Morning air drifted across the front entrance of Volga Hall. The wind blowing from Jura's Great Forest carried a dampness, mixed with the scent of soil, grass, and something wild. The stone pavement of Rimuru was still cool, and the market voices were still distant. Before six in the morning. That quiet hour just before the city woke. Rimuru Tempest stood at the entrance, searching for luggage. Or rather, the luggage wasn't there. He'd checked the office shelf three times. Opened the drawers twice. He couldn't remember where he'd put the map copies. He'd debated whether to bring a change of clothes, but ended up coming with nothing. All he held now was a single steamed bun. "[gentle]Lord Rimuru" A voice. He turned. Shuna stood at the top of the stone steps. Her pale pink hair swayed slightly in the morning breeze. One arm held a neatly organized leather bag. The other carried a thin map tube. At her feet sat two small travel bags. One was his. The other clearly belonged to someone else. "[gentle]I've been waiting for you" "Oh, you got mine too?" "[gentle]I suspected that if you prepared it yourself, Lord Rimuru, it would contain only documents and steamed buns" Rimuru looked at the bun in his hand. He had no comeback. "……Thanks" As he took the travel bag, Rimuru quickly checked its contents. Change of clothes, travel rations, emergency recovery potions, map copies. Everything was there. Perfect preparation. Though he'd done none of it himself. To the northeast of Rimuru, the trees of the Great Forest faded into morning mist. That's where they were headed. The ruins of the apiary. Galmburg's claw marks. And that pale blue light whose identity remained unknown. "Let's go" The two began walking. --- The stone pavement ended. Dirt path. Soon the trees of the Great Forest surrounded them completely. Jura's Great Forest was dim even in daylight. Trees over thirty meters tall covered the canopy above. The ground was a tangle of moss, fallen leaves, and roots. The earth was soft, sinking slightly with each step. Light filtered through the leaf gaps in thin, scattered rays, illuminating the ground. As Rimuru walked, something came to mind. "Come to think of it, in my old world we used bells to ward off bears" "[surprised]Can bells drive away magical beasts?" Shuna turned with a serious expression. "No, not drive them away exactly……it's not that they hate the sound. It's that the sound tells them humans are coming. Bears hate surprise attacks, so if you let them know you're there, they'll avoid you" "[gentle]I see. It's a sound to prevent surprise encounters" Shuna walked in silence for a moment, thinking. Then she began rummaging through her bag. What she pulled out was a small silver bell. About three centimeters in diameter, fitting in the palm of her hand. Fine patterns were carved into it, and geometric designs unique to the oni race circled the surface. When Shuna shook it lightly, it rang with a clear chime. "[gentle]Among the oni race, there is a tradition of protective bells. Legend says they scatter harmful magical essence through sound" Rimuru was slightly surprised. "……That's kind of similar" "[surprised]I thought so too. Different worlds, yet similar ideas are born" "Over there it was scientific reasoning, here it's about magical essence. But the root is the same" "[gentle]That's interesting" Shuna smiled quietly. Her usual composed elegance, but her eyes were just a touch softer. Rimuru caught it from the corner of his eye and felt his mood lighten somehow. The forest seemed a little brighter. Maybe it was just his imagination. Chime. Shuna rang the bell as she walked. The sound was absorbed into the trees. It probably wouldn't work on Galmburg, but somehow it felt right. --- By the time the ruins of the apiary——about eight kilometers south of Rimuru, adjacent to Tempest's beekeeping outpost——came into view, the two had stopped. There was a smell. The sweet scent of honey had curdled into something wrong. Rotten. Crushed. Sweetness inverted. A bad smell. Rimuru's nose told him this wasn't normal. Eight hive boxes were destroyed. Wooden boxes crushed from the side, their contents scattered. The Volcera bee nests had collapsed into mush, honey spread across the ground and hardened black. Around the box remains, bee corpses lay scattered. Small bodies, still, unmoving. Rimuru crouched and examined the claw marks in the earth. They were deep. Four claw scratches gouged clearly into the ground. The width was wide. Nothing like normal bear-type magical beast claws. Dug five centimeters or more into the earth, tearing up roots. The marks conveyed the weight and strength of whatever made them like numbers. "Shuna, take a look at this" Shuna approached and held her hand near the edge of the claw marks. She stopped just short of touching, eyes closing. She stayed like that for a while. "[serious]……Something's wrong" Her brows furrowed slightly. "What is it?" "[serious]The residual magical essence. Its color differs from the essence drifting in the Great Forest air. Not from Volcera bees either. This……flowed in from outside" "From outside?" Shuna stood and spread the map from her bag. Rimuru leaned in from the side. Rimuru's position, the apiary's position, and marked to the northwest: "Mist Gate"——the entrance to the Great Forest's depths. Shuna's finger pointed in that direction. "[serious]Northwest. It may have come from beyond the Mist Gate" Rimuru looked at the map. Beyond the Mist Gate, Benimaru's direct reconnaissance squads maintained surveillance. Jura's deep interior——a region of abnormally high magical essence concentration, where A-rank and above magical beasts were said to appear. An unexplored territory no normal survey could approach. "We need to investigate deeper" "[serious]Yes. However——" Shuna traced the footprints with her eyes. Large tracks, apparently from Galmburg, continued into the forest depths. "[serious]Looking at the direction of the tracks, it may still be nearby" Rimuru confirmed the footprints too. Deep. Fresh. Yesterday or this morning. "Should we follow it?" "[gentle]……Just a little" Shuna put the bell away in her bag. Not using it now, obviously. The two followed the tracks deeper into the forest. --- As the trees grew denser, the light faded. The moss on the ground deepened, the sound of footsteps changed. In the distance, a Jura Wolf's cry echoed. The wind died down. Rimuru walked forward, watching ahead. His slime body, reincarnated as it was, had heightened sensitivity to threats. If something approached, he'd know immediately. Right now—— Zashu. The trees ahead were mowed down. The sound of tree trunks snapping at the root. Broken branches crashing to the ground. Something was coming. Big. Really big. Rimuru tried to turn around. In that instant, a brown massive form appeared at the edge of his vision. Body height: 3.5 meters. Width over two meters. Standing on its hind legs, raising its front paws. On its back, a pale blue pattern. It pulsed with light. A Galmburg. One of them. Charging straight at the two. Dododododo!! The ground shook. Rimuru moved before thinking. He unleashed his slime body's full potential——dropped his density for an instant, flattened himself out. The Galmburg's front paw swung down. Massive claws struck Rimuru's body. Zuru. It slid. Didn't pierce. The claws slid across the slime's surface, the force dissipating. Rimuru returned to form and faced the Galmburg. Glancing back, Shuna already had both hands thrust forward. "See! I'm a slime so claws don't pierce!" "[cold]That's not tactics, that's just your physiology" She said it without changing expression. Simultaneously, pale blue light spread from Shuna's fingertips——but different from the Galmburg's pale blue. Calmer. Cleaner. A barrier wrapped around the Galmburg's four legs. The legs stopped. The front paws wouldn't rise. The Galmburg growled low. It twisted its body, but Shuna's barrier held. Rimuru immediately extended his slime form, wrapping around the Galmburg's abdomen. Applied pressure. Slime's special trait——compression and penetration. He concentrated force on the thinner parts of the abdomen's carapace. The Galmburg roared loudly. Its body tilted. It fell to the ground. Doshun. The impact echoed through the forest. "Got it!" "[gentle]……We coordinated better than expected" Shuna caught her breath slightly as she spoke. Her usual calm voice, but her hands trembled faintly. Their first real coordinated combat. Rimuru felt relief wash over him internally too. But. The next moment, the pattern on the fallen Galmburg's back flared. A mass of pale blue light drifted free from its body. Not smoke. Not flame. Something more defined, like it possessed will. Slowly, but without hesitation, it flew toward the darkness deeper in the forest. It wove between the trees and vanished from sight. Rimuru tried to follow it with his eyes, but was too late. "……What was that?" "[serious]It remained even after we defeated it" Shuna looked at the Galmburg's back. The pattern was gone. Just fur now. "That light's source must be the real cause" Rimuru looked into the forest. The direction the light had gone. Dark. Deep. Nothing visible. But something was definitely there. Then, from far off, a low growl sounded. Not just one. Multiple. Shuna's expression tightened instantly. "[serious]I sense additional presences. We should stop here today. Advancing into the deep interior without a full investigation squad is impossible" "Right" Rimuru pulled away from the Galmburg's body. It lay motionless. Dead or unconscious. With the pattern on its back gone, it seemed drained of strength. The two turned back through the forest. --- As they passed the destroyed apiary on the return path, Shuna stopped. She crouched and picked something up from the ground. A small stone. Gray. Ordinary——except something was carved into its surface. Fine lines combined geometrically, forming a pattern. That pattern glowed faintly pale blue. The same color as the light that had escaped from the Galmburg. "[surprised]This pattern……I've never seen it before" Shuna murmured quietly. Eyes narrowed, staring intently. It didn't match any design she knew as an oni. Rimuru looked from the side too, but it was completely different from the patterns he'd seen on Tempest's buildings and decorations. Shuna held the stone out to Rimuru. "It might be useful for reporting to Benimaru" "Yeah, let's take it back" Rimuru took the stone and put it in his pocket. He didn't know what it was. But it glowed, the same color as the Galmburg's light, and there was no reason to leave it. The two continued walking. The forest's sun was tilting west. Light filtering through the trees slanted, shadows lengthening. About an hour back to Rimuru. After walking in silence for a while, Shuna spoke. "[gentle]Lord Rimuru" "Hmm?" "[gentle]Could you tell me more about Japan, from your previous world?" Rimuru was slightly taken aback. "You're that curious? It was just ordinary modern society" "[gentle]That word 'ordinary' is what intrigues me" Shuna continued without breaking stride. "[gentle]I still can't quite imagine that the Demon Lord was once an ordinary human" Rimuru gave a wry smile. True, he was now a slime, a demon lord, running a nation. "Ordinary human" was pretty far off. But for thirty years, he'd been just a salaryman. Morning commutes in packed trains, documents corrected by his boss, overtime, convenience store rice balls for dinner, heading home. "My boss used to correct my documents. Now I'm the one worrying about documents" "[gentle]……Which was harder?" "Both were tough. But now feels like it means something more" Shuna made a small laughing sound. Less a laugh than a breath. "[gentle]I suppose so" Their shadows stretched long in the evening light. Rimuru began speaking in bits and pieces.