To the Battlefield, Sage – Queen Slime Gratos
"Let's head to the battlefield, Sage," Serianne said, surveying her surroundings.
Just as she said, when it came to exorcism—or wielding holy power—Elena the priestess would outshine Serianne.
Serianne glanced around.
The eerie swamp landscape. Aside from the occasional white bones crunching underfoot and the green liquid oozing between the tree branches, it wasn't all that different.
Ever since the Maou appeared, the world had undergone all sorts of changes, slow or fast.
Monster habitats shifted, fertile plains turned into volcanic wastelands, and this place—once fed by a mighty river—had become a swamp brimming only with death.
"Elena."
"Yes!"
At Serianne's call, Elena began gathering holy power.
Almost simultaneously, soulless corpses rose from all directions. Their flesh had melted away, leaving only bones, yet they radiated a vicious malice.
The priests on site called it necromancy, but the elders—including the Holy Kingdom's pope who received the reports—believed it was a phenomenon born of magic, not necromancy.
Well, whatever the truth was, it would come to light soon enough.
"Bell Tolling the End of Eternity"
As Elena finished her incantation, a massive silver bell materialized. Forged of pure holy power, the enormous bell began tolling slowly—dong... dong... dong...—its sound reverberating through the swamp.
A wide-area exorcism ritual. A blessing that eradicated the wicked and reduced them to nothingness.
As expected of the academy's top graduate—even skipping parts of the chant, the power was immense.
But.
"...They're still moving."
"The ritual was perfect. So that means..."
"Yeah. It's not necromancy."
Realizing this, Elena dispelled the ritual and shifted to a defensive stance. Without necromancy, she lacked one-sided offensive spells—defense was her only option.
Click-clack. Elena loaded her small musket.
Serianne watched her for a moment, then slowly began channeling her magic.
"Whoa..."
Elena gasped in admiration at the sight Serianne conjured.
Dozens, hundreds of ice spears hovering in the sky. The most basic ice-attribute spell: Ice Spear. Something first-year academy students learned—the fundamentals of ice magic. But the spectacle unfolding before them was anything but basic.
"Seventy-two in total, huh. I underestimated you."
The smallest ones were human-sized. Launching hundreds of them made the title of "Sage" feel well-earned.
The swamp was instantly blanketed in frost. The soulless corpses shattered as the massive ice spears impaled them.
"Such a shame..."
Then came a leisurely voice.
Turning her head, they saw a woman covered head to toe in green liquid—or rather, composed of it.
"A slime, huh."
"More precisely, a Queen Slime... Anyway, allow me to introduce myself."
The woman spread her arms wide in greeting.
"Queen Slime Gratos, one of the Maou Army's Four Heavenly Kings."
"A Heavenly King? Big shot, then."
"Heh heh, flattery will get you nowhere. And you... Ah, that cloak. You're the Sage of the Blue Tower, aren't you?"
"Something wrong?" Gratos said with a smirk.
"What is?"
"From what I heard... the Blue Tower Sage uses water-attribute magic... But that was ice just now...?"
"Eh, ice is just a form of water, isn't it? Lower the temperature, and water becomes ice."
"Heh heh, nonsense. Then why's ice a separate attribute?"
Whatever.
Gratos eyed Serianne.
"No water or ice here anyway."
"Hmm. Yeah, no water or ice."
Serianne looked around.
The ice spears she'd launched had vanished completely. And the water... Ah.
"This isn't water."
Serianne stared at the liquid pooling on the ground.
"Correct. That's... part of me. Which makes me a slime."
"So the entire swamp is you?"
"Heh heh, smart cookie...?"
"Well, you didn't trip my senses. Guess we were inside you from the start."
Serianne shook her head with a resigned sigh.
"In that case, no choice."
"Huh?"
"Gotta go all out from the beginning."
Serianne had already drawn her staff. She slammed the one embedded with a red gem into the ground and murmured softly.
"Great Glacier"
A bone-chilling frost descended upon the swamp.
"Hero."
"Yeah?"
"You okay?"
"Yeah. You, Eli?"
"...I'm fine, I guess."
Eli and Kairan steadied their dazed minds as they talked.
An inexplicable emptiness lingered in their hearts.
It felt like losing their purpose. Or more accurately, like losing their way. The goal still existed, but the signposts leading there had vanished.
The path ahead had snapped clean off.
She'd never been great at open-world games anyway—without the steps laid out, this scattered feeling wasn't so strange.
"Hmm... Let's move!"
"Huh?"
Eli suddenly stood, shouting energetically. She looked at Kairan, extended her hand, and said,
"Feels like we'll stall out if we stay like this. Come on, let's go!"
"Sure. What should we do?"
"...Dunno."
They knew they had to move, but had no clue what to do. They wanted to act, but couldn't.
Was losing Bella such a big deal? No, probably not. They'd built up plenty of physical intimacy, but she was Maou Army. Even an ancient god was the enemy now.
Pity, sure—but no regrets.
Probably just overexposed to her pheromones. Post-nut clarity, that kinda thing. She'd never felt it before, so maybe that's why it hit so hard.
"Mmngh."
As they pondered their next move, Eli spotted a woman approaching.
"Huh?"
"Uh... right from here...? Ah, this the place?"
A woman with long black straight hair and small breasts folded what looked like a map scroll and eyed Kairan and Eli.
She cleared her throat a few times, then addressed them.
"Hero Kairan Borg, Saintess Elena Serenia, correct?"
"Yes, that's us...?"
The black-haired woman pulled a massive scroll from her inventory and began reading it aloud in a booming voice.
"Well done! Heroes of the Empire, pride of the nation. You have slain one of the Four Heavenly Kings, the Succubus Queen. Thus, Emperor Arhan Perseus of Athenan offers his highest praise... Wait, hold on—why are you getting closer? N-no, stop...! Stoooop!"
"Ooooh♥ Hiiih, oooh♥ Joy, aaaah♥"
Late that evening, Eli watched as Kairan used the messenger like an onahole.
The woman's face twisted in ecstasy even as her throat was gripped. Already over four hours in, she looked utterly broken.
"Hmm... An imperial edict."
Eli picked up the scroll the messenger had dropped and skimmed its contents.
As was typical of missives from the emperor, it was 40% pointless pleasantries, 10% the actual point, and 50% closing remarks. Simple reason: the emperor wanted to say one thing, but his retainers bloated it tenfold for the sake of face and formality.
The gist was this:
1. Thanks for taking down a Heavenly King.
2. There's a battle brewing on the northern plateau—lend support.
3. Come to the palace later; I'll host you properly.
Just those three points, padded out with the scribes' agony evident on every line.
The emperor was efficient. He cared more about ending the war quick than pomp—or maybe he just wanted to slack off.
Anyway, Eli started masturbating to the moans as a side dish.
She watched the messenger get tossed around every which way, Kairan unleashing all his pent-up lust on the living onahole, while Eli began producing potion ingredients.
"Don't break her~ I wanna use her too!"
"Yeah, I'll... try."
"Hmm... Looks pretty broken already..."
For all his words, the messenger's arms dangled limply like noodles. Her brain seemed fried—slack-jawed grin, drool pouring out. Utterly wrecked by pleasure. Maybe he went overboard since it had been a while.
Hmm... Should I use my blessing?
Prime onahole material, but she was the emperor's herald—likely some noble's kid.
Eh, whatever. What're you gonna do about it?
We're the hero and saintess. In other words, rank-and-title bullies. With the clear goal of "overthrow the Maou," anything short of civilian massacres gets a pass. Raping heralds, turning noble ladies into onaholes—whatever.
Not invincible, of course...
Dukes and below didn't count.
"Ahh...♥"
She seemed a bit more lively now.