Is It Still There?

"..."

Both of the younglings looked at Erin as if he were an idiot.

"Are you judging us because of how we look?" The young girl spoke up as she tugged her overalls.

"Just to be clear, we are only wearing these things because we were helping our grandmother with her farms earlier."

"Yeah! I passed all of my history tests!" The young boy spoke proudly.

'History..?' Erin had a bad feeling after listening to their responses.

"Then what do you know about the Dawn Empire?" Erin nudged the conversation a bit.

Noticing that the slime on top of Erin's head was still a deep shade of green, the young boy smiled and saw this as an opportunity to show off. His eyes shimmered with excitement before he started speaking out.

"Listen closely! Many people don't look at the details because it was so long ago, but I know that the start of the Pirate Wars happened in the Dawn Empire! Even their superior authority, the Redstone Empire, got involved and were also quickly destroyed in the process." The young boy spoke as if he were trying to prove that he paid attention in class.

"It's unfortunate that the destruction of these two empires sparked mankind's first intergalactic war." The young boy sighed.

"With how destructive it was, ten years of war managed to wipe out several millenniums worth of human history. After the first war ended, it took mankind a thousand years before galaxies finally started recovering. A pity that the second intergalactic war happened on the brink of this recovery."

"The second intergalactic war lasted only five years yet it was even more destructive than the first! If the first war ruined millenniums worth of human history, then the second intergalactic war was famous for wiping out over thirty millenniums worth of technological advancement!"

The young boy had a look of yearning on his face. It was well-recorded in history that the prosperity of the ancient empires were enough for even common people to enjoy the privileges of intergalactic travel.

"Since the end of the second intergalactic war, it has been almost four millenniums. A pity that mankind has still barely recovered from its past glory."

In present day, intergalactic travel was a privilege exclusive to the wealthy and the upper-class.

Erin had a blank look on his face as the young boy started speaking out his history lessons.

'Thousand years..? Intergalactic war I & II? Four millenniums? I'm around five thousand years into the future?! Does that mean I'm the oldest human alive now?'

Erin started to have stupid thoughts as his brain couldn't truly process the immensity of his situation.

Noticing Erin's empty expression, the young girl gently hit the young boy and stopped him from speaking further.

"Don't you see his expression? Maybe he never passed his history classes." The young girl whispered to the young boy. She had a look of pity on her face as she looked at Erin.

For someone who appeared rich, he was kind of stupid for not knowing such basic history.

'Did his family just throw money at him and not educate him at all?' The young girl thought to herself.

Noticing the look of pity on the young girl's face and the face of superiority on the young boy's face, Erin couldn't help himself from letting out an embarrassed frown.

"Sorry for the confusion.. History wasn't my strongest subject." Erin said.

With a look of understanding the younglings gently nodded their heads in unison.

"Then why did you ask about the Dawn Empire?" The young boy questioned.

"Ah, you see, my ancestors are from the Dawn Empire." Erin made up an excuse that he personally thought was kind of clever.

The moment Erin finished his words, both of them looked up at the slime before looking back at his face. The slime was still a deep shade of green. That meant that Erin was telling the truth.

At that moment, they truly believed Erin was stupid.

'You don't even know your own family's basic history?! It's literally spoken about throughout every history class in the entire universe.'

Both of the younglings felt sorry for Erin.

Before Erin could ask any more questions, he heard a rumbling sound coming from above his head.

"Oh! Bobo's hungry! We should go back quickly." The young girl exclaimed.

'Hungry?' Erin thought to himself as he gleaned upwards.

Although Erin still couldn't see the slime, the younglings could clearly see the slime shifting colors. The once deep green tone started to have pigments of red mixed in.

"Ah, we better hurry! If it gets too red, Bobo might try to eat him!" The young boy looked genuinely concerned.

'Eat me?!'

The tingling yet gooey sensation on Erin's scalp started to make him feel very uncomfortable.

"Um, do you both want your slime back now?" Erin was more than willing to let them take the slime and go. Since the river eventually reaches a city, he could find back to human society regardless.

"It'll take too long to run back. Our place is near the river. Let's take your boat!" The young boy looked like he's using the slime as an excuse to ride the boat. The young girl simply agreed. Both of them boarded the emergency raft right after.

Of course, the two younglings weren't foolish enough to simply ride on a boat with this stranger. The slime on his head was their greatest assurance.

Even though it looked weak, they were well aware that the slime was stronger than this stranger. If the slime wasn't, then the Lie-Indicator skill wouldn't have been successful.

"Hurry, hurry! Bobo is starting to turn more red. If we don't get back sooner, the first to go will probably be your hair!" The young boy exclaimed.

'?!'

Erin quickly noticed that the gooey sensation started to feel extremely sticky. He was afraid that pulling the slime off might actually rip the skin on his head off.

Without any hesitation, he reached the control panel and had the raft float away from the bank of the river.

With a small shift in controls, the raft started speeding down the river at max speed.

After a few very long minutes, the grassy plains on both sides of the river were quickly replaced by extensive crop fields. All of these fields looked like they were freshly planted.

As the raft went farther down, he could see some people riding giant three-horned beasts. These same beasts were plowing more crop fields so that they could be seeded.

The people on these beasts looked at Erin's boat with surprise. Although they could vaguely recognize the two excited younglings at the front of the boat, and the slime that was on Erin's head, they didn't know who this young man was.

It didn't take much longer before the fields were finally replaced by brick houses. There were even some tall stone bridges that extended across the river.

The banks of the river were no longer made of grass and mud. On both sides of the river, there were stone roads that were just slightly above the edges of the river's water.

The people walking down these stone roads all looked at the unusual sight at the center of the river.

"Are we almost there?" Erin sounded nervous. The longer they took, the less hair he probably would have when this slime was finally off his head.

"Yes, yes! Very close! Keep going straight!" The young boy started waving at the people walking along the sides of the river. Though still surprised, many of them recognized him and waved back.

"Wow~ this is fun." The young girl enjoyed the breeze created by the speeding boat.

Erin's eyes twitched a little as he looked down at the raft's control panel. Unfortunately the raft was already going as fast as it could. Otherwise he would have sped it even further.

Giant metallic walls started to appear along the river's horizon. With how fast the raft was going, the walls quickly became bigger and bigger.

Erin started to get more concerned because he saw that a large metallic gate connected to these walls. It went up several stories and spanned the entire width of the river.

Just as Erin started slowing down the raft, as to not crash into the gates, the young boy yelled out at him.

"Don't slow down! Keep going!"

At that same moment, the young boy took out a small remote control from one of his pockets.

"I never thought I'd finally get the chance to use this!" The young boy muttered happily as he pressed one of the remote's buttons.

Promptly after he pressed that button, the metallic gates in front of them quickly sank down.

Dumbfounded, Erin blankly looked ahead as he pushed the raft back up to full speed.

Stunned, a lot of the guards on both sides of the walls started pointing their weapons at the incoming raft. They've never seen such a fast boat before.

With Erin's sharp eyesight, he noticed that all of these weapons were plasma guns!

'What the heck, I thought this was a backwater planet?!' Erin thought to himself as beads of sweat dripped down the side of his face. His hands were on the control panel and were ready to make a full hundred eighty degree turn if things started going downhill.

However, when the guards saw the two younglings that were at the front of the raft, they immediately put down their weapons and bowed their heads down in respect.

Noticing this change, Erin let out a sigh of relief.

The young girl at the front pulled out a small rectangular device with a small antenna from one of her pockets. With a push of a button, she started speaking into this device.

"Bring down some of Bobo's food to the river's docks. Yes, you didn't mishear me, bring it to the Emerald River's docks."

The girl had to re-iterate herself a couple times through the small device as the voice on the other side seemed to be slightly confused.

Just as she finished talking, the raft finally sped past the walls.

Erin was stunned to see that the inside of the city looked completely different than the outside!

In fact, it was far too different!

The stone roads were replaced with crack-less cement roads. All of the buildings were three-stories tall at the minimum. Many of them even pushed over five stories tall with tiled roofs.

With no offense intended, after he saw the brick houses earlier, Erin thought humanity had regressed to a primitive era.

Compared to his era, where several hundred story tall buildings were the norm, there really wasn't any comparison.

The lack of starships and levitating vehicles also disappointed Erin a lot.

In spite of this, the interior of the city gave Erin an unusually cozy vibe.

As he drowned in these thoughts, the river started to narrow down a little.

"There!" Interrupting Erin's train of thought, the young boy pointed at some docks that appeared on the left side of the river.

Since they were going too fast, Erin started slowing the raft down before directing his raft to one of the larger spots on the dock.

A moment later, the raft was finally docked.

As the younglings and Erin stepped off the raft, a squadron of soldiers appeared with a small open-air truck behind them. On the truck was an array of glittering stones.

'Energy stones?!' Erin saw the small truckload worth of shiny stones and started drooling a little on the inside. With the color reflecting off these stones, Erin knew that these were second grade stones at the minimum.

At this point in time, Erin actually forgot that he still had the slime on his head!

Fortunately, when the small truck got near, the slime jumped off Erin's head and landed on the pile of glittering stones.

'Ah, the slime is eating them?!' Erin looked like his heart was going to break out of his chest. These were energy stones! One stone could probably power his emergency raft for ten years with energy to spare.

Even though he was heartbroken at the sight, Erin let out a sigh as he looked at the well-equipped soldiers surrounding the small truck. Plasma guns were not a joke. Even at his level, he would be fatally injured if hit by a single shot from one of those weapons.

That aside, since the slime was finally gone, Erin touched the top of his head and was finally relieved to know that his hair was still there!