"This continent is the Lesvania Empire."
With one final word from the nun, Aria set out to search for the Saintess.
With such a large area to cover, asking around from the locals is definitely one of the top priorities needed to search for a single person.
Going to random stalls, she inquired about the Saintess' whereabouts.
"The Saintess? I don't really keep up with the news nowadays but from what I've heard, isn't she living in the slum?"
"That girl? I heard her house is pretty wrecked due to vandalism."
"How would I know? If you're not going to buy anything, go away."
"..."
Alright, this is harder than expected.
Most of the time, she'd get shooed away. And when she does get a lead, it's a very vague one.
Just so you know, the slum is extremely massive.
In technicality, it's around 1/6th of the entire city.
Might not sound that big but this place is supposedly as big as China and the entirety Europe combined.
Even the scaling she used felt a bit underwhelming.
She tried to think of a better solution to help her find the Saintess.
'Could I somehow bring her to me?'
A fleeting thought crossed her mind.
After all, it's a common trope in movies and tv shows for the protagonist to somehow create either a commotion or a situation in which their target has no choice but to confront them.
But what could she do to make the Saintess approach her?
'What if…'
A dangerous thought flashed itself.
'This might work!'
—
Rachel drank some tea with her lonesome.
A while ago, Aria had left in order to meet the Saintess. Due to that, her already gloomy house felt emptier than usual.
While she had already gotten used to it after living alone for a decade, the sudden intrusion of the company was not really a bad thing.
Plus, she was the one who brought her in, like a lost cat.
While reluctant at first, Aria's company somewhat grew on her.
Speaking of which, her other company hasn't visited in a while.
Elisabeth Hannover.
A person with a very upright principle yet with such a weak resolve.
There's not much to be said about her other than the fact that she's very timid.
If there were one thing to be noted about her, it would be one of her owned items.
Back during the Great Demon War, the hero party had searched all over the world in search of the [Book of Omniscient].
From the legends told, it was a book that only existed during the Old Epoch, during the time in which no living organism had existed.
With the power to 'Predict' the future, it was something sought after by any and all individuals in the world.
Though she wonders if what was written in the book had any incident to support its truthfulness, nor if the information written inside could even be trusted.
From her own experiences, she had figured out the book owned by Elisabeth was not ordinary.
Although she did try to get a look inside once, the book itself wouldn't budge as long as it's not Elisabeth that's opening it.
Even if she did open the book for her, the inside was just empty.
If she tried reading what was written out loud, it'll just sound like the buzzing of flies in her ears.
With no options remaining, she left her curiosity collecting dust at the back of her mind.
Knock Knock
Pushing her thoughts away, she walked over and opened the door to welcome the visitor.
Short brown hair with a couple of strands standing on their own, a height barely reaching her own chin.
Here it is, the person in question.
Elisabeth Hannover.
—
"...There we go, I think I've collected enough for now."
Carrying a bag full of red flowers on her shoulder, Aria heaved a sigh of relief.
Fortunately, this variant actually existed in this world.
In order for her plan to work, she's gonna need quite a lot of this stuff.
Her plan is going to take quite a bit of time to be put in action.
Even collecting this stuff, which is the first of the many steps she needs to complete, already took her the whole day.
After collecting all the ingredients, she'd need to mix them together to get the right texture and consistency. Plus, the smell needed to be similar enough to the real thing so that nobody would suspect anything.
While she thought of this plan in a haste, it sounded plausible enough in her head to work in real life.
Next would be…
Opening the book she had borrowed from the library, her eyes stopped on a creature.
"I'm going to need quite a lot of you too… Heh."
With a menacing laugh, she headed back home to prepare for her hunt tomorrow.
As usual, no lights were available at Rachel's house.
The reasons were self-explanatory.
Nothing much happened other than Rachel saying that her colleague had visited in the afternoon.
She took a bath in the surprisingly nice looking washroom.
Laying down comfortably on her bed, the one she had woken up in every time she fainted, Aria closed her eyes.
The next morning.
"Let's see… Slimes live in damp and dark environments. Most of the time, they're seen in either swamp or dark caves with no light sources. Due to that, they have no light sensor and could only tell the surrounding through mana sources."
Quoting her text book, she walked through the main gate early in the morning. There are noticeably less people coming in and out when compared to yesterday.
It made sense when you think about what had aspired recently.
Fortunately, that doesn't concern her.
Storing the book back inside her bag, she took out the map of nearby hunting locations she had borrowed from Rachel.
"The closest one would be…"
Darting her gaze across the paper, they settled on the dark patch.
"The swamp indeed."
Following the available path, it didn't take long before she finally reached her destination. The many arrows pasted on the trees and the signs signaling she had arrived really helped.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary swamp.
More woods than there are leaves. Damp environment, effectively making the air moist. Just standing near the entrance made her feel like she's breathing in more hydrogen than she is oxygen.
At this point, she no longer needed the map.
Pulling out her text book, she read, "Beware of moving water. To hunt them, it is recommended that the individual hunting uses either a mana concealment accessory or is using mana concealment magic.
It is highly recommended for everyone to hunt slimes using magic as they are immune to brunt attacks."
Let's go over the checklist.
Mana concealment? She borrowed a brooch from Rachel.
Food and water? She's got enough to last the whole day, thank you Rachel for helping her out on that.
Magic attack?
…embarrassed she is to say that Rachel had helped her out again.
Inspecting the dagger in her hand, some incomprehensible words were engraved onto the blade, shining orange at constant intervals.
Rachel had told her that this specific weapon is armed with a magic circle which could be activated by simply pressing the button at the bottom of the hilt.
Pressing it should supposedly summon a fireball enough to kill slimes if they ever appeared.
Which was the whole entire reason she's here anyways.
She's extremely tempted to press it but she can't really afford to waste any firepower seeing as to how she herself can't cast any meaningful attack at this moment.
At most, she'd be able to light up a candle, but what's the use of that against monsters?
…putting that aside, Rachel is quite rich, isn't she?
Even though the house she lived in feels quite haunted, she does have everything you think you'd ever need.
Oh well, not like Aria's gonna leech off her again after she found a stable income anyways.
Just a fleeting thought.
Tightening her belt, she walked through the gate leading to the swamp.
She's got a couple of jars prepared to store the remains of the slime.
A couple dozens of minutes of walking later, she finally sees one.
A clumpy water.
She pulled the dagger out of its sheath, grabbing onto the hilt tightly.
Just in case she's wrong, she'd need to make sure it really is a slime first.
And so, she poked it.
As the end of her dagger touched the substance, it moved.
Almost as quickly as it happened, the now confirmed slime jumped towards her.
Most people would think handling a slime shouldn't be such a big deal but since this is practically her first time against a creature not from her world (the one against the druid doesn't count), she needed to be a bit more careful until she actually gets enough experience.
Pushing the slime away using her free hand, she pointed the tip towards the monster as it landed on the dirt.
Clicks
She pressed the button and without delay, magic circles formed at the tip of the dagger.
Almost simultaneously, waves of fire poured out like a flamethrower.
It was much bigger than she expected.
The magic attack went on for 5 seconds before it finally ended.
Beads of sweat flowed down her chin. Even after it ended, she could still feel the heat on her hand holding the dagger.
Aria looked towards her target, almost lamenting the fact that she probably charred it.
Fortunately, it was not the case as a lump of slime looking like it hadn't taken any damage was still there.
She tilted her head in confusion as she waited to see what would happen next.
"...So it's dead, right?"
Just to make sure, she carefully shortened her distance and poked it using her dagger again.
No reaction.
Phew
Heaving a sigh of relief internally, she opened one of the jars she brought and stuffed the remains of the slime inside.
And now, she needs to do that until all three jars are full.