Chapter 4 - Another [Irregular]

“Henshin!”

“Heshi!”

A memory of me watching a show and me mimicking the hero. I think that was impressive to me back then for it to come so clear.

A memory of me having a birthday party, blowing five candles on the cake in front of me. Dad got me a hero transformation belt, and I played a lot with it!

I fell off a slide and cried. It hurts a lot, then I remembered that I should not cry over something like this. I have to be strong to protect my sister!

I got into a fight with Mika, a friend when she mocked me for choosing to look after my sister after school instead of playing with her. Her father made her apologize the next day.

Time passed, Mika gave me chocolate for some reason in valentine. I heard you should give something back in white day, so I asked mom to take me shopping. I found a pretty box of marshmallows saying “White Day Special Sale” and bought it. My mom was making a weird face looking at it, for some reason.

I gave the marshmallow to Mika on white day in the class, and she cried in front of everyone. Many boys wondered why, and many girls seemed like they are angry at me for some reason while calming Mika down.

I don’t understand. My dad was laughing so hard that night when I told the story, and my mom scolded him.

I was told to apologize to Mika, but I still didn’t understand what I did wrong. But Mika never came back and later we found out they had moved away.

My mom finally told me that Mika loves me, and she thought I rejected her with that Marshmallow. I don’t know that sweets have meanings, I just thought it was pretty.

… but still, it still hasn't clicked on me.

…

“What a weird memory I had there…”

I woke up after raising my level to 5. After choosing the path by spinning my stone knife, I went to raise my level in Path E by defeating a lot of level 1 earthworms there. It was a dead end, so I returned to the safe zone, carved an X near the entrance marking it as a dead end, then raised my level.

“Love, huh…”

… yeah, I still have no idea. Back to spinning the knife!

… it points to Path M now, and so I walk down the path.

… weird, no monsters spotted yet so far.

All the paths I have been through were all similar with glowing moss growing on parts of the path, with the only difference being what monster they got.

“… I think I saw a movement…”

[Green Slime - Level 1] [Red Slime - Level 1] [Blue Slime - Level 1]

Ooh! Finally some monsters! Moreso, some variants of the same species!

“Alright, time to get some EXP!”

I tried slashing the slimes, but the bounciness made me slip my trajectory. I didn’t deal any damage at all!

A slime monster is not something real, there must be some trick to defeat them!

I looked at the slimes more carefully. I saw something round and small inside of their translucent body.

I tried to change my attack style from slashing to stabbing, targeting the round thing!

“Heaaah!”

The round thing popped, and the red slime I stabbed disappeared, dropping a small bottle of red potion.

[HP Potion (S)] recovers a small amount of HP.

“… that means the other two must be…”

So, I stabbed the other two slimes and they did disappear like the red slime.

[SP Potion (S)] recovers a small amount of SP.
[MP Potion (S)] recovers a small amount of MP.

Green dropped SP Potion, and blue dropped MP Potion. This is the first time the monsters dropped an item, so I was curious and excited to kill many more!

…

But sadly, the slimes I encountered after that were only plain slimes, no drops or anything. Those guys didn’t damage me, but the amount of EXP they gave me was so little it disappointed me.

“NOOO!!!”

… huh? A girl’s scream?

It came from deeper to the path. I dashed to the source of the voice.

“Don’t come here! Go away!”

Another human around my age is being surrounded by plain slimes, while she’s flailing a handbag.

Looking at how she panicked, she must've had no idea that these slimes can’t deal any damage.

“Take this!”

She took out a stun gun and tazed the slime!

*Bzzzt* “Why won’t it die!?”

I’m still in shock… that I know the thing she had is called a stun gun, and the fact that she got some weapon to begin with. I came here with only my clothes and reversible hoodie after all!

Thinking back on when I have to manually make a weapon… argh, I’m jealous in a sense!

“... *sob*… please… someone…”

Ah… she started crying. I guess she’s not familiar with playing games with these types of situations…

I walked slowly in order to not startle her, and stabbed all the slimes’ cores quickly. They disappeared instantly right after.

“... it’s okay, slimes are not something to be afraid of.” I said calmly, even though I just knew this not a long time ago.

“...” she’s in daze, or maybe confusion of not assessing the situation well.

I don't even really know how to explain all the gimmicks this place had.

“Where am I…? Who are you…?”

Hmm… eyes eat more than the ears.

“Try doing this with your left hand.” I showed her the gesture she needed to open the status panel.

Still in confusion, she mimicked my gesture and startled.

I should’ve guessed, yeah. They never mentioned there is only one [Irregular] here.

“Welcome to a game-like world. The name’s Shindou Yuuma, I’m also an [Irregular]. Call me whatever you want.”

“... I’m Yumemi…”