The hero's gender is yet to be determined after rebirth.

Kurara asked, "So you like him the most? You think about him every day?"

Meilan didn't answer, but picked up the soup bowl and drank it all in one gulp. "This soup tastes weird, like it's spoiled."

That was miso soup, the smell of fermented soy sauce, Lorenwei mentally explained, not daring to utter a sound for fear of saying the wrong thing and getting herself into trouble. But the fire of Asura was already about to ignite.

Sylph urged, "Hey, tell me quickly. Do you really think about Loren every day?"

"Meilan, tell us first, we'll eat later." Kula craned her neck, waiting for Meilan's reply.

Meilan didn't know why they were so sensitive: "I don't think about him often, but I think about him occasionally."

Sylph asked in surprise, "I didn't even notice. Although it wasn't often, but if you really like him... By the way, didn't you know about the relationship between Kurara and Loren?"

Meilan blinked: "I know."

"Then you still..."

Meilan asked, puzzled, "Kulala likes Loren, and I like Loren. What does that have to do with me? We just like the same person, is there any problem with that?"

Sylph: "Huh?"

Kurara: "Huh?"

Lorenwei: "Hmm?"

Meilan shrugged: "We all like Loren, isn't that great?"

The three of them were sweating profusely.

Sylph felt that Melanie had misunderstood and quickly explained, "No, Melanie, when we say 'like,' we mean romantic liking with the goal of marriage, which is what we call love. Like your parents."

Meilan remained silent, thinking to herself, "Where do I have parents? The previous generation was a type unique to high-level demons, where individuals lay eggs to pass on their power."

Of course, reproducing like humans is also possible. It's just that high-ranking demons generally have very high standards, making it difficult to find mates and resulting in a large number of single women, which is why they have such a special way of reproducing.

Kurara said slowly, "Love, the kind that leads to marriage, is for one person only and cannot be shared."

"...Hmm? Why can't love be shared? Many boys marry several wives." Meilan was still puzzled.

What a wonderful girl! I applaud your thinking! Lorenwei quietly gave a thumbs up. Meilan-jun, she's pleasing to the eye no matter how you look at her!

Sylph tried to explain further: "No, Melanie, we're talking about the kind of feeling where you like him so much that you'd be willing to marry him. If you were asked to marry Loren, would you be happy, disgusted, or hesitant?"

"Marry Loren? Let me think about it." Meilan put down her clumsy chopsticks, clearly very hesitant.

Her hesitation indicated that she wasn't deeply in love. Both Sylph and Kurara breathed a sigh of relief, as everyone hoped to have as few rivals as possible.

“No, I can’t bear to part with Lorenvi,” Meilan suddenly said. “I prefer Lorenvi to Lorenvi.”

"Huh?" Siruf and Kurara were dumbfounded.

Meilan said earnestly, "Lorenwei is beautiful, and I'm so happy when I'm with her. Most importantly, she's a great cook. I can't imagine how I would live without her..."

Kurara said awkwardly, "Uh, Meilan, Lorenwei is a woman."

"What's wrong? Then I'll just marry her." Meilan was quite straightforward.

“…We shouldn’t have discussed relationship issues with Melanie.” Sylph sighed and exchanged a glance with Kurara.

Kurara nodded, finding it amusing: Good heavens, I was just worried that Meilan would become a rival in love, but she's still a little girl who doesn't even know what love is...

Melanie disagreed with Sylph's argument. "Why shouldn't we be discussing love?"

Sylph, in the manner of teaching a little sister, tells Melanie: "Love is between men and women."

"Why does love have to be between a man and a woman?" Meilan found it strange and said seriously, "Liking someone is liking someone, why should you care about gender? Isn't marriage a matter between two people? Who says it has to be a man and a woman?"

Kurara, who is of royal blood, said, "Only a man and a woman can reproduce."

Meilan stubbornly replied: "Isn't the purpose of love a ritual for two people to be together? It's not a ritual for procreation."

"..." Kurara and Sylph were at a loss for words.

Lorenwei looked at Melanie in surprise, never expecting her to have such a unique perspective on love. Perhaps, in some ways, her understanding of love was even stronger than that of Kurara and Sylph?

Just then, the proprietress rushed in and shouted, "Slime! The Slime King is here!"

"We'll finish eating and then..." In Lorenwei's memory, slimes were cute creatures, and she didn't feel any sense of urgency.

Kurara nudged her and frowned, saying, "Go now!"

Well, having a serious girl around makes it hard to be a lazy person, Lorenwei thought to herself.

Kurara scolded in a low voice, "You're eating other people's dinner, and then a mission comes up. How can you have the nerve to finish eating before going?"

Lorenwei rolled her eyes. Okay, you're good at social skills and have high emotional intelligence.

Sylph snorted, "I don't have that kind of thick skin either."

"You two conspired to mock me?" Lorenwei quickly put down her chopsticks: "We're going right now!"

The proprietress pointed out the direction, and everyone ran to the bathhouse.

As the sun set, the Japanese-style bathhouse was shrouded in mist, shimmering with beautiful iridescent light. This familiar feeling stirred a sense of nostalgia, and Lorenwei briefly recalled her past life.

From a distance, you could see a large, blue, spherical object clumsily leaping over wooden planks and into the grounds of the hot spring inn.

"Wow! Is that King Slime? It's blue!" Melan exclaimed as she ran. "This is the first time I've ever seen such a big slime."

While the Slime King isn't unique, it's not a very common monster either.

Lorenwei observed from afar and recognized it as the same slime king she had summoned at the academy. Back then, it had transformed into a thin membrane and lay on the academy's barrier before being scared away by the frost dragon—a cowardly slime king. It still wore that small golden crown, shimmering in the setting sun.

Of course, it's possible that all the Slime Kings look the same...

Rushing into the bathhouse, the slime happily jumped into the hot spring.

bang——

A torrent of white hot spring water splashed out, drenching Lorenwei and her three companions. The landlady, being slow, missed it.

"Puyo—Puyo—" The Slime King, with its massive size and high field of vision, didn't even notice the four people running towards it. It began to glide freely in the hot spring pool, like a large block of blue jelly stewing in a pot. Only, it hadn't melted yet.

It seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the hot spring, making satisfied sounds like "plop plop," and it would have looked even more like a hot spring guest if it had a white towel on its head.

"Pfft—" Lorenwei angrily wiped the water stains off her face and shouted, "Slime, you're asking for it!"

Luckily, the water that splashed on her was lukewarm; if it had been cold water, she would have thrown a tantrum on the spot.

"Wait, let me handle this!" Meilan didn't care that she was soaked to the bone. She leaped into the air and threw a heavy punch.

"Hey, who said they wanted to be a magic-based mage? Now they're a boxer." Lorenwei rolled her eyes.

She quickly assessed the strength of both sides in her mind.

I've seen records of the Slime King's power before; the blue Slime King requires someone at the peak of the Grand Master level to defeat. If Meilan goes up against it, her attacks will likely be ineffective. But she's unlikely to be injured or in mortal danger; at most, she'll be bounced far away.

Sure enough, Meilan's punch was like hitting a quagmire; the slime's elastic blue body absorbed all the damage, and then Meilan bounced back with a "pugu" sound.

Meilan felt as if she had been bounced on by a giant blue cushion, and she let out a soft "Eh!" Her voice was full of surprise, but also a hint of joy.

"Pure physical attacks that cannot exceed the level cannot harm the Slime King. Prepare your magic, I'll cover you!" Kurara was also aware of the slime's characteristics. She had already obtained a shield and a knight's sword from the Lorenwei Space Ring and stood in front of her to cover her teammate.

However, she wasn't entirely confident. Against a massive, elastic monster like the Slime King, a knight's simple physical defenses would likely be ineffective. She might only be able to rely on her defensive barrier skills for area-of-effect protection.

This means that a protracted war is not an option. Otherwise, as a paladin, whose magical power is already inferior to that of a mage, he would run out of mana and would have to fight quickly.

“Kurara, your criticism was justified. I wasn’t taking it seriously. I could have set a trap for the Slime King much earlier,” Lorenwei suddenly admitted her mistake.

With her experience as a hero from a previous life, she should have made more thorough preparations much earlier, perhaps even setting a trap for the Slime King. But she was preoccupied with eating dinner, wasting the advantage of the bathhouse being their home turf.

Kurala, lacking experience, didn't react immediately, but understood what Lorenwei meant and gave her an encouraging thumbs up: "We're growing, no need to be polite among our own people."

Lorenwei became serious and immediately instructed Sylph to prepare a bow and arrow for reinforcement: "Sylph, I'll add fire damage to your arrows!"

"Alright!" Siruf's golden bow was ready, and the arrow was nocked.

Lorenwei quickly chanted a spell, enchanting the arrowhead.

She wasn't worried about Meilan being in danger. Slimes had low attack power, and Meilan had been given a new protective artifact, so she was safe.

Lorenwei quickly moved on to the next tactic: "I'll use fire magic to force it out of the hot spring! Kurara, try using your Knight's Shield Bash skill to stun it?"

With a flick of her wrists, red magic rings appeared on her arms, signaling her to unleash a magical attack using both hands simultaneously.

"Wait—don't attack yet!" Melan's voice suddenly came, changing from high to low. It turned out that she was bouncing up and down on the slime and waving to Lorenwei.

Somehow, she started playing with the Slime King.

"Huh?" Everyone realized that the slime didn't seem to have attacked Meilan at all.

The giant blue slime king, constantly making "pooh pooh" sounds, with its eyes and mouth shaped like happy crescent moons, was intently playing a game of bouncing high with Meilan.

Meilan was also having a lot of fun bouncing on the slime!

Lorenwei and the others stared in disbelief.

"Hahaha! So high~ Higher still!" Meilan got more and more excited as she played. Without using any effort herself, she made the slime bounce her up into the air with its elasticity, then fall heavily down, and then bounce up again with a "plop".

Then, it hit hard again, and with a splash, hot spring water drenched Lorenwei and the others.

Lorenwei wiped her face again, annoyed, and asked the landlady who had just arrived, panting, "Does it usually play with people like this?"

"No, other guests, even me and my child, are bounced away by the Slime King when we enter the bathhouse," the proprietress said, wiping her face and explaining with a puzzled look. "It has never played like this with anyone before."

Sylph temporarily pointed the golden bow downwards, guessing, "Could it be that the two of them get along really well?"

"Huh? Maybe you're right?" Lorenwei suddenly remembered the matter of the magical pet and called out to Meilan, "Come down, we have something to discuss."

"Let me play a little longer~"

"Get down here now! Or you can forget about eating the new dishes!"

The next second, Meilan was standing in front of Lorenwei.

"What is it?" Meilan asked, her face still full of excitement, unable to hide her joy.

"How did you two start playing together?" Lorenwei asked.

“…Perhaps it’s fate?” Meilan hesitated for a moment.

Could it be that because of his identity as a Demon King, there is some connection between him and this little demon king who has begun to possess sentience, that the slime is compatible? But this is not just speculation, and it cannot be said.

Lorenwei glanced at Meilan and saw that the Slime King, which had been left behind, was actually staying obediently in the hot spring pool and looking at Meilan with great anticipation. Feeling 90% confident, she said to Meilan, "Have you considered taking it as a pet? I can teach you the spell to take a pet."

"Huh? Okay! Okay! Okay!" Meilan nodded vigorously, her eyes shining.

Lorenwei began searching through the spatial ring for magic crystals to use as a medium.