I dragged Midori with me, holding her hand and pulling her along. The dog bit leg screamed with every step, and I was limping hard, but my blood was on fire. I had decided to push this shiny new potential to the end, and somehow that made the pain feel like a minor inconvenience.

  “Hey! Where are you taking me? And stop pulling, I can walk!”

  “Ah, sorry,” I said and let go of her hand. “I think I drained all the mana here. I’m going to walk around and gather more.”

  “I get your excitement, but,” Midori said, grabbing my injured leg right where it hurt and giving it a light squeeze, “what about this?”

  “Hey, stop that, it hurts!”

  “That’s exactly it. You need to rest right now, not run around like a lunatic!”

  “Rest? Where?” I said. “I don’t see a five star hotel around here.”

  “You’re right,” Midori said, clenching her fist and pulling it back behind my head. “Then I guess I have no choice but to knock you out.”

  I gave her a tired, fed up look. If that was a joke, it wasn’t funny. If it was serious, it was even worse.

  “Fine, fine,” Midori said, giving my back a light smack instead. “Just for a bit, then we rest, okay? I’m tired. You are too.”

  “Deal!” I said, way too excited to really hear her.

  I released my domain and slowly, carefully pulled in whatever mana was left around us. It wasn’t much, but it was everywhere. We walked back and forth for a while, and I swept up the area like a tractor plowing a field, grabbing every last bit of mana I could find.

  I forgot what being tired even meant. I was so deep into mana farming, and having way too much fun, that I noticed far too late Midori was half asleep and barely keeping up beside me.

  We had been walking for minutes, maybe over an hour. Midnight was long gone. But I still wanted more. I needed to master this power as fast as I could, without putting other people in danger just so I could get stronger.

  “Enough already,” Midori said with a deep yawn. “I can’t feel my legs anymore.”

  She drifted toward a big rock we had just passed. The moment she leaned her back against it, she slid down and collapsed on the spot. The rock’s smooth shape did catch my eye, but Midori came first, standing there with her arms crossed, clearly cold.

  “I think I’ll just nap here for a bit…” she said, and fell asleep.

  Seeing her tired, slumped against the cold rock in the night breeze, wiped out all my excitement at once. I had clearly pushed it too far. I decided to save the rest for tomorrow, walked over, and lit a small campfire in front of her so she could stay warm.

  If my guess was right, I had gathered enough mana to keep it burning until sunrise. I was just starting to feel pleased that something had worked when two huge eyes, glaring at me with pure anger, caught my attention.

  I looked up and saw it. The “rock” was not just sitting there. It shuddered, then rippled like a disturbed pond. Those two huge, angry eyes were not a trick of the firelight. They were locked on me with a wet, hateful stare that made my skin crawl.

  I knew that texture, and I definitely knew those eyes. This wasn’t a rock. It was the giant slime monster I had landed on when I first fell from the sky. Back then, it had stretched like warm jelly and spat me out like a piece of chewed gum. Apparently, it hadn’t forgotten the human who had used it as a landing pad.

  Before I could even shout a warning, the slime moved. It didn’t lunge. It just flowed. One second, Midori was leaning against it, snoring softly. The next, its surface turned into a wall of translucent, murky gray goo that swallowed her.

  "Midori!" I yelled, lunging forward.

  My injured leg gave out immediately, sending a sharp spike of pain through my hip that made the next step impossible. While I was clutching my leg in pain, Midori was already swallowed. I could see her through the thick jelly, her green hair drifting like seaweed and her eyes still closed. She was still asleep, totally unaware that she was being digested by a massive slime monster.

  I scrambled to my feet, heart pounding like a drum. My first instinct was to release my domain and suck every drop of mana out of that thing, turning it into a sad, crusty puddle. Then reality hit me like a wet noodle.

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  If I used my domain now, I wouldn’t just hit the slime. I’d hit Midori too. She was already at her limit, her mana barely a flicker. My domain didn’t pick targets. It would probably eat slime as a whole with everything inside it, Midori included.

  I checked my internal battery. The mana I’d spent the last hour sweeping up from the wasteland was there, but it was pathetic. It felt like trying to fight a forest fire with a single glass of water. I had almost no chance. Honestly, I had no chance at all.

  

  The slime made a wet, squishy sound and started pulling back, dragging Midori deeper inside itself. She was barely breathing in there, and the air wouldn’t last long. She finally woke up and, in shock, began thrashing helplessly inside. Watching her struggle hurt more than I expected.

  “Let her go, you overgrown puddle!” I roared.

  I didn’t have enough mana for anything useful or a giant fireball. So I poured everything I had into my left hand, imagining my katana set ablaze instead.

  “I need to be careful,” I whispered.

  I couldn’t just swing blindly. If I cut too deep, I’d hit Midori. If I didn't cut enough, the slime would go crazy, and maybe kill her immediately. The flaming katana appeared. It wasn’t the bright, roaring blade from backyard practice. The flames were weak, flickering, barely holding their shape.

  I stepped forward, ignoring the scream from my injured leg. The slime saw me coming. It rippled, forming a thick, blunt tentacle of goo and swung at my head. I ducked as the wind from the strike whooshed over me and drove the flaming blade into the side of the slime, far from where Midori floated.

  The goo hissed and steamed, a foul smell filling the air. The slime recoiled, its eyes narrowing in pain. It hurt, but it wasn't enough to make it drop her. My mana was already dropping fast, and the katana's flame was turning from bright to a dull, dying red. I only had a few minutes of magic left before I was back to being a regular nobody with a broken leg.

  But Midori wasn’t just waiting to be dinner. I saw her green mana flicker, and suddenly, thick wooden branches started growing out of nowhere, wrapping around her like a big, protective egg. It was a wooden shell, slowly sealing her away from the slime’s digestive juices.

  I knew exactly why she was doing it. She was telling me to stop being a coward and fight for real. She wanted me to go brutal because now, I didn't have to worry about hitting her by mistake. I started running, well, limping, around the slime, hitting it with casual swipes of my dying blade just to get its attention.

  "Hey! Over here, you stupid jelly!" I yelled.

  The slime rippled with anger, its huge eyes locking onto me as it forgot all about the snack inside its belly. It lunged at me, and I kept moving, leading it in circles and dodging its messy strikes.

  The moment the wooden shell was finished and Midori was safe inside, I knew it was time. I bolted toward a nearby rock, scrambling up to the top with my last bit of strength. The slime flowed toward me like a wave of death, but I didn't wait for it to reach me.

  I jumped into the air, feeling the wind rush past. I focused every single drop of mana I had left into my hand. But the fire on my katana was thinning and shrinking fast.

  Then it hit me. Why did it even need to stay in sword form? I made a quick decision and imagined the fire stretching out, turning from a blade into a long, thin whip of flame. I swung the flaming whip from top to bottom.

  

  It sliced through the slime like a hot knife through butter, cutting the monster clean in half. The whip hissed as it shaved past the edge of Midori’s wooden shell, missing her by just a hair's breadth.

  The wooden shell Midori had been inside fell to the ground and cracked. The moment she hit the fresh air, she took a deep breath that seemed to fill the rest of her lungs in one go. She then wiped the slime off her face and clothes. Her kimono was nearly ruined by the slime monster’s wild digestion.

  “You okay—”

  “Pull it all… come on, quick!” she said, pointing at the dying slime with a panicked look.

  “W-what?”

  “Mana, of course! Hurry… release your domain before it all dissipates!”

  Midori’s panicked, bossy yelling fried my brain. No time to think anyway. I just yanked open my domain and started sucking up every scrap of mana the giant slime had. A few minutes later, all of it was swirling around me like some dark, terrifying storm, crackling with occasional lightning. Not quite as much as Midori’s, but close.

  “So, what now with all this mana?”

  Midori, barely able to stand, shuffled over to me, touched my shoulder, still taking deep breaths.

  “Teleport us… the town.”

  I had no intention of going to the town. The ashes of the fire I’d caused still burned inside me, quietly roasting me with deep shame. But seeing Midori there, weak, messy, and exhausted, I realized I had no choice.

  I quickly imagined the cozy bed in the room we were staying in and teleported us there. In the blink of an eye, we found ourselves in the warm room. Midori immediately went to the bed and started taking off her sticky, torn clothes.

  “I guess I’ll just wait outside until you change…” I mumbled, shuffling toward the door, face bright red, brain screaming, look away, idiot, look away.

  I reached for the door handle, and just then, someone knocked. Totally caught me off guard. I spun back and rushed to Midori. No way I could face anyone from the town right now, my life’s mess was still crushing me.

  Then the door swung open. Midori was halfway through undressing, I was standing there like a confused idiot with my hands in the air, and the servant girl went beet-red the moment she saw the unexplainable scene.

  “Sorry! I’ll—” she stammered, closing the door.

  “No, no, wait!” I blurted. “I was just about to leave too,” and bolted out of the room as fast as I could.

  My ears were practically smoking, I could’ve sworn I heard a train siren, and my brain had already bought a one-way ticket to embarrassment, the next stop of my pathetic life experiments.

  “L-lord, um, I am really sorry…”

  “There’s no need, really!” I said, looking away. I had to change the topic fast before I melted right there. “Uh, why were you here?”

  “I heard a noise while passing by and wanted to make sure you had returned. I also came to give my report.”

  “About what?”

  “About the accident in the backyard… and the injured…”

  The servant led me to a room. The moment I stepped inside, my stomach sank. The general lay there, wrapped in bandages like a rolled up mummy. But when I turned and saw the old man like that, it felt like boiling water had been dumped over me. I couldn’t even breathe.