Chapter 34: Slime

“Emma!!!”

George runs towards Emma, but he doesn’t make it.

When the water gun is on the verge of reaching Emma, the spider thread that Violet spewed out cuts in between… but,

“!!!!”

“!!!!”

Emma avoided a direct hit thanks to the spider thread, but Emma’s right half of her body got splashed by the water gun, and she is assailed by burning pain.

“Aa— …hh—!!”

The slime shoots the second water gun without mercy towards Emma, who is crouching on the spot.

“Emma—!!”

In a hair’s breadth, George carries Emma under his arm and evades it.

He immediately moves to the tree shade in the garden at once and puts Emma down temporarily to check her condition. Violet uses the trees to quickly spread a net to protect the two from the slime.

“Emma, you alright?”

George’s expression worsens when he looks at Emma and hears her groans.

The splashed part… The skin of the right half of her body, including her face, turned red and melted in several places.

Particularly her right arm that got splashed the most seem to continue to erode and the wound keeps expanding.

“Big… brother… Sorry… It… hurts… a… little? …u! hu!”

Every time she moves her mouth to speak, her melted cheeks stretches and pains her.

“Damn! Even though she is a girl!!”

With just a little movement, her skin gets torn and bleeds. The corrosion on her right arm doesn’t stop. If this continues, it may melt until the bones, and Emma will lose her right arm. We don’t have a knife or anything. Even in this moment of confusion, it continues to erode.

“I’m sorry, Emma! It will hurt but bear with it!”

George bites and tears off the wound on the continuedly corroded right arm resolutely and spits it out.

“Hu—!! ☆＃％〒§＆＊‡!! nnn!! Hii—!”

Even when Emma struggles from the pain, George’s power with Violet on his head is stronger. She is restrained and can only endure.

When George is done spitting out the last flesh he bit and stopping the bleeding on Emma’s right arm with the ribbon on her head, he immediately carries the limp Emma and runs.

Because the inside of his mouth prickles from the slime’s body fluids, he spits *bleh* once again.

The slime is just around the corner. It doesn’t shoot water guns.

Emma in George’s arms desperately thinks while still feeling faint from the pain. She tries to organize the information from her observation, but it doesn’t work well.

The slime seemed to get smaller every time it shoots a water gun, little by little. The first slime has shot more than 10 water guns, but the second slime doesn’t show any shooting stance after two shots.

One more thing feels out of place. When it gave body blows to George, even now, it doesn’t use the shortest course. The simpler the creature, the simpler the movement it will take. Even though it supposed to be so, why?

“George nii-sama!!”

William returns, out of breath. His hand is holding a few bottles of vinegar and lemons.

He notices the limp Emma in George’s arms and rushes over.

“Nee-sama, your face!”

Her right cheek is slowly melting and becomes bloody. Emma manages to lift the edges of her mouth forcibly to reassure William, whose face looks many times more painful than when he himself got hurt.

“William, there are two slimes. The smaller one is the one that aimed at Emma, so try it out on that first.”

George tries hard to speak calmly, but Emma’s condition is severe. He wants her to get treated right away, but as long as he doesn’t defeat the two slimes, he can’t help Emma escape. The one who has been targeted as prey will continue to be targeted until they are eaten.

The second slime ate Emma’s right arm flesh that George had bitten off and some drops of blood, and because of that, it became slightly bigger.

William throws a lemon at the slime with a miraculous control.

It hit brilliantly, but it just bounced off with a stupid *boing* sound.

“Ah, it doesn’t work.”

William is a no-good when it comes to fighting.

He pulls himself together and throws a bottle of vinegar at a tree near the slime. The glass bottle breaks as it hits the tree, and the vinegar inside splashes onto the slime.

“How about this!?”

The slime absorbed the vinegar drops and got bigger again.

“It’s no good!”

William shouts frustratingly.

“Not… yet! If we want to neutra… lize it… there’s still a lot of liquid… If the slime… keeps absorbing… maybe there’s hope.”

In George’s arms, Emma bears the pain and tells her intention to William.

The first slime starts shooting out water guns again, and George, still holding Emma, skillfully evades it. He needs to move as much as possible so they won’t get hit by the attacks. But every time he lands, Emma will make a small groan.

William continuously pours the vinegar into the second slime, but it doesn’t seem to be doing any damage at all.

“—No good! I have used up all of it, but the slime’s only gotten bigger!”

He has used up all the vinegar he brought and is at a loss.

“But… it’s certainly… weaken its… move…ment.”

Emma tries hard to speak, but her mouth can’t move well.

‘Probably, vinegar’s acidity is too low to neutralize the slime. But it does not mean it doesn’t work. The inside of the second slime has been polluted, albeit slightly.

The first slime has regained its original size unnoticed, shoots out ten water guns, then stops. There must be something. Half of my body feels hot. I can’t put in any strength.‘

“…William, you run first.”

William is the top priority of survival between the three siblings.

‘Above the fact that the vinegar couldn’t give a decisive blow, I have to keep my younger brother alive. The fortunate thing is that the local barrier hazard’s hole is still the same diameter as when we first found it and doesn’t seem like it will expand. If it’s about that size, other monsters can’t pass through, right. I have to keep William away from here before the third slime appears.‘

“No way! Nii-sama—”

‘Older brother’s face that says he won’t accept any refusal makes me swallow my words. Maybe older sister in his arms has become unconscious. Her body becomes languid and limp and doesn’t move an inch.‘

“—oof!”

The first slime rams its body to George. Emma’s body hurts again at the impact from evading. Her consciousness returns thanks to that, and the slime is just right in front of her eyes.

‘The weird thing is the lawn that the slime passed through stays lush without any signs of melting.

The slime’s body, at the very least on the outside, doesn’t have fluids. It’s obvious. If it isn’t like that, it couldn’t possibly maintain its round shape.

Then, why did I think it’s weird just now? What am I stuck with? Even though I feel like I can grasp it just a little bit more… My consciousness is fading away again.‘

“It’s here!!! Hurry up!!!”

*noisy noisy* There are signs of people approaching. It seems that Valerie territory’s hunters have gathered.

“Prince!!! Why!?”

Accompanied by more than ten hunters, Prince Edward comes running.

After evading another body blow from the slime, George clicks his tongue.

“William! Take the prince and run!”

“Ye-yes, why is the prince!!”

However, Edward breaks off from William and runs toward George, who is holding Emma.

“Wha—!! That! Slimes!”

“Two even!!?”

“They have been taking on the two slimes with just three people!?”

The hunters let out exclamations.

The lawns around the three siblings are pretty much melting. ‘It’s impossible to avoid the slimes’ attacks over and over again…’ everyone gasps.

“Emma!? What happened? Emma! Emma!?”

The prince looks at the bloody Emma and calls her out in a trance. Emma’s consciousness returns at the prince’s voice.

‘Why… is the prince here? An ordinary person in the hunting ground is…’

“Prince! The slime is coming! Dodge!”

George separates himself from the prince so the slime won’t go towards him. The slime sends a body blow in George’s direction immediately after, but before that… the prince cuts the slime reflexively with his sword.

“Why would you!!”

William screams from behind.

Even though George has been moving in a way that will suppress the damage to only his and Emma’s death if worst comes to worst… George clicks his tongue and hides the prince behind him.

When the first slime is cut, it splits, and now we have the third slime.

The third slime’s target prey becomes, of course, the one who had cut him with a sword, the prince.

Valerie’s territory hunters shriek.

“Wha—! It won’t die even if you cut it?”

The prince lets out a surprised voice, but everyone besides the prince already knows.

There is nothing more dangerous than having an ordinary person in the hunting ground. The prince who has been targeted as prey can’t even wish to escape.

“See that. Why did you bring the prince?”

George gets angry at the hunters whose faces turn blue.

“My hands are already full with two! The prince could die here, you do something about it!”

George, who is holding Emma, automatically receives the attacks from the second slime.

The second’s slime moves are sluggish, and he has managed somehow with Violet’s help, but he can’t hold on if the third one joins in.

With both hands full with holding Emma, there’s a limit on how much he can protect the prince.

The most senior hunter apologizes to George and snatches the prince’s sword away.

When fighting slimes, swords are unneeded. No matter how small the cut, it will split and increase.

As the number of slimes increases, the target preys and the number of lives at risk also increases.

・・・

Two hours later.

‘If the slimes don’t increase, and if we keep evading the attacks, father, uncle, and Palace’s hunters will come. Palace’s hunting dogs should be able to hear the whistle even from far away. Palace has hydrochloric acid that Emma made. Maybe we can defeat the slime using that.

………but.

Emma can’t hold on.‘

George’s clothes are soaked with Emma’s blood.

‘There’s no concept of blood transfusion in this world. Emma has lost too much blood. She can’t hold on.‘

Even so, George is still holding Emma.

‘To leave Emma who can’t hold on and protect the prince is actually the correct action.

………but.

I can’t do that.

Because George,

Because Wataru,

is

Emma’s,

Minato’s

older brother. Because an older brother is the one who protects his younger sister.‘