The first day, I told Veldora about myself.
Not the real version — not the transmigrated author, not the reborn human, not the man who had written fanfiction about this very dragon on an internet forum in a world that no longer existed.
I told him a version.
A story.
A lonely being, reborn in a cave, seeking purpose and connection.
He listened.
The great golden eyes watched me through the ice, and he listened, and when I was finished, he was quiet for a long time.
“You are a strange creature,” he said finally.
“I get that a lot.”
The second day, Veldora told me about himself.
About the world before his sealing, about the wars and the empires and the heroes who had risen to challenge him.
He spoke with a grandiosity that bordered on theatrical, each word delivered with the gravity of an epic saga, and I listened, and I thought: ‘He is lonely.
He has been alone for three hundred years, and before that he was feared and fought and sealed, and before that he was alone in a different way, alone at the top of a power hierarchy that left no room for equals.’
He needed a friend.
He had always needed a friend.
The third day, I brought him stories.
Not from this world — from mine.
From Earth.
I told him about oceans and mountains and cities built of glass and steel.
I told him about music and books and the way rain sounded on a tin roof.
I told him about things he had never seen, would never see, things that existed only in the memory of a man who was now a slime.
He was captivated.
He asked questions — hundreds of questions, each one leading to another, each answer spawning a dozen new curiosities.
His eyes, those vast golden eyes, lit up with an intelligence and a hunger for knowledge that I recognized, because I had written about it, because I had described this exact trait in my fanfiction.
On the fourth day, Veldora said something that surprised me.
“You sleep within that woman.”
It was not a question.
He had noticed.
Of course he had noticed — he was a True Dragon, his perception extended through the entire cavern, and he had been watching me every night as I crawled back to See’s unconscious body, climbed between her thighs, and settled myself inside her.
It was not sexual.
Not exactly.
It was — warmth.
The warmth of a living body, the softness of internal tissue, the steady rhythm of a heartbeat transmitted through fluid.
I was a slime.
I had no insulation, no internal temperature regulation.
The cavern was cold.
See’s body was warm.
It was practical.
It was survival.
At least, that was what I told myself.
“She is dying,” I explained to Veldora, pressing against the ice.
“I must maintain proximity to administer healing compounds.
Her body is the only suitable environment for sustained treatment.”
This was a lie.
A partial lie, at least.
See’s condition was stable — the healing I had done was holding, the dissolution halted, her body slowly repairing itself.
I did not need to be inside her to keep her alive.
But the warmth — the softness — the wet, yielding walls of her insides, contracting gently around my form in her unconscious state, the steady pulse of her heartbeat transmitted through every molecule of my body —
It felt good.
It felt safe.
It felt like the closest thing to a bed I was going to get in this cave.
“When the body weakens,” I continued, “I exit and administer additional treatment.
When she stabilizes, I return.
It is a cycle.
The womb is the cradle of life, Veldora.
All living things come from within.
You — did you not come from an egg, from within a mother’s body?
Is the womb not the first home of all creatures?”
Veldora was quiet.
Then, slowly, a sound came from behind the ice — a low, rumbling chuckle that shook the cavern.
“You speak like a priest,” he said.
“A philosopher.
A strange slime indeed.” A pause.
“But you are not wrong.
All life begins within.
Even mine.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Indeed,” he said, more softly.
“Indeed, you are right.
I had not considered it in those terms.”
I felt a warmth that had nothing to do with See’s body.
A warmth of connection, of understanding, of two lonely beings finding common ground across a barrier of ice and magic and three centuries of isolation.
On the fifth day, Veldora said:
“You are my friend.”
The words were simple.
They were the simplest words in any language, and they carried the weight of three hundred years of solitude.
“I know,” I said.
“And you’re mine.”
On the sixth day, I asked the question.
“Veldora — I want to get you out of here.
I want to take you outside.
You’ve been in this cave for three hundred years.
Don’t you want to see the sky again?”
The golden eyes dimmed.
“I cannot.
The seal — even with the first layer broken, the remaining two seals are beyond my ability to shatter from within.
They were placed by a Hero, a being of immense power.
I cannot break them.”
I was quiet for a moment.
Then:
“What if I eat them?”
“…What?”
“What if I eat the seals?
I can dissolve matter.
I can absorb and break down organic and magical compounds.
What if I eat through the ice, layer by layer, and when I find an opening, I pull you out?”
Veldora stared at me.
The golden eyes widened — a fraction, a minute shift in an expression that spanned the entire wall, but I caught it.
“You — you would do that?
You would attempt to consume the Hero’s seal?”
“If it means getting you out, yeah.”
Another silence.
Then Veldora laughed — a full, booming, resonant laugh that shook stalactites from the ceiling and sent crystal fragments raining down like hail.
“You are mad.
You are an utterly mad slime.” The laughter continued, rolling through the cavern like thunder.
“But — yes.
Yes, that makes sense.
If your ability can break down the seal’s magical structure, it may be possible.
It may actually work.”
He lowered his head — the vast, scaled head, lowering until one enormous eye was pressed against the ice, looking directly at me, seeing me, a tiny blue slime on a stone floor, as clearly as I saw him.
“You are my true friend,” Veldora said.
“The first I have had in three hundred years.”
I pressed myself against the ice.
My body — small, round, insignificant — touched the surface, and on the other side, Veldora pressed one claw against the barrier.
He finally said, “I will call you Rimuru Tempest from now on, my dear friend.”
Ding!
「 Evolution of monster biology due to the name given by a higher being initiated.」
Finger to finger.
Claw to slime.
A gesture so small it was almost invisible, two beings touching across a wall of ice that had stood for three centuries.
I laughed internally.
‘This is the moment.
This is where I eat the seal and free the dragon and become the hero of this story.’
I expanded.
I stretched my body, flattening against the ice, spreading my surface area to maximize contact.
I activated Dissolution, pushing the ability to its maximum, trying to break down the magical structure of the seal, trying to eat through the ice.
「Warning: The target entity exceeds Host’s current capacity.
The seal’s magical structure is bound to a being whose level significantly exceeds Host’s.
Dissolution cannot proceed.
The entity cannot be consumed.」
I stopped.
Retracted.
Pulled myself back into my default shape — a quivering, defeated dinner-plate of blue jelly.
I laughed.
Not internally this time — out loud, a vibration that echoed through the cavern.
“I wasn’t actually going to do that,” I said.
“Just checking.”
Veldora chuckled.
“Of course.
A wise approach — test before you commit.”
Yeah.
Right.
That was totally what I was doing.
I bounced — or rather, rolled — back toward See.
The sedative was wearing off.
Her breathing had changed, growing deeper, more regular, the pattern of a body approaching consciousness.
I checked the timeline.
「Subject approaching consciousness.
Estimated time: 6 hours.」
I administered another dose.
「Sedative administered.
Estimated time until consciousness returns: 4 days.」
I administered another.
「Sedative administered.
Total sedation period approaching maximum safe duration.
Recommend allowing consciousness within 48 hours.」
I stopped.
Fine.
Two more days.
Two more days of peace before I had to deal with an angry, naked cultist or cuntist….