Melting Pot

**Melting Pot** (強酸の坩堝 (メルティング・ポット) ) was a trap used by the Baharuth Empire in Mass for the Dead.

## Description

The trap was laid out in the Quarry, north of the city of E-Rantel. When an army of ten thousand Chaos Beasts emerged from the depths of the earth, Jircniv Rune Farlord El-Nix ordered Zero to lead several workers to lure most of the monsters to the quarry until reinforcements came. Zero followed his instructions to the letter leading Six Arms and the workers: Foresight, Heavy Masher, Tenmu, and Dragon Hunt. When the imperial knights came to the quarry, Zero noticed that the knights refused to come forward and join the fight. Knowing something was wrong, he ordered Six Arms to get out of the quarry. The trap was then activated and the Chaos Beasts and workers fell into a deep pit filled with acid killing them. However, later, the Melting Pot was revealed to be not very effective to Chaos Beasts as a few hundred of them managed to climb out and resume their heading towards the city.

## Abilities

The trap was laid out beneath the earth of the rock quarry, and could be triggered through an explosion, releasing the ground to the acid filled pool below. The acid is strong enough to melt human and Chaos Beasts to liquid. The slimes contained the the pot were a mixture of normal slimes and contaminated slimes to give the acid more potency.

At the time it was unknown as to why the Melting Pot only worked partially in dissolving some but not all Chaos Beasts. Sophie under the authority of the E-Rantel Magic Research Institute went to investigate the cause of the decreased potency of the slimes' acid and found something odd in their composition. Later after further examination of the slime material that was recovered from the Melting Pot, Sophie wanting to determine how potent the acid was, found from her analysis was that the ratio of normal slimes and contaminated slimes was different than what it originally was. Since there was no inflow of substances outside other than the workers and Chaos Beasts that plunged into the pot, it was believed that the conditions of the Melting Pot actually removed the contaminated material. The results caused Sophie to conclude that a cure for the Miasma could be developed by replicating the conditions of the Melting Pot somehow.

Sophie later would learn of what had caused the decrease in acidic potency in the pot. Her discovery would eventually lead to the development of a cure for Gazef Stronoff who was contaminated by the miasma. It turns out that the contaminated slimes used had been somehow been cured of their contamination due to the combination of recently dead corpses and Chaos Stones from the Chaos Beasts. Sophie working with her colleagues later deduced that it was not the corpses themselves that triggered the decontamination but the souls within the corpses.

A theory was eventually refined that underlined special requirements for a cure to the miasma. If a fresh corpse, which supposedly still contained a soul, had tragically died a violent death at the hands of Chaos Beasts, and was used in conjunction with Chaos Stone as a catalyst it would trigger a magical reaction and cure an afflicted of their contaminated status and grant them with several additional enhancements. However the corpse used could no longer be revived as the soul was sacrificed for the decontamination process.

## Trivia

* The trap may have been part of Sophie Noia's research in utilizing slimes for practical applications.
* After the acid in the crucible had dissolved all its victims, the mess seemed to have converted into sand.

## References

1. ↑ *Mass for the Dead Chapter 10: Crumbling Overture*
2. ↑ *Mass for the Dead Chapter 11: Demon Emperor’s Feast*
3. ↑ *Mass for the Dead Chapter 12: Leader of Mankind*
4. ↑ *Mass for the Dead Chapter 14: Mountain Range Lord*
5. ↑ *Mass for the Dead Chapter 18: Salvation of Mankind*