CH 45-46

Slimes are originally good neighbors of humans. 

They are terribly docile animals that form communities and live together.

However, there are certain ones that would stray from their pack.

The story changes completely in that case.

Slimes are living beings that maintain stability in a group. The moment they are alone, the stability in their hearts is lost, and their ferociousness increases.

There’s times when those wild slimes attack people, and they are considered monsters called Wild Slimes.

There’s also ones that are driven away from their pack because of their difference in appearance. 

They tend to have quite the high combative nature.

They are called Ugly Wild Slime.

That said, even if its combative nature has increased, it is still a slime. 

They get subjugated pretty quickly by adventurers.

But within those slimes, there’s those that bid their time, surviving the whole time while witnessing the deaths of their comrades.

Those are called with a different name.

The Wild Slimes among Wild Slimes.

The loners among the longers. 

In other words, Stray Wild Slimes.

Not only has it been excluded from the pack, it gets further excluded from the other slimes. 

In other words, a loner to the core Stray Wild Slime is strong.

These guys who have climbed on the corpses of its comrades possess massive mana, and easily overcome the boundaries of a Wild Slime.

Moreover, that heart of theirs tempered by the long years of lonely life made it possible for them to master magic that was impossible for Wild Slimes. 

They are enemies that adventurers would avoid if given the chance.

And then, those Stray Wild Slimes would continue to survive, and from their way too long loner life, their heart would harden to the extreme, and the result of that would be that they would become Metal Stray Wild Slimes.

Metal Stray Wild Slimes don’t trust in anyone and don’t wish for anything. 

Its closed off heart hardened even its body, and its body is now like metal. 

Their fleeing speed is abnormally high as monsters that have continued living on without a care for anything. 

Even seasoned adventurers would find it hard to catch up to them.

Different from Stray Wild Slimes, they would run away as soon as they see an adventurer, and thanks to their high defense and nimbleness, defeating them is an almost impossible task. 

However, if you do manage to defeat one, you will get a lot of experience…is what people hoped for but, in the end, it was a loner that ran away from everything. 

There’s no way it would have plentiful life experience.

Or maybe that’s a self-defense mechanism.

The difficulty of subjugation, the lack of experience and element; all those factors made it so adventurers wouldn’t target them.

The Metals became true loners.

On the other hand, there’s the Stray Wild Slimes that would proactively fight adventurers, self-study, and become symbols of shining golden valor. 

Those are the Golden Stray Wild Slimes. 

The toughness and nimbleness of its body is the same as that of a metal one, but the reasoning for running away and the experience and mana it has accumulated in its body is on a whole different plane. 

Despite having tremendous power, it doesn’t desire battle.

However, the experience it accumulated until its body became golden and its massive amounts of element make it a sought for target by adventurers.

Moreover, it doesn’t seek conflict, so it doesn’t attack. 

Thus, adventurers compete to get them. 

It is completely different from its unpopular metal counterpart.

In other words, I am a Golden Stray Wild Slime, but you are a Metal Stray Wild Slime! 

I rest my case!

That’s the long post in a forum of Nekomimi Neko.

Basically, he simply made that super long post just for an argument to attack the other party, and in the end, he got beaten black and blue with responses like ‘Too long didn’t read’, ‘Creepy’, ‘Doesn’t that mean you are a loner too?’, and he ended up quitting the forum, but the content of it was a bit interesting, so this post was left at a corner of the Nekomimi Neko Wiki.

Of course, the explanation of the Wild Slime and stuff is full of BS, but you must have gotten the gist of it somewhat, right? 

The Metal Stray Wild Slime was probably set with barely any experience and money because of a developer mistake, so it was judged to be a monster with no worth, but the Golden Stray Wild Slime has a massive amount of experience and money, moreover, it doesn’t fight back at all. 

By logic, even a level 1 could subjugate it. It is truly the best grinding monster. 

Moreover, if there’s a massive outbreak of them, there’s no way I would let that go. 

There will be a massive outbreak 2 and a half hours from here. It is forecasted that it will last from 2 in the afternoon to 4 in the afternoon today. 

If I do well here, I will easily be able to earn the lodging money of today. 

No, not only that, it isn’t impossible to earn enough money to not worry about it for a while. 

I moved my gaze to the ruckus, and I could see that the adventurers who saw the post were flooding the counter. 

That’s right. 

When a massive outbreak occurs, a Subjugation Contest quest begins in the Bounty Hunting Guild. 

I must not be late to ride in this.

“Ringo, we are going too.” (Souma)

From what I see, only a few people are in this guild.

We won’t be missing out here, but I don’t know what will happen if we take our time. 

I pull the hand of Ringo and head to the counter. 

I applied at the counter, and I entered the Golden Stray Wild Slime Subjugation Contest with Ringo as a team. 

We receive the exclusive crystal for the proof of subjugation from the talentless old man receptionist. 

Basically, the mana of the monsters you defeat will automatically enter the crystal that serves as a wallet, and you can use it as element (money), but the Bounty Hunting Guild uses that system to create a crystal that serves as proof of subjugation. 

This exclusive crystal only absorbs the mana of the subjugation target, and when you defeat the set number of monsters, it will be full, and it will tell you that you have finished the subjugation. 

If you bring that to the counter, it will serve as proof of you completing the subjugation request, but as I said before, you need to deposit half of the element reward to borrow it. 

However, the subjugation contest is the only exception. In order to avoid the massive monster outbreak from attacking the city, the first 50 people will be given exclusive crystals for free.

That’s the first required condition to enter the subjugation contest. 

The subjugation contest is technically a quest that has a mix of subjugation and delivery of the outbreak monster (Golden Stray Wild Slime in this case).

In the middle of the subjugation contest, you will be in a state where you are in a monster subjugation and a delivery request. 

In other words, if you defeat 10 of the target monster, you will receive the reward of a 10 subjugation request, but if you have 5 of the drop items of the target monster, you will also get the reward of having taken a request to deliver 5 drop items, but you receive them after the contest is over. 

This is way too delicious.

Also, in the case you are number 1 in the subjugation contest, your prize will jump the reward up to 10 times more.  

By the way, 2nd gets 3 times more, and 3rd gets 2 times more. 

Because the increase in the reward by your placing is so extraordinary, it is standard to aim for these spots in the contest.

The especially important part here is the team. You can register a team of 3 and divide the reward. 

Just as I said before, I registered with Ringo as a team.

It is true that a 3rd person would give us more of an advantage, but I don’t want any conflict about the reward later. 

Let’s aim for 1st place and do our best. 

Massive outbreaks and subjugation contests are rare events that would be fortunate if you get them 2-3 times on your way to clearing the game, but it is the biggest bonus event in Nekomimi Neko, and it is also one of the reasons the Bounty Hunting Guild is the conscience of Nekomimi Neko.

That said, if the target monster is too strong, it will be impossible to participate, and if the place is too far away, you won’t be able to reach that place when the massive outbreak happens. 

Also, it is an actual massive outbreak, so there’s a lot of cases where it will be a lot tougher than normal. 

The sweetness of subjugation contests is normally tasty, but it is not simply an easy event. 

However, it is different this time. 

The location is at the Deus Plain that’s close to the city, the target monster rewards a lot and is not dangerous, and it is a monster I have not seen even once in my playthroughs; there’s no greater conditions than this. 

No risk of dying against the Golden, and if I get 1st place, being a millionaire won’t be a dream. 

Even if we don’t get it, just by defeating several of them, we will get enough money to not worry about lodging expenses. 

Sayonara, horse shed! 

We are going further ahead! 

I feel like I have been going through hell since coming to this world, but it looks like God is watching over me. 

Luck is finally smiling on me. 

“Alright, now that it has been decided, we are making a plan!” (Souma)

There’s only 2 hours till the massive outbreak.

I need to think of a plan to defeat the Golden Stray Slimes in that time.

At that moment…

When I was about to leave the guild with a cheerful mood, a voice that had a bit of a different tone from the excited adventurers but was around the same level of emotion reached my ears. 

“Why…Why Golden of all things?! A-Aah, at this rate, everything saved up little by little for 300 years by the guild will be… The guild is done for!!” 

…Ah, yeah, my condolences.

I was confirming the specs of Ringo in order to form up a strategy, but a shocking reality was made clear here. 

…Hear this out. She can’t use a single skill or spell! 

Ah, no, not being able to use them is a bit wrong. It is not like she can’t use them even if she trained, but it is simply that she has only learned the basic skills and spells. She didn’t even know how to use the basic skills to begin with.

Then what was that lightning that destroyed the bench? 

Let me give the conclusion here. 

I was surprised as well, but that wasn’t lightning magic.

Then what was that lightning? That was…her normal attack.

She didn’t know the existence of skills and magic to begin with, so there’s no way she would know how to activate them.

How did she manage to do that attack then? Because that was an action that comes naturally to her. 

I don’t know much about AI, so I can only work on guesses here, but maybe ‘shooting out lightning from your hand’ has been set as an action on the same level of ‘waving your hand’ or ‘lifting your leg’.

Now that I think back on it, Princess Shermia at the Attack on the Capital event, she certainly did defeat monsters with lightning magic so often that it felt like she was doing normal attacks though. But to think it was actually being treated as a normal attack…

Just because she wasn’t intended to be a player companion, that’s cutting way too many corners.

No wonder she didn’t run out of MP even when she shot them out that much.

After that, I confirmed the output of her ‘normal attack’.

I mainly had it tested out with Master, and I learned a few things. 

First, the AOE is just as its visual effect tells, does multiple hits, but it is non-elemental and treated as physical damage. 

Moreover, because it is physical, it relies on the attack power instead of magic power. 

Also, if she holds a weapon, the power of the weapon itself is counted, but the weapon category modifier and the weapon proficiency modifier isn’t applied.

Traits that give me a headache. 

This isn’t magic at all.

There’s no lightning element, and it is even treated as a physical attack.

She was holding a staff in the event, but if that staff increases magic power, that probably didn’t even have any effect. 

I remembered that and had her hold a weapon, and no matter if it is a sword or an axe, it would shoot out the ‘normal attack’ from the tip of the weapon, and yet, there was no weapon modifier applied to it. 

How should I put it? 

It is as if you are holding a weapon in your right hand and only your attack power increases, and then you use your left hand holding no weapon to punch faraway. 

I can understand it in data terms, but the real logic behind it makes no sense.

I decided to just sweep this off as  Nekomimi Neko quality and not think too much about it. 

Anyways, as long as she has this lightning normal attack, it should be a lot easier to defeat the Golden Stray Wild Slimes. 

But having that much power even at level 1, I can only call it fearsome. 

I investigated a lot of other things while at it, and I learned that her stats far surpass that of a level 1. 

What would happen if she were to level up?

She might end up growing into an even more cheat character than Hisame.

However, Ringo is abnormal in a lot of ways, so there’s no knowing if she can level up to begin with, and there’s the chance her stats won’t increase even if it does.

When playing Nekomimi Neko, the most important thing is to doubt everything. 

I will try to keep my hopes not too high for the growth of Ringo.

Ah, I talked about Ringo the whole time here, but I also plan on participating in the golden hunt. 

Ringo’s lightning normal attack, I will call it Lightning Strike. It is strong and hits multiple times, but the accuracy is pretty bad.

I touched on it before, but if you hit the vital spot called the critical point, the damage increases, and if you finish it with that, the drop chance doubles. Basically, skills that can aim for the vital point with pinpoint accuracy are important in Nekomimi Neko.

Right now, I am increasing the Weapon Proficiency of Swords, Otachis, Daggers, and Ninja Swords with Master Torch along with the proficiency of fire magic.

But most Sword Skills and Otachi Skills prioritize power, so they are not suitable for that job. Ninja Swords have skills that do several hits, but the hits are all spread out, or would be dark element, making it hard to use. 

I don’t plan on changing my double sword style with Shiranui and the Wakizashi, but I should use dagger skills mainly with the Wakizashi this time around. 

The Hexa-Stab that I learned from the dagger branch deals 6 hits at blinding speed in the same place your eyes are locked on…or more like, the visual effect is clearly just one stab, and yet, it is registered as 6 consecutive instances of damage. 

I am thinking of using that for the Golden Stray Wild Slime contest. 

The other important one is fire magic.

You might ask, when did you even use fire magic? The truth is…I haven’t used it once.

Then why is my fire magic proficiency rising? This is thanks to the Heat Knife.

I don’t know if this is a bug or intended, but in Nekomimi Neko, when you use elemental weapons or elemental skills, your magic proficiency in that element will increase.

The Heat Knife being an important item is because of this. 

Spells are learned by reading the magic books sold in the Magic Shop, and you can only use them when your proficiency in that element is high enough.

I bought them in Lamurick, but I have never used fire magic, so it is finally time to debut it. 

Of course, even if I use offensive magic when I am not a mage archetype, it won’t be showing much power, but even with that, there’s a lot of fire spells that are useful.

Power Up and Petit Plosion are the two main spells I can use now, and they are handy spells that, if I add customizations to them, I will be able to use all the way to midgame. 

Power Up is a spell that shows its effect regardless of magic power. It is a valuable spell that increases the strength of the user by a set percent. 

It is considered one of the mandatory spells for warrior archetypes. 

Petit Plosion is the inferior version of Explosion but, depending on the situation, it is a far easier spell to use. It doesn’t cost much MP and the power of the explosion isn’t that impressive, but it creates a blast that knockbacks enemies and allies alike, so there’s a lot of uses for it. 

I properly bought elemental rings at the Accessory Shop, so it will turn into an even more handy spell if I use those. 

I plan on playing the support of Ringo using those skills and spells, but if given the chance, I want to defeat goldens myself and level up. 

It goes without saying for my beginner equipment, but it really is suicidal if I were to fight while still level 13 in these areas. 

I have to increase my level a bit here, or I won’t be able to go out because of being too scared of monsters. 

That said, I would have liked to stay low level for a while more to increase my proficiency if it hadn’t been for this event, but this is the time where I should prioritize leveling up.

Weapon Proficiency increase is calculated by the level of the opponent. If the level is higher, you get a 10% increase for each level difference. 

I am a level 13 hitting the level 250 Master Torch, so the level difference is 237, making it 25 times faster to increase the proficiency than normal.

But even if I raise my level to 150 in the golden contest, the difference is still 100 levels.

The proficiency will go down to a speed of 11 times faster than normal. 

The efficiency will drop, but the importance of Master Torch will still be there. 

In the first place, considering the normal game balance, challenging an opponent 20 times higher than you is suicidal. 

There’s no level modifiers for attack and defense in this game, but you simply get stronger by increasing your level.

Unless you have quite the good weapon, armor, and skills, you would normally lose with a 10 level difference.

It is true that Golden Stray Wild Slimes have unbelievable defense, but Metal and Golden monsters receive 1 damage no matter how weak the attack is. 

Moreover, if you hit the critical point, you get at least 2 damage. 

Even if you don’t have the attack power, if you do multi-hit attacks, anyone can defeat them. 

Ringo will hit them with Lightning Strike and I will run in and use Hexa-Stab to hit its critical point.

We will aim for 1st place with that plan, and if possible, I will have Ringo refrain from attacking a little bit, and deal the finishing blows to increase my level.

This is our strategy against the Golden Stray Wild Slimes.

After that, we also discussed how we will move once the subjugation contest begins. 

Even if we had enough ability to defeat goldens, depending on the competitors, we might have our prey stolen, and we might be unable to fight properly. 

Battling between participants is prohibited, so I am not that worried about that part, but it will heavily rely on whether we can properly get the better of the other participants after the competition begins.

I must not miss anything here. 

Thinking this, I asked for the opinion of Ringo on a lot of things, but she didn’t do anything aside from nodding or shaking her head.

I was a bit worried here, so at the end… 

“Do you properly understand what we will be doing once the competition begins?” (Souma)

I asked this, and…

“…Follow you and shoot?” (Ringo)

She answered briefly. 

What was the point of me desperately explaining to her until now? -Is how I felt, but she isn’t wrong. 

I feel like Ringo is fine like that. 

Also, if we manage to earn money here, I should have more breathing room to think about what to do with Ringo.

I don’t know what she is thinking, but it seems as if she is unexpectedly into this competition.

For now, I should think about overcoming this competition with our joint strength.

“It is almost time…” (Souma)

Is it my imagination?

I feel like the city has gotten a bit noisier. 

I am seeing more adventurer-like people walking with hurried steps to the gate. 

“We should go too.” (Souma)

After confirming that Ringo nodded to those words, we walked towards the gate. 

Onwards to the Deus Plain!