I spotted the trio once more, doing their best to survive, with Elen casting magic in the center.

Wait a sec. Water Blades don’t work, because they aren’t magic, I suppose. So is magic all I need?

“Elen! Hit me with an Icicle Lance! Just one’s fine!”

“Hahh?! Umm, that’s kind of…”

“Just do it!”

The request gave her some pause, but after a second, she began chanting. After another moment, the freeze-magic Icicle Lance was launched.

“Don’t complain about this to me later! Icicle Lance!!”

As she shouted out the spell, a pillar of ice shot my way. I could probably capture that magic with my Predator skill.

And if I could—

Report. Launching unique skill “Predator.” Icicle Lance Predation and Analysis successful.

Great! Just as I thought.

Really, I half doubted it while it was being explained to me, but this Predator had to be some kind of rule-breaking skill. That magic probably packed a punch, but Predator absorbed it all, leaving me undamaged, and I even learned it to boot.

“Hehh?! What happened to my magic?!”

Sorry, Elen. Can’t explain.

The Analysis wrapped up in an instant, and now I could cast the spell just by thinking about it. No chanting required—that was another nice side effect of Predator.

“Icicle Lance!”

Omitting the casting time, I fired some magic off toward the salamander. Then, at that moment, I understood—the theory behind magic, and how it all worked. My Water Blades didn’t damage a salamander at all, even if they managed to slice right through the guy, but Elen’s magic did the trick.

The reason was surprisingly simple. Casting magic wasn’t about acting upon your surroundings with a phenomenon—it was more like picturing something, then creating it in real life.

I was, in a way, launching a bolt of energy that had the effect of robbing the target of its heat. That bolt happened to take the form of an energy-sapping ice pillar, but it wasn’t the ice that made it work. It was the energy inside. Thus, it applied damage to a salamander, whose own energy took the form of heat and flame.

And the multiple ice pillars I’d just launched—too big, really, to be called “lances”—had just skewered the two flame salamanders. That, apparently, was all it took to rid them of all their magical force. They instantly vaporized, like a puff of smoke, and were no more.

“Yes! All done here. Let me help you guys—”

I figured I would help them out, since I’d had Elen waste a magic bolt on me—but I was too late.

“Ah, crap,” Kabal said, “it’s gonna blow itself up!” As the first line of defense, he launched an Aura Shield, but the salamander’s self-sacrificing explosion was more than enough to blow it away. The three of them were all exposed to the intense heat as they soared backward into the air.

Flustered, I had Ranga run up to them. They were more badly burned than I’d thought. Conscious, yes, but no longer capable of moving—and Kabal, up in front, had taken the worst of it. If it hadn’t been for his shield, the relatively defenseless Elen and Gido easily could’ve died.

“Dammit… Ranga, protect these guys. Get them somewhere safe!”

“But…”

The order gave him pause for a moment, but he fell silent, perhaps sensing the mystical force I was letting off. His wild instincts told him that no back talk would be permitted, no doubt.

“This is an order! Do it! They’ve got recovery potions on them, so get them to a safe place and heal them.”

“As you say. May you fight well!”

“Don’t worry. Ifrit’s all mine!”

That must have convinced Ranga well enough. He nodded, gathered all three of them up in his mouth, and—giving me one more look of respect—sped off. He might have had the wrong idea about my intentions, but either way, all I had left was Ifrit. Now I could fight without reservation. Forget about getting anyone else involved in this.

Let’s get this farce over with, I thought as I stared the fire giant down.

The flames whirled violently in the air. Ifrit, before my eyes, had split himself up. Now I had multiple giants blocking my escape routes. He had some tricky talents, but I wasn’t too concerned.

My detection skills could accurately tell where the fire was going. Even if the multiple Ifrits all launched attacks at the same time, I could easily determine their fire’s danger level from the temperature and take suitable action. I already knew that they weren’t all at the same level.

I sincerely doubted that Ifrit could hit me with any kind of effective attack. But at the same time, nothing I had was successful against Ifrit. Those flames were rough. The ground was turning into magma amid the ridiculously high temperatures. No way I could just walk across that, not unless I wanted a class change to “burnt slime.”

Now what…?

Paralyzing Breath and Poisonous Breath were effective only up to thirty feet away. My breath attacks needed to be launched within that distance of Ifrit himself, which wasn’t gonna happen. I needed an attack that kept me at a safe distance while dealing a decisive blow to him. The only thing that came to mind was my new toy, Icicle Lance.

“Take this! Icicle Lance!!”

I launched several icicles’ worth at the Ifrit clones and successfully vaporized a few of them. Vaporizing with ice sounds a bit odd, but with the clouds of water vapor after the attacks struck home, that was the best way to describe it. I started getting into this little target-shooting game, knocking down the clones one by one with my lances.

But—

By the time I thought Oh, crap! it was already too late. The moment I felt it, I was already surrounded. A wide-range barrier to trap me? One of Ifrit’s intrinsics?

In an instant, there was a magic circle painted on the ground, no chanting required to cast it. I forgot I wasn’t the only one who could do that. He had transformed his own body into gas and turned a hundred-yard radius into a searing-hot ocean of flame. Probably one of Ifrit’s high-level ranged attacks, and even worse, the area was brimming with energy from the Ifrit clones I had defeated.

“Flare Circle!”

I heard a voice that I couldn’t quite decipher. Man, woman, young, old? Hard to tell.

There was…no escape. I was at the mercy of my enemy’s spell. Ifrit made me attack those clones on purpose. They were both a distraction and a way to charge up his energy.

I mentally prepared myself for death.

Dahh… I didn’t think I had let my guard down, but I could’ve handled that better. And I played right into the enemy’s hands, too! Totally awful.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so self-centered. We should’ve all taken him on at once. Or maybe I could’ve taken my black wolf form, confused him with my speed, and then lunged at him, taking whatever burns I got. Or maybe a round of Dark Lightning would’ve done the trick. Sitting tight and seeing how things turned out? Not good.

Certain other regrets also entered my mind…

Still, I knew my senses were ultrafast, but it sure was taking a while for the damage to arrive. Not that I minded a painless death, if it had to be that way…

Seriously, wasn’t this going kind of slowly?

Was he just screwing with me?

Weird… I should’ve been swallowed up by the flames a while ago.

Hmmm…?

…Understood. The effects of “Resist Temperature” have successfully canceled flame-based attacks automatically.

I detected at least a bit of “You forgot all about Resist Temperature, didn’t you?” sarcasm to the voice.

Who asked you to speak up right now, you pile of junk?!

Yeah. I thought I got a “…” in response to that little outburst.

Hopefully that was just my imagination. The Sage had been completely faithful to me before now. It wasn’t even self-aware. It’d be stupid to think otherwise.

Ha-ha-ha. I’m just being silly. I’m sure of it!

Now, then.

Wait. It cancels flame-based attacks? So…

Dude, I have this in the bag, don’t I? Like, this is all part of the plan. I pretend that I’m on the ropes, then I turn the tables. Let’s go with that.

Right. Time to finish up, then.

“What was that?” I shouted as I silently unraveled my Sticky Thread across Ifrit’s body. He was done for. My Analysis already showed that he was using Shizu for his body’s core. I couldn’t have tied up a pure spirit beast like the salamanders with this string, but one with a physical core was a different story.

Next, I’d combine the Sticky Thread with some Steel Thread to get the benefits of both. Another product of my experimentation—and as a bonus, it adopted the same immunities I had, so it wouldn’t get burned up.

Checkmate. I know I sneered at you earlier, but you were probably sneering at me, too. Let’s call it even. You’re free to hate me for this if you like.

“I’m up next, right?”

Ifrit, in a panic, struggled to free himself. I expected that. But my “Sticky Steel Thread” was never going to let him. I took my sweet time, casually approaching.

It was time to land the final strike. On Ifrit, the monster that had probably taken Shizu’s body over.

No need for too much haste. I walked up to this flailing creature, who was trying to throw every attack he could to stop me. Sadly for him, flames didn’t work on me.

Then…

Use unique skill “Predator”?

Yes

No

That’ll be a big ol’ yes, please.

A flash of bright light covered the area, then suddenly vanished.

All that was left was a lone old woman and me.

Was this a dream?

My mother’s hand, cold.

Her cold eyes, gazing at me.

A warm smile and a pile of pure white ash.

All these memories did was torment me. I didn’t want to remember them—

But that was the path I walked.

If I hadn’t run into the hero, I doubt my soul could ever have been saved… But I was too awkward, too unskilled, to wind up like her. With so many people relying on me, too…

It was just that—

It had been several years since I’d retired from the adventurer life. I was a full-fledged teacher, leading the next generation of our trade as I helped out the society with its work.

The Society of Adventurers, a group that crossed borders and had grown beyond the control of any single government, had built its headquarters in the kingdom of Englesia. I was no longer an adventurer, but if there was anything I could do for them, I wanted to help them with it. It had been the society, after all, that had given me a home of sorts when I had nowhere else to go.

There, I had a chance to teach a number of talented students. A young man with eyes that beamed with complete purity. A girl, her gaze tinged with hopelessness. More otherworlders, I assumed, just like me.

The two of them were exact opposites in so many ways. Yuuki was a bright, optimistic boy, while Hinata was insular and reserved, as if she carried all the darkness in the world with her.

Bandits had attacked her when she came here. At the time, I had thought that she would warm up and come around as the days passed. The bandits met their fates at the hands of some other assailant, which saved Hinata’s life, but I’m sure the incident must have scarred her.

I saw a bit of myself in the girl, after all. I had an affinity for her. It was apparently one-sided.

“Thank you for everything you’ve taught me,” she said. “There is nothing else I can learn from you. I doubt we will meet again.” Then she turned around and left.

I thought it might have been best to chase after her, but I couldn’t will myself to leave town. The society was building a new shared-assistance program with Englesia, a new organizational structure originally proposed by Yuuki. As a former hero, I was put in the position of representing the society in the requisite negotiations. It was something I wanted to see succeed, considering how it would define the society’s future direction.

So in the end, all I could do was see her off. “If you ever get lost,” I called to her, “I want you to rely on me.”

After agonizing over it, I decided to support Yuuki over Hinata. The girl had walked a similar path to mine, but she was always far more strong willed than I was. I figured that I should believe in her. That her iron will could clear the darkness in her soul and transform her into a great woman.

It was no great surprise when I learned, a mere few years later, that she had risen to an important position in the Church. I felt a little proud, a little lonely…and just a tad anxious.

Hinata isn’t feeling lonesome, is she? Is she doing all right with her life?

The questions overwhelmed me, but I figured I had no right to ask them. I once had the chance to grasp her hand, and I had refused it.

All I could do was pray for Hinata’s continued safety.

Yuuki, on the other hand, was far more dynamic.

It was Yuuki who built the current system for the Society of Adventurers, now renamed the Free Guild. Thanks to him, the guild was able to build a successful cooperative relationship with nations across the world. He had forged new treaties with governments, earning the guild positions in their topmost of councils. His efforts had made the organization more powerful than ever.

I should have expected nothing less. Until then, every nation had been focused solely on protecting its own borders. When the Free Guild began taking on monster-dispatch duties, it lightened the loads of every other government in the world. And that wasn’t all. Adventurers—people who traveled the world, never beholden to any single country—were obligated to file reports on their journeys. The Free Guild then collated these reports to gain a grasp of how monsters were distributed worldwide. Danger levels were assigned to every region, allowing people to travel in relative peace.

The system had one other major effect. Knowing where and when to expect monsters made it possible to quickly detect anomalies—letting people discover and report on monsters not seen before or eliminate hordes in short order if they grew too numerous.

Whenever a monster that normally didn’t appear in a certain region suddenly menaced a nearby town, the guild was also obliged to send an expeditionary force to figure out the cause. Getting to the root of it early on let the guild and local governments assemble a dispatch corps far more efficiently than before.

Having this kind of organization made people’s lives both safer and more comfortable. Mankind found itself expanding its cities, and the overall population has grown rapidly in recent years. The institution of rankings assigned to monsters did much to reduce the number of deaths as well.

For someone charged with training new recruits, nothing could have made me happier. Thanks to Yuuki, the Free Guild was now an organization that neither the nations of the world nor its people could do without.

Yuuki, for his part, just laughed it off. “I was just imitating what I saw in this video game I played,” he said. “Though, of course, you can do anything you want in a game. You can have monsters that say, ‘I’m not a bad slime, you know’…or even have them join your party!”

He was always a joker like that. Monsters becoming your friends? That sort of thing could happen only in your dreams.

The world I was born in had almost been razed to the ground by war. Had it recovered to the point where it could create people like him—people who never seemed to have a care in the world?

He explained to me that these “video games” were children’s toys that let you experience a full story yourself…so if Japan had recovered enough to give children dreams to play with, it must have become a wonderful place.

So I listened to Yuuki’s stories, thinking to myself about a home I could never go back to.

I continued to serve as a support for Yuuki after that—advising him from the rear, never appearing in the forefront. The Free Guild continued to grow and became an outfit used by nearly everyone. It embraced a philosophy of rescuing the weak, accessible to everyone equally.

Then Yuuki, my very own student, became the guild’s grand master, its highest position, the one who organized and oversaw the guild masters of each branch. Given everything he had done for them, I should have expected it. His efforts were the catalyst that allowed people to live at peace for a change. He had done everything he needed to. I felt the satisfaction of a job well done.

So I decided, then, to go on a journey. A journey to take care of some regrets.

I kept having dreams of the past, back when I was still a magic-born. It was getting hard to contain Ifrit’s will. Perhaps I was approaching the end of my natural life. I knew my Mask of Magic Resistance was still working as well as ever, so the reason seemed obvious.

Once I realized that, I concluded that I had best leave town as soon as possible. I couldn’t know when Ifrit would finally fall out of control, and I had no idea how my death would affect Ifrit himself.

Plus, I wanted to retaliate against my demon lord. Just once, I wanted to have my say with him.

So I decided to set off on my journey.

When I told Yuuki about my plans, he silently nodded, saying nothing about them. Hopefully he was willing to forgive this one final act of selfishness. Maybe, I thought to myself, this is how the hero felt, too.

I made my way to Blumund. Heinz was retired by now, since his son Fuze had taken over the guild master’s role in his place. We got to meet up and chat a little about old times. He had a lot to say, which I was glad for.

Remarkably, he reported that Veldora had disappeared. The guild was conducting a frantic investigation to find the cause. “I don’t know too many details,” Heinz told me with a snicker. “They don’t tell an old pensioner like me too much. I can tell it’s troubling my son, though.”

He must have trusted Fuze well to speak of him like that, I thought. I had gone on several monster-hunting operations together with the boy, and I remembered him doing a fine job supporting me. Now he was out of the front lines and following in his father’s managerial footsteps. He must have inherited all of Heinz’s natural talent.

“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been very kind to me.”

I shouldn’t get in their way. After my polite response, I stood up.

Was Veldora’s disappearance meant to be some divine message to us? Either way, I was headed for the forest.

“You stay safe, too, Shizu! I think there’s an expedition leaving here tomorrow, actually,” he muttered, almost to himself. “If you’re hitting the forest, you might as well join them for a while.”

He didn’t try to stop me. He was always an awkward fellow, and this was how he preferred to show kindness.

“Ah, Heinz, I should have expected nothing less. I suppose I’ll owe you to the very end, then.”

“You owe me nothing, Shizu. And no talking about the ‘very end’ yet! I’d like another look at you sometime.”

I could feel the warmth behind his words. “True. I’ll be back.”

I bowed low and left.

The next day, I managed to run into the expedition Heinz mentioned to me. It consisted of three adventurers, and as he’d told me, they were a bright, inviting group. I genuinely appreciated joining such kind people for my last journey, though their excessive carelessness did baffle me.

There was, to say the least, a lot of trouble along our way through the Forest of Jura. I was impressed, in a way, that they had attained a ranking of B at all. They had the battle technique such a rank implied, but if I had to sum up everything about their team in a word, it would be “nonsensical.”

Our journey continued on nonetheless, right up until they jammed a sword into a giant ant nest. I was horrified. This happened not a moment after I told them it was a bad idea, too. Never in my life did I imagine they would try something like that.

My flames could’ve torched those giant ants instantly, I imagine. But by the time I realized how hard it was to control my power, I had already started to feel my body deteriorate. It remained physically young thanks to Ifrit’s presence, but as my power over him dwindled, it rapidly began aging. Or, I suppose I should say it went back to the age it should always have been.

Would Ifrit be released once my body gave in? Or would he crumble and fall apart with me? I would have no idea what would happen until it did. That was why I had set off.

And why I hesitated to pull out my fire.

We were lucky enough to be rescued by a passing patrol, saving us from any further trouble. But this patrol was one of the fishiest things I had ever seen.

Being saved by monsters? Nothing like that had ever happened to me before.

These were hobgoblins riding upon magical wolves. It would have been one thing if they understood a few broken words of human speech, but these were intelligent creatures, and they had tamed what was clearly a high-level monster species. This was absolutely the kind of “suspicious event” this adventuring trio had been sent out to investigate, I thought.

My destination, meanwhile, was the castle of the demon lord Leon. His domain occupied the lands just beyond the forest. I should have chosen that moment to take my leave of their party. But…I don’t know. I suppose I just wanted to see, along with these adventurers, what kind of home these monsters had made for themselves.

It was a strange place indeed, this town our rescuers lived in. It was no dank lair or stinking, filthy den. A “town” was the only way to describe it.

The shock I felt was beyond comprehension. This wasn’t some rude shelter, some glorified hole in a mountain. It was a proper town, one they had built for themselves from scratch.

It was under construction, I should probably add. It had been surveyed and laid out, and building materials had been placed in each section, ready to be converted into houses. There were no buildings yet; the monsters were still living out of neat rows of tents. But they had even started their work by focusing on the underground infrastructure. I had never heard of anything like it on this planet.

It was a bizarre settlement.

But it was bursting with energy. The residents, despite being monsters, truly seemed to enjoy working on it. Most of them were hobgoblins, but they seemed to share their lands with the black direwolves. A tad different from the ones I was familiar with, and I didn’t think it was my imagination.

The leader of the hobgoblins spoke very fluently to me. I imagine he was the most intelligent among them. He even prepared food for us. Remarkably, though, he turned out not to be the leader at all. Instead, he was joined by a slime—one who lay back in his lofty throne, acting as if he were king of the world. It might be odd to say a slime could “lie back” on anything, perhaps, but that really was the sense he exuded.

This slime was the strangest thing of all—for he, in fact, was the leader of all these monsters.

It was hilarious.

I couldn’t help but do a spit take as he spoke. “I’m not a bad slime” was how he chose to describe himself! Just like Yuuki’s “video game.” I began to wonder whether it was a coincidence.

Still, there was something inviting about the space this slime created. The strange creature somehow made me recall memories of my own hometown. My heart felt full. Now I was glad I’d decided to step away from my intended path. This meeting, I thought, was fate at work. And yet—

The hours we spent enjoying ourselves came to a sudden halt. My life was about to expire. I had yet to reach my destination—to fulfill my goal—but here it was.

Ifrit had been waiting for this moment. I could feel his will taking over mine. It’s happening… I’m going to ruin all of this, too…

If only, one last time, I could just—

The titan manifested himself, all but laughing at my folly.

My consciousness faded away.

I went to see how she was. She didn’t have long. In fact, she might never regain consciousness. Still, I wanted to take care of her to the end, this fellow otherworlder human.

The wounded adventurers all pulled through, thankfully, whining incessantly about how it’d take more than hazard pay to atone for getting burned half to death.

“Hey, what’s the deal with this?” Elen asked. “I don’t see any burn scars or anything… Like, my skin’s as soft and shiny as a baby!”

“Dang,” Kabal added. “I didn’t think I’d be able to move for another week or so, too.”

“Yeah, count me surprised. That’s some potion he had there!”

They were right. That potion had made all of them good as new.

“You know, though… This probably means they’ll turn down our request for hazard pay, doesn’t it?” Elen moaned.

“Yep. Nobody’s gonna believe us…,” Kabal replied.

“Yeah, I s’pose so. Beats bein’ laid up for good, though!” Gido commented.

It never took long for this trio to start bickering with one another over their own self-interested quibbles. I wondered if they ever really had a thought about anybody besides themselves. They didn’t have anything against monsters, at least.

“You know,” I suggested, “once things calm down a little, maybe I could go visit your town.”

“Oh, if that’s the case, I could give the guild master a message for you!”

Just what I wanted to hear. Kabal had made my day. I looked up to adventurers, kind of. I didn’t have any sort of ID papers, though, and I didn’t even know whether they’d let monsters join the registry, but…it could be fun.

So Kabal promised me that I could just say the name “Rimuru” and the guild master would hear about it soon enough. Nice guy. I was in such high spirits that I decided to give them a farewell gift—a few pieces of equipment, freshly made by the dwarven brothers. They were all test models, made with materials they had procured themselves, but the quality was respectable.

Spider robe:	A robe of pure white, woven with spider silk.
Scale mail:	Heavy armor made from the shell of a lizard. Far lighter than appearances indicate.
Hard-leather armor:	Made from the skins of local monsters. Magical resistance included.

I also tossed in some food and ten recovery potions for good measure.

“Ooh! Look at this robe! It’s so light, and I can’t believe how sturdy it is! And pretty, too!”

“Whoa! I’ve always wanted some real scale mail! This… Waaaait a second, did Master Garm make this?! This’ll be like a family treasure to me!”

“Yeah, are you sure we can have these? This is almost too nice for the likes of me. I mean, real direwolf fur?”

It was a miniature celebration for a little while. But—I mean, the fire had torched all their equipment, and I doubted their salary would let them replace it all that easily. It wasn’t exactly my fault, but I had to feel a little sympathy for them. The equipment was all prototypes, crafted before the dwarves could move on to mass production, but it was decent enough.

Besides, look how happy they are. I was confident they’d remember to pass my name on. They were calling me “boss” with the rest of them, too.

The three of them had their qualms about what happened to Shizu, but not enough to keep them from setting off again after three days of rest. They had a report to file and a looming deadline. If anything, three days was a generous amount of time to worry over a woman who’d essentially shoehorned herself into their traveling party uninvited.

Still, I promised them all that I’d take care of her, and that was enough to put their minds at ease.

A week passed before Shizu woke up again.

“Is this…? Oh. I…apologize.”

Despite the transformation, she still retained all her memories.

“I was dreaming,” she told me. “Dreaming about the past. The city I lived in… A place I can never return to.”

Japan?

“Tell me, slime. What is your name?”

Hmm. Maybe her suddenly elderliness was affecting her memory after all. I knew I had introduced myself in her presence. “Rimuru, ma’am,” I replied.

Shizu closed her eyes, as if thinking over something. “Could you maybe tell me your real name?” she said.

She must’ve known all along. I hesitated for a moment.

“Hmph,” I offered. “You aren’t long for this world anyway. I’ll tell you. It’s Satoru Mikami.”

My real name. A name I figured I wouldn’t be using again.

“Ah. From my land, are you…? I had thought you might be. I sensed it from you.” She fell silent for a moment. “I had heard from my students, as well. The city’s much better now? Prettier? The last time I was there, there was nothing but fire all around me.”

“Yeah. I could show you, if you’d like.”

I used Thought Communication to do exactly that. Fairly useful thing to have at a time like this. I liked it.

“Ahh…” The sight made Shizu shed a tear. “Listen, slime…or I should say Satoru, I suppose. I have a request for you. Would you mind listening to it?”

“What kind of request?”

Nothing particularly doable, I was sure. But I did promise to take care of her to the end. She deserved to be heard out.

“I want you to eat me…”

Um? What did this old lady just say?

“You consumed the curse…that was placed on me, did you not…? I’m so glad to be rid of it…” Her voice grew quiet. “I wish I had the chance—I doubt I could’ve ever done it, but I wish I could’ve had the chance to confront the person who placed it on me, one more time… So I have just one request for you—would you let me sleep inside you?”

Something about her eyes, the resolve that she just couldn’t relinquish, grabbed at me. It seemed so absurd, so cruel…

“I have to tell you—I have nothing but spite for this world. But I couldn’t bring myself to hate it, still. It’s the same as how I feel toward that man… Perhaps I can’t help but think of him when I look around me. That’s why I… I don’t want to be taken into the earth here. So please… I was hoping you could eat me instead…”

Hmm. Well, that’s easy enough.

Fulfilling her request would bind me, no doubt, and give me a curse of my own. I would be charged with taking on her despair and hatred.

Was there any need to waver on that, though? If I wanted her to see the afterlife with her mind at peace—the answer was obvious.

“All right. I’ll be happy to take on your feelings. And what was the name of this man…the one who hurt you?”

At the question, Shizu opened her eyes, scrunched up her burn-scarred face, and shed a few more tears. “Leon Cromwell,” she said. “One of the strongest demon lords.”

She looked at me with pleading eyes.

“I promise!” I declared. “By my name as Satoru Mikami, or Rimuru Tempest, or whatever works best for you, I promise I’ll make Leon Cromwell know everything you feel about him. I’ll make him regret every moment!”

“Thank you,” she whispered, and then she closed her eyes, her breath turning shallow as she slept.

Use unique skill “Predator”?

Yes

No

—Here’s hoping you’ll find some peace inside me, then.

Yes, I thought to myself, in a sort of prayer to her—a hope that her dreams inside would remain happy forever. With no more rude awakenings.

Tap, tap, tap, tap…

She looked up, her face bearing the innocence of youth. Relief spread across it as a smile emerged on her face.

Well, there you are! Don’t leave me alone like that again, all right?

But the figure shook its head before pointing at something far away. The girl turned toward it, her expression suddenly clouded with doubtful sadness.

There she found—

Mom!!

A burst of happiness rushed through her entire body as she rushed toward her mother. The figure watched her trot off for a moment—then disappeared, as if nothing had ever occupied the space at all. Perhaps it was just an illusion crafted by the girl’s memories.

Thus, the girl was reunited with her mother.

It marked the end of what had been a long, long journey.