Asuka swerved her head—who—she gred at the damn thing that almost gave her dead heart a restart. For someone who was made out of metal and as rge as a troll, Antikythera could move with extreme silence if he wanted to.

  "What do you want?" she snapped. "If this is about a submitted report reted to the swamp's fauna and their resulting mutations, then I will hand it to you ter."

  "No, I am curious." Lord Antikythera turned to the setting sun. "When it comes to slimes, how well do they regute the growth of a budding magical environment?"

  "We don't have any access to slimes which can do that." Did this automaton lose his damn mind?! Any slime in Nazarick's possession would ruin the swamp! They'd eat everything before the day even ended!

  "Hypothetically speaking, if we did, and we introduced such creatures into the ecosphere of the swamp, how would the rate of growth be affected?" Antikythera seemed to have pushed the point, so Asuka entertained the thought process behind it.

  "Not much. Unless we make a slime specifically meant to produce magic and recycle it, nothing would come out of introducing them to the swamp. And slimes are hardy creatures. They adapt to the most convenient form they can and breed incredibly quickly."

  "And if we introduce a predator that is weak to magic alongside the slimes? Will it encourage them to build up mana in their bodies to, technically speaking, poison their would-be predators?" Antikythera's further question made Asuka pause.

  "...Yes?" Asuka frowned. Why was she agreeing with him? "It is possible, but then some slimes would adapt to eat such magically powerful variants, and we do not know how those would turn out. They could use the magic they eat from the lesser slimes to fuel their growth rather than just storing it."

  "Concerning." Antikythera nodded. "I considered as much, but am I missing something? I was sure I thought about all potential variables when giving you the task of breeding magical creatures."

  "May I ask why you are asking me these questions?" To say that Asuka was curious was an understatement. What had changed? She wondered.

  "Lord Ainz suggested we put slimes into the swamp. I was going to eventually, but only after the environment became stable and the creatures within it could fend for themselves against such a ravenous species." Antikythera's forehead was now wracked with glistening liquid nitrogen. Without it, the automaton would be releasing steam and burning everything around him.

  "Lord Ainz said so?" Asuka muttered. Maybe she too had missed something vital? "Did he say anything else beyond introducing slimes into the environment?"

  "No." Antikythera's negative answer made Asuka furrow her brows. Did Lord Ainz expect Antikythera to know what he was implying? If so, wasn't this Antikythera's fault?!

  "Aren't you supposed to figure it out?" Asuka drawled.

  "I am trying to!"

  She flinched when the automaton shot a gre her way. Asuka huffed and went silent, merely keeping an eye on Antikythera as the Floor Guardian struggled to figure out what Lord Ainz meant by his suggestion. Beads of liquid nitrogen began to run down his neck and into his torso, causing it to glisten, but not for long. Antikythera's body heat was simply too high for any liquid to stay on the surface of his frame. Anything that wasn't several milligrams of liquid nitrogen evaporated almost immediately.

  It took several minutes before Antikythera stopped overexerting his thoughts and returned to the present world. His eyes glowed brighter as he regarded Asuka.

  "I think I know what Lord Ainz meant."

  He thinks? Asuka bit back the response. She didn't think she had the luxury of acting sassy toward the Floor Guardian right now. He seemed genuinely distressed about not being able to figure out Lord Ainz's suggestion.

  "Do tell," Asuka gestured at Antikythera.

  "He wants me to make a magically conductive species of slime."

  Antikythera's answer was... shocking. And also kind of obvious.

  "As someone with the necessary skills to make it a reality, he expects me to find a way to create an ideal species of slime using alchemy."

  "I see?" Asuka was also an alchemist, though she wasn't as good at it as Antikythera. The weapons ptform, true to his namesake, often made dangerous slimes that focused on inflicting curses to slow down invaders and let the factory's harsh environment whittle them down. And perhaps that was what Lord Ainz meant?

  "Can't you just make a parasitic slime that encourages magical growth?" She gave the automaton her test conclusions. It made some sense, didn't it? "You created slimes in the past that inflict negative effects on invaders. How about making something on the opposite extreme to encourage the growth of other species?"

  "...I see. How could I have missed that?!" Antikythera excimed. He ughed.

  "Well, you are mainly focused on figuring out ways to take down enemies with your arsenal." Asuka turned away to hide her smile. She was gd that the Floor Guardian was eted by her suggestion. "I'm sure you were never designed to think of the slimes you make as some type of support."

  "I see..." Antikythera nodded. She didn't see it, but the automaton moved so fast that he distorted the air and caused a sound of whipsh from the gesture. "It was a challenge to my capacity to act beyond my programming."

  "Quite possibly," Asuka sighed. "I have a species of frogs here that create a thick armor of mucus around their skin. I'm sure the slimes would love to have a symbiotic retionship with them."

  "Hm. I will not oversee this particur project," Antikythera decred. "I know that I will be cking if I do."

  Admitting his weakness like this was rare, so Asuka was shocked.

  "Asuka, work together with Sakai to see that Lord Ainz's wisdom sees the light of day. The hologram is much better suited to figuring out how slimes can be used to support an ecosystem than I am."

  "I'll talk to her about it," Asuka nodded, gd that she would get to interact more with the overseer hiding away in the control tower. "Do you think you can convince her to leave the control tower and come out here?"

  "That would depend entirely on Sakai."

  Antikythera's answer was expected, but that didn't mean Asuka wasn't disappointed when she heard it.

  "She doesn't like to go outside, and that's a good thing, isn't it? She gets to spend more time working for the Supreme One this way."

  Asuka nodded. She agreed with it, but she also wanted to talk to Sakai about a few things. And she would rather not do it at the center of such a loud pce like the first-floor factory. There was a time and pce for everything, and the factory miraculously wasn't a pce for anything beyond making weapons for Nazarick.

  "I'll try to get her out of the control tower when we work on the slimes," Asuka looked around her. The swamp was the perfect pce for what she wanted to talk about with Sakai.

  "I can't imagine her focusing on the task Lord Ainz gave us if her mind is fixated on making weaponry and making the production line run smoother."

  "I encourage you to do it," Antikythera turned away. "The production line runs as smoothly as it can currently get. In fact, it will only deteriorate over time."