The Man Picked up by the Gods Volume 3 Chapter 32

TL Note: The Japanese don’t have any L, so they use R and L interchangeably. There’s a pun here in this chapter that plays on this idea, and it’s not really translatable since… well… author is quoting an English word and we’re talking in the English language, so yeah. Just keep it in mind. I’m fairly sure you guys will recognize what I’m talking about as soon as you see it. It’s kind of hard to miss.

Change: last line in previous chapter -> And so, we decided to spend another night outside the labyrinth, and then make our way home.

“I spent much fighting, but I’ve already recovered 90% of it. It seems like it’s recovering faster than normal though.” [Ryouma]

There, Remiri-san explained why.

“Breathing the air or eating food which both contain magic power will instill the magic power found in those things within your body, quickly increasing the speed of your magic’s recovery. And right now, we’re here right next to a labyrinth which contains much magic power. So the recovery rate of magic power here is faster than other areas. There are wizards who intentionally go to labyrinths for the recovery bonus, so they can train faster.” [Remiri]

I see, so that’s how it is.

“Ryouma-chan, are you going to practice after eating? You’ve already recovered your magic power, so I think you could, but then again, you must be tired from the curse…” [Remiri]

“Really? Well, alright. Let’s start with the light magic, ‘Dispel’.” [Remiri]

“So that’s where that feverish sensation was coming from.” [Ryouma]

“A magic tool?” [Ryouma]

As I was thinking that, a zombie came out of the labyrinth. Then looking at the setting sun, I thought to myself, Oh, it’s already time for the zombies to come out, huh? And so I thought to feed the scavenger slimes and have them split. I need to increase the scavenger slimes’ number in order to find out whether there’re still any more after King or not after all.

But I also want to leave some magic power for my training… so I decided to let only a hundred split today.

And so, I had a king scavenger slime split. And I had 100 scavenger slimes feed on the zombies. The scavenger slimes immediately chased after the zombies, and the zombies were annihilated.

Attract Ghosts Lv1 Absorb Ghosts Lv3 Enshrine Remains Lv3 Disease Resistance Lv7 Poison Resistance Lv7 Eat Filth Lv6 Cleaning Lv2 Deodorize Lv7 Physical Attack Resistance Lv2 Jump Lv3 Digestion Lv7 Absorb Lv3 Split Lv2 Taijutsu Lv2

“Grave Slime.” [Ryouma]

Apparently, no one’s heard of it yet. A new type it seems.

Since there was no information whatsoever, I decided to try out their new skills. But before everything else, I had the scavenger slimes that were feasting on the undead come back first. I then found that 10 were eligible for splitting, so I had them split, and then I contracted them.

After that came the testing of the skills. When I had the grave slimes use the ‘Attract Ghosts’ skill, the grave slimes’ body faintly turned pale blue as they shone an obscure light. The undead outside the holy space suddenly started approaching us.

Then with the activation of the ‘Absorb Ghosts’ skill, the slimes took the gathered undead into their bodies. And over half of the undead meekly allowed themselves to be swallowed. It’s different compared to when the scavengers were fighting. During that time the undead were resisting and fighting… Could this be the grave slimes’ ability? Looking at the undead closely, there were also those that were heading on their own volition to be swallowed.

Regarding the last skill, ‘Enshrine Remains’, it apparently allows the slime to hide an undead body into their body without letting it rot. The slime can then expulse the undead from its body any time.

“A slime that catches undead… How strange.” [Remiri]

“It can also be used to tame undead-type magical beasts.” [Rheinbach]

The others gave their own opinions about the grave slimes, but it was Rheinbach-sama’s comment that piqued my curiosity.

“Of course. The undead are splendid magical beasts. Only… They’re not well liked, so there are no slave magic users that use them. Their regeneration is great, but the problem is that they’re too eerie.” [Rheinbach]

“The undead can’t stay at an inn too, so they won’t be able to enter towns.” [Remiri]

“Right? Because of that, the only ones that employ undead-type into their service are researchers and slave magic users that don’t have any affinity for anything else but undead-type magical beasts. Because of that, there’re barely any that use undead.” [Shiva]

I guess the undead researchers are next to the slime researchers in terms of misfortune.

I wonder what those researchers would think were they to know that there’s a slime like this. You could just have the undead enter the grave slimes when it’s inconvenient… And there’s also the ‘Deodorization’ skill, so doesn’t this solve the problem?

I decided to tame an undead to prove my hypothesis. There were already a number of undead nearby because of the grave slimes, so I just contracted one of those, and–––

Buchi!!

“What was that just now?” [Remiri]

“I just thought I’d try contracting zombie, but for some reason, it felt different than normal… It felt like the magic power line wouldn’t connect. Like it was being rejected…” [Ryouma]

It probably just failed, but it felt like a phone that was cut violently.

“Well, you could’ve just failed because it’s your first time. You might also just have poor affinity for zombies, so why don’t you try with other undead?” [Rheinbach]

Just as Rheinbach suggested, I tried contracting with skeletons and wraiths, but it was all the same. Apparently, my affinity for undead-type magical beasts is really bad.

The grave slimes being able to go in and out holy space is because they’re not undead, but I wonder what would happen if I had an undead-type slime.

While I was thinking that, I decided to retire for the day. We didn’t need to thin out the undead today, so I went inside my ‘Dimension Home’, and slept by myself.

And first thing in the morning, I received Remiri-san’s lecture on dark magic.

First was how to afflict curses, and after that was how to defend against curses.

The curse and defense against it that I learned were ‘Curse Transfer’ and ‘Return Curse’.

‘Cast Transfer’ isn’t a spell for releasing curses. Instead, it’s a spell that transfers a curse to remove the effect on the target. ‘Return Curse’ is a spell that protects the body, and returns the curse to the person that casted it. They’re both ways of dealing with curses, but they’re very different from each other.

When morning training ended, we were to go home, but…

Right now, we’re riding on the back of a reddish-brown, western dragon with a length of 50m from its head to its tail.

This dragon is Rheinbach-sama’s slave demon. It’s of the Ignis Dragon variety. It can breathe out fire, and generally lives in volcanoes. But it can live anywhere else too as long as it’s not cold.

It’s been decided that we’ll be going home on the back of this dragon. As for me, I’ll be dropped by somewhere close to Gimuru.

Apparently, they were originally planning to use the dragon to get to the labyrinth, but then they met me, and so they didn’t use it in order to buy time for my lessons. It also worked out well, as the walk going there was good experience for me.

They actually went out of their way to walk through that ravine just to teach me, I’m really grateful.

“Are you ready? Hold tight!” [Rheinbach]

Rheinbach-sama did tell me beforehand that it’s safe, but the dragon’s menacing posture when it was summoned was a considerable pressure. My body froze in fear, and I couldn’t move an inch. I’d hate to actually make an enemy with one of these. Its claws are sharp, and its tail is thick like a log. Every single one of its attacks probably contains a force strong enough to kill in one hit. I’ll make a note to remind me to run if I ever meet one of these out in the wild.

After all, just because a magical beast has the same rank as another, doesn’t mean that they’re the same on the danger scale. The Ignis Dragons are A Ranked requests when put up, but they can also be S Rank depending on the situation. You could say that the Ignis Dragons are at the summit of A Rank magical beasts. I’d really rather not fight with one, unless I have to.

Chapter end