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Chapter 7: Strategic Gains

Chapter 7:

Strategic Gains

“Where the hell did they come from??” I yelled, reequipping Wordy.

“I thought it was weird that the Quest didn’t complete but I was too distracted by the stupid argument!” Stephen sniped a slime that was right on Sam’s heels.

“That doesn’t answer my question!” I took out two more. It wasn’t going to be enough like this.

I re equipped my shotgun and dashed away from the tree. I was hyper aware of how many times we had left the safety of its branches, it was getting a little old.

“Darcy! Don’t!” He sniped another that had gotten close to Sam. But three more were rolling and hopping after him.

I considered firing as I ran but they were still too far away and it would take too much time to use my long range weapons. So I just ducked my head down and ran, as fast as I ever had. All to save a freaking fish man. Oh great, Stephen's racism was spreading.

“Miss! Please, help me!” Sam screamed.

I risked looking up and saw Stephen take out the biggest threat but the slimes after him had bunched together and took one big group hop and became like a wave of slimes and swamp muck. I reached for Sam, his little hand stretched out as far as it would go. But I was too late. The slime wave crashed over top of him.

It threatened to wash me away, too, but I was able to dive to the right just in time. Instead of a face full of slime I got a mouthful of swamp. I’d only been down for like three seconds before I was rudely ripped back onto my feet.

“We gotta abandon this Quest. We failed.” Stephen said as he pulled me off farther to the right.

“We can’t run, Sam is still in there!”

Stephen stopped dragging me and looked back at the slimes, bunching together and twisting and twirling all around.

“You know how the Quest said to stop them from making a King Slime? Well, we didn’t do that.”

The twisting of the slimes became more violent and intense, a gurgling mass of multitudes of slimy bodies. But they were no longer divided. A bright green glow shown from the mass and a bang cut through the swamp, sending out a shockwave that rocked the swamp water. When the energy passed and the light dimmed, the mass completed its transformation.

My vision confirmed it:

[ King Slime | Level 13 ]

[ ALERT! This monster is much stronger than you–get the heck out of there! ]

“See, even the Interverse wants us to get the hell away.”

I wasn’t listening to him, I couldn’t look away from the King Slime. It was so unlike what I was expecting. Usually in old video games a King Slime would just be a giant version with a crown. But still a happy attitude, maybe some American box art Kirby styled angry eyes at the absolute worst. This guy lived up to the monster classification. It had the aforementioned angry eyes, as well as burning red pupils. But the worst part was its mouth. Gone was the doofy smile, replaced with a huge gaping maw, overflowing with teeth. Teeth! What the heck did a slime need those for?

And, unfortunately, it had already found its first meal. Swirling around inside of the thing's huge body… was one Sam N. Fillet. He punched and kicked, desperately trying to break out. But his little frame had no hope of breaching the King Slime.

His only hope was two noobs with very little real combat experience.

It did not look too good for Sam.

#

“Darcy? Darcy?” Stephen shook me but I could not look away from Sam literally in the belly of the beast. “We have to get out of here.”

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“I told you. I’m not leaving him.” I brought out Wordy.

“We can’t fight it, you have to know that.” He sounded completely exasperated, like I was a stubborn kid that would not take no for an answer. I guess that kind of did fit.

“What I know, is that little meat man needs our help. He asked for our help, we promised it to him. And you have fought me at every turn while also being pretty damn…” I saw Stephen get ready to yell at me calling him foodist again. “… rude, to the little guy. What do we have to lose by trying this? Is this a No Respawn Zone?”

He sighed. “No… But we will lose more than half the experience we just gained.”

“Are numbers really something to worry about?” A thought hit me. “Wait, what are the rules of experience gains again?”

“They only calculate at the end of a battle. It’s that way because of the loss of experience if you are defeated.”

“Right… so, how much experience do we have to lose here?”

He perked up, misunderstanding my question as me considering abandoning the quest. Oh how much more he had to learn about me. “We killed maybe thirty slimes or so. And since this is basically your first combat quest, I think you especially would gain a lot of Stat points.”

I grinned. “Perfect.”

I started off further to the right, Stephen happily giving chase after me. I put my hand on his chest, stopping his advance.

"Keep the monster busy for me."

"Uh, what? We are escaping."

"No, I am. Hold the fort down, okay? Don't let Sam die, I'm trusting you!" I ran off, not bothering to argue further.

"Darcy? What are you—oh fuck."

I looked behind me to see him barely dodging out of the way of a large tendril that shot out of the King's belly. I was glad to be putting distance between me and all THAT. Stephen could handle it. I was betting on it.

I was so focused on running that when I made it out of the combat area the explosion of leveling up info startled the hell out of me. The info blocked my vision and my foot hit something and down I went. Another face full of swamp.

But I didn't care about that at all, I was up in a sitting position in an instant and set my full attention on the levels I'd gained.

[ Experience gained! Stats increased!

Charged Shot Proficiency: +1 | Level 1 -> 2

Rifle Proficiency: +2 | Level 1 -> 3

Shotgun Proficiency: +2 | Level 1 -> 3 ]

[ Achievements Unlocked!

Slime Killer Rank 1 : 1/1 slimes

Slime Killer Rank 2: 5/5 slimes

Slime Killer Rank 3: 15/15 slimes

[ 2 Bonus Stat Points awarded! ]

It was a lot of information to take in but my eyes honed in on the next window that popped up:

[ Combat Level Increased!

1 -> 8 ]

Level 8? Would that be enough? The monster was Level 13—wait, what level was Stephen? I looked back but he was too far away, just a swampy blur of motion. For some reason our Party menu didn't have his level. Just had his name and "In Combat" beside it.

I took out good old Wordy and put my eye to the scope, aiming it right at Stephen. So many details about him burst into my eye. He was apparently six foot five, covered in 65% mud, and the mud had gotten to body parts that I did not need to know about. I skimmed from then on until I finally found what I was looking for: Level 6. He was two levels below where my Slime spoils had brought me and doing hardly any damage at all. There was no way I could deal enough damage to take that beast down.

I was about to give up when my scope just happened to pass over the King Slime and my eyes were assaulted by the biggest brick of words yet. My literal whole eyeball was nothing but words, scrolling endlessly. I couldn't even begin to tell you what it was saying, all kinds of scientific mumbo jumbo about what its body was made of, what it's hunting habits were, on and on. I would latch onto something and it would be gone in a second, like someone was fast forwarding all of the Star Wars intros at once, overlaid all over each other.

I just watched it, in shock, and since I didn't have any other ideas I just kept reading, praying there was some kind of secret weakness hidden in the word salad.

Stephen ran around, phasing in and out of the words, really giving it his all while I was just reading a massive novel on King Slimes whole lore and biological make up. I couldn't leave him like that, fighting like hell, hoping that I would come back with some Quest saving Stat gains.

I was about to pull my eye out of the scope when, for some reason, I gave the text one last look. And there, in the still madly scrolling wall of text, was a slice of hope.

[ Edible ]

I tried to see the word again, thinking maybe I imagined it but as quick as it came, it was gone. With no way to confirm what I saw, I basically was staking everything on a single possibly imagined word.

I looked through my inventory, finding the perfect weapon for my idea. I had two Stat points to put in whatever I wanted. But since my "weapon" was a little small there was really only one choice to be made. I dropped the points into a Stat that I had indirectly read all about, claimed by bros everywhere to be an "enhancement from God."

Let's see what God could do.