Chapter 89
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 89
Chapter Title: Lake
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The damp puddles stretched on endlessly. The moss that had dotted the long staircase here and there had vanished, and the filth that had blackened the stone steps was completely gone, leaving only faint traces as if water had recently flowed through.
'Not like the Master, is it?'
Erzsebet tilted her head slightly as she examined those marks.
It was definitely the Master's habit to clean up every bit of filth along the path without leaving anything behind. Her Master seemed almost obsessive about cleaning, as if he had some kind of germaphobia. But after finishing the cleaning, he would always pull out that strange rag of his and wipe away even the water stains...
Had she picked up the habit herself from traveling with her cleaning-obsessed Master? Even though anyone else would consider the passage plenty clean, Erzsebet felt an inexplicable irritation at the faint streaks that remained.
"Smells like a snack."
"Ugh... There won't be any more undead coming out, right?"
The water marks continued all the way to the bottom of the stairs. Then came the vast empty cavern that should have been teeming with Desmond's undead. Thanks to her Master sweeping them all up after muttering something bizarre about an "undead drop," not a single trace of them remained.
Dry, catching a whiff of the lingering corpse stench, seemed to recall Desmond and think of "snacks," drooling at the memory. Lilith shuddered, haunted by her own ordeal of starving for over a month, trapped inside because of the undead.
"He said there'd be some kind of anomaly down here... but there's nothing."
"Hwah?"
Her Master had clearly asked her to investigate because something unusual had happened underground, yet there wasn't even an ant to be seen. Erzsebet gripped the [High-Pressure Cleaner] her Master had upgraded for her and strode forward confidently.
"Hmph... Spread out and search. Dry, check for any signs of life. You, dream demon... just look around."
"Hng!"
"Y-Yes!"
Dry, still on bad terms with Erzsebet, snorted derisively but complied since it was a request from Eugene. He extended his roots and branches through the underground cavern to begin the search.
The grudge energy from Desmond's undead that had once infested the place lingered faintly, making it tough to extend his roots, but it was nothing for Dry, who had drained Desmond's main body dry. He slowly absorbed the grudge energy as he infiltrated the cavern.
"U-Um, then I'll check the room where I used to stay..."
Glancing warily at Erzsebet, Lilith flapped her wings and headed toward the chamber where she'd been imprisoned. With Dry and Lilith both off on their own, Erzsebet slowly paced the cavern, retracing the previous battle in her mind.
'When I encountered that archlich here... He was searching for someone who had tampered with his memories too.'
Lilith, who had joined them later, was the same. Eugene had taken in the starved succubus, but even she—a powerful dream demon capable of ensnaring Erzsebet in illusions—couldn't remember why she'd been there, as if something had wiped her memory.
-Shraaak!!
Erzsebet drew out a thin blade of blood to test. The speed was noticeably faster than before.
'...Some of my power has returned.'
It wasn't the full strength she could muster when fully utilizing the pure blood she'd consumed, but it was definitely recovered compared to before. And not only that—whether from steadily ingesting blood or the stimulus of fighting at full power once, fragments of lost minor memories were resurfacing.
'This all started...'
After receiving her Master's orders and destroying those alliance dungeons, the changes had begun. Her power and memories had started recovering faster afterward.
'No, perhaps.'
Maybe her memories were returning for an entirely different reason than the blood consumption or unleashing her power once. For some reason, her recollections of destroying those dungeons felt strangely hazy and off...
"E-Erzsebet... ma'am! Th-There's something weird here...!"
Her train of thought broke as Lilith urgently called out to her. Irritated at the interruption, Erzsebet scowled slightly and headed toward the source of the voice.
Along the way, she passed murals that were even cleaner than before. Murals depicting her and the other beings from the ruins. Though the sections beyond the four clearly depicted figures were too damaged to make out...
The fifth mural was similarly shattered and hard to discern, but while the central figure was unrecognizable, the background was somewhat identifiable.
A mural painted with what evoked massive waves. Amidst an image resembling a vast lake—or perhaps a sea—a broken figure was depicted.
"E-Erzsebet! Hurry over here..."
"Erzsebet?"
"...Erzsebet, ma'am."
"Hm."
After firmly reestablishing the hierarchy with the persistently calling Lilith, Erzsebet examined what had her so frantic.
"A door. Was this here before?"
"N-No. When I lived here, there wasn't a door like this..."
Erzsebet recalled their previous descent into the depths with her Master. The day she'd flailed pathetically in illusions, only to meet this dream demon after her Master had already wrapped everything up.
By her memory, there hadn't been any separate door here—just unrelenting black walls.
"...It's clean."
"Y-Yeah?"
Unlike her memory, the interior of Lilith's old room was spotless.
The walls, once thought to be pure black from grime, had shed their filth to reveal their original gray hue. All the disgusting ooze that had made Erzsebet and Eugene grimace was gone...
"Hiiing... My pillow. I was hoping to find it while I was here."
Not only that, but all the furniture Lilith had conjured through illusions during her stay had vanished. All that remained was a massive door slab, forced open as if crushed by immense weight.
"This must be what the Master mentioned. Let's go in."
"W-Wait, give me a moment to prepare myself..."
"What are you blabbering about, dream demon?"
-Bang!
As Lilith hesitated before the door, Erzsebet kicked her plump rear, shoving her inside. Ignoring the teary-eyed Lilith rubbing her cushy backside, Erzsebet peered beyond the door and fell silent.
"A lake...?"
"I-It’s huge..."
Vast enough to briefly mistake for the open sea, the enormous lake was blanketed in green from algal blooms—not remotely clean. It exuded overwhelming majesty that awed the eye, yet reeked of foul fishy rot.
"A forest above, and now a lake...?"
What kind of place was this, harboring something like this indoors? Wrinkling her nose at the stench, Erzsebet approached closer to inspect the lake more closely.
-Gurgle...
'Hm?'
The moment she drew near, something bubbled, and the lake's water suddenly surged upward.
-Splash!!
"Hup!"
"Wh-What is it? Kyaa!!"
Erzsebet scooped up the dazed Lilith and leaped back just as the erupting water crashed into their spot. But the gushing mass didn't return to the lake—instead, it slowly took form on the ground.
"Indeed... Come to think of it, the Master mentioned losing a slime."
"Gurgle!!"
As if furious at the interruption to its meal, the slime—swollen massively from absorbing filth and dirty lake water—wobbled threateningly at Erzsebet and Lilith.
"Hmm... Instinctively drawn to water-rich areas? But this size... Did it evolve into something like a King Slime?"
The gelatinous blob, large enough to rival two or three iron golems combined, seemed intimidating at first glance, but Erzsebet observed it with keen interest, utterly unperturbed.
And rightly so—no matter how big or evolved, it was still just a slime.
-Gurgle!!
"Arrogant, even if it is one of the Master's creatures."
Enraged by her nonchalance, the slime inflated again. Erzsebet lazily flicked a drop of blood at it.
"Who do you bare your teeth at?"
The blood droplet burrowed into the slime's body, and with a casual gesture, she tried to detonate it.
"Gulk!"
'...What?!'
-Boom!!
The embedded droplet exploded, tearing a chunk from the massive slime. It writhed in agony, twisting wildly, but the perpetrator wore an even angrier expression.
'...It swallowed it? Some of my blood?'
Erzsebet had intended to burst the slime apart entirely. Yet contrary to her will, the blood explosion merely blew off a portion.
"...Unbelievable. To partially swallow blood I was directly controlling..."
A scratch formed on her pride, unmatched in blood mastery.
Not even kin, but a mere slime devouring her controlled droplet? The swallowed blood had evaded her command, failing to explode and instead assimilating into the slime.
"Gulk!"
Infuriated, the slime rapidly sucked in nearby lake water to partially regenerate, then lashed out with gelatinous tentacles at Erzsebet.
-Bang!!
Erzsebet casually formed a blood membrane to block. Of course, since it only shielded her, Lilith—who was getting up behind—took a hit and went flying.
"How exactly did it evolve? I thought it was just a King Slime variant, but maybe a Blood Slime?"
-Bang! Bang! Bang!
While Erzsebet pondered seriously, the tentacles hammered her membrane relentlessly, but a mere slime couldn't pierce it. Frustrated by the failures, the slime seemed to shrink back momentarily.
"Intriguing. I had no intention of killing it since it's the Master's, but capturing it alive would be..."
"Ptooey!!"
"...?"
Something the slime spat struck her blood membrane. Far weaker than the prior assaults—just a pathetic liquid glob.
But...
-Sizzle...
"What!!"
The moment it touched, her rock-solid membrane melted away in an instant.
"This is the Master's...?"
As memories of her first meeting with Eugene flashed, the slime's tentacles reached for the now-defenseless her.