Morning came without announcement. Arthur woke to pale light filtering through the curtains and found Areal already sitting by the window arranging fresh flowers in a vase. She turned when she heard him stir and offered a smile that seemed determined to chase away yesterday's disaster.
"You look terrible," she said without preamble.
Arthur dragged himself upright, every muscle protesting. "I feel worse."
"Good. That means you're still human." She set down the vase and crossed the room. "Stop wallowing. The orbs were probably defective anyway."
He wanted to believe that. Desperately. But the memory of those swirling colors kept surfacing like debris in floodwater. "What if they weren't?"
"Then you're special in ways nobody understands yet." Areal sat on the edge of his bed, expression serious now. "Either way, hiding in here won't change anything. Breakfast is ready and your father is waiting."
The words hit like cold water. Arthur's stomach dropped. "He probably doesn't want to see me."
"Only one way to find out."
She was relentless when she wanted to be. Arthur forced himself through the morning routine, each step feeling heavier than the last. His reflection in the mirror showed someone who'd aged a decade overnight. He splashed water on his face and tried to arrange his expression into something resembling composure.
The dining room felt too large. Arthur moved through the doorway with his head down, bracing for his father's disappointment or worse, his silence. Instead, Aldor's voice rang out bright and clear from across the table.
"Arthur! You're up! What took you so long, son?"
Arthur's head snapped up. His father sat in his usual chair, not at the distant end like some punishing king, but in his regular spot. No storm clouds on his face. No visible anger. Just Aldor, looking genuinely pleased to see him.
Relief flooded through Arthur's chest so fast it almost hurt. "I was afraid you might be angry with me. I thought I'd come later and eat by myself."
Aldor's expression didn't change. "I'm not angry with you. The orbs must be broken for sure. If they glowed in different colors you should have received a magic related talent like an archmage, so don't worry."
The certainty in his father's voice felt like solid ground after days of drowning. Arthur swallowed hard. "Thanks for believing in me, father. I won't disappoint you."
Aldor smiled, the kind that reached his eyes, and gestured to the empty chair. "Sit."
They ate together, the three of them, with Areal occasionally kicking Arthur under the table whenever he started to sink into his thoughts. The food tasted better than it had any right to. Roasted meat and fresh bread with butter that melted into golden pools. Arthur found himself grateful in ways he couldn't articulate. An understanding father. A friend who refused to let him spiral. Maybe things would be fine after all.
He finished his plate and stood, intending to retreat to his room and process everything properly. Aldor's voice stopped him halfway to the door.
"Son, I'll be going on a hunt with you. Be ready."
Arthur turned, confusion threading through him. A hunt seemed strange timing after yesterday's disaster, but he wasn't about to question his father's decision. "What are we hunting, father?"
"You'll see, son. Don't be so hasty."
"Alright, I understand." Arthur paused. "When is the hunt?"
"After an hour or two, so be ready." Aldor cut another piece of meat. "Also, Alery left."
The words landed wrong. "What!? When? She didn't tell me she was leaving."
She'd probably left disappointed. Disgusted, maybe. Arthur's mind raced through their last interaction, searching for signs he'd missed. Aldor's voice pulled him back.
"She had something to do in her kingdom, so she left. Don't worry, she'll be back soon enough."
Maybe he'd been imagining things. They'd known each other since childhood. One failed ceremony wouldn't destroy years of friendship. Arthur nodded slowly. "I see."
He left the dining room feeling lighter, headed to his quarters to prepare for whatever hunt his father had planned. An hour passed while he gathered his gear and mentally prepared himself. Areal met him at his door when it was time, falling into step beside him as they made their way outside.
The courtyard held more people than expected. Soldiers lined the perimeter, generals stood in formation, and in the middle sat his father's hunting carriage, large and imposing with the family crest emblazoned on its side. Arthur approached it, reaching for the handle to climb aboard.
"What are you doing, you vermin?"
Arthur's hand froze. He turned to find his father staring at him with an expression he'd never seen before. "What do you mean, father?"
"You don't get it, do you?" Aldor's voice carried across the courtyard, loud enough for every soldier to hear. "The hunt is you!"
The words made no sense. Arthur laughed nervously. "What are you saying? I'm no animal."
"You are!" Aldor's face twisted with something between rage and revulsion. "You're a demon incarnate. That's why it glowed in different colors."
Ice flooded Arthur's veins. "No. I'm not. I'm as human as you."
Aldor didn't respond. He simply drew his sword in one fluid motion and swung.
The blade caught Arthur's right arm just below the shoulder. There was a moment of pressure, resistance, then nothing. His arm fell away and blood erupted in a hot spray that painted the ground red. The pain arrived a heartbeat later, white and all-consuming. Arthur stared at the space where his arm had been, at the blood pouring like an opened floodgate, and couldn't process what had happened.
"Run! Run, Master Arthur!"
Areal's voice cut through the shock. Arthur's legs moved on instinct, carrying him away from his father, from the soldiers, from everything he'd known. Behind him he heard another swing, heard Areal scream, then nothing. He didn't look back. Couldn't look back. If he did he'd stop running and stopping meant dying.
Swords whistled through the air around him. A lance buried itself in the ground two feet away. Arrows flew past his head so close he felt the displacement of air. Arthur ran toward the forest line, vision narrowing to tunnel focus, every step agony as blood loss weakened his legs.
"Kill him at any cost! He's a stain on my bloodline and a demon incarnate!"
His father's voice. Still his father's voice. Arthur crashed into the treeline and the magical forest swallowed him whole. Two arrows punched into his legs almost simultaneously, one through each thigh. He went down hard, face striking dirt and roots. His left arm clawed at the ground, dragging his useless body forward inch by inch.
The chasm opened without warning. Arthur fell, tumbling down earth and stone until he hit bottom in a small hollow space. Above him, footsteps pounded past. Leaves rustled. Voices shouted orders. He pressed himself against the rock wall, into a blind spot where the overhang created shadow, and tried to breathe quietly despite the screaming pain.
His right arm was gone. The stump had stopped bleeding as much but he needed to apply pressure, needed to do something. Arthur fumbled with his remaining hand, trying to grip the wound, when movement in the darkness made him freeze.
A slime. Just a small green slime, barely bigger than his fist, sitting there in the corner of the chasm like it had been waiting. Arthur stared at it. Not a fearsome beast. Not a threat. Just a harmless creature probably stuck down here like him.
He reached out with his left hand and touched its surface, feeling oddly sorry for the thing.
Light exploded across his vision. Not external light but something internal, words forming in his mind's eye sharp and undeniable.
[Talent Updated: Slime God]
[Bond with Healing Slime? Yes / No]
Arthur wanted to laugh or scream or both.
After everything, after the humiliation and the betrayal and the hunt, his talent was this. Slimes. The weakest creatures in any dungeon. The things adventurers killed for pocket change. That's why the orbs glowed in different colors. Not because he was powerful. Because he was cursed with something so utterly useless that even the testing ceremony couldn't categorize it properly.
But the slime pulsed against his palm and Arthur looked at his missing arm and the arrows in his legs and made the only choice that mattered. Survival first. Questions later.
He selected yes.
The slime flowed up his arm and attached itself to the stump. Arthur watched, transfixed, as bone began growing from nothing. White calcium structures forming in empty space, knitting together with impossible precision. Then tissue, red and wet and vital. Blood vessels threading through muscle. Skin sliding over everything like a glove until his arm existed again, whole and functional as if it had never been severed.
Arthur flexed his restored fingers and felt tears burning his eyes. Not useless. Misunderstood. The power to heal anything, to reverse death itself, and they'd called him demon spawn for it.
A message appeared: [With Slime God talent, user can unleash the full ancestral hidden power of any slime under bond.]
Hidden power. Ancestral potential. Arthur's mind raced through implications while his body still shook with shock. He wasn't weak. He'd been given something strange enough that even the testing orbs couldn't identify it. And his father had tried to kill him for it.
The pain in his chest had nothing to do with physical wounds. Aldor had smiled at breakfast. Had called him son. Had planned Arthur's execution while pretending everything was fine. That betrayal cut deeper than any blade.
Arthur closed his eyes and felt something cold settle into the hollow space where trust used to live. Fine. If they wanted to hunt him, if they wanted to call him demon, he'd show them what a real demon looked like. He'd get stronger. He'd master whatever power this talent offered. And then he'd return.
Not as Arthur, the disappointing son. As something else entirely. Something that would make them regret every arrow, every insult, every moment they'd made him doubt his worth.
Starting with Aldor. Then the soldiers. Then anyone who'd stood by and watched him suffer and have seen Areal dying being beheaded.
But first he needed to survive this forest and find somewhere safe to grow strong enough to make good on that promise. Arthur pulled the arrows from his legs and watched the slime heal those wounds too. Then he sat in the darkness of the chasm, planning his next move with the patience of someone who had nothing left to lose and everything to prove.