Level Eater

It was when Tatsuro had finished rescuing the least powerful part of the team.

{“Tatsuro…”}

{“Ai? There’s—-“}

{“Tasu…..ro——“}

{“─────!”}

Her usual innocent, sunny voice turned into a weak one, calling out to her for help.

Under such circumstances, there was no way that Tatsuro Hasami would not move.

But there were still some slimes on the road. But it didn’t matter.

“Let it lose.”

At the same time as that small voice, several balls of light were released, and one after another were knocked down and disappeared.

However, without even looking at the results, Tatsuro mixed earth magic with dark magic and let the magic permeate the cobblestones.

The cobblestones instantly liquefied, and then quickly took on the desired shape.

It was a board that looked like a surfboard made thinner and wider.

When he put his feet on it as if he was surfing, the wind magic created a gust of wind that went from directly below to above, and Tatsuro flew through the air with his board.

As soon as he reached a height of ten meters above the ground, he used wind magic to manipulate the airflow and slid his board through the air.

“Found you. AI!”

The first thing he did was to shoot out a very thick laser from the tip of his wand at the slime that surrounded them.

Next, the board was plunged into the sound source that was probably the cause of Ai’s weakness.

”SHUT UP!”

With that, Tatsuro took off in the direction of Ai and the others and vigorously slammed the board into the slimes, which continued to vibrate strangely.

The slimes were cut in half by the board, which was thinner but harder than it looked.

The board was shattered by the impact of hitting the ground, but he thought it was a trivial matter and ran up to Ai.

”Ai!”

”Ta-tsuro, …….”

As soon as he embraced Ai, who was smiling weakly when she saw Tatsuro, he immediately used magic to find the cause. Then he realized that it was the sound that was causing the problem.

It is a unique magic used by the slimes, and no matter how much the title adds to it, Ai’s extremely low magic resistance has been affected by it.

He wanted to punch himself in the face for not taking any action against it, for underestimating it as just a slime and letting Ai alone deal with it, but this was not the time, so Tatsuro used his life magic to get Ai in shape.

“Thank you. I feel much better now.”

“—-I’m so glad”

Then Tatsuro hugged Ai tightly again. Ai shed a single tear as she realized how much Tatsuro cared about her. “Thanks,” she said.

”Oh, you two?

Since you are still alive. …… Can you wait until after you’re done with that stuff?”

“”Ah!””

Zendo, who was looking at the slimes that were coming back to life completely behind him, felt bad, but he had to tell them.

Tatsuro and Ai shook their heads, saying they should not, shaked their head and turned their attention to reality. Just then, the slime began to make that vibration again.

But not to let that happen, Tatsuro moved one step faster.

First, he used wind magic to separate the individuals and stop the vibrations.

Then, he imagined additional magic. A magic that will make every living thing in front of him disappear without leaving a single piece.

“You b*****d, don’t think you can die so easily”

”Tatsuro, that’s more of a villain’s line. ……”

Concentrating so hard that he couldn’t hear Ai’s comment, Tatsuro created five large, glowing red and white square boards and placed them around the slimes to surround them, trapping them in a square box.

”Disappear!”

In response to his words, each one of the five surrounding surfaces took on a strange light and heat.

The light was so bright that it was impossible to see directly, and the heat distorted the surrounding vision, so that even the place where Tatsuro and the others were a short distance away felt hot.

When the board disappeared, which lasted about ten seconds, all that was left was the stone pavement that had melted and mixed with the ground, and was boiling red and gooey.

“Amazing…..”

Even Zendo, who didn’t know much other than the weak water magic he could use, knew that this was abnormal and couldn’t say anything else.

However, without even realizing it, Tatsuro used life magic on Ai to make sure she was in perfect physical condition.

“I’m much better now, so save your energy for later.”

”Really? You’re not pushing yourself too hard, are you?”

“No. I’m not going to lie to Tatsuro about that.”

Ai kissed Tatsuro on the cheek and smiled mischievously.

After that, she had to do the rest of the work.

Tatsuro killed all the remaining slimes and casually treated the injured with life magic.

Thanks to the efforts of Tatsuro and Ai, there were no deaths and only twelve injuries, but some of the items on the wagons were ruined.

However, everyone was happy that there were no deaths despite the scale of the demon attack, and not a single person complained about it.

On the contrary, they all thanked Tatsuro and Ai and even bowed to them, which made the two of them feel very frightened.

In spite of this, the injured people who could not move the wagon and their luggage were followed by the other craftsmen, and they finally started on our way home.

They should have left earlier than yesterday, but thanks to the demons, they didn’t get back to the town until even later in the day.

The two of them were talking with Zendo, not even bothering to deal with the people who were still thanking them.

”No, thank you very much for your help today.

I still get chills down my spine when I think about not going with you guys.”

”I’ve already been thanked so many times. —ah, that’s right!

And Grandpa, you came to save me, too!

You threw away a jar of salt, but isn’t that expensive?”

Zendo’s eyebrows twitched for a moment as he remembered something unnecessary, but he acted as usual. He didn’t want to give the two any unnecessary trouble.

”Don’t worry! That’s just scrap salt that I was going to sell at a discount!

Even a full bottle is nothing to worry about. It’s not a big deal. Gahahaha”

”I see, I’m a little relieved.”

Ai and Zendo laughed together when he said that, and Tatsuro laughed along with them, but in his heart he was not convinced.

(I saw some salt scattered around for a moment, was that scrap salt? …… Probably not.)

Tatsuro thought that it might have been the highest quality salt, but he didn’t want to say anything about it.

It would be tactless to say anything about it here, considering Zendo’s kindness and Ai’s feelings. That’ s what he told himself, and he bowed his head to Zendo in his heart.

“Then we’ll go report to the guild.”

“Ou, becareful!”

“Goodbye.” “Bye bye”

“See you later!”

The three of them waved to each other as they left Zendo and headed for the guild.

“Good evening. Tatsuro-san, Ai-san. I heard you had a rough day.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s right.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, but can you tell me more about it?”

“Yes” “Sure”

So they explained in as much detail as they could about the demons they had encountered on their way home today.

”It’s probably Murugar and Bedslime. Murugar is still seen once every few years, so it’s not crazy. But ……the problem is the Bedslime. If it’s a large number of them, then the distribution around this town has definitely gone wrong.”

“That’s right.”

Of course, if something like that were to happen frequently, there would be no way to make salt. Tatsuro thought, but listened to the rest of Leela’s story.

”Yes. Bedslimes themselves are demons that migrate in swarms at regular intervals and devour everything in their path, but the cycle hasn’t come yet, and the migration is supposed to go through the Amneri Forest, and it’s never been confirmed that the area around this town has been used as a passage point.”

“That’s why it is strange isn’t it?”

”Yes, that’s right. But how could two people be able to protect that many people?”

”Hmm but …… we had some injuries, so it’s not like we were able to protect all of them. ……”

When Ai looked a little pouting, Leela quickly followed up.

”No, no. In fact, it’s a great achievement when you’re only injured and there are no serious injuries or deaths. The premise that the two of you could have defended against that was wrong in the first place. Normally, there would have been deaths for sure.”

“I wonder if that’s true.”

”Yeah. I think you should be proud of yourself.”

”That’s right, everyone said thank you right? If you look like that, you’re not doing the person who thanked you any favors.”

“I see, ……, you’re right!”

Leela and Tatsuro smiled at Ai, who had returned to her usual smile again.

Then Tatsuro got his reward and the two left the adventurer’s guild, saying that they could wake up slowly tomorrow because another adventurer had received a request for the next day.

Leela, who was staring at the backs of the two, sighed as she had more and more questions after today’s incident.

“Really, who are those two people ……”

Before asking them about today’s events, the staff had interviewed people who were at the scene in order to investigate the distribution of demons.

In that information, the heroic deeds of the two were always mentioned.

Although she could pass it off as no problem in itself, ……, the content was not very good and could not be passed off.

They said, in addition to fire magic, he used wind, earth, light, and life magic.

They said that she used swords, spears, shields, and throwing tools.

They said that he could manipulate a ball of light that emitted strange rays of light from a distance to defeat demons with precision.

They said that he was flying in the sky.

If it were just one or two people who said this, Leela would have dismissed it as a lie.

In all likelihood, they were no ordinary race of people. Leela had no other explanation but to conclude that.

Some people say that she eloped with some nobleman, but Leela thinks that this is spurious.

If that were the case, the adventurer’s guild could have been asked to search for them, but no one had asked for a search that matched their characteristics.

(It would have been better for my mental health if that were the case…)

However, there was no malice on their part, and the two were sincere enough to complete the job without running away from the large number of demons, and their character were perfect.

So in the end, Leela had no choice but to shelve the two of them.

(Even so, the large discrepancy in the large movement of the BedSlime – this is also worrisome. It’s been a few days since the earthquake, and maybe there’s still something unusual going on in the Amneri Forest that we don’t know about. ……)

The only other thing Leela could think of was a natural disaster on such a large scale. But if that were the case, she should know.

But what if …… it’s something beyond what she can imagine—-

(I’m thinking too much. Let’s go home and go to bed.)

Leela also went back to her house, breaking through the indescribable bad feeling that had momentarily overwhelmed her.

However, no one knew that the abnormality was currently occurring in the Amneri Great Forest, and that it would later befall this town ────.

chapter 48