It finally died.

Ellis breathed out a sigh of relief before he collapsed onto the floor.

Rather than physical exhaustion, he felt mentally drained. All the constant dodging had placed him in a state of perpetual focus. Now that everything was all over, it felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted off his chest.

Without a doubt, that had been his most frustrating battle yet. If it hadn’t been for Ena’s help, then victory would have surely been impossible.

Speaking of which, he looked over towards his partner. The little fox lay sprawled on the ground, her limbs stretched out wide like some sort of furry starfish. Her tongue limply dangled from her opened jaw, while her half-glazed eyes stared absentmindedly at the sky. She had hidden it quite well during the battle, but the constant use of mana had clearly taken a toll on her body.

“Good job, partner,” Ellis spoke as he affectionately patted the top of her head.

“Kyu…” In response, Ena let out a weak cry. Still, her expression had lightened.

He abruptly paused for a moment as a sudden thought came to mind. “By the way, where are the others?”

“Kyu.”

“On the way, huh? Too bad they missed all the action.” Ellis did not actually mean it. In the first place, the wolves probably wouldn’t have been much help. Aside from Umbra, none of them really knew magic. Rather than providing assistance, there was a higher probability that they’d become liabilities instead.

Well, let’s forget about that for now. The thing’s dead and that’s all that really matters. Ellis shook his head and cleared his thoughts. After a few minutes, he lifted himself off the ground and headed towards the corpse. Well, 'corpse' was kind of an overstatement. After all, the creature had quite literally exploded. It didn’t really leave a corpse, at least not in the regular sense.

As he walked, he could see the flesh colored fluids that covered the entire battlefield. At the center of everything was a small crater. Peering into the crater, he took notice of the black spear that was embedded in the ground near the bottom of the crater.

He descended down and approached the epicenter. There, he saw the broken core. It was a dark, crimson red orb with a dirty luster. The spear had neatly sliced through the core, leaving two identical sized halves.

“What’s that?” Ellis suddenly noticed something. He knelt down and rummaged through the ‘corpse’. After a while, he came back out with what looked to be a squishy, transparent ball.

Was this inside the core this whole time? Ellis curiously looked at the ball. There was dirt caked over its surface, but that wasn’t important. It was about half the size of a tennis ball and almost entirely transparent. There was a single, smaller ball embedded deep inside. It was red in color and reflected light much in the same way as glass would.

He pressed down on the ball. It felt soft and springy, almost like dough.

All in all, it looked quite similar to a frog egg.

“That’s an egg.” Grisella’s voice floated to his ears.

He looked up. Ellis watched as the solitary witch slowly made her way down into the crater. Along the way, she accidentally stepped on a puddle of unknown material. Her face scrunched up.

“I still can’t believe you actually managed to kill that thing.”

“Well, I wasn’t alone.” He responded with a smile. Truth be told, he couldn’t quite believe it either.

“Right, but… ah, it’s a bit messy, don’t you think?” she sarcastically stated. At the same time, she pulled out a washcloth and proceeded to wipe her boot.

To his mild amusement, rather than throw away the rag, after she finished, she carefully placed it inside her spatial satchel. There was a certain hint of greed to her actions.

“What is it?” Grisella looked up. She had noticed his weird stare.

“No, nothing.” Ellis shook his head. He then turned back to the ball. “You said this was an egg, right?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “A slime egg.”

“Slimes can have eggs?” It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing he had expected.

“Of course, how else are they supposed to reproduce?” she rolled her eyes and answered as if he had just asked how human babies were made. “Well, even though I say egg, this thing can’t really be considered an offspring. Slimes self-replicate. This is more like a clone, but not quite. Some species of Slime only replicate upon their death. This is one of them.”

“I think I understand… they are kind of similar to cells…”

“Cells?” Grisella tilted her head in confusion. After a brief pause, she shook her head and changed the subject. “By the way, Slimes can usually be identified through the color of their core.”

She pointed at the broken orb on the floor.

“See this here? It’s red, almost like blood. There are approximately forty-eight subspecies of Slime that possess a red core.”

“Forty-eight?” Ellis raised a curious brow. Forty-eight was a lot, and what’s more that was only for the red variants! Were slimes really such a prolific species?

Unperturbed by his surprise, Grisella continued on. “This is a scarlet core with a tinge bit of vermillion in it. If you look closely, the intensity of the red is actually a bit lighter than blood.”

“…” He furrowed his brow. Like hell, I can tell the difference! Do you think I'm neurotic or something?!

Still, considering Grisella’s all too serious expression, he decided not to make a fool of himself. He glared piercingly at the broken core. After a few seconds of trying, Ellis gave up. Instead, he nodded his head and pretended to understand.

“From what I can tell, it should be a Carrion Slime,” Grisella concluded.

“Carrion? As in corpse?”

“Some people also call it that,” she nodded. “Carrions Slimes are the type to feast on corpses. Don’t look so shocked. It’s not actually that bad. In short, they are meat eaters, not actually all that different from a wolf or a human.”

“If you put it like that, it doesn’t sound so gruesome anymore.”

“Carrion Slimes are hunters by nature.” She continued, “They are somewhat rare. Comparatively, they are considerably stronger than most other slime subspecies. They are also one of the rare few that know how to change their shape and size. The calamity-class monster from before was probably a mutation. A stronger variant of an already strong variant.”

Ellis focused his gaze back to the transparent egg in his hand. For all intents and purposes, it looked like an oversized tadpole egg. It was somewhat difficult to comprehend that such a thing once came out of a creature the size of a building.

“Why do you think it got so strong?” he couldn’t help but ask.

Grisella shrugged her shoulders. “Who knows. Maybe its parents were also variants. Maybe it ate something precious or maybe it survived numerous battles, either way, the end result is still the same. It became a calamity class monster. This egg, it originates from a calamity-class monster. The resulting child will definitely be another terrifying creature.”

“Great, another brat to take care of…” Ellis silently grumbled to himself. Still, he decided to keep the thing. After all, leaving such a strong monster here was dangerous. He’d rather have it as a friend than as an enemy.

He consulted with Grisella for a bit longer. Ellis quickly learned that there were no real requirements for the creature’s birth. He simply needed to wait and the child would eventually hatch from the egg.

After some thought, he placed the egg inside a normal leather satchel. Since it was technically a living creature, the egg could not be stored within a spatial artifact.

“…”

“…”

A moment of silence passed. Ellis quickly noticed that Grisella was acting kind of weird. She seemed… fidgety, almost as if she wanted to do something, but she couldn’t. That or she just really needed to pee.

Eventually, after what felt like forever, she finally couldn’t take it any longer. Grisella suddenly took out an empty wooden barrel from within her spatial satchel. She looked at the ground. Her eyes practically glowed.

“The remains of a calamity-class monster… no doubt it will be useful.” The solitary witch mumbled to herself. She briefly looked up at Ellis. A somewhat embarrassed smile floated to her face. “I’ll be busy for a bit.”

With that, she ran off towards the nearest pink puddle. Ellis watched as she bent down and began scooping up the flesh colored remains.

He could only shake his head at such a scene. Greed really is quite unsightly… Still, he had to admit, if that had been something like dragon scales, then he would have probably reacted the same way.

Ellis climbed out of the crater and sat back down on the floor. He took a page from Ena’s book and decided to rest for a little while longer. After a few minutes passed before he suddenly noticed the trees rustling in the distance.

A pack of wolves leapt out of the tree line and madly sprinted towards the campsite. Their bodies exuded with unbridled killing intent. Unfortunately, despite such a dominant display, most of their aura was suppressed by the Slime’s residual intent.

The closer they got to the campsite, the dimmer their killing intent grew. Their expressions also loosened while their speed gradually slowed.

By the time they reached him, the wolves walked with a slight trot. Their hesitation was on clear display.

Ellis recognized the small black wolf that led the disorderly pack. The white discoloration on her ear was a dead giveaway.

“Wight,” he called out to them as he waved his hand. “Umbra, Plush, Cocoa, Tangerine, Cinder, and Cobalt too. You guys are finally here.”

Even before he could fully articulate his words, Wight dashed forward. Her figure momentarily blurred and in the next second, she was suddenly in front of him, with her head buried in his fluid-covered clothes.

She wrinkled her nose but showed no other signs of pulling away. Eventually, he had to be the one to separate. Wight was simply too energetic.

Conveniently, the rest of the wolves had caught up.

Wight took a step back and let out a questioning bark.

Ellis placed a hand on his chin and thought for a moment. “Well, as you can see, the battle’s already over. You guys missed it.”

Wight drooped her head in disappointment, although Ellis did not miss the faint sighs of relief that echoed throughout the pack.

A look of schadenfreude colored his face. Despite everything, a Calamity-class monster was still a bit too much for these guys. Ellis could understand their fear and subsequent relief. As animals, they had a much more concrete grasp on things such as power level and killing intent. It was all due to the miracle known as instinct.

Only Wight had genuinely wanted to fight. Unfortunately, wanting to fight and being able to fight were too completely different concepts. The Calamity Class’s natural suppression had done wonders to slow her down. By the time she got to the battlefield, the battle had already ended.

From the start, she was in a disadvantageous position. Wight was a regular monster that had transformed herself into a variant through sheer hard work. She could not be like Ena, who was descendant from a calamity-class monster (maybe even stronger). Ena possessed a natural resistance to such things. As for Wight, overcoming the wall known as latent talent was still something she had to work on.

After a few seconds of silence, Ellis broke out into an amused smile. He rubbed the crown of Wight’s head and scratched the back of her ear. “Don’t worry so much, that was only one Calamity-Class monster. Rest assured, a certain someone once told me that within this world, strong individuals are as common as weeds in a garden. You’ll eventually get your chance.”

Wight bobbed her head forward. She did not look all that convinced, but still, she chose to believe in her master’s words.

“Well, for now, why don’t you go and take care of Ena.”

She immediately let out a reluctant whine. The little wolf made an expression of clear dissatisfaction.

Ellis awkwardly laughed. “Come on, you two might have a couple of disagreements here and there, but at the end of the day, you’re all still… family.” he lectured, to which Wight could do nothing but obediently sit down and listen. “Besides, Ena worked hard today. Next time, you and I will fight together, but for now, go take care of your big sister.”

The word ‘sister’ felt a bit weird on his tongue. It was a similar incongruity to when he said the word ‘family.’ Inwardly, Ellis had always considered the wolves and Ena to be his family, but up until now, he had never actually verbalized it.

Ellis felt as if he had taken an important step into… something, but he couldn’t quite figure out what that something was. Still, an unknown weight in his heart had suddenly vanished. He was more than satisfied with that.

Wight shuffled her paws for a few seconds, before she imperceptibly nodded her head. She then quietly walked over to the still limp nine-tailed fox.

The rest of the wolf pack looked at each other for a moment and hesitated. Eventually, they tucked their tails in and followed after their leader.

“…”

Seeing them leave, a slight smile floated to Ellis’s face. At the same time, through the corner of his eye, he noticed a group of people slowly approaching.