"I'm a Demon King's Army officer - Hans the Deadly Poison Slime! If you run into those three Axis Cultists down in hell, go complain to them. Tell them it's their fault for making Lord Hans angry, and that's why you died by my hand. Hahahaha!"
Hans opened a maw like a black hole, ready to swallow Jhin and a chunk of the ground along with him. Jhin raised a hand to tell it to hold on a second. "So you were wrecking the place just to get back at those three cultists?"
"Hmph. Since you're the only human who ever offered me any sympathy, I'll let you die knowing a little more than most." Hans slowly closed that abyssal, fang-lined mouth. There was no telling which organ it was using to speak, but the resentment in its voice came through clearly. "I heard the soil around here was pretty good, so I came to pollute it a bit and eat a few humans while I was at it."
Jhin pulled a bag of potato chips out of his pocket.
"My very first day here, those three lunatics latched onto me. They - wait. Didn't I already tell you this part?"
"Hm? So that wasn't a story you made up. You're a Demon King's Army officer, aren't you? Why did you swallow it and hand over the money?"
"Hmph. A big city like this always has its Guardians, and I'd rather not run into those people. Nothing but trouble." Hans squirmed twice, as though dredging up a bad memory, and its voice turned foul. "Anyway, once those three had their eyes on me, they spent day and night trying to convert me."
"Up earlier than the roosters, every single morning, just so they could ambush me the moment I stepped outside. Then they'd smear my name with the most terrible acting you've ever seen - one of them even claimed I was his long-lost brother! Their heads are clearly broken, yet somehow their instinct for danger is razor-sharp. Several times I nearly lured them past the edge of the Guardians' perception, and every time they'd invent some excuse and bolt."
At that point Hans lapsed into genuine regret over never having been able to simply eat those three mutts.
"That's it? That's all?"
"You need some other reason?"
"For a vicious monster like you, I suppose not."
"Hahaha, thanks for the compliment."
Crunch, crunch.
The story was over.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
"I should - " Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Hans finally snapped and roared at Jhin. "Would you stop eating that damn snack already? That noise is driving me insane!"
"Isn't eating something while you listen to a story just basic etiquette?"
"I don't give a damn about etiquette. Now that I'm back in my true form, I've noticed the fine ingredients trailing along behind you. One of the Beastmen, one of the elves. Heh heh - it's been a long time since I last ate an elf. That rich, dense taste of life force really is something."
Deadly poison seeped from the gaps between Hans's jagged fangs. Where the droplets struck the ground, they ate a wide crater into it, thin threads of green smoke curling up from the hole.
Jhin put the chips away. His eyes shifted to gold, and the dragon's might came crashing down on Hans like a falling sky. Anything that made the girls its target had just been added to his kill list.
"Oh ho ho, am I seeing this right? A dragon bloodline?" Hans seemed utterly unaffected by the dragon's might. It might have been a Slime with a Racial Value of 1, but it had clawed its way up to the rank of Demon King's Army officer through countless battles, and it had built resistance to that kind of pressure long ago. Its attention slid from Kokkoro back to Jhin. "To get a taste of dragon blood - now that's a stroke of great fortune!"
"Great Fortune? You mean the truck brand?"
"Hmph. Still running your mouth with nonsense nobody understands, right up to the end. That part's a lot like the pride dragons carry around for no reason anyone can explain." Hans had no interest in talking further. Devour these few delicious morsels in one bite and leave - that was the correct play. Drag it out too long and a Guardian might show up, which would be very bad indeed.
The girls ran to Jhin's side with their weapons drawn. Karyl landed several Guren Bursts on Hans, and they might as well have been rain falling into the sea; not so much as a ripple.
"Hahaha, you actually chose to attack me with magic? Haven't you heard the name of Hans the Deadly Poison Slime?"
"Master, Hans the Deadly Poison Slime possesses extremely high magic defense. Its entire body is composed of lethal poison - ordinary creatures die the instant they touch it."
"An elf and a dragon. What a fine evening this turned out to be. Time to dig in!" Hans spread its enormous, blood-red mouth and prepared to bite down.
Jhin activated his time stop without any hurry at all. "The World!"
He could afford to be this calm because he could now use the Inverse Life Force, a technique no living thing could withstand. He was still far from the level he had reached with the Mermaid Empress's power reinforcing him, when he could condense that force into blade-shaped afterimages, but for a Demon King's Army officer it was more than enough.
If its whole body was poison that killed on contact, then the answer was simple: don't touch it.
The Inverse Life Force gathered into a volley of small throwing knives and shot toward Hans. Worried that it might have some kind of life core mechanic, Jhin made a small adjustment: the moment a knife buried itself in that body, it would liquefy. That way, even if a life core existed, it would dissolve into nothing the instant the force reached it.
He pulled the girls back a good distance, then snapped his fingers.
Snap!
"Time resumes."
Hans opens with the advantage!
Hans holds a commanding lead!
Hans has victory in the bag!
Jhin delivers his victory speech.
"Uwoooooooh! What did you do to me?!" With those last words, the massive Slime body went the way of pencil marks under an eraser, blotted out bit by bit until nothing remained.
Jhin dusted off his hands, entirely at ease. "Mastermind handled. Shall we head back?"
Megumin darted over and started pinching and prodding him all over, as if she couldn't accept that a Demon King's Army officer had been killed off that casually. When his arms and legs yielded no answers, she set her sights lower without hesitation and reached out one small hand.
"Hey, hey. However hard this is to believe, there's no need to inspect down there." Jhin caught her criminal right hand and rapped her lightly on the top of the head.
"I - I just wanted to check…" Megumin grumbled under her breath, unwilling to let it go. She was going to be using that thing eventually, after all, so what was wrong with an early inspection?
"Master, is this the technique you used to defeat Letishi back then?"
"That's the one. Though this was the watered-down version."
Kyaru stared at the corroded ground in the distance, still shaken. "Even watered down, that's terrifying enough. A Demon King's Army officer killed in an instant - it sounds like a fairy tale."
"And in the end we didn't do a thing."
"Then go home and cook me a feast instead, Pecorine."
"Leave it to me! What do you want to eat?" She rolled up her sleeves, ready to throw herself into it and make up for contributing nothing to the fight.
"Meat, obviously. Nothing beats tearing into a pile of meat after a battle!"
The group walked back to their room, laughing and talking - only to find a letter addressed to Megumin drifting down onto the bed. It contained just seven words (Megumi. Home in danger. Return at once.)
____
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