I'm the Only One With a Different Genre - Chapter 181

Chapter 181

A Long Journey to Find a New Body!

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“Hyaaaack…!”

Lian screamed like a ghost being exorcised, but the Demon King didn’t seem to care. His voice was so cute that it felt more like a display of affection. The Demon King, holding the squishy slime comfortably in her arms, lay sideways on an antique sofa.

Black hair spilled over the velvet-covered luxurious sofa like a painting. The Demon King poked Lian’s body with her index finger, a smile lingering on her lips.

“Are you not going to tell me why you’re rolling around?”

It had been about a month since Lian had returned after saving Iris and Noah. Since they had stuck so close together for such a long time, at some point, the Demon King had started speaking informally to him. And ever since they had become more comfortable with their conversations, the Demon King’s skinship had become even more uninhibited.

It was as if the distance between them had suddenly disappeared, like a wild animal allowing a human to approach. It was better than watching him harm himself out of depression, so Lian just stayed still, letting her poke and prod as she pleased.

They say you should correct a child’s habits early…

The Demon King, who had been testing the boundaries little by little, suddenly sparkled with excitement and embraced Lian tightly, refusing to let go. At first, thoughts like, “But I have someone I belong to!” came to mind, but it wasn’t long before he gave in and went limp.

Although he had confessed to Noah, it wasn’t really a proper confession, and he hadn’t even heard her reply. Sure, he had dreamt of marrying her, so one could say she had accepted him, but…

Noah had clearly called Lian a “fake” when they first met. That meant she considered their sweet, married life in the dream to be “fake” as well.

It wasn’t strange for her to call it fake since it was just a dream. But still— it felt like she was denying their married life, and that made it hard for Lian to confidently say that Noah liked him.

…Honestly, at this point, it would be stranger if he didn’t know, but Lian had the purity of a person certified by a unicorn. While he might know how to survive in a gag world, his experience with romance was almost zero, leading him to fumble around as if swallowing three sweet potatoes without water.

That was one of the reasons why Lian couldn’t easily push the Demon King away.

But that wasn’t the only reason. The more the Demon King’s mental state stabilized, the more her obsession with Lian grew. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say she was addicted to him.

She didn’t want to be apart from him for even a moment, and when they were separated for too long, she would hold him in her arms just like this and refuse to let go. After about a month, Lian had gotten used to being held, but still…

“Nom, nom, nom…”

“Hyaak!”

Just like how pet owners sniff their dog’s paws or bury their face in their cat’s belly, the Demon King buried her face in Lian’s body, nibbling at him without distinguishing between top or bottom.

She didn’t bite him hard like chewing on jelly, but playfully nibbled and sucked on him.

“Stop, stop! I’m a grown man inside, you know!?”

Unable to endure the affectionate nibbles anymore, Lian finally revealed that inside the slime body was a fully grown man.

No matter how harmless his appearance was or how cute his voice sounded, if he told her there was a mysterious, dark man inside, normally— normally, people would feel repulsed, right?!

“Yeah, I’ll do it even when you return to your original body.”

“That’s not the point… Aaaack!”

The Demon King wasn’t interested in Lian because he was a slime, so she didn’t care. She continued marking her territory on his squishy body. Since his body was so soft, all it did was get covered in her noble saliva, which made her pout in frustration.

Once again, Lian, who had been tormented by the Demon King, was left pale as if he had endured a fierce battle.

“I… survived…”

In the beginning, he had almost lost his physical form after spewing out the slime’s liquid like a nosebleed. The experience of having most of his soul leave his body and then return was anything but pleasant.

‘Although I did gain some valuable information from that experience… Ugh…’

Through the experience of leaving and returning to his slime body, Lian had learned how to “possess.” Now, he could steal other bodies even if they weren’t slime.

So, why hadn’t he returned to his original body and was still in his slime form? The reason wasn’t complicated.

Ever since he had returned from the long journey to help Iris and Noah, the thread connecting him to his original body had stretched considerably. It had become so long, almost as long as the distance between the Empire and the Demon King’s land— perhaps even longer— that no matter how far away he was, he could no longer be summoned back to his original body.

Because of that, he had realized it too late.

‘I didn’t think they’d take it to the battlefield.’

At some point, his body, which had been subjected to various unknown “treatments,” had disappeared from the Demon King’s castle. After squeezing his squishy body into every nook and cranny, he finally found out where it had gone.

It had been dragged to the Empire’s border, where the Empire and the Demon King’s army were clashing fiercely— the battlefield.

When he first learned of this, he was so shocked that he nearly abandoned his slime body and flew to the battlefield immediately.

As if waiting for that moment, a fortune teller appeared from the shadows and spoke to Lian.

“Hoh-hoh… Please wait a moment.”

“…! Perfect timing! Send me back to the Empire like last time!”

Flying there himself would take days, and he could get lost along the way. More importantly, the number of demons, monsters, and corrupted humans participating in the war exceeded tens of thousands. Finding his body among them would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

That’s why the sudden appearance of the fortune teller seemed like a godsend.

“Unfortunately, that won’t be possible. I lack the materials necessary for the ritual… and they’re things that can’t be obtained easily.”

Lian, who had something like a four-dimensional pouch, said he could pull out anything, but the old woman just shook her head slightly and replied.

“The biggest problem is that even if you fly near your body, you won’t be able to stop it. My spell only works on the premise that your soul returns to its original place. Even if you reclaim your body, you’ll eventually be pulled back here. You could try flying there yourself, but the chances of being devoured by evil spirits along the way are high, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“No way…”

“But don’t worry.”

The old woman chuckled again and lightly tapped the ground with what appeared to be a 1.2-meter-long wizard’s staff.

“I can at least extinguish the immediate fire, so trust me.”

Speaking in a soft tone, the old woman cast a bright spell. A holy light, completely out of place in the Demon King’s castle, passed through the ceiling and disappeared in an instant. The old woman, noticing the slightly hardened slime, explained in a calm voice.

“I’ve placed a blessing on your body, which is out on the battlefield. It’s the blessing of a noble knight who only punishes the guilty.”

Lian, with a doubtful heart, asked if those who had committed crimes due to the harsh environment around them would be included. The old woman shook her head and replied.

“The ‘guilty’ are those who feel no shame for their sins, who feel no guilt. They take pleasure in others’ pain, and their souls are so stained that they emit a foul stench. So, you need not worry.”

With those words, Lian was able to breathe a sigh of relief.

If someone with a fragile mentality had heard that, they might have fallen into despair, thinking, ‘Even if they’re guilty, I killed them with my own hands…’ But Lian, who came from a gag world where even if his head was chopped off, he could pick it up and head home, felt no such shock.

He was only grateful to the old woman for helping him protect the people precious to him.

After that, rumors spread that Lian’s body was rampaging on the battlefield and that it had a twisted sense of humor, sparing some humans.

‘I only spared those who weren’t guilty!’

Thanks to the blessing, those who were innocent were not attacked by Lian’s body. The problem was that this world was a “dark fantasy.”

Human trafficking was commonplace, and some corrupt nobles even dined on human flesh as a delicacy. There were villages that used slaves as disposable tools and burned them for fuel, and farms where humans were raised like livestock, only to have their life force harvested when they turned ten.

The dark fantasy world, viewed without a gag filter, was nothing but sin. The strong committed sins so easily, and the weak, too, sinned without hesitation, claiming it was inevitable.

Those who were truly good often met an early death in this cruel reality. As a result, it was hard to find anyone among the humans on the battlefield who wasn’t guilty. The only place where the proportion of innocent people was higher was the frontlines.

Since it was the place where the most people died, the proportion of guilty individuals who only cared about their own lives was significantly lower. Naive young men, with their loved ones held hostage, gritted their teeth and fought to protect the world, but Lian’s body easily passed them by, cutting down the ones grinning wickedly from behind like a harvest.

Lian’s body, which sought out and cut down only the guilty, was the very image of a true knight… but no one thanked him for it.

There was no one in either the Demon King’s land or the Empire’s army who could see the stain of sin on a person’s soul.

Both the Demon King’s forces and the Empire’s army interpreted it as, “I don’t want to fight weak opponents,” or, “It’s more fun to let the weak ones run around and kill them one by one. If you don’t want to die like the ones behind me, entertain me!”

Either interpretation was equally brutal.

‘Thankfully, my face is hidden by a helmet, so I don’t think they’ve figured out who I am yet… But it’s only a matter of time. Even the Duke and Noah have come to the battlefield.’

Lian wobbled his squishy body, steeling his resolve.

‘I need to find a body that matches my soul as quickly as possible and get out of here!’

Just as he hardened his squishy body a bit more than usual and was brimming with determination, the presence he had forgotten about approached and bit him.

“Hyaak!?”

“…What are you thinking about while I’m right here?”

The Demon King narrowed her eyes and gazed down at Lian. His body trembled slightly, as if his escape plan had been discovered.

End of Chapter