Waking up to the smell of roasted fish is wonderful, especially when you had to expect raw food for quite some time.

The moment that smell hit my nose, I was awake and standing upright, Hannibal carrying me and Nemo to the source of said smell, where a Lizard I had not yet talked to served everyone else and made sure that everyone got roughly the same. Even serving me without question, a portion I made sure to split with my allies.

After I finished eating, the white lizardkin from the day before approached me, her teeth slightly flexed in an expression I had not yet seen from these people.

“Good morning, slayer of slimes, I have been granted permission to accompany you on your quest. When will we depart?” I smiled at that, happy that the chances of dying brutally just fell a bit.

“I am happy for this opportunity, maybe I will get a good class, now that I actually do something somewhat productive.”

She said, prompted by a nod from me, after all, I needed to wait 17 more years to unlock the class, and never even considered informing myself about them.

“We will depart the moment you are ready, now please hurry, we can’t lose too much time packing things none of us needs.”

A quick nod was her answer, followed by a swift departure that left me proud.

I had never been one for long conversations when it came to important stuff, only having them about things I found entertaining.

With my new ally packing her bags, I was left to observe the villagers, their morning surprisingly similar to the mornings of my people, everyone moving to fulfill their respective task.

At some point an armed man ran past me, shouting in a language I couldn’t understand, mostly made up of hissing and calls.

It was weird to see them talk in that way, my curiosity driving me to follow them to their goal, which turned out to be the river, where more of the slimes were coming from.

Of course, I supported them with hyperconsumption and dispels wherever I could, my spells outworking their spears, but every spear strike destroyed a slime score.

After about half an hour of killing slimes, A figure of pure white suddenly appeared behind me, ruby eyes and a backpack made of leather strapped to her shoulders making me drop the seizure spell I almost cast, which prompted an annoyed scowl at my choice of spell, and a somewhat confused one on hers.

“Right, I should probably start learning to care about my surroundings, let’s go.”

We departed without a lot of talking, my primary focus being on getting the Eldritch lance spell to be as reflexive as the seizure one seems to be.

For two hours, we silently walked upstream, until I decided to start helping her.

“If you see any Animals close to us, be ready to kill them. I know excessive slaughter will lead to problems with the ecosystem, but we are two people, and any animals we can kill didn’t have a chance at survival anyway.”

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The explanation was enough for her to blink, followed by an expansion of the nostrils, which somehow gave the same energy as raising my eyebrows would, though she accepted my explanation without any questions, and instead started fiddling with her equipment.

She wore a few rings and a belt filled to the brim with knifes, some made of bone, and others crafted from rock, the lack of metal something I had observed in their village, but not thought important up until now.

The mostly boring walk distracted us more and more, with every little thing becoming the source of three word conversations, the situation only ending when we heard a howl from our right, a wolf like creature coming from the forest to our right. It had gray fur looking like some sort of steel, and towered equal in height to my pale companion.

Four others came from the side, their size smaller as they surrounded us.

There are many things in life I should have thought out. Maybe they would have simply let off if we didn’t do anything, or maybe there would have been some efficient way to run away, but as I crossed eyes with Pale, both of our mouths turned to toothy grins.

With one hand, I forced a seizure upon the boss, who resisted the effect but was still stunned for some time, while the eldritch lance impacted on the smallest of the five, blackening his fur and leaving an unhealthy looking wound.

At Hannibal's wish, both Nemo and I dismounted, and he rushed head first into our opponents, his tusks doing some damage against the leg of his opponent.

Pale had somehow managed to sneak behind them, their focus too much on us for them to notice her until two of her daggers found purchase in the throat of the smallest, the already wounded creature now thrashing wildly and trying to protect himself from the daggers lodged inside his throat and the lizardkin on his back.

The two without injuries tried to attack Hannibal, though the pigs hide was quite adapt at resisting just about anything at this point, the claws tearing in and getting stuck without even reaching his flesh.

Nemo meowed , which somehow was extremely motivating.

The Alpha snapped back to focus as my eldritch lance tore into him, growling aggressively as another followed the first within seconds.

I used to play warlocks, and loved the feeling of spamming the same way too effective spell at opponents, though my barrage was stopped when its jaws bit into me, tearing out a large part of flesh out of me, only for it to disintegrate in his mouth, and my own body to regenerate. Force projectile and eldritch lance were shot right into its face, finally killing the beast.

Pale had killed another one, and Hannibal stood between the seemingly endless attacks of the remaining two wolves, slowly whittling them down and not caring for his own injuries, allowing both Pale and me to unleash our attacks without hindrance.

The battlefield looked like a slaughterhouse, and a quick look at the river behind me made me realize I looked like some Nosferatu level monstrosity, which I quickly regenerated by eating the smallest wolf.

Pale sat down and seemed to fall asleep as she was hit by the first wave of mutations, only waking up an hour later with the white scales turned a ghastly silver.

“It seems you chose the ghost path, I hope it’s as great as the zombie one.”

Smiling, I stretched my hand out, casting purify and clean on each of us to make sure we remain clean, even after I had pulled the nails out of the wolves, their fur too much work to strip down.

With her mutation complete, and some monster materials in her backpack, we resumed our travels, the occasional slime no problem for us to face of against.

As we came closer to the source, the amount of slime increased more and more, with man of the ancient trees coated in the corrosive substance.

Only a liberal use of spells helped us form a path once we saw the place the river came from, a dark hole that barfed slime like some form of factory, the gathering of magical power absolutely imbalanced and twisted that I could feel it without a water affinity.

The cavern itself was clean of anything but slime and dry rock, no plants remaining in what must once have been an absolutely wonderful sight to behold.

“I guess we have found the reason behind this things existence, do you think we can handle it?”

I ask Pale, a sigh coming from her.

“They better take me into the hunter once we are done with this. I can’t believe it’s this cursed of a structure to look at.”

She commented, both of us uncertain whether we found the subject before us repulsive or intriguing, but when our gazes met and toothy grins made themselves known, we knew there was no way any of us would back out t this point.

The high concentration of arcane power was exactly what my focus creation required, and Pale would rather kill someone than miss out on an opportunity to prove herself.

Proudly, we approached the chasm and followed the stream inside the first chamber, the hyperconsumption I cast on just about every slime I saw until now became harder to cast, and I knew it was time for me to stop pulling any punches.

After all, this would be my first dungeon delve.