That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Vol. 6 Read online

  Copyright

  That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Vol. 6

  FUSE

  Translation by Kevin Gifford

  Cover art by Mitz Vah

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  TENSEI SHITARA SLIME DATTA KEN volume 6

  © Fuse / Mitz Vah

  All rights reserved.

  First published in Japan in 2015 by MICROMAGAZINE PUBLISHING Co.

  English translation rights arranged with MICROMAGAZINE PUBLISHING Co. through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2019 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First Yen On Edition: August 2019

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Fuse, author. | Mitz Vah, illustrator. | Gifford, Kevin, translator.

  Title: That time I got reincarnated as a slime / Fuse ; illustration by Mitz Vah ; translation by Kevin Gifford.

  Other titles: Tensei Shitara Slime datta ken. English

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York : Yen ON, 2017–

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017043646 | ISBN 9780316414203 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301118 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301132 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301149 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301163 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301187 (v. 6 : pbk.)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PL870.S4 T4613 2017 | DDC 895.63/6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043646

  ISBNs: 978-1-9753-0118-7 (paperback)

  978-1-9753-0119-4 (ebook)

  E3-20190803-JV-NF-ORI

  PROLOGUE

  THE MAGIC-BORN’S RUSE

  “Hoo dear, nearly bit it for good back there…”

  Laplace was muttering to himself as he appeared before his master. He clearly had the injuries to back that assessment up.

  “Tough, huh?” casually replied his lord, a boy with black hair and a powerful presence.

  “Well, hang on there, lad,” Laplace whined. “Tough hardly even begins to describe what I had to wade through back there, yeah? Getting inside was painful enough, but getting out—oh, dear, who can say how many times I toed the line?”

  “Oh, I think someone like you would work it out. Even if someone killed you, I’m not sure you’d even know how to die.”

  “Oof. You’re a mean one, you know that?”

  “So,” the boy aloofly continued as Laplace cried the best fake tears he could, “did you find out what lies behind the Western Holy Church?”

  “…Um. I know this ain’t the kind of report I should be giving, but… Well, no. Nobody can. It’s bloody impossible, is what it is.”

  This stone-faced admission didn’t faze the boy at all. He gave a soft smile, as if he expected that reply the whole time.

  “Hmm. Ever the liar, aren’t you? You had to have uncovered a hint or two, at least?”

  Laplace shrugged and sighed. “Sheesh. After all I went through for my info, I figured I could name my price with ya. But you just see right through me, don’tcha? There’s no beating ya.”

  “Hee-hee-hee. Thanks for the compliment, but my prices remain firm, all right?”

  “There’s no beating ya,” Laplace repeated.

  “Oh, no need for complaints. I’ll pay your full asking price. And in fact, our demon lord friend’s consciousness has taken root for a while now. He’s done a wonderful job transferring over to his homunculus.”

  The boy gave Laplace an amused smile as he rang a small bell to call for the woman stationed outside the door.

  “Yes, sir?”

  Into the room strode a beautiful woman—graceful, polite, the epitome of the classic executive secretary. Her skin was smooth, light in color, and her well-defined facial features suited the bun her blond hair was tied back in. She had blue eyes that shined like a pair of mystical lapis lazuli—but no matter how mesmerizing the light from them was, they still couldn’t hide a vague sense of evil lurking inside.

  “Huh? Ah, you don’t mean…?”

  The sight of the woman startled Laplace, but he could spot a familiar glint in her eyes. Then he erupted into laughter, realizing who she truly was.

  “Well, what’s with that getup, huh? Didja make a gender swap while I didn’t notice? It looks good on you, I ain’t gonna lie, but it couldn’t be much more different from before, eh?”

  “Enough from you,” countered the woman, ignoring Laplace’s bait. “It took me ten years to obtain a body I could freely move around in. I am not going to complain about minor grievances.”

  “Polite” was no longer the way to describe her. She stood boldly, sporting an undefeatable grin. She gave Laplace a friendly pat on the shoulder before sitting down.

  “So if you’re introducing me to this man, I suppose there’s not much need to keep the act going?”

  “No,” replied the boy, “but I’d like you to maintain the facade in public, please. If it’s just between us, I suppose there’s no great need, no.”

  “Oh? Well, if that’s what you want, boss, I’ll do it. Is it all right if I ask why?”

  “Because you’re weak, Kazalim. Your powers still aren’t complete yet, are they? Just watch over Clayman until your full Curse Lord force is back with you.”

  Kazalim, the woman posing as his secretary, gave this reply a sullen nod. She had the name of a very old demon lord—the one who attempted to punish a human named Leon for declaring himself a demon lord of some faraway backwater area and paid for it with his life. Once, he was head of the Moderate Jesters; now, she was a lord both Clayman and Laplace were attempting to resurrect.

  Her overpowering strength was long gone. All that remained was a prim, graceful young woman. Just before she could be obliterated from existence, Kazalim experienced a rather unlikely series of coincidences that caused her to possess the body of this boy—and just the other day, they had finally managed to transfer her astral body into a replacement homunculus. The boy was her “boss” for now, the power from her glory days long gone. That was the way their pact worked, and Kazalim had no quarrel with it. Over the past ten years of dealing with this acquaintance, she had fully accepted her place in the power hierarchy.

  “Fair enough. My power is incomplete. I let that demon lord Leon defeat me, and I lost my body in the most unsightly of fashions. I know my soul’s settled in this homunculus, but it’s so fragile, I’d tear it apart if I unleashed my full force. I can’t really call this a complete resurrection…”

  “Ah,
is that the issue with ya? Well, if our president is callin’ this guy boss, then I guess you’re my boss, too. Sure ain’t just another client by this point, no! So hopefully you don’t mind if I clear the air with you guys a bit.”

  “You never change,” the boy said. “After all this time, and after you helped us revive our fallen president, you still don’t trust me?”

  “Ha-ha-ha! Nah, nah, that’s a different story. But I gotta laugh at how you look now, sir. You’re this crazy beautiful woman now!”

  “…Am I? What do my looks matter?”

  “Nah, I mean, the dichotomy between your speech and your looks… It’s funny, that’s all.”

  “I know that, you… Or ‘I am aware of that,’ perhaps? If I am going to keep up the charade, I had best sound more like the lady I am.”

  “Uh, that’s what you’re concerned about? Because, I mean… Ba-ha-ha-ha!”

  “Silence,” Kazalim spat at the guffawing Laplace. “I’ll have you know this body wasn’t my choice. The boss here provided a homunculus modified with special technology from the Sorcerous Dynasty of Thalion.”

  “Yeah, I sure did. And that didn’t come cheap, either. We needed a vessel without any soul at all, or else they’d get all mixed up, and the transplant probably wouldn’t have worked.” The boy sneered. “For that matter, if you had fled into anyone besides me, Kazalim, you’d probably be too tangled up to split off at all, I don’t think. All right? So I really don’t want to hear any complaints about how you look.”

  “I appreciate it, boss,” said Kazalim.

  The boy still didn’t seem pleased, not until Laplace offered his own thanks.

  “Sure. So can we move this along? I know it’s great we’re all back together again, but I want to get down to business. Tell me what you’ve found, Laplace.”

  The smile disappeared from Kazalim’s face as she turned her eyes toward Laplace. He nodded, taking a more serious demeanor.

  “Yeah, you kept yer promise and made my dream come true. I better show you a little sincerity, too, eh? So I infiltrated the Western Holy Church to find out what’s behind it, but I tell you, I just don’t have any idea.”

  He then began to describe his findings.

  Laplace’s mission was to find out what made the Holy Church tick. It remained an independent religion, headquartered in the Holy Empire of Lubelius, but much of its internal workings remained a mystery. It positioned itself as an advocate for justice and for the weak, enjoying tremendous influence on the Western Nations—a very inconvenient truth for the boy. That was why he employed Laplace from the fixer team of the Moderate Jesters to find who they really were—and exploit any potential weaknesses for later.

  The boy was fairly convinced there was another side to them. If the Western Holy Church was really an advocate for truth, he’d have to undertake whatever scheme it took to rip them away from that pedestal, but that was strictly a last resort. Now simply wasn’t the time for it. The Church, after all, enjoyed the services of Hinata Sakaguchi, head of the Western Nation’s crusaders and the most powerful paladin the world knew.

  “So,” Laplace continued, “thanks to Hinata’s absence, I managed to make it into the Church all right, but there was nothin’ suspicious about anything I saw inside. So I headed over to Lubelius’s holy lands—to be exact, the Inner Cloister, at the peak of their holiest mountain.”

  He began to gesture excitedly as he spoke. It was there, after all, where he saw the fearsome truth.

  “And the most amazing thing, you know… The entire land was just filled with this kind of sacred presence!”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” the boy asked. “It’s a holy land.”

  “What’re you, stupid?” Kazalim added. “Did someone erase your brain since last we met?”

  “No, no, listen to me! And you’re falling back in to non-lady mode again, President.”

  “I don’t need your— I mean, don’t worry about little old me! Just keep going.”

  So Laplace kept going, a little resentful at this treatment.

  ………

  ……

  …

  A little ways from Western Holy Church headquarters was the religion’s Holy Temple. This was where the Papacy was located, the political arm of the Church that worked at the behest of the Holy Emperor, spokesperson for the heavens.

  It wasn’t until he entered this Temple that Laplace began to feel something was off. Within its chambers, he could detect a faint amount of magic that applied itself to his nervous system. It was a very ingenious spell, one he noticed only because it was automatically blocked by Falsifier, his unique skill.

  There’s a surprise, ain’t it? Must mean somebody here can wield spiritual magic as strong as mine…

  Laplace braced himself as he walked toward the cathedral.

  He already had some knowledge of the enemy’s organizational structure—and from what he could see, the relationship between the Church and Lubelius was very tangled indeed.

  The Church was built to worship Luminus, the one and only god in the world (as they defined it). Lubelius was the same way, which meant one could say they were allies when it came to religious issues. In terms of the balance of power, however, the Church held nearly all the cards.

  The reason? Simple: Hinata. The Church had its knights deployed at points across the Western Nations, providing an effective bulwark to protect the weak—and it was Hinata Sakaguchi who built them, and by extension the Church, into the powerful group it was today. Technically speaking, the Church worked under the patronage of Lubelius, charged exclusively with spreading the good word about Luminism. Now that their mission had extended out into “doing good” for the weak at large, the relationship was no longer as simple as that.

  More than anything, though, the real problem lay with the knights Hinata herself had trained. Even Laplace couldn’t help but fear them a little, for their allegiance was not at all with Lubelius but solely with the one god, Luminus—and with Hinata, who devoted herself fully to Luminism. That was what enabled the Western Holy Church to exist independently from Lubelius.

  And this brought up another problem—Lubelius’s war power resided in more than just its crusaders. Even the Holy Emperor kept an official Lubelian force, the Imperial Guard that answered to nothing but the Papacy below it, and this was another group to be reckoned with. Founded on the ideal that everyone is equal under the name of Luminus, it was a motley collection of soldiers in assorted clothing and equipment. The qualifications for joining were straightforward—be a devoted follower of Luminism and be at least an A-ranked fighter. Thanks to these clear but fiendishly difficult requirements, the Imperial Guard was small and exclusive, packed with the best of the best in warriors and magicians, along with their servants. This force was underestimated at one’s own peril.

  Hinata was listed as head knight in this Guard as well, and the Papacy listed Cardinal Nicolaus Speltus, a dedicated admirer of Hinata, as its chief counsel. Hinata could almost claim the whole of the Church for herself, and this was the main reason why. She had control over both wings of the Holy Emperor’s main force and yet was exempt from having to swear her allegiance to that leader. It was thanks to this inscrutable woman, Hinata, that relations between the Holy Church and Holy Empire were as twisted as they had become.

  And simply recalling all this advance knowledge he had procured made Laplace sigh in frustration.

  What a crazy lady…

  The cathedral was full of spiritual force, more than enough to call forth the greatest of holy spirits. To a magic-born like Laplace, this spiritual presence was supremely difficult to deal with. It dulled his senses, making him want to flee the site as quickly as possible.

  He took a moment to gather himself before deciding which way to go. Heading toward the peak of this holy mount would reportedly lead him to the Inner Cloister, where one could communicate with Luminus. His senses were telling him there was something to be found here in the cathedral as well.

&
nbsp; “So, ah, now what…?”

  He wavered, but for only a moment. Then he strode out of the cathedral and straight for the Cloister. Spend too much time in this building, and Hinata could come back at any moment. Now, while she was gone, was his best chance to find a hint as to what Luminus, the central doctrine of the Western Holy Church, really was.

  I’ll just hop on up, he thought as he traversed the mountain path, and take a quick li’l peek around.

  It was his choice—and it was a mistake. No, it wasn’t fruitless; he certainly learned much from the experience. But to Laplace, the danger that resulted proved far beyond his comfort level.

  Proceeding up the stone steps, Laplace finally reached the shrine at the peak of the mountain. This was notably smaller than the cathedral down below, but in terms of grandeur, the two were incomparable. This small structure was, in the true meaning of the term, the god’s domain.

  Now, it was divine in its silence, putting pressure upon Laplace’s mind. But even amid that solemnity, he could detect the familiar feel of magic.

  …The heck? Magic, in this supposedly holiest of places? That’s weird. Don’t like that too much, no…

  He could tell that Hinata, the most formidable obstacle in his way, was not here. If the magic belonged to someone else, that someone couldn’t be ignored, but—in Laplace’s mind—it was no threat to him, either.

  But was that the right appraisal to make? Now Laplace, deep down in his heart, wasn’t so sure. Come on, man. You know you’re completely hiding your presence here. Everything’s perfect. If some ruffian shows up, just run.

  Bracing himself, Laplace reactivated his Stealth Mode and attempted to slip into the shrine. Then he rolled right back out, barely maintaining his balance, stymied by the vision of a beam of light piercing straight through his body.

  “You insect, you mere cockroach, dirtying the throne of your god!!”

  All of a sudden, the shrine was filled with an overwhelming presence, dressed in luxuriant garb that covered a chiseled, muscular figure. His short, curly blond hair shined brightly, exhibiting the full force of his will. This was a ruler—an absolute ruler—and what Laplace couldn’t help but notice first about him were the two large fangs jutting out from his lips.