Time slipped by quickly over the last week. I hunted, foraged, and pushed myself to the limits trying to finish my quest. With every reward I ended up greedier for the next than I was the last. Finally I found myself glaring at the countdown on the quest. Time Limit: 00:01:00:06. My breathing was ragged and hoarse from running, we had an hour left and there weren’t any slimes around.
Only 4 slimes remained until we reached 100,000 and unfortunately I was all out of pheromones. I almost couldn’t believe we made it this far, if Aureus hadn’t learned new abilities and continued hunting without rest for the whole week there's no way we would have made it. But finally it was within our grasp, I knew a reward for 100,000 slimes had to be amazing.
The rewards I already got after that first day were immensely valuable. For only 1,000 I got an “Underhollow Camper”, I was fairly certain that the Playwright named that one. It seemed more like a deployable subspace house really, and even though it was an item it felt more like a skill. It required a small consistent mana cost while deployed and the cost would increase while using the amenities it contained. Within the ‘camper’ were two rooms containing a couch, dining area, a toilet, two sinks, and a shower.
Surprisingly I found that when I deployed the cooking set I’d received earlier in that space it transformed into a small kitchenette. It came with a hot plate that attached to the counter next to the sink in the dining area, and a small cabinet keeping the utensils that I received with it. Thankfully the next milestone reward was clothing - it was called the Slime Hunter set – receiving it brought tears to my eyes.
Now I was adorned with a pale blue cloak; its fabric faded to a slightly darker blue as it approached the bottom hem. There were tassels I used to tie the cloak around my neck with two small blue angry slimes dangling from its ends that matched the decorations along the hems made in silver, little disgruntled slimes dotted the edges of the garment. Underneath was a simple silk dress that was a couple shades darker than the cloak, and dark green leggings and flats.
The flats felt how I imagined spray on shoes would feel, at first I was a bit disturbed by the feeling but quickly it was almost as if the shoes weren’t there at all. However, unlike spray on shoes, the flats weren’t translucent nor black and sparkly and they didn’t coat my whole foot. They were just a plain dark green. I had never imagined such a comfortable and practical outfit could exist.
If the cloak or dress came into contact with something other than myself like a monster the fabric rippled as if it was slime itself. Thankfully, none of the clothes I received felt slimy in the slightest. When I first received the clothes I was ecstatic, I thanked the gods profusely and quickly fell in love with my new look. Not to mention it was a very valuable set of equipment, I struggled to distrust the gods at that point and had decided that other than the three I was most familiar with I wouldn’t trust any other gods.
~~*~~
Slime Hunter Set
Description: An outfit envied by all who hunt slimes, it was created with the essence of thousands of slimes so it provides not only camouflage but also protection from your prey. Slimes are social creatures but rather than not attacking each other they are incapable, and similarly whoever is adorned with this set will be able to repel their attacks as well. As this set allows the wearer to take upon slime characteristics you will also be able to evade certain types of damage.
Traits: Slime Camouflage, Slime defense
Armor: 10
~~*~~
The camouflage skill was very welcomed, but the slime defense skill was clearly leagues better. In the future the ability to mitigate damage in the way slimes do would be very helpful. I would be able to glance attacks off of me if I got proficient in utilizing the way I dodge. Even though I really couldn’t use either ability at the moment since before slimes could get within 10 feet of me Aureus destroyed them.
We grew at a monstrous rate, especially after Aureus learned how to use ice elemental magic the third day. He was quite proud of himself so I had to shower him with compliments, not that I minded. Aureus deserved the praise. He had quickly become the best thing in my life, and a big part of the reason why I was still alive if not the only reason. Also at level 10 Aureus received a second skill, well it was more like his first skill split in two.
The first being Elemental Attack and the second being Elemental Manipulation, the ‘Basic’ term was removed when it split. Elemental Attack was basically what he already had but with fixed mana costs in increments of 5 and increasing sizes, while Elemental Manipulation was more vague and just gave him the ability to use mana to manipulate elements as he pleased. We were now on the cusp of level 15 and just barely short of the last milestone.
Master, I don’t see any other slimes in the area. I looked up to see him descending towards me, when I reached out to catch him my hood was slapped backwards by the wind of his wingbeats. I smiled as I noted that he had grown so quickly in the past 6 days, soon I wouldn’t be able to catch him this way. I was already struggling to keep up with his growth rate with my stat increases. Every level I had been receiving 2 unallocated stat points that I was mostly placing into intelligence, though I also tried to round out some of my other stats.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that every five levels we were getting an overall stat bonus that gave me an extra point in each. Holding my breath I braced myself as Aureus crashed into my chest, I nearly stumbled but thankfully maintained my footing. Grasping him under his arms I held him away from me, he was slowly losing his baby fat much to my dismay.
Aureus, I know we talked about this. You are getting too big. I can't catch you this way anymore.
He snorted as the molten silver in his eyes dulled, I dropped him as he moped to himself. I am just the right size, it's good to grow.
Yes, it is good to grow. But! Part of growing up is learning to treat others the way they ask you to. Plus it's good to learn more about how you should interact with others and the world, you can’t always act like a baby. Immediately after I said it I regretted my words, at first he was taken aback but it was quickly replaced with anger and a twinge of sadness.
I am NOT a baby! I am a dragon! He took off in a huff, flying up out of view as the wind knocked me on my ass. With a groan I looked through the messages that were collecting in the GGC, they had been pretty quiet lately since I wasn’t doing much but slaughtering slimes. Finally now that they had something to comment on the messages were appearing yet again.
[“Seeker of Magic and Knowledge” complains that clearly Aureus is both a dragon and a baby.]
[“Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” expresses to him that the truth is not helpful in these situations.]
[“Traveling Spring Painter” advises you to give Aureus some space and search for the slimes while he cools off.]
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“Yes, I plan to let him enjoy his tantrum. I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but I’ve spoiled him too much. I need to draw the line now or it’ll be harder for the both of us in the future.”
[“Abandoned Bloodied Sword” asks why you’re letting him throw a tantrum if you don’t want to spoil him.]
“I mean… I don’t want to treat him like an employee or a subordinate in times like this. There will be times I have to put my foot down and treat him that way, but right now his feelings are hurt. He needs some time to get his emotions together and process. Plus it isn’t like he’s not doing his job, even though he is upset he’s still looking for the last four slimes.”
[“Reflection of an Empty Throne” grumbles that you’re too soft.]
[“Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” taunts you, singing that you’ll be out of time soon.]
[“Traveling Spring Painter” cheers you on.]
A few more messages popped up as I pondered where the last few slimes might be hiding. It was the last day and I thought that the four remaining were the only slimes left in the area, but eventually I doubted that there were any slimes left here at all. Finally I groaned that I had run out of the pheromones and cursed myself for using it so haphazardly during the first couple days, the slimes would have come out on their own if I had just wandered a bit.
Collapsing backwards into the grass I wracked my brain trying to think of their patterns, where they lived, what they liked, anything that might help. As I stared up at the now familiar pink sky I thought to myself that this must have been one of the Playwright’s plans. While the Playwright, Painter and Seeker all seemed to genuinely want to help me there was a clear difference in personalities and motives, and the Playwright clearly just wanted to have fun. They were the god I trusted the least of the three, but the other two wouldn’t have let them create a quest I couldn’t complete. Probably. The question at that point was, “Where would the Playwright hide them?”
One of the things I particularly paid attention to this last week was how they interacted, and learned through their conversations that the Playwright was the architect of the area of Underhollow I was in. Originally I thought they just worked on the entrance, or was just one of the gods who worked on the area, but soon came to the conclusion that the whole area was theirs. I sat up and scanned my surroundings, I was much too far from the entrance to attempt searching there or in the rainforest which I never bothered to check.
The only thing I have left is searching this ecosystem, the hills and the rivers. But we had been looking for hours without any sign of them, there had to be something we were missing. And then it hit me, I swung my head around frantically. My eyes landed on the waterfall in the distance, the only place we hadn’t searched. Before I knew it I had sprung to my feet sprinting back towards it. It had to be there, if it wasn’t there I wouldn’t make it. I still might not make it there in time since there wasn’t much time left.
Time Limit: 00:00:47:28
Time Limit: 00:00:33:11
Time Limit 00:00:12:09
Time Limit 00:00:06:54
I finally stood at the base of the waterfall, my dry heaving drowned out by the roaring of the water crashing down. Thankfully, I hadn’t had time to eat lunch. I panted as I checked the time, I had less than 6 minutes to find them.
“Aureus?” I choked out, there was no way he could’ve heard it, but my intentions must’ve been conveyed psychically. I took a deep breath and made up my mind to attempt to jump through the waterfall, honestly at that point I wasn’t really sure what else to try. I pondered on the logistics before the rising time pressure brought me to my wits end. “Ah, whatever!” I squeezed my eyes shut as I took a running jump into the wall of water, but the impact never came.
Aureus had caught me under the arms this time, What are you doing?! You’re going to hurt yourself!
What are YOU doing?! We don’t have enough time! We have to find those slimes! Put me down!
So you can jump into a waterfall?
Well, do you have any better ideas? This is the only place left we haven’t looked!
Yeah but jumping into the unknown isn’t the only solution for that! A large triangular rock pushed its way out of the cliff close to the top of the waterfall, splitting it into two streams and exposing a cave that was behind it. Aureus truly was a godsend.
Yes! Yes I knew it! I told you, now let's go, we have no time!
Whatever, stupid Master all you had to do was ask for help I would’ve done it… Aureus grumbled under his breath as he sat me on the edge of the cave and quickly took off into the darkness. I chuckled to myself as I anxiously read the gods’ messages.
[“Traveling Spring Painter” expressed that he was a cute age and wasn’t able to express his feelings well.]
[“Gentle Autumn Breeze” smiles and nods his head in agreement.]
[“Abandoned Bloodied Sword” frowns complaining that Aureus will definitely end up spoiled rotten.]
[“Whispering Playwright behind a Mask” asks if you’re just going to sit here and read through the chat.]
The Playwright was right, I pushed back my disheveled hair as I looked at the quest and sat on the wet rock beneath me. I had briefly considered following after Aureus, but I wasn’t fast enough to catch up with him. Time was passing agonizingly slowly and no change, still four left. When the timer hit three minutes I forced my tired legs to hold me up.
Aureus, have you found anything?
I can smell them, there are definitely slimes in here somewhere, but I haven’t found them yet. There are a few different paths, I’ll find them soon, don't worry master.
I waited holding my breath unconsciously, and finally 99,997. He had killed another! 99,998. 99,999. And nothing, it didn’t increase again. Aureus? Are there no more left?
My stomach dropped as the timer dropped to two minutes. I couldn’t think of a way out of it, I turned and looked out of the mouth of the cave. Half heartedly I jumped into the river. We had found a lot of slimes in the river. Maybe we just missed one.
But as I was diving into the water I noticed the bed of the river just where the waterfall previously was was much darker than the rest of the river bed. I quickly swam down towards it trying to ignore the time slowly slipping away. The seconds felt like minutes as I swam into the darkness, when I was caught up in a strong current.
I was spat out in a cave lined with bioluminescent goo, a particularly gross blobish clump of it hung in the center of the ceiling. A crude pedestal underneath it, I spun around wildly looking for a slime. I only had a minute and 47 seconds, but everything around me was slime colored and I couldn't make it out well. My breath caught in my throat as one of my previously most hated sounds came from behind me.
An evil grin took over my face as I wheeled around to see a rather large slime hopping my direction. I pulled my knife out of my bag and coated it with mana, something I had learned with trial and error over the last few days. It was effective but extremely costly and crude, so I had to finish it fast.
Time Limit 00:00:01:33
I let out a guttural scream I wasn’t aware I was even capable of, let alone that I had been holding it back. After all my struggling over the past week, I felt like I had to kill this slime. I needed to kill it. I dashed towards my final foe, my ticket to immense rewards.
Time Limit 00:00:01:25
We were nearly the same height, I slashed at its body. The gashes I left were deep, but not fatal. I needed to do more damage than this, but I didn’t have any other weapon that was effective against slimes. It jumped forward crashing into my chest, my skin that came into contact with it was burning as I bounced off of it and crashed to the ground.
Time Limit 00:00:00:58
My enemy was slow but each time it attacked me I was thrown backwards, thankfully my cloak helped cushion the blows and the fall, but it wasn't enough for me to avoid injury. In the time it took for me to regain my footing some of the injuries I caused had already healed.
Time Limit 00:00:00:43
My hands were numb, and stuck deep within the slime as I tried to slice it in two, my face burning as it hit me again. I fell hard onto the cave floor, and slammed my fist on the ground as I looked at the timer.
Time Limit 00:00:00:30
I can do this. I have to do this. I told myself as I struggled to my feet, my muscles complained since they had been working overtime and a sharp pain shot through my chest. My arm raised above my head as I pictured Aureus slicing through slimes with his water cutter, my senses heightened while I envisioned it in my head.
Time Limit 00:00:00:22
My skin prickled at the cold wet air around me, electricity buzzed under my skin and traveled towards my arm. My body felt like it was on fire as my arm sliced down towards the final slime. A bright faintly purple light overtook my vision for a moment, followed by the quest window.
[Congratulations, you’ve completed the final milestone of Naked and Unafraid.]