There is something that Alni did not know.
No, she probably realised but kept silent.
What we are waiting for is a chance for revenge. The enemy lies within the endless mountains to the north of our city, but we couldn't hunt then down for certain because the world's limitation.
If the time has come for us to move, I should have lifted the spell on this city and move out. A few weeks of aging will not kill us who can still live for dozens to hundreds more years. But I didn't, because every citizen of the inner city are afflicted, a few days at most and we will lose the strength to fight.
That's why the spell needs to be held up until the last second.
And with our time limit, we have to wait till the enemy comes to us instead of searching through the mountains.
That's why I need to go into the continent, to set up a bait.
I walk down to the basement dozens of meters below ground where my lab is located, the same dungeon that where my four students were repeatedly traumatised. However, the slimes did not react to my presence as they continued to wriggle behind the walls.
The architect is revealed without the presence of slimes.
Below the stairs is a strip of corridor 10 meters long, leading into a square room with corridors in every direction. They lead to rooms with more corridors connected like a modular labyrinth, filled with traps and obstacles. Unlike the courtyard above ground, the basement is deceptively large and spans under the entire inner city.
While the buildings above exist as nodes, they pathways underneath is the magic circle connecting them. Hidden behind the gaps between the stone walls and masked by the slimes is the pulsation of a tremendous mana.
Light emanates from the wall as I deftly move from room to room like a small ant crawling in the arteries of a breathing giant. Soon I reach a dark opening with a blob in the center.
"Hey Lily!"
Puru~
I called from afar to the blob. It shakes, and raised itself off the ground as if it was looking towards me.
"Lily! Let's go on a trip!"
Purupuru~
The blob shook again as it fold its way towards me.
The blob reveals itself from the shadow, proving to be a slime of complicated colours.
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Race: Mother Slime
Species: Pandemonium Slime
Class: Taboo Creature
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This Demon King level slime here is my contracted beast, or so to say, my pet. It has been down here guarding my lab for a long time.
As her race implies, every slime under the city is her offshoot born from splitting her mass. She spread herself across the entire labyrinth using this method and monitors the mana pathways in case of damage.
Boing-!
But there is no need for that anymore. There is enough people awake from the past and we won't be needing this for much longer. I had her retrieve all her mass from the labyrinth.
Boing-!
She shake in understanding and the corridors are soon filled with rumbling waves. The mass compressed into her body and the now bare room is covered in an iridescent blue, the colour of saturated mana.
Boing-!
"…What are you doing."
"Hmm? Oh Lir. When did you get here?"
Hearing a sound I did not expect, I flipped over my body and met a judging gaze.
"I was with you all the time. More importantly, what are you doing."
Boing-!
She tilts her head up as I rose higher, looking down at her. Then I fell due to gravity and landed on Lily.
Boing-!
"It's called trampoline. It a common entertainment in the wanderer's culture."
Breaking the fall, I sat on the subtly growing Lily as I spoke to Lir. She followed me all the way yet I didn't realise it, she must have put in the effort to conceal herself.
"Trying to catch some dirt on me?"
"No!"
Lir vehemently denied.
There exists no map of this place and the saturation of mana disables all senses. In the end, I'm the only person that can navigate this labyrinth based on memory. Lir and the others never truly explored this place so she must be curious about the deeper sections.
"I'm just wondering how you will leave this city! I'm just curious!"
Watching the pint sized goblin making excuses for herself is quite entertaining, very cute.
Since it will take a while for Lily to recover all her mass, I invited Lir to wait together. Happy to forget the persecution, she joined me on top of the expanding slime, taking advantage of the tall ceiling.
Races in this world are loosely classified. The biggest difference between Human Race and Monster Race is their sentience, monsters generally won't break away from their instinct until they live for very long or evolve.
Then it is the versatility. Varying slightly in physique and affinity, the Human Race can all use mana, aura, weapons, martial arts and train in all forms of craft. Monsters instead, specialise from mildly to the very extreme. Goblins are an example of mildly specialised monster where most growth goes into dexterity and spirit. Slimes are extreme specialists where their growth centres around the ability of [Assimilation] and [Shapeshifting]. Both are pretty rare.
Anyway, my method of leaving the city revolves around [Shapeshifting]. It is an ability to morph the body which is normally limited to shape. But! Our Demon King Lily is far from normal and has evolved [Shapeshifting] into [Transformation]. Then after eating and assimilating my stu- cough -many wanderers, it has once again evolved into [Transmogrification]!
I have realised a while ago, the wanderers have bodies vary in race and physique, yet they are all actually crafted from the same mould. It is a white human shaped avatar that changes its form according to the 'setting' as they call it. The most important and valuable trait of this avatar is that anyone can perfectly possess it without worrying about compatibility!
As a master of [Alchemy] I can craft a usable body easily, but the spirit and body compatibility problem will never allow me to possess it. At least not without abandoning my own body and turning into a Ghost.
I will have Lily turn into an Avatar, possess it, and off we go into the continent! That sums up 'Project: Becoming A Wanderer'.
Of course, there is no way I can perfectly replicate the Gods' handiwork. But as long as the compatibility problem is solved then I have hundreds of ways to solve the rest.
"So um… uh, it's that! You will become a wanderer!"
I look at her like a pitiful child.
'Was that all you understood?' is what my eyes are saying, infuriating the little lord.
Done sating her curiosity, I immediately started to work.