The river was a symbol of how far everything had changed over the last six years. Back then, this was a place for recreation, I remembered watching a high schooler training with his trumpet, a guy lazily sleeping at the slope, a woman reading a book, an old man fishing at the side and a couple sitting on a cloth with square pattern. Now, the scenery filled with people with a green uniform, there were others that didn't wear a uniform maybe an illegal Adventurers or an Adventurers that still laundered their uniform or Adventurers that like me, chose not to wear their uniform. Rather than a fishing pole or violin, most of them brought sword and spear. From couples that doing a picnic now, a guard post complete with the wall created every few kilometers, and the numbers of Slime that came out from the river was magnificent, every few seconds the slime always appeared from the river. Though the real battle was

"Ah! It comes out, it comes out!" Asato pointed at the Slime rather than hit it with his baseball bat, the Slime looked similar to the Ooze, the only difference was it had a core inside its body, a fixed round shape and didn't transparent like the Ooze. Too bad *sigh*

"Oryaaaa!!" Unfortunately for Asato another high schooler like us, he wore a green uniform and covered it with gakuran, pierced the Slime with his spear.

"...." Kurogane, with her cat ears and tail, like a panther patiently and seriously waiting for its prey to come out from the river, and once it came out, she jumped and punched it with her hand. *sigh* She seemed a little bit cheerful now, maybe this was her way of letting the stress out.

"Wait! this is my spot! and why is a C-rank Grinding in this area!?" Another guy looked like a college student with his thin mustache and beard, seemed like he had been spending the whole day killing slimes at that spot, and then we came in and started taking his grinding spot. By the way, this was the fourth time we changed spot, looked like we will change into another one.

"Toriko! do your best!" Serizawa was... no, Toriko was doing her best, she had been fought against the same Slime for about 5 minutes, Toriko fiercely clucked, and pecked the slime, yes... she might be immortal, but her attack power was zero, it might hurt being pecked by her, but... yeah, there was no way a peck from chicken can kill something in its size.

"Yay! Toriko you did it!" ... I took it back, after 7 minutes Toriko managed to kill one slime, wait, who will get the exp? Wait! Serizawa can talk normally in a situation like this. Though, the problem was many people KS the Slime from Toriko and Serizawa never complained.

And next...

"Kyo, you aren't grinding?" One guy leisurely sat around, he used his [BGM] and played a classical song, Greensleeves while watching others killing Slime, well... I was the same though. We had been sitting in this spot for 15 minutes.

"How can I do that with this many people? and it's not like I have a fighting experience nor a weapon, I was hoping you guys could capture some and let me kill the Slime, what about you?" Actually, that was brilliant, too bad in reality, there were too many people for it to actually succeed.

"Yeah... ah [Return Throw]" I sat next to him and threw my javelin everytime a Slime spawn near us, it was easy since I can pinpoint their location through [Mini Map], Though sometimes I can kill it with one attack, sometimes it didn't, and sometimes I still missed, from seven times I managed to kill four. The exp we got from slime.... 1 EXP. Anyhow, my javelin pierced the Slime, it hit its core and its body started to dissolve into water.

Ah... this javelin was a different one from the last one, Julia said it was more durable but heavier than before and rather than pushed the button, this one must be assembled part per part. This gave a more mechanical vibe than before.

"I guess I'm done, don't want to fatigue myself too much, want to borrow it?" The javelin flew back to my hand, I took the core, It looked like umeboshi and I gave the javelin to Kyo, yeah it was funny for [Ability] that used SP, even though I sat leisurely my breath still ragged.

"Fine... I already waited for 45 minutes, at least I should get 10EXP before sunset." He took the javelin in low spirit and lazily stood up.

Anyhow, there were no White dots at this riverbank since the slime had no value, aside from its core, there was nothing we can salvage from it, the core itself only useful as an alternative charcoal. Right now, I was working as a bag keeper.

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 "...I'm bored". My jukebox went to kill some Slime, and I already bored from watching others, oh? Kurogane walked here.

"Tired already? How many Slimes did you kill?" I said and gave her an ion supply drink, this had a mild grapefruit flavor. Kurogane took and sat down next to me.

"...23". *gulp* From the way she drank it, Kurogane reminded me of an idol that did commercial for this drink, the one where the idol rode a bike and stopped to drank it. She finished it in an instant thought, unlike the idol.

"...You're not gonna ask?"

"About what?"

"....Back then."

"Nah, not in the mood." Hm? Something entered [Mini Map] radius

".....I see... anyway, once again thanks." What was that? An Orange dot? 

"For what? I didn't save you back then, in fact, I should've interrupted them." Oh... it was fast, seemed like it hid inside the bushes.

"........For not leaving me." If I remember right about Orange dot... should I investigate it? ah, I was talking with Kurogane

"Sorry, what do you say? I kinda lost in thought." I stood up and looked at the direction of the Orange dot. 

".....Nevermind, does something happen?"

"Maybe... wanna come? I might need some bodyguard." I was hesitant but there were many Adventurers and guard posts, I guess even the worse thing happened, the backup wasn't that far, and Kurogane nodded at my word, this mean I had another guarantee.

I walked to its location, it was on the slope, the area surrounded it was covered in a slightly tall grass, well... since this wasn't used as a recreational area, I guess they allocated the fund to maintain the post. 

Slowly I walked to the bushes that moved a little weird, rather than danced with the flow of the wind, it arbitrarily shook against the wind, out of curiosity I approached it.

*Shrak*

A shadow jumped out from the bush, "Waaa!" I didn't know what it was, but it was enough to surprise until I fell on my butt... wait! I was on the slope! The next thing I aware, my body slowly slid downward.

"Watch it!" Kurogane succeeded to catch me in time and prevented me from slid further.

"....Thanks, *phew* that was dangerous, anyway what was that?" I searched the Orange dot position, and it was standing next to a golden dot, I turned my head a little bit to that direction and I saw a Slime, but it had... a face? its shape wasn't round either, it almost identical to a droplet of water.

"Hey!! Look what I found!!" It was weird to see a man, maybe in his 30 with his muscled arm, cheerfully grabbed the Slime and spun around with it. He looked like a child that just got a Christmas present.

Though, Kurogane walked toward him. "...That's ours"

"Whaddya mean!? Ooh.. sorry" His tone and face changed when he saw Kurogane uniform, reluctantly the same figure handed the Slime toward Kurogane, he looked like a grade schooler that got his toy confiscated by his teacher. Yeah... this was the rumored [Shiny]. A monster that looked somewhat different from its kind, sometimes only its color, sometimes it has additional features. I had never seen one before but, I heard [Shiny] Slime popularity had risen among the wealthy. It didn't harmful, easy to train with, had high survivability, can eat anything they gave, can survive without food or water, and smart enough to understand what they said.

"*sigh* Uncle, it's fine you can take it, after all, you're the one that caught it."

Ah, a roller coaster of emotion can be seen on his face. In the end, he still went off with the Slime.

"....Do you know the price of [Shiny] Slime"

"Maybe around a million yen?"

"....you know and you just give it like that!?" ...It was a lucky guess though.

"Well, he's the one that caught it right?"

".....True, still....forget it" A mixed emotion of regret and annoyed shown on Kurogane face, she looked at me with an expression of 'did you have a crayon stuck inside your brain!?' 

"What happened?" Ah, the rest of the gang already gathered.

"Just a little conversation, you're finished? how much do you get?"

"4..." Said Kyo while he gave my Javelin back.

"One" So... besides that Slime both of Serizawa and Toriko didn't manage to kill another.

"0" Asato was drenched in water. *sigh* I wonder what happened.

And the day ended, no progression and no Experience *sigh* if we were going on with this rate, this will take at least a month or two for them to reach level two, It wasn't like I didn't want to help, but I aware that my skill and experience itself weren't enough. Maybe Julia knew the other grinding spot for newbies like us.

**

"Oi! I get 5 people!"

A masked figure in his formal suit came out from the car and met Eisen in the abandoned gas station, in his hands there was a metallic suitcase, it had a square shaped, almost as long as an adult forearm with a thickness of the brick.

"We let you pass for this one, one more failure, and everything we'll cancel everything." The masked figures handed over the suitcase to Eisen, He opened it and found 8 syringes filled with purple liquid neatly organized within the foam.

"What!? It wasn't my fault, too many variables happened on that day."