Chapter 42
Once I realized that the maze’s walls were made of slime corpses, and that slimes were something I could resurrect, there was nothing difficult about it.
There was no need to go overboard and raise an absurd number of slimes, either.
“You said slime molds share the memories stored in their neurons.”
If a completely new slime mold is merged with one that has learned a particular maze, the new one learns information about the maze, too.
In that case... as long as the entire maze is connected...
any slime I’d raised...
would have learned the layout of the entire dungeon.
[You have become the first to clear the Stage 23 Gate, ‘Maze of a Thousand Transformations.’]
[As a first-clear reward, you have received a ‘Follower Summon Ticket (Maze Slime).’]
The undead Maze Slime, synchronized with the entire maze, wriggled along and showed me the way. It took less than twenty minutes to reach the destination.
Anyway, this reward is unusual. A Follower Summon Ticket? And it even specifies what I’ll summon.
Let’s see what it is.
“Use Follower Summon Ticket.”
[You have used the item ‘Follower Summon Ticket (Maze Slime).’]
The ticket disappeared from my hand along with the system message saying I’d used the item.
...So?
Nothing happened.
I looked around for a long time, but there was nothing to see, which left me a little confused.
“Ah, shit... Don’t tell me the first-clear reward was a dud. Did I get a dud?”
This was a first for me, too.
Damn, was I being punished for squeezing so much money out of the Taiwanese government?
Still, this was too much.
I sighed and looked around...
“Huh?”
“Hunter Kim Segyun! Please, just one question!”
A woman came running from a considerable distance away.
Was that qinggong, by any chance?
She bounded over to me and thrust a microphone toward me.
“Huff, huff... Y-You’ll give me the first interview, right?”
“...Who are you?”
“The fastest news! The fastest interview! I’m Zhou Yuyin from TNN! I saw the clear message and came running right away!”
How could someone be named Yuyin?
Wow, they hire Awakened with qinggong as reporters?
Taiwan was pretty hip.
“Y-Yes, Ms. Yuyin.”
I was about to laugh, but I had to hold it in.
But... was it just me, or did the reporter in front of me also seem to be holding back a laugh?
“...Why are you laughing?”
“Um... that thing on your head... Is it some kind of trademark or signature character?”
“...My head?”
I tilted my head and touched it.
Squish.
“Holy crap, what the hell is this?!”
I swore without even realizing it.
I pulled out my phone and checked in selfie mode...
A small slime was sitting squarely on top of my head.
Hey, don’t tell me it got summoned up there...
“...Get down.”
I sighed and gave the order. It wriggled and slid down my body.
The reporter watched it with shining eyes.
“S-So cute!”
...She had some unusual tastes.
“What’s its name? I bet the viewers are really curious!”
“Its name... It’s just a slime...”
Hey, don’t look so disappointed right to my face.
─Kkyu!
“Oh my!”
Now she was staring at the slime with her face completely flushed.
That’s all it takes?
─Kkyu?
...It was cute, I had to admit.
No, but what kind of reward was this?
Setting aside the fact that it had weirdly been summoned on top of my head...
[Kkyu-Kkyu]
Description: A part of a slime colony that has willingly chosen to follow you, the conqueror of the maze. Its cuteness might make it popular!
Contents: Kkyu?
So what was this, exactly?
Wait, could this be...
A vanity ite—no, a cosmetic item?
Not every item found in a dungeon was designed purely for its performance.
I barely cared about appearances and chose my gear for its stats, but cosmetic items did exist, and they sold for quite a lot.
Hunters had money to burn, after all.
When people got rich, they developed a taste for pointless self-display.
By my standards, using cosmetic gear with no stats was just a waste of money...
But this follower was probably...
a cosmetic pet?
Ah, I should’ve checked the item description before summoning it...
If I’d known it was this cute, I could’ve sold it for a pretty penny.
As I let out a small sigh, Reporter Yuyin asked again.
“What’s its name?”
“...It’s Kkyu-Kkyu.”
“Kkyu-Kkyu! Wow! Hunter Segyun even has a pet this cute! Can it do any tricks?”
Hello? Weren’t you here to interview me...?
“Who knows.”
“Can it shake hands?”
She wanted me to ask a slime for its hand?
“It doesn’t have hands... But I suppose it could flip over.”
“Oh, show me!”
Did she really want to see a slime flip over?
“Flip over.”
“Waaaaaah! So cuuuute!”
This woman looked like she was about to flip over right along with it.
After spending ages interviewing my newly acquired slime follower, Kkyu-Kkyu, Reporter Yuyin looked crestfallen when she saw the other media outlets arriving.
“I can’t... get any more of an interview, can I...?”
“I’m sorry. There are a lot of people waiting.”
I was in a tough spot, too. I’d been trying to get out of there, but you’d stopped me, and now I had to do interviews with all those people.
When did they all get here?
**
I’d planned to head straight back to Korea after clearing the dungeon, but things dragged on somehow, and I ended up staying in Taiwan for another day.
There was an H Hotel in Taipei, too—the same chain that had a hotel on Namsan in Seoul—so I booked a room there.
─Kkyu-Kkyu? Pffft!
As soon as I arrived, I contacted Zephyros and explained what had happened...
Zephyros burst out laughing right away...
while the slime calmly made a resonant Kkyu? sound.
“Aren’t you laughing a little too hard?”
─Heh-heh-heh...
You’re going to laugh yourself to tears.
─Every now and then, you get a dud reward. Just accept it. What else can you do? You think you can get the sweet rewards every time?
“I’m a honeybee, so I’d like to spend my whole life sipping honey.”
─Wake up, kid.
“Heh-heh. Yeah, yeah. I’ll be back tomorrow. Get some sleep.”
─All right. Come back safely.
After ending the call, I sighed and looked at Kkyu-Kkyu.
By the way, what am I supposed to feed this thing?
It wasn’t undead. It was a real, living slime, so it had to eat something, right?
As I wondered about that, it crawled into the corners of the shabby hotel and started eating the black mold on the wallpaper.
Oh, right. It eats fungi.
I watched Kkyu-Kkyu eat for a while. This was surprisingly addictive.
Was this why people kept pets?
As I was musing over it, a voice sounded in my head again.
─How astonishing. It’s the True Core of a Slime Lord.
“...Huh? Is that you, Athena?”
─Yes, Summoner.
“But what do you mean by Slime Lord?”
─It refers to a primordial slime with the potential to branch into every type of slime.
“...This Kkyu-Kkyu?”
...A Lord, or whatever?
Not a cosmetic pet?
“Are you sure?”
─That is what my knowledge indicates. I have been analyzing it ever since you summoned it.
Was there even anything to analyze?
All it had done was go Kkyu and flip over.
─A Slime Lord is a slime with the greatest genetic diversity. It is an excellent familiar that even the Creator made good use of.
“How am I supposed to use it?”
─You lack the ability to make use of it at present. You must acquire more advanced knowledge.
That was a sudden dose of brutal honesty.
Anyway, that meant it would be useful once I raised it, right?
Got it. I’ll try to take good care of it...
Though I had no idea how to raise a slime.
**
Ryan Spencer’s first appearance on a Japanese variety show was a huge hit.
The problem was that it was a huge hit for all the wrong reasons.
“Why did you have to say something like that...?”
“...I told you it was a mistake. Before that, what was with that bitch? Why’d she have to ask about it...?”
It wasn’t the reporter’s fault. It might’ve caused an even bigger controversy if she hadn’t asked in that situation.
“Fuck!”
After cursing up a storm, Spencer covered his face with his hands.
“Of all the dungeons... he had to clear that one.”
Now he finally remembered.
That damn, nightmarish maze.
Spencer had had a reason to be confident about that maze.
He’d owned a legendary item: the Fairy Guide.
But even the Fairy Guide had been useless against a dungeon that changed from moment to moment.
In the end, he’d gotten trapped in the middle of the maze and nearly starved to death. Thinking he couldn’t just die there, he barely managed to find the starting point and escape with his life.
Even now, at Level 69—among the highest in the world—just thinking about that time made Spencer’s hair stand on end.
“It wouldn’t have mattered if Robert had been the one who screwed up. The problem is that you did.”
“Ugh.”
Robert Garcia.
His best friend and the current No. 2-ranked Hunter in North America.
He was Ryan Spencer’s rival and was cast as the thoroughly villainous character.
Ryan Spencer, on the other hand, was the hero.
Ryan Spencer was every child’s friend and idol, while Robert Garcia was his eternal enemy.
But his current behavior was anything but heroic.
He’d completely dismissed a talented rookie, only to have that thrown right back in his face in real time.
“Let’s start by issuing a public apology.”
“Fuck! I’d rather die!”
“Spencer!”
“I said no, so drop it!”
He’d already heard something that had been bothering him lately.
There was a rumor that Kaiser was planning to give his daughter, Sophia, to a rookie named Kim Segyun.
He’d thought it was just a rumor, but when he saw Sophia Heinrich looking so troubled, Ryan Spencer realized it was true.
“Spencer! There’s a right time to apologize! If you miss your chance now, you won’t be able to take it back! With your image the way it is, you need to apologize here. An apology alone isn’t enough! You need to meet Hunter Kim, shake his hand, and at least get a picture together!”
He didn’t know how much money they’d have to spend to arrange that one handshake, but they needed it now.
“No. This is when we charge straight ahead.”
“What?”
“What’s the hardest dungeon in Japan? Other than the Unclearables.”
“The Stage 67 dungeon in Sapporo.”
The highest-level Hunter of Japanese nationality was Level 67, making Stage 67 the highest Gate in Japan.
“How about a time attack on that one? If I set a new record, that’ll help a little, right?”
“That won’t be enough. You’re the one doing it, so a new record is a given.”
“...Then after that... Right, let’s do that. We leak some heartwarming stories.”
“Heartwarming stories?”
“You know, something like this: I said those things because I wanted the rookie to keep growing without getting arrogant. We leak to the press that I said it because of that. We’ve got the perfect catchphrase, too: ‘Do you think I’m such a lousy senior that I can’t even play the villain for a rookie’s sake?’”
“So we’re going to say you made those comments on purpose to promote Kim Segyun?”
“Exactly. Then we get that Robert guy to pick a fight with Kim Segyun, and I step in to stop him.”
“We’re going with the caring senior who looks out for his juniors?”
Looks like you’re finally getting it.
Spencer flashed a confident grin, as if he’d never been down in the dumps.
“I’m Ryan Spencer. You think one slip of the tongue is going to bring me down?”
**
With the Japanese government’s help, they hurriedly cleared the Stage 67 Sapporo dungeon.
Naturally, it was an easy enough dungeon for Japanese Hunters to clear without much trouble, so they set a new record.
And not just any record—it was an overwhelming one, beating the previous time by more than a minute.
“Spencer! Great work!”
“How’s the livestream?”
Kaiser Corporation had even acquired magical equipment that could livestream the inside of a dungeon, though it was incredibly expensive.
They’d gone so far as to put on a live dungeon broadcast, something an ordinary company couldn’t manage.
Naturally, the response was explosive.
It shot to No. 1 on the trending videos list in an instant.
That was true in Japan, and internationally as well.
Spencer smiled proudly as he checked the comments for feedback.
But...
─Kkyu?
└Kkyu-Kkyu?
└Kkyu!
└Kkyu-Kkyu-Kkyu!
“What are these braindead comments?”
“Huh? What’s this?”
They only found out where the comments were coming from...
a few dozen minutes later, when they saw the Taiwanese reporter’s interview video rocket to No. 1, instantly crushing their dungeon-clear video.
─Kkyu?
It was an interview with Kim Segyun, who had an incredibly cute slime perched on his head.
In fact, the slime was shown so much more than Kim Segyun that you could almost call it an interview with the slime, not him.
─It’s so damn cute, holy shit...
─Just watching this video is healing...
─Why am I the only one without a slime...
The comments had spent a while praising the slime’s cuteness, but soon...
─Kkyu?
└Kkyu-Kkyu?
└Kkyu!
as if they’d coordinated it, the comments started filling up with nothing but ‘Kkyu.’
They say human madness is impossible to predict...
That trend wasn’t limited to that video. It was spreading like wildfire across all of YTube.