A seemingly innocent pair of eyes observe me as something inside of me screams to run away.

It's just a human girl, but for some reason, the concentration of mana in her body is more than anything I have ever encountered.

Without even bothering to analyze her, I turn around and start sprinting away.

...or so I intended to do.

However, the moment I turned around, she appeared in front of me again.

"So beautiful!"

In the split second as I'm deciding what to do, she disappears.

And at the same moment, I feel something touch my tail.

"Ooh! It's so fluffy!"

In reaction to that, I violently swing my tail in hopes of hitting her.

But I feel no impact.

"Hey hey!

I'll keep you as a pet!"

This time, her voice comes from my left.

I quickly turn my head, only to spot an empty space where she was supposed to be.

"Wha-..."

"Oh!

You can talk?"

As I'm turning my head back right, I see her face right next to mine, which prompts me to jump back in surprise.

After landing, I look where she was standing...and find her standing there.

She finally stopped...teleporting...?

"Who...are you...?"

As I say that, I take the moment and analyze her.

Type: Monster

Name: Lily

Gender: -

Race: Void slime (The final remnant)

Status: Excited

Level: 8762

Health: 612756724/612756724

Mana: 578753021/578753021

W...

What the hell?!

That's too many numbers in the health and mana sections!

How much is that?!

"I'm Lily!

What's your name?"

And she's not even a human...

And not even a 'she'...

"R...Reiza..."

"Oh, hello Reiza!"

A slime...?

What is this 'final remnant'...?

It's like my 'prodigy'...

What does it mean?

What do I-

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

?!

As she said that, she instantly moved right in front of me and tilted her head.

...

"What...do you want...?"

Although I know it's pointless, I'm still keeping my guard as I ask her.

"Be my pet!

Or no...let's be friends!"

...what is this slime even talking about?

"Friends...?"

"Yes!

Friends!

You are beautiful!

You must become my friend!"

What kind of logic is that?

...but I feel like I can't decline.

Something tells me she is way stronger than anything I have ever encountered.

If I make one wrong move, she might-

"Hey...

You don't want to?"

Her smile turned upside down and she looked at me with sad eyes.

It looked like she was genuinely sad, but something felt way off.

"No...umm...

Sure...?

Let's be...friends?"

"Hooray!

My first ever friend!"

She put her arms up into the air as she made a little dance.

However, it didn't stop me from still feeling uneasy.

"Hey!

Now that we are friends, let's go have fun!"

"...have fun?"

"Yes yes!

Over there is a beautiful bed of flowers!

Let's go there!"

She pointed somewhere away from the cursed forest.

I looked in that direction, but all I could see was just more wasteland.

"Flowers...?

"Ohh...

Is it too far for you?

I'll bring them here then!"

And then she disappeared.

...

Looking around, she is completely gone.

This is my chance to get away...

But I doubt I can.

She can teleport after all.

I would get caught again in no time.

...

But maybe if I hide well enough...

No, she would still-

"I'm back!"

...too late now...

"Here you go!"

Out of nowhere, a giant bed of flowers appeared all around me.

The rocks and sand have been replaced by dirt and grass with various kinds of flowers growing on top of it.

"Wha-"

"Do you like it?"

What the hell...?

This...isn't an illusion.

Phantom magic...?

No...these are real.

Did she literally bring back the bed of flowers?

How in the...

"You don't...?"

When I looked back at her, the smile in her face was gone.

And at the same time, I felt that if her mood got any worse, something unpleasant would happen.

"N-no...

They are...nice..."

"Hmm...

Oh! I know!

I'll give you this!"

Too quick for my eyes to follow, a sculpture made of ice abruptly appeared to her left.

It was so sudden, it made me jump back a bit.

After getting over the surprise, I scanned the icy object...

...and found out it was a big ice statue of...a young female cataclysmic wolfman.

In other words, it's me.

How ludicrous...

This ice is made out of magic, too...

I barely felt any mana being readied.

It was all too quick...

Just how-

"Hey."

As I'm observing the statue, I hear a much deeper and menacing voice behind me.

When I turn around...her expression is completely different.

Her eyes are wide open and her mouth is no longer smiling.

I feel what I haven't felt in a long time....terror.

"Why aren't you having fun?

She is trying so hard and yet...

You don't care at all."

What the hell happened?!

Wasn't she just smiling a second ago?!

"People like you are trash.

You don't appreciate what she does.

You only care about using her."

I tried to open my mouth and say something, but nothing came out.

On top of that, I noticed that my entire body started shaking.

Then, she slowly raises her arm...

And a single ice cold word leaves her mouth as my figure reflected in her eyes...

"Disappear."

The moment she said that, my entire body started falling and my vision blurred.

It was similar to the doors back in the temple.

Except instead of a bright light, I could see a complete garbled mess of colors and objects.

And also unlike these doors, I actually felt a lot of pain running through my body as I fell.

It felt like an eternity until I finally landed on my stomach and the world around me took a reasonable shape.

I bent my arms and tried to push myself up, but right at that moment, I realized I couldn't breathe anymore.

Gasping for breath while looking around me, I remembered something.

[Air bubble]

...

I can breathe again...

After calming down, I got up and finally took a better look around me.

The slime is nowhere near, which is good.

However, the surroundings have taken on a strange shape.

The first thing I notice, is that the concentration of mana in the air is way higher than it should be.

It's actually so high, that I can only see about a fraction of the distance I normally can.

It feels Like a fog made out of pure mana obstructing my vision.

As for the land I'm standing on...the ground beneath me is like a perfectly flat white board.

What's more, I can't see its end in either direction, it apparently extends really far.

But the surface isn't all empty.

There are random objects littered all over the ground.

Weapons, coins, various monster parts and a ton of other bizarre things.

Where...am I?

What is this place?

At that moment, I realize something...

The chalice...

It's...gone.

Did I drop it?

Damn...even though I survived this, I have to kill myself anyway.

Just to see if I failed, I tried to open the status window.

Status screen: Open.

...

But something completely unexpected popped up instead.

Error: Cannot view status of this item in the Alpha plane.

My eyes widened when I saw that.

After all, status screen is something that never ceased to work.

This is as if I suddenly lost control of an entire limb.

Just where did that slime throw me...?

What is this thing saying...?

...

Status screen: Open.

Error: Cannot view status of this item in the Alpha plane.

I'm not even trying to view status of an item...

Or am I the item?

And what's alpha plane?

Numerous questions fill my head as I try to figure this out.

It gives me a really bad feeling...

Should I really kill myself now...?

Will I go back in time like I usually do?

Or should I find another way out first?

After a brief period of pondering, I decide to not be hasty and instead explore this place.

Although I want to hurry up and finish this...something tells me I shouldn't rush it now...

With that, I started walking while continuously creating air bubble to breathe.

I'm still unsure what this place is...

I can't even see the sky.

The fog made out of mana doesn't let me see very far.

Can anything even live in a place like this?

If I didn't know how to create air, I would be doomed as well.

But all the stuff on the ground indicates someone must have left all of it here...right?

A perfectly fine sword doesn't just come into existence by itself...

As I think that, I pick up one of the nearby swords.

I bring it closer to examine it and soon, I'm surprised again.

This is...even better than my other swords, isn't it?

With those thoughts, I decide to compare them and pull out one of my swords.

But again, something unexpected pops up instead.

Error: trying to call NULL.

...

I can't even bring out my swords?

And what the hell is null?

This doesn't make any sense...

Confused even more than previously, I dropped the sword back down and continued walking.

|= One hour later =|

A wall...?

More odd things started to pop up.

I can't see it in its entirety, but this seems to be a long wall.

It wasn't too tall, so I was able to jump on top of it.

And on the other side, I saw numerous buildings.

Or rather, ruins of buildings.

Is this a city?

So there were people here after all?

How did they even survive without air?

...or was this place different some time ago?

Maybe this place used to be habitable, but then something happened...

...

Or...

Maybe...

That slime...

And this entire city...

That...can't be right...

...no...it can...

That slime had insane reserves of mana.

It might have been possible for her...

...

I shake off my thoughts as my back shivers and with a leap, I land inside the walls.

Right away, I notice something nearby.

A human lying face down on the ground.

A corpse.

That's what my thoughts told me when I saw him.

Coming closer and turning him around confirmed that.

The face was completely pale white and the eyes were dead.

When my eyes rose up from the corpse, I noticed more of them.

On the streets, inside houses, everywhere.

With that, my previous theory has been confirmed.

This was once a normal city.

But one day, that slime suddenly teleported it here just like she did with me.

And because this place has no air, everyone died.

...

This is ludicrous...

Is my opponent someone who can teleport an entire city into its doom?

Even if I can go back in time after I die...

What do I do then?

I can't fight it, I have no chance of escaping and hiding from it won't work either...

...

Maybe I can somehow talk myself out of it?

She seemed to be listening at the start.

But then...that happened.

...I probably can't talk to that.

Damn...

What to do?

Bonus:

"Ugh, this is why I didn't want them to meet...

Everything that slime touches, just...goes wrong..."

Seriously though, why is a random slime stronger than a god?

"Who said it's stronger than me?"

Well, you.

You said you can't kill it.

"That's not what I meant..."

Then what did you mean?

"Well I 'can' kill it in theory.

But it's a taboo for gods."

What?

Killing others?

"More or less, yes."

...but killing Reiza over and over with your trials is fine?

"Hey!

That's just playing around!

I'm not killing Reiza out of spite!"

So the taboo is to kill someone out of spite?

Why can't you just play 'games' with that slime as well then?

"This...isn't possible to mask or pretend otherwise.

If my goal is for that slime to be dead, because I want it dead, then it counts as a taboo."

That's...really arbitrary...

And doesn't make much sense...

...just out of curiosity, what happens if you break this taboo?

"My divinity will wither and eventually die, turning me into a mortal again."

Oh...

That's quite severe.

"That's why I can't kill it...

And trapping it became impossible once it learned how to warp to the alpha plane..."

Hmm...