“A toast to Yuji and his slimes. And also the dragon skull!”

“Cheers!”

The voices boomed in the alehouse.

After the safety of the surrounding area had been confirmed, a party was held to celebrate the successful hunting of the monsters after the outbreak.

“I would never have thought he’d kill all of them…”

“I thought he must be going crazy when he claimed he was going to recreate the fire of a dragon…but he really did it…”

“Well, it’s only because he had the skull.”

I was quite nervous while talking to the Adventurers.

I had ended up using magic twice, and so I hoped they didn’t think it was strange.

“By the way. That dragon fire. It seemed to fade once before suddenly becoming stronger…is that how dragon fire works?”

…It was just as I was getting restless that the very subject came up.

However, the Adventurers readily believed that it was due to the nature of dragon fire.

It was in fact because I used ‘Hellfire of Death’ twice…but this misunderstanding was convenient.

But getting into the specifics of what dragon it was would be like digging my own grave, so I would have to avoid that…

“Probably? I just picked this skull up in the mountains. I didn’t see the dragon breathe fire while it was alive.”

“Ah, of course, you didn’t. That would mean you killed a dragon and took its skull. It’s no wonder you don’t know anything about the dragon!”

It seemed to be working.

Of course, I really had killed the dragon and taken its skull.

‘It’s delicious!’

‘This stuff is good too!’

On the other hand, the slimes seemed to be really enjoying themselves.

They were also popular with the Adventurers, and people gave them food.

I had heard that animals got sick if they ate human food with too much sodium…but it was probably different for slimes.

◇

“Yuji. Do you have a minute?”

The manager called out to be as the feast continued and people began to move away from me.

“What is it?”

“It’s about the stone. We can’t talk about it here, so I want you to come to the back.”

About the stone…the cursed stone, I suppose.

Judging by his tone, it seemed pretty serious.

“Alright.”

And so I used magic to conceal myself as I left the room. Then I followed the manager to an empty room in the guild.

He locked the room…and then said:

“We have inspected the remains of the killed monsters at the guild…and have concluded that the magic stone that created those monsters…is likely manmade. And judging by the number of monsters, it wasn’t done by a single person.”

He said as he pointed at a desk.

There were fragments of a magic stone that had gone white.

I had had suspicions, as it was not as strong as the magic stone that had destroyed a kingdom, and it was carried by a strange human… But it turned out to be really man-made.

I didn’t know what kind of organization it was… But they couldn’t be good, seeing as they were scattering these things around.

And they must be quite powerful as well.

After all, they were able to orchestrate a monster outbreak on a scale that was big enough to destroy multiple towns.

“…Yuji. Do you have any ideas about who they could be?”

I had practically no knowledge of criminal organizations in this world.

Still…I did have some information that might be useful.