Soft? Blanc!
The sky hung heavy and overcast, yet today marked the start of our journey, so we set out with light hearts all the same.
Our destination was obvious—wherever humans lived!
I planned to head first toward the upstream stretch of the river I’d found earlier, then follow it all the way down. Even back in my original world, civilizations thrived along river lower reaches. If people lived in groups here, they would need farmland, so they ought to be clustered near the water.
Day turned to night and back again. Around the second day I finally reached the river’s upper course that reconnaissance had once shown me.
Clear water babbled gently over the stones. It looked truly pure, almost unnaturally clean. I found myself staring into it without thinking—water-gazing, I suppose you could call it.
In that instant the water gathered, lifted, and formed a tiny sphere. A droplet-shaped being floated before me. I had just met something that looked for all the world like a cute little slime.
“Pong… pong…”
The slime spun lazy circles around me. We had barely begun traveling and already I’d run into a flying slime! Round body, oversized eyes, a tiny, adorable mouth. Wow—ridiculously cute.
“Pong!!!”
What? I had only thought the praise and it reacted? In that case, infinite head-pats it was. I bombarded the little slime with a mental barrage of compliments.
“P… pong!”
Maybe I’d gone too babyish with the praise; the thing looked more embarrassed than I did.
We were still fooling around when a sharp cry split the air.
“Caw!”
“Hugin?”
Hugin shrieked from above my head and climbed higher still. That usually meant something unusual was nearby, yet Hati showed no alarm whatsoever—just sat there scratching an ear. What about the little slime beside me?
“Po… ng.”
Hmm? Afraid?
High overhead Hugin plummeted a good distance away. An enormous crash followed as he tore something apart.
What the hell is he after?
Uneasy, I walked over to identify the unknown creature.
“A human corpse?”
And a badly decomposed one at that.
Good grief… every human-shaped being I’ve met so far has been a rotting corpse…
The body had been sliced nearly in half by Hugin’s talons. The raven showed no interest in the scraps of flesh clinging to his claws; he simply wiped them casually against Hati.
Cleaning his talons?
“Ku… kung!”
Ah—Hati hated the stench of rotten meat on his fur. He shook himself at blinding speed.
Still, this corpse had a few oddities: it was still moving. The sort of zombie that goes “Grrraaah” in the movies? Split clean in two yet still twitching, so it wasn’t a virus-born creature from some game. Just to be sure I checked its mana. Gloomy, sticky energy clung to it—probably what had frightened the slime. But the mana wasn’t refined or polished; it carried none of the feel of human craft. Instead it was a hopeless snarl of tangled threads. From one particularly strong strand even an outsider like me could sense a fierce, raw desire: the wish simply to live.
Had this corpse naturally turned undead and wandered all the way up here…?
I looked down on it with pity.
Feeling sorry for a corpse was one thing. Looting it was another. I got straight to work. Come to think of it, this was already the second time I’d stripped a body in this world…
The corpse was male, maybe early twenties, wearing chainmail—definitely no civilian. Armor and a surcoat in an age like this? Whoever he was came from money; probably some well-born young master. His death must have felt doubly unfair…
From the body I recovered a dagger, a purse mixed with silver and gold coins, and a scrap of paper edged in gold leaf. The dagger was clearly high-quality—gilt, showy—but I couldn’t take it. In a chainmail era something that luxurious had to be custom-made. Custom work meant it could be traced, and I had no answer ready if someone asked why I carried it. Better leave it.
The paper scrap had writing, yet I couldn’t read a word. Gold leaf and some formal layout suggested either a personal letter or an official document; either way I left it behind. While I was sighing over the gold-leafed paper a worse thought struck me. Don’t tell me even the language is different and I won’t be able to communicate…
I stared at the corpse a moment longer. Everything useful had already been taken. Time to deal with the still-twitching remains. First undead I’d ever seen, and it had handed me a decent purse, so the least I could do was give it a proper send-off. I had no idea how funerals worked here, but making sure it never rose again seemed decent enough.
Turn Undead — Intermediate Magic
In games, skeletons and zombies were staple trash mobs; counter-magic for them naturally existed. The knotted threads of undead mana unraveled one by one until the wriggling corpse finally fell still.
I set the body alight with magic for cremation.
Fire — Basic Magic
Magical flame was ferociously hot; flesh became ash almost at once, leaving only bones. I crushed those bones with my wooden sword, scattered the powder from a high treetop, and planted a suitably sized stone at the base as a makeshift headstone. Before the marker I removed my mask and offered a silent prayer.
May the next life treat you kindly.
The man’s funeral was finished.
“Haaah…”
I felt as if my mental fortitude had just taken a hit. Time to keep descending the mountain.
The little slime that had just seen my bare face after I removed the wooden mask was acting strangely.
“Pong!!! Pong!!!”
It whipped around me in a frenzy of excitement, rubbing against my body again and again. Did the slimes of this world care about faces?
While I endured its passionate affection a thought struck me. Wait—wasn’t this the perfect chance to invite the slime along? A ridiculously cute companion would be more than welcome.
“My name is Haren. Would you like to travel with me?”
The line came out sounding uncomfortably like something a kidnapper would say to a child; my conscience twinged.
“Pong!!! Pong!!!”
Whether it noticed or not, the little slime bobbed up and down in frantic agreement, then shot straight at my face. Soft contact against my forehead.
“Pong~”
Something connected. A cool, sparkling sensation flooded through me, like drinking ice-cold soda right after a hot bath. The moment the link formed, information poured into my mind and I understood what the slime truly was.
It was a water spirit.
Once the contract settled I could suddenly hear its will. The spirit seemed to like me a great deal. Did it have a name? Calling it “slime” felt wrong, so I asked.
“Do you have a name?”
“Pong pong pong.”
None?
“Then may I give you one?”
“Pong~”
A soft, squishy little spirit… Something like “Malang” would have fit, but this was a proper intelligent being. A pet-style name would only offend it. Then…
“All right! How about Blanc?”
Not pet-like at all, and it matched the spirit’s nature perfectly.
“Pong!”
Apparently the name pleased it; Blanc spun happy circles around me.
“Looking forward to traveling with you, Blanc!”
“Pong!”
And so I gained a soft new friend.
Contracting with Blanc revealed several surprises; the little spirit was remarkably versatile. First, it could create water or erase it entirely. Second, water had always been the source of life and a symbol of purification, and sure enough Blanc possessed healing ability. I couldn’t test it yet, but the moment someone nearby got hurt I would. Next came an attack called Air Burst that looked almost comical yet shattered a boulder. It also had visible and invisible modes, so it could hide from everyone except its contractor. Last—and best—was the ability to read wills. I had assumed it worked only on contracted spirits, yet Blanc could sense other beings as well. It wasn’t full mind-reading, just surface intention, but that was plenty. Right now, for example, while Hugin jabbed Hati’s side with a claw I could catch:
Hugin: Hehe, fun.
Hati: Stop it, stop it.
More than enough for me. Hugin and Hati had always understood my speech while I remained deaf to theirs; the imbalance had felt strange. Now that I could finally hear them, I counted myself lucky.
I set Blanc to invisible mode and perched it on my head. Soft, cool weight settled pleasantly against my scalp. When I first met the spirit I had dismissed it by looks alone. Seeing its true abilities, it was clearly a high-ranking spirit. Once again this world proved you could never judge by appearance.
Following the stream quickened our descent. Watching Blanc dance around me eased my mind, and stray thoughts drifted up. First among them: those earliest corpses I had merely buried without burning. Don’t tell me they had risen as undead and were wandering about…
Second: this world really did sit somewhere between ancient and medieval times. Combining the clothing, chainmail, silver and gold coins I had seen so far left little room for doubt. I had dropped straight into a barbaric age… The thought was a little depressing, yet that only made positivity more important. Once things turn to shit they tend to stay shit—I learned that the hard way in the military.
Days and nights cycled past. We met other animals along the way, turned them into daily meals, trained, and simply played together as a group of four. The journey down remained enjoyable, yet…
No—we were already on the fourth day of following the river and still deep in forest. Exactly how vast was this place?! Luckily the waterway kept widening and the ground grew flatter, so our direction seemed correct. We would keep following the river. Just to be sure I sent Hugin skyward to scout. After two or three hours of circling he returned with a blunt report: “Nothing out there.” If even the sky showed no man-made structures, we were in for a long walk.
I considered using this body’s full physical power to sprint, then discarded the idea. Why rush? I was traveling with fluffy, adorable companions and had yet to feel bored. Right now Hugin dozed on my shoulder, head bobbing. Look how cute that was—no wonder they called it animal therapy.
Hmm… come to think of it, earlier Hugin had sliced a chainmail-clad corpse clean in half with his talons. I remembered videos saying chainmail resisted cuts far better than thrusts, yet he had still bisected it. Did the bird’s claws carry some strengthening magic of their own?
I reached to stroke him—then Hati suddenly bolted ahead.
Prey? Apparently not.
“Kungkung!!! Kungkung!!”
Something up front?
We followed and soon saw them: at a glance twenty to thirty corpses. Wow—more bodies! Trees lay shattered, the earth torn up; clearly a massive animal had gone on a rampage. None of the corpses were intact. One man’s upper half hung in a tree while his lower half lay separately on the ground. After the undead incident I had sworn to burn every body I found, yet I never expected this many at once…
Everything was too torn or punctured to loot. Together with my companions I gathered the remains into one pile. Hugin… could lift and fly with a full-grown man as if it were nothing. That bird kept earning reevaluations.
Once the bodies were collected certain common traits stood out. Uniform gear and remnants of chainmail pointed to soldiers. The wounds were large punctures; most had been gored by a beast with enormous horns. The mess of each corpse suggested the creature had impaled them, then shaken its head violently. Yet there were no signs of feeding. This was not a hunt.
Thinking carefully, the scene resembled what had happened to Hati’s parents. Same horn wounds, pups slaughtered, everything simply abandoned. Had the same creature attacked a group of twenty or thirty people, wiped them out, and calmly walked away?
A creature that left nothing but questions in its wake.