She Becomes The Hero In Another World 116 She Uncovers A Clue

Entering the second level of the dungeon, it seemed like they had begun seeing more signs on ancient civilization: broken, moss-covered statues, shattered bricks, the occasional worn out relief carved into stone. These things littered the caves. Robin also noticed there were a lot more web slimes down here, where the damp was much more prevalent.

"Hmm...It makes you wonder how those cave boar managed to climb so high." Robin muttered. "One can almost slide down the path, all the way to the bottom, wherever that is. And, with all this damp, they must be perpetually wet year round."

"Don't forget, it rained heavily yesterday. It's possible it's only damp when it rains." Sir Raymond pointed out.

"Then, what were they running from to the point where they would desperately seek higher ground?" Sir Gray asked.

"Perhaps flash flooding? If it only happens after rainstorms, then that might be the case." Sir Markham pointed out.

"Regardless, keep on your toes. We only need to find that special ingredient, collect it, and leave." Sir Daniel growled, keeping an eye out.

Skye had taken a cat nap on Robin's shoulder. Neither the loud noises, nor the movement could wake or dislodge the sleeping cat. But going through that healing doorway had halfway roused it from sleep. Now, it yawned and stood up, asking sleepily.

"Are we there yet?"

Robin pet the little one. "We're there. But for some reason, we can't find the cave boars. I was told the ingredients would be with them."

Skye put his ears up, listening.

"There's sound of movement off to your left. I'll go check it out!" He jumped off Robin's shoulder and glided over.

"I found one!" He called back. It was an injured boar, whose hind leg dragged behind it. Due to its slow pace, it had fallen far behind the herd.

"Hmmm?" Robin couldn't help but think something was wrong when she saw the boar.

"Hey, this boar..." She said thoughtfully. "It went through the healing door, too, right? How can we find it here, injured?"

"Perhaps it was injured after going through the door?" Chelsea asked. The boar was bleeding excessively from long tears scattered randomly all over its body. It staggered to the center of the room before its legs gave out underneath it.

The group cautiously approached the corpse, defeating web slimes on their way.

"But, what could cause such serious wounds?" Robin wondered.

"Was it rejected by the herd?" Sir Gray asked.

"That doesn't look like a tooth or a tusk gouge. It's also too wide and shallow to be a claw mark." Sir Markham pointed out.

"It almost looks like the wounds were melted, as if they had been capped in wax." Sir Raymond noted.

"Some kind of corrosive substance? but, if it is corrosive, it sure isn't following what corrosives usually act like..." Sir Daniel noticed. "It's almost as if the wounds were deliberate. it's not bleeding from any other wounds, and there aren't any splash wounds, like what can be seen with regular corrosives. So, the wounds should be deliberate. But, quite frankly, the random haphazard distribution is baffling."

Robin paused. Random...now where had she heard that word before...

"Maybe it ended up that way in its struggle to get away from whatever wounded it?" Chelsea asked.

"You'd think that, but there should at least a few tears going in the same direction. the fact that the directions are completely different, it's like someone carved it out of the boar's flesh slowly and directly." Sir Daniel shook his head.

'These knights...are strangely talkative about matters concerning death.' Robin thought as she half-listened to their conversation. Random...random...random...

"Ah." Robin smacked a fist on her palm as she finally recalled. "Web slimes." She said. "We've been defeating them this whole time by gathering them together through torch flames. The poor thing must've run through a bunch of them when it ran back down here."

"Huh? But what do web slimes have to do with the boar and these wounds?" Chelsea asked.

"I heard from Sir Drago that these web slimes can cause random burns to appear if we ignore them and let their webs acc.u.mulate on us. We have torches, but...the boar..." Obviously didn't have a torch.

While they were thinking about it, the corpse suddenly began to move again. Pieces of it broke off and dropped to the ground. When she saw this, Chelsea had a very bad feeling for what was coming next.

The separated pieces began to change color, turning a bright blue, even beginning to glow. Then Robin noticed that these pieces had turned into long centipede-like caterpillars, that moved slowly away from the boar carca.s.s, which crumbled in upon itself into dust.

"Ah, here it is. The Soldiers were collecting these in bottles. Once the glow is gone, we won't be able to find them! Hurry up!" Sir Grey exclaimed.

"What is this? It wasn't a dream? Then that time, too..." Chelsea's voice quivered at the end. She gagged and ran behind a pillar, where she instantly relieved herself of her lunch.

Meanwhile, Robin caught about four of them, by s.n.a.t.c.hing them off the ground with the bottle. She was also a bit uncomfortable with catching these things, so she quickly screwed the cap on to make sure they wouldn't escape.

"All right. This should be enough. Let's head back!" She said to the others.

"Wha! Help Robin!" Skye cried out. it had been flying about the cave, and had suddenly been caught in a web slime's web. The surrounding threads had begun wrapping around it as it called out to her.

Robin sighed. "Don't move. I'll help you out-"

"No!" Chelsea interrupted.

"Chelsea? Wait, don't tell me..." Robin looked up.

"It's another slime king~!" Chelsea exclaimed, excitedly.

Robin suddenly had a headache.

-----

Prince Christian tapped the floor with his foot, as he watched the castle in the distance. Jasmine was taking too long in there, and it was already almost time for dinner. Where was she? Had she even forgotten to eat?

"Calm down. As long as she hasn't burned down the castle, then everything is still okay." Keith patted his shoulder.

Suddenly, fireworks exploded from a lower castle window, startling Christian and Keith.

"It appears I spoke too soon." Keith sighed.

--------

Jasmine had escaped the library by blasting a hole in a wall not covered by library books. Regardless of how much she wanted to blast a hole in this prince, she was not willing to burn those precious tomes up.

"First rule of thumb: never bring cold weapons to a magician's fight!" Jasmine bid farewell as she jumped out the hole, sealing it up again with ice behind her.

"I'll keep that in mind." Prince Wilbur chuckled as he unhurriedly walked out of the room to follow after her.

----------

"Chelsea, I'm not going to kill it. I just want to free my cat." Robin pointed out.

"Flying cat!" Skye corrected.

"...my flying cat." Robin added.

"Slime kings don't eat cats! It eats parasites, sweat, dirt, disease, and scars. I told you before. Whatever it's doing right now should be good for it!" Chelsea exclaimed.

"But, look, Skye is starting to panic. Also, doesn't it heal using the healing portal? Where is it?" Robin asked.

"Upon occasions where it is forced to move, it takes time to set up another doorway. Perhaps it just moved up here!" Chelsea bl.u.s.tered.

"If it just moved, I wonder for what reason?" Robin wondered.

"No, you people, stop discussing this and help me out!" Skye interjected.

Robin glanced up. "No, actually, thinking about it, you haven't had a bath yet. It's a good idea for you to play with that a bit."

Skye's hopeful glance turned to one of despair. "Master-eh?" Skye looked in surprise at the slime king, which had extended a thin tendril to Skye's forehead.

"Master, this slime king is sentient." Skye told her.

"Really? What is it saying?" Robin asked.

"'Where is the four-legger with yummy food?' is what it's asking." Skye said.

Suddenly, a light went off in Robin's head. She pointed to the dust pile of the deceased boar. "Tell him, 'the four-legger collapsed over here'." Robin instructed.

Skye conveyed it to the slime king, which unraveled its threads from about Skye, and moved slowly over to the boar's remains.

"Hey, it just turned to dust. Are you sure it's okay?" Sir Gray asked.

"It will be fine. Its target wasn't the boar, after all." Robin replied.

"What do you mean?" Sir Raymond did not understand.

"Just watch." Robin instructed.

Once the slime king got near the boar remains, a shrill scream pierced the air as one of the blue caterpillars was revealed, as it was torn up from the moss patch it had been hiding in, and dissolved into black particles. The slime king moved around the area, picking up caterpillar after caterpillar.

"Gentleman, please observe the ground underneath where these blue caterpillars were discovered." Robin asked.

"How could this be!?" Sir Raymond exclaimed.

"Then, the boar before...it all makes sense!" Sir Markham finally understood.

"Yes." Robin nodded. " It should be exceedingly obvious. These blue caterpillars..."