Chapter 13: Goblins.

Catherine was just finishing up her slaughter, crushing the head of a goblin knight. After a few fights she stopped bothering to drain them. Unlike the slimes from before goblins did have memories but nothing worth gathering. Most of the goblins here were younger then she was, having just spawned recently or a day ago when the last adventurer past. There might have been a goblin older here, but anything it had to offer Catherine deemed unnecessary.

The slime glanced towards the stairs, watching Rose and Nyoka enter the floor, the cat girl flinching a bit at the bodies “So, who’s the dramatic one?” Rose asked, taking a look at the dried up corpses of the goblins. Nyoka ran up to a corpse, going down on one knee and unsheathing one of her knives. With a swift motion she cut into it’s chest, reaching in and extracting a light blue marble sized gem.

“You drain them clean but don’t grab any of the valuable stuff, especially easy stuff like this!” Nyoka held up the gem, waving it side to side before placing it in her backpack with a huff before running over to the next corpse.

Catherine shrugged “What even is that?” uninterested in the item in question, but seeing as the item obviously held enough value for the cat to go out of her way to harvest them she decided to ask.

“Mana crystal, usually the most valuable thing you can get from monsters that have them.” Nyoka answered while she was hard at work gathering the crystals “Even small gems like this have value, the slimes had them but you uh... ate them?”

Catherine raised an eyebrow, not remembering seeing anything like that on the slimes. She looked towards Rose hoping for more information.

Rose, noticing the gaze sighed “We need to get you a book on this crap…” She shook her head “Slime’s mana crystals are usually in their core, sometimes growing on it if there is enough mana. Mana crystals also tend to be fragile and vanish into mana when broken.”

‘That might explain it…’ Catherine thought, reaching inside her body and pulling out a slime core from one of the slimes she swallowed whole. She fiddled around with it in her hands then gripped it with both of her hands and pulled. The soft material of the core stretching till it snapped cleanly in half, sticking to one of the sides was gem, smaller than the one Nyoka was extracting from the goblins. “oh, so they are inside.”

Catherine then plucked the gem from the core with two of her fingers, twiddling with it before crushing it between them and absorbing the mana that flowed out with a smirk. She confirmed just like the processed mana, she could eat it raw from these crystals. Though considering how many monsters she had killed and eaten before that seemed obvious. Watching Nyoka gather up all the gems she missed she frowned, making a mental note to harvest the gems herself so this greedy cat couldn’t have them for herself.

She watched the cat work, before shrugging and moving to the next set of stairs. “Well while you two do that, guess I will get back to work.” She looked back, seeing Rose flip her off she chuckled. ‘Just you wait my pet’ She thought to herself.

On her way down the steps she took a moment to gather her thoughts. Right now she figured the only things stopping her were this *leash* ball attached to her and the sheer size and power of the organization. The leash itself she knew little about, remembering Frig explain that it was somehow coded into her. Taking hostile action against an organization member would result in the ball disintegrating her or try it’s best.

The limits yet to be tested but Frig and everyone else who knew about the ball seemed to be sure that it could stop her, Rose not even taking up a defensive stance when she was aggressive towards her. ‘which brings me to the latter…’ The organization was way too laxed and sure of itself. Part of that was justified, It was a large galactic organization with who knows how many years of experience dealing with different situations. Who knows just how many people had this leash on before her? And they had species that may as well be her natural enemy, lucy being able to dominate her with just a thought.

Catherine reached the next floor as she thought. “More goblins.” She sighed. Catherine figured she needed to take things one at a time, the most important one being the leash. To test the limits of the leash was one thing she could easily do, the problem would be alerting someone of her tampering or setting the damn thing off.

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The goblins, noticing their new visitor grouped up. Unlike the last floor which was filled with 30 or so armed goblins. This floor only had 10, but Catherine noticed that they were far better equipped. The goblin that took up the frontal position was wearing full plate armor and wielding a sword and shield. The goblins in back were equipped with a varying degree of metal and leather armor, 2 of which had bows.

“Oh?” Catherine stopped thinking and noticed one goblin in the back that looked different then the rest. While goblins were short, green, yellow eyed, with small horns on their head. The goblin in the back was hairs length taller then the rest, but what caught Catherine’s eye was their horns which were twice the size and girth as the others. The other thing important to note was It held a wooden cane.

The goblin in the back raised it’s cane high above it’s head with a shout prompting the goblins in the front not wielding bows to charge while it started to chant nonsense, waving the staff around in the air as a circle appeared. Catherine’s eyes widened “Magic!” She cheered with glee and rushed forward, then stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the approaching goblin. “If that one has magic then maybe these ones are different and not just decked out goblins?” She asked herself.

The heavily armored goblin approached, swinging its sword thoughtlessly at Catherine who didn’t even bother dodging as the sword stuck into her. She quickly grew unamused watching the goblin panic, trying to pull its sword free. Catherine sighed “Got my hopes up for nothing…” She then watched as the other goblins, rushing to rescue their friend, meet the same fate as their swords sunk into Catherine’s slime.

She looked up just in time for an arrow to fly into her skull to little effect. She looked over to the Goblin with a cane, still chanting. “Holy, dude at this point just throw the fucking cane.” She said, looking down at the goblin’s still trying to pull the swords out of her body. She sighed “This brings me back.” Tentacles of slime extended from her body and traveled down the weapons shafts and wrapped around the goblins, only the heavily armored one seemingly smart enough to let go of his weapon and back off at this point.

With an amused laugh Catherine pulled the six goblins inside of her, her body expanding to make room before shrinking again as they were dissolved, equipment included. The armored goblin fell back on his backside, turning around and shouting at the one with the cane who just looked back with an annoyed look before going back to chanting.

“That better be the most advanced spell ever…” Catherine said, another arrow hitting her skull as she thought back to how fast Rose could use magic. “Rose would of casted at least ten ice spells by now.” She then started walking towards the goblin.

The casting goblin now noticing it was in a fair bit of danger shouted at the 3 remaining goblins. The armored goblin moving from its position on the ground and running over to the front, raising it’s shield while the two archers started firing arrows that Catherine didn’t bother to dodge. She approached the heavily armored goblin, who in a fit of bravery, charged her with it’s shield.

Catherine did not dodge, she allowed the charge to hit and using the charge of the force swallowed him inside her body where he was swiftly dissolved, armor and all. The archers seeing their last line of defense fall, scattered. “Where are you even running to?” Catherine asked, pulling one of the arrows out of her skull and throwing it like a dart, impaling the archer before doing the same to the other.

“Gwaugh!” The casting goblin shouted, pointing his can downward and from the tip a fire ball launched out from it. “About time!” Catherine shouted, letting the fireball hit her. The ball exploded, evaporating about an inch into her body and leaving a crater that was quickly reformed. The goblin’s jaw dropped, before it quickly started to chant again, waving its cane in the air.

Catherine stared at it in disbelief, while she had to give the thing some credit that it actually managed to hurt her, that cast time was stupidly long. She casually walked up to the goblin, her arm forming into a long needle she pierced its skull and stopping it’s chant. The magic circle vanished, and Catherine drained it, devouring its brain.

“Now then…” She processed the newly acquired information as she raised her hand, a magic circle appearing on her palm. She smirked “Finally!” She then pointed her open palm towards the drained corpse of the goblin, a tiny fireball flying out and exploding harmlessly when it collided with the corpse, the thing not even catching fire.

“Eh?” She blinked, she knew she was stronger than the goblin so it shouldn’t of been so weak, right? Why could the goblin shoot a spell that could harm her but she couldn’t do the same? She placed her hand up to the bridge of her nose and thought, looking back into the information it got from the goblin. “Born hours ago, fire magic…Casting is…oh” She found the information she was looking for.

The specific magic that the goblin could use was a near limitless power gaining fireball, the catch was a long cast time. The longer you held it the more powerful it would get, or at least that was how the goblin understood it. “That explains why it held it so long…” She sighed, realizing she herself did not know much about magic besides the few people she ate that used it.

For now she would have to make due with what she had, and look into it later or ask Rose if she has no other options, with how Rose casted magic she doubted magic was really that restrictive. She shrugged it off, draining the two remaining bodies and snatching the mana crystals from them before moving onto the next floor.