Chapter 15A: Drunken Midgets

Sleep during a Dive doesn’t last long. The only thing one needs to recover from is mental fatigue. Usually, three hours of rest can fix that problem. Some even forgo sleep and just meditate. But for a rowdy group of teenagers, sitting still and focusing the mind on decompressing isn’t really their strong suit.

So Alex and her friends took a short nap on the hay bales. It was a cold night. The barn door was closed to block the winds, but the chill was still present. Thankfully, Alex and her friends were provided blankets. After their nap, the sun was not even close to rising, so they started practicing their skills. After all, repetitive use will grow the mastery rating.

Alex produced another vial of venom. Now she had a bunch of vials neatly tucked inside a case she made from some twigs. It wasn’t very pretty nor was it sturdy, but it did the job. It prevented the vials from clanging into each other in her backpack. She couldn’t afford to spill a single drop.

Once they finish their first official instance dungeon and proceed to complete their job advancement, they will gain the authority to enter the main city. Alex read tons of blogs on the exciting city of Ardentmill.

When the ARK system was first opened to the residents of GAIA, it was a land barren of civilization and technology. Everything had to be built from the ground up. Several hundred years later, several main cities had formed. The first of which was Ardentmill. The buildings had an 18th-century European aesthetic to them. Cobblestone streets spider-webbed the entire city. Walls upon walls of two to three-story buildings with a countless number of stores and opened on the ground floor.

Perhaps it was due to the fatigue people had over highly technical residential buildings, the old-time aesthetic really appealed to all who lived there. Instead of the neon cityscape they normally dwell in, the quaint city of Ardentmill provided a recluse from the lights and noise.

Alex continued to read more blogs on the city as she practiced her shadow boas. The twin black boas started to become more flexible as she learned how to control them. Originally, she let the two snakes bind automatically. It would follow a normal pattern. But recently, she learned that she can control the method of binding. Alex started to look for the various style of knots that are hard to break out of. Now she was practicing tying those knots with her snakes. The more sophisticated the knot, the more mastery experience she gained. Slowly, she approached mastery level 3.

Time passed by and soon the rooster’s morning call caught everyone’s attention. They opened the barn door and saw that a small sliver of sunlight had peaked out over the horizon. Dawn had arrived.

“Should we give Jedidiah a heads up before we head out?” Nell asked.

“I’m afraid he might not be awake this early,” Kurt replied with stretching.

“But don’t farmers always wake up early?” Nell questioned.

“He’s more of a plantation owner than a farmer…,” Ruri sighed.

Alex didn’t say anything but instead walked over to the house. She saw Jedidiah already up and moving about in the kitchen.

“Morning folks! How was your night?” He asked with a friendly smile.

“Good, thanks! We will head out early and see if we can find any slimes,” Alex replied.

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“Ah! Proactive I see! Good, good…If you guys get hungry, I will have food ready!” He laughed.

Alex nodded and returned to her friends still arguing whether or not to wake Jedidiah. She could only sigh.

“Guys…He’s already awake. We can go into the orchard now.”

“W-what?” They all turned to look at Alex.

“Come on, let’s get moving while the sun still isn’t up. Perhaps we can catch more slimes that are nocturnal and are perhaps just starting to run back to their hiding spots.”

They nodded and followed Alex into the orchard. The first few trees were covered in a healthy layer of dew from the evening moisture. The sun hadn’t risen long enough to evaporate the droplets of water on the fruits and leaves.

Jedidiah told them yesterday that if they ever feel famished, they can pluck fruit off the trees. After all, a few fruits don’t hurt profits when the entire farm provides hundreds of thousands of them every season.

Apples of varying kinds dotted the trees. From the signature Red Delicious type to the sour green Granny Smith. Alex and her friends climbed up a nearby tree and plucked half a dozen apples.

As they took a bite of the dew-covered apple, the chilled crispy fruit flesh exploded with flavor. A slightly tart but overwhelmingly sweet taste invaded their mouth. The apple sent their dilapidated taste buds on a rollercoaster ride of deliciousness.

Feeling both satisfied and refreshed, Alex and her friends entered deeper into the orchard. They followed a different path today and went west. Nell summoned a medium sized mushroom man to follow along. It had difficulty moving through the denser parts of the orchard where the trees were less organized, but near the edge where they were more lined up and geometric, it had no problem at all.

They chatted along the way while stretching their bodies. Their voices scared away the weaker slimes and attracted the berserk ones. Very soon, two slimes attacked. They looked different from the ones Alex and company saw yesterday. The two from before used its tentacles and morphing capabilities to attack. These were slowly and rolled around like balls. They seemed far more viscous and were sturdier. Alex and her friends jumped aside to dodge the tumbling slimes, but the mushroom man was too slow to dodge. The two slimes slammed into the mushroom like two boulders falling off a steep cliff. One of them ripped a leg off while the other one blasted into the chest of the mushroom. It left a deep cave-in. Nell felt enraged. The chest can be repaired, but the leg will be hard to reattach.

“Goddammit!” She screamed.

“Calm down. It’s coming towards us now,” Kurt said while activating his buffs.

Nell bit her lips and pouted.

The rolling black slime that ripped the leg off rolled up a tree and turned around. It barely lost any momentum and barreled towards Alex. The other slime was caught by the mushroom man who was now on his back hugging the thing tightly. Due to the stiffer gelatinous feature of the black slime, it couldn’t ooze out of the mushroom’s stranglehold.

With one slime incapacitated, Alex only had to deal with one rolling slime. She lifted her arms, and two shadow boas slithered out of her sleeves. It flew directly at the slime. Since the slime was rolling forward with such momentum, it couldn’t dodge to the sides. The two shadow snakes wrapped around the slime, slowing down its rotation. This gave Alex enough time to dodge. Kurt took her place and jumped in with his stick first. He swung down hard and bashed the slime. The viscous slime bounced up from the rebound force. Nell was behind Kurt as she borrowed his shoulder. Kurt jumped and gave Nell a boost as she leaped towards the slime in the air with her metal fan. Using the sheer force of the jump, the sharp metal fan bisected the slime.

The precious core inside the slime managed to avoid being cut through. But since the slime lost half its mass and was no longer spherical, it could no longer roll. Ruri pinned the hemispherical slime with a prison of ice.

“Good job guys!” Alex smiled and gave everyone a high five. Their combat efficiency had improved greatly along with their synergy. Nell being able to pull off such an incredible feat of agility also surprised Alex.

“I was just so mad at those slimy assholes,” Nell pouted. It would seem in a fit of rage, the adrenaline boosted her performance.

It was then that Alex had a brilliant idea spawn in her head. But she had to test it.

With both slimes incapacitated, they took their time to stab the core to end the two slimes life. Without the support of the core, the black viscous gelatin lost its strength and melted into a puddle on the grassy ground.

Alex looked at the quest progress.

[Progress 4/15].

They had the rest of today and tomorrow to finish the quest.

“Let’s try to reach halfway today,” Alex said.

Her friends nodded and began to walk deeper into the orchard.