The Cannon Fodder Real Young Master is a Slime?! - Chapter 13

Xiao Jia was just a perfectly ordinary junior student at C University’s School of Journalism.

He had ordinary looks, ordinary grades, and an equally ordinary, uninteresting personality.

But Xiao Jia didn’t want to change anything either. He had managed to get into a good university, and his parents lived a smooth, happy, and healthy life. For him, that was already enough. It was certainly better than those wealthy heirs at their school who caused a never-ending ruckus every single day.

His life as a junior remained highly disciplined: attending classes, eating, sleeping, and going downtown to intern for a few days whenever he didn’t have classes.

Today was no different, with the sole exception being that he had to work overtime at his internship. By the time he headed back to school, it was already midnight.

Even the shops along the food street had shut down, with only two or three stalls left sparsely illuminated.

Amidst the silence and darkness, Xiao Jia tightened his grip on his backpack straps, his nerves growing taut. The tense atmosphere exerted a powerful psychological suggestion on him, and he couldn’t help but recall the ghost stories he had read on Xiaohongshu.

Rustle, rustle!

A sudden rustling of leaves startled Xiao Jia, causing him to shudder. He snapped his head up to look. It appeared to be a passing bird flapping its wings as it took flight, causing the leaves to sway.

Xiao Jia let out a sigh of relief. Honestly, why did he always scare himself like this?

“Huh? What is this?”

Suddenly, tiny, glowing spots appeared before his eyes, drifting down like fireflies. Xiao Jia reached out his hand to catch them, but the moment a spot touched his hand, it vanished completely, as if it were nothing more than a trick of his imagination.

Seeing that these tiny spots didn’t seem to cause any side effects, Xiao Jia speculated that they might be leftover debris from a shop promotion that hadn’t been cleaned up properly. He paid them no further attention and continued to walk forward with his head down.

It was so quiet.

Xiao Jia walked a few more steps, unable to stop his mind from wandering. Was their food street usually this quiet?

Moreover, was the food street really this long? How could he have walked for so long without reaching the school gate?

A drop of sweat rolled down his temple. Xiao Jia abruptly froze in his tracks, staring ahead in sheer terror.

Amidst the faint mist that had gathered during the night, there seemed to be someone walking ahead of him!

If it were just that, Xiao Jia wouldn’t have been so terrified. However, after tentatively walking a bit further, he realized that the silhouette maintained a fixed distance from him neither too close nor too far.

When he slowed his pace, the figure slowed down too.

When he sped up, the figure sped up as well.

It consistently maintained the exact same distance from him!

What kind of thing was this?! Was it even human?

Xiao Jia was too terrified to move his legs. Yet, the moment he stood completely still, that figure also stopped and remained absolutely motionless.

“Caw, caw!”

A bizarre bird cry shattered the deathly silence. Xiao Jia instinctively looked up, only to find a massive black bird swooping down toward him. Its target seemed to be pinpointed precisely on his eyes!

Furthermore, given the rapidly closing distance, it was absolutely impossible for Xiao Jia to dodge it in such a short amount of time!

Perhaps at a time like this, fainting would be the absolute best outcome.

An urge to pass out welled up in his heart. Shaking violently, Xiao Jia stared at the rapidly approaching monstrous bird. He gripped his backpack straps with a death grip, his mind completely blank except for a single thought…

My life is forfeit!!

In such a moment of dire peril, Xiao Jia suddenly heard a crisp, clear voice slicing through the creature’s eerie shrieks:

“Heave-ho.”

A hand reached out from right in front of Xiao Jia’s eyes. With a speed imperceptible to the naked eye, it swiftly snatched the monstrous bird, which had been flying at an incredibly high speed.

Xiao Jia froze in a daze. He stared blankly as the other person landed effortlessly on the ground, pinning down the still-struggling bird.

Uh, they seemed to have climbed over our school wall just now…?

The person wore a baseball cap. While pinning down the monstrous bird, he didn’t forget to tug the cap lower to obscure his face, leaving Xiao Jia able to see only a beautifully contoured jawline and the hand pressing down on the creature well-proportioned, slender, and fair.

Perhaps beneath that baseball cap lay a face that was exceptionally attractive.

The young man stood up, hoisting the monstrous bird by its neck as effortlessly as if he were holding a chicken. He concealed the frantically struggling, loudly cawing bird behind his back. A few seconds later, Xiao Jia could no longer hear the loud cawing.

“Hey classmate, are you okay?”

The young man’s voice was bright and cheerful, instantly dispelling the gloomy atmosphere. Yet, for some reason, Xiao Jia felt that this voice sounded somewhat familiar.

He might have heard it somewhere before.

Xiao Jia stared at the young man’s face, which was half-hidden by the baseball cap, and remained silent.

Perhaps he was simply too stunned to speak.

Feeling a bit puzzled, the young man waved his hand in front of Xiao Jia’s face. “Hello? Hi?”

Receiving no response, the young man muttered, “Scared silly?”

The black furball resting on his shoulder chimed in with a voice that Xiao Jia absolutely could not hear: “He is definitely captivated by your magnificent prowess in capturing the Shroom-Crow, My Lord!”

This enthusiastic citizen who had come out at midnight to hunt Shroom-Crows was, naturally, Shi Yunmu.

The black furball on his shoulder was, of course, the Dust Demon itself.

As his currently sole and exclusive lackey, Xiao Wei had naturally been brought along for the ride, hoping to be generously rewarded with a few scraps of meat.

Because C University enforced lights-out and a curfew at night, Shi Yunmu could only avoid the surveillance cameras by scaling the wall.

Climbing walls was an absolute breeze for a Slime. He just hadn’t expected that the moment he climbed out, he would run right into a Shroom-Crow out on a hunt.

It was true that he had lost his mana, but his physical agility was still objectively present. The Shroom-Crow’s hunting relied primarily on sudden ambushes, making its frontal defense rather poor, which was why the Slime had managed to succeed so easily.

Not wanting to listen to the Shroom-Crow’s loud cawing, Shi Yunmu went as far as splitting a tentacle from his arm to muffle the creature’s beak, making it easier to slaughter and consume it while it was still fresh later on.

Saving the human was entirely incidental. However, the Slime was also well aware that if he were to devour a human in a human world governed by a complete system of rules, he would inevitably end up being relentlessly hunted and placed on a wanted list.

He was still keeping the Special Security Department in mind. If he were to get tangled up with the Security Bureau while his mana had yet to fully recover, it would be a massive headache.

In that case, he might as well generously let this human go, making himself look like a broad-minded Slime!

It was just that this human seemed to have gone stupid, standing there completely dazed and refusing to speak.

Shi Yunmu fell into deep thought: If I scare someone silly, do I have to take responsibility? Probably not…?

Fortunately, Xiao Jia finally found his voice. “Um, th-thank you.”

He spoke with a trembling voice, clearly not having fully recovered from the fright just now.

The broad-minded Slime immediately picked up the conversation. “Mm-hmm, you’re welcome…you should head back first, it’s not safe here.”

In reality, he still wanted to catch two or three more.

Shroom-Crows were social monsters, after all. Aside from the one in his hand, there were absolutely others lurking nearby.

Hearing that Shi Yunmu was trying to send him away, Xiao Jia was instantly brought to the verge of tears. “Am I supposed to walk back alone? I’m a bit scared…”

He glanced tentatively at the young man wearing the baseball cap and asked hesitantly, “Um, excuse me, could you walk with me for a bit? Just to the school gate is fine. I can pay you!”

Although the identity of the person before him was unknown, he was ultimately a living human who had jumped out from the school. That was infinitely better than ghosts or monstrous birds.

Shi Yunmu didn’t take Xiao Jia’s fear to heart. He knew that Shroom-Crows possessed a certain degree of intelligence and would definitely be wary of his actions just now. “Don’t worry, they won’t come.”

“Are you talking about the bird?” Xiao Jia snapped out of it, shaking his head repeatedly as he nearly cried from fear. “I’m afraid of that person up ahead!”

As his words fell, Xiao Jia pointed toward the front.

From his perspective, that person was still standing in the exact same spot, completely motionless like a statue, silently looming within the mist.

With one hand stuffed into his pocket, Shi Yunmu looked in the direction Xiao Jia was pointing and asked in confusion, “Where is there a person?”

Given how acute his five senses were under high alertness, if there were someone not far ahead, he would definitely have noticed them. But right now, Shi Yunmu genuinely did not see anyone ahead.

The street was completely empty, with only him and Xiao Jia standing there.

Hearing the young man’s words, Xiao Jia felt as though he had fallen into an ice cave. “What?! There’s no one there?!”

“Nope.” Shi Yunmu stared for a few moments at Xiao Jia, whose face had turned pale with fright, before the realization hit him. “Did you inhale that glowing dust?”

Glowing dust?

Xiao Jia instantly recalled those objects that resembled debris and nodded frantically. “Yes, yes, yes, that’s exactly it!”

Shi Yunmu let out an “oh” and uttered words that acted like a reassuring pill for Xiao Jia: “Don’t worry about it too much. You’re just experiencing hallucinations because you inhaled that.”

That stuff was absolutely not some leftover debris from a shop promotion; it was Luminescent Spore Mist. Every creature exhibited different symptoms after inhaling it…some would cough, some would experience blurred vision, and others, like Xiao Jia, would suffer from mild hallucinations.

As Shi Yunmu spoke, he carried the Shroom-Crow…which had realized the danger and begun to play dead and walked toward the spot Xiao Jia had indicated. Under Xiao Jia’s terrified gaze, he threw a punch at the empty air next to it. “See? Look, there’s no one here.”

Xiao Jia blinked his eyes. The figure that had been keeping a fixed distance earlier had indeed completely vanished. He was almost ready to weep with joy. “Hahaha, so it really was just a hallucination I had! As long as it’s not a ghost!”

Seeing him like this, Shi Yunmu’s eyes rolled slightly, and he suddenly offered out of the extraordinary kindness of his heart, “Alright, I’ll walk you back.”

“Really? Thank you so much!” Xiao Jia was thrilled. At this moment, he completely overlooked the sheer inappropriateness of Shi Yunmu’s presence here, only feeling that this unfamiliar classmate was genuinely a very good person.

Just as Xiao Jia had requested, Shi Yunmu escorted him all the way to the school gate. Unfortunately, not a single Shroom-Crow appeared along the way.

Watching Xiao Jia enter the school, Shi Yunmu shook his head. “What a pity.”

Xiao Wei finally realized his intention. “My Lord, so you were being so kind just now simply because you wanted to use that human as bait?”

“Otherwise?” Shi Yunmu said disdainfully, “Do you honestly think that I, as a creature destined to rule over the Abyss, would possess that much kindness?”

He glanced down at the Shroom-Crow in his hand. “It’s just that these fellows refused to take the bait. It looks like I’ll have to continue hunting tomorrow.”

As for today, he would find a place to roast and eat this Shroom-Crow first. At the very least, its body contained a minute amount of mana that could be transferred to himself to aid his recovery.

Having eaten and drunk his fill, Shi Yunmu retraced his steps. He silently scaled the wall back into the dormitory building through the main entrance, successfully dodging both the curfew restrictions and the dormitory supervisor who had fallen asleep from exhaustion.

Inside the dorm room, there was still a roommate who hadn’t gone to sleep yet. Wearing headphones and playing video games under a small desk lamp, the roommate failed to notice Shi Yunmu returning from outside at all.

Nimbly climbing up onto his bed, Shi Yunmu skillfully pulled out his phone and prepared to continue staying up late.

“There’s a notification from the Monster Forum?”

Shi Yunmu looked with confusion at the message that had popped up in his inbox and tapped his finger on it.

Certus: Why are you so certain that the name of this monster is a Shroom-Crow?

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