“Getting death flags is a way of life.”

“Woah, so you’re saying there’s an entire city of monsters nearby?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s where you actually live?”

“We have territory there, yes.”

“... And you’re a...?”

“Patrolman. Me and my associates are tasked with monitoring our respective areas and reporting back to the city about anything alarming we find.”

“Ah.”

So that was what it meant by a ‘duty’ last night. That was the reason why it was so bent on returning. It was his responsibility. As Elaine realized this, she suddenly felt down. She was familiar with a certain kind of mindset – some people would rather die for their duty than to live against it. It had never made sense to her as someone who hadn’t served time or had anything that she valued enough to risk her life for. But was Ss’zsl someone like that?

“Our city is called Lylyc Port. It’s a port city as the name suggests. It’s off to the east, past the forest.”

“You said there’s a human settlement as well, right? What do humans... umm... treat you like?”

“That’s a strange question, Miss Elaine.”

“Ah—well, I, uhh, come from a mountain village so I don’t know much about the outside.”

“Is that so? Pardon me then.”

Elaine and Ss’zsl were resting in the latter’s den. They had just finished a second round of disposing bodies and were quite exhausted. Elaine had pushed herself especially hard so she couldn’t find an appetite to eat with. That was why she ended up striking a conversation with the snake-person, who she had came to learn was actually an intelligent dungeon monster called an ‘Abyss Serpent’.

According to Ss’zsl, in that world some monsters had rallied under the leadership of a powerful monster, who they reverently refer to as ‘King’. The King was unique in that it wanted to live in coexistence with the humans and the other races in that world. To that end, it founded a great city of monsters at a large island to the northeast and began trade with the countries that surrounded them. Eventually, they started to expand, and they purchased lands on almost every continent to set up trade cities and ports.

“Of course it had not been a smooth process. Before we were able to open communications with the other nations, when were still in the middle of building the island city, we were attacked repeatedly by kingdoms that had learned of our activities. Though it was a natural response in their part and I do not begrudge them as a whole, it still set us back quite a bit.”

That was understandable. Even in her own world Elaine would have panicked as well if she had learned that monsters were creating their own country, and she would likely even wish for some world superpower to destroy them.

“Admittedly we had to resort to a bit of intimidation to get trade going.”

“What kind of intimidation?”

“We’re monsters with no history and a very small industry, Miss Elaine. Of course it’s intimidation by force of arms.”

“Isn’t that why they attacked you in the first place?!”

The deals they had struck were quite normal. The humans traded in food and tools, while the monsters traded with their own unique items like monster silk and wyvern teeth.

“For years we suffered the unfairness of the races. Our King gave it his best effort. His patience and strength inspired us. Eventually we learned the humans’ techniques and adopted it for our own. We were able to start exporting finished products like clothes made of dragonworm silk and wyverntooth spears, which are of course much more expensive. It was then that we started to prosper.”

“That’s nice. Not very monster-like, but still nice.”

“Well, our King promised us that we could just ‘declare war’ if nothing worked out.”

“I take back what I said.”

Elaine really wanted to see the city of monsters Ss’zsl looked so proud talking about. She also wanted to meet their ‘King’. But there was an issue that tugged at the back of her mind ever since she had learned that Ss’zsl was a monster itself.

“Do the monsters in your nation uhh... eat humans?”

“Hmm? That’s another strange question, Miss Elaine. Of course we do. We’re ‘monsters’ after all.”

She suddenly felt something around her neck. Thankfully it was just her imagination.

.

By sunset Elaine was struggling to stay awake. She’d been up for around twenty hours, which was normally nothing for her, but she’d been out and about burying bodies for most of the day. Thankfully they were almost done; magic was a wondrous thing. She hoped that she could learn some spells herself one day, but she had to keep the excitement down since Ss’zsl wasn’t in any state to teach.

Once again Ss’zsl had fallen asleep. He – a male, apparently – had been casting that spell to move the earth all day. Though he wasn’t in any condition to move about, he insisted that burying the bodies was a more urgent matter than getting sufficient rest. Thanks to their efforts they had already managed to bury over half of the corpses in the area. But it resulted in him collapsing four times throughout the day. Of course Elaine was grateful for his help. If he had just slept all day then it would have taken her the entire daylight hours just to bury four or so bodies.

But even with his help she still felt dead tired by the end of the day.

Elaine was trying her best to relax in the lake. Yes there were still corpses floating at a distance, but her body felt absolutely terrible to move around with. Her dried sweat made the dirt and blood and all the disgusting bits stick to her skin. A bath was obligatory for a girl like her.

“Even with those things floating around, the lake still feels nice.”

“...?”

“No, not you.”

The slime was back. While she lay naked in the frigid waters, it floated lazily around her. With half of its body in the water its movements became extremely inefficient. The way it had to roll so fast in one direction just to move slightly was both hilarious and sad to look at.

Whatever the case, it really didn’t seem to harbor any ill intent towards her, and considering her skin hasn’t started to melt then the acid wasn’t a problem either. Maybe the acid isn’t diluted in the water? Or was there a strong membrane that contained the acid? Who knew? Well she obviously wasn’t willing to test it.

“I wish there was soap or shampoo though.”

“...!”

“I know you don’t understand anything I’m saying but I’m still going to talk to you like you do, alright?”

“...?”

“Good boy.”

She held her coin up in front of her and stared at the golden eagle. It was majestic, worthy of being a symbol of a country. Then with her other hand she brought up the marble Alice gave her and wondered.

“Huh. It looks... yellowish.”

It might have been because of the warm colors of the sunset but it was definitely not the same deep red color as before.

“Discoloration? This isn’t actually marble so...”

Whatever. She was too tired to think. Maybe it was just something the stone naturally did. She brought her coin back up and sighed.

As she continued where she left off that morning, the lack of any good ideas on where to start made her feel quite down. Her brain just wanted to sleep.

“Fine. Before I drown.”

She exhaled a lungful of air in extreme exasperation before lifting herself off the water. The forest had grown quite dark already, and she could no longer see the lakeside at the direction where the sun was setting. Fortunately they were located at the eastern side, so the path to the den was still relatively clear.

It was only after she had stepped off the lake that she discovered that she had forgotten to borrow a towel. How frustrating, she thought.

Then, a strong wind blew across the lake, howling as it went. She almost collapsed from the cold but she managed to hold herself upright. That was dangerous. The winds could rob her of body heat quite quickly especially with a damp body, so without any choice she grabbed her clothes and made for the den.

“You’re still following me?”

It was. The slime ended up at the burrow together with her when she stopped in caution. Quite frankly she did not care much but she’d rather avoid having a ball of acid nearby. Whatever.

She didn’t want to cover herself with her new clothes while she was still wet, but she didn’t want anybody to see her naked either. She took a tentative peek inside and found, to her relief, that he was still asleep. So she quickly went inside, wiped herself up and then put on some clothes.

It was a nerve-wracking experience that was toned down by quite a bit due to how tired she was.

“Phew.”

As she sat on the one chair in the room, she looked around for the small slime. It was gone. Strange. She could swear that it had followed her inside. Maybe it had gotten bored and left immediately?

Her gaze went towards the entrance. The wind outside was blowing with a vengeance. The sound it created as it ran over the trees made her skin crawl in fear. She remembered that she hadn’t asked what season it was at that time, but she was pretty sure it was autumn. And with the autumn season came the autumn winds.

She shivered slightly. With the one able to seal the hole sound asleep, Elaine was forced to endure the winds that managed to leak inside the den. There must be a way to seal it without knowing any magic, right?

“Of course.”

She looked around for anything large enough to cover the entrance. Nevermind blankets, there weren’t even any fasteners to fix anything to the door.

“He probably didn’t need any in the first place.”

Magic truly made things convenient.

So what could she do? She could probably go to sleep if she buried herself under a pile of blankets but—

“Oh.”

It was then that she realized she could just wake Ss’zsl up and have him seal the entrance. Right.

“Heeeeeeeeeey.”

She tried tapping him with a the blunt end of his spear. She knew better than to disturb a sleeping monster, much less a warrior monster when it was asleep, but it was a matter of urgency.

Snakes were cold-blooded, at least in her world, so it would be dangerous if they were exposed to the cold for too long. If reptiles were to suffer from hypothermia then they would become much less active and responsive. She feared that if Ss’zsl went under while asleep then he wouldn’t be able to wake up when an emergency presented itself.

“But hey, if that’s so, then isn’t it already too late?”

Ss’zsl didn’t budge at all after even strong taps to its head.

“Too late...”

Had he gone into some sort of hibernation? She was no expert in snakes so who knew. She could only hope that he’d eventually wake up. Either way that only meant he was essentially a piece of furniture.

“Shit, it’s cold.”

Being buried under a pile of blankets sounded like something near what heaven could feel like. But then she thought it over and shook her head. She picked up several blankets from the shelf and covered Ss’zsl with them, leaving only one for herself. It was an amazing insight for someone as inept at caring about anybody as her.

... It wasn’t nearly enough though.

The den was essentially a giant refrigerator. Any cold that got in didn’t come out, and any heat that her body made was just not enough to fight the frigid air the approaching night came with. It hadn’t been a problem last night because the den was sealed, but with the entrance being a gaping hole as it was...

“Maybe I should look for big leaves to cover the entrance with?”

That sounded like a good idea in her head. The forest also had a lot of vines dead on the ground so she thought she’d be able to tie them up somehow.

Without actually considering the feasibility of her idea she got up from her chair and walked towards the entrance, eager to get started. The thought of a warm night’s sleep urged her exhausted body onward. But right before she managed to take one step outside, she once again encountered the slime. It was waiting for her with a mushroom on top of its head.

“... Another one?”

Elaine realized that it was the exact same mushroom Alice had fed her the night before, different from the one it gave her earlier.

“Ah, right, I asked you to help me look for the dragon, right?”

Did the slime understand more than she gave it credit for? Or is that particular mushroom just something relatively common in that area or world? Whatever it was, it was a lead, and she’d be stupid to give one up.

“Hey little guy, can you take me where you got this mushroom?”

It didn’t respond. That was weird. It usually took every opportunity to do so. In fact it didn’t move at all since she saw it.

“What’s wrong, little guy?”

She knelt down and hovered her hand over it when she noticed that it wasn’t exactly unresponsive – it was trembling. Why? Was it scared? Of what? Could slimes even feel fear?

That was strange. The sun should still be up, right? Then why—

“Oh.”

It was a large, bear-like beast with bony wings on its back. Its paws looked similarly bony and it even had a tail that looked like a giant spinal cord that jutted out of its rear. She’d seen them the day before when she had first travelled to the lake. They looked mostly docile, with the one she saw even travelling with her young.

The one in front of her looked almost exactly like the one she saw before. It was the same size, it had the same build... but the one from yesterday wasn’t missing half its head.

“--------...”

It started groaning.

“Shit.”

No way.

—But then as suddenly as it appeared, it was gone. Elaine rubbed her eyes. Was she hallucinating? To be honest, she wouldn’t be surprised if she was actually dreaming at that point. She laughed like an idiot.

Crisis averted?

“Careful there, miss human. Being bitten by a zombie is no joke.”

It was a deep, booming, but somehow melodious voice; a new one to introduce itself to Elaine’s ears. She looked in front of her but found nobody. Just in case she checked outside. There was nobody. She tilted her head and wondered if she was actually hallucinating like she thought she was when a loud, hearty laugh shook the den.

“Of course you won’t see there, miss human. Up here.”

“Huh?”

“Hello. You’re my friend’s guest? Nice to meet you.”

... It was an over fifteen meter tall xenomorph-looking thing.