The night sealed the forests of Aethelgard with a freezing silence. My trench beneath the leaves was no longer enough to protect me. I could feel my body shivering uncontrollably; every tremor felt like a blade digging into the fresh gash in my side. If I couldn't light a fire, the only thing the dawn would see was my frozen corpse.
But the flints kept slipping through my numb fingers. I didn't have the strength left to strike them fast enough to catch a spark.
That was when I remembered the faint, crimson glow from earlier. The Red Slime. The leaves had been scorched wherever it passed. It wasn't just a creature; it was a walking furnace.
What I wanted was suicide, but I had to try. I crawled out of my hole, my Green Slime huddling in my shadow out of fear. I followed the red shimmer. Soon, I felt a wave of intense heat coming from a hollow beneath a fallen tree. The Red Slime was there, and thin wisps of smoke were rising from the damp wood surrounding it. This creature was so hot it was literally "cooking" its environment.
Just then, a foreign sound echoed from the other side of the woods. The rustle of bushes and the heavy thud of boots.
The Red Slime flinched the moment it heard the noise. It shivered and bolted from its hollow, vanishing into the darkness. It was clear now why it was so afraid of humans; it was prey.
I rushed to the hollow. The slime was gone, but the treasure it left behind was there: a handful of dry twigs and leaves, parched and even glowing at the tips from the slime's body heat. Ignoring the sting as they burned my palm, I snatched them up and scrambled back to my trench.
I piled my own dry grass onto the smoldering twigs I had "stolen" from the slime. I leaned in and blew until my lungs felt like they would burst. Smoke stung my eyes and tore at my throat. But finally... a tiny, miraculous flame flickered to life. As the orange light warmed my face, I felt like I was truly breathing for the first time in days.
Only a few minutes had passed when I saw a metallic glint just beyond the edge of the firelight.
"Finally..." a voice said. It was rough, tired, and completely unfamiliar.
A man stepped out from between the trees. He didn't wear the magnificent armor of Silas; he wore a worn-out leather vest, a rusty dagger at his belt, and carried a net made of thick rope. He was dressed in the typical peasant garb of the Solis Emirate. His eyes were sunken from exhaustion; he had clearly been chasing that Red Slime across the border for days.
"Who the hell are you?" the man asked, staring in shock at me sitting by the fire. His eyes drifted to my blood-stained shirt and the makeshift stone knife by my side. "What are you doing in these woods in this state? And the Red... Did you scare it off?"
I realized his intentions weren't malicious. He was just an ordinary hunter, chasing his livelihood—the hot slimes that fetched a good price in the markets of Solis. But to me, he was the first human I had seen in days. The first ambassador from the vast world beyond the Kingdom's reach.
My Green Slime retreated further into the shadows, away from the firelight. The man's dagger caught the orange glow.
"I'm..." I croaked, my voice cracking. "I'm just trying not to freeze."
The man stepped closer, glanced at my fire, then looked back at me. "I came all the way from Solis for that damn red lump. But you look like you're in worse shape than the slime, kid. Whose runaway are you?"
In that moment, I understood. This man didn't see me as a "traitor." He just saw me as a "living wreck." And perhaps, that was my salvation.