The Reincarnated Extra

Chapter 585: escape from 汚泥 begins

1. escape from 汚泥 begins

* * *

“‘The Blissful Sludge’, Kolmallya…?”

I involuntarily repeated the name of the swamp before me, which Extra-sama told me.

And then, the stench of the sludge entered my mouth, through the small opening I made to mutter.

It’s incredibly foul.

Disgusting.

I desperately suppressed the urge to vomit.

<Yes. The unidentified sludge, said to have ‘fallen’ into this world during its creation… is Kolmallya.>

Unidentified…

<Where it came from, what its purpose is… it’s all a mystery.>

That’s scary.

<Once, a certain god, trying to discover the true nature of Kolmallya, used the divine power of 【Mind Reading】 to probe its mind, but…>

But?

<Immediately after, the god started laughing hysterically, and despite everyone trying to stop him, jumped into Kolmallya, and never resurfaced.>

That reminds me of… the end of Netsuzou, the last of the Three Great Jailers.

That guy also muttered something about ‘happiness’… and then happily dove into the sludge, and died.

<Anyway, because of its nature of endlessly absorbing and spreading, its danger of devouring even gods, and its immortality, where it can revive even from a single drop, the gods recognized Kolmallya as a dangerous Calamity. As I mentioned earlier, they sealed Kolmallya in the center of Forast, the ‘Continent of War’.>

…………

<However, the seal, now maintained by the Sealing God, isn’t perfect. Although its activity is suppressed, and it can’t spread, Kolmallya still remains there, unchanged since the Age of Gods. It’s said that the local residents call it the ‘Swamp of No Return’, and fear it. There’s also no end to the number of people ‘called’ by Kolmallya, who drown themselves in it.>

…………

<…That’s what the Travel God said in his broadcast.>

So it’s just information from a broadcast again…!

<Broadcasts have taught me everything about this world.>

Please stop blindly believing in videos, it’s scary…

“…………”

Anyway, I crossed my arms, and glared outside the cell, thinking that this is troublesome.

At my feet, the sludge, trying to get to me, repeatedly touches the damaging iron bars, gets hit by something like an electric current and is repelled, and beyond the bars, the mud men are beckoning me—Come, come.

I’m inside a cage.

I can’t go even if you invite me.

The fact that it doesn’t understand that… might mean that Kolmallya’s intelligence is very low.

<Although the Three Great Jailers, who are hostile, being dead is a positive factor in terms of escaping from prison…>

The Calamity that easily ate those Three Great Jailers being right in front of me is a negative factor that far outweighs any positives!

AAAAH… Damn it!

Why is something this dangerous here!?

<…Someone must have brought a ‘part’ of Kolmallya into this Great Prison of Delenezo, and released it.>

…A part?

<Kolmallya is sludge. If you scoop it up with a cup and instantly freeze it, you can carry it to another place. What’s before you now… is probably a part of Kolmallya, brought here that way… and grown after swallowing prisoners and guards.>

Someone deliberately brought a Calamity here!?

Who!?

Why!?

<That’s unknown, and irrelevant to you, Emi. Kolmallya is before you. And yet, you have to escape from prison. That’s all that matters. Let’s think of a way to escape.>

Even if you say that…!

Even if you say escape…!

I groaned—Muu, muu—holding my head, unable to come up with any ideas.

I groaned, and groaned…

And after about five minutes!

The situation… changed!

That being said—

It’s not like I came up with a great idea.

It was Kolmallya that moved.

This sludge… until then, it had been repeating the motion of ‘touching the damaging iron bars and being repelled’, but suddenly!

It started wrapping the iron bars… with tentacles made of thin strands of sludge!

BACHI, BACHI!!

BACHI, BACHI, BACHI!!

Lightning runs through the iron bars, burning Kolmallya!

But Kolmallya doesn’t care.

No matter how scorched it gets, it continues to wrap its sludge tentacles around the bars, one after another.

A sickening stench, along with steam, is emanating from Kolmallya…!

Seriously, it stinks!

Stop it!

What are you doing!?

<Emi… This might be bad…! Activate 【Magic Perception】!>

Extra-sama’s panicked voice echoed in my head.

I obediently glared at Kolmallya with 【Magic Perception】.

And then, I saw the flow of mana.

The mana flowing through the iron bars, the one that creates the lightning… eh, it’s flowing into Kolmallya!?

<That sludge is absorbing mana! Soon, these iron bars will lose their magical protection, and become just ordinary bars! If that happens… !>

…Kolmallya will finally be able to reach me!?

While we were having that mental exchange, the situation continued to worsen.

The lightning that was burning Kolmallya gradually weakened…

And finally, a creaking sound came from the iron bars.

I instinctively held my breath.

And then.

“……【Black Sword】!!”

There’s no form or technique to it.

I just unleashed two slashes at the iron bars with all my might.

A horizontal slash from right to left, and then another one slightly below it, from left to right.

The iron bars, having had their power drained by Kolmallya, easily shattered from those two slashes.

…And at the same time!

Kolmallya, like a wave, surged towards me!

“RAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!”

I ran towards the wave of Kolmallya… and jumped over it!

I jumped out of the cell!

But the corridor is already covered in the swamp created by the spreading sludge.

I can’t land there.

So.

“【Silverfish】!!”

I didn’t land on the floor, but stuck to the wall!

And then, I ran across the wall!

In the opposite direction from which Kolmallya came!

<Emi! Where are you planning to escape to… !>

There’s nowhere to escape to, Extra-sama!

You know that!

But even so…

I refuse to give up and throw myself into that stinky swamp!

I… will live!

No matter what!

By any means necessary!

Kolmallya, as if its previous slow movements were a lie, surged towards me like a tsunami, chasing after me, as I ran across the wall with all my might.

With no exit in sight, a game of tag begins, where if you get caught, you die instantly!

* * *

There was a “woman”, watching Emi’s actions, through the lens of a security camera installed in the prison… on a monitor.

“Hmm.”

The woman, putting her hand on her chin, thought for a bit.

And then, she started typing on the keyboard below the monitor… occasionally glancing at a thick book placed beside it.