Volume 2 - CH 7.5

The Coralde company’s horse carriage was stationed a distance from the battlefield. The horses ran at full speed, until they reached a cliff far from Floural Hill.

“…what the hell is that…?”

Kristoff’s comment represented the thoughts of all present. All of them backed away after seeing the gigantic slime. But that was not the only thing Kristoff feared. The scouting skills he had honed did not work at all on the slime. It was an incredibly large magic beast, and he couldn’t detect it at all.

Even if it was underground, normally it was impossible to not be able to detect any trace. If such a creature attacked the town, no one could detect it and it would be devastated.

“This can’t be happening…”

One of the coachmen spoke. This was something everyone thought.

A huge slime spanning several kilometers. Slimes were magic beasts easily defeated as long as their core was destroyed. Their ability to hide and melt anything could be troublesome, but, as long as one was careful about them, they were easily defeated. If they were of normal size that is.

Normal slimes could become as large as an adult human being at most. They weren’t of such abnormal size. Is there any human being who could reach the core of such a massive creature, and destroy it?

No weapon could pierce that viscous body. Even if they used magic, how powerful did the spell have to be? Could a human being cast it? Could anyone penetrate the slime’s body and destroy the core?

“I see…we would be just in the way, that’s for sure…”

Dietrich clenched his fists. No matter how much he thought, he couldn’t come up with any way to defeat that slime. The only available options were to flee or to die.

There was no weapon they could use. He couldn’t think of any battle strategy, no past experience he could use, no secret plan…

“…powerless.”

The feelings of frustration were shared by everyone else too.

?

<Yaay!>

The twin wolves kept falling through the air. They heard Roa screaming, but they were in very high spirits.

They would fight alongside Roa and Grandpa Gry. And they could use magic without limits. For the twins it was an ideal situation, something they hoped would happen for the longest time.

The slime’s tentacles targeted them. They were sticky and viscous, but if those massive limbs struck, not even the twins would be unscathed. If the tentacles wrapped around them, their skin and flesh would surely melt.

<Let’s go!!!>

The twins, their eyes on the tentacles, leaned on each other’s back, with Roa in the center, then powerfully roared in unison.

Their voices melted in the air: at the same time, their magic power spread and the slime’s tentacles stopped.

On the blue magic wolf’s side, the tentacles froze. On the red magic wolf’s side, the tentacles burned to ashes. The magic shockwave reached the slime itself, freezing and scorching its surface.

<You used too much power, twins! My cage isn’t ready yet, what will you do if it escapes? And brat, you’re too loud!! Pipe down!>

<Okaaay!>

“It’s your fault if I’m too loud, Grandpa Gry!!”

Roa knew about the plan, so he was ready to fall from the sky, but because of the different timing he wasn’t fully ready, so tears filled his eyes. Grandpa Gry completely ignored his words and looked at the slime’s full silhouette from above.

<You’re pretty noisy too…>

Grandpa Gry could hear the “voice” of someone else present in the area.

Kill……kill……kill…..

The oppressively sticky, heavy voice seemed to come from the depths of the earth and filled the area with evil intent.

<All that resentment, the obsession of chasing me…it is impressive, yes, but also irritating.>

The gryphon looked down on the slime…both figuratively and literally, from high in the sky, with a cold gaze.

<I had my share of fun, but it’s time to end this once and for all!!>

Vibrations. Something different from the previous tremors violently shook the air.

Roa, the servant beasts, even the distant coachmen and Nostalgia felt it through their whole bodies. The slime sunk into the ground, as if it was being absorbed by it. That was the result of Grandpa Gry’s large-scale earth magic.

<Now you won’t be able to flee underground so easily!>

Floural Hill, over the several kilometers it spanned, the whole plain was compressed and sunk by earth magic, changing the terrain into a huge slab of rock. Turning into rock made it impossible for the slime to melt it easily, preventing it from fleeing underground.

Grandpa Gry cast earth magic again, controlling the fissures created by the slime to refill immediately.

<Next.>

Before the vibrations through the atmosphere could completely disappear, a strong wind started blowing.

It was a whirlwind of massive proportions. In its center, however, no wind blew, so the surroundings were not affected in any way. It was a circular wall of wind, circling the entire Floural Hill. 

Grandpa Gry’s Wind Wall.

It was so large, however, that it wasn’t as minutely controlled as the smaller ones. It was nothing but an incredibly large tornado, which did not let anything through it. The wind barrier was visible because of the dust it raised, making it impossible to see inside from outside.

The ground turned into hard rock and the Wind Wall, together they formed a “cage” to trap the gigantic slime.

<O twins, do as you please. That thing cannot escape anymore.>

Grandpa Gry’s voice was vibrant.

?

The blue fur magic wolf landed on a frozen part of the slime’s body. It jumped as soon as it landed, to reduce the momentum, so that Roa -hugging its back tightly- wouldn’t feel the shock of the impact. It also shook Roa from its back, to prevent the remaining momentum from affecting him.

Not too far from them, the red fur magic wolf landed on a scorched part of the slime’s body. Bounced away by the slime’s still elastic body under the scorched part, it jumped again, among ashes charred black. It caught Roa on the way and bounced him back towards the blue wolf.

“Waahh!!”

Treated like a baseball, Roa’s head started spinning. The twins made sure not to let Roa land on the slime, because it would make it impossible for him to move afterward. The frozen slime surface was hard, so if Roa fell on it he would die or at least suffer grave wounds.

Under the scorched part the slime’s body was still burning, so if Roa fell there he would be absorbed and melted.

The only ones capable of standing on the slime’s elastic and viscous body, capable of melting anything it touched, were the magic wolf twins, by freezing or burning it.

The blue magic wolf caught Roa on its back again and started running on the slime.

“Woof woof♪”

“….is this time to play…?”

Even if he was simply riding the wolf, Roa still had the strength to talk. It wasn’t the first time that he fell from the sky or the twins handled him like a ball. It always happened due to accidents or emergencies. The first time he lost consciousness and threw up his stomach’s entire contents after waking up, but grew to withstand it with his head only spinning a little. That was one reason why they could formulate this plan.

Another idea was to use Grandpa Gry’s wind magic to slowly glide and land on the slime, but it meant that Grandpa Gry would have to cast two large-scale spells and also wind magic on Roa, forcing him to control four spells at once.

Grandpa Gry wasn’t sure he could control them all, and if he failed then the plan itself would too, thus the plan changed to have them fall.

“Woof!”

The slime’s frozen body cracked. Tentacles crawled out from the cracks, but the magic wolf easily avoided the attacks and froze them. The slime’s body shook violently, just like the sea during a storm, trying to drop Roa and the wolf together with the frozen part.

This was deftly avoided too, however, and the newly exposed part was frozen as well. The magic wolf moved as swiftly as the wind: there was no way for the slime to seal its movements. Roa bounced wildly on its back, but the magic wolf was paying close attention to him: despite movements that humans could not hope to keep up with, Roa was in no danger of falling.

“Owooooo!”

In the far-off distance, the red magic wolf howled. In response, the surface of the slime body around it started sizzling and bubbling, then went up in flames the next instant.

Usually the red magic wolf would scorch its target without causing an actual fire, but it was not like it could not command flames. On the contrary, using fire was easier and did not require very precise magic manipulation. It had limited itself to scorching the opponent until now just to prevent the fire from spreading.

Such a concern was not needed this time. Everything in the surroundings was the enemy. The red wolf could use its magic power with no reservations.

The magic wolves, while their appearance belonged on the “cute” side of the spectrum, commanded truly fearsome magic.

One half froze and crumbled, the other half burned and crumbled. Unable to withstand such a hellish situation, the slime tried escaping, but Grandpa Gry’s cage did not allow any such thing.

<You aren’t going anywhere.>

The slime tried desperately to seep through the ground, but rock compressed through magic did not dissolve easily. In addition, Grandpa Gry’s magic reinforced it every time it started to melt.

In such a concave crater, the slime looked like soup being cooked in a gigantic pot.

<Mwahahaha!!! You attacked first, yet you’re trying to run now? So large, yet so pathetic!!>

The slime continued its attempts to escape, but the Wind Wall pushed it back. Breaking through it was impossible, of course. The wind whirling at high speed repelled any advances. The slime’s large body was not damaged, but could not go even one millimeter forward.

A prison of earth and wind. The only opening was above, from where the magic wolves continued attacking and Grandpa Gry glared.

The battle would end soon: the difference between the opponents was crushingly clear.

?

Kill…..kill…..kill……

The slime’s cries of resentment did not cease. Chased out of its home, the comrades created to defend itself slaughtered, the body it reinforced as last resort destroyed. The resentment even broke through the golem instincts human alchemists grafted onto it, letting the slime retrieve its primal will.

Originally, slimes do not possess anything that can be called intellect. They are very simple creatures, which live according to simple biological responses, and nothing more. If they feel there is a prey close to them they absorb it, if they are attacked they fight back at full power. If they can’t defeat the threat, they simply run.

Through alchemical transformations, now it even had an intellect. A very simple one, built to be able to control the golem body and follow orders. There were no problems while it was under the alchemist’s command, but when the alchemist responsible for the modifications died and the slime returned to the wild, it started using the intellect for its survival and prosperity.

To protect itself and the comrades born from its split body. This was the maximum priority. Resentment towards who killed its comrades was born at the same time.

Kill….kill….kill…..

It probably would not have felt so much resentment about comrades split from its body a long time ago. Since the slaughtered comrades were split recently, their consciousness was still strongly connected, so the resentment was very deep.

Kill…..kill…..kill…..

The slime now fighting against Roa’s group was originally one golem left behind, in order to ensure the species would be preserved. If at least one survived, they could increase their numbers again.

The instant its comrades were killed, however, its heart was filled with resentment strong enough to make it forget its mission, remove its alchemical chains, reviving its slime instincts. Then, in order to build a more powerful body, it went underground. It absorbed the magic essence flowing underground, the matter around it, and became gigantic.

The excessive absorption of magic essence even changed its flow underground. Eventually, the magic beast forest would turn into a normal one. In a forest without magic essence…without magic power, the flora itself would change, as well as the fauna living in it.

From underground, the slime smelled its hated enemy and chased it. As it moved, it continued absorbing magic essence and matter. As a result, it formed a large core spanning several meters, protected by mithril, and a massive body spanning kilometers.

Kill….kill…..kill…..

However…

That body was in the process of being destroyed.

The slime, its heart burning with resentment, started thinking about how to get rid of its source…