Book 1: Chapter 5: (1)

5 When I’m not a bad slime¹, puru puru

Ria entered the bathtub.

There was something that I was determined to do while she took her bath. I gently took a deep breath.

「Hoo—ha—! Let’s go!」

Obviously, I was going to go to the dungeon!

The dungeon was dangerous but I just couldn’t resist the urge to level up, as well as the pure curiosity in me.

As long as it existed, it was too attractive to resist exploring it. That was what a dungeon was.

Moreover, I didn’t think it was a bad idea to get stronger for Ria’s sake too.

There might even be a chance that we could start dating and we could travel to and fro between Japan and the other world.

Even though I was the one talking about it, it still sounded depressing. To become not unpopular was just a fantasy of a magician, or more accurate, a sage.

The helmet with headlights attached. A pickaxe. A memo pad.

Potato chips and salad drizzled with Caesar dressing in a Tupperware box, as well as cola.

Other than that, I also put a few things, including some portable cheese-flavored fish cake, rice balls from the convenience store and cream bun, among other things in a rucksack.

I also decided to bring the hand dynamometer.

I placed my ear on the door of the front gate and carefully listened for any noises coming from outside.

It was completely silent outside. But slimes probably didn’t make that much noise to begin with anyway.

I carefully opened the door.

There weren’t any slimes nearby.

To be honest, I wasn’t worried about goblins anymore.

I asked Ria about monsters during our chat after our meal. Based on what she told me, there usually aren’t any monsters that could pass through walls or appear out of thin air.

Exceptions included only monsters that had stealth-like skills which allowed them to suddenly appear.

So why was it that a slime appeared in the closed room, which I had confirmed to be free of monsters before?

It seemed that even slimes the size of an eraser could grow big enough to attack people given enough time.

For a slime that was able to hide in the shadows of a shield, it was probably somewhere in between a fully matured and an adolescent slime.

So the logical explanation would probably be that I had overlooked the small slime, which grew a bit afterwards.

Apparently, certain types of slimes were able to grow big in a short amount of time.

「But anyway, it doesn’t seem like that slime is anywhere near the front gate. If that’s the case, then there’s only one thing for me to do. Status open!」

[Race] Human

[Age] 21

[Occupation] Unemployed

[Level] 2/∞

[Health] 20/20

[Magic] 30/30

[Attack] 115

[Defence] 44

[Strength] 11

[Intelligence] 20

[Agility] 13

[Skill] No maximum growth

There it is. Visualising it in my head, the numbers appeared. Although it happened each time I tried it, I was still surprised.

I hadn’t taken down my new stats since I levelled up so I slowly took them down.

「My [Defence] decreased. Maybe it’s because I’m wearing different clothes than I did in the afternoon. Maybe the jeans are stronger than the jersey.」

After I finished taking down the memo, I started wondering whether there were any slimes nearby.

「I never thought that I’d feel so happy levelling up from level 1 to level 2 in real life. Especially since my strength visibly increases too. But anyway, before I start looking for slimes……」

I opened up the bag of potato chips and ate some.

「Mm! Is this for real? Just as I thought, it’s just like what Ria felt just now.」

Checking my stats, my [Agility] became 19 (+6 increase).

「This is amazing. What’s going on with food from Japan? The one I just ate is salted seaweed flavour. I wonder what will happen if I eat the pizza flavoured one.」

I tried eating the salad drizzled with Caesar dressing too.

When I did, my [Magic] became 30/45 (+15 increase)

「So the salad affects magic. Ria said that she felt better just now, so Hamburg steak must be for health. Just in case, I’ll drink some cola」

Nothing seemed to change. I guess cola is the antidote for paralysis poison.

The percentage of increase for both the stats was probably 50% rounded off to the nearest whole number.

The effect didn’t seem to be cumulative but an increase in 50% is already really strong isn’t it……

I randomly started eating the cheese-flavored fish cake, the rice ball and the cream bun too.

The cheese-flavored fish cake was……woah!

It seemed that it had an effect on my [Strength]. The rice ball and cream bun didn’t have any effects.

Maybe they all had the same effect. Or maybe they were for health recovery.

Alright. Next was trying on the cosplay gym clothes.

I took off the T-shirt I wore under the jersey jacket and wore the cosplay costume instead.

When I took off the T-shirt, my [Defence] decreased by 1 and when I wore the cosplay costume, it increased by 1 again. It was probably similar to the T-shirt. It caused a +1 in [Defence] and didn’t have any special effects.

「No, no. We can’t be sure just yet. Maybe it’ll have some special effect when Ria wears it. 」

Let’s not lose hope about that just yet.

I wrote down the temporary increase in stats that occurred after consuming the food.

[Race] Human

[Age] 21

[Occupation] Unemployed

[Level] 2/∞

[Health] 20/20

[Magic] 30/45 (+15 increase)

[Attack] 120

[Defence] 44

[Strength] 16 (+5 increase)

[Intelligence] 20

[Agility] 19 (+6 increase)

[Skill] No maximum growth

This is good. This is good. But the problem now was whether these stats had any effect in the real world.

And I brought a certain item to test just that. That’s right, the hand dynamometer.

「If my [Strength] increased by 5, then my grip strength should increase by about 20. Let’s do it. Hngh!」

The value that appeared on the hand dynamometer was 64 kg.

「Yes! Just as calculated! Just as I thought, the increase in stats causes an increase in my abilities in real life too!」

With that settled, all that’s left to do is to level up.

Were there still slimes in this closed room?

I tried searching for slimes throughout the entire room. If there were small slimes, I could just raise it until it became bigger.

According to Ria, it is also said that they were capable of reproducing by dividing themselves so it might also be possible to cause them to increase in numbers.

But no matter how hard I searched, there weren’t any slimes to be found.

I guess there aren’t any left~. Was that really the last slime here……?

「Ah! I want to get stronger! Aren’t there any more slimes left?!」

I searched high and low in the large room in the dungeon but I couldn’t find anything.

「It can’t be that there isn’t a single one right……?」

Couldn’t there be just a single young slime anywhere?

I opened my eyes wide and searched again.

「There!」

On the stone ground, a slime smaller than an eraser was crawling around.

But even if I defeated a slime as small as this, it was obvious that I wouldn’t get that many experience points.

「I’ll raise this slime to become bigger before I defeat it! No, if it goes well, I could even get it to reproduce to form more slimes. This is the first step in my Monster Raising Plan!」

I put it in the Tons Quijote plastic bag that I just happened to have and brought it home.

I found a clear Tupperware box in the kitchen.

「There. This one is packaged sturdily so it should be fine. 」

I put in a small plate filled with water and another small plate with some vegetable scraps.

「I’ll open some holes for air to enter…….」

Complete. But looking at it again, this slime is so white.

「She said that I should be careful of the purple and yellowish-brown slimes so this one should be fine, since it’s white.」

I planned to grow it in the dungeon but for some reason, I wanted to admire it for just a little longer.

Ria was taking a long bath so it was probably alright to stay a little longer.

I looked at it as I drank some black tea in the Japanese-style room.

♦︎ ♦︎ ♦︎

I continued to look at the white slime move around in the Tupperware box. No matter how long I looked at it as it continually changed in shape, I never got tired of it.

「Hm. It’s starting to look pretty cute to me」

The moment I said the word 「cute」, I could feel the slime reacting happily.

It just gets cuter and cuter.

I was slowly losing the will to destroy it.

Notes: