Bukubukuchagama stood in front of her dolls. That was how she always thought of them. Her dolls. Aura and Mare, the NPCs she put so much care into designing. Their flavor text was almost as exhaustive as Tabula Smaragdina’s, their appearances, ‘delicate flowers’ was the description that still came to her mind even now, years later.
She moved a dress out of her inventory and put one on Mare, and then, almost teasing herself, put one onto Aura. She giggled a little. Her slime body bubbled whenever she laughed, sounding much like a bubbling teapot.
“I had so much fun with you two… if only that thing hadn’t happened with my little brother…” Bukubukuchagama muttered under her breath, “well if it hadn’t, I’d have been able to come by here more often. I might not even have stopped coming at all. I still can’t believe Momonga kept all this going for so long. It’s such a shame he had to work late and couldn’t even come for his own final gathering.”
She reached out and touched their left and right cheeks with bright pink, bubbling slime appendages. “In a few minutes, this world is going to end, and you with it. We had some wonderful times here, Momonga wasn’t wrong about that. For all our time though, we still didn’t get to see everything it had to offer. Not that I blame you two, of course. But maybe I would have gone out more if you two weren’t so damn cute, I just can’t help but dress you up.”
She laughed again, and her pink body bubbled and hissed and popped until the laughter stopped. “My Aura, my Mare… my perfect creations…” They didn’t say anything, they couldn’t, they were just NPCs, they stood where she made them stand, and that was that.
Their clothing appeared and disappeared as she tried several more outfits on them both until the last two minutes came. “I guess he isn’t going to make it after all.” Bukubukuchagama said with regret, “I know he must be trying, he loved this place and I… admit it, I had a little crush on my favorite skelly.” The pink slime sighed, slumped, and then as it reached the last minute, she selected the last thing her creations would wear.
“This was the first thing you wore, I’ll make it the last in this world as well.” She said at last and put Aura’s pants and shirt/vest combination back into place, and added Mare’s skirt and shirt combination for him as well. “Best… traps… ever.” Bukubukuchagama added, choosing those as her final words, and then reached out to tussle the hair of the unmoving, unblinking, soulless dolls as the timer counted down its last few seconds.
The timer hit one second, Bukubukuchagama waited for the game to log her out, and then…
“Thank you.” and “Th-Thank y-you, Lady Bukubukuchagama.” Aura and Mare spoke at once, their eyes welled up with tears.
“Will it hurt for us to die?” Aura looked downcast, but she rose a little bit up on her tiptoes to press her head more firmly into the pink slime version of a hand.
“Th-Thank you for staying with us wh-when it happens.” Mare added. “Th-That makes it b-better.” He wrung his staff in his hands and shifted uncomfortably on his feet.
The numb, stonelike lack of feeling she had when tussling their hair was gone, and in its place, she felt every silky strand on their heads. They were making real ‘expressions’ and they were really ‘talking’.
‘Is this… an application shift? An upgrade? Did they not shut the server down after all?’ Bukubukuchagama wondered, her body began bubbling rapidly with hisses and pops as anxiety hit and she saw the timer was gone.
“GM Call. Status. Logout. Report a problem. Customer Service. Emergency service.” Bukubukuchagama tried every combination of player resources and actions she could think of, and all she got for her trouble was a buzz of noise telling her the attempt was a failure.
“Message, Momonga. Message, Herohero. Message, Ulbert. Message, Peroroncino.” Bukubukuchagama ran through the list of people she could think of who might have come onto the game for their final meeting, and every time all she got was the ‘failure to connect’ noise instead.
“Player status window.” She added, trying to access her own data.
Nothing happened. She tried to think, and then she felt something. ‘Yes, yes I can sense everything about myself, what I have, my skills, points, mp and everything.’ She understood, but then, the hopeful, sad looks of her little dolls caught her eye. Their question, it was almost heartbreaking, and they had such sweet voices. A part of her ached for them.
‘But can they do more than obey the simple rote commands?’ She wondered, “Aura, Mare, something strange is going on, go outside the tomb and investigate, then meet me in the throne room with the other guardians, all of them, and hurry!” Bukubukuchagama’s high pitched voice was accompanied by a rushing set of bubbles that popped around her head, and the guardians she created, bowed before her.
They ran off as fast as they could, leaving their creator alone.
“Okay, I have got to figure all this out as quickly as possible…” She said to herself.
...Three Weeks Later…
Bukubukuchagama stood in the ruins of the village. She absorbed a bit of burnt up wood and used her slime analysis skill to identify what she could. ‘Burned a few weeks ago.’ She noted, and went over to a corpse. Like the corpse of the young woman and what she assumed was the woman’s daughter that had obviously died fleeing for the forest, this one showed signs of violent death.
‘So this world has its share of violence, maybe more than its share.’ She thought. Despite that, ‘It is a beautiful world, like nothing in my home… I think… I think I’d like to see it. I’ve stayed holed up in Nazarick long enough. But if I don’t want to have to fight at every turn…’ Bukubukuchagama’s bubbly body hissed and popped in time with her thoughts, a curiosity at first, she figured it was to match her emotional state which was substituted in place of human facial expressions.
‘Okay so I can eat pretty much anything, so hunger and thirst aren’t a problem, I can’t go home and so far none of the beings the guardians have tested themselves against have proved even remotely challenging. All I need then is a good illusion spell.’ Bukubukuchagama looked at the skull she’d picked up without even realizing she’d done it, and was about to put it down.
Instead, after lingering and looking at it, she absorbed it into her body and devoured it.
‘Would an illusion spell be enough though? I’d better research it. It’d be a problem if somebody started shouting ‘Slime’ or had some way to dispel my magic.’ Bukubukuchagama thought that over and oozed away from the bodies to check the rest of the village ruins. Not far away, a naked, ruined corpse of what had to have once been a very, very powerful man, lay fallen and chewed to bits.
Over a dozen corpses lay scattered about, none as fit as he, but they were uniformly men and all bore signs of violence. ‘I could resurrect them, and find out what happened. But… no, if this is like my old world, the big guy is usually the one in charge. Me got big sword, swing go chop chop…’ She would have rolled her eyes if she had any.
Still, he’d died bravely, even rotted and chewed up as his body was, she could see the signs of violence had been plentiful to say the least. ‘You must have been a terrific warrior. Takemikazuchi would have liked you, I think. So would Touch me.’
That settled it, she absorbed his corpse into her body, then called for the gate and returned to Nazarick.
When she returned, she was in the throne room. “My Lady,” Albedo and Demiurge said at once, kneeling as soon as she appeared, “welcome home.”
Bukubukuchagama’s body bubbled a bit dismissively and she expelled the corpse of the human, it fell with a wet ‘plop’ at their feet.
“Demiurge, study this body, learn what you can from it, and then when you’re ready, let me know and we can have it resurrected. I want to question the man when he is alive again, and put him to the test.” Bukubukuchagama commanded.
“At once.” Demiurge replied and took the corpse up by the chewed up and tattered back of the neck.
“Albedo, have the area around us monitored and… spend some time on the kingdom this man was part of, they’re not far from us and there must be a lot of violence there, I’d rather not be caught off our guard.” Bukubukuchagama commanded, and Albedo lowered her bright yellow eyes.
“I will set the Eight Edge Assassins and any other available covert operations teams to it right away, mistress.” Albedo replied, and Bukubukuchagama oozed away.
“I’ll be in my room, have Mare bring me our most powerful illusion spells when my dinner is brought to me.” The last Supreme Being said, and left them behind.
Most of her time was spent in her room, and when she did leave, it was mostly during what she designated as ‘quiet hours’ or ‘mandatory rest time’ for the entire tomb. Nominally it was for their sake, but the truth was, she still wasn’t comfortable with the fact that everyone they created had come to life. So those were the times she could move about the tomb without anyone bothering her. Leaving had begun to have its appeal. So, she pushed the work of managing the tomb onto the guardians, which they seemed to enjoy, and spent most of her time at ease.
But the outside world… ‘So damned beautiful… Pero… if only you… oh who am I kidding? You’d be screwing everything on two legs and probably four if you ran out of the rest… the first thing you’d do is screw Shalltear silly. Is there any fetish she ‘doesn’t’ have?’ Bukubukuchagama asked herself in all seriousness.
Most of them, it was just all a bit much. She glanced at the door again, thinking of all that lay beyond it. The guardians, a new world, everything. And somewhere, all that she’d lost. Her brother, her friends, her life as a voice actress. Thinking of her work, it turned her mind toward Pandora’s Actor. An exception to the rule, his over the top grandiose behavior reminded her of Momonga in his chuunibyou phase when they’d first met. Plus, as a fellow ‘actor’ they had unexpected common ground.
‘Momonga… if only you’d come here too.’ She oozed her way over to the bed, and thought of nothing until she had to.
It was three months later when Demiurge reported that he was finished with the corpse. And so the last Supreme Being left her room to join Demiurge in his lab, and coincidentally, Albedo arrived at Bukubukuchagama’s quarters as she was leaving, with news of serious events in the nearby kingdom.
As the last mistress of Nazarick went to the lab, Albedo explained all that they had observed.
“My lady, a month ago, the nearest major city, E-Rantel, was turned into a city of the undead, and a powerful… by this world’s standards, lich appeared. He somehow directed the undead like an army, and consumed forty towns, one hundred villages, and two cities before he was stopped by a combination of adventurers and an army hastily assembled by the king.” Albedo explained, and Bukubukuchagama let that soak in.
“Well, that’s bad.” She answered the guardian succinctly.
“For them, yes. But mistress, it got worse. The old king died in the battle and the eldest son took over, he just recently led a disastrous fight against the empire to the north of our position, and that empire is now rolling over everything.” Albedo added as if giving the time of day.
“How unfortunate, but does that mean anything for us?” Bukubukuchagama asked, her pink body hissed with urgency.
“We heard stories about people saying that ‘if Gazef Stronoff’ were still around, it wouldn’t have happened. I had it looked into, and the remains you brought back, match his description. He is their greatest hero. If you resurrect him, he will want to return to his people right away.” Albedo pointed out and laid a hand on the exposed ribs that now had no organs left within to protect.
“I suppose we could do him a small favor in exchange for some information, once we know everything we need to.” Bukubukuchagama answered, just as Pestonya appeared in the doorway.
“I don’t know how powerful this man was in life, so… Albedo, Demiurge, prepare to guard me.” Bukubukuchagama ordered, and the two stood on either side of their mistress while the maid cast her spell.
“Woof. [True Resurrection] Woof.” Pestonya said, and the dogwoman maid stepped aside as the white glow engulfed the body.
Skin closed, muscle grew back, organs were restored, and man, in all his glory, lived again. Bukubukuchagama’s pink body couldn’t blush, but her voice did go a slightly higher pitch when she said, “Please, cover him up.” Then pointed to his waist.
The square jawed man lay unmoving on the table, Bukubukuchagama was immediately impressed. ‘Supreme calm, despite everything, he really is impressive.’ His eyes darted around him, but otherwise he neither moved nor acted nor even spoke.
“Welcome back to life.” Bukubukuchagama said.
His eyes reached the pink slime and widened with both confusion and alarm. “I… am alive.” His hand came up and touched his chest. “Did you… raise me just to eat me?”
Bukubukuchagama slid over to him, her pink bubbles popped with mirth, “No, not to worry. I am a slime. But I am a nice slime.” Her body hissed and popped with mirth at the line she longed to use, finally being said. “You’re safe here, and I’m sure you have questions, so do I. So, let’s help each other out. I’ll tell you what I can, you tell me what you can, and when we’re done, I’ll let you recover your strength here and let you go. That’s fair, isn’t it?” She asked, applying all her voice actress skills to sounding like an adorable little girl.
Gazef gave a slow, steady nod. “Yes… but… before that… please… I beg you… my… do you know what happened to me?”
“You don’t remember?” Bukubukuchagama asked.
“I mean, after my death.” He said, “I was protecting a village, I was attacked, and…”
“I am sorry.” Bukubukuchagama replied, cutting him off. “The village where I found your body was wiped out, any survivors were long gone before I got there, and you were surrounded by the bodies of other warriors, I can only assume they were your people too.”
“I… see.” He went very quiet, “Thank you for telling me… oh, your name, please.”
“Bukubukuchagama, the Last Supreme Being of Nazarick.” She inclined the upper part of her body that served as a kind of ‘head’.
The rest was confusion for day after day, she learned that he was indeed the Royal Head Warrior, or ‘the Warrior Captain’ and she learned about his kingdom, its culture, its people, their conflict with the empire. In a week, she knew everything worth knowing, and the information about ‘talents’ sent Nazarick into a hub of activity searching out more information from all manner of sources.
Gazef wept for hours when he learned of the death of his king in the fight against the undead, and the destruction of three full cities, not to mention the villages and towns.
Bukubukuchagama questioned him alone, most of the time, and when he fell to mourning the death of both his king and the defeat of the eldest son who replaced him, panic filled his face. “Lady Bukubukuchagama… is the capital…?”
“It fell before we resurrected you.” The supreme being answered him, and, full of fear, Gazef fell to his knees before her. ‘She has a monster body, but… a child’s voice and she seems… so very human. Perhaps I can appeal to her for this…’ He wondered, and looked up to her.
“Supreme one… you gave me back my life, and no one could ask for more than that, even that much is… it’s more than anyone has a right to expect. But I beg you… there is a boy in the Kingdom, a good young man, he is the bodyguard to the third Princess, she’s just a young girl herself. The Empire will be pursuing them, please… if there is anything I can offer you, even if it is a lifetime of willing service… can I ask you to use your supreme power to at least save those two?”
Bukubukuchagama looked down into the chiseled, handsome, broken hearted face of the dark skinned warrior. ‘When I was a human, I would have jumped his bones, now, I just think they’ll taste good.’ She teased herself a bit, but beneath her self taunting, she felt an overwhelming pity for young people losing everything, especially something almost ‘fairytale like’ about a young bodyguard on the run with a Princess. It was impossible to resist on that premise.
“Fine, I’ll send out my people, find them, and if they’re alive, I’ll have them brought here to safety.” Bukubukuchagama answered.
Climb felt an ache in his muscles that he could only describe as ‘fire’. How much worse it was for Princess Renner, he couldn’t imagine. She clung with her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, resting on his back as he carried her as fast as he could through the woods.
Far behind him, he could still hear fighting. “Do you really think Blue Rose can hold them all off?” He asked her as he clambered over a fallen tree.
“Yes, as long as they have Evileye, unless they bring Fluder into the fight, they’ll win. But… where do we go?” Renner whimpered into his ear. ‘I have my Climb… but what good is that if we just, if we just die in the woods?!’ She cursed her brothers, the nobles, even her father, ‘All that work, and I still couldn’t stop this from happening… if the emperor finds me, I’ll be lucky if I’m not thrown into a harem or forced to marry him or… and if Climb dies… I don’t want to live!’ Her heart wailed as she felt his strength begin to leave him.
The wind in the trees was louder now, and the rustling leaves became like the roar of a battlefield. The soft ground sank underfoot, hampering her bodyguard’s efforts at speed. The crunch of twigs and other detritus hampered their ability to move silently.
Climb grunted with a desperate effort, Blue Rose was no doubt having an easy time of it with the knights but he knew all too well that even heroes had limits. Bodies tired, mana ran out, and the Empire had heroes of their own.
Renner’s tears began to fall and hit his cheek. She’d gone beyond the limits of her endurance hours ago, and yet she clung to him still, ‘They won’t have her!’ Climb affirmed silently.
“Climb… Climb listen to me…” Princess Renner said, her heart pounding in her chest.
“Prin-cess?” He gasped as they emerged into a clearing, his eyes darted around as he tried to pick the best direction to run.
“Kill me.” She ordered. “I won’t be the Emperor’s captive, I won’t let him have me, I won’t bow to him or be some minor wife to solidify his control over the Kingdom. This is the only victory left, the only revenge I can have is martyrdom. If I die defiant, if we die defiant… we will at least have taken one victory from the Emperor.”
“Princ-Princess Renner… if we can just get you south-” Climb began, and Renner shook her head.
“No, the Slane Theocracy will just hand me over, they had a hand in all this, I know it. If they don’t just kill me outright, that is, they might just give me to the Emperor themselves… and where else can we go? We can’t make it to the Roble Holy Kingdom, not with the Abelion Hills in the way, we can’t cross the Dark Dwarf mountains, and the Dark Elves would do… who knows what to me. The Draconic Kingdom needs the Theocracy’s help to fend off the Beastmen, that’s just giving me to the Emperor, with extra steps and a lot more exhaustion.”
Renner let herself down, planting her feet on the grass. “I’d rather die. I’d rather die than let them take you away from me, they’ll kill you.” She put her hands on his cheeks and made him look at her. “I don’t want to survive without you… I don’t. I just… don’t. Take your knife, Climb, and you can make it over quickly. If… you want to follow me, at least we’ll be together.” Her fingers trembled to touch his cheek, and she heard the sound of a knife coming out of its sheath.
“Princess Renner…” Climb began to say, but she shook her head.
“Just ‘Renner’ Climb. I’m not Princess of anything anymore.” She said with a trembling lower lip.
“Renner…” Climb said, and pressed the tip of the knife below her breast, “I love you. I’ve loved you since I was little… I’m glad I got to say that much, and… I won’t let you go into the dark alone, I’ll be right behind you, just as fast as I can.”
Renner nodded her head in a small rapid pace, cursing all those she held to blame for her present situation. ‘Damn them! Climb! My puppy and I should have been happy but for all those idiots! Damn them!’ Her eyes closed, she took a deep breath.
The sound of Lakyus’ voice pierced the air, it was a scream of pain. ‘So they sent Fluder after all, the others will prioritize Lakyus over me… so we’ve only got a few minutes.’ Renner realized and looked around, it was a nice clearing, no birds chirping, they’d left, flying at the sounds of battle.
The ground was almost as soft as a bed, ‘If only we had time to just, to do it once… I wanted to know what that was really like, and I know he did too.’ She kissed the cheek of the blonde boy she’d rescued as a toddler, her tears mixed with his when their cheeks touched, and she felt the tip begin to push into her skin.
“That’s a little premature, isn’t it?” A voice said from nearby.
Climb and Renner froze and turned their heads to the voice at the same time. An elf boy in long pants sat up in a tree, leg dangling off the branch, back against the trunk, one leg up and his arm sitting comfortably on the knee.
“You’re not going to die, this is… my lady doing a favor for a guest. My name is Aura, creation of Lady Bukubukuchagama, and as for the guest, that would be Gazef Stronoff. It seems he did something good for her, and so the mistress of Nazarick is doing him a good turn as well.”
Gazef’s name had the pair light up with excitement. Climb dropped the dagger, “We’re pursued by-” He cut off his words when he realized he no longer heard fighting.
“We took care of it. As a little bonus, we’ll go ahead and take your friends back with us, my lady can decide what to do with them then.” Aura said with passive indifference.
Aura waved her hand down to the ground where a hole in reality opened up, a black, whorling void, “You’ll be going through there, assuming you don’t actually want to die. Me, I don’t care either way, I’m just following orders.”
Climb felt Renner’s hands tense on his, she watched while a line of radiant women passed by, carrying the unconscious bodies of Lakyus, Evileye, Gagaran, Tia, and Tina, led by an older man who ‘defined’ the term ‘dignified servant’. They passed through the dark hole with nary a look in the direction of Renner or Climb, and the one who called himself ‘Aura’ hopped down from the tree branch.
“So,” he asked, “Do you want to walk through, or do I toss you?” He flashed a smile up at them, but at once both the Princess and her bodyguard could tell…
‘He’s not joking…’ Climb and Renner read the thought in each other’s eyes, and Climb raised his hands in surrender.
“Princess Renner will be safe? You swear it?” He asked.
Aura shrugged, “That’s what Gazef wanted, so that’s what my mistress wants, so that’s how it will be.”
“Then what happens, after we get to the other side?” Renner’s eyes were fascinated and fixed on the gate, so much so that she ignored the curious little dark elf with the heterochromatic blue and green eyes.
“That’s up to her, and you to find out when you get there.” Aura replied, “Now go. You’re keeping a Supreme Being waiting, and I won’t have that.”
Sensing that no further questions would be answered, Climb squeezed his Princess’ hand, then led her toward the gate. “I won’t let go.” He promised once, and stepped through, with her following after, to see what came next.
