Lestia spread her arms wide, feeling a sense of pleasure from the massacre.

But White did not feel too good about it. Even though his eyes were closed, he could listen in on the final words of the elves through his ears. They weren't pleasant ones.

"...I... I... I..."

White hands trembled unsteadily.

Slaughter.

Screams for help.

The look on Tricia's face when he was abandoned.

Pillow talk with Syviel...

Distorted images surfaced within his mind, even things he had buried deep within.

"I...I...I..."

His eyes opened forcefully, unfocused and looking at his feet. Blood was spilling out of his eyes like a fountain, obscuring his vision heavily.

-Lestia immediately noticed the weird condition of White.

"...Master?"

But he didn't respond.

Falling to his knees, White had turned unconscious just like that. His eye whites were showing on his face, before closing a few seconds later.

Lestia moved closer to him in a panic and bent down to look at him at eye level.

"..."

But... strangely, she felt something else surface up instead of worry.

Character: Lestia. Race Instinct triggered; Monster Instinct has been raised by 10%. [10%]

Character: Lestia. Race Instinct triggered; Monster Instinct has been raised by 10%. [20%]

It was, an irrational and unsatiatable desire to kill White.

Sensing her killing intent, Lestia's hands hardened and became as sharp as a guillotine.

By some kind of intervention from her Master, it had regressed into a weaker form of Monster Instinct; the Monster Aptitude, but had once again evolved back into the Instinct after the continuous use of her Origin; Graveyard Lovers.

This was a clear trend through its use, and Lestia had realized that very quickly through the series of System announcements that informed of her deteriorating condition. The ability to attract the undead, was raising the rate of decay on the lingering ashes of her human consciousness.

It seemed that this was the drawback of using this ability.

Right now, Lestia had returned to her cold and calculative personality. The Lestia that despised humans, and eventually got high off culling the living, because of the mental distortion caused by the Instinct that pushed her to submit to her carnal desires of killing. She would feel less like a human everytime she took a life, and would be rewarded with a surge of euphoria down her entire body.

Killing people and watching the living suffer, that was Lestia's creed for the longest time ever since she lost her humanity in a literal sense.

Even now, her resurging murderous urges were clouding her mind like an unscratchable itch.

...

But she stopped right before she slit his throat. Releasing the strength in her sharpened arm, she moved it down slowly to caress the forehead of White... her fingers brushing against his hair gently.

Character: Lestia. Anomaly occurred; Monster Instinct has been decreased by 8%. [12%]

She blushed, with a red tint on her pale white face. She felt comfortable around White for some reason, something she would have never felt when she had hooked up with men to dispel her boredom in her past life.

Her eyes narrowed in pleasure, and unconsciously raised a light smile when she heard a soft grunt that resulted from the movement of her fingers. That was the only thing left in this world, that made her feel warm inside. It made her feel human again, even for just a short while.

...

Then she stopped again, as her human emotions dissipated every time her fingers left her Master. Her mind began to think coldly once more, as her mellow expression had returned to one as cold as ice.

Truly, Lestia was an emotionally unstable person from the very beginning. The interference from White barely did anything sufficiently therapeutic for her. She was only patched with band-aids, ultimately wearing off because it did not solve the main problem.

She did not have a true sense of belonging.

Not in this world. Not on Earth.

White wasn't truly... a serious object for affection.

She thought to herself.

...Was this misplaced love born from the suspension bridge effect? Both of the souls residing in her Master, did not feel as compatible with her as she had once thought before. Perhaps she had made up qualities that she liked about him, just for the sake of finding a new love to comfort herself with.

...Then was it a lie? Lestia thought to herself with a conflicted look on her face.

But wasn't it proof that she was once human...? That her necrophiliac tendencies were still a twisted derivative from a need to talk to others. Her traumas that were deeply ingrained into her mind for so long, had begun to loosen their shackles on her body from objectifying her love like this. Was this method wrong?

Then, would she continue on like this? An unhealthy form of love, where she could not see the ending of this false attachment. Was this just one of many boyfriends she's had before just to keep her company...? Even White had his own concerns with another woman, there seemed to be hardly a spot for her anymore. She wasn't the type to share a relationship with someone else.

Like her Master had said to her before:

"It's too late, there's no turning back. Memories falsified in someone's head, do not exist in this place. If she disappeared like that, then that only means one thing. The hapiness you sought, did not have a happy ending."

Did he realize that Lestia had developed this mindset of self-denial like White long before...?

The ending... there wasn't one.

Lestia started wondering why she wanted to return to become a human.

Why did she want to protect her Master?

...Why was she calling this person, her Master...?

Weren't humans... an inferior species...?

She didn't have an answer, but she could not stay here any longer...

The elves that had been captured and squeezed dry of any traces of life, turned into skeletons that covered the unceasing fire of the Abomination that was still firing 'sword hands imbued with a fire element'.

Ichiyo's distorted voice came out from all of the mouths of the Abomination, cursing and roaring with laughter. It was mocking someone who seemed to be called "Mai", and was using its lower part of its body to perform a vulgar, thrusting motion.

Not even a minute has passed, and all of the elves-turned-skeletons had perished to ashes.

Lestia stood up again, with White in a princess carry. Despite her frail frame akin to someone who was suffering from malnourishment, she still had more than enough strength to do so. Because this world's physics were based off the stats of an individual, it did not matter to Lestia who had 4,200 Strength Points. It was just her original weight of her Queen Slime's form that was bogging down her equally high Dexterity Points; resulting in Lestia having the average stamina of a female human on Earth befitting her age.

She felt the amount of skeletons being attracted to her graveyard decreasing in number very quickly. The original numbers advantage over the Abomination's insane firepower had been lost. Of course that was the case.

Skeletons and undead monsters were born from the deaths of living creatures that were not of Monsters'. This meant that for a dungeon like the Stalite Caves that was hidden underground in the Schmizula Forest, and wasn't common knowledge because of the obscurity on the surface with the protection of the glass dome, there weren't enough lives to feed the amount of negative energy required to spawn an undead creature.

Lestia did not know this, but the stock of skeletons that had been keeping the assault of the Abomination to a standstill, came from the male elves trapped underground who had collapsed from exhaustion as they overworked themselves to death. She could not map out the entire dungeon in her mind, but she could definitely feel the exhausting amount of undead in this place. She could only teleport them to these graveyard grounds as long as there were still any left.

In the first place, it was considered fortunate that Lestia's Origin had taken place within these caves and not anywhere else. The original Necromancer-class Monster had made these caves as its lair, using its miasma to induce nearby monsters into an undead creature when exposed to it for long enough, usually months. Undead Miasma LV3. Something Lestia had inherited from the Necromancer class. She did not have control over this passive as it wasn't maxed out in level, and would corrupt everything around her slowly into undead creatures.

It all comes down to the concept of the physical manifestation of her soul.

The graveyard was where she had discarded all of her dead human emotions. In their place, undead would sprout, attracted to her experiences of interpersonal relationships with others and her dependency on it. Graveyard Lovers, would also loosely translate to "Graveyard Robbers", implying the need to steal identities from others to satisfy her personal desires. She wanted to stay human, but she hated humans.

...Lestia was, a contradictory existence just like White, in a different sense.

In other words, the protection is finite... We need to leave... I need to... We... no... ughhh...

Lestia clutched her face with an agonizing look cast in her eyes. She was conflicted, even though she had already acknowledged these feelings to be fake. A replacement for her empty heart.

But... somewhere within her still stings. She couldn't keep this relationship clean even now. Their physical interaction back then was still fresh in her mind.

...She couldn't let go.

But she couldn't stay here either. She had a feeling of how her Origin worked, and if all of the undead were wiped out in this place, there was going to be a dangerous drawback to this ability.

Finally coming up with a temporary conclusion to the matter, Lestia decided to bring White along with her for now and ride the Silvain Worm L'althukul waiting underneath their feet with its Burrow and Tunnel Teleportation skills, away from the Abomination.

Incidentally, although she had just acquired this Monster and could speak to it through the passives of the Summoner class, the Tunnel Worm variant did not manage to make out any semblance of intelligent speech, akin to having a snake for a pet. It would follow orders silently and await orders through the use of the Summoner's telepathy-like connection with their summons.

Lestia checked her inventory for recovery items quickly.

She was left with 2 High-Grade Elixirs, and 44 Basic Alchemic Potions that wasn't as effective in battle. It was a potion made through her Alchemy, and as it was dilluted due to the cheap properties of Pomel Grass that she had collected in the caves, it did not heal much beyond 50 HP per piece and required a large volume to be chugged in one go for the recovery to take effect. Besides that, she still had 15 Cure-Poison Elixirs in her inventory she had made from her experiments, but she didn't need it to use it on herself anyway because she held the Passive Skill: Acidic Body Control LV MAX; Poison did not work on her.

Taking one last measure before escaping while the skeleton wall still lasted against the fiery attacks that did not show signs of stopping, Lestia took out one High-Grade Elixir from her Item Bag. Pouring it on top of her head, her slime body absorbed it and restored her HP and MP to full again after the confrontation with Soma.

"I'm... done..."

Lestia took one last look at the rampaging Abomination behind her and bit her lips.

...No... It's impossible. We have to... leave...

Just as she prepared for the Silvain Worm to pick them up from underneath, she picked up a voice coming from the depths of one of the entrances that led to this empty space.

"...I don't think, Master would have wanted you to do that."

"?! You-!"

Lestia picked up a familiar voice.

-?!!!

Without warning, Lestia's arms that were carrying White, were sliced apart from the shoulders.

Health 3,900/4,200

Lestia was shocked at the sudden turn of events, she could not even react with her Slime's Sense that was already maxed out in level. The skeletons could not be used to defend herself appropriately because of this as well. Although Lestia did not feel pain in a Slime's body, her health definitely decreased.

The Silvain Worm that she had tamed immediately burst out from the ground aggressively and curled around Lestia in a radius, as if forming a protective ring against any further attacks. Prioritizing defense instead of retaliating, the monster seemed to set its priorities based on the threat assessment of its opponents and it could sense that the attacker was definitely an extremely powerful one... perhaps even more so than itself, thus it had taken such a defensive stance. It had sensed someone threatening the life of its summoner, and acted on its own without orders to protect Lestia, rattling its body threateningly in an attempt to intimidate the aggressor from getting closer.

Lestia also quickly noticed that White had been snatched away by that person. Her facial expression darkened with displeasure as she noticed who it was that stole him away.

Holding a large two-handed sword, pulsing red as it brushed past Lestia's arms. Clad in a dark-grey plated armor, and strandy, pink-red hair.

...

It was Soma, who had returned from the Soul Forest and had secured White for her own now.

Her eyes was no longer as ferocious and uncontrollable. Instead, tints of sadness stood in place. It seemed that she had finally regained semblance of reason again. Opening her mouth as soon as her posture was regained from the sudden rush, Soma questioned Lestia with a sombre tone...

"...Hey, have you... ever fallen in love, seriously before?"

It was as if, this question was directed towards herself as well, as Soma looked at White's unconscious face with a faint smile.