CH 8

Chapter 8: A blood red demonic eye

Translator: yuzu

+ + +

Could slimes be eaten? The memories of Luya’s original body told her: a majority were edible.

After cooking, they tasted just like rice noodles1, chewy and elastic.

The slimes that lived in sewers and swamps were absolutely inedible, because they were soaked in sewage. Their gray bodies reaked of horrible stenches and were full of toxins. However, the slimes that lived in grasslands or by the sea were very different. Their bodies were rich with elements from grass and seawater, which could supplement many of the vitamins and amino acids needed by the human body.

It was possible to use a slime’s color and origin to determine if it was edible. For example, red slimes absorbed many minerals and were rich in iron and zinc. Green slimes were generally ordinary field slimes with a grassy flavor, useful for people who didn’t like to eat vegetables. Blue slimes were commonly sea slimes, and also the most delicious.

When food was scarce, eating slimes was a relatively safe and smart choice.

Their cooking method was also very simple — most slimes were full of impurities like sand, so they needed to be boiled first to remove the impurities. Then they could be spread out to be sun-dried or oven-dried.

Dried slime was a lot like a sheet of hardened noodle dough. A knife could be used to cut it into noodles of uniform thickness. Then it was simple to add water and boil for ten minutes. You could garnish with seasonings like chilis or peanut sesame oil according to your tastes, and a bowl of cold slime noodles2 was ready to eat.

…But right now, she didn’t have any seasonings, so she could only eat clear slime soup. Fortunately, this slime was turquoise. She summoned the courage to approach and sniff it. The slime smelled like fishy lake water, so it had probably come from a freshwater lake.

Should she try to eat it?

After debating for a while, Luya decided to give it a try. After all, the body she had transmigrated into had been eating a very unbalanced diet. She had a severe vitamin deficiency, and her skin was rough and beginning to peel.

So she started a fire, used that big sword to pick up the two slimes and toss them into the pot, and then placed it over the fire.

As the pot started to heat up, the slimes that were inside started to struggle. They scrambled desperately to climb out of the pot, and Luya hurriedly covered the pot with the lid as soon as she saw this. They hit the lid with several “clunks” as she held the lid down forcefully. After a short while, the pot finally quieted down.

Luya was fairly cautious, and she waited for the pot to boil for a while before opening the lid. At that point, she saw that the slimes had thoroughly melted into soup. It was just like a sticky and murky potion that was brewing in a cauldron, bubbling and simmering. The blended odor of grass and earth wafted up.

…It’s really creepy.

But it should be… edible.

Luya was a little nervous, and she looked up at the red dragon. The red dragon seemed very interested watching her cook slimes, and continued to watch her from up above. The dog was wary, and it circled nearby not daring to approach.

Although the slime was rich in protein, it technically wasn’t considered meat, so dogs probably wouldn’t be very interested. However, she decided to try forcing the dog to eat it once it was done. Picky eaters were unacceptable!

If the dog vomited, then she wouldn’t eat it either.

Luya tenderly looked at the dog that was running around, and the dog shivered for some reason.

Once the slime had completely boiled to paste, Luya chose a spot of flat ground, spread out some silk from the dragon’s lair, and poured the slime evenly over it.

There were not many impurities in this freshwater lake slime. The turquoise gelatin contained only some fish, shrimp and algae. Luya picked out some undigested fish and shrimp, and then tried to spread out the cooked slime flat like a pancake.

There probably wouldn’t be anything to eat tonight. She’d continue with the next step tomorrow once it dried out.

After finishing her work, Luya went to soak in a hot spring in satisfaction. After drinking some dew water, she went to sleep in the dragon’s lair all relaxed.

Luya had another dream that night.

Her original body’s memory fragments were like flashbacks. They were interspersed in her dreams.

But they weren’t pleasant memories.

In the Wetlands of Asize, they had finally caught up with the griffin that had taken away Captain Ivie. However, they were too late.

“Eve, I’m begging you! Please save Ivie!”

One of their female companions shook Luya’s body, pleading desperately. Although the internal organs of Captain Ivie’s corpse had already been torn out by the griffin, she didn’t seem able to see it. She had gone entirely mad with emotion.

“I… I can’t…”

Luya shook her head in a panic and responded. “It’s already too late…”

“I don’t understand?! Use your Gift to save him! I saw you save a sparrow that had been bitten to death! Why won’t you save Ivie, even though you’re willing to save a sparrow?!”

“B-But… if I absorb that kind of injury, it’ll be transferred to myself. I’ll die…”

From Luya’s perspective, she saw her original self backpedaling under the unrelenting pressure of the woman. She averted her eyes, stammering, as if she felt like she was truly at fault.

Shiela, a herbalist who was deeply in love with Ivie, didn’t care if Luya’s original self died. She shouted at her: “Ivie protected you for so long! You should pay back everything that you owe to him! Why else do you think we brought along a cursed black-haired girl like you?”

“Yeah, Eve. Don’t be selfish. None of us can survive without Ivie, so sacrifice yourself to save everyone.”

Another man in their group joined in with Sheila. To them, Ivie, the strongest of them all, was the core of their entire team. Without him, the group would not be able to survive, so it made total sense to sacrifice “Luya”.

This was because “Luya” had been born with a Gift.　　

She could transfer the wounds and illnesses of other people onto her own body, and suffer those injuries in place of them. It was very useful. When she revealed her ability for the first time, she brought a glimmer of hope to all the desperate refugees. She was a “girl of miracles” and a “saint of light”, so the group of vagrants had taken her in, thinking that she might be useful one day.

Right now, they wanted her to return the favor to everyone.

But there were also others who disagreed with having Eve exchange her life for Ivie’s.

A young archer stood in front of Luya and argued back at those two people, and it broke out into a dispute. But soon thereafter, another horde of monsters attacked them, and their entire group was wiped out.

…

That night, Luya wasn’t the only one ensnared in a dream.

The Shiba Inu lying at the entrance of the dragon’s lair also growled intermittently in his sleep.

The capital of the Asdra Empire was a highly advanced city with high-tech weapons. Even after the “Demonic World Eye” opened, the imperial capital remained prosperous. Its lights were never extinguished, and the city core was a perpetual motion machine, endlessly producing synthetic food. Aside from the poor people in the slums, the nobles in the capital never lacked any resources.

“The glory of the Asdra Empire will reign forever—!”

When Crown Prince Zeros returned with the eye of Canaan the Cyclops, soldiers loudly saluted one after another at this powerful warrior. The crown prince passed through the cheering crowd fully suited in his anti-magic armor, and climbed the steps to the imperial palace.

When he reached the emperor, he finally removed the helmet that covered his beautiful yet seemingly emotionless face. Messy long golden hair cascaded over his shoulders. He bowed slightly towards the emperor, paying his respects.

“Fair enough.”

The emperor seemed unimpressed by the crown prince’s victory. As he sat on the throne, he listened dispassionately to a centurion from Zeros’s army reporting on the battle and their casualties.

Zeros had killed most of the monsters and routed the forces of Canaan the Cyclops. But whenever the Demonic World Eye opened, a large number of monsters would fall from it. The threat would never disappear. The empire had once sent an entire fleet of their strongest Aswale-class battleships to destroy the Demonic World Eye, but the enormous floating blood red eye was like an apparition. It appeared and vanished in an instant.

Every time the Empire’s radar spotted it, it would slowly disappear like an illusion by the time the fleet arrived to attack it. There was no way to track its whereabouts, so it was difficult to make any kind of effective attack. They had no idea what the eye represented, how it appeared, or why it had come into existence.

The imperial scientists have been conducting research on the demonic world eye, trying to understand the laws that governed its materialization. Monsters had always existed in this world, but the Demonic World Eye seemed to increase their strength, and it awakened the sleeping dragon under the World Tree.

…This was the biggest reason why humanity’s territory was reduced to this level.

“The acquisition of the eye of Canaan the Cyclops will lead to a major breakthrough in demonic eye research. As long as its physical laws can be determined, there will be a method to destroy it!”

A researcher in a white coat exclaimed with brimming excitement. At the same time, he did not forget to praise the crown prince’s bravery. He looked at Zeros with deference and spoke: “This is all thanks to the courage of His Highness. Without you, our troops would have never been able to defeat Canaan with such few losses.”

As the strongest warrior in the Empire, no one ever doubted that he would become a Leviathan-slaying hero3. Even Zeros had complete faith in himself.

But, why did he end up transformed into this…

Author’s notes:

Since the crown prince’s appearance was drawn from Zenos4 in Final Fantasy XIV, I have changed the description of his appearance. I apologize for being so inconsiderate.5

Original text: When Crown Prince Zeros returned with the eye of Canaan the Cyclops, soldiers loudly saluted one after another at this powerful warrior. The crown prince passed through the cheering crowd in his jet black heavy helmet, and climbed the steps to the imperial palace. When he reached the emperor, he finally removed the helmet that covered his beautiful yet seemingly emotionless face. Messy long golden hair cascaded over his shoulders. He bowed slightly towards the emperor, paying his respects.

Zeros (泽洛斯) is pronounced like “Zeros”, and in Japanese ゼロス, meaning a person who has nothing.

================

Let’s clear up some points: The heroine wants to raise a dog! The heroine is a little bit obsessed with beastkin, and she likes anything with fur, as well as dragons. She loves all sorts of nonhuman creatures, although she doesn’t like pigheaded people or bird people.

The dragon is raising the heroine, and the heroine is raising a dog. The dragon and the heroine are willing to go through significant sacrifices for their pets, and if you can’t bear it, then… skip ahead a few chapters after the dog is tamed = =||

He overturned the fish juice because he felt it was too smelly and didn’t want to drink it. He doesn’t need to beg the heroine for permission to drink, and he’ll drink if he wants to drink. I think everyone is overthinking it… I was imagining what a highly arrogant person would do when I wrote this. The crown prince will have things his own way, but the heroine only sees him as an ordinary beautiful dog from her perspective as a human, so she’s willing to tolerate it.

In short, it’s okay if it’s cute!

Forgiveness is a form of love. When I adopted my cat, it ignored me in the beginning. Even though the prince isn’t actually a dog, the heroine doesn’t know that, and she is raising him like an ordinary dog. The main reason is because it’s lonely in a post-apocalyptic world, and having company is nice. It also takes quite some time to tame one.

In fact, even if they’re not stray animals, a pet that you get from someone else may not be affectionate with you right from the beginning.

Feelings take time to grow, and raising a child is the same way. But thinking about this is a headache. What if the child grows up rebellious, disobedient, and unconscionable? There are so many people who don’t support their elderly parents, and greedily eye their parent’s inheritance. I don’t have the confidence that I can teach a child well, so I don’t want to have any…

Speaking of which, even the most distrusting dogs end up wholeheartedly trusting their masters in the end.

But I still think my cat is the cutest.

=============

“Glory everlasting” is a common phrase used by empires in JRPGs.

The heroine’s special ability is transferring other people’s injuries onto herself. It’s a goddess-level power, so she’s basically blessed by the gods.

In truth, the dragon’s tolerance for the heroine is equivalent to the heroine’s tolerance for the dog. She can’t keep demanding things from the dragon, and if she’s selfish and cold, she won’t be loved! Don’t misunderstand.

But if the dog bit the heroine, the heroine definitely wouldn’t want to raise it anymore and would leave it to fend for itself. However if the heroine hurt the dragon, the dragon would actually be very happy: My cutie is so energetic!

When the crown prince was human, his personality was a huge problem. He didn’t care about anyone around him and executed a ton of people. In either case he was extremely arrogant, lacked sympathy, and never tasted failure.

But now he’s become a dog! He’s only cute now because that kind of bastard was transformed into a dog.

Anyway, we’re on the dragon route. There’s also a God of Light route and a Demon Duke route!

PS: I’m sort of curious, but would you all want the dragon to have a human form or stay in a dragon form for the entire work? What I mean by having a human form is being able to transform into a human, not turning human permanently.

I haven’t written this part yet, so I’ll look forward to your opinions.

Translator’s notes: