The Despair She Deserved
Truthfully, her sins were relatively light compared to the old man’s. Above all, she hadn’t committed those acts of her own volition. Strictly speaking, it would be more accurate to say she had been swept up in it all. Yet the moment she gave even tacit consent, she could no longer claim to be entirely innocent. Regardless of the process, the result was that the woman had stood by while I died—and had even contributed to it in some measure. She might have had excuses about having no choice from her perspective, but I had no reason to care about any of that. From the viewpoint of someone who had been betrayed so horribly, she was just another member of the same rotten party. If I hadn’t come back to life like this, she would have safely harvested the magic stone, enjoyed every luxury wealth could buy, and lived out a happy life while completely forgetting the porter she had abandoned. I never intended to grant her any kind of absolution from the start.
That existence had left no instructions on how to deal with her. Since the mage had already exhausted all her mana and was now just an ordinary person, it probably saw no need to give any special orders. In the end, her fate rested solely in my hands.
Making the decision wasn’t easy. After wrestling with it for a long while, I finally found a compromise I could accept.
“……”
From a short distance away, I watched her actions. She was desperately shouting, searching for the old man who had vanished. The terror in her voice sounded like a frantic plea, yet it also resembled a scream. By now, she must have roughly realized she had been abandoned. Even so, the fact that she was still calling out for him was easy to understand. It was probably a desperate struggle to deny the current situation and escape this horrific reality. As proof, her face—visible even from afar—had gone deathly pale. Her trembling shoulders and hands, shaking like aspen leaves, clearly revealed her inner turmoil. The sight was so pitiful that a pang of sympathy briefly stirred within me. But I quickly shook my head. If I stopped here, my resolve would naturally crumble. As I had decided from the beginning, every party member who contributed to my death would be eliminated. There could be no exceptions.
With my resolve renewed, I moved immediately. I slipped through the narrow side paths between the passageways and scattered pheromones in every direction around the area where she stood. This quickly summoned all the nearby ant monsters straight toward her. There was nowhere left for her to run. Completely unaware of this, she continued wandering about, calling the old man’s name over and over. She had no idea what was about to happen to her…
She only realized the truth when she saw the monsters with her own eyes. Screaming at the sight of the ants approaching, she bolted in the opposite direction. But the other paths were also completely blocked by monsters. The situation was truly a case of being surrounded on all sides. Once every possible escape route had vanished, being trapped by monsters in a dungeon after her party had fallen apart meant only one thing: death.
Realizing that survival was impossible, the woman collapsed on the spot. Her empty gaze had already fallen into a deep abyss. There was no will to resist left in her. The swarm of ants had already drawn close enough to study her, turning their heads this way and that. They hadn’t attacked immediately simply because every human they had encountered so far had either fought back or fled the moment they saw them. This was the first time they had seen one simply sit there.
During that time, she was the one suffering the most. Death had come right up to her doorstep. All she could see were the ants’ sharp mandibles and grotesque faces. The reliable comrades who might have protected her were all gone. She had probably always been shielded by others ever since awakening her mage abilities. It was the natural treatment afforded to high-value personnel. Ironically, that very privilege had created a fatal weakness. Never having faced a true crisis before, her mind simply shut down the moment an unbearable situation arose—both when the party was ambushed and now, when she was surrounded on all sides. Her rationality had already crumbled to dust. Even if it had remained, there was no way out of this situation anyway.
“Aaa… ah… aaaah…”
Her mind completely broken, she trembled violently as if struck by an earthquake, muttering incomprehensible words. She no longer looked like a sane person. It was the despair of knowing that no help would ever come, that her death was certain. That was the punishment I had chosen for her. I wanted her to feel the same terror I had experienced when the party leader dragged me toward the cliff.
Having accomplished what I set out to do, I dashed forward. Using my slime body’s properties, I slid smoothly across the ground until I was right behind her, then thrust my arm forward.
Shunk!
The sickening sound of flesh tearing echoed through the air. My outstretched hand had pierced straight through her heart. More precisely, it had transformed—using the last remaining skill, Transform—into a sharp, sword-like shape modeled after an ant’s mandible, optimized for piercing rather than the original form.
The woman, impaled through the heart without understanding what had happened, stared blankly ahead. As if she still couldn’t comprehend the situation, she suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood. From the very beginning, I had never intended to feed her to the ants. I had only gathered them here so she could experience the same despair I had felt. This was the smallest mercy I could offer. Dying this way was far better for her than being eaten alive by monsters. Compared to the old man, who had melted to death while still conscious, it was an extremely lenient treatment—though the end result was the same.
Splash!
When I pulled my hand out without hesitation, a torrent of blood gushed from the wound. Her body, robbed of balance, collapsed limply to the ground. At the same time, crimson blood sprayed into the air like falling red petals, painting a strangely beautiful scene. Her body convulsed several more times before finally going still. The lifeless eyes visible through her half-closed lids confirmed her death.
Once her life signs vanished, the surrounding ants lost interest in her as well. Amidst the dispersing monsters, I stood alone beside her body.
“……”
My hand had returned to its original form. Though it was covered in her blood, the liquid was quickly absorbed into my surface and disappeared. This was the first time I had ever stabbed another person. The sensation of flesh yielding beneath my hand had been so vivid it made my skin crawl. An uncomfortable, heavy feeling lingered in my chest. I hadn’t felt this way when I killed the old man. Back then, I had only felt satisfaction. Perhaps this unease came from my inability to be completely certain whether she was truly evil. In a way, she was the most common type of “human” in society—someone who ended up participating in or overlooking wrongdoing due to pressure from above or from those around her, even if they never truly wanted to. Could such people really be called true villains? At least for now, I still couldn’t reach a final conclusion.
I bent down to confirm her death and gently closed her half-lidded eyes. Then I liquefied my body and absorbed her. As her form slowly dissolved inside me, a sense of fullness spread through my entire being, yet I felt no joy. More accurately, I was deliberately suppressing that emotion. At the same time, a voice announced a level-up inside my head. As a bonus, I heard that I had gained additional experience thanks to my title. It seemed this unidentified system had judged her actions as evil. Well… standing by and doing nothing was certainly a sin. If viewed rationally, without emotion, then its judgment was correct.
Good work! Now it’s finally the finale. Let’s go meet the true villain who brought about this entire disaster.
That existence had appeared right beside me at some point. The finale… It was a fitting metaphor. The one who had reduced me to this state and caused everything—the man. I could never let him slip away. I would find him and make him pay the price he deserved. The moment I pictured that damned bastard’s face, the uncomfortable feeling vanished, reduced to ash. Now it was time to bring this hunt to its conclusion.