Translated: iseuliEdited: Meira

“Waking up to hundreds of years worth of dust feels disgusting.”

“You should make spiritual contracts with elves that can summon water fairies to tend to you while you’re asleep.”

“The elf tribe will expect my protection in return, too troublesome.”

“Elves can summon water fairies and call their tribesmen while you’re asleep. You’re the only dragon who refuses to go out in the world to just relax and enjoy it leisurely. Go breathe some fresh air and live a little.”

“No. I’m lazy.”

“Kalgilm, don’t you want to show off the charisma of a dragon while flying in the sky? You have wings to fly, they’re not your blankets.”

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“I thought they were for preventing the sun from getting to my eyes.”

“Hey!”

Kalgilm remained stubborn and refused to expend any effort to do anything so NeAffronti had no choice but to share his own personal methods.

“Slimes have the ability to burn or melt dust with their body. They’re the best assistant when your scales are shedding. Additionally, you won’t be troubled by their tribesman because they don’t have such a concept.”

NeAffronti caught a slime wandering around the outskirts of his lair and gifted it to Kalgilm. Kalgilm named it Bouncy, and it became his second official named monster.

Slimes don’t have intelligence nor do they talk. He spent around ten years personally training Bouncy to effectively scrub his scales clean, then went into hibernation a second time.

Kalgilm awoke to a huge surprise because the slime had called him “handsome.” Bouncy never had the ability to speak before he entered hibernation.

The most it would do was hop around when its name, Bouncy, was called.

“It seems to have grown a lot the past 200 years while I was asleep.”

Kalgilm felt quite proud, though it was a mere slime. Kalgilm had put in a lot of effort to train the slime, afterall.

All he needed it to do was spread out its body and remain in place for one or two minutes, but the slime couldn’t comply with even this simple of a command. He repeated the same command again and again. He probably commanded it to do the same thing more than a hundred times.

Kalgilm felt tempted to cancel the spiritual contract many times.

‘I wonder if NeAffronti was just teasing me and tricked me into contracting this brat.’

Kalgilm thought of everything he went through to contract his dark elf and then compared his experience with the slime.

‘I toiled over Elkiesel a total of 80 years, and that’s probably not the end of it—I will need to do more things for him in the future. This brat just needs training once, then I won’t need to do anything anymore. This is tiring, but let’s see how things go for one or two years more. Anyway, if there’s one thing I have plenty of, it’s time.’

Kalgilm never did anything inside his own lair, but now he was preoccupied with training Bouncy. He spent ten years training Bouncy nonstop. He didn’t stop until the slime became an efficient scrubber.

Now Kalgilm felt extremely satisfied that his dunderheaded slime learned to speak.

It was the first time for Kalgilm to intensively care for another, like Bouncy, for such a long period of time. Naturally, Kalgilm developed affection and attachments toward it.

Kalgilm scanned his territory as soon as he woke up. Nothing particularly bad happened while he was asleep, thanks to Elkiesel, who was taking care of his lair and surrounding territories.

‘Bouncy really used to love that thing.’

Kalgilm picked up a centipede and offered it to Bouncy, who was on his shoulder, without much thought. Kalgilm used to watch it eat happily as it bounced up and down on his shoulder and feel nothing but disgust.

“Bouncy, say ‘ah’.”

Kalgilm attempted to push the centipede into Bouncy’s mouth.

“No! Awful!”

Bouncy dashed off his back and escaped to Elkiesel who was standing not too far away. Elkiesel hugged Bouncy with open arms.

‘I was the one who took care of it for ten entire years,’ Kalgilm felt an odd sense of betrayal.

Elkiesel took out some peppermint leaves from the bag slung around his hip. Bouncy refused to eat anything Kalgilm offered, and instead it ate everything that Elkiesel offered.

Its shape transformed into a smooshed baseball like organism and bounced up and down with joy on Elkiesel’s shoulder.

Slimes weren’t the smartest creatures. Maybe it somehow forgot its true master after two hundred years of absence, Kalgilm rationalized. However, his heart couldn’t accept it.

“My slime needs to be reeducated to properly recognize its true master.”

“Yes.”

Elkiesel obediently returned Bouncy to Kalgilm. Kalgilm placed Bouncy onto his shoulder.

‘I’ll burn my existence into that airheaded slime’s memories.’ Kalgilm returned to his lair.

There were two methods he could go about this. One was to physically beat and punish it, and the other was to woo it with treats.

Kalgilm had already long since realized that physical punishment would achieve nothing. Also, he was too lazy to continuously beat a slime.

So, in order to firmly engrave his existence into the slime’s heart, he got down and dirty and crawled on all fours to catch some of the bugs it loved to eat.

***

She didn’t have any memory of the ten years that Kalgilm had supposedly trained her. She only awakened her consciousness when she evolved, and didn’t remember anything from the time she used to be a normal slime. Slimes had a horrible memory to start with.

Correction, slimes didn’t have a single cell to store such a thing like memories. Put plainly, slimes didn’t have brain cells at all. In her past life, she was oftentimes referred to as brainless.

Her spiritual contract which binds her to her master probably influenced her quite a bit, she thought. It was hard to explain but she simply liked Kalgilm. Kalgilm was a bit scary when she first saw him, but now he felt like family.

However, these sorts of feelings lasted for only a short while.

‘Master, my master. Are you trying to make my pitiful slime life even worse on purpose?’

There is a countless number of fragrant and delicious plants in this world.

There are perilla leaves which go well with pork belly meat, coriander which goes well with rice noodles, and basil makes the perfect pair with curry.

After she awakened as a slime, she was reminded of the infinite amount of fragrant plants which exist in this world.

Lemon grass, rose herb, peppermint, spearmint, eukalyptus, rosemary, and even pineapple sage.

Each herb had a different level of crunch. Rose herb leaves were tougher and thicker so it felt like she was chewing on meat, while basil was soft and reminded her of tofu. The fragrance of these herbs would linger in her body and was useful when it was time for her to scrub Kalgilm.

A large percentage of people love using unscented soap, but just as many people enjoy a bit of fragrance in their lives. The chocolate scent of Heliotropes or the sweet smell of lavender made her feel so satisfied.

There are so many lovely and aromatic plants to choose from in this world, so why does my master keep insisting that I should be eating bugs? she complained in her heart.

She stared across the three bowls of ‘food’ presented to her. First was a bowl of centipedes, then a cockroach with broken wings, lastly was a bowl full of spiders.

What she absolutely detested the most in her past life was bugs—especially cockroaches. She couldn’t stand even looking at two particular bugs. She could stand butterflies, because though insects, they had colorful wings and gracefully flew in the sky. However, just a glance of centipedes or cockroaches made her skin crawl.

She was forced to live on her own at eighteen, and found herself a rundown attic room of a detached house for rent. She moved in because the security deposit and rent was relatively cheap. She was forced to live in hell for her two years there.

The attic wasn’t well ventilated, so her room became easily stuffy and humid. As a result, her room became a party house for all sorts of bugs. The house was built 30 years ago and it was a mystery whether it was made for humans or insects.

At the time, she went to school and worked part time. She was busy and rarely had a moment to rest. She would come home, exhausted, and would finally be able to rest after taking off her makeup, but there would always come a quiet creeping noise that would drive her off the walls. ‘Please let me sleep, you cockroach bas%#%^!;’

The cockroaches couldn’t be heard during the day because of all the noises from outside. But at night it was easy to hear their tiny little steps tip-tapping from various places in the room.

She would turn on the lights so she could kill the cockroaches, but then she wouldn’t be able to return to sleep after the killing spree. After some time, she would succeed it her efforts to sleep again, but the creeping noises would return just then. Of course, she would get up again to kill them, and before she knew it, it would be morning.

She really, really hated cockroaches. She hated their hairy legs, she hated their brown body color, and she absolutely detested the sound they made when smooshed.

Sometimes, she would be washing her hair with cold water, and then suddenly she would feel a strange sensation on her feet. Could you imagine such hairy legged bugs crawling up your legs? She could only cope by screaming in horror.

In her past life, she only had one goal.

She really wanted to live in a house that didn’t have bugs. A clean apartment, even a small officetel was fine. Anywhere was fine as long as bugs didn’t appear.

Slimes were the lowest of the low amongst monsters and lived off consuming moss, bugs, and plants. She’d been told slimes also consumed monster corpses, but she’d never dared to eat such a thing.

Even though she was reincarnated as a slime, she still hated bugs. Sure, she may have eaten them before she became conscious. However, now she made it a mission that she will never eat bugs again, even if it kills her. Especially not bugs with hairy legs.

She shut her mouth tightly and glared at the bugs.

“Bouncy, come on, have a taste.”

Kalgilm brought the bowl of squirming bugs closer to her lips.

Centipedes with hundreds of legs were tangled together like noodles on the white glass plate.

AAAAAH! GROSS. Just looking at it made her feel sick.

Maybe dragons had different taste buds from humans. Did these wiggling, tangled bugs look delicious? It must be why he keeps insisting that I eat them, she told herself.

‘Hey look here, Mr. Master. Even though I’m a slime, I have eyes. I really hate things like this. You’re definitely mistaken if you think I’d ever eat a bite of that.’

She tightly shut her lips once more and turned her back to him.