Slarin's transformation — it was a drastic increase in Slarin's size.
Until now, Slarin had been roughly 60 to 80 centimeters in diameter, but the Slarin before my eyes easily surpassed 4 meters by my estimation — it might even be close to 5.
This had stunned not only the opponents and the audience, but even me — Slarin's own master.
I hurried to check Slarin's Status...
Name: Slarin
Age: 9
Species:
Emperor
Slime
Title: Tenma's Familiar
That's what it showed.
Something was off with the species... It had skipped right past King and gone straight to Emperor...
I had heard that a Slime's species name changes based on its size, but just before the transformation, Slarin had been the same as always—
an ordinary—
Slime.
Even if Slarin had somehow met the conditions for an evolutionary jump in species, this wasn't a game — there was no way it should just suddenly grow massive... And yet, something that should have been impossible was happening right before my eyes.
While I was still reeling from the confusion, Slarin had already started moving as if nothing had happened.
First, Slarin extended its enlarged body outward, stretching to surround the opponents.
Then, from the body it had stretched out to encircle them, countless tentacle-like appendages sprouted forth... There were easily around a thousand of them. At this point, the opponents finally realized the severity of the situation and began taking up defensive positions.
However, their defensive formation came a bit too late.
Slarin began raining countless tentacles down on the opponents.
The fact that the blows were striking over their armor seemed to make a difference—each tentacle hit didn't feel particularly powerful. That wasn't to say there was no damage or impact at all, though.
At first, the opponents had even fought back against the tentacles, managing to sever several of them, but the results were negligible.
What's more, the tentacles that had been cut off would slither back toward the main body as if they had a mind of their own and be reabsorbed.
Before long, they were on the back foot entirely, having abandoned any attack and curled up into balls to focus solely on defense.
Even so, Slarin's barrage didn't stop. If anything, it saw an opening and intensified the onslaught.
It seemed Slarin was angry about being mocked.
Slarin was usually so mild-mannered that this level of rage was unusual. I couldn't tell which words had rubbed Slarin the wrong way, but the attacks were absolutely brutal.
If Slarin had been so inclined, it could have finished off opponents of this caliber in a single blow, but today Slarin had surrounded them so they couldn't escape, deliberately dialed back the power, and unleashed hundreds—thousands of attacks designed to keep them suffering without killing them or knocking them unconscious.
Had these been genuinely first-rate opponents, they might have slipped away easily, but these opponents were all flash and no substance—and so, one by one, they lost the will to fight.
Only after every last one of them had dropped their weapons and surrendered all fighting spirit did the referee finally move to step in.
Sensing this movement, Slarin shrank back to its original size before the referee could even open its mouth, and returned to where Shiromaru and I were.
"Winner: Slarin!"
The referee blurted out Slarin's name rather than our team name, as though the words just tumbled out involuntarily.
Incidentally, our team name was Orasion. When I'd been brainstorming names, I happened to glance at Tanikaze, whom I'd let out earlier, and recalled there was a novel where a horse by that name played a starring role—so I went with it. For the record, it means "prayer" in Spanish.
As Slarin returned to me and shrank back down to its original size, the secret behind the giant form finally clicked.
"Slarin. You created a new Dimension Bag inside your body and stored part of yourself in it, didn't you?"
Thanks to the influence of my magic power, Slarin could use spatial magic, which meant it was able to create a Dimension Bag and keep one hidden inside its own body.
This time, it must have created a new bag without my knowledge, separated off the portion of its body it wasn't using, and stored it inside.
That earlier enlargement was a phenomenon caused by fusing with the portion of its body it had taken out of the bag. Moreover, since the bag was inside Slarin's body, it had opened the bag from within and released the body it had separated and stored inside, which is why it appeared to suddenly swell up so dramatically.
Slarin shook its body up and down in confirmation of my observation. Shiromaru, it seemed, already knew and showed no surprise whatsoever. Given this, it was possible that Solomon knew as well — meaning I was very likely the only one who had been kept in the dark.
We made our way back to the tent, leaving behind the audience, who were too stunned to utter a sound.
Only after we had left did the audience finally come to their senses, erupting into thunderous cheers.
"So, Slarin. Since when did you
evolve into an Emperor
?"
I pressed Slarin for answers inside the tent. When I checked its Status, Slarin's race had returned to the ordinary "Slime" classification, just like before.
Slarin was using its entire body to apologize for keeping it a secret from me.
Through Slarin's gestures, I learned that it had become an Emperor while clearing Seigen's dungeon
all by itself
— sneaking out whenever I was training or researching in our hideout inside the dungeon, and preying on other
slimes
throughout the area.
The reason it had kept quiet was that the last time it had absorbed a slime, I had looked at the process with visible disgust, so it decided to keep it a secret.
"Well, that's fine, I guess... but just how many slimes did you consume?"
At my question, Slarin thought for a moment, then shook its body from side to side.
"So many you lost count...?"
Slarin shook its body up and down to confirm. Still, there was no denying that becoming an Emperor had increased its combat strength.
Generally speaking, slimes are said to evolve from normal Slimes to Big Slimes and then to King Slimes.
The Emperor Slime is believed to be an evolution beyond the King.
Generally, a Slime is identified by size: up to about 60 cm is a 'Slime', around 1 meter is a 'Big Slime', and over 2 meters is a King Slime. However, since a slime's body is mostly water, its size can vary considerably depending on the situation, making judgment tricky at times.
While we were talking about such things, the first round of all matches was about to end.
That meant our second round would begin soon.
Our opponents were Ted and Light's team. This time, not only Slarin, but Shiromaru and I would be participating.
After doing some light stretches while we waited, a staff member soon came to call us.
Led by the staff member into the Arena, we were greeted by loud cheers from the audience.
Shortly after, Ted and the others arrived, but since most of the cheers were directed at us, they wore looks of discomfort.
After the referee assessed both teams' conditions, he declared the match start. The formations of the two teams were such that my team was arranged in a nearly horizontal line with me at the center, Slarin to my right, and Shiromaru to my left, each about 4 meters away from me.
In contrast, Light and Ted were positioned about 10 meters away from us. The two of them stood side-by-side about 5 meters apart, staying with their own Familiars. Ted was to my front-right, and Light was to my front-left.
The first to move were Light's Hard Lynx. They ran towards Shiromaru, flanking him on the left and right in a threatening manner.
Slarin moved to provide support, but Ted's Thunder Bird used wind magic to keep Slarin at bay, preventing it from getting close.
In that opening, Light and Ted advanced towards me.
Light wielded her single-handed swords in a two-sword style, utilizing her beastkin physical abilities as she closed in. Ted nocked an arrow to his bow from behind Light.
I took a practice staff from my bag and thrust it at Light.
It seemed Light hadn't predicted I would pull out a staff, and my thrust stopped her movement for an instant. I seized that chance to unleash a second thrust, but Light dodged it effortlessly. Then, an arrow fired by Ted came flying towards me.
The arrow struck precisely where I had been standing and then where I had retreated to, widening the distance between Light and me significantly.
Shiromaru was being hard-pressed by the two Hard Lynx's attacks, but given their inherent difference in ability, it would probably be fine even if left alone.
As for Slarin, it was unexpectedly struggling. Slarin hadn't undergone Emperorification like in the previous match, and even accounting for that, it lacked offensive means against an enemy that could fly. On the contrary, the opponent's magic was hitting Slarin one-sidedly. However, Slarin didn't seem to be just taking it. Little by little, Slarin was moving closer to Shiromaru without the Thunder Bird noticing.
About five minutes after the match started, Slarin had only moved a little over a meter, but Shiromaru also seemed to have noticed Slarin's intention and was drawing closer while pretending to be flustered.
Light and Ted were focused on me, so they didn't seem to notice what Slarin and the others were doing.
As our standoff continued, Slarin and Shiromaru finally made their move.
When the two of them closed to about four meters apart, Shiromaru suddenly leaped sideways and stomped on Slarin. The moment Slarin was stepped on, it bounced back like a trampoline, and Shiromaru latched onto Ted's Thunder Bird.
Slarin charged at the Hard Lynx, who had reacted a split second late to Shiromaru's leap, and wrapped its body around them to pin them down. During this, Slarin was pulling its body out of the bag and Emperorifying.
Seeing their Familiars taken out in just a few seconds, Ted and Light's movements froze.
Seizing that opening, I rushed at Light, swept his legs out from under him, and pinned him down by the neck with my staff. Against Ted, I thrust out my left hand, ready to fire magic at any moment.
"We surrender."
Both of them surrendered at the same time. Ted dropped his bow and arrows to the floor and raised both hands. Light also let go of his weapon while pinned down.
Seeing this, the referee declared our victory.
"Winners — Team Orasion!"
Hearing those words, Slarin and Shiromaru immediately released the Familiars they had been holding down.
Slarin returned to its original size as it let go.
Ted, Light, and the Hard Lynx were uninjured, but the Thunder Bird, which had been knocked out of the air, seemed to have hurt its feathers. However, after I cast a bit of recovery magic, it appeared to fully heal and was flying through the sky again shortly after.
The match time was short, but the sight of Familiars clashing together had satisfied the audience, and we received a round of thunderous applause.
"I knew we'd lose..."
"We can't even beat Tenma alone, let alone with Slarin in the mix..."
Ted and Light muttered those words as they shook my hand and headed back to the tent.
The next match was the final Preliminary bout, so I thought about staying to watch the remaining fights, but the audience's cheers were even louder than expected, so I decided to just stay quietly in the tent.
The battle to decide the final opponent was taking longer than anticipated, and inside the tent were a completely listless Shiromaru and Slarin, who was dancing around with strange movements.
Slarin's movements might have been stretching, but from an outside perspective, it honestly looked like a dance that drained MP.
While this was happening, Solomon poked his head out of the bag, but since I planned to have him make his debut in the first round of the Main Tournament, I had him hold back from going outside.
As if to make up for that, Namitarou leaped out.
"Next up, it's my turn to fight~. That's fine, right, Tenma?"
He was so fired up that I gave him permission, and Namitarou was overjoyed.
"Alright! Let's do this~"
Namitarou stood up on just his tail and flapped his pectoral fins back and forth.
He was making "shoo, shoo-shoo-shoo" sounds with his mouth in time with his fin movements, so he was probably trying to do shadow boxing... though it really didn't look like it.
About ten minutes later, an official came to our tent.
Namitarou charged out of the tent without even listening to what the official had to say, sprinting straight toward the Arena.
Since a huge fish had suddenly burst out of the tent, the audience was startled and fell silent, but once they realized Namitarou was my Familiar, the silence turned into cheers.
As if answering those cheers, Namitarou frolicked around the Arena.
Rather than immediately chasing after Namitarou, I chatted with the official for a bit before heading into the Arena myself.
When we approached the center of the Arena, Namitarou lined up at our side. And then...
"Due to the opposing team's forfeit, the winner is Team 'Orasion'!"
The referee's voice echoed throughout the venue.
"No way~! I was just getting started~!"
Following the referee's voice, Namitarou's voice also echoed through the venue. And upon hearing that voice, most of the people in the audience cried out in shock.
"The fish talked!!!!"
Voices overlapped in disbelief, people stood frozen, and some were so startled they couldn't even stand.
The referee was one of the frozen ones as well. Normally, after declaring the winner there would be all sorts of things to do, but the referee had heard Namitarou's voice from the closest distance of anyone, and one could say he was at least in a slightly better state than those who had been so shocked their legs gave out.
Namitarou found the audience's reactions amusing and deliberately went near the Audience Seats to put on a performance.
Each time Namitarou got close, people would flee from the area, creating a chain reaction where Namitarou found it all the funnier and kept hamming it up.
However, this was becoming a problem, so...
"Namitarou! House!"
I opened the mouth of the bag and called out to Namitarou.
"No, Tenma. I ain't a dog, y'know..."
"Namitarou! House!"
"That's what I'm—"
"House!"
"I'm not a dog—"
"House!"
".............."
"H-o-u-s-e!"
"...Fine."
When I patiently kept calling, Namitarou reluctantly climbed into the bag.
The referee, seeing this, finally rebooted and came over to issue me a warning.
After the warning, I was informed about the next Main Tournament match and we were dismissed... For reference, the warning was that if Namitarou had continued to
run wild
as it was, in the worst-case scenario, I could have been issued a Disqualification for failing to follow the referee's instructions.
Fortunately, I had stopped Namitarou right away, so it ended with just a warning... I made up my mind to have a proper talk with Namitarou about this later.
I exchanged hasty greetings with Ted and the others, then left the arena right away. The reason was simple—I had no countermeasure ready today.
So today, I made my escape from the arena at full speed before any trouble could start.
After masking my presence and slipping out, sure enough, a crowd had gathered near the entrance.
It wasn't certain they were waiting for us, but I did spot people who appeared to be connected to the nobility,
so I don't think my judgment was wrong.
On the way to the manor, I passed by several temporary match venues, and all of them still seemed to be in the middle of bouts—occasional roars of applause erupting from inside.
The venues I passed weren't hosting anyone I knew, so I didn't stop, but every one was packed with spectators. Some well-known teams must have been fighting there.
As I was thinking this, I arrived at the manor and immediately erected a barrier across the entire garden, then dragged out Namitarou.
"Namitarou... you know what you did, right?"
"I'M SO SORRY!"
Hearing my voice, Namitarou instantly dropped to the ground in a prostration (or so he calls it) and begged for mercy.
After that, I gave Namitarou a lecture, and just as it was ending, the gate opened.
The manor's gate could only be opened by those who were authorized, so it was probably Grandpa and the others.
"How could you leave us behind like that?!"
"I was going to celebrate with something to eat..."
The ones who came through the gate grumbling were Grandpa and Aina.
Jeanne and Aura were right behind them, both completely out of breath.
"Puhh, hah-hah-hah... my, my side..."
"Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah........"
It seemed they had sprinted the whole way—Aura was clutching her side in pain, and Jeanne didn't have enough breath to speak.
"So sloppy, really. All you did was run from the venue and you're like this..."
Aina was barely out of breath, and Grandpa didn't look tired at all.
And the distance from the venue to this estate had to be over 10 kilometers... In normal circumstances, just being able to run the whole way was impressive enough, but...
"B-Big sis is... goniogoniogonio (she's only fine because she's a monster)..."
Aura, who never learned her lesson despite what happened before, muttered as quietly as she could. You could argue that at least she'd grown enough to whisper instead of saying it out loud, but she was still seriously underestimating Aina's physical abilities.
Sure enough, Aina heard every word. Aura was grabbed by the back of her collar and hauled away.
"U-Uncle... help..."
Aura tried to call out to me for help, but Aina stuffed a gag in her mouth before she could make a sound.
As I watched Aura and the others being led away, I explained to Grandpa why I'd left them behind.
"So that's what happened... That must have been rough..."
Apparently Grandpa had gone through something similar in his youth, because he grasped the situation right away.
"Oh, by the way—I heard you ran here from the venue... Wasn't that too much for Jeanne?"
As I spoke to Grandpa while looking at Jeanne, who was still gasping for air and collapsed on the ground, Grandpa made an uncomfortable face.
"At first I was only going to send Jeanne and Aura back by carriage... but Aina said 'This is perfect training—please cast enhancement magic on the two of them,' so I cast the magic and had them run along with her... Honestly, I feel bad about it."
It seemed that being left behind by me had thrown her into a bit of a daze, and she'd just gone along with Aina's suggestion without thinking.
We stayed in the garden letting Jeanne rest, and after a while it got a bit noisy near the gate. I went to check what was going out there and found that Aina had finished her taming... session with Aura.
It was the three girls who were there.
"Tenmaaa!"
"I lost!"
"That Ogre is weird!"
The three girls were all talking over each other about how strange their opponent, the Ogre Garibar, had been.
"That Ogre completely wiped the floor with us…"
Primera's shoulders were slumped in defeat too. Chris looked like she didn't care, but Aina pointed out that she was actually quite frustrated.
"What even was that Ogre… Ogres are supposed to be the poster children for brute-force fighters, right?"
From what I gathered, it sounded like all of them had underestimated Garibar, thinking he was just a regular Ogre.
On top of that, the opposing team "Demon Soldiers" wasn't just Garibar — the other four members were apparently quite skilled too, and the three girls had been on the back foot from the very start.
The "Demon Soldiers" Formation was apparently an orthodox arrangement: a horizontal line with Garibar at the center, flanked by two Knights on each side. It was a terrible matchup for the three girls.
"Beauty of Gunjo" normally fought with Primera and Chris as the wall while the three girls harassed the enemy and finished them off, but Garibar alone had pinned down both of the wall-type fighters, leaving the three girls to face four Knights by themselves.
In the end, they did manage to take down two of the enemy Knights, but since the opponents had both numerical and skill superiority, one of the three girls went down first, making it a two-on-three situation. The two wall-type fighters were then overrun as well.
"If he'd been a regular Ogre, Primera and I could have handled him easily…"
Chris murmured that. Apparently the two of them had planned to bait Garibar into getting sloppy with his attacks, then have Primera break off to support the three girls. But Garibar's attacks never got sloppy at all — instead, he fought with a stubborn tenacity that kept them pinned down, and they couldn't go reinforce the others.
What was even more surprising, Chris said, was that the sixth member of "Demon Soldiers" turned out to be Marquis Samons. Occasionally the Marquis would call out orders to Garibar, and each time Garibar's attacks would shift and change. The spectators had been shocked too, apparently.
The three girls had been down about their loss for a while, but they told themselves that reaching the finals of the Preliminary was still an excellent result, and outwardly they had returned to their usual selves.
That night, a letter arrived from the tournament headquarters listing the Main Tournament participants. Looking it over, "Dawn Sword," "Demon Soldiers," and "Seigen Tamers A" had all advanced from the Preliminary.
Just the people I knew already made up a quarter of the Main Tournament participants.
I didn't know the names of the other participating teams, but the brief introductions mentioned that the previous champion and runner-up, as well as the runner-up from the tournament before that, were all still in. Teams with real track records. I'd have to stay sharp.
I was confident my team had the strongest combat power, but in terms of experience I was overwhelmingly behind. I had to be careful not to lose to some careless mistake… For now, I'd strengthen the surveillance on Namitarou.
Tomorrow was the Individual Battle Main Tournament, so I'd focus on aiming for the finals first… Ideally I'd want to face the Bandit King in the finals or the first round, but… I knew praying to God was pointless, so I'd skip that and just go to sleep.
I didn't realize it at the time, but apparently being the first to qualify for both the Individual and Team Battle Main Tournaments at the age of fifteen was unprecedented… If I'd known, it might have been interesting to enter as a pair with either Shiromaru or Slarin and set an unheard-of record… When I said that in front of the old folks, a dry laugh echoed through the manor.