Chapter 4: Traveling Buddies

It was early in the morning when I woke up, the sun was just barely cresting the horizon. I'd slept well, all things considered. Opening the tent flap I saw that Nine was still asleep, that was fine, it was early enough that we had time before we needed to pack up and keep walking.

For the time being I settled with a quick workout, and then a checkup on my prosthetics. My right arm was covered in a pseudo skin that was difficult to tell apart from normal flesh. Peeling that away like a glove, I looked my arm over. No paint covered the metal, bare gleaming steel, and no markings either. It was shaped similarly to my original organic limb, however it provided many benefits that flesh and bone did not. Aside from being roughly ten times stronger, it was faster and much more durable. I opened a section of the plating, the mechanical components and wiring underneath, nothing looked to be damaged so I put it back in place.

Next I would need to check my right eye, a cybernetic implant that, while being harder to destroy than the normal organ, was still incredibly sensitive, and needed to be tuned a few times per year. Flicking between the vision settings: Infrared, Nightvison, even a form of sonar, everything was working as intended.

The sound of a zipper roused me from the maintenance, Nine had finally woken up it seemed. "Sleep well?"

"Mmhm, the ground is just as comfortable as always. What time is it?" Despite waking up not even a minute ago, Nine seemed to already be ready to leave.

"I would guess sometime around 8 AM." I replied in the middle of folding my tent and gathering our supplies. Bringing all of it together, Nine waved her hand while muttering something, all of the equipment disappearing in a flash.

"Time to leave then, hopefully we'll get to Iliasburgh before nightfall." Gathering our weapons, the two of us started down the dirt path again. I Hoped today wouldn't be as eventful as yesterday.

It was a few hours into our walk that Nine decided to pose a question. "So, is it just me, or do you find it odd we haven't seen a single monster?" Referring to the monster girls that supposedly inhabited this world, from the report Fate had given us, there were a lot of them.

Stepping in a puddle, I thought about it. "It's a bit odd, maybe they stay away from the main roads? The humans down here might not like them." It was a pretty safe guess, though it felt like I was missing something.

"Wouldn't it be a better idea to stay near the roads? Monsters need the life energy from men to survive after all. There wouldn't be a better place than the main roads to find someone, willing or not." She had a point, though I felt like we would have seen at least one by now if that were the case.

A very annoyed voice suddenly called out from behind us. "Hey! You stepped on my face! Meanie!"

It was a blue, gelatinous woman, seemingly melting into a puddle where a normal person's calves would start. She was wearing nothing and seemed to be dripping…herself? I didn't see how I could have stepped on her, she was a very noticeable looking thing. She still looked annoyed, thankfully Nine didn't seem as confused as me.

"I apologize for that, I didn't realize that puddle was a person." Oh… so that was her. Why, though?

"Well thanks," The slime said, before glaring at me, "Not like it hurts any less." I supposed I should apologize.

"I'm sorry." Unfortunately I couldn't resist asking her something, It'd been on my mind since she appeared. "How do you feel pain? Wouldn't the fact you're gelatinous allow you to mitigate the damage?" Apparently, this was the wrong thing to ask.

"Wha? How would you like it if someone stepped on your face!?" Probably not much, but I was a bit more solid than her, I voiced this. She seemed to calm down a bit before answering, Nine was struggling to compose herself. "Well when your cells die doesn't that hurt? Same thing here." The slime sighed, admittedly I would have called her adorable, even with how mad she had been.

Before I could manage to anger, confuse, or generally make the situation more awkward, Nine began speaking again. "As hilarious as that was, you're a slime aren't you? We haven't seen any monsters besides you on our way from Ilias village, would you happen to know why?"

The slime nodded, her entire body bouncing as she did, "Yeah, so there was this guy trying to be a hero or something like that, and he beat up a lot of the monsters on the road." Interesting, it seemed like Luka and David had come through recently enough. "That was a few weeks ago though," Or not. "I heard about it from a friend of mine."

"You haven't met him yourself?" I asked.

"Well yes, but not around here. I was looking for someone in Ilias village to give me their semen." Ah, I'd almost forgotten about this world's oddities. "But instead, this guy comes out swinging this sword at me! I wasn't even doing anything that bad, I was just hungry!" The slime was angry again.

Before she could get more worked up about it, Nine cut in. "So there haven't been any monsters on this road for the last couple weeks?" That seemed odd.

"Nope, well, most of us left. This happens every now and again, some dude thinks that since he's been blessed by Ilias that he should go on a 'heroic' quest to fight monsters." It seemed my earlier thought was correct, most humans didn't like monsters here, at least using Ilias village as an example. The slime continued, "Eventually some of us come back, and it repeats."

She looked at me and Nine, "So… I guess you guys aren't heroes, huh?" There was a glint in her eye, that made me a bit wary. "You wouldn't mind giving me some of your semen right? I'm pretty hungry right now."

"No, I can't do that." I readied myself in case she made a move. Suddenly the slime flinched backwards, I didn't think I was that scary. Oh, it seemed that Nine had lit her arm on fire.

"We have to get to Iliasburgh before tomorrow." She sounded bored, "It would be a bad idea to get in our way." The slime raised her hands in surrender.

"Ok, ok! Just don't set me on fire!" Nine extinguished her arm, "Uh, thanks, fire's scary, it melts us slimes really quick." She looked at Nine warily. "You, um, you guys are going to Iliasburgh?"

"Yes, we're tracking someone who could be a danger to the world." I spoke instead of Nine, seeing as how she'd just threatened the girl in front of us.

"Well, I'm actually going there too." She looked at the two of us, coming to a decision. "Could I, uh, could I come with you guys?" That certainly wasn't what I expected.

"After my partner just threatened to burn you?" I would have thought she'd be as far away from us as possible.

"Well, that just means you're really strong, and there's a lot of other monsters on this road. At least you don't seem like you'll attack me for no reason. Even if she's a bit mean." The slime explained, pointing to Nine.

"You'll be attacked by other monsters, why would they do that?" Monsters, I had thought, were mostly friendly with one another.

"The carnivorous ones will, they don't really care if you're human or not." She frowned, "slimes also taste really good for some reason." I felt like there was a story there.

I looked over to Nine, who was sitting on the ground now, just observing the conversation. She tilted her head up at me and shrugged, apparently she didn't care. I looked back at the slime, "Alright, you can come with us, don't cause trouble, we'll be walking until midnight." I paused, "what is your name? I don't think you told us."

"O-oh, thank you! I'm Lime by the way." Lime slid closer to us, "We're going then? Right now?" Nine had stood up, dusting off her pants she gestured for us to start walking again.

"I'm Zeph and she's Mai, and it seems we will be leaving." I turned and followed, Lime right behind me.

Our group, now three, kept walking for another two hours before coming upon an oddity. A plant, singular, sticking up in the middle of the road. This, while strange, wasn't the weirdest part, that came in the form of Lime's incredible insistence to not go anywhere near it.

"Why? It's a plant, it can't do anything to you?" I was very confused, was it poisonous?

Lime, having calmed down a bit, informed me that it was actually a monster. A mandragon to be exact. A type of monster that would burrow underground and wait for prey, humans typically, to come by. The monster would then burst out of the ground releasing a shriek that paralyzed anything around it.

I was pretty certain that would be detrimental toward my health, however it seemed like we would be able to avoid the mandragon, as she would need to be physically disturbed for her to awaken.

Nine kicked it, I had no idea why.

My eyes widened, the ground burst open. A piercing screech came through the air, it felt like my ears were bleeding. Suddenly my body locked up, falling to the side I could see as Lime melted into a puddle, seemingly paralyzed as I was.

I could hear a commotion from ahead of us, my hearing coming back after a few seconds. My neck felt stiff as I lifted my head to look toward the mandragon. Nine was standing there, entirely too calm for the situation. The mandragon in comparison had shrunk down into her hole.

It took a few moments for the paralysis to finally wear off. Standing up I could see a hand in front of me, Nine's, taking it she brought me to my feet.

"Why the hell did you do that?" While she had been unaffected, both Lime and I had been on the ground for almost two minutes.

"I was testing something, I wondered if the magic that I use would be effective at countering this world's system." She continued, "this was the best chance." Nine didn't look remotely sorry for paralyzing us.

I exhaled, "Did it work?"

Nine explained, "Exactly as it should have, the barrier I put around myself absorbed the energy. This one was pretty weak, so I'm not sure how effective it would be against higher magical levels or complex spells."

"Great, at least we got something out of that." I groaned as I sat up, everything felt tight, all of my muscles felt like they had cramped at the same time.

"Guh, ow. Why did you do that!." Lime wasn't happy with Nine either.

In response Nine simply tilted her head in the direction we were heading, and started walking. Lime looked between the two of us, "Do you have to put up with this all the time? Man am I sorry for you."

"It's fine, just wasn't expecting it, we've only worked with each other once before." I replied. That being said, even during that mission Nine was never a very good partner. This was going to be a long few months.

It was almost midnight when we saw the city. It was large, compared to Ilias village, but nothing I hadn't seen before. The guards tensed as we walked closer, they were staring at Lime.

"Stop. What is your business here?" The lead guard spoke, their captain probably, he was a man in full plate with a spear.

"Just looking to stay here for a night." I said.

"Hmm," He looked at Lime for a moment, "we've had trouble with monsters recently, is she friendly?"

"Yes, we've been traveling together since noon, she won't cause you any trouble." He nodded at that, seemingly satisfied with the answer, probably because Lime wasn't a particularly powerful monster to begin with.

Motioning for the other men to open the gates, he led the three of us inside. The captain pointed toward a massive building at the end of a long street, "That's the Sutherland inn, you should be able to stay there for the night, if not, there's a smaller place a block away."

With that he left us, going back to the gate with his men. I turned toward Lime, "Where will you be going?"

She looked up at me, "Oh, I'll be going to meet a friend, so I guess I'll see you another time. Goodbye Zeph and Mai." With that the slime went away, down another street to the right.

We continued forward to the Sutherland inn, it was by far the most intricately designed building I'd seen in this city, stone inscribed with various pictures and patterns. It reminded me a bit of my time in a rather high class world, U-756, if I was remembering correctly.

The interior was no less richly decorated, red velvet chairs, gold on too many things to count. There was a woman at the desk who had seen us walk in. As we walked up to the counter I could see she was somewhat old, brown hair graying at the edges.

"Hello! Welcome to the Sutherland inn, how are you two doing?" She was enthusiastic I had to give her that, looking around for a price I saw the sign sitting on the counter.

I had to refrain from gawking at the price, almost 2.5 million gold coins, for a single day. There was however a discount, for heroes that is, the price was almost nothing with it. While I was staring, Nine had begun talking with the innkeeper.

"We'll be here for tonight only, with the discount of course." The innkeeper stared at the two of us for a moment, she seemed to be contemplating whether we looked like heroes.

"Alright, you two will be in room thirty four, here's the key." Handing Nine an old fashioned silver key, the woman gestured down a hall to our left.

Room thirty four was nice, however there was a single problem, there was one room. Normally this would be fine, however Nine always hid her body, so she would have to wear everything if we slept in the same room.

"I told you Eleven, it's fine, as sweet as the concern is, I've done this before." We'd been talking for a minute or two about this, I'd offered to sleep in the bathroom, as it was the only other closed off room here.

"Alright, just offering, I won't say no to an actual bed." The ground outside wasn't particularly bad yesterday, but I much preferred this. Seeing that the conversation was over, I moved toward the bathroom to take a shower.

I wasn't extremely dirty, all things considered. During the fight with the bandits I had managed to avoid getting blood on myself, and over the past two days of travel I had managed to avoid dirt and grime well enough. The interesting thing to me was that this place had a working shower, which meant it had a system of running water. This was especially fascinating, as everything else I'd seen looked to be set in a time period before humanity would discover plumbing and running water.

Finishing scrubbing myself, I stepped out and dried off. Walking out I realized that I hadn't asked Nine to get my clothes out of storage before I got in. Looking towards her I saw that she was sitting on the bed, staring out the window, pieces of armor strewn on the ground, she was only wearing her bodysuit. I stopped, her mask was sitting next to her. I knocked on the wall, averting my eyes from the window that reflected her face back at me.

She jumped, Immediately grabbing the object next to her and clicking it in place on her head. Turning around she looked at me for a second. I wasn't wearing anything except for a white towel wrapped around my waist.

"Not bad Eleven, I was expecting less if I'm being honest." She gestured to my body, I was muscular, 'peak human condition' Fate had called it, as strong, fast, and agile as a human being could possibly get, superhuman. "Your clothes are on the dresser."

She stepped past me, into the bathroom I'd just left. I walked toward the dresser, typically I would sleep with nothing but my boxers on, but I'd felt the need to wear something more if we were sharing a bed.

It was a gray T-shirt and black sweatpants, simple, but I wasn't going to need it for anything else. Slipping the clothes on, I sat down on the bed. It was large, bigger than a king that was for sure, idly I wondered what kind of clients the inn typically got.

The sound of the shower turned off eventually, Nine stepped out, already fully covered by the suit. I looked up at her from where I was, already laying down. "Are you doing alright Nine?"

Nine tilted her head to the side, "What do you mean by that Eleven?" I'd noticed it earlier, she'd acted a bit odd ever since we began traveling with the slime. A small difference, one that most wouldn't have noticed.

"You've seemed tense all afternoon, do you dislike slimes or something?" It seemed to be worth a shot, I'd met people who were put off by things like that before.

"No, she was a bit annoying, but I could care less about what she was." Nine sighed, "it's the mission actually, it's been a long time since I've actually hunted a deviant."

"Afraid we won't catch him in time? I get that, this entire universe could end if we took a second too long." That made sense, and was a bit more relatable than I had expected. Nine had been taking down large empires within the Void for as long as I had been an agent, she didn't specialize in singular target eliminations like I did.

Nine sat down on the other side of the bed, "Something like that, it's also that, mmm," she paused for a moment, "nevermind, it's a personal matter, that's all you need to know." She laid down, putting her head on a large pillow. "Good night Eleven."

I guessed that was it, I doubted I would get anything else out of her. If it was important enough to compromise our mission I would have to though. "Goodnight Nine."

With that I drifted off to sleep, though it wouldn't come easy that night.

Author's Note

That marks the end of the pre-written chapters, number 5 should be done today or tomorrow. After that I'll be aiming for 1-2 chapters per week.