The world had slowed to a crawl in Hajime’s eyes once more. He needed it against the ongoing slime wave that always seemed surprisingly cunning with their tactics. For the first time, he realized they could “teleport” around the place by disappearing into the ground like a melting snowman.
In this situation, not even the electricity surging throughout his body hair could detect their movement, annoying as it was. But the battle wouldn’t end in vain this easily, and the word easily couldn’t be more accurate with the new counterattack he created on the fly.
His footing became wobbly and unstable, prompting him to deliver a stomp full of lightning on their sticky heads, making a splash wherever he went. Since his mind devised such a diabolical scheme of pure fun, he decided that was the perfect name for this albeit situational technique—Stomp Full a’ Lighting.
One, two, and a third time for good luck, the beast within smiled with pride. Maki seemed to return the feeling, at least in her own way. The power to reverse organic and inorganic material didn’t appear suited for mass destruction until her blade made contact with their nonexistent faces.
One hit and the gooey bastards vanished into thin air as Maki exclaimed every successful kill with a smile. “There’s no time to waste. We must slay them all now!” she said in front of Hajime, catching her breath.
“I hear you, kid,” Hajime replied. “Pardon me for saying this, but if you guys have been trapped here for God knows how long, why are you carving them up with no sweat?”
“It’s much harder than it looks.” Maki tightened her grip with both hands, eyes beaming with the revolve of a knight of old. “These things, wherever they come from, multiply beyond our wildest dreams. Look! There are five more already. I don’t know how they got into our world, but they’re far more vicious than any old slime I fought. Stay close.”
“Well, lucky for us, my hands don’t discriminate toward amorphous beings with unnatural birth rates. They’ll all be literal toast before dusk, and we’ll have a wonderful—” Hajime bit his tongue, ending his rousing speech as soon as a damning recollection echoed within him. It was the king’s words, which grew louder the second time:
Whatever you do, don’t level up.
How foolish he was to forget he wasn’t in a grass field home to countless monsters he could zap to oblivion without consequence. And yet, for reasons he’d prefer finding out later, his goosebumps almost seemed like they told him that he already slaughtered twenty Horde slimes out of fifty.
Suddenly, he missed the Swordland variety much better than before, not helped by the Virtue Box screen popping at the most inappropriate moment.
LEVEL UP
Class: Warrior
LV. 2
HP 110/110
MP 110/110
Objective(s) ATK 20>25 DEF 10>15 Meet the general of Coelestis. INT 20>25 SPD 10>15 Engage the general in a duel (optional).
“What’s wrong, Hajime?” asked Maki, lowering her sword to the ground. “Hajime…?”
Hajime shook his head, returning to the present in a near daze. He gave Maki the only face he could give her: shock and anxiety. With even more beads of sweat running down his forehead that day, he uttered, “We need to retreat. Now.”
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“Retreat? But we’re doing so well, and you leveled up before I did.”
“No, we’re not!” Hajime’s gaze darted at her presence before he finally found the perfect, if cruel deception, for the sake of the mission. “Your MP meter has gotten too low. We must call the others to fight. I know you’re not that type, but you’re not the first headstrong motherfucker in my life who does things solo.”
“T-that’s not true!” said Maki with a slight quiver in her tone. “You’re here, aren’t you? We can defeat them together.”
“Then, what the fuck are we standing here for? If you don’t cooperate, I’ll find my own way back to the base.” He began walking a path downhill, the soil embedded with telltale footprints from the other guild mates. It would’ve been a breeze for him if he didn’t find himself unable to take two more steps.
No matter the effort he put into his stride, he always returned to his starting position as though gravity had punished him to stay in one place for eternity. Sure enough, he knew the obvious fact about his predicament, witnessing a Maki whose face scowled with quiet desperation.
Maki moved her hand a few inches closer to the restrained Hajime, casting more runes in her palm. “I’m not letting you go,” she said, positioning her sword behind her to send another slime into the abyss. “I told you, rookie. You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Hajime had eyes wide at Maki’s casual feat, given how she accomplished it with the tip of her blade. Still, that only meant he needed to push more buttons before the jig was up, even if he had to obliterate her spirit the same way he would for any slime. “For the sake of the mission” might as well become his mantra in Swordland.
“Look around you, kid,” he began. “Pretty soon, the «Starting Forest» will become a wasteland the more we engage without a strategy. We don’t stand a chance without the others.”
Maki gritted her teeth with even more anger, nearing resentment each second. “Don’t say that! Don’t you dare say that! You’re just like Theo and his lackeys: arrogant, well-off men who think people’s lives come cheap.”
Hajime chuckled, initiating another twist of the emotional knife. “If that’s how you feel, then you got me, I suppose. I’m making excuses, whatever, but what about you? Are you doing this because you don’t want more blood in your hands, or is your false sense of duty that fragile?”
Maki lowered her hand, the rage in her eyes fading into a world of confusion. “What are you trying to pull?”
“The children, starving on the walls. I saw them,” he continued. “Forgive me for even bringing them up, but you’re all they’ve got, and if we die a thousand deaths here, their next bedtime story is gonna be very fucking demoralizing. Did I mention your MP meter is too low?”
“…I’m not hearing this. We fight whether you like it or not!”
“Well, you’re hearing it now whether I like it or not. Then again, I’m still making excuses.” Hajime wished he could’ve added more if not for the distinct trembling noise under their feet. Without warning, an emerging slime catapulted him into the trees like a ragdoll, his spine collapsing into a heap on the way down.
“Hajime!” said Maki, preparing her «Gleaming Shine» as though by instinct while sprinting for his aid. Sadly, fate wasn’t on her side that day, with three more slimes leaping above her in almighty judgment.
----------------------------------------
Beyond the chaos continuing in the «Starting Forest», several hooded figures wearing crimson robes observed the landscape on a meadow hill. A lone oak tree on top served as their shade for the moment, the air filling with the screams of [Grove Slimes] massacred by their more violent counterparts.
“Such otherworldly mayhem and bloodshed, wouldn’t you agree, brother Wedge?”
“Indeed, brother Biggs. Even for this outsider, the disease they brought upon our world has spread too greatly. But not all is ever lost. This is what the Sun Child wants, and we shall serve his will until the day of his incandescent return.”
“But brother, why must we make foes of the capital?” said Wedge, his sleeves tented. “Why shan’t we band together under the yellow light against these foul beasts from the depths of purgatory? If we ought to be martyrs by birth, reconcilement should be our obligation.”
“Because they know not of the light we so cherish and protect. They only know the brute insolence of their weapons of cold steel.” Biggs turned to his comrades and separated his connected sleeves with arms raised sideways. “The time is now ripe, my loyal siblings! Let us chant our last prayer before we march to our salvation!”
Across the meadows were more robed figures following the same gesture like an army of androids devoid of individuality, even forming a rippling effect with their fabric on every corner. Fittingly, the sun had shone its brightest that noon despite their hoods remaining intact as they stared at its glory.
“O radiant Father, deliver us from the end of creation and into your everloving bosom. O radiant Mother, send us the dove of our deeds and do away with those who shun your everlasting mercy. O radiant Child, give us the land flowing with fruit and honey in the hour of your everblooming bounty.”
In true cult-like fashion, the robed followers repeated the prayer more than anyone sane could count. Some even began to raise their tone to the point of singing the day of reckoning—except for one individual—who instead belted out an upbeat alternative rock tune that would fit right in with the 1970s. It escalated further in what seemed to be the chorus.
“Oh, oh, oh! I got a love that keeps me waiting!” sang the man louder, snapping his fingers with a tap on his foot. Even as their eyes turned to him in sheer perplexion of his racket, he responded with a mere throat clear. “Sorry about that, gents. Now’s the hour of your downfall.”
Before anyone knew it, the man presented them with two engraved pistols concealed on his sleeves. There was no explanation, only stacks of cultist corpses throughout the meadows.
Sheesh… These guys are more resilient than I thought. Wait until Tokiwa hears about this.