“Yuji. I would like for you to monitor the monsters.”

“Monitor?”

“Aye. You are a rare B-rank Scout. And while you are still a newcomer, you should still be much more capable than the average Adventurer when it comes to watching the movements of monsters.”

Monitoring monsters.

Well, it did seem like it would be easy enough if I just randomly sent some slimes out to watch their movements.

But…

“That’s all you want me to do?”

That was just one of many things that my slimes were capable of doing.

If that was all I had to do, I would probably get bored.

“All? You do realize that it won’t be like watching your tent during the test? In fact, you will be monitoring groups of monsters whose movements are unpredictable.”

“But I’ll just be monitoring a group while hiding and waiting for one of them to move, right? So that just means I need to scatter my slimes around and it’s finished?”

So saying, I made my slimes separate from each other.

I had about eighty of them when I first came to this town, but thanks to the Dryad’s forest, I now had one hundred.

“What…how do you have so many?”

“Uh…they’re just about one hundred.”

“You really tamed all of them?”

“Yeah.”

Though, I kind of hoped that news of this wouldn’t spread too much… But this was an emergency.

It would be the worst if hiding my powers resulted in more casualties.

“We-well, you are right about the numbers… However, that won’t mean much if they can’t contact you!”

“But I can contact my tamed monsters from far away?”

The manager heard this and tilted his head doubtfully.

“Well, there are some Tamers who can talk to monsters, yes, but I am sure it is quite impossible to talk to them over a long distance…”

Really?

…Now I was getting worried.

I would test it then.

‘Team Dryad. Can you hear me?’

‘What is it?’

‘Uh, nothing. I just wanted to test to see if I could really talk to you.’

‘Okay!’

I tried talking to the slimes that I had left with the Dryad, and they replied very quickly.

So it did work after all.

“It seems like I really can talk to them from far away.”

“…But, I don’t even think B-rank Scouts should be able to… In any case, you are saying that with this, you can monitor a wide area by yourself?”

“Yeah. And—wait a second.”

As we were talking, a slime suddenly contacted me.

‘Yuji. Do you know about the magic stone?’

‘Magic stone?’

‘Yes. Like the one you destroyed. There was another one in a different place.’

‘The Dryad said so!’

‘She said she is fine because it’s out of her domain. But it’s dangerous!’

In that case, perhaps…

‘Do you think that has anything to do with the monster outbreak?’

‘Hmm. I don’t know!’

‘The Dryad said that monsters might come out!’

…I see. So there was a possibility.

I would have to tell the Manager about all of this.

But maybe not about the Dryad. I would feel bad for her if people targeted her to get more of the flowers.

“I was just talking to a slime that is stationed far away. I think I might know the reason for this outbreak.”

“The reason?”

“Yeah. When I went to pick these flowers, there was this cursed magic stone nearby. And when I destroyed it…monsters started coming out. According to monsters that were close by at that time, the stone was put there by humans.”

“A cursed magic stone!? …Are you sure!?”

…His reaction was stronger than I was expecting.

Perhaps he knew something about it.

“Do you know where it might have come from?”

“No, I don’t… But Yuji, as lacking in common knowledge as you are, surely you have heard the story of the Kingdom of Eigia?”

“Kingdom of Eigia?”

No, hadn’t heard of it at all.

“…You really don’t know?”

“Yeah.”

Was it really that famous?

Well, it wasn’t as if I was raised in this world. So of course, I wouldn’t know.

“Long ago, the Kingdom of Eigia was destroyed by a cursed magic stone. Though, we don’t know if the magic stone was the real reason… But what is true, is that a magic stone had suddenly appeared and that the great kingdom declined and fell in only three years.”

I see. Well, that was a story.

However, the magic stone I had seen didn’t seem like it could destroy a great kingdom in three years.

It was probably a different one… Well, I should at least ask about its distinct features.

“…By the way, this magic stone that destroyed a kingdom. What did it look like?”

“We only have a little information that reached the guild before the kingdom fell. …But it was black in color and did not shine. It destroyed anything it touched, so that it could not be moved or broken. Humans would die. Also…all vegetation would wilt as well. But we don’t know how that led to the fall of the kingdom.”

…d.a.m.n it.

It was practically a perfect match.