What Do You Do With a Slime That Thinks?
Hans had already shown himself. That was the problem. The moment the water bulged and his voice echoed out of the waterfall, no one had tried to be brave. No speeches. No explosions. No heroic posing. Everyone ran—slipping on wet stone, dragging half-sick Axis followers with them, Aqua yelling incoherently about how this was absolutely not her fault. By the time they reached a safer distance from the hot spring area, the group finally stopped, breathless, soaked, and very aware that they were completely outmatched in the worst possible way.
They regrouped behind a rocky ridge overlooking the valley, far enough that the poisoned steam didn't reach them. Ruko leaned forward with his hands on his knees, breathing steady, eyes closed for a few seconds longer than necessary. His body handled the retreat fine, but his head still buzzed faintly from earlier—like he'd stared too long at something he shouldn't have. He straightened up slowly, rolling his shoulders once.
"That's a Demon General," Kazuma said, stating the obvious with the tone of a man who hated being right. "A slime one. Because of course it is." Megumin nodded grimly. "Hans. I've heard the name in passing. A poison-type monster. Extremely hard to kill without false. And my Explosions don't work well on things that don't stay solid."
Aqua crossed her arms, glaring back toward the waterfall. "He's clearly cheating. Water is my thing. Slimes shouldn't get to hijack about it." Darkness, unusually serious, looked toward the hot springs where more Axis followers were still being evacuated. "If he stays there, the poisoning will continue. And more people will die eventually." That settled the mood fast.
Ruko stayed quiet while they talked, listening instead of leading. He let the panic run its course, the complaints, the anger, the fear. People said more when they thought out loud. His eyes kept drifting back toward the waterfall, replaying what he'd already seen. Hans wasn't aggressive yet. That mattered. A creature like that could've flooded the entire area by now if it wanted to. "He's quite comfortable," Ruko finally said.
Everyone looked at him.
"By starters he's not rushing," he continued calmly. "That means he's somehow confident. He picked this place because it's perfect for him—constant water flow, people who won't suspect poison right away, and a goddess who keeps trying to purify the same source he's living in." Aqua bristled. "Hey—"
"I'm not blaming you," Ruko said evenly. "I'm saying he planned around you. But maybe it's was ever since you came down from above or so I afraid." That shut her up. Kazuma rubbed his face. "Great. So how do you kill something that's basically poison pudding with a brain?" "You don't," Megumin said bluntly. "Not directly." Silence followed. No one liked that answer, but no one argued either.
Ruko crouched down and picked up a flat stone, dragging a line in the dirt as he spoke. "Hans spreads through water. He adapts to attacks. He doesn't like heat, but explosions won't finish him because he'll just separate and reform." He drew branching lines. "If we attack the whole body, we lose. If we attack parts of him, he regenerates." Darkness frowned. "So we can't hit him, and we can't let him stay."
"Which means," Ruko said, tapping the dirt once, "we need to change the environment." Kazuma blinked. "You mean… like terrain control?" "More like chemistry, and a holy purification," Ruko replied. That got Megumin's attention immediately. "You know alchemy?" "I know enough," Ruko said honestly. "Haven't used it in a while." Aqua squinted at him. "Enough to fight a Demon General?"
"No," he said. "Enough to buy us a chance and for you Aqua." He explained it simply—no metaphors, no grand theory. Hans relied on dissolving himself into water. If the water stopped behaving like water, even temporarily, his movement and regeneration would slow. Not purification. Not freezing. Something that interfered with cohesion. Something that made flowing difficult.
Kazuma stared at the dirt diagram. "So… thicken the water?" Ruko nodded. "Or isolate it. Or force a reaction he can't instantly adapt to." Megumin's eyes lit up. "If he can't spread, I can hit the core." Darkness straightened. "And I can keep him focused on me." Aqua hesitated. "And I…?" "You keep the people alive and also keep purify the hot spring in our signal," Ruko said without hesitation. "Don't touch the source until we say so." She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. "…Fine."
The plan wasn't perfect. Everyone knew that. Hans was smart. He'd already noticed Ruko once—noticed him specifically. That part bothered Ruko more than he let on. As the others discussed positioning and timing, he stepped aside, pulling a small pouch from his pack. Old ingredients. Half-used. Stuff he hadn't touched since before Axel felt like a battleground.
His hands moved on their own, steady despite the fatigue creeping in. He didn't activate Insight (change from 1000 IQ) fully—not yet—but he let it hover just beneath the surface, enough to guide his decisions without burning him out. Measurements. Ratios. Reaction timing. His head throbbed once in warning. Don't overdo it. Behind him, Kazuma watched quietly. "You good?" Ruko nodded. "I will be."
Kazuma snorted. "That wasn't reassuring." "I know," Ruko said. "That's why I'm honest."In the distance, the waterfall roared on, unchanged, innocent-looking. Somewhere inside it, Hans waited patiently, confident that faith and panic would do most of his work for him. Ruko tied off the pouch and stood, exhaling once.
They didn't have the power to crush a Demon General head-on. So they'd force him into a mistake. And for the first time since arriving in Arcanretia, the running stopped.