"Who?" the slime suddenly turned around, its googly eyes staring at Ning.
"What's… going on?" Ning looked at the two, not sure whether to be angry or confused.
"Teacher? Teacher!" the princess shouted the moment she saw Ning. "Teacher, look, look. I ranked up."
"Huh?" Ning turned to the princess and checked her rank. As he did, his eyes narrowed in surprise. "Rank 3? How?"
"Slimy gave me spiritual energy," the princess said.
"Don't call me slimy. I told you to call me master," the slime said.
"No! You're slimy," the princess said and started laughing on her own.
Ning couldn't process the situation at the moment, so he instead went up to the princess and checked whether something was wrong with her or not.
She was mostly fine, aside from being dirty from playing on the ground. Although, now that Ning properly did check the floor, it was mostly hard-wood that he was standing on. That didn't seem like a place one could get so dirty.
"What's this black smudge on your face?" Ning asked as he wiped some black soot-like substance from her face.
"Huh?" the princess turned to look at Ning's finger. "Oh, it was probably that time I went into that hole."
"That hole? What hole?" Ning asked.
"Hey? Have I seen you before?" the slime suddenly spoke, grabbing Ning's attention.
Ning turned around to pay attention to the slime finally. It was a blob of… slime with a blue core floating in the middle, and everything else like its arm and eyes was a caricature formed by the same slime body.
It was about half a meter at the base and reduced to about a quarter by the time it reached the top, which was also about half a meter tall.
"What are you staring at? Is this how you look at your master?" the slime suddenly started shouting.
"What?" Ning looked confused. Was there a reason why the slime thought it was his master?
"Hey! Don't call yourself a master. Your name is slimy," the princess said.
The slime couldn't help but groan when he heard that. Ning could understand what that was. Slimy wasn't the best of words to call someone by.
"Was this the beast that summoned you here?" Ning asked the princess.
"Yes! Slimy said that if I helped him get things from the holes, he would help me rank up, so I came," she said.
Ning stared at the slime up and down. He could tell that this was a rather intelligent beast. If he wasn't wrong, this beast most likely even had a soul in it.
He wanted to check how strong a beast with a soul was. So, he then used up his analysis and his eyes went wide at the very first second.
"Rank 9? What the hell?" he exclaimed in surprise. He had never even thought of such a high-rank beast existing and it was this random slime he found on this planet.
Granted it might have some soul and intelligence, but that hadn't helped the people of Nulwurn from getting stronger at all. So what the hell was going on here?
"How do you know my Rank?" the slime asked with a weird look in its eyes as if it were emulating confusion and suspicion. "Rank 8? I have never summoned a human this strong before. I would have remembered."
The slime's voice got colder. "Who are you? And why are you here?" the slime asked.
"I am this little girl's teacher. I am here to get her back. You tell me why you summoned her in the first place?" Ning asked, his voice equally cold as well.
"What? You came here to save her?" the slime looked confused. "How do you know this girl I just created?"
Ning was taken aback. "Created? What do you mean? You summoned her," he said.
"Yeah, I did. That's how I created her. How do you know her? That's what I'm asking," the slime said.
Ning couldn't understand if the slime was trying to make fun of him or not. "Do you know what summoning is?" he asked.
He chose to assume that the beast was oblivious about what summoning was.
"Of course I do. When I need something, I call for someone to help me. When I do that, they are created to help me," the slime said.
"No!" Ning said. "No one is created to help you. They are summoned to help you from elsewhere."
The slime looked at Ning, not believing him at all. "That's a lie for sure," the slime said. "After all, I've gone around the world and there is not a single human out there. How do you explain all the humans in here came from?" the slime asked.
"From the other planet where the human live," Ning said. "It's a planet that is directly opposite to the sun on the other side of it. This planet and that planet had the same distance and speed in relation to the sun, so you never end up seeing each other."
The slime looked at him dumbly. "No way, is there really a planet out there with humans?" the slime asked.
"Yes, now unsummon her right now," Ning said.
The slime looked towards the princess but didn't unsummon her immediately. It wanted to learn more.
"What about all these people I've summoned to help me outside? Are they from that planet too?" the slime asked.
"Yes, absolutely," Ning said. Just then a thought came to him that he hadn't thought for a while now, but seemed to ominously fit together.
"When did you start summoning these humans?" Ning asked.
The slime thought for a bit. "About 2 years ago or something like that," it said. "That was around the time I started to think of settling down."
"And how many have you summoned until now?" Ning asked.
The slime thought for a bit and said, "1342 humans."
"I thought so," Ning thought as he sighed. He was starting to realize the answer behind the mystery that had been there since he had come to Nulwurn.
He had realized the answer to the quest. He had found the missing people that were vanishing from all around the world.
