We had come across multiple stuff within the stomach, hipokute herbs, magisteel, the Charybdis core and multiple monsters corpses.
"Woah, I feel like you'd be able to tell Rimuru's story just by looking at what's in his stomach." Shizu said in disgust while looking at the corpse of a black serpent.
"Pfft!" I couldn't help but laugh at what Shizu said. The old Shizu wouldn't have been fazed by the bodies of monsters but her false afterlife that she had experienced had softened her back into a little girl.
That's actually the reason she has that form at the moment, the reason she is in her infant stage is because that's how she envisions herself.
"Don't laugh!" Shizu was not happy with my sudden laughter, she had assumed that I was making fun of her.
At some point, on our short pilgrimage, we had hit a wall, literally. Shizu held her nose in pain after she had slammed face first into a wall.
"It seems we have arrived at our required destination." I said to the pained Shizu who just looked at me in confusion.
"Let me ask you Shizu, what do you think is behind this wall here?" I asked Shizu who looked at me in confusion.
"Um… I don't know." Shizu sensing the abnormalities in how I asked that question felt an ominous premonition.
"This isn't a wall but a prison. This is infinite prison, the skill the hero used to seal away Veldora three hundred years ago." I said to Shizu gleefully as I saw colour drain from her face.
"This is… w-where Veldora is sealed?" Shizu said shivering.
"Well not just Veldora but also his new apprentice. Ifrits also in there." I said with more schadenfreude as Shizu became evens more pale.
Frankly, Shizu hadn't gotten out of the trauma of being with Ifrit but that PTSD was evens more pronounced by the fact she had regained her innocence as a child.
Seeing Shizu's face which was completely frozen in shock and fear, I could tell that she was breaking apart from the memories of those years of torment.
I crouched down and took her hand in mine, "Shizu, do you trust me?"
Shizu nodded silently.
"Do you believe in me?"
She nodded again.
"Then I can promise that whether it's a fire spirit or a true dragon, I will protect you."
Seeing how cool her teacher was being, it made her almost forget about the fear that she had just felt, she wiped the tears from her face and showed a brave smile, "I believe in you teach."
"That's a good girl." I picked her up and opened a passage through the barrier.
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The fire spirit Ifrit and the true storm dragon Veldora were just playing a game of Shogi when they felt a presence approach them. They looked in the direction of the presence and saw a weird presence.
"SIMON?" Veldora gasped at the sudden arrival.
Simon: "I'm surprised you know that name, wasn't your memory erased?"
Veldora: "Well, I have been looking at Rimuru's memories and experiences the whole time so it has become pretty clear."
Ifrit and Veldora immediately locked onto the girl, feeling the gazes on her, she shrunk down into my white coat and tried to hide herself away.
Feeling the gaze of Veldora was like being gazed upon by a god but getting close to Ifrit was like confronting your abusive father and that confrontation stung alot.
(A/N: 10/10 analogy)
Seeing the fear exhibited by the girl, Ifrit slowly approached us both… and bowed before us, "I am truly sorry for causing you so much pain!"
Me and Veldora's jaws dropped at this sudden apology but Shizu… she was angry to say the least, "Sorry? SORRY! You're sorry for everything you've done to me!"
Shizu jumped out of my arms and jumped Infront of Ifrit, "Did you think that my life mattered much less than yours?! That you deserved to control me just because you were a spirit, because you were a superior being?!"
Shizu's tears were flowing down her face as she angrily look faced the fire spirit down, "I just wanted to live my life, was that so much to ASK FOR!!!?"
Shizu tried to catch her non-existent breath as she finished venting her feelings at the spirit that had tormented her life for so long. Although she had so much more to let out, that had to be let out in the form of something else.
As for Ifrit, the elemental looked genuinely bad for her anger towards them and didn't blame her for her outburst at him.
I picked up Shizu and comforted her in my arms which caused all the tears to be let out all at once.
And there sat Ifrit bowing down before me and Shizu while he held his head down Infront us. I held Shizu in my arms as she let out years of grievance all at once.
As for the low EQ Veldora, he just stood to the side and watched the scene with great discomfort. Despite his low EQ, he knew what it was like to be tormented for years by someone you couldn't escape.
Neither Shizu nor Ifrit was in the wrong here. Just as Shizu was forced to be tormented for years on end, so to did Ifrit have to be imprisoned in a human body without his consent and relinquished of his own autonomy.
If anything, I blamed myself for that, I had been so obsessed with following the plot and just banking off the plot armor of Rimuru Tempest and now all of that just feels meaningless.
The story doesn't exist and I just let both of them suffer for years for no reason, 'It feels like all my sins have caught up to me now.'
All I could do was hold her there while just hating myself.
(A/N: bit of a shorter chapter.)