Slimo laughed a bit at Lidia’s comment.

"Maybe you’re right."

Slimo studied Lidia’s figure lightly. He couldn’t help but blush slightly. Lidia saw him looking at her and lifted her eyebrow.

"What? Did I tear something on my clothes?"

"S-Sorry. I just dozed off for a moment."

"So, do you have one of these powers as well? I’m sure you probably do if you were able to sneak up on our comrade so easily."

Slimo responded proudly.

"Actually, I never got a Zalo myself. However, I am somewhat of an expert when it comes to avoiding or fighting them one may say."

"An expert? How did you get the practice?"

"Well... sometimes people don’t like the idea of others living by themselves. Especially when you’re an escaped convict like myself!"

Jacob paled slightly.

"Wait, you’re a criminal?!"

"Yup! That’s why I’m glad none of you are from the empire!"

Slimo seemed proud of his criminal record. He smiled brightly while talking and even puffed out his chest.

"What did you do to get in so much trouble?"

"Oh, that? All I did was attack some weird cult follower and the king started freaking out for some reason. But I promise it was all self-defense!"

"A cult follower? What did they try to do to you that made you hurt them?"

"They kept threatening me, saying that if I didn’t help them, I would be treated as a sacrifice during the end times. I was a bit offended by that comment and punched him right in his stupid skull mask."

Jacob’s heart started to tremble.

"Did that mask happen to be a dark black color?"

"It was. However, when I punched him, it felt like there wasn’t even anyone behind the thing. That’s why I’m confused on why I am in so much trouble."

Beads of sweat started to appear across Jacob’s face. This man had successfully attacked one of the creepy skull people who laid siege all across their kingdom and lived to tell the tale.

"What else do you know about them?"

"Well, I know that their leader is apparently really powerful and that normally anyone who messes with them ended up disappearing. But it looks like I’m the sole exception to that!"

Maria leaned on her knees, gathering all the information she was hearing. She finally decided to chime in and talk with the strange man.

"I believe those same kinds of people recently attacked our kingdom’s nobles. Do you have any idea why?"

Slimo scratched his head.

"Nobles? They never attacked anyone as powerful as those kinds of people in the empire before. However, they probably had a good reason to in your case... whatever that may be."

Jacob’s brain started to hurt with all the information he was gathering. There was an entire world beyond the Iron Kingdom that none of them knew about or at least didn’t have enough information to know anything about it. Jacob already knew there was another kingdom laying siege to theirs, but he never thought to look beyond such a small scope of people. Or rather, there was never a need to. Jacob decided he needed to gather as much information as possible if he wanted everyone to survive.

"What kind of world do we live in exactly? I heard you mention something about an empire. Are they strong?"

"Strong? Strong would be an understatement. They could probably lay siege to every kingdom on this continent and take them over effortlessly if they wanted to."

Jacob looked at him confused.

"... Continent?"

Slimo rubbed the back of his head, embarrassingly.

"Man. Do you all really know nothing about what’s going on in this world? We live on a continent, which means we live on a large stretch of land. However, there are other lands just like ours across the ocean. An ocean is a like a large body of water that seems to stretch forever, in case you didn’t know."

Everyone was looking at Slimo in disbelief.

"How many continents are there?"

"There’s three. Each of them has millions of people living on each one. Pretty cool, right?"

Lidia sat up in her sofa, now extremely interested what else this man knew.

"Are there kingdoms on their lands as well?"

"Kingdoms? Maybe not so much. The technology seems to vary from place to place depending on where you go. Not only that, but they like to keep their technological advancements hidden from each other for the most part."

"Why would they do that? Couldn’t they just work together or even profit from such things?"

Slimo started laughing.

"Oh, if only people were so trustworthy. They would abuse the technology the first chance they could if that were the case, in order to gain an advantage over one another."

"What kinds of technology are out there?"

"For that, even I do not know. I’ve never visited those continents myself. However, I always wanted to be a sailor one day and ride across the ocean."

Everyone looked at him dubiously.

"... or maybe not. However, there’s no harm in trying, right?"

"What else do we not know?"

Slimo thought to himself for a moment.

"It’s kind of hard to tell you what you don’t know because I find myself struggling to remember what I even know. It’s just I believe most of these things to be common knowledge, so I’ve never had to tell people things that are obvious to me before."

"I guess that’s fair. I’m a bit curious about these powers though. Is there a universal scale we need to follow for measuring the power of somebody?"

"Actually, there is. We divide them into three realms: Realm of singularity, realm of multiplicity, and the realm of divinity."

Jacob interrupted him before he could continue.

"Uh... we actually know about that already."

"You do? Who taught you that stuff? I find it hard to believe that it’s a coincidence that your kingdom happened to create the same system we have." 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

"An older gentleman told me. He was my teacher growing up and he loved to research the secrets of this world."

Slimo leaned back in his chair.

"I never knew him, but to me it sounds to me like he knew a lot more than he was leading you all on to believe."

Jacob thought back to his professor’s office. There was no telling what secrets he was hiding in the mess of papers. However, he always seemed so honest and never the type of person to hide things from anybody. Jacob suddenly had an idea, which was more of a trust exercise to see if he could really trust the man in front of him. He stood up and walked over the Slimo while lifting up his sleeve.

"Does this mark look familiar to you?"

Slimo looked at Jacob’s arm with a confused expression.

"It’s a lovely arm Jacob, but I believe that’s just some dirt or something."

A smile slowly appeared on Jacob’s face.

"Thank you. I just wanted to make sure we could trust you."

"I understand. Not every day you will meet someone as great as me in the mountains! If you would like, I could lead you all to a small river to wash up. Would anyone be interested?"

No one showed it, but they desperately wanted to bathe after soaking in their own filth for days on end. Lidia was the first to stand up and towered over Slimo, stretching out her chest confidently.

"First things first. You got any food for us?"

Jacob started panicking. He felt that Lidia was pushing her luck with how much Slimo was spoiling them.

"Lidia, we just got here and he’s already given us so much!"

"That’s mom to you. And besides, I’m hungry!"

Slimo stood in between them before the argument continued.

"It’s really okay. I enjoy the nice company. I can make something for everyone."

A wide grin spread across Lidia’s face.

"See? There’s no harm in asking!"

Jacob pouted as people started walking their way over to the dining room table.

"You practically broke into this home. You didn’t even know we were invited."

The only thing more impressive than Slimo’s strength and hospitality was his cooking. He cooked a beef stew for everyone to enjoy. The alluring aroma filled the cabin, causing both Lidia and Maria to drool into their bowls before the food even finished. Jacob even tried closing Maria’s mouth to help her, but the moment his hand stopped supporting her mouth, it would immediately fall back down and allow more saliva to drip out.

’Ugh. I guess it’s not the worst habit in the world to have.’

Slimo happily poured everyone a heaping bowl of stew and allowed them to have as many seconds as they wished. Maria and Lidia seemed to have eaten their way through thirty bowls each before they were satisfied. Jacob and Doc limited themselves to only around three. Slimo himself finished off the entire pot that was left, seemingly putting both Maria and Lidia’s appetite to shame. Lidia looked at him with awe.

"Geez. Where the hell did you put all of it?!"

Slimo let out a loud burp.

"In my stomach. Where else?"

Lidia started laughing and lightly slapped him on the back a few times.

"He’s funny Jacob, can we keep him?"

"Keep him?! We just met him! And he’s his own person, what do you mean keep him?!"

"I mean he can come with us!"

"We don’t even know where we’re going yet! Why would he just randomly decide to join us?!"

"I’m in."

Despite having just met them mere moments ago, Slimo agreed to join their party.

"What? What do you mean you’re in?! We aren’t recruiting!"

Lidia smacked Jacob over the head.

"Welcome aboard Slimo!"

Jacob rubbed his head lightly as he tried to reorient himself.

"What is happening?! Can we at least take a group vote?"

"Sure. All those against Slimo joining the party, raise your hand."

Jacob and Doc raised their hand.

"Okay, all those for Slimo on the team?"

Maria, Lidia, Slimo, and Doc raised their hands.

"Doc?! You already raised your hand! And Slimo, you can’t vote for yourself!"

"Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. What are we voting for again?"

"I can vote for myself if I’m on the team!"

Jacob slapped himself in the face. This was going to be one long journey.