50 Another beginning

"Good morning, master."

"Oh, Limy, did you sleep well?"

Limy nodded silently and slowly got up from the bed. Although her face was expressionless as always, it was clear that her mind was clouded by doubt. For the first time in her life, she had fallen sound asleep, and she did so next to Aeldrya. Slimes do not sleep, so I could understand why she would be concerned...

"Don't worry, I made sure this pervert elf wouldn’t do anything weird to you while you were sleeping."

"Who are you calling a pervert! I would never do anything weird to Limy!"

Apparently, Aeldrya was awake as well. Her expression was bitter and she seemed exhausted even though she had had a good night’s sleep. She sighed heavily as she attempted to fix her disheveled hair. Then, after stretching, she too rose from the bed.

"Whatever, I'm not in the mood to argue," she said as she headed straight for the mirror.

Once she was done fixing her hair and straightening her clothes, we left the inn. It was the dawn of a new day, a day like any other. Life in the town was quiet. No one seemed to have noticed the disaster that occurred the day before. Sooner or later they would realize that a good part of the mountains had been completely razed... or maybe they wouldn’t. Weeds grow fast and will soon cover the area again. In a while, there would not be a trace left of the battle.

'It's probably fine like this.'

All remnants of the black slime were gone, making it impossible to prove its existence. Aeldrya seemed to prefer it that way. She said that if people found out that such a monster lived near their homes they would be terrified, even if the monster had already been exterminated. She surely would have received some big reward from the guild if she had gone public with it, but she didn't seem interested either.

'I'll never understand what this erofu has on her head... or maybe I do, just tentacles all day every day...'

Limy, on the other hand, I was worried about, even though there didn't seem to be anything wrong with her. What's more, when I checked her status, everything seemed to be back to normal again.

Status:

Name: Limy

Kind: Slime | Race: Blue slime

Level: 6 | Experience: 1394/2277 | Grade: 1 (Elite)

HP: 138/138 | MP: 55/55

Stats:

Vitality: 36 | Strength: 23 | Agility: 26

Intellect: 15 | Magic power: 10

Special abilities:

- Inner space: 1

- Mimic: 1

- Perverted slime tentacle: 1

Hidden abilities:

- Phagocytizing

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'Her HP and MP have fully recovered overnight… There’s nothing for me to be worried about, is there?'

I couldn't help but remember the moment she ate the core of the black slime. Limy had seemingly melted down for a few minutes, her own core had disappeared and when I attempted to check her status, it was empty, no information was displayed at all.. I couldn’t forget about those weird messages that popped up right after she fell asleep either. There was one about that hidden ability, which seemed to be the, if not the same, at least very similar to the one of the black slime. And then, the weirdest message of all, the one about being freed from the creation limits .

'Does that mean she’s become just like any other normal monster now?'

Only time would tell... probably... For now, we needed to focus on what was important. Aeldrya had decided to give up on looking for metallic slimes and return straight home instead. That black snot had probably wiped out every monster in the mountains, so continuing our search would be nothing but a waste of time.

We were ready to skip town by the crack of dawn. If we managed to keep the same pace we had on our way here, it would take us about two days to get back.

'If we stay the night in the same place as last time I will be able to see the old man again.'

I had to admit that I really wanted to see him asap. Every minute I spent by his side opened a world of possibilities for me, so even if it was just for a couple of hours I wanted to continue listening to his teachings. Unfortunately, fate, or rather, a certain Elf, had other plans

"We are going to hitch a ride back to Cerbalon. If we can get on a carriage we will make it back before the end of the day."

For a moment I couldn't process what I had just heard.

"What did you just say? We won’t be walking back?"

"I'm tired and I don’t feel like walking all the way back. Right now, all I want is to go home and sleep for the rest of the day."

"Then why the fuck did we walk all the way here in the first place? Shame on you, damn erofu!"

"That was supposed to be training for Limy, and besides, what are you even complaining about? It’s not like you did any walking yourself… And stop calling me by that weird name!"

I couldn't help cursing at the elf. The journey on foot had been a waste of time... although on the bright side, I would not have met the old man if it hadn’t been for it. Anyway, going straight back to Cerbalon wasn't such a terrible idea either. The old man had agreed to meet me there again in a few days, so we'd be seeing each other soon enough anyway… unless something troublesome happened again...

The elf walked through Claranara, asking everyone she ran into whether there was any transport that could take us to the capital. As usual, I hid inside Limy, silently watching the elf's back.

'Can we continue living in the city as we have been doing until now?'

By mid morning, we had finally managed to find a small carriage headed for the capital. As I imagined, it was the typical horse-drawn carriage: a wooden frame with a window on each side and a driver's seat at the front. It was small and could fit at most two people, perhaps only one if his body mass exceeded the healthy limits.

After Aeldrya finished the negotiations with the driver, we got on the carriage and soon we were on our way. Since the windows had no glass and everything we said could easily be overheard, we spent most of the journey sitting silently. Aeldrya seemed to be lost in her thoughts and spoke even less than usual. She was no doubt thinking about what to do with us once we got to Cerbalon.

'In the end, it’s all up to her...'

The minutes turned to hours, and so the dull journey continued with no signs that anything, or anyone, would break the impasse.

'This is boring. Helpy, do you know any jokes?'

[What does one stone say to another stone? Life is hard.]

'Go to...! Ok, no more jokes today… or ever… '

We finally arrived at Cerbalon, thus putting an end to the most boring trip of my life. I got so bored on the way that I even started counting trees. Honestly, I cannot even remember how many I counted. I think my non-existent brain crashed at some point... Well, at least it wasn’t that much worse than the first day counting stars…