Gauss looked around.
There wasn't a single moving lifeform anywhere on the devastated ground around him.
If he hadn't been absolutely sure he'd just heard that familiar voice, he would've thought he'd imagined it.
"You're still alive?"
Gauss sent the question out tentatively with his mind.
"Yes."
The voice came again, still from somewhere nearby.
This time, Gauss was certain he hadn't heard wrong.
"Then where are you? I can't see you."
Whether it was with his eyes, his spiritual senses, or his sixth sense, he couldn't detect Eden at all.
"Demon King Seeds like me are very difficult to kill completely," Eden's voice explained. "You can think of me right now as being in a waiting-to-revive state. I don't have a body in this state, and I can't be sensed either."
"After some time passes, I'll be reborn."
The explanation came naturally, as if it were nothing unusual.
Gauss suddenly understood.
So that was why Eden had looked so fearless from the start. That was the special nature of a Demon King Seed?
Then, combined with the title he had just obtained—Demon King Slayer—and its description saying it granted the qualification to kill a Demon King completely…
Did all Demon King Seeds possess some kind of undying regenerative ability?
"Can't all Demon King Seeds die?"
"And what exactly is a Demon King Seed?"
Since Eden had brought up the term himself, Gauss took the chance to ask.
Before now, he'd never heard of anything like it. At most, he knew of demonfolk and Demon Kings.
"No, not all Demon King Seeds can avoid death like I can."
"According to the knowledge in my inheritance, only a small portion of Demon King Seeds have that ability. And Demon King Seeds themselves are already a very rare qualification among monsters. Out of all Demon King Seeds, only one can actually become the Demon King."
"As for what a Demon King Seed really is, I'm not completely sure either."
"The moment I awakened in this body, I already was one."
"Awakened?" Gauss caught another word that puzzled him.
"Yes." Eden's voice took on a faintly nostalgic note. "Before I ended up in this body, I was actually human too."
"But that was a very, very long time ago."
"After I died, my memory went through a long stretch of chaos, and then I was reborn in this slime body."
"I wandered the outside world for a while, and then by accident I entered this labyrinth. After that, time here was completely frozen."
"It wasn't until you arrived that the flow of time in the labyrinth started moving again."
"I see."
That explained why the monster Eden had been so oddly friendly toward him from the start.
It also explained why she had been so eager to talk. A being trapped in a labyrinth like this probably had almost no one it could really communicate with. Even intelligent myconids were still monsters in the end.
Monsters did not think like humans.
"I didn't know a human soul could reincarnate into a monster's body."
It was the first time Gauss had ever heard of something like that.
He knew there were special professionals who could turn themselves into monsters, but Eden's situation clearly wasn't that.
"I don't really understand it either. I think my case is extremely rare." Eden sounded confused.
Ever since the labyrinth reopened, she'd been deeply bewildered by her own existence.
And because she had no one around to talk to, even though she became the lord of the fifth floor, she lived in deep isolation and couldn't even be bothered to command the monsters here.
The myconid race, however, had apparently misunderstood something and started raising the slimes that resembled her.
Originally, there hadn't been many slimes on this floor. Only a few scattered ones.
It was only because the myconids worked so diligently at breeding them that the slime population swelled on a massive scale.
It wasn't until Gauss and the others stepped onto the fifth floor that Eden finally felt that familiar yet unfamiliar presence again, and rushed over to meet them.
Gauss exchanged a few more quiet words with Eden and felt that he'd learned quite a lot about monsters.
So in order to become a Demon King, a monster first had to possess the prerequisite qualification of being a Demon King Seed.
And it wasn't just slimes that could produce Demon King Seeds. Other monsters could as well.
Once born with that qualification, a monster would naturally be much stronger than normal monsters, and would also inherit part of certain knowledge and abilities. Of course, Demon King Seeds weren't overwhelmingly powerful from birth. They simply had much better innate gifts than ordinary monsters. If they made no effort themselves, they could still end up weaker than regular monsters.
Eden, the Slime King, was living proof of that.
According to her own words, she hadn't really trained all that hard.
Most of the time, she just slept. But even so, the talent of a Demon King Seed had still quietly pushed her to level 9 and given her combat power far beyond that.
Yes—when Eden fought Gauss, she hadn't actually brought out her full strength.
To her, becoming stronger seemed like something that didn't matter all that much.
After all, she wouldn't die. Even if she were "killed" for a while, she'd eventually revive anyway.
At first, she had even tried killing herself, but before long, she came back.
And because she retained the memories of once having been human, she instinctively felt deeply uncomfortable in her current slime body.
Sometimes she even wondered: if she died a real death once more, would she be reborn in a human body the next time?
But her undying nature meant that even seeking death was impossible.
So in the end, she had simply given up.
As for why she believed Gauss might be able to kill her, it was because she could feel a power from him that instinctively made her heart tremble.
Unfortunately, she still hadn't truly died.
Still, she had finally seen a glimmer of hope.
Even though Gauss hadn't killed her completely, this revival was already taking far longer than any of her previous ones.
Some invisible force seemed to be dragging out her rebirth.
"Isn't immortality a good thing?"
Even if it came with becoming a monster, Gauss still couldn't understand why Eden was so fixated on dying.
Even if her old human mindset made her unwilling to live among monsters, she could still remain apart from them and quietly grow stronger.
"No, Gauss. You don't understand. Undying is the most terrible curse."
"The longer I live, the less reason I have left. The instincts of this monster body are eroding me every second. I have to resist constantly just to avoid being assimilated."
"And every time I revive, my memories get slightly distorted."
"Sooner or later, my consciousness will become something completely unfamiliar."
Through Eden's explanation, Gauss gradually understood her fear.
She was afraid that one day she would become a true monster.
Or rather… perhaps she already was one.
It was only the lingering obsession of her former human self that still bound her.
Since this was the first time Gauss had encountered something like Eden, he genuinely didn't know what to say to comfort her.
"Oh, right. About me—could you not tell anyone else?"
"Sure." Gauss nodded.
Honestly, he did feel some sympathy for Eden.
Once their conversation ended, Gauss's attention returned to reality.
With the "death" of the Slime King Eden, the surrounding area had fallen silent.
He walked over to the treasure chest the labyrinth had dropped and opened it.
Just like the fourth-floor clear reward, it was filled with wealth.
There were three precious high-grade mana stones inside. He could probably sell one of them and trade it for a large amount of other resources.
Besides that, there was also a key stone that opened the way to the sixth floor.
But starting from the sixth floor, his map crystal would no longer provide guidance. From there on out, he would have to rely on his own abilities to explore.
Gauss packed away the rewards.
The other members of the Red Dragon Company were still fighting the remaining small number of myconids and slimes.
Once the fifth-floor lord, the Slime King Eden, "died," the rest of the monsters scattered like frightened birds. Only a final handful of maddened creatures remained, still locked in battle with the Red Dragon members.
But with their numbers reduced to this level, it was clearly just a last hopeless struggle.
After all, other adventuring parties were already drawing closer, and it was obvious that these remaining monsters would be crushed soon enough.
Gauss had no intention of interfering.
He was still digesting everything Eden had told him.
To be honest, Gauss had always been highly confident in his own combat ability.
His power to fight several levels above his own gave him a deep sense of assurance whenever he faced monsters.
But suddenly learning about Demon King Seeds changed that. Even if Eden said they were incredibly rare, they still existed.
If Demon King Seeds could all fight several levels above themselves, then sooner or later, he would inevitably run into others just as troublesome.
And if even a slime like Eden could become that strong with Demon King Seed talent, what about naturally stronger species?
Would dragons and titans become even more terrifying if one of them awakened as a Demon King Seed?
Or was it possible that those species simply couldn't produce Demon King Seeds at all?
His thoughts were a mess for the moment.
Eden's memories had clearly become blurred after living too long and reviving too many times, so even though she had happily answered Gauss's questions, not every question produced a useful answer.
According to her, long ago, before she entered the labyrinth and while she was still wandering the world, she had encountered another Demon King Seed.
But she had forgotten all the details.
She only remembered that they had met very briefly, and then gone their separate ways.
After that, she never encountered another Demon King Seed again.
That was why she believed their numbers were vanishingly small.
But as long as they existed at all, Gauss—with the Adventurer's Manual demanding huge numbers of monster kills to keep growing—would eventually end up crossing paths with them.
And when that happened, his usual overwhelming advantage over same-level monsters might not mean much anymore.
I need to raise my level faster. And I can't afford to underestimate single-target killing techniques.
Besides large-scale crowd-clearing spells, I need to put real effort into training my anti-single-target spells too.
He needed to prepare for everything in advance.
As for Eden, according to her, she had been unable to leave the fifth floor of the labyrinth before now. But after Gauss "killed" her, she could now vaguely feel that she would be able to use Gauss himself as a coordinate when she revived.
Which meant…
She would be able to escape the restraints of the fifth floor.
Gauss did feel a small amount of concern about Eden being able to leave the labyrinth, but since she had been the one to tell him that of her own accord, all he could do was choose to trust her character.
After all, if she really had other intentions, she never would have mentioned the fact that she could use him as a revival anchor.
He couldn't really stop it anyway.
Even as Gauss moved around, the two of them continued communicating through mental messages.
Perhaps because she had gone so long without talking to anyone, Eden was extremely chatty, babbling on constantly.
She asked about his companions' names.
A moment later, she asked about his family and what kind of women he liked.
Gauss only answered some of her questions.
"Good work."
Alia had finished the fight and came over to his side.
"Is she an elf? She looks familiar. Actually, I think I've seen elves before," Eden commented.
"Here. Take a high-grade mana stone. It should help with your cultivation if you keep it close during meditation."
Gauss handed one of the mana stones to Alia.
He didn't mention anything about Eden at all. He had promised her, after all, and whatever else he was, he still intended to keep his word.
"This is…"
Alia instinctively took the smooth stone, and in the next instant she felt a comfortable flow of energy move through her entire body.
Of course she knew what a high-grade mana stone was.
She had used the one Gauss had obtained on the fourth floor a few times already.
The cultivation effect had indeed been far better than normal.
She just hadn't expected to have one of her own so soon.
"This is way too precious… heh."
Even though she felt a little embarrassed, as a spellcaster she couldn't help craving a high-grade mana stone.
There wasn't a spellcaster alive who wouldn't want one—unless they already had something even better.
After all, it directly improved meditation efficiency, and over time that was enough to create a very noticeable level gap between one spellcaster and another.
More than that, it also subtly nourished the body and purified mana, making the owner's spells even stronger.
It was the kind of treasure that no amount of gold could really buy.
That was exactly why the noble families who controlled the mines producing high-grade mana stones never allowed them to circulate on the market.
Owning them effectively meant increasing the family's chances of raising high-level spellcasters.
"Just keep it."
Gauss could obviously tell that Alia was being hypocritical about it, the way kids back in his old world would pretend not to want red envelopes during New Year.
"Heh, then I won't stand on ceremony. If I get something good later, I'll share it with you too."
Alia smiled, then happily carried the high-grade mana stone off to one side to admire it.
~~~
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