"Help! It's so dark! Ugh... and it stinks, it's disgusting... No one told me the inside of a Mimic was this smelly, oh my god!"
Fíliya struggled frantically, her legs, sticking out of the Mimic's mouth, were kicking about nonstop.
"...Lady Aura, is being eaten by a Mimic life-threatening?"
Linie watched the comical scene before her, but without a mocking expression, she simply posed her question to Aura quietly.
"Huh? How would I know? Mimics are the lowest tier of Monster, aren't they? Even an ordinary human who can't use magic wouldn't be easily done in by one."
As Aura answered Linie, her eyes remained fixed on Fíliya's rear, which was sticking up because her upper body had been swallowed by the Mimic.
Don't misunderstand, Miss Aura had no strange ideas about that... thing. Aura simply wanted to place her foot on that girl's butt.
Mmm, just the thought of it filled Aura's heart with a satisfying sense of conquest.
Unfortunately, she could only think about it. As long as Solitär was here, she would never be allowed to do such a thing.
"So, what do we do now? Linie, do you know how to deal with a Mimic?"
Solitär looked at Linie with a serious expression.
Destroying the Mimic would be simple, but since Fíliya was already halfway down its gullet... it would be too easy to hurt her by accident.
If we can't destroy it directly with magic, it seems we'll have to use the old method.
Solitär sighed.
"The old method?"
Linie tilted her head slightly, and after a moment of thought, she understood what Solitär meant.
"I understand, Lady Solitär."
Linie stepped forward knowingly. After all, to rescue someone eaten by a Mimic using the old method, a magic warrior like her with Magic Imitation was the most suitable.
Standing behind Fíliya, Linie closed her eyes.
This time, she would replicate movements like carrying and pulling.
Then, Linie opened her eyes again, reached out her hands, and wrapped them around Fíliya's waist.
"Stop, stop, stop! It's gonna break! My waist is going to break!"
Fíliya cried out in pain repeatedly, her legs kicking nonstop, making it impossible for Linie to continue pulling.
"So, what do we do now?"
Solitär chuckled lightly. Although Fíliya had ended up in a rather sorry state, she found this kind of scene—where Fíliya got a taste of her own medicine without any real danger—very amusing.
Serves her right for always acting so high and mighty. It's good for her to suffer a bit once in a while.
If Aura knew what Solitär was thinking right now, she would surely nod vigorously in agreement.
"No choice... I'll have to use my last resort."
Miss Fíliya's muffled voice came from within the Mimic's stomach.
"Hm?"
The three members of the Demon Race focused their curious gazes forward, wanting to see what Fíliya's so-called last resort was.
And then they saw.
Linie also shook her head at this.
To be blunt, how could the Demon Race possibly have experience rescuing a comrade eaten by a Mimic?
Then she began to exert herself, trying to pull Fíliya out of the Mimic's mouth.
A dazzling flash of magical light was followed by a relatively soft explosion, clearly well-controlled. Finally, the faint smell of something burning began to fill the hidden room.
Her slightly singed, nest-like hair and the Mimic slime covering her body were the result of using explosion magic at such close range.
"Hah... Hahahahahaha! Fíliya, you finally got what was coming to you!"
The moment she saw Miss Fíliya's new look, Aura couldn't hold it in any longer. She fell to the ground laughing and started rolling around like a child, all the while unabashedly expressing her mockery for Fíliya's self-inflicted misery.
Linie was much better composed. For a stoic and expressionless child like her, she didn't find Fíliya's strange appearance funny at all. She was just wondering if she should imitate her Lady Aura's current rolling-on-the-floor maneuver.
Fíliya sighed, then touched the slime on her face. For the time being, she could do nothing about the rest of it stuck in her hair and on her clothes.
What she had just done was simple: she blew up the Mimic with magic from the inside.
The reason she had hesitated for so long was that such a close-range explosion was incredibly difficult to control. It was far more challenging than her fine-tuning of Defensive Magic.
Even Fíliya couldn't guarantee perfect control over a point-blank explosion.
As for Solitär, although it was clear she was trying hard not to laugh, she ultimately failed to hold it in.
However, her smile seemed much gentler compared to Aura's undisguised ridicule.
Solitär slowly stepped forward, raising a hand to use magic to help Fíliya clean off the slime.
Fíliya quickly waved her hand, signaling for Solitär not to bother.
Solitär felt a bit puzzled, thinking to herself, shouldn't Fíliya have given up by now?
But this is what Fíliya said.
"Getting eaten once is still getting eaten, and getting eaten three times is still getting eaten. I'll clean up after I've opened the rest."
Fíliya's gaze was resolute.
...Solitär was a bit speechless.
She hadn't expected Fíliya to still insist on opening the other two chests before giving up.
But it wasn't a major issue. Since Fíliya was so inclined, she could wait a little longer.
Upon hearing that Fíliya wanted to open the second chest, Aura immediately stopped rolling on the ground and stood up again with renewed interest, waiting for Fíliya to be eaten once more so she could continue her laughing fit.
...Fíliya comforted herself, thinking that she still had a 25% chance of finding a real treasure. After all, many great discoveries that shook the magical world were found within such small probabilities.
She once again stroked the chest with her hand.
"It's okay. Though chests may hurt me a thousand times, I will still treat them like my first love. Unlike that last guy, you must be a good one, right? You'll surely give me something valuable enough to heal my emotional wounds, right? Don't let me down again, chest!"
With an air of someone marching to their doom, Miss Fíliya opened the second chest.
And so, she was eaten by the second Mimic.
_____
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