episode_0007

*****

The first key to seal the Demon King, [Gauntlet of Corruption]. The location is in a place called Abyss Valley, as revealed through a ceremony in the village.

The problem is that the territory of Abyss Valley is a forest so wide that it can be eaten as a wrap. Even if you search all over those places, you’ll be lucky if you don’t find a key and end up becoming food for monsters in the middle of the forest.

In the worst case, I have to do that, but at least for me, the best thing is to just follow the event triggers in the game.

And the place you have to go for that is Trukan, the city of adventurers.

“I barely made it this far… .”

I stared with dead eyes at the large mountain rising before my eyes. I absolutely hate hiking, but if I just pass this place, I’m just a stone’s throw away from Trukan.

In fact, there is one more road to Trukan besides this one. It takes a long time as it goes all the way back to the plains, but the road is easy and the monsters that appear are weak. To be more precise, that is the appropriate level, and this is like a short cut route only for the second round.

At first, I also thought about going to the plains. But as soon as I woke up in the morning and saw the spider hanging in front of me, I threw away all my plans.

I hate homelessness. I want a clean room with a ceiling and roof. Even one day sooner.

“Seraph. Really, if you just get over here, you can get to Trukan in no time, right?”

“Yes. At your pace, it’ll probably take less than a day. But is it okay? Even if it takes a while, it’s better to take the safe route… .”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You saw it when you came, right?”

“… I warned you. TS.”

It is true that the monsters in the mountains are much stronger than those in the plains, but they are still no match for me. Most of the monsters that came here could be cut down with a single sword.

In a game, no matter how many times you hit, you can survive as long as you have HP left, but here, if you get decapitated, you just die. Of course, that’s the same for me, but because this side’s specs are overwhelming, all attacks end up being like attack-first special moves.

What if a monster with armor so hard that a sword can’t penetrate comes? Anyway, the only monsters that appear in this mountain are killer bees and goblins.

If we do well, we might be able to enter the city today. With such expectations, I entered the path leading up the mountain, but for some reason, my path was blocked by two sturdy young men.

At first I thought it was a bandit, but I quickly changed my mind. A neat uniform and a silver medal hanging on his chest. It was a sign that both were employees of the Adventurer’s Guild.

“Wait a minute, you there. I’m sorry, but this forest is currently off-limits. If you’re collecting medicinal herbs, go somewhere else.”

“Curfing ban? … This place? Why?”

“There is something wrong with the monster. Personnel from the guild are currently investigating. If you pass, you may be charged with obstruction of business, so please return calmly.”

I was angry because he spoke in a strangely childlike manner, but I was more concerned about the abnormal occurrence of monsters.

In games, this is a term used when there are a large number of enemies or when a strong variant appears. It’s not an element that appears in the beginning.

“You will take responsibility. If it’s not prohibited, get out of the way.”

“Alone? It’s impossible, there’s nothing that a single girl can do to cause problems here.”

Aside from treating them like children, the staff’s attitude seemed quite serious. I felt like he was saying this out of genuine concern for me, so I was reluctant to push forward.

Umm. How can I convince myself that I am okay?

“Just let it go, Dean. If there was even a rumor that they had forcibly blocked the road, the merchant guild would be in trouble again.”

“Does that make sense to just send it? What appears in large quantities here is pearl slime. How can a girl deal with that!”

“Well, I guess I think it’s possible. Just leave it alone. Anyway, he’ll come back screaming for help after a while, right?”

As the standoff between me and an employee named Dean continued, another employee came out next to us. I could clearly see that he was laughing at me, but the conversation seemed to be going in a way that he wanted to let me go, so I left it alone for now.

And what is pearl slime? I’ve never heard of such a monster. The monsters I know might just be called by different names in this world.

Dean seemed to be thinking for a long time after hearing those words. However, the reason the guild staff blocks the road is to protect the powerless, not to suppress strong adventurers.

Dean finally gave up, sighed, and gave me a small whistle.

“Now. Just in case, take this with you, then. It’s impossible to go deep, but if you’re nearby, you can go help.”

“… Yes, thank you!”

This guy is a good guy. Honestly, if it were me, I would have just let it pass and let them figure out whether they die or not. It’s not easy to care about someone you don’t know like this.

After hearing the thanks, Dean bowed his head as if embarrassed and took a step back. Am I the type of person who is weak to praise?

“It’s a bit difficult right now. If I see you in the city, I’ll pay for the whistle.”

“… I’m not giving it to you, so come and return it.”

I said hello to the grumbling Dean and went straight into the forest. Dean kept looking in this direction as if he was worried, while the other one seemed to have already lost interest and was looking at the meadow.

Thinking that they were two people in contrast, I walked faster so that I could get out of their sight as quickly as possible.

“Seraph, are you there?”

“Yes, here.”

When I called Seraph, who had disappeared while meeting the employees, I heard a calm voice in my ear again. Now I am used to this feeling of weight lightly pressing on my shoulders.

“Why is the monster here not Killer Bee but Pearl Slime? Is that what you’re saying? This is my first time hearing such a monster.”

“That would have been the case based on the data you played. However, what our God referred to is definitely a monster that existed and a situation that existed.”

There are literally as many mods as there are stars in the sky. In some cases, it is not strange for the monster Thomas Train to destroy everything as soon as you start the game.

It’s unbearable to even consider such a joke mode. When I asked that question, Seraph answered as follows.

This world ‘references the ten most played Yggdrasil Saga’. In fact, there were many skills in famous modes that were treated as expansion versions, so I didn’t have any doubts about that.

However, if a monster I don’t know appears, it’s a different story. Since I’ve been playing this game for a considerable amount of time, it’s safe to say that I’ve tried all of the popular modes. Among them, there was no monster called Pearl Slime… ., tear. maybe.

Maybe I just forgot or didn’t know.

Well, seeing is better than hearing. Now we are slowly entering the depths of the forest. There is still a distance from the important terrain on this map, but if it is a large outbreak, it is time to start seeing it.

“Oh, it came out just in time.”

And with good timing, three pearl slimes jumped out from the grass right in front of me. An irregularly shaped creature that looks like a lump of opaque jelly. It was a strange feeling to see a mob in front of me that I had been indebted to in so many games.

And I could see at a glance what the subspecies meant. As the name Pearl suggests, the color was clearly different. Thanks to the slightly reddish, milky-white body fluid, the core was less noticeable than typical blue slime.

Chuwaak!

As I was leisurely observing, a slime quickly rushed towards me. Don’t be fooled by its sloppy appearance. These guys grow quite quickly.

Of course, being fast is my standard in the world. It happened so slowly that it almost made me yawn. I easily dodged the charge to the side and broke it into seven pieces, and soon the slime spread on the floor stopped moving.

… Uh, what is it? Is this the end?

Fusu shu shuk.

The slimes seemed to be embarrassed by their colleague’s death and made noises as if they were losing air among themselves. Either that or not. I swung my knife and cut the other animal in front of me in half.

“Oh, it sticks this time.”

Just before, it had spread across the floor, but this time, the cut side was slowly moving towards the other side, where the core was.

If you break your core or the body around your core shrinks more than a certain amount, stop the activity. I guess it feels something like that.

To test my hypothesis, I cut up the last remaining slime. The first hit was from a slime that was evaded by moving the position of the inner core, but the core was cut in half by the second hit.

Okay. When the core broke, the parts that were the slime’s body turned into an unidentified liquid and scattered on the floor.

It certainly might not be easy to deal with ordinary adventurers. To the bare bones, it feels like a cross between a liquid and a solid, so with even moderate force, it will stick back together before it can be torn apart. However, it is less noticeable to target the core, and the core

It’s not easy because you’re moving around.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to me, who can cut me down with a single blow and has a reaction rate that ranks among the top three among humans.

“Let’s see… .”

There was still one more thing left to check. I approached the core on the unbroken side and plunged my finger into the nearby fluid.

Ordinary slimes just repeatedly hit their bodies, but acid slimes and poison slimes use the liquid inside their bodies to deliver powerful elemental attacks. If this slime was also a subspecies, there was a possibility that it would make such an attack.

However, even when I dipped my finger into the liquid and waited, no noticeable changes occurred. From the looks of it, it doesn’t seem like ordinary water at all.

Is it not poison but has a magical effect? Or is it just that it doesn’t work right away because it can’t break through my resistance?

There is no problem as long as it touches either side a little. After confirming that much, I purified the removed finger with [Cure].

I laughed happily and said that this was an easy win.

***

“An easy win is a piece of cake!”

Wow! The slime that approaches is broken into pieces with a few cuts and scattered in all directions. It’s not that I can’t avoid them all, but I just ignored them and dealt with other slimes.

The slime I caught on my way here has already exceeded both my hands and my feet. If things continue like this, by the time we come down from the mountain, the number may really be in the triple digits.

At first, I would do my best to avoid the slime liquid in case it even came in contact with it. However, avoiding all the liquid or jelly that spreads over a wide area is useless and consumes more mana than stamina.

“Status Window.”

─────────────────

[TS Prana Lv.19]

(human, female)

Occupation: Bishop Prana, leader of the Holy Knights / swordsman

Vitality: 6923/7800 / Mana: 1997/6000

Physical: 84 / Reactivity: 93 / Mana Responsiveness: 78 / Mental Power: 57 / Resistance: 81

─────────────────

The mana displayed in the status window is already only about 1/3 remaining. Even when I captured the ogres, it didn’t shrink by even half.

Since I have the mana potion, I’ll be fine for a while, but I had to use my mana more carefully than I do now. Both my physical performance and my swordsmanship skills are possible only when my body is strengthened through mana. She is just a really delicate girl without mana.

For that reason, I am not avoiding slime liquid anymore. There isn’t much damage anyway, so it’s more important to save mana.

Thanks to this, my whole body feels sticky and I feel endlessly uncomfortable.

“Ah, stand there!”

Push shoo shoo!

In addition, at some point, some slimes began to run away without fighting. It’s as if he has some kind of plot on the slime topic.

It was very annoying, but I couldn’t get rid of it because other slimes threw themselves at me to block it, so I had no choice but to send most of it away.

“Really, what is that! Seraph, isn’t this foul!? The run away command is the player’s privilege!”

“To me, it looks like a strategic retreat rather than a flight.”

“Either that or that!”

Where on earth did the investigators that the employees mentioned in the first place go? It’s not a mountain with a particular fork in the road. Even though there were definitely people who came before me, the slimes flocked to me in a disgusting way.

Of course, apart from those anxiety factors, the process went very smoothly. There was no visible damage. Even if I enter the boss battle like this, there is no problem. Rather than waiting, I want to quickly catch the boss and get rid of these guys.

Did my wind reach the sky? After several hours of climbing the mountain, I was finally able to encounter the terrain I had seen in the game.

A side road about 5 to 6 meters wide between steep cliffs. In the original game, it is a place where events occur. When you pass about halfway through that area, goblins appear from the top of the cliff and threaten you with arrows, demanding a toll.

Of course, there were no goblins in sight during the trip here, so there would be no event happening. I entered the narrow path, praying for the rest of the goblins who would have been killed by slime.

Churrr!

“Yes, this is a boss battle.”

As if the trigger itself had not changed, about halfway through, countless slimes appeared on the cliff. You should count not one, two, three, but twelve, twenty, thirty.

And at the very end of the slime procession, there was a slime that appeared to be nearly ten times larger than the other slimes.

Slime King? No, the Slime King in the game is classified as a giant monster. Because it is almost as tall as a 4-story building. The one up there was much smaller than that.

Of course, it seemed clear to anyone that he was the loser of this area.

Chuhwaak!

And when the boss slime trembled greatly, the slimes fell down the valley as if they were jumping to their deaths.

I cut down all the ones that fell on me, but the back of the valley was completely blocked. Even if I were to break through that wall of liquid, I would have to go through some trouble.

Cooung. After blocking the escape route, the last boss slime came out. It was so heavy that when it fell, the ground around it shook as if there had been an earthquake.

Three human heads were sticking out like pimples from its milky white body. Perhaps they are the investigators who came here.

“Not bad.”

If you save them and catch the boss slime to resolve this situation, that alone will be an achievement that can be presented to the guild. For me, who wants to quickly clear Trukan and then help Bluebell, there is no further reward.

──Sereung,

In front of the slimes that looked like they were about to rush at me at any moment, I pulled out the sword at my waist to cut them all down.

*****