hobgoblin clearly knew that, because he was warily eyeing the grenade in my hands. Kylan couldn’t go in to strike while the hobgoblin was on the defensive. We could wait it out, but there was no certainty that the townsfolk even knew we were fighting a separate engagement here.

A weapon that could end the fight, but no means to deploy it. An empty threat.

If only the [Distract] had worked. Kylan would probably have been able to put it down in an ambush.

If [Distract] worked by altering relative weights of competing stimuli, then…

Earlier, [Distract] couldn’t take hold, because the seemingly empty bloodied street we were trying to lure him to wasn’t interesting to him, and even with the skill’s effects, his attention was still directed towards the thrill of battle.

But if the target is already weighing between trying to attend to two separate stimuli…

The grenade wouldn’t be useful here, but the hobgoblin didn’t know that.

The threat of it was enough. The hobgoblin couldn’t easily make the most rational choices if the relative weightages of what he deemed important enough for his attention were skewed. I experienced that first-hand, having been subjected to [Distract] myself. It probably said something about how poor an attention span and impulse control I had that my thoughts could drift away so easily, but that was a consideration for another time.

How to make sure that Kylan understood, without giving the game away to the hobgoblin? It couldn’t be too blatant a distraction –

Well, that was easy.

“Kylan,” I shouted, taking a few rapid steps back while bringing my arm back. “The grenade is a chair!”

There was a moment of bewildered pause, but it seemed the message was received loud and clear.

I knew it worked, when the hobgoblin abruptly turned to face me, focusing sharply on the grenade it had recognised as a threat. It made a split-second decision of whether to flee or fight from a threat, and rushed toward me.

And that left him completely exposed for Kylan to deliver a well-placed attack.

The dagger was enveloped by darkness, and as the strike landed, the hobgoblin stumbled once more, thrown off course in his charge, snarling with rage. He whirled around to face Kylan, but a second [Distract] caused him to hesitate as he considered the presence of the grenade.

That instant of hesitation was all that Kylan needed to thrust a second dagger through his neck, blood pouring forth as the blade exited from flesh.

In another instant of futile struggling, the hobgoblin was well and truly dead. Just in case, I had a quick activation of [Analyse Physiology] confirm that for me. I didn’t trust myself to hold the remaining grenade right now, carefully placing it on the ground.

“Damn,” I swore, leaning against the side of a building. I looked back toward where the main group was. Goblins were fleeing from the gates, and the defenders were spreading out, systemically hunting down the stragglers. Cliché as it sounded, dawn was just beginning to break in the horizon. “We did it.”

“We did,” Kylan agreed, and though he was visibly exhausted from the skirmish, there was an excitement in his eyes. No surprises there – he had always wanted to be an adventurer.

In silence, we watched as the townsfolk began mopping up the remaining goblins, Aksal somewhere among their number. Then, Kylan spoke. “You made those grenades?”

“Yeah. It’s based off some stuff I found in Fire Eels,” I confirmed. “It’s still a prototype. You’ll be able to make them too once we get our lab started, you know.”

“Still not sure whether I believe your cure for the Blighted Curse,” Kylan said, eyeing me sceptically. “But I’ll admit that those grenades were pretty damned cool.”

I grinned. “Better not be satisfied with just those, because we’ll be hunting for bigger fish in our lab. Once we get established, we’re cracking the dragon code. Right, Slime-bro?”

Back to his usual miniature size, he gave an excited mewl of confirmation.

“Still unnerving.” Kylan paused for a moment, wrestling with a question, before finally voicing it. “How did you know [Distract] would work that time?”

“I wasn’t fully certain, but I did explain back in the carriage how I thought the skill functioned. You probably can’t force a target you’re fighting to attend to something utterly meaningless, but you could mess up his decision-making process by making something else seem more important than it really is.” Then, now that the battle was over, I could finally ask about something I’d been wondering. “What skill did you use back there, when your dagger turned black and all?”

“[Dizzying Strike]. It lasts only for less than a second, but it makes the target lose his balance. Doesn’t work too many times in a row, though.”

Intriguing. Very intriguing.

How did it work?

An artificial disturbance to the endolymph within the semicircular canals of the vestibular system? An alteration in afferent sensory transmission along the vestibular nerves, or higher up along the pathway?

Or did it act instead on peripheral proprioceptors in the form of muscle spindles, Golgi tendon organs, and joint receptors, rather than the vestibular system? Both? Neither?

And why a refractory period, during which its effects were diminished?

I wanted answers, damn it!

“You’re doing it again.”

I glanced over at Kylan. Far from being annoyed, unleashing a barrage of [Distracts], or tiredly accepting his fate as my lab-rat for the foreseeable future, there was instead merely an amused look on his face.

Heh. Perhaps having Kylan around would be nice, scientific interest in [Trickster] skills aside. All things considered, this day wasn’t turning out too bad. Wouldn’t be a real isekai into a high fantasy world containing a demon lord if there wasn’t any combat at all, after all.

“Eric? Kylan?” Aksal stared at us incredulously, part of a group of townsfolk arriving at our location. “What are you two doing here? I told you two to stay away!”

Ah.

I scratched my cheek sheepishly. “Yeah, about that…”