Translated by iseuli
“NeA? Together? Lair?”
“Yes, do you want to live with me in my lair? You’ll love my lair better than this place. Also, I have a lot of slimes just like you in the vicinity of my lair.”
“Pu-ring.”
Bouncy became quiet. It seemed to be considering the possibility.
“Sir NeAffronti, Bouncy is Kalgilm’s contracted familiar.”
Elkiesel deeply furrowed his brows in irritation, but remained quiet.
“He can transfer the contract to me. Will you feel bored without Bouncy? I’ll trade you one of mine. You can play with it instead.”
“That’s not the problem here.”
Elkiesel had come to deeply care for Bouncy after spending more than 200 years together. He considerably liked NeAffronti, but he didn’t want to separate from his only family for the other’s sake.
NeAffronti and Kalgilm’s territories were connected. At the same time, a dragon’s territory was vast and consisted of many empires. He had to make a purposeful decision just to go over to NeAffronti’s lair a single time.
The biggest problem was that Elkisel could not leave this lair because he was dubbed the guardian. That meant that Bouncy must be the one to come over, but it was a mystery whether NeAffronti would ever come to visit.
If he somehow forced Kalgilm to contract more familiars for a new lair guardian, Elkiesel could graduate into a supervisor. If so, it might be possible to visit NeAffronti. However, if NeAffronti were to take Bouncy with him everywhere in his adventures, even if Elkiesel goes to visit, it might not be possible to meet at all.
‘Where do you want to take my Bouncy?’
Whenever Elkiesel felt bitter and lonely, he turned to Bouncy for comfort. Even if NeAffronti offers all of the slimes in his territory in trade for Bouncy, this trade was not possible.
“Bouncy, come.”
Elkiesel reached to Bouncy. Bouncy looked to NeAffronti then to Elkiesel. When Bouncy saw Elkiesel’s pained lonely expression, she hopped over to Elkiesel and stuck close to him. Elkiesel tightly hugged Bouncy.
‘I’ll keep annoying Kalgilm until he gives Bouncy to me. If I annoy him enough, he will be so annoyed that he will give Bouncy to me.’
“Elkiesel.”
“Yes?”
“Have you heard of a tangle rice ball? Is there such a meal amongst a Dark Elf’s diet?”
NeAffronti has visited humans, dwarves, lizardmen, and even mermaids. Yet, he has not once seen nor heard of something like a triangle rice ball. Kalgilm must have been spouting weird nonsense after seeing it in a dream, but asked to make sure that it wasn’t a real thing.
Elkiesel had never heard of such a thing called the triangle rice ball.
“Dangle rice ball? No. What’s that?”
“It seems to be something wrapped in a black paper called seaweed and stuffed with rice and meat. However, I’ve never seen it for myself. He says it’s human food, but he’s never even met one for himself, what would he know?”
Bouncy who was sitting quietly on NeAffronti’s knee jumped joyously with much energy.
“Triangle. Rice ball?”
“Bouncy?”
Bouncy looked up to NeAffronti and asked once again.
“Triangle. Rice ball?”
“Dangle. Rice ball. I think that’s the right way to say it. Bouncy, do you know about the dangle rice ball?”
“Pu-ring.”
Bouncy bounced into her lair once again.
***
There was always a strange aspect to the fantasy novels she read in her free time.
The protagonist, usually Korean, would die an adult and get transported or reincarnated into another world. Though this protagonist had clearly been living as an adult for so long, in their new life suddenly they will become extremely childish. She never understood why these protagonists would behave so childishly even with the memories of their past life. They would talk with a short tongue like a baby and pretend to be cute, weren’t they embarra.s.sed?
However, Bouncy was behaving in a much more embarra.s.sing way than any of the novels she’s read in her past life. She would never behave in this way if she were transported to this fantasy world in her 25 year old body.
She could now understand a little after reincarnating into a fantasy world. One’s disposition in life, truly makes a person. If an irresponsible person were to be seated as a company head, they would have to shoulder the position’s responsibilities whether they wanted to or not.
In my viewpoint, an irresponsible person would remain irresponsible whether they are seated as the company head or CEO. However, this doesn’t change the fact that the position changes a person inside. They can’t help but identify themselves with the t.i.tle the position carries. This also comes with the fact that other people would treat them in a different way.
Without the t.i.tle of a company head, they are the same useless person. However, the t.i.tle itself carries weight of power to affect others and make them wary.
When Bouncy fell into mental confusion, she realized she turned into a slime.
In her memory, she was a 160 cm tall, 20 year old female. Both her parents pa.s.sed on, and so due to the lack of nutrition, had a very small frame. She wasn’t particularly pretty, but she wasn’t ugly either. Since she had such a small frame, people usually said that she was very cute.
However, now she took the shape of a water balloon. She knew what a slime monster was, but she couldn’t be convinced that she herself, was indeed a slime. Amongst the fantasy novels she’s read, none had become a slime in their next life.
Novel protagonists were usually reborn as humans. If not human, then a dragon or even a fairy. There were novels where they turned into orcs and dwarves. However, there was never a novel where the protagonist would turn into a slime who didn’t have arms or legs.
She thought that if she were ever reborn as a dragon, she wouldn’t be surprised. She would adventure to meet elves and dwarves. If she were to be reborn as a fairy, she would love to try her hand at fairy magic. She would pretend to be a ghost and scare people.
The simulations of her past life were all useless because she was born a slime.
Slimes looked like a droplet of water. They didn’t have arms or legs so they bounced and rolled around to move. It felt so strange that she had to bounce and roll her entire body just to move around.
When she first awakened, Elkiesel constantly nagged to her that she moved strangely. She didn’t blame him, it would be quite strange to see a round blob trying to walk like other monsters with limbs.
Moving in itself was very strange and tiring, but speaking was exponentially more difficult. In order to speak, she must first listen and try to imitate the sound.
Slimes to start off, didn’t have ears. They must feel the sound vibration of the air with their bodies, then somehow comprehend the wave patterns. She memorized the wave vibrations coming from Elkiesel with her body, and then imitated the sound patterns to speak.
Slimes didn’t have vocal chords, so to speak, she had to contort her entire body. People think the, Pu-ring Pu-ring, sounds of slimes are their cries, but it’s just the sound of their body folding on itself. It’s not a sound at all, it’s just the sound of their body wobbling.
Sounds varied based on someone’s vocal chords and mouth shape. People made their mouths round to make an ‘ah’ sound, or to make an ‘ee’ sound they elongated their lips.
Slimes had a mouth, but it wasn’t made for the sake of making a sound. In order to make any sort of sound, she had to shake her entire body like a ma.s.sage chair.
She worked tirelessly in order to change the pu-ring pu-ring sound to something a person could understand.
Additionally, for some odd reason, Elkiesel could speak more than one language. He would speak in dark elven, dragon, and human languages.
“Amir, Semirak. Ootuh.”
He would say three words, just to describe water. At first, he would interchange the three words at random, and it was very confusing to understand what was what. She thought she wouldn’t need to study more languages in this world.
When Elkiesel caught on that she was trying to imitate his words, he stuck to speaking in only dragon language. After he saw she easily understood the dragon language, he slowly introduced more words.
What’s the problem with pretending to be cute or speaking with a short tongue?
25 years(past life)+200 years(this life) = 225 years old.
Speaking like a child was unavoidable even as a 225 year old. At first she felt so ashamed and embarra.s.sed to speak like a child. She worked tirelessly to try and master speaking in complete sentences.
Elkiesel was a dark elf with nothing but time, and he only had Bouncy to talk to. He began teaching with pa.s.sion. When NeAffronti joined to teach, speaking became much easier for her.
“Bouncy, flower. This is a flower. Flower.”
“Bounce. Flowa. This. Flowa.”
“Flower.”
“Flowa”
“Flower”
“Flower.”
Her own words sounded disgustingly cute to her own self as well.
She had to shake her whole body to say one word, and learning each word felt like a sparta yoga session. After mastering a word, she would melt into a puddle, and NeAffroni came to hug and praise her.
“Good job, Bouncy. So great. You’re really amazing. You’re the best slime.”
Hey, is this okay? Isn’t this weird? Don’t I sound disgusting? Isn’t the cute pretense, vomit inducing?
“My genius Bouncy. You can even say flower.”
NeAffronti was a generous dragon who didn’t withhold praise. Each praise helped to ease her embarra.s.sed heart.
She received about 30 times more praise as a slime than as a human on Earth. Is her physical body affecting her mind? Or is her mind affecting her body? She was a human in her past life, but now she was a slime. Who cares that she could only say one word at a time. She was a slime so it was okay. She wasn’t a human anymore.
She decided not to let her past life affect her and focus on only this life. She hoped to become the most lovable slime in this world. She wanted to live to her best ability so that when her master woke up, he would feel great pride.
That was her first life goal as a slime
She thought Kalgilm would be the same as NeAffronti.
However, Kalgilm was a vastly different dragon. Her life goal changed the instant he offered her orc corpse meat.
But now that master of hers was trying to make her a triangle rice ball. He wasn’t trying to be mean by feeding her bugs and orc meat after all.
She was just trying to be difficult by saying she wanted triangle rice ball, but she never imagined he would keep her words in his heart. He was truly trying to make it for her. Does he even know what it looked like?
Kalgilm was crouched in his lair corner, mentally broken and wallowing in his own failure. He had a mountain of something triangular wafting poisonous fumes all around him. If a human were to smell it, they would throw up blood in an instant and die.
She soundlessly rolled next to Kalgilm. Kalgilm was mumbling something in a gloomy voice.
“How could my mighty dragon self… fail to make a single triangle rice ball?”
Forget about a triangle rice ball, he couldn’t even make a rice ball. He made about forty one mystery poison bombs using chocolate, whipped cream, and strawberry. They looked grotesque and monstrous.
The last triangle rice ball Kalgilm made looked more like a donut. It looked like a half eaten donut that someone stopped eating because it didn’t taste good.
The chocolate was cut into strangely small pieces, and the strawberry was also cut up into a truly mysterious form. Somehow, the whipped cream held these ingredients together.
This didn’t look like a triangle rice ball in any angle. He didn’t know the first thing and still tried to make it.
“Pu-ring. Pu-ring.”
She purposely made noise. Kalgilm hurried to hide all the food like someone who got caught eating their lunch during cla.s.s.
“Why are you here?”
“Pu-ring.”
She pretended to be oblivious and jumped into his embrace, then s.n.a.t.c.hed the donut from his hand. The texture and fragrance was surprisingly nice compared to its appearance.
She felt Kalgilm’s stare while she worked hard to consume the donut. He felt a little embarra.s.sed but proud while watching her eat.
“Is it yummy?”
“Like. Like.”
She hopped all around Kalgilm. She wondered whether dragons could feel the same nice feeling as when NeAffronti and Elkiesel complimented her.
Everyone loved compliments. She rubbed herself on Kalgilm’s ankle and complimented him.
“Like. Master. Amazing. Like.”
Kalgilm’s body shook and suddenly he hugged her.
“Bouncy.”
She, herself, was probably trembling quite a bit.
She had many sad and terrible memories during her human life. Triangle rice b.a.l.l.s were amongst one of them.
Rather than the warm bowls of rice she ate in her relative’s house as an orphan, she felt more comfortable eating cold triangle rice b.a.l.l.s. Other children had handmade kimbap rolls that their mom’s packed for them, and she always had one triangle rice ball for lunch.
The triangle rice ball that Kalgilm made for her had a totally different texture and fragrance. This rice ball was cold like the one she consumed in her past life, but it felt warm somehow.
This is a matter of course since he wouldn’t have known the exact ingredients or the steps to make a rice ball. Kalgilm’s hands were sticky from all the melted chocolate and whipped cream.
Phew. What a clumsy master.
This slime with a generous heart should be gracious. She slightly chomped down on his hand and scrubbed it clean.
She felt NeAffronti stare at the both of them from far away. Something seemed to be hilarious and he was trying hard not to explode into laughter. Seeing him laughing made her feel happy.
Living made her happy even as a slime. She wouldn’t be able to feel this feeling if she wasn’t alive.
In her last life she was born with a dirt spoon, who cares that she was born in dirt? Since she is alive, she will find happiness. She was sure of it.