S...Slime?

S...Slime?

The Rotten Moss Tribe's camp stood along the Reed Riverbank. Blue-scaled figures moved through the reeds, spearing fish, or spreading out fishing nets, dried meat, and herbs and moss that gave off a bitter, refreshing fragrance to dry along the shore.

On this utterly ordinary afternoon, the arrival of a merchant shattered the tribe's peace.

Lizardfolk large and small gathered from green huts, drying racks, and beneath the shade of trees, their amber slit pupils curiously examining the human merchant who had entered the tribe.

The hatchlings excitedly poked their heads around the cart wheels, letting out childish hissing cries, only to be quietly rebuked by the adult Lizardfolk.

Though the scene was primitive and rough, it carried the slightly boisterous vitality unique to a tribe.

Yet the sounds faintly drifting from the center of the crowd did not seem all that harmonious. They sounded more like an argument.

Seja had been inspecting freshly dried herbs with her older sister Semiya some distance away when the commotion in the camp caught her attention. Curious, she rose onto her toes and looked toward the human figure who seemed so out of place amid the crowd.

"What happened, Sister?" Seja asked softly.

Semiya's amber slit pupils swept over the crowd. She merely shook her head slightly, signaling for Seja to go see for herself.

Seja squeezed into the circle of Lizardfolk and tried to ask a young warrior beside her.

The young Lizardfolk glanced at her, recognized her as that outsider's younger sister, then turned his head away, clearly having no intention of paying her any mind.

Old Shazak noticed the disturbance and gave a light cough, rebuking the young Lizardfolk for his rudeness.

"Show respect to Shaman Seja."

Then he turned to the Seja sisters, lightly tapping his tail against the ground in greeting.

"This human merchant."

Shazak looked at Yano.

"He says he wants to find a... 'forest path Demonic Beasts dare not approach.'"

"We have lived in the swamp for dozens of rainy seasons. We know every puddle and every ancient tree, yet we have never known of such a path."

"I believe Mr. Yano must have misunderstood something."

The speaker had meant nothing by it, but the listener took it to heart.

Seja, standing nearby, immediately began turning things over in her mind.

A forest path? One Demonic Beasts did not dare approach?

Wasn't that description... exactly the Swift Bee Forest Path opened up by the Envoy?

This human knew of that path. Could he be connected to the Envoy?

On the other side, Yano felt a dull ache beginning to build in his head. Sweat slid down from his temples, half from the swamp's stifling heat and half from his anxiety.

He gestured desperately, trying to describe the features of that forest path—clean, no Demonic Beasts, leading deeper in—but the Lizardfolk vocabulary he had crammed at the last minute was pitifully limited, and his pronunciation was even stranger.

Old Shazak and the surrounding Lizardfolk listened with blank expressions. Several younger ones even failed to hold back their snickers.

The gulf in communication was like an impassable chasm. He felt like a fool trying to explain the sky to fish.

"These Lizardfolk actually don't know that forest path? What kind of joke is this?"

He did not know the swamp's routes. Without a map, he simply could not find that forest path, and could only futilely explain himself over and over again.

Seja's gaze lingered on the anxious human merchant.

She sharply noticed that, despite his awkward predicament, there was none of the disdain or calculation she usually saw in human merchants' eyes.

There was only anxiety, and a kind of... restraint as he tried to remain polite?

Was it because the Rotten Moss Tribe had saved him? Or... because of the Envoy, had he come to view Lizardfolk differently?

A thought quickly took shape in her heart.

Without drawing attention, she retreated to the edge of the crowd and swiftly pulled a crude map from the small leather pouch she carried with her. It had been treated with waterproof oil and marked the tribe's general hunting grounds and water sources.

Carefully, she wrapped a Gray Grit Crystal the size of a pigeon's egg in the map, then tucked it into the gap between a pile of sacks at the edge of the cart bed.

An hour later.

Yano left the noisy yet relatively safe bounds of the Rotten Moss Tribe and ventured deep into the dark, damp Swamp Forest.

The closer he drew to that area from his memories, the more tense Yano's heartbeat became.

He could not help recalling that silhouette flowing with darkness amid the mist, and those emotionless, ghostly green "eyes."

This time, he was walking straight into its door... What would be waiting for him?

To dispel the faint fear in his heart, he instinctively reached into his clothes.

There lay something he had accidentally discovered while sorting the goods—a crude Lizardfolk map, along with an icy, hard Gray Grit Crystal wrapped inside it.

He spread the map over the wooden chest in front of him and carefully identified the direction of the forest path by the faint light filtering through the trees.

A question arose in his heart for no reason.

Who had given him this map?

Could there be a follower of that demon in the Rotten Moss Tribe as well?

He felt as though something was watching him, and what little luck he had been clinging to vanished like smoke.

He tried his best to calm himself down.

Yano, it's nothing. It's just a deal with a demon.

There's nothing to be afraid of...

Fine. That reassurance not only failed to help—it made his heart feel even heavier.

He felt like a wild boar that had voluntarily shoved itself into an oven, now pondering how to roast its thick fat until it sizzled, turned golden, and dripped with oil, enough to fill the abyss-like greedy stomach of a demon.

His thoughts churned madly in fear, yet his feet mechanically carried him to the end of the Forest Path.

Ahead, thick toxic mist, so dense it could not be dispersed, had swallowed the road completely.

He cautiously took a step, trying to pass through that suffocating barrier, but every time he lifted his foot, he found himself back where he had started.

Yano stood frozen, fear of demons seeping into his marrow. In the end, a thought so insane that even he found it utterly mad gained the upper hand.

Call out.

He was actually going to summon that being from hell before his very eyes!

"Great Lord of the Swamp! Your... your humble servant... has brought you... an offering."

Yano's voice was hoarse, echoing through the woods with a tremor.

Before his words had even faded, enormous regret flooded his heart. He wanted to run, to take back that fatal invitation, but his feet seemed to have grown roots.

Too late!

Deep within the thick mist, the outline of an immensely oppressive figure suddenly appeared!

Wrapped in the decay accumulated in the depths of the swamp and a nauseating aura of terror, it came piercing through the fog.

Yano's heart nearly burst from his chest!

He stared fixedly at the approaching shadow. In his mind rose the hideous image of a demon—knotted muscles, a head sprouting twisted horns, scarlet eyes burning with evil fire that bewitched the soul, every step enough to make the earth tremble...

The shadow rapidly swelled in his vision, its outline becoming clearer and clearer. Fear and despair climbed to their peak, and he could practically smell the deathly stench of sulfur and blood from his imagination!

The thick mist was brutally torn open by some force, and that figure steeped in ultimate terror finally stepped fully out...

A blob... limp, translucent, jelly-like and faintly wobbling...

...a Slime?

Huh?!

Chen Yu had been troubled lately.

He had discovered some corrupted Swamp Crocodiles in the depths of the swamp.

It seemed that the power captivating the Lizardfolk came from the depths of the swamp.

In other words, his territory had been surrounded by those mad Corrupted Believers.

All it would take was a torrential rain, or some opportunity, for the corrupted Demonic Beasts in the depths of the swamp to swarm out in full force and join the corrupted Demihumans outside in taking over the entire swamp.

They would drag him, the Swamp Overlord who had barely taken office, down from his lofty position.

Such was always the way of struggles between overlords.

Who would have thought those Corrupted Believers had so many wicked schemes too?

To defend his position, he had to strike hard and drive back these presumptuous invaders.

He had been racking his brains over how to teach them a lesson when a figure emerged from the swamp's toxic mist.

It was Yano, returning.