CH 89

Light

Dark

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TLN: Aaaah! The chapters lately and from here on are crazy long now. 

I wonder if there’s an agreement between authors where the first few chapters are super short, but then get outrageously long after that point.

——-

“Let’s go outside for now.” (Souma)

We head outside while thinking about how I should tell Mitsuki and the others about the threat of the Slime Mold. 

When we got out of the Stream Cave, the sky was already dark. 

I did feel like we progressed decently there, but we went all the way to the boss, so it must have taken a decent amount of time. 

I brought out the Master Torch from my bag and used it as an actual torch for once. 

It tends to be forgotten since it is way too useful for increasing weapon proficiency, but the Master Torch can be used as a normal torch, and no matter how long it is lit, it won’t break. 

It is a convenient item even if you only see it as a torch. 

We moved to a slight elevation with that in hand. 

There’s the danger of monsters coming when seeing the light, but Ringo can defeat them with Lightning Strike the moment they show up anyways.

In that case, it would be easier to have a talk in a place with a good field of vision and difficult to get ambushed. 

“If I remember correctly, the Slime Mold Forest is two fields ahead of here. Want me to just go there and wipe them out?” (Mitsuki)

When we sat down there, Mitsuki said this straight on. 

Words filled with confidence fitting for her.

But…

“No, even you have the off-chance of not making it. We will obviously all head there and I would like to avoid fighting them in the dark. Let’s head back to the dojo and come back once again when it is bright.” (Souma)

That’s dangerous. 

Mitsuki is a bad match against them. 

It has only been 2 weeks since the game started. 

I think their numbers should still be fine right now, but we can’t afford unnecessary risks. 

Actually, one of the reasons why I chose this Stream Cave was because it is close to the Slime Mold Forest. 

It takes a decent amount of time to even reach this place. It is not like I didn’t have the thought of just going straight to the Slime Mold Forest, but we really should challenge it in perfect form. 

“…Are they really that big of a challenge?” (Mitsuki)

The tone of Mitsuki was more of surprise than displeasure. 

Her cat ears also jumped up at this in shock. 

“Yeah, they are different from any monsters in this world. Even you might lose if you challenge them without a plan.” (Souma)

I begin explaining after clearly stating this…

Explaining about the fearsomeness of the Yellow Slime that is called the worst monster among all the monsters.

The sole enemies that appear in the Slime Mold Forest, the Yellow Slimes, are of course not exactly the slime molds in real life. 

When talking about slime molds, people would imagine an amoeba colony that’s like the gathering of everything that’s bad, is yellow, and moves annoyingly.

That’s this Yellow Slime. 

Putting it like that, you might imagine quite the disgusting creature, but when seeing the actual thing, you will definitely change your impression. 

When you actually see it, the thought of it being disgusting won’t be showing up. 

You would simply be speechless and run away from the shiver-inducing fear. 

At the very least, that was the case for me. 

It is hard to put in words the fear I felt the first time I encountered them. 

My first encounter with them was when I was around level 50. 

I erased my data because of the marriage event and began the solo play from there, taking my time and doing well going through the beginning quests, and managed to raise my level to around 50.

When you try to level up at the surroundings of Lamurick, the efficiency suddenly gets bad. 

Thinking that, I decided to move to the capital early, saved money, and rode the Magic Airship for the first time. 

But that Magic Airship crashed splendidly. 

The merchants all escaped with teleportation stones, but as someone who barely managed to scrape off money for the ride, there’s no way I would have a rare item like that that’s several times more expensive. 

I resented the escaping merchants, but the magic airship even had a warning written in the payment booth that you should ride it while aware of the risks of crashing. 

Complaining there would have been pointless. 

At the end, even the pilot escaped with a teleport stone. And so, I was left alone in the strange land with yellow trees and yellow grass along with the empty magic airship. 

I somehow managed to escape from the burning airship and checked my surroundings. I was relieved that there weren’t any monsters in sight, but that conclusion was too hasty. 

The moment I sighed in relief, the attack had already begun. 

By the time I noticed, the paint-looking something that was sticking onto the trees dripped onto the ground. 

Moreover, that paint didn’t stop with just falling on the ground, it accumulated with the paint closeby and created a cluster. 

The abnormality didn’t stop there. 

Even at the places aside from the top of the trees, at places where there were no living beings like the ground, were also showing change. 

The yellow grass began to wriggle quickly and gather as well, changing into what seemed like a mass of yellow mud. 

When they became big and began approaching me while squirming, I finally noticed. 

It is not that there were yellow trees and grass here. It was simply that they were glued atop the trees and on top of the ground.

But I noticed that way too late. 

At the time when I noticed and tried to escape, my surroundings had already become a yellow sea. 

The first one that came attacking me was a flabby yellow mud doll that had swelled up to over 2 meters. 

But when I looked closely, the mud doll had something yellow moving incessantly inside it, and it brought out disgust on a physiological level. 

I wanted to escape full speed, but even when I tried to, there wasn’t anywhere to run to. 

I understood the difference in level, but I swung my sword in desperation. 

However, the mud doll was easily split in two in one hit contrary to my assumption. 

Almost no resistance as if I had cut water. 

The moment I began holding hope thinking I could do this…

“Wa?! Puh!!” (Souma)

The yellow mud that was split in two attacked me in a pincer just like that. 

They crashed onto me. 

Then it spread around my whole body. 

…I fell into a panic and don’t remember anything well after that. 

My vision was yellow, pure yellow…just yellow.

Nothing aside from yellow. 

However, I could tell instinctively that I was being swarmed by that yellow something. 

The sensations in VR games are toned down to the lowest output. 

It was fortunate that my whole body that was receiving attacks without end didn’t feel the pain of being eaten alive. 

But even with that, I could tell something was crawling on top of me incessantly. 

“Aaah! Uwaaaah! Aohngh!” (Souma)

They clung onto my whole body, dragged me through the ground, crawled all over my face, and tried to enter my mouth. 

I flailed both arms and desperately shouted, but they showed no signs of decreasing. 

These yellow things swarmed onto me with no end and clung onto me. 

“…! …! …!” 

Even when knowing it is impossible for monsters to go inside you because of how the VR system works, I got too scared to open my mouth. 

I desperately rolled around the ground to do something about them, but I only had that sensation of something being crushed, but their momentum wasn’t going down. 

The HP gauge alarm rang in my ears. 

I didn’t have the leeway to pay attention to that as I rampaged half in frenzy. 

The long long few minutes until my HP hit 0…

In the end, I couldn’t fight back against that yellow tyranny and was killed powerlessly. 

It was a splendid traumatic experience that would enter the top 5 in Nekomimi Neko when it comes to disgustingness. 

By the way, after that, I respawned at the monolith of Lamurick. 

“What’s with this?! What’s with this shitty game?! Or more like, what’s that about crashing?! I definitely won’t be getting on this useless ship ever again!!” (Souma)

I was raging on my own and logged out. 

Of course, I didn’t get on that ‘useless ship’ again. 

In the end, I resumed playing after 2 hours, killed some time in Lamurick, headed to the capital in a different magic airship from the one that crashed and, this time around, I safely arrived at the capital. 

Yeah, I didn’t lie. 

Now then, the one that attacked me when the magic airship crashed was the lord of the Slime Mold Forest. 

One of the worst monsters of Nekomimi Neko, the Yellow Slime. 

The individual HP of this slime is actually 1 and it is really weak to attacks, but because each and every single one of them is extremely small. Attacks from things like spears and swords that aim at one point or a line have almost no effect on it. 

It is only after around 1,000 of them gather that they finally become the size of a normal monster, but even if you cut them with a sword, you will defeat 100 at most. 

No matter how powerful of a slash you deal, the remaining 900 will cling onto your body, so plain physical attacks won’t be working much. 

It would be a good idea to hit them with wide aoe magic, but you could say they are a hopeless match against close combat jobs. 

Well, even if I could use magic at that time, I doubt I would have a chance at all though. 

Also, their way of fighting is nasty. 

The only attack method of the Yellow Slimes is devouring. 

Basically, swarming and eating their prey. 

If that’s hard to picture, just watch a video of ants or piranhas devouring their prey. 

The effect of Devour in gaming terms is to ‘Cling onto your target and lower their HP by 1 at fixed times’. That sounds plain at a glance, but it also means that your defense is pointless no matter how high it is. 

This is overwhelmingly effective especially against human characters that have a whole lot less max HP compared to monsters. 

No matter how robust of a warrior it is, they won’t be able to do anything if these slime molds were to cover and devour you. 

It would be one thing in the game, but if that were to happen to me in reality, I would go crazy before dying. 

Moreover, they don’t only eat humans. 

Players and NPCs go without saying, but there’s also items with HP and even monsters that can become companions. Anyways, anything with HP aside from their own is a go for them. 

…And the Multiply is the strongest trait of this Yellow Slime. 

It may sound obvious, but in Nekomimi Neko…the monsters in a field don’t increase to a certain limit. 

That’s because more than 2 groups of monsters can’t appear in one spawn point. 

You could say having monsters in all spawn points is technically the highest amount of monsters you can have in that field. 

The only exception would be in the case when monsters appear from means other than spawning. There’s a way for field monsters to increase in their total numbers. 

For example; an attack from monsters through an event, an influx of monsters from a neighboring area that has had its Monster Invasion Progress maxed, monsters originally there that call monsters in some way. 

The Multiply of the Yellow Slime falls into that category. 

Even without doing anything, the Yellow Slime will divide and multiply at fixed times. 

The numbers swell up with the mouse calculation, and it eventually fills up the whole forest in yellow. 

That’s the result of the yellow forest I saw. 

However, their multiplication speed isn’t that high when there’s nothing to devour. 

You could even say it is slow.

Because every single one of them is extremely small, they barely become a threat right when you begin your playthrough because they are multiplying while their numbers are still low. 

But the fearsomeness of mice is that the speed in which they multiply increases as time passes. 

If the first slime divides 10 times, it will surpass 1,000.

If it divides 10 more times, it will be close to 1,000,000.

If you take your time in leaving Lamurick at the beginning of the game, by the time you reach the capital, the Slime Mold Forest will be covered completely in Yellow Slimes, and it wouldn’t be strange for it to have become a yellow plain by then. 

And then, when the Slime Mold Forest has been completely filled with slimes, the yellow calamity begins. 

Remember, when there’s a lot of monsters in the field, the Monster Invasion Progress gets higher. 

Therefore, when the Slime Mold Forest gets completely covered in Yellow Slimes, the Monster Invasion Progress of that forest increases by a fearsome rate. 

The moment it surpasses a certain point, they will be allowed to invade neighboring fields due to how the system works. 

They will cross over the Slime Mold Forest and flood the other areas too. 

When that happens, their invasion speed will be incomparably faster than before. 

That’s because they will get monsters (food) that spawn at fixed times in the other fields after all. 

It is not like they increase in numbers equally to how much they eat, but they definitely multiply faster when they devour other things. 

The Yellow Slimes will eventually devour all the monsters from neighboring fields, cover the whole field with their yellow body, and the Monster Invasion Progress will fill up in the blink of an eye. 

Then they flood neighboring fields, devour the monsters there…and there goes the downward spiral. 

It isn’t rare for them to be hit back hard instead in high level fields, but in fields that are level 100 or lower, they will conquer them in the blink of an eye. 

They rinse and repeat that, and the slime mold eventually pushes all the way to the capital. 

Well, even if the recent games have leeway in processing power, there’s no way they would use processing resources in battles that are not visible by the player, but that also means the ones you can see are properly being shown.

The video Ambition of the Slime Molds by Super Free Guy that utilized this feature by watching the invasion the whole time from the Sky City was pretty interesting. 

It is a necessity to play it at double speed, but you can see in detail just how the slime molds do a sweeping conquest of the world. The more you know about the respective fields, the more you can enjoy that video. 

The set level of the Yellow Slimes is 120. 

Their HP is 1 and their damage is fixed to 1, so there’s not much point in that level, but that’s apparently around the strength of a Yellow Slime.

When they enter a field that’s lower than that level, you could visibly tell that the yellow spreads in an instant in that field and how it gets conquered. 

On the other hand, when it is a field of over level 120 -especially over 150- you can tell that their invasion speed decreases. 

It is because the HP of high level monsters gets massive, so there’s not much point in their Devour attack.

For example; the King Butcher that showed us pain. 

We managed to defeat it quickly with what could be considered a secret technique, but that guy has a large HP pool and regeneration. 

Even if the Yellow Slimes got onto its whole body and tried the Devour, it would regenerate its HP faster, so it would technically be unscathed. 

It can fight back by using its cleaver that has a hit box on the whole weapon, making it possible to kill several hundreds, thousands of them in one hit, so they get defeated instead.

However, numbers really are power. 

Even the Yellow Slimes that had been defeated from one side would change the surrounding fields into their own, and by attacking from all directions, they would end up gaining complete control. 

The Butcher definitely won’t be defeated, but it can’t kill all the Yellow Slimes that are pushing on with numbers that surpass the hundreds of thousands. 

The result is that, even if the monsters are fine, the field itself will be painted yellow. 

The only one that completely stops its advance is the volcano field where the Demon Lord Castle is at. 

At a point in time, you would even think ‘no, maybe they might be able to conquer that place too’ and begin cheering the slimes in their world conquest, but you unfortunately can’t see the world domination of the Yellow Slimes in this video. 

The enemies at the last stages of the game are powerful, and this invasion has a clear time limit. 

As I said before, the Monster Invasion Progress skyrockets from the Yellow Slimes overflowing to the whole world. 

The Attack on the Capital will have happened, and the Yellow Slimes will have eaten everything in a heartbeat, but that’s not the only event that happens when the Monster Invasion Progress increases.

The Evil God Resurrection Bad End. 

If you leave the Yellow Slime world domination be for too long, the invasion system will judge that the monsters have the advantage in this world, will forcefully resurrect the Evil God, and it will be Game Over. 

Actually, if you think about doing a normal playthrough, the Yellow Slimes having destroyed the city is already in essence game over.

After the last patch, the story essential quest items are dropped from the NPCs when they die, so no matter how many people die, you can technically clear the game if you defeat the Demon Lord.

However, there’s no way you would be able to utilize them properly with no hints, and the chances of not being able to progress because you get hit by a bug for not doing it the proper way shoot up, so you normally can’t reach the Demon Lord. 

If you want to avoid that, you have no choice but to protect the city from the invasion of the Yellow Slimes, but that’s pretty hard. 

Their weak point is fire, so they won’t approach a place that’s on fire for a while. 

The reason why I wasn’t attacked immediately at the Slime Mold Forest was thanks to the burning Magic Airship at my back. 

But that doesn’t last long. 

Even if there’s fire, as long as there’s a target for consumption, they won’t give up. When they judge that they have gathered enough numbers, they will surround you, and charge onto you without caring about the fire. 

And once your body gets swarmed once, there’s almost no means to deal with it. 

There aren’t many skills that allow you to shake off the Yellow Slimes from your body, and the support fire from your companions has the risk of friendly fire, so you can’t expect much from it. 

As said before, their Devour attack deals 1 damage regardless of defense. This is not an attack that low HP humans can resist. 

Then, the basic strategy against Yellow Slimes should be to use long range fire spells, but that ain’t easy either. 

Their speed isn’t much, but readying firepower that can go against their overwhelming mass is not something anyone can do. Also, even if you defeat the ones on the surface, it won’t reach the ones deep in. 

If you end up leaving enemies remaining, they will ‘regenerate’.

I don’t know how the game processes this, but even if they don’t eat each other, they will eat their corpses. 

If there’s Yellow Slimes closeby in the time before the corpses disappear, they will eat them. 

They will then use that to multiply. 

Eating their comrades seems to fit them well since when 50 are defeated among 100, the remaining 50 will eat the corpses and increase their numbers to around 75. 

It is an extremely troublesome trait and that’s the same when your own companions are defeated.

When someone gets defeated, not only themselves, even their items will be eaten completely, and they will multiply again. 

That’s why it really is horrible if they were to reach a city.

A whole lot of food for them, but you can’t cast large aoe spells or skills. 

Many Nekomimi Neko players have challenged that despairing battle, and have perished without any hope in sight. 

Slime Mold Bad End. 

It was at that moment when those straight and despairing words were born. 

It was established that if the Yellow Slimes get out from the forest, it is already too late. At the Wiki, it is written in bold letters: ‘Wipe out the monsters in the Slime Mold Forest before a certain period of time. If not, endless propagation will ensue and it will be a checkmate’. 

“That’s why I want to defeat them while they are still low in numbers. We must move.” (Souma)

I hide my information source and tell them in my best power how fearsome they are. 

But…

“You people…” (Souma)

Unfortunately, they weren’t listening to my story seriously. 

The Bear is sticking to my neck and smacking my head again, Mitsuki was looking the other way, and Ringo was drinking the milk she brought from the dojo. 

“That looks tasty, Ringo.” (Souma)

When I said this sarcastically…

“…Yup. Milk, tasty.” (Ringo)

Ringo nodded happily while remaining expressionless, letting out a sigh smelling like milk. 

That’s a bit lewd…no, that’s not it…

“You know, I am having an important talk here, you know? They are truly dangerous! Hey, Mitsuki, properly look over he—” (Souma)

“It certainly does seem like they are not your regular enemy.” (Mitsuki)

That’s when I finally noticed that Mitsuki’s cat ears were stiffened up. 

“Mitsuki…?” (Souma)

“My eyes are pretty good and they work well in the dark too. But that’s strange. I can’t find a single tree two fields ahead.” (Mitsuki)

Two fields ahead…?

I chewed the words of Mitsuki in my brain, and finally noticed…

The direction Mitsuki is looking at…is the direction of the Slime Mold Forest…

“No way…” (Souma)

But that’s impossible. 

It has only been around 2 weeks since the game started. 

There shouldn’t be that many slime molds in the Slime Mold Forest. 

No, in the first place, trees don’t get eate—

(I see!!) (Souma)

I forgot to take into account that this world is not a game anymore. 

In the game world, the trees were part of the field. 

Excluding special trees like those of the dojo, they are something you can’t interact with. 

But that’s not the case in this world. 

I could dig and destroy a wall in places where I couldn’t in the game. 

In that case, you naturally can break trees or even…eat them…

“This is bad…” (Souma)

The trees being gone doesn’t matter. 

But if the slime molds multiplied faster because they ate the trees…

It may be possible to interact with trees now, but they are objects that don’t have HP, so there’s the chance it doesn’t affect their propagation.

However, since it is showing a development that’s different from the game, I can’t predict what will happen.

(What should I do? Should I head to the forest at once? Or return to the dojo for now and…) (Souma)

I was pondering about how to adjust my future plans but…

“Have you noticed? Even though we have come here to a place that stands out this much with a light source, there’s not a single monster aiming for us.” (Mitsuki)

What Mitsuki said blew away all of those thoughts.

I have been assuming the worst until now. 

Are you telling me it has already gone past even that? 

“Souma…!” (Ringo)

Ringo threw the milk bottle that still had half of its contents remaining far away. 

The moment it fell onto the ground, something crawled out from the darkness and swallowed up the milk bottle.

“Wa?!” (Souma)

And then, after a momentary pause, it returned to the darkness as if it disliked the light. 

There’s already no signs of the fallen bottle of milk.

I gulped. 

There’s not even the need to think about what I saw just now. 

“Everyone, be careful. Make sure not to get too far from the fire.” (Souma)

Not a single mistake will be allowed from here on.

Because…

“This place is already the forest of the slime molds!!” (Souma)