Amato Heir to a Monstermancer: Volume 2

1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-7183-1176-3
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 250 Seiten

Reihe: Heir to a Monstermancer

Hakura and Leen return from Leston back to Esma. After two weeks of relative peace and quiet, they begin to consider their next steps. However, an unexpected incident results in the unlikely pair having to stick around a bit longer: the hunt is on for a witch! Will the witch hunter and the monstermancer be able to hunt down their wicked mark?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Amato, Damu

Weitere Mitwirkende

Shirabii

Miura, Arthur

Leseproben

Chapter 3: What It Means to Kill

Kobolds weren’t uncommon sights in large towns; some were even well-trained enough to work as waiters. Occasionally you saw fairies beside maintained flowerbeds searching for nectar or clean water. Messenger pigeons were positively commonplace, trained to deliver letters at high speed. Weak monsters like these, that required little mana to survive and posed a low threat, could exist in human settlements. And ...

“Hey, mister, can I have one red and one white, please? Do you want any, Hakura? I’ll pay.”

It was morning and we’d just left the inn. As soon as Leen had spotted a food stall by the side of the road, she’d dashed right over to it and spoke to the man running it.

“I’m fine,” I replied after a pause.

“You sure? You better not ask for something later.”

“We ate breakfast. I swear, Leen...”

“Yes?”

She stared at me with a puzzled expression. I looked back, unable to accept what I was seeing. The reason was plainly evident.

“Don’t you have any reservations about eating that?”

Before Leen could respond to my question, the man running the stall reached into a container full of ice.

“These were supplied by Miss Cormeca herself, so they’re guaranteed to be juicy,” he said.

The owner had pulled out the two quivering things. An icy chill wafted off from their mysterious not-quite-solid, not-quite-liquid forms. Humans knew these creatures as...slimes.

One slime was a deep red and the other was a light milk color. Each was about the size of two fists. The stall owner then picked up a massive cleaver and hacked off some slices before cutting them into chunks with no hesitation. The slimes that had been sliced apart merely wobbled.

“Here ya go. One lilberry and one eriché. That’ll be thirty ennies.”

He put Leen’s orders into a container alongside a toothpick before handing it over to her. After counting the money and saying thanks, he returned to his hawking. It was already time to find the next customer.

“Huh? What do you mean? Slime jellies taste great,” Leen said.

She was judging the chewiness of her food with an expression that indicated she didn’t understand my question.

“What I’m getting at is this—you are aware of what you walk around with every day, right?” I said.

Unless I was missing something, Leen was chowing down on one of her companion’s kin—a companion with whom she had forged such a strong bond that it called itself her “knight.”

“Oh, Hakura,” Leen replied. “Blue is Blue, and a slime jelly is a slime jelly. Plus, I’m thirsty, and I was in the mood for something sweet.”

“And what about you? You fine watching a fellow slime get gobbled up like that?”

I wasn’t sure if I could call Leen’s slime an acquaintance, but ever since we met and I saw how it had its own ego, I felt an aversion to eating this popular snack (which I had never particularly liked to start with). I wondered what this slime thought about when its master was eating its own kind.

Leen’s slime explained as it jiggled in her arms, just like the slimes that had been sliced up.

“Well, if you’re satisfied with that...”

“Blue isn’t very yummy anyway,” Leen chimed in.

“Uh... Have you tried to eat it before?”

“O-Only when I was a little girl!”

We had found a nearby bench to rest on. Leen pierced the slime—firm thanks to the ice—with her toothpick. The red piece quivered on its skewer as she popped it into her mouth without a second thought. It made a satisfying sound as she bit it. Even from my position beside her, I could tell they had a good mouthfeel.

“What do you even need to do to make those things edible?” I asked.

Slimes were, in my eyes, nothing more than annoying monsters that I’d seen melt and digest a whole number of different things in my lifetime. I felt an aversion to eating one, even if these ones were classed as livestock...

“Well, you know slimes are omnivores, right, Hakura?”

I nodded. Slimes’ two primary traits were an abnormal resistance to physical attacks and the ability to eat anything they could melt. They varied in size, but they always possessed a core somewhere in their bodies—destroy that and they would die. They were weak to changes in temperature, so the main ways you dealt with them were either by melting them with fire, or freezing and then smashing them. Naturally, wizards were often crucial in slaying them. This was about the extent of what I knew about slimes in terms of extermination.

“Slimes’ bodies are made up of the substances they consume. Slimes that only eat metals turn into metal slimes. Slimes that eat a lot of poisonous mushrooms turn into poisonous slimes.”

This was beside the point, but flexible metals were highly valued in alchemy and smithing, so you could earn a pretty enny by capturing a metal slime and selling it. This wasn’t an easy job, as not only were they rare to spot, they were tough and quick little buggers. Anyway, back to the conversation.

“If a slime only eats fruits, then their bodies will gradually change color and start to taste like the fruits they’re eating. Once the flavor has ripened enough, you can slice off a piece and serve it up as slime jelly, which contains none of the slime’s digestive juices. As long as the slime retains its core, it will return to its original size. Plus, if you feed the slime more fruit when it has a smaller body size, then the flavor will get even richer. Some people say there’s nothing tastier than aged slime jelly!”

“And from the slime’s point of view, it’s in a living hell.”

I wasn’t the kind of guy to sympathize with monsters, but I couldn’t imagine being forced into that kind of situation where I was simply kept alive for my meat.

“Oh, sweet Hakura,” Leen said after a gulp, elongating her final vowels, “slimes don’t have feelings or ego.”

“Can you see why I was so freaked out when slime was on my arm?!”

am the slime said.

“Would you like some, Blue?”

“Isn’t that...cannibalism?” I said.

The scene of this blue slime consuming a red kindred was quite bizarre. I guessed Leen’s slime special. It could talk and had two cores instead of the usual one. Slimes wouldn’t be able to maintain their bodies if their cores were destroyed—in other words, they died—but what would happen if one of this slime’s cores was destroyed? Would it be able to survive with just the one? Well, not that I could test this theory.

“On a serious note, slimes have been domesticated for food for a long time. Giving them fruit to eat will provide them with the perfect flavor. You wouldn’t get something this tasty if you snatched a wild slime and did the same,” Leen said.

“I guess you wouldn’t know what it’s eaten,” I replied.

“Exactly! Plus, this is a form of symbiosis, Hakura. Slimes supply their jelly in return for being allowed to live, and people get a delicious treat out of that act. Thanks to that, I get to enjoy this right now!”

Leen had devoured the red slime and moved her toothpick into the white one. Before she picked it up, I watched from beside her as she puffed her cheeks in displeasure.

“Fine, fine. But just one bite!” she said.

I wasn’t sure how she’d misinterpreted my actions this much, but Leen thrust a cube of slime in front of my face. I watched it quiver in the air.

“Huh? Aren’t you going to eat it?” she went on.

“I didn’t ask for—”

“Aren’t you going to eat it?”

From the way Leen was holding the toothpick, it seemed like she wasn’t handing it over to me. She wanted me to open my mouth. I caught a smirk at the corner of her mouth.

Leen slowly drew closer as I slowly backed away. I knew as soon as I opened my mouth I’d be done for. A pointless tension was tightening my muscles. And the very next second...

“Ngh...”

...I felt a twinge of pain in the back of my right hand—where my black Sphere was—that caused a chill to run up my spine. I’d never felt anything like it before. Upon turning around to figure out what was happening, I saw someone.

“My, oh my, you two seem awfully chummy.”

It was a woman. She had a hand over her mouth as she chuckled.

I didn’t recognize her. I glanced over at Leen and she shook her head—not an acquaintance of hers either, it seemed.

The woman looked to be in her early twenties. She had dark-red hair in thick plaits that fell over her chest. Her gray robe had long sleeves, and was of the type favored by magically inclined folk. The stains on the cuffs indicated that she was a more practical than fastidious sort. All together, she had an...