Syl

The demon continued to bask in its own confidence as it examined me.

Meanwhile, I still had not found a good way to attack it. It didn't cleanse my debuffs or afflictions, but they didn't seem to have that much effect. I had always thought that if push came to shove, I could always rely on my slime powers to seal the deal, but now I was beginning to wonder if that indeed was the case anymore.

Vee was not idle in this battle, throwing out [Corrosion Magic] and the occasional makeshift [Rift Thread] weapon. The former the demon ignored while the latter it seemed to always slice apart with its arms in a prompt fashion.

I had tried seeing if any of my concoctions from [Poison Slime] would have an effect, but even the notorious Bloodrot seemed ineffective against the otherwordly being.

With [Soul Sight], I examined its connection to Kaspar more closely; it seemed to flare to life with more vigor on occasion but was otherwise dormant.

I guess I need to go for the summoner. I mean, I had the inkling already, but I had hoped to eat and defeat this demon on my own without resorting to its lifeline.

Begrudgingly, I had tendrils burst out towards Kaspar, who cried out in horror. The demon instantly vanished, leaving a path of destruction in its wake before appearing directly next to Kaspar and banishing my attacking tendrils with a wave of its elongated arm.

"Now, why did you have to go and spoil our fun?" the demon questioned.

Rather than answering, I began firing explosive slime at the summoner, forcing the demon to defend him. At first, the demon blocked with its body or by counterattacking, but when my assault proved unrelenting, he grabbed Kaspar by the waste and teleported away with the human.

Kaspar's cries gave away their position, flying high above the ground.

"Put me down; I don't wish to be manhandled in this manner!"

"If I left you on the ground, I'd be placing you in the belly of the beast," the demon said.

More of my slime began to burst out of the ground. Each was a possible attack avenue as I fired shots at the demon. It flew with supernatural grace and managed to avoid attacks, and when I detonated them nearby in hopes of causing damage, it was once again forced to cover Kaspar with its own body.

"I see your point," Kaspar admitted, staring in horror. "What matter of abomination is this?"

"I believe it's some form of slime," the demon spoke.

Kaspar laughed, "A slime?"

The demon shrugged, "Or something close to it. Its mass is not actually its body; wounding it deals no damage. A slime is the only such creature I can think of that matches those characteristics."

"Then... You simply need to destroy its core!" Kaspar shouted.

I shuddered at what I was overhearing and began tossing out even more ranged attacks. I ensured my cores were not holding back, and spells and slime projectiles polluted the air.

"Easier said than done," I overheard the demon continue to explain. "It hides its true self deep within an ocean of slime."

Kaspar gulped, no doubt realizing the demon's words were accurate when it mentioned "belly of the beast."

"Then, can you not help me retreat and come back to defeat this monster?" Kaspar suggested.

My heart sank; this would be the absolute worst outcome imaginable. A foe with my secret, escaping and telling others. While I could abandon my disguise and even possibly rename myself, I had no idea if they had other means of tracking me. My situation felt extremely hopeless.

"No," the demon replied.

"No?" Kaspar repeated in question.

"It is not the deal we struck," the demon answered.

Kaspar seemed outraged, "Is this how you extort more years of my life from me? Even though it would be to your own benefit to fight without me in the area!"

The demon shook his head, "The deal once made cannot be changed. A new bargain cannot be struck until the first is concluded or one of the involved parties has perished."

Well, that's good news for me! I thought cheerfully.

"Trixie wasn't kidding about them being sticklers for rules," Vee commented, mirroring my thoughts.

"Fine!" Kaspar spat. "If it's a slime, then its weakness is cold. I shall summon some icy minions to aid you."

"The slime tried to freeze me; I do not think ice would work," the demon explained.

"A mutated white slime?" Kaspar questioned. "Very well, I'll summon a lightning creature. One of the other greatest weaknesses of their pathetic kind."

"Wow, what an asshole," Vee growled.

"Yeah, he's hiding up there from this so-called pathetic creature," I agreed.

Since direct ranged attacks were not working, I revealed one of my trump cards. I began preparing a barrage of spells, all originating from different points. I held them at the ready, waiting for each one to be completed, and thankfully, the demon didn't seem to notice my preparations.

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Meanwhile, Kaspar summoned three more of those lightning birds. I watched his Mana nearly bottom out before he pulled out another potion to consume. The birds squawked and began charging some form of lightning attack.

"I'm going to fire the lightning back at them and then my spells, too; coordinate with me if you can," I informed Vee.

"Roger!" she energetically replied back.

The trio of birds screeched before dive bombing towards me; once in range of some of my slime, each one let off a sizeable bursting spark of electrical energy that surged through me. Kaspar immediately seemed to celebrate victory, but it was well within the means of my [Voltaic Slime] to handle it, and I began storing and redirecting the energy.

The demon continued staring curiously; it opened its mouth to say something right as I fired all of the gathered energy with a bit of some extra oomph I had generated myself.

Kaspar cried in shock as the massive bolt of energy was fired out at breakneck speed, the demon barely reacting in time to avoid it. Meanwhile, my spells went off. Magical explosions detonated in the air as [Fireballs] and [Lightbombs] went off. A barrage of [Icicle] spells were fired, and beams of [Waterjets] were aimed.

I had thought my victory was secured, but once the spells were unleashed, the demon seemed to immediately notice their presence. It began a series of rapid teleporting maneuvers around the battlefield while holding the screaming Kaspar like a sack of potatoes.

"Truly fascinating! A magical slime that can cast spells and has overcome its natural weaknesses!" the demon exclaimed excitedly. "I may have offered my services far too cheaply in this deal."

I had also cast [Fireflies], hoping that the homing spells would be effective against such a tricky target. I watched as the magical fire bugs fluttered after the target as best they could, but even in mass quantities, they were ill-suited for this situation.

I felt my morale drop moments before a gash struck the demon's side. I immediately knew that Vee must have set up a trap and wondered if she had some method of predicting where they would appear, thanks to [Spatial Sense].

"I forgot about the spider..." the demon spat, although it didn't even look like it had taken much damage.

[Essence Sight] saw the magical umbilical cord between the demon and summoner pulse, and the wound rapidly sealed itself. I had my [Sub-Cores] continue their attack while I observed and tried to strategize with Vee.

"Shit... We need to kill the summoner," I grumbled in frustration.

"Unfortunately, that demon bastard is keeping him tight," Vee agreed. "I really thought you had them with so many spells."

"Spell orb time?" I suggested.

"Might work," Vee hesitantly agreed. "Hell, if you did your worm self-destruct thing, maybe you could catch them in the blast radius."

"I worry they would just teleport away from the explosion radius. Even if I did multiple explosions at various points, I reckon it could teleport to safety," I admitted.

"Yeah, it's got [Blink] or something better," Vee explained. "I certainly can't carry passengers with mine, and he does it so frequently. If only we could trick them into a trap."

"That's it!" I replied excitedly, Vee's words triggering an idea.

"Really? Great! What's the plan?" Vee asked.

"I'm going to offer a mutual surrender," I answered. "I can capitalize on the fact he wanted to kill the elf; well, she's dead. If I beg for my life, maybe he will buy it."

"I dunno... Sounds risky..." Vee replied.

"I'm an excellent actor!" I said confidently. "I have the [Acting] skill to prove it."

Vee reluctantly agreed, and while my [Sub-Cores] kept them distracted, I began formulating my plan. I knew he wanted Sylthaeryn dead, and then he also wanted the bag, and that would be my exploitable opportunity.

Withdrawing the bag from the safety of my underground slime reservoir, I began scrutinizing it as much as possible while crafting a perfect replica of the bag. While I had not and could not eat the bag to get a perfect understanding, I was far from the little slime who spent time practicing making tree replicas from sight.

No, I had a whopping [Morph Slime LV 8] and [Chimeric Mimicry LV 7] to work with. By examining it thoroughly within my slime mass and scrutinizing it with my various sight-related traits, I felt like my plan was flawless. I'd eaten plants, cloth, and almost everything in between; I had confidence in creating a perfect facsimile of the magical plant bag and even called on Alpha to give me a helping hand.

My [Sub-Cores] seem to follow orders even if I can't. They knew how to work with spell crafting even when I couldn't correctly use [Soul Sight]. So, hopefully, Alpha's unseen aid will give it the finishing touches it needs.

With my perfect replica made, I gave it a deadly center. Nothing was off the table as I filled it with Bloodrot-laced mithril shrapnel, plenty of acid, and even some freezing slime for good measure. Then, purely for theatrics, I formed a fake humanoid body and decided to open negotiations.

"We seem to be at a stalemate!" I declared and halted my attacks.

"You'll succumb eventually, monster!" Kaspar shouted back, although he was clearly not in the best of conditions because of how much jostling around he had been subjected to.

"I wish to bargain for my life," I said.

"Ha! You killed my underlings, humiliated me, and I sacrificed years of my life. Why would I ever make a deal with you?"

"Your original target was the elf Sylthaeryn, was it not? I merely took on her form. She is dead."

"Even so, a monster such as yourself should perish."

"Even if I offer this bag of hers?" I asked, pulling the bag out of myself.

Kaspar visibly reacted at the sight of it, and I felt like I had gotten a nibble on my fishing line.

"I can take it off your corpse," Kaspar answered.

"Vee, could you produce a [Rift Thread] web for me?" I asked aloud rather than telepathically.

Vee abruptly appeared beside me, pulling out an intricate web of [Rift Thread] that she had clearly premade.

"What is that spider doing?" Kaspar demanded.

"It appears to be weaving dimensional thread... Fascinating... Perhaps even more so than the slime creature?" the demon answered.

"If this bag is so precious to your efforts, then I suppose I should just destroy it out of spite," I said, motioning to bring the bag above the web.

"I'll kill you if you destroy that bag!" Kaspar threatened.

"You already threatened my life, so I might as well spite you and your Emperor."

Kaspar was grinding his teeth as he stared at the bag.

"Would those threads destroy it?" he asked the demon.

"Unless that bag has protections from dimensional rifts, I cannot see it surviving," the demon answered.

"What about the whole contract thing?" Kaspar asked. "You said you couldn't go against it until complete."

"You could mark the objective as complete," the demon answered. "As long as you swear it to me, I can treat it as done. Do note that there will be no refunds."

"My life for this bag?" I asked again. "Sounds like a fair trade, wouldn't you say?"

The silence was deafening as he seemed to struggle to make up his mind about my proposal. I began motioning to drop it through the web to ensure he didn't have enough time to ruminate on it and possibly see through my deception.

"Wait!" Kaspar shouted.

"Yes?" I questioned, tilting my head.

"I'll agree on one condition," Kaspar said.

"What is it?"

"Give me the bag first," Kaspar replied. "I don't trust a monster to keep its word."

"And I'm supposed to trust you?" I asked.

"Hey! Don't push it!" Vee warned me telepathically, but I ignored her. [Acting] guided me, and I put my full faith in it.

"I'm an honorable [Outeatus Knight]," Kaspar explained. "My word is my oath!"

A knight that tried to assassinate me multiple times, sure... Very honorable. I wanted to roll my eyes at the crap he was spewing, but [Acting] held me firm.

"I see..." I replied, pretending to mull it over. "Very well, I'll trust you, sir knight."

"Excellent!" Kaspar exclaimed happily.

<Proficiency gained. [Acting LV 5] improved to [Acting LV 6].>

Excellent... I agreed.