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Kufar closed the distance between us. I was overwhelmingly above in terms of close combat power, but even the mid-distance combat that he specialized in was within the effective range of my threads.

Thus, he had no advantageous distance. This was probably the last resort for him. If he just manages to touch me he would be able to infect me with the illness. Perhaps that was his aim. And that was an attack I had to be vigilant about.

Flying my thread, I aimed at his face. Of course, it would be meaningless even if it did hit him. But being so attached to human form, he ended up tilting his head to dodge it. I expected as much. The thread passed by him, and twined itself around the flowerpot on one of the house frontages.

Then I forcefully pulled it back. The thread got dragged from behind his back, pulling the entwined flowerpot with it and slamming it into his back. He failed to avoid it and the flowerpot impacted him from behind with a strange crashing sound.

It hit his head, he failed to keep maintaining his human shape and it scattered apart. But I was well aware that it wasn’t a fatal wound for him. He quickly regrows back to the previous shape, but I still managed to stop his advance.

“You and your cunning little tricks!”
“Sorry but that’s my selling point.”

Failing to close the distance, Kufar spit those words in irritation and swung his arm. Of course, he wasn’t posing or something, but was scattering his body liquid as a means of attack.

Blending into the night, his mucus flew towards my face, but it was easy to dodge them as long as I knew they were coming. Being wary of smaller splashes, I jumped sideways and avoided everything, and this time, I unreeled one more thread.

I flew it to the window frame on the roof and crashed it down on him. I did not show up from the rooftop just to appear cool. I was there to set up this trap after Baa teleported me close by.

The detached window frame was crisscrossed with threads on the inside. It was easy to imagine what would happen if that fell on a liquid lifeform like him.

The threads, assisted by the height and weight, dug into his body. He was reduced to fragments in a moment, scattering like puzzle pieces on the ground. But he was a mucus, so that did not serve to deal any valid damage. My goal lay elsewhere.

“G-GHAAAAAAAAAAAHHH?!”

Kufar’s scream reverberated through the night alley.

The threads on the window cut his body to pieces, and while that itself did not damage his body, the same could not be said about the core hidden inside.

Given that he was originally a Slime mimicking a human, I could not tell at a glance where his core was. So I decided to instead deal damage to the entire body by running threads in the window frame and dicing his body finely through it.

As a result, though it was not fatal, it seemed to have grazed his core or something, successfully dealing damage.

“F̲u̲c̲k̲, you have nothing but petty tricks…”
“You’re the one saying that?”
“Shut up!”

At the same time as he screamed, I felt faint sounds from behind. It was most likely the mucus he scattered earlier moving into action.

Without looking towards it, I swung the cloak on my back and protected my head. The mantle managed to successfully swipe away his body parts trying to take me by surprise from the back.

Normally, the mantle itself would’ve gotten corroded from his mucus, but this mantle was a special item made by God Hastur.

It was manufactured by spreading and evening out the liquid that was the base of the Mythril threads, giving it a cloth shape. There were no gaps where the mucus could slip through, and it was not corroded either.

In other words, it was an exceptional item that completely blocked his attacks.

“Why wouldn’t it melt?!”
“Did you think I’d fall for the same trick again? I hope you don’t consider me to be as careless as I was before.”

I don’t think I let my guard down the last time. However, I couldn’t deny that somewhere deep down I left an opening. I wasn’t supposed to be some respectable warrior who would try to fight head-on like that.

That opening was taken advantage of and I was dealt a nearly mortal wound during the last battle. Now, during this rematch, I had firmly remonstrated myself for acting like that before.

Ambushes, traps, spreading webs. I kept my true fighting style in mind.

“Though this is not the fighting style I wish to pursue. That said, this is more effective against you, right?”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

Kufar did not stop trying to regenerate his body as he screamed. His core had certainly taken some damage, but it didn’t seem to have hindered his activities just yet. He barely maintained his human form, and tried to chase me on all fours. But I mercilessly made my next move.

I took out a fist-sized bag from my pocket and threw it at him.

Naturally, he flatly swiped it down. Normally you would have dodged it instead, fearing poison or blinding powder, but he was a Slime, a lump of poison, so neither poison nor blinders would work on him.

He probably judged it to be something to just disturb his advance. But that was a mistake. His swipe scattered the bag contents around, scattering it all over his body. That white powder wasn’t poison or anything… for humans, that is.

“KGh…gh…wh..at…is this…”

But for Kufar, it was a deadly poison. His body gave off a seething sound and grew a size smaller. At the same time, his movements turned duller too.

“It’s salt. Salt absorbs liquid, after all.”

Slimes that were lumps of mucus could be said to have similar nature to slugs. The salt absorbed the moisture from his surface, which created a difference in concentration compared to the internal parts, making it hard for him to move properly.

He was currently unable to even make any movements. I could just continue attacking from a distance until his core broke.

“This is the end!”
“S̲h̲i̲t̲, s̲h̲i̲t̲… Damn you, Reid… This isn’t oveeeeer!”

Just as I swung down my arm, Kufar yelled in resentment. Along with his yell, his back snapped open, and another Slime crawled out from within. No, more accurately, he had discarded his outer parts, planning to escape with the core part that could still move freely.

My threads sunk into his outer part and caught up in it. By the time I retracted them and tried to attack once more, there was already a considerable distance between us.

This was also probably due to his non-Slime properties. Normally, he shouldn’t have been so fast.

“You’re not escaping—!”

But I was determined to settle this for sure this time. With those feelings, I chased after him.