A Mother's Temptation
"Armeria."
"Yes!"
Even when Adorian called her name, Meria didn't turn around. She kept her eyes glued to the wall as she answered. I was starting to feel a bit sorry for her.
"Well, Syaruen and I are going to the guild hall, so get ready to head back home. Surely you aren't thinking of staying here after causing such a mess, are you?"
"Of course not!"
Meria answered instantly, stiff as a soldier, but her shoulders slumped immediately after. Wait, but wait... A mage?
Is it...?
Would it be rude to ask in front of Meria? Then again, asking behind her back felt even ruder. She did say she'd tell me eventually, but... surely she didn't just choose not to use magic down in that basement despite being able to, right? Maybe there was some specific condition required to cast spells, or maybe she simply couldn't. Either way, I couldn't help but be curious. Should I ask her directly, or should I ask Adorian?
"I'm not sure if it's okay to ask this in front of Meria, but... why is it that she can't use magic?"
"Armeria."
"Well, it's not like I was trying to hide it or anything, and I definitely didn't do it on purpose..."
Meria fidgeted nervously, her hands and feet twitching as she struggled to find the words. Looking at her, it seemed my worries were indeed groundless.
"I'm not doubting you. Even if you could use magic, I wouldn't resent you for it."
And that was the truth. Well, easy for me to say since I came out of it in one piece.
"It's because her mana control is unstable."
"Mana control?"
Adorian rested her chin on her hand, seemingly pondering how to explain it to a magic layman like me.
"I'm not sure what the best analogy would be, but simply put, she can't regulate the amount of mana required to cast a spell."
Meria hung her head dejectedly, twiddling her thumbs.
"You know how if you squeeze a tiny bug too hard when picking it up, it crushes? Armeria can't control that grip. She can only squeeze with everything she's got."
"Ah..."
"The problem is that her 'grip strength' is already in the upper tier among most mages. She's not quite at the level of a court mage, but she's definitely strong enough to make a name for herself as a successful adventurer."
She was that amazing?
"You might think, 'Why not just have her grab something else instead of a bug, something that won't crush?' But she doesn't have the skill to handle high-level magic yet. She's still young, and since she can't even cast basic spells, she lacks the intuition and technique to manage high-difficulty magic. It's like expecting someone who can't even talk to a guy to start dating. Still, there's no need for her to be so ashamed or depressed about not being able to use magic, but she's always like this."
Maybe I shouldn't have asked.
"She almost blew herself up just trying to cast a simple water-creation spell. It was the same story with other low-level magic. There's a technique to convert mana into holy power, but that requires a baseline of holy power to begin with, and she has no affinity for that kind of stuff anyway. Spirits are a whole different story, too."
Meria immediately sank into a deeper depression, turning back to the wall and pressing her forehead against it.
"With such an amazing mother, it's no wonder she feels depressed about not being able to use magic."
"Ahaha! Oh, stop."
Adorian beamed. Excuse me, lady, your daughter is literally face-planting into the wall and crying.
"Well, that's how it is. That's why she couldn't use magic even when we were trapped in the basement."
"If only I could use magic, Syaruen-onni wouldn't have ended up like that..."
"Drop it. By the time you passed out, it was already over. Even if you could use magic perfectly, you wouldn't have been able to do a thing."
"So even if I were competent, I still would've been useless..."
...God, she is so exhausting.
"Over? Ended up like what? Ah, wait, sorry. Don't tell me..."
"No, no! It's not what you're imagining. Don't let your mind wander."
"Whew, you startled me. For a second, I thought I'd made a slip of the tongue by asking."
Adorian tilted her head with a look that said, 'So?' and I gave a sheepish laugh.
"I'll explain everything when we get to the guild hall today."
I said that, but there wasn't actually much to tell. Just two things: an incredible regenerative ability and the power of charm. To truly understand the limits of my regeneration, we'd have to run all sorts of tests, which basically amounted to human experimentation. As for the charm, it was identical to a succubus's. Except, it didn't seem like I could control it at will. Then again, since I wasn't a natural-born succubus but originally a human, my lack of control might just be due to inexperience. Even looking through ancient texts, there were no records of experiments like this. It was similar to 'Hyper-Regeneration' which drains one's life force, but in my case, it was fundamentally different because I was a slime. That brought us back to the question of how slimes regenerate, but there was zero research on that. If we tried to study the succubus charm instead, well, while succubi weren't exactly rare creatures, very few people had actually researched them, and because they were so anomalous, studying them was no easy task.
Those cultist bastards were scheduled for execution in the near future. Their research was nothing but a pile of failures that had only resulted in innocent deaths, making their findings utterly worthless. It wasn't that research into immortality didn't exist, but since everyone just did whatever they pleased, none of it was helpful.
The conclusion: I was a hybrid of a Queen Slime and a High Succubus—two entities with practically non-existent or extremely rare research. Since they were my saviors, and more importantly, elves, I figured they wouldn't use my body for anything evil. I even told them they could chop off my limbs for research as long as they anesthetized me first, but they all flatly refused. There were no researchers specializing in that field anyway, and though they offered to find some from elsewhere if I really wanted to uncover the secrets of my body, I didn't care enough to go that far, so I declined. In the end, we made no real progress, and I just ended up studying the basic characteristics of slimes and succubi before heading back.
"What a shame~ I was looking forward to some interesting research."
"I was curious about my own body too, so it is a bit of a letdown. Though for me, it's just pure curiosity, unlike your scholarly interest, Adorian."
Ah, when they said slime, I was secretly hoping for something fun—like my body turning all gooey or being able to create clones. It might have been a bit gross, but it would've been fascinating.
"But look on the bright side, isn't it a good thing? You're practically immortal now. The biggest downside of being an adventurer is the risk of an early grave, and you don't have to worry about that anymore. And as for the charm, wouldn't it be great depending on how you use it? Everyone will naturally take a liking to you."
The problem is that everyone who takes a liking to me ends up going into heat.
"I used to think immortality would take the fun out of adventuring, but on second thought, being able to travel the entire world forever does sound nice. As for the charm, I'm not so sure. Romance is a pretty distant concept to me."
"Oh, my. Charm isn't just for seducing people, you know. Who knows? Maybe I'll take such a liking to you that I'll buy you dinner."
With those words, Adorian snapped her fingers, and from out of nowhere, a blue bird... a bird... how should I even describe this?
"It's a bird made of mana. It has the advantage of being safer than sending a real bird, but it's hard to learn, you can't send physical objects with it, and most of all, there's a limit to how much mana it can hold, so it can't travel very far."
After letting the blue bird fly away, Adorian linked her arm through mine. Since she'd told the others to grab dinner on their own, she pulled me along, saying she was going to treat me.
"I'm a pretty famous, capable, and wealthy mage, you know? It wouldn't hurt to stay on my good side."
She was easily one of the most beautiful human women I had ever seen... While the elves were stunning enough to make anyone fall in love, that felt more like a trait of 'being an elf.' Adorian, on the other hand, felt much more approachable because she was human. I didn't mean she was some untouchable, otherworldly beauty, but that approachable quality actually made my heart flutter even more. If she could make me feel this way when we'd barely spent any time together, what would happen if I got to know her better and saw all her different sides...?
"Syaruen?"
"Ah, yes."
Before I knew it, we had arrived at the restaurant. To think the day would come when I'd get so lost staring at a woman's face that I'd lose track of what I was doing.
"Since this is an elven village, there's no meat, but the food here is quite delicious. I mean, it's not like we humans eat meat for every single meal, right? Do you have a private room available? We'll start with two bowls of Quandium soup, one Lencerino, and one Piben, please."
Like a regular, she familiarly requested a private room and ordered dishes I'd never heard of the moment we stepped inside, then led me to the room. Meria had mentioned visiting this village often, so it went without saying that Adorian did too.
"Pardon me for saying this, but I half-expected you to order in informal speech, like, 'Bring me this!'"
"Ahaha! Oh, please..."
And why, exactly, are you avoiding my gaze right now?
"By the way, I felt a strange sensation when I first saw you, and now I know it was because of the succubus in you. Not to mention that feeling of having met you somewhere before."
"About that, it might also be because I'm missing my hair ties and accessories. They were all taken from me when I was kidnapped..."
"You don't have any specific accessories you're stubborn about wearing, do you? Let's go check out the market later. I'll buy you more than ten sets."
"I don't need that many, and that's way too much pressure."
Adorian kept the conversation going with personal stories and silly jokes until the food arrived. The moment everything was served, a sly smirk spread across her face.
"You slept with my daughter, didn't you?"
"Cough! Ack!"
Ah, shit. I should have denied it with sheer horror the instant I heard it, but the question caught me so completely off guard that all I could do was choke on my own spit.
"So you're bad at lying, huh?"
"No, of course we didn't. She's still a kid."
"Hmm~"
Adorian looked down at me with an even more mischievous smile, and then, without warning, she pulled down her top, exposing her breasts. Even though she was a married mother, she was only forty years old—an age where many women weren't even married yet—and her body, in the absolute prime of its life, was truly spectacular.
"Wait, um, what... so suddenly..."
"I'm single too, and since you aren't in that kind of relationship with my daughter, there shouldn't be any problem, right?"