“Alright, time’s up! Stop writing! I can see you still moving your brush, Kylan, that’s going to be a two mark deduction!”

I stepped over, accepting the sheet that Slime-bro offered, taking a quick glance at his first couple answers. Just as it had been with the first quiz I had given them just two days ago, his handwriting was absolutely atrocious, and of the few legible alphabets that were strung together, most of them made absolutely no sense at all.

Of course, given that he was a Slime, it was amazing that he could even write.

“Well done, Slime-bro!” I praised. His beamed, wide translucent eyes shining brightly, puffing himself up in his seat. “As for you, Kylan…”

“Just take it.” He sighed, resting his head against the table. “This is so unfair…”

I eyed his first couple of answers. Hmm – not too shabby, considering he’d only learnt of these concepts just yesterday. He had made some pretty basic errors – those reactions weren’t stoichiometrically balanced – but he was learning.

“I will grade these and inform you two of your results by tomorrow,” I said, placing their tests aside. “For now, though – you two deserve a reward! We’ll end this class here –“

“Finally,” Kylan groaned, stretching as he stood up from his seat. “I’ll go find Uncle Aksal, and see if – “

“– and instead we’ll move on to practical lessons!”

Kylan paused mid-step, staring at me.

“Now, now, Kylan, you’ve got to follow Slime-bro’s example! Look how excited he is!”

“Yurrrp!”

I pointedly ignored the muttered comment of “teacher’s pet” that Kylan made no attempt to disguise. At least those two were getting along now. From beneath the desk I had been sitting at while invigilating their short quiz, I took out the teaching materials I had prepared.

“For today, I thought it would be great if you experienced for yourselves just how what you have learnt in only three days can already be used to explain the many wonders of life!” I held a thin, semi-translucent piece of material in my hand. “Behold!”

“Meeerp?!”

I grinned. Of course Slime-bro would recognise it. He had been instrumental in its creation, after all. Hopefully, he wouldn’t get too bored while I got Kylan up to speed.

Kylan looked at it suspiciously. “What even is that?”

“It’s a piece of Slime membrane!”

“A… what now?”

“Before meeting you, Slime-bro and I had been experimenting around with Slime biology. More specifically, we were investigating to see the properties of their outer coating – a membrane, if you would – and how they could be manipulated.” I pointed at Slime-bro. “My good assistant, if you could show your fellow colleague just what our combined research and your own indomitable effort have yielded?”

Slime-bro nodded, bounced on the tabletop, and then scrunched up his little eyes in focus. With a determined trill, he reshaped his structure, growing out a pair of limbs for a brief moment.

Then, they flopped down lifelessly, and he retracted them back.

“In today’s class, you have learned about diffusion and osmosis, of the concept of permeability, and how cells may regulate the permeability of their membranes to various ions and to water,” I explained. “Now, the specifics that Project: Slime involved are far more nuanced than just that, but those concepts are the building blocks that eventually allowed Slime-bro to be as special as he now is. He has learned not only to regulate the permeability of his cells, but also to alter the rigidity and tensile strength of his membranes in ways no Slime in past history has before!”

Slime-bro puffed up with pride, once more back in his blob-like form. It was the issue with the simplicity of his structure – though he could extend projections outward from his core, there was no means of maintaining a passive tension to keep them there for a prolonged period of time, in contrast to the way that one could keep an arm outstretched by relying on isometric contraction of the musculature.

Although…

“That does not mean, however, that Project: Slime is over just yet,” I continued, studying Slime-bro carefully. “Once we begin covering anatomy, the fundamentals of cell biology, and some basic muscle physiology, Slime-bro could possibly understand and mimic a functional analog of the musculoskeletal system for himself.”

Because wouldn’t that be cool? Having a Slime punch people to death?

“Come to think of it, if that works, once we go over the respiratory system and dive into the structure of the larynx – specifically, the vocal folds, and their associated muscles and cartilages that alter their tension and drive their abduction and adduction, I don’t see why Slime-bro wouldn’t be able to talk.”

Because wouldn’t that be cool? Having a Slime dish out some smack-talk while punching people to death?

Hell, I was tempted to have Slime-bro present at a conference if and when he mastered this skill to scare the living daylights out of the artisans of Grynasar. At present, I had no idea how he was even ‘speaking’, but I suspected that they were merely wet squelching sounds that he produced by slapping bits of his membranes around.

“Although, now that I think about it, you’ll need a mouth and tongue to properly shape labial, coronal, and dorsal consonants as well,” I said, frowning. Though he did have a ‘mouth’ imprinted upon his face, it was not, technically speaking, a mouth that had any functional significance save for cuteness value. “And I’ve got no idea whether you’re actually able to produce any meaningful words at all, since you have to learn to manually and purposefully control whatever equivalents of the thyroarytenoid, cricothyroid, posterior cricoarytenoid, lateral cricoarytenoid, and transverse and oblique arytenoids you manage to create – if you can create them at all, of course, and whether –“

“Eric,” Kylan complained. “You promised you would stay focused during our lessons.”

And with that, I put that thought aside for now. Kylan was right. None of that had any significance unless Slime-bro knew the theory enough to be able to put it into practice unto himself. Time would tell, once I determined they had enough of a basic understanding to move on to more detailed anatomy and physiology.

Of course, if and when the day came that Slime-bro could talk, I could only pray that it wouldn’t turn out to be one of those Garfield ‘I’m sorry, Jon’ memes.

Slime-bro was staring at me, wide-eyed, shaking with excitement at the thought of it – come to think of it, were those even really eyes? Once I covered neurophysiology and the intricacies of vision, could he alter even that as well?

“You’re right,” I said, returning to the task at hand. “But this Slime membrane is not all! What I have here are ten eldritch solutions of legendary power!”

With a flourish, I unveiled the solutions I had prepared for them. Slime-bro hopped over, inspecting them for himself, before giving a self-assured little bounce. Smart little Slime probably figured out what today’s activity would be.

“For today, I want you two to work as a pair. Look around the village for Slimes, capture them, and immerse them in these mystery solutions that I have prepared. From there, deduce whether each solution is hypotonic, isotonic, or hypertonic relative to the inner composition of the Slime. Make use of what you have learnt about solute concentrations and water potentials! And don’t cheat or try to make up the results at random, because I’ll know! Go!”

Slime-bro leapt off the table at once, but Kylan continued staring at me.

“Wait,” he said, furrowing his brows. “Uhh… maybe I’m misunderstanding something about your lesson, but if water keeps entering the slime, then…”

I grinned expectantly. He was picking up concepts fast!

“… you blow them up?” Kylan asked incredulously, then whirled toward Slime-bro. “How are you okay with this? Aren’t they your friends?”

Slime-bro mimed a shrug.

“It’s kind of how we first met, actually,” I said, a hint of nostalgia entering my voice. A month felt like so long ago. “I was about to explode his little slimy life, when he did Slime-bro things, appealed to my inner sensibilities, and from then on he became my accomplice in carrying out Slime genocide. He even collected his skins for me! Good times, huh?”

“Slurrrrp!” He bobbed up and down rapidly in agreement.

“What in the Five’s blessed names…”

“Well, chop-chop!” I clapped my hands, bringing the instructional briefing to a halt. “Hurry up! If you finish early, I’ll throw in some bonus time blowing stuff up with Bang and Boom for the heck of it!”

“What in the ever-living Hells…” Kylan walked out of our classroom dazed, dragged by the arm by Slime-bro.

“Good luck, and have fun!” I shouted out after them as they left.

Ah, joy. By the day’s end, I could guarantee that Kylan would be hit by the biology bug. There was just something so primally satisfying about hearing those Slimes go ‘pop’.

-x-x-x-

Kylan was annoyed.

“This is a waste of time,” he complained, poking his head through some foliage in search of slimes.

For the past three days, he had done nothing beyond attending Eric’s so-called ‘lessons’, eating, sleeping, and washing up. That slavedriver of a [Biologist] was somehow able to continue speaking for hours on end, never once letting that enthusiasm of his waver, and Kylan was half-suspecting a skill’s influence. He doubted even the royal tutors in the capital city of Everach had as much eagerness as Eric did.

The intensity that Eric displayed was perturbing, and more exhausting than practising knife-juggling or tricks with [Sleight of Hand], but it was not exactly annoying, per se.

The real reason why Kylan was annoyed was because against all rationality, and despite the fact that Kylan couldn’t understand a word Eric said half the time, he was learning.

In isolation, everything he said was meaningless. The idea of an atom or an ion sounded interesting, but it was just that – an idea. Eric had no means of proving that such a thing was real, even though he insisted that it had been laid down as fact through thousands of years of experimentation and refinement of the theory from the world he came from. After the first lesson, Kylan had been ready to call it quits, perhaps head back to Hawksmoor on his own, but then he had attended his next lesson.

Then the third, the fourth, and the fifth.

Slowly but surely, the pieces began to fit together. Much like how Aksal’s wild claims about Eric the [Biologist] had sounded unreal at first, the topics covered in the lessons simply matched too well for them to be mere coincidences. He wouldn’t pretend to understand even half of what had been taught in the lessons, but when ignoring the minutiae and technical terms involved, the underlying concepts made sense.

But more than that, he was curious. Eric had made the impossible happen – at a mere Level Eight, without using a [Cleric] skill, he had somehow halted the curse inflicted on the villager three days ago. Gloria, the town’s local [Cleric], had confirmed as much – the curse had not been removed, merely stalled while Gloria had healed him, and Caleb had since been sent to more senior [Priests] to have the curse dispelled.

Eric had tried explaining what he had done, but beyond ‘proteins’ that Kylan was still struggling to get his head around, and something about a ‘coagulation cascade’ and ‘haemostasis’, Kylan had understood nothing from the explanation he had given to their little group and the townsfolk. Still, the villagers had been grateful for his assistance, and for the past few days had showed them plenty of hospitality.

For all the otherworldly knowledge in his brain, however, Eric was also an idiot. A dense, extraordinary idiot.

Case in point: even now, while Kylan was digging his head in the undergrowth, half-heartedly poking around for Slimes, he could hear townsfolk gossiping about the latest subject of their curiosity. There was a chance that Eric was simply pretending not to know about the rumours surrounding himself, but considering it was Eric, it was probably far more likely that he simply didn’t care about anything if it didn’t pertain to his obsession over biology.

Shame. There had been some outlandishly good ones as well; that Eric was some refugee [Warpriest] fleeing from the demon invasion of Tennall, and was now hiding out in Everach pretending to be some low-levelled member of the imaginary [Biologist] class. There was one version where the invasion had broken his mind, explaining why nothing but nonsensical words left his lips, and why he had been able to counteract the curse because his skills had remained intact, even if his mind had not. According to that rumour, it was why he spoke to the slime who always followed after him, believing it to be the apparition of one of his fallen comrades haunting his waking moments.

As blind as Eric was to the attention of others, he didn’t even seem to notice the looks of pity the villagers shot him in the rare occasions that he and Slime-bro wandered around the village. Kylan would have informed him, but he was too amused by the whole situation to much care.

There was also one strange rumour circulating about that he was a legendary [Sword Saint] who was able to single-handedly split a manticore’s spine in two – a feat reserved only for high-levelled [Warriors]. Considering how scrawny and averse to battle the [Biologist] was, Kylan had no idea how that rumour even originated.

Kylan snickered to himself. Perhaps once he got to Grynasar, he should start spreading some increasingly over-the-top rumours about Eric as well, and see how long it would take for the [Biologist] to notice. It would be payback for all these lessons.

Then, he felt something nudge him from the side. Stiffening, he leapt out of the bush, spinning around, only to come face to face with…

Nothing?

“Meerp!”

He looked down. Slime-bro was there, hopping excitedly on the spot, and behind him…

“What in the Five –“

There were at least two dozen Slimes naively bouncing around behind him, completely oblivious to the fact that they had been betrayed by one of their own kin to whatever horrible fate Eric had in store for them.

“How?!” he asked, incredulous. “I’ve been searching for over twenty minutes now!”

Slime-bro tilted to one side, staring at him, before wiggling his entire body. Kylan didn’t know what it meant about his sanity that he could now interpret that gesture as the equivalent of shrugging.

Slime-bro extended a little stump of an arm outward, pointing to the mystery solutions that Eric had prepared for this stupid exercise of theirs. “Slurrp!”

“This is so stupid,” he protested. “Wait, you’re a slime too, aren’t you? Can’t you just cheat and test these solutions with your own body?”

Slime-bro frowned. “Mee-merp!”

… how had his life decisions led him this way, where he was now being chastised by an intelligent slime, of all things?

“Let’s just get this over with,” he complained, grabbing one of the slimes. Poor thing didn’t even know what was happening to it, still contentedly swaying about as Kylan held it over a large vat of colourless liquid. “Well, good luck to you.”

He let go, and it fell into the liquid.

It continued trying to bounce on the spot, despite being half-submerged in the liquid, growing ever-so-slowly larger, and then –

Pop!

It burst into nothingness. Heh.

“Well, that’s osmosis and turgor pressure for you, I guess.” He shrugged, nodding to himself. “Maybe the next slime will be –“

He paused for a moment, as that thought sank in.

“Deities damn it,” he swore. “Why am I even thinking that?”

“Yee-yerp! Yee-yerp!”

Slime-bro began cackling, nodding encouragingly at him. For an instant, staring at Slime-bro, the resemblance to the madman of a [Biologist] was uncanny.

“I swear, Eric is such a bad influence on you.” Still, he reached over to the next unsuspecting slime. “Well, maybe you’ll be lucky and get a concentrated salt solution or something, hmm?”

Pop!

“Slurrrp!”

“Damn. Well, here’s the next one –“

Pop!

“Bad luck for you, maybe you’ll be luckier?”

Pop!

“… are you serious?”

Pop!

“I swear, if this one explodes as well –“

Pop!

“Okay, there’s no way it’ll be the same result seven times in a row –“

Pop!

“ARE ALL OF THESE JUST PURE WATER?!”

Slime-bro laughed, stretched out a pair of little arm-like stumps, and began tossing in Slimes two at a time into the remaining vats.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

“Hey, we’ve got all ten now, you don’t need to –“

Pop! Pop-pop! Pop! Pop! Pop-pop!

“By the Five…”

Pop! Pop-pop-pop!

Kylan watched, amazed, disgusted, fascinated, and more than a little terrified, as Slime-bro left a single survivor behind. He deliberated for a moment, before giving a firm bounce, and made an odd gesture toward Kylan.

“…you want me to have this one?”

“Meeerep!”

“…why?” he asked helplessly.

Slime-bro hesitated for a moment, but then stretched out a small arm-like bud, scratching something into the dirt. Kylan knelt over, curious as to what he was doing.

It spoke wonders that the fact that a slime was writing no longer surprised him. Three days had been enough to turn what he knew of the world completely upside down.

The writing was atrocious, and almost impossible to decipher, but…

“Friend?” he asked uncertainly, even though Slime-bro had spelt it as ‘firnedz’.

Slime-bro nodded happily. “SLURRRP!”

He hesitated for a moment – but then stepped forward. “Give me that,” he said, snatching that slime. “Last pop is mine.”

Pop!

Though he had complained about how this ‘practical class’ was pointless – especially since every solution turned out to be identical anyway – he couldn’t deny feeling some strange sense of satisfaction seeing that last slime explode, and being able to explain why that was so.

Maybe there was some truth to this biology business after all.

-x-x-x-

I had been pretty busy the past few days creating and editing the lesson plans for my students, especially since I was now determined to compact the lessons into a shorter time than the original schedule. Some of my free time had been spent playing around with the manticore spine that Aksal had retrieved, but I had made little progress at all on that front.

What I did manage to do was test out [Manipulate Protein] on its structure. Indeed, with the skill, I had been able to counteract whatever magical form of energy it was that kept the system in that unnatural state of higher free energy, distorting the protein structure.

My hypothesis had been that magic could counteract magic – in the same way that I had temporarily nullified the curse acting on the clotting cascade – and that once this force was nullified, the biology, chemistry, and physics I was used to would once more reassert themselves. To my surprise, however, once I lifted my skill’s effects, the structure simply reverted to the way it had been, in the same way that a stretched spring returned to its original length.

With Aksal’s help, most of the venom had been washed and cleaned from the quill, and I had been given permission to touch it. Repeating that same procedure, it became clear that the hardness of the quill decreased dramatically while I was opposing its effects, to the point where I had been able to get a passing villager to break it into two separate pieces with a sword in this more natural protein structure. Once I stopped using my skill, however, they once more became unbreakable.

I grimaced at that memory, embarrassed. Stupid! From the expression on his face, I had to have scared off the villager with that display of my skill. He had run off almost immediately, saying something about how he would ‘let everyone know at once’, and though I had been terrified of a lynch mob coming after me, nothing had happened over the next day.

I had then attempted the reverse – to alter the conformation of keratin in a strand of hair into something unnatural. I had chosen to begin with something basic, and altered the torsion angle at a series of phi angles along the polypeptide backbone. The theory was simple: free energy increased when chemical groups eclipsed one another at a bond, which made the Ramachandran plot as beautiful as it was in visualising the energetically favourable regions of phi and psi bonds in protein structure.

With [Manipulate Protein], I had been able to do just that – however, it was only a temporary effect, reverting shortly after I released my skill, and was extremely costly to what mana I had. Considering I had absolutely no clue what sort of modified structure would impart some useful property to a protein of my choice, I figured that at present this application of the skill would be limited at best.

What I needed was to find a way to synthesise a polypeptide with the exact same sequence as what I was now calling ‘magical peptides’. From there, with identical primary structures, I could then more easily refer to the magical variant as a model, and use my own skills to sculpt the non-magical version into something magical, temporary though that may be.

For that, I would need to find a way to synthesise peptides in bulk, in a world without recombinant DNA technology, or find a magical variant of a mundane protein. At present, however, I was out of luck.

That being said – now that I knew [Manipulate Protein] was capable of such biochemistry-defying abilities, new possibilities lay in store. I could probably replicate the goblin shaman’s curse, although its effects would only stay for as long as I continued dumping truckloads of mana into the spell, and if I remained in close enough a range to practically touch the target. Considering my fragility, that didn’t sound like a good idea.

For now, I was temporarily putting that on hold, waiting for new inspiration to strike on that front. With more examples of such ‘magical proteins’, as well as more examples of skills whose mechanisms of action relied on specifically magically altering individual or few proteins, [Manipulate Protein] might be able to see significantly more use.

Of course, I was also hoping that I would gain some new levels, so that I could get some sweet, sweet skills. It would be beyond convenient if I suddenly earned a skill to rewrite the genetic material of any organism of my choice into whatever sequence I so desired.

Unfortunately, that only happened in the world of isekai protagonists, and I was very much a side character. Perhaps even an NPC – I was, in some respects, a quest giver, now that the bounty had been posted on dealing with the manticore threat.

Come to think of it, what was Shinya up to these days? Last I remembered, he had been dealing with bandits with his party somewhere. Was it now into the second volume of his light novel adventure? Had he yet found his love interest? Did he happen to somehow abolish slavery somewhere?

I couldn’t help it – without endless amounts of isekai material to consume as I once had, I could only live vicariously through Shinya’s adventures.

No time to think about that right now, though – Aksal was arriving at the inn, having spent much of the morning writing and rewriting his proposal to the Alchemist’s Guild regarding the vaccine issue. I waved at him, beckoning him over.

It was pretty clear that he had been stressing over his ambitious goal of ridding Vergence of their mystery poxvirus, and how his proposal would be met by members of the Guild that he hadn’t met for a long time. As the journey to Grynasar drew nearer and nearer, the man was becoming more nervous that he couldn’t hold up to all the promises he had made to me.

Still, all I needed was a lab, a decent amount of coin, and the right to freely roam about to freeload – ahem, draw inspiration from the works of others, and see what new levels of bullshit biology Vergence had to offer.

“So, about this manticore business,” I said to Aksal, once he joined me at the table. Hopefully, Kylan and Slime-bro were having fun at the task I had prepared for them. “You know, you never did answer my question on what manticores looked like.”

Though the book I had taken from Everach after the summoning had given brief details about a variety of creatures ranging from Fire Eels to Drakes, there hadn’t been any information on the topic of manticores in them. Were they the mythological variant, the fantasy version, or something else entirely?

Manticore, after all, simply derived from ancient Persian to mean ‘man-eater’, and, well… that descriptor applied to hundreds of different mythical beasts of legend, really. With that line of logic, almost anything could be a manticore.

Aksal stared at me, nonplussed. “Well, every manticore is different, aren’t they?”

Huh. Didn’t figure Aksal to be the philosophical type. “Well, sure, I guess; I mean, no two humans are ever alike, but I was asking more in terms of a –“

“Ah,” Aksal cut in, understanding setting in. “Let me stop you right there. Beyond the tail of venomous barbs, no two manticores are the same. One may bear the head of a bear, and another a human, yet another an owl; a body of a lion or that of an elk; the wings of a bat or those of a winged serpent. Some are winged, and some are wingless. In fact, one might possess both the paw of a bear and a tiger!”

“…what?”

That made no sense at all. Beyond the fact that I couldn’t fathom how a single creature could bear characteristics of multiple different species, how could it be that the features were, apparently, randomised as well? How could something like that even develop embryologically? Forget the implications that such a manticore would have on patterning and development – in the first place, what did its genetic material even look like?

“They are also known as the chimaeras,” Aksal supplied helpfully, because apparently this world was keen on combining Greek and Persian mythology. “It is said that the first time one was encountered, it bore a lion’s head, but also possessed the head of a female goat protruding from its back, with the tail itself being a long serpent out of which quills were grown. According to the legend, it ate a man whole, and when the beast was finally cut down, the broken and bloodied remains of a human body were still present inside it, even though it had been months since its first kill.”

I remained silent, staring at him. Had Vergence just butchered all of Earth’s ancient mythology? Or did it work the other way round, since Earth had no such creatures to begin with? And just how believable were these legends, anyway?

“Of course, though each part of the creature is dangerous, it is no more a threat than the beast it is derived from. In the luckiest case, its form may be no more threatening than that of a wolpertinger, albeit larger,” Aksal continued, oblivious to how much his words was throwing what I thought I knew about biology for a loop. “If the manticore bears the features of the most fearsome of beasts, however, their combined power can be formidable indeed, which is why trained adventurers are sent in for all suspected manticore sightings – in the old legends, some were even said to breathe flames as a Fire Drake might. Some manticores can even possess the traits of dozens of creatures, but most typically only have four or five constituents.”

…yeah. So even the number was random. At this point, I wasn’t even surprised. From the looks of it, I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if it turned out that manticores were just procedurally generated creatures.

“But make no mistake: what makes a manticore truly dangerous is its barbed tail, and the rows of fanged teeth sharp and powerful enough to rend an untrained man’s flesh to ribbons. A team of lucky rookie adventurers may be able to defeat a weaker manticore on their own, but one can never know what type of manticore it will be until seeing it with their own eyes.”

He paused for a moment, thinking over what he had already told me, then clapped his hands. “Oh! It is common knowledge, but the end of a tail of a manticore is, in fact, also a head – it is said that one manticore a hundred years ago bore the head of a lion on either end, and many brave adventurers had died while trying to slay the beast, because the spines adorning the tail looked so much like a lion’s mane that they couldn’t focus on which head was front, and which head was back.”

Yep. Manticores were bullshit.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Except for the facts that they consist of parts of different animals put together, that they all share a tail that ends in a head – a head of any creature, I might add – with venomous spines that come off from the tail, and that their real head has powerful teeth, there is pretty much nothing else in common between different manticores-slash-chimaeras?”

Aksal nodded.

“How did anyone ever decide that that was a good basis to classify them as a common species?” I complained, frustrated. “Hell, does anyone even know how they actually breed?”

Aksal shrugged. “It is what it is, friend,” he said. “And… yes; though it is believed manticores quickly abandon their spawn to fend for themselves soon after birth, there have been records of previous adventurers who successfully tracked the beasts down to their lairs finding at least one pup along with them. Such cases are exceedingly rare, however. Manticores tend to be solitary creatures.” He paused. “And yes, before you ask, their young do not share similarities there as well.”

“Great. Just great.” I sighed. “And here I thought biology was finally starting to make some sense.”

“I’m sure you will figure it out. You have already used the knowledge of your world to achieve things I had never thought possible.”

“Well, hopefully I’ll be able to get some new insights once those adventurers get here and we have a look at that manticore for ourselves –“

“Have a look –“ Aksal repeated, interrupting me mid-sentence, his eyes wide. “Eric, you cannot possibly be thinking of trying to fight that manticore yourself!”

“Oh, I won’t be doing any fighting! I’ll just stay back and observe, like a good old escort quest NPC!” I promised. Then, I narrowed my eyes with suspicion, feeling betrayed. “Wait… were you planning for us to just wait here while I let the chance of meeting a manticore slip past?”

“Eric, you must see reason! A manticore is a formidable foe, and there is no guarantee that –“

I fished out a copy of the agreement that Aksal had created, following our discussion just earlier in the week that had convinced me to embark on the journey to Grynasar. Luckily for me, I had insisted for it to be put in writing. “Let me remind you of condition three,” I said, pointing. “Eric Zhang hereby reserves the right to take detours straying away from the main path to Grynasar, so long as the vaccine arrives before becoming non-viable.”

“But Eric –“

“Besides,” I said, frowning. “If those adventurers don’t arrive soon, we’ll have no choice but to leave town with them, and have them escort us to Grynasar to save some time. The original plan was to make it to Grynasar in two weeks, but we’ve already lost four days, now. With the delays to our journey, I’m already starting to worry that the vaccine might be partially degraded if we wait for them to slay the manticore and return here before we depart.”

“But that…”

“Oh, lighten up,” I said, grinning. “Where’s your sense of adventure? How can you hope to make great discoveries if you don’t take risks? You think that Marshall and Warren would have won the Nobel Prize if Barry Marshall hadn’t been brave enough to say ‘screw it, we’re doing this live!’ and drink a broth of cultured Helicobacter pylori just to prove their hypothesis, after they had been ridiculed and rejected for years?”

“The – what?”

“Ho, boy. You’re really missing out on the best parts of life.” I chuckled. “One of these days, you’ll be one of those old farts unable to keep up with the kids’ lingo once I manage to get Kylan and Slime-bro to become acceptable biologists.”

Aksal looked lost in the conversation, staring at me nonplussed. Finally, he spoke. “You’re right, of course.” He sighed, defeated. “I’ll have a second look at the map and see I can find any more hints about where the manticore may have retreated to.”

I waved cheerfully at him as he departed. Manticore, here we come! If we got lucky, we could have a second lead to chase up on once we reached Grynasar!

“…ARE ALL OF THESE JUST PURE WATER?”

Right on schedule, I heard Kylan shout in frustration. I was impressed! That was faster than I had expected!

Well, then. Best not keep them waiting. After giving them a tease of what practical biology had to offer, I could hardly withhold my offer of blowing stuff up for the fun of it. They deserved a little treat for all the hard work they had put in so far!

Besides, now that we were all friends, and since this was a world of magic, there was something I had been looking forward to doing with Bang and Boom, a waste of precious resources though naysayers might claim it to be. I’d always enjoyed this particular scene of that movie, and it would introduce my two students to some of Earth’s culture as well…

-x-x-x-

“Is that the village that issued the request up ahead?”

Finn Deyland took a quick glance at the map in his hands, looked skyward for a moment, before affirming. “That is Willowdale, indeed.”

Shinya Haruto, Level 25 [Sword Saint], gave a thankful nod at his companion. The [Pathfinder] had extraordinary skills with tracking, orienteering, and archery, and his talents had been critical in allowing their party to overcome the many challenges they had faced together over the past month. Even though the settlement was but a blur in the distance, Finn’s astute senses allowed him to see far beyond what the others in their group could.

It was hard to believe that just slightly more than a month ago, Shinya had been just an average person about to begin university studies. Now, he had responsibilities – the shining mark upon his hand was proof of that – and he had the power to uphold them.

“Let’s not keep them waiting, then,” he said. He gave a quick glance toward the other two members of his party. “Alicia, Celeste, are you two alright to keep going?”

Alicia Everach, crown princess of the Kingdom of Everach, nodded firmly, eyes sharp and focused. Having been thrust into a position of responsibility from the time she had been a child, the [Ice Knight] was dedicated to protecting the lives of her future subjects. “Let us make haste.”

Likewise, Celeste gave a quiet word of agreement. Still, Shinya was concerned about Celeste.

As a member of the house of Grynas – the leaders of the city of Grynasar, whose ancestors had come to the assistance of Everach centuries past – many had expected her to become an [Artificer] just as others in her family had been for generations. Instead, she had received her class as a [White Mage], one of the rare hybrid classes possessing skills of the [Mage] and [Priest] archetypes.

And even though it had been generations since the ancient elven hero had been summoned to fight the war against a past Demon Lord, part of his elven heritage had manifested itself within her, something that had not happened for past generations in their family. Many had expected greatness from her, to become a mighty adventurer the likes the Hero of Grynas had been, but Shinya knew that Celeste doubted her own strength. She was Level 22 – a force to be reckoned with, certainly, but currently the lowest-levelled member of their party, having been quickly overtaken by Shinya during the past month that they had adventured together.

In some ways, this request was convenient. They had already toured most of the southern regions of Everach, and put down threats to the kingdom. The request from the village of Willowdale to track and eliminate a manticore in the area would allow them to head further north, solve more of the kingdom’s issues, and both increase their own levels in the process, as well as ensure that the kingdom would not be plagued by internal issues when the demons finally began to march down south toward Everach.

He clenched his fists at that thought. He yearned to defeat the Demon Lord, to join in the war effort up north in Tennall, but King Everach had refused his requests, stating that he was not yet ready, and that he needed to first become stronger.

It irked him that people were fighting for their lives in the neighbouring kingdom while he stood by the side-lines, but deep down, he knew the king was right. He was only Level 25 – while a respectable level, it was by no means the highest among the adventurers of Everach – and he would never be able to face the legions of demons with his current power.

News from Tennall was scarce, since Raubok’s Crossing to the north that joined the two kingdoms was fraught with danger, both in the form of ferocious beasts, as well as the demon forces seeking to cut off Tennall from potential allies. Still, he knew that Tennall had summoned their own hero – an [Amazon] by the name of Elise Swiftwind, who apparently hailed not from Earth like himself, but instead from an entirely separate world known as Resham. It was only her might and the inspiration she gave the soldiers of Tennall that prevented them from losing more ground than they already had.

He needed to become stronger as well. Determined, Shinya kept his mind focussed on his current destination –

“Wait.” At Finn’s curt word and raised fist, the party halted immediately. “Do you hear that?”

Shinya strained his ears. It was quiet, but then –

Thump!

“What is it?” Alicia’s sword and shield were held out in a guarded stance, eyes tense and wary. Shinya immediately positioned himself by her opposite flank, the party fanning into a practiced formation, with the two more vulnerable members protected from harm.

“You don’t think it’s the manticore?” Celeste spoke, worried.

“What?” Alicia whirled around immediately, her usual poise broken. “Then we need to move!”

“Calm down, princess,” Finn spoke, craning his head as he attuned to the sound, before bending over and placing a hand to the ground. “You as well, Lady Grynas. An adult manticore is far stealthier in its kills. This… this feels more like a –“

Then, in the distance, there was a bright flash of light, before another tremor came.

“What is it?” Shinya asked, taking charge, his blade at the ready as he eyed that direction warily. “An attack?”

Finn pursed his lips. “If I would hazard a guess, it is akin to one of your [Firebolts],” he said, tilting his head marginally at Celeste. “We should approach with caution.”

“But if there is something attacking the village –“

“Do not fret, Hero Shinya. Willowdale still appears safe, and if there was an attack, there would be much more panic.”

“But then… what is it?” Celeste asked.

“Let us see for ourselves.” Finn beckoned them over, straying off the main road. As an expert in tracking, he was likewise skilled in stealth and scouting. “Follow me. Make not a sound.”

Shinya still had his doubts and fears – if there was an attack, how could he as Everach’s summoned hero just stand by? – but he trusted Finn’s judgment. Quietly, their party crept onward, using the cover of shadows cast by the rocky terrain lining the road north to avoid unwanted eyes.

Then, finally, as they cleared another section of hilly terrain –

“That’s stupid,” Shinya heard one voice complain, clearly annoyed. “Why are we even doing this? This is just a waste of time and supplies!”

“Hey, you and Slime-bro already had your fun with my Bang and Boom, now you’ve got to reciprocate! Besides, it’s a cultural experience!”

That voice… it sounded strangely familiar…

He glanced at the others. Finn held a finger up in a gesture for silence, before pointing toward the side, and made a quick gesture for them to hide, climb, and observe whoever was speaking.

“By the Five,” the first one began to speak again. “I swear, it’s not just you. All your people are insane.”

“Sure, sure; just continue already! You should be happy I’m not asking you to redo the entire scene from scratch!”

Shinya moved quietly, the two mysterious people still hidden from view. Finn, as the most dextrous of them all, was already out of sight.

“Just do it already…”

“Alright, Slime-bro, you’re up! Action!”

There was a pause, and then –

BOOM!

An explosion rattled the rocky terrain, clumps of dirt and loose stone shaken loose, alongside a bright flash of light. Then, there was a second series of smaller explosions that were noticeably weaker, but emanating from multiple locations.

What?!

The first man coughed, before speaking in a dry monotone, clearly unamused. “I don’t want to waste any more of your time, O’ Tim the Enchanter, but I don’t suppose you could tell us where we might find a, uh –“

A pause.

The second man spoke, his voice harsh. “A grail?!”

By now, Shinya had climbed up, and could see just what manner of oddity was taking place. There, standing at the very top of the hill –

… was that Eric? That was his name, right? That scientist who had been summoned to Vergence by mistake alongside himself? The [Biologist]?

What was he doing here?

“Yes. I think so.”

“Man, you’re skipping some lines there, Kylan,” Eric complained, his tone suddenly switching as he broke character, loosening his grip on the staff-like stick in his hands. “How are we going to make a good impression in Grynasar if you muck up Monty Python?”

“Just get on with it…”

Shinya stared at the odd pair, completely bewildered. Turning around, it was clear that the others of his party were likewise lost, even the normally unflappable Finn. He pointed off to the side, and Shinya followed his gaze –

Was that a slime?

…and was that slime holding a miniature burning torch, waiting beside a wick, that was being fed to a small canister of strange powder?

“Shinya,” Celeste whispered behind him, sounding confused. “That man was the one we met in Everach, right? The one that left with Tycelius?”

“Yes…?” he answered, sounding uncertain even to himself. Wasn’t he supposed to be a scientist? What was this eccentric performance of his?

“Shinya,” Alicia hissed. “What is going on here?”

“I don’t –“

Eric inhaled deeply, before his voice turned deep and gravelly once more – comically so, as he emphasised every other word. “Yes, I can help you find the Holy Grail! To the north lies a cave – the cave of Caerbannog – wherein, carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of Olfin Bedwere of Rheged –“

He paused, giving a thumbs up toward the slime. That slime saluted – how, Shinya didn’t know – before setting the wick alight. There was a long, awkward pause, as the flame gradually burned toward the canister of powder, Eric maintaining his intense stare at the boy opposite him the entire time –

BOOM!

“ – make plain the last resting place of the most Holy Grail!”

“Where could we find this place, O’ Tim?”

“Follow!” Eric cried out, turning around.

The boy took a step forward, before Eric spun on the spot, leaning in. “But! Follow only if ye be men of valour, for the entrance to this cave is guarded by a creature so foul, so cruel that no man yet has fought with it and lived! Bones of full fifty men lie strewn about its lair! So, brave knights, if you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth!”

And then, Eric laughed heartily, beckoning that strange slime over. “How was that, Slime-bro? Pretty cool, huh?”

“Meerrrp!”

“Heh, if you liked that, wait till I tell you two about the one with the village witch,” Eric said, chuckling, before reciting once more. “‘Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?’ That always gets me!”

“Finally,” the boy complained. “I swear, you’re just wasting all your Bang and Boom.”

“Ehh, I can make plenty more once we get to Grynasar and get our lab started,” Eric said, shrugging. “You know, in the next scene, it turns out that the beast is just a killer rabbit; wouldn’t it be funny if our mystery manticore was the same?” He paused. “Oops. Spoilers. Well, better get going, Kylan, I’m pretty sure Aksal’s –“

It was at that moment that Eric turned around, made eye contact with the four members of Shinya’s party – after seeing that strange display first-hand, they no longer saw a need to hide themselves – and fell silent immediately. In a brief instant, fleeting surprise, confusion, and realisation set in across Eric’s face.

For a long moment, Eric just stared at the four of them, his eyes widening with each passing second.

“What is it now?” the boy – Kylan – looked over at Eric, annoyed. “Stop daydreaming and let’s –“

Then, he too fell silent, his gaze falling upon the shining mark of the Hero upon the back of Shinya’s hand, before looking at each of his other companions in turn.

“Oh.”

Shinya exchanged glances with his companions. They were all just as baffled as he was, and so it came down to him to take charge. “… Eric?”

“Um. Welcome to Willowdale, O’ brave Heroes of Everach!” Eric finally spoke, before his expression turned sheepish. “…I can explain?”