Luckily, Joe didn’t need to visit the priest today because he was still on metropolitan, and hoped to hit level ten in the next two days, so he decided to continue his slime killing as much as possible. With a significant portion of the sun still left since it was barely after noon, Joe returned to his slime killing with a renewed vigor that had been absent over the last two weeks or so, since had been easily able to reach his quota of level five before the day ended. Now with the need of a day and a half, Joe could only hope to maybe have enough time today to finish out by tomorrow evening.
Garnedell seemed surprised by Joe’s intention to keep killing, but thought little of it, continuing as the ever present and ever useful excellent helper. Joe’s fervor to fight didn’t still his need for conversation though, and he soon began speaking with the boy.
“You know, kid, This has got to be one of the most boring scenarios ever! I’ve been killing slimes for almost ninety days and still trying to focus on ‘villager’ and ‘waiter,’” Joe grunted as his spoon flicked a gem directly from a slime, instantly killing it.
“If this were a story, I would probably already be taking out manticores or something. Probably dungeon diving and taking out entire swaths of floors,” Joe’s speech came to an end as his core tensed to spike another leaping slime into the ground.
“Seriously, if this were a Japanese story, I’d have already met the big bad, confronted him, almost be killed by him, then ‘save’ him by promising to be his best bud. Then we would cut away to a sad flashback where we learn the big bad really isn’t a big bad, he’s just so lonely and needs friends, and the actual big bad took advantage of that and manipulated him to the dark side,” Joe’s speech turned a bit mocking at the end then cut off as he took out another slime gem from its ooze flesh.
“Then, our hero would ‘save’ the villain by telling them he would be his friend, then they would unite to fight against the REAL big bad!”
Joe sprinted towards his next target, quickly coming upon it and spiking it to the earth before he returned to his monologue, “Of course, if it was Chinese, then it would probably be some stuck up young master that our MC would wipe the floor with. Maybe even ‘enrage’ the idiot’s family.”
Joe finished the slime of quickly before moving on to the next, jogging as he spoke, “Unless the idiot master turned out to be a cute girl, then you got the whole ‘she likes him but not yet’ vibe going on. And he…” Joe grunted as his spike slammed through a slime into the earth, “is, of course, irresistible and suddenly is added into the MC’s growing harem. Ain’t that right, kid?”
Garnedell said nothing, simply glancing periodically to Joe while he continued to retrieve gem after gem with avid caution, making sure he didn’t miss a single one. Joe looked to the boy, hoping for a response, but then realized the kid obviously couldn’t understand him. He sighed and fell back into silence, his focus on eradicating every slime before him. The rest of the afternoon passed in silent but frenetic killing. Joe was so focused, that he only came out of his frenzy with some surprise when Garnedell tapped him on his shoulder and spoke while pointing at the sky. Glancing up, Joe noticed the darkness cloaking the forest in shadows and realized the sun was well on its way to the horizon. The west held the glow of red, and the east was already a deep purple.
“Hey, kid. Thanks for letting me know. We need to get back home pretty quick, huh? Home soon night come sleep.”
He smiled and ruffled the kid’s hair and then turned south towards the road. Joe had had felt a couple bigger status updates in the day, and figured he’d at least grown three levels, but when he looked at his screen, he was a bit disappointed to find he only made it to seven, with just a tiny hint of growth on his experience bar. He’d have a long day tomorrow!
When Joe made the road, the two of them came out a bit further away from the village than they’d expected or they normally did. Their hunting must have pushed them a bit further from the village. Joe and Garnedell jogged down the road, not sure how far they had to go and soon came upon the slime crossroad, easily recognizing the landmark simply because they’d seen it so much over the past hundred days or so. But as they came upon where the slimes usually crossed the road, Joe found an amusing sight of two slimes chasing a single rabbit like creature across the road. The two slimes continuously leapt at the rabbit thing and the rabbit thing kept dodging just barely.
Joe and the kid actually stopped and watched with a bit of shock as the two slimes danced around chasing after the rabbit. Suddenly, a swish of color whipped out of the forest to their left and Joe quickly dropped, a surprised reaction to what he thought was an attack. Relief flooded Joe as he realized that the two had gotten lucky. Another slime had come out of the road, heading north as usual, and leapt to attack them but collided with a tree at the edge of the road. At the same time, the rabbit had suddenly darted towards them before juking quickly north when it realized Joe and Garnedell was ahead of them. The two slimes chasing the rabbit immediately leapt towards the rabbit but collided with each other as they both angled in on the rabbit.
Joe watched with some awe as he saw the two slimes hit each other, then slowly start oozing together. He’d initially planned to take on the slime that had clipped the tree in its ambush but when he saw the two slimes suddenly combining, fear swept through him. He instantly recognized what was happening! It’s merging! Crap! Joe left the ambushing slime alone and sprinted towards the forming dual slime. Even as he ran forward, he glanced backwards and noticed that the single slime was almost out of the tree. This is NOT good! I can’t! What… No!
“Garnedell! Go! Home! Go! Go! Go,” Joe shouted in a loud panic as he pointed towards the village.
The great slime was still forming and would take a little more time to complete. Hopefully, Garnedell would have enough time to sprint down the road away and get out of the range of the slimes. Garnedell seemed to freeze for a second but then began sprinting down the road. They’d made it about half the way to the dual slime, Garnedell lagging behind by a couple steps, when it suddenly squatted in preparation of its leaping attack and Joe cursed under his breath, leaping to the side away from Garnedell and landing in a roll even as it flew overhead.
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“Garnedell! Go! Go!”
Joe came to his feet even as he yelled for Garnedell to run again, coming to his feet as rapidly as possible in the hopes of catching the great slime as it landed, but it had already leapt back at him again and Joe had to leap to the side once again, rolling under the whoosh of the slimes attack. Even as he came up, he saw the second smaller slime finally break free of the trees and leap towards him as well. Joe cursed once again and this time leapt to the side while throwing the spear into the dirt to free his hands. As he flew through the air, he noticed what looked like a horse and knight idling in the distance, unmoving and not watching. But the need to act was so overwhelming he had little time to consider the ramifications of a horsed knight and almost immediately had his bow out and an arrow knocked, but the string slack.
At the moment, the large slime was now behind him and the small slime was in front of him. He’d need to dodge the large slime while turning one hundred eighty degrees to get his eye on the small slime. He hoped it would be enough to get an arrow into the small slime and anchor it to the ground. The large slime leapt faster, as always, and Joe pulled his arrow back to his ear even as he leapt to his right and turned to face behind him. The small slime was just starting to land in the ditch close to the forest’s edge and Joe sighted his shot and released it. His right hand released the arrow and was able to come down to brace his fall but now he was in horrendous danger. Focusing on the arrow, he saw the shaft thunk into the slime and anchor it to the ground, about three quarters dead center. Joe tsked a bit at his poor shot but he didn’t have a lot of time to complain. He had failed to conserve his momentum with any kind of roll and now he would be terribly slow to stand.
He didn’t even try. He chose to simply roll on the ground, tumbling down into the ditch even as the thump of the great slime landed exactly where he had been laying. He’d been able to take one of his rolls and turn it into momentum to quickly get back to his feet while simultaneously latching his bow back on to his harness on his back, the magnetic locks shunking into place quickly and easily. His eyes were already on the great slime when he was rolling back to his feet and noticed its shrinking movement just before its leap. This time he leapt directly towards the smaller slime, looking quickly and noticing that the slime still had a good ten or fifteen seconds of wiggling to free itself from the arrow shaft before twisting in air so that he could land facing towards the great slime.
Relief flooded him even as he watch the great slime slam into the trees at the side of the road and embedded itself into the trees, enveloping two or three tree trunks. Ha! That’ll hold it for a few moments! Joe gave a non-vocal cry of triumphant before taking out his spoon spear and quickly scooping out the single slime’s gem and ripping his arrow out of the turf before throwing it into the dirt another foot or two away to get it away from the slimes acidic body. The gem flipped out of the slime’s body and bounced off a tree trunk before flying back towards him in an almost perfect arc and Joe could only feel a bit more relief as he felt the small flash of a kill flood through him while he snatched the gem out of the air and dropped it in his coin pouch.
When he turned back to look at the big slime, he registered it sliming its way down the trees back to the forest floor but was more shocked to see the traditional knight simply standing there, watching him. Joe realized he’d heard the clop of horse hooves a good minute or two ago about the time the fight had gotten a bit hairy.
“Hey! Come help me,” Joe called to the knight while pointing at the great slime but the man simply stared and did nothing. Joe cursed and realized he’d yelled in English and as he was going to try again, Garnedell yelled out loudly in the local language but the knight made no move.
“No help, mulkan!”
Joe felt his anger simmer even as he realized the knight had no intention of helping in the first place. The realization came when he noticed that the knight’s distance was almost perfectly outside the range that the slime would detect him. The man never was going to help! What a bastard! Joe grimaced and spit before turning his attention away from the knight and sprinting towards the great slime. His spoon spear pulled out and braced for his running strike. The slime had made it to the forest floor by this time and was rapidly wiggling its way off the tree trunks but it was too late. Joe’s spoon spear slammed into the side of the slime and burrowed deeply towards its gems. His spoon spear bowl came into position quickly and easily and Joe grunted as he pulled out the dual gem with a grunt. This time, he was able to pull out the gems well enough that only a small amount of the slime’s ooze was left and he was able to jog to the dual gem and flick the last of the ooze off, finally killing it.
Joe headed towards his spear he’d slammed into the middle of the road and looked up at the knight, disgust plainly written on his face as he stared at the man. The knight looked back at Joe with a mildly interested subtle shock but seemed completely unconcerned with Joe’s personal opinion of him. Granted, Joe was guessing this as he was only able to see the eyes shining through the small slit in the helmet lit by the setting sun. The knight looked around carefully for more enemies before coming forward once again. Joe had reached his spear and simply stared at the night as he came by. About the same time the knight showed up, Garnedell arrived at his side, panting.
The knight was dressed in a blue and light blue color scheme on his various equipment with a stylized four petal flower for a coat of arms. The four petal flower did not have four petals on all four sides, but had the four petals spread equidistantly around three sides while the bottom side sported a strange curlicue like construct. Huh, looks a little like an orchid!
The knight sauntered up and came to a stop beside Joe before speaking to him with such disdain that Joe didn’t even need to see beneath the helmet or understand his words for it was so thick in the atmosphere of his presence. Joe felt an immediate dislike for the knight and simply stared, refusing to reply. Garnedell turned to Joe and offered a translation.
“Kiers… give kiers slime gem.”
“What?”
“Give kiers slime gem.”
“Why?”
“Kiers say…”
“The knight says give me your loot that I didn’t help you fight at all? I don’t think so. Kiers no get slime gem.”
Garnedell seemed to gulp a bit, eyes wide, but then translated for the knight. The knight’s mockery remained hidden behind his helm as the knight simply looked at the two for a bit. Joe returned the gaze without flinching, equally cold and unforgiving. The knight grunted then snapped the horse reigns to send it down the road towards the village. Joe and Garnedell watched the knight go for a while before turning and retrieving the arrow left by the side of the road. Joe then gathered up Garnedell and began walking back home while cleaning off his arrow and two spears carefully.
While riding, the knight glanced back at Joe and Garnedell from time to time and when the knight was about a hundred meters away, the horse wheeled around and the knight pulled out a sword. Joe’s eyes rose and he pulled out his spear and pushed Garnedell into the woods.
“Garnedell. Go!”