-
Chapter 27 – Salt vs Slugs
----------------------------------------
While Bunny and Angel were ordering massive amount of salt, Gene opted the more 'common sense' approach. Logging out briefly, he returned shortly with online information on why slugs fear salt; why wreak your brains or depend on old-wife's tales when there were plenty of accurate information on the net.
After returning, Gene narrated his findings: “The slug contains a lot of water, which is essential for its survival. Applying salt draws that water out of the slug by a process called osmosis, and the creature then dies of dehydration. Amount of salt needed is relative to its size, so if not enough water is withdrawn from the slug, it only shrink and not die.”
“So... any idea how much salt we need per slug?” Angel asked
“There are no such information on the net, but sudden dehydration can lead to seizure and comatose”
“Hmmm, then we can just try pouring enough to stun them instead”
Armed with knowledge and salt, the trio lured another slug and tested the effectiveness of the white crystalline. To actually kill a giant slug by just dumping salt, it took a whole mountain load of it. To be more efficient, about 10 kg of salt was needed to immobilize that huge thing then slaying it using the direct damage. In monetary terms, they would be throwing 2 gold for each Slug.
Although easily killed, slug loot yields little worth; There was negligible profits from the things they drop, even their giant corpse, that contained over 3 tons of meat after salting, were worth little. Before slugs die, they always end up covering themselves with horrid smelling goo, which easily soak into their spongy meat. Just think of a tasty steak, then imagine it being soaked in bile for a week before you attempt to cook it... If not for the taste and smell, these were quality ingredients, high in nutrients.
Bunny, who had been selling rat meat during her newbie days, had no qualms on keeping the massive amount of slug meat. If she could disguise rat meat, she could repackage slug meat too. Escargot, or snail meat was more texture then taste, with enough spice, Bunny was confident of converting them into high class cuisine. Laughing inside, these foul smelling flesh of gastropods could be converted into 'fake' braised abalone.
Abalone are edible snails that lived in water (marine gastropod molluscs). Abalone have long been a valuable food source for humans in every area of the world where a species is abundant. The meat of this mollusc is considered a delicacy in certain parts of Latin America (especially Chile), France, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and East Asia (especially in China, Vietnam, Japan, and Korea).
Since salting didn't seem profitable until she actually made the recipe, Bunny tried a different method. The only weapons these monstrosities had were their feelers, which they swung around like wreaking balls. Since the feelers were made from the same type of material as the body, Bunny tried to simply cut them off. By disarming the slugs, they became extra large punching bags.
The plan went well, using cats as 'tanks' instead of rabbits. The felines managed to claw those feelers off after some tries. While the group 'hammered' the disabled slug, it produced two more feelers and wounded many, luckily the only thing that died was the slug. These gastropods had 2 pairs of 'feelers', a pair for sight and another pair for smell. Luckily, the trio did not have to pay any price to learn such knowledge.
Giant Slug hunting had proceeded well after using the ideal method of killing. But their sheer size and huge health pools still required effort and time. Each slug took approximately 20 minutes to kill, which included the time taken to lure them and cut off their feelers.
To the trio, killing slugs had become a chore; it wasn't really fun just hitting a non-retaliating entity for tens of hours, they just kept at it for the high exp it gave and optimizing the double exp event. It was also excellent time to grind offensive mastery for weapons and spells. The trio also gain some stats after a few hours of the constant workout. To raise the speed of slaughtering slugs, Bunny summoned even more animals. As the slugs were both big and disabled, even the lower levels could help with destroying the punching bags.
After more then 30 hours of mundane work, they trio were exhausted from slugs extermination. The levels of the trio rose to 140s with Gene having the least gain due to sharing exp with his animal companions. It was easily rectified by Bunny changing the exp-sharing option of the raid group. The animals also managed to reach between 100-130, lower then the trio because they were working in shifts.
With the slug population dropped, the trio ventured into the darkness. The lower floor was an extremely large area unlike the cavernous location where the myconids lived. Due to limited sight, the trio could only see the vast empty subterranean space with no walls in view. There were lots of stalagmites and stalactites scattered in the area, with some forming limestone pillars.
Cave slugs didn't react much to light, so they lit their way by attaching torches onto either the pillars or the protruding stakes, making a temporary lit path as they passed. Slug meat weren't delicious food, but with a little alchemy potion, they became good fuel substitutes used in the torches. Thin layer of salt was lined along the path of light to prevent randomly roaming slugs from cutting off their path of escape.
The exploring didn't last long. After covering a few hundred meters following the sight of the doll and slaying some huge slugs they encountered along the way, the trio came upon a situation. There was a cavity, the size of half a football field, which dipped sharply about 3m from the uneven floor. Within the sinkage were over 30 huge slugs wriggling and stacking among themselves. They were the same size compared to those the trio had slaughtered.
They tried to avoid the area, but sadly, the doll's vision was directed into the pit.
“This looked bad” Bunny commented
“Indeed... Not going to be easy removing all of them” Angel agreed
“Do you think we can lure them one by one?” Gene asked
“Don't think so... ”
“The method we use earlier will not work, any new ideas” Angel asked
“I think we have to resort to salting again” Gene replied
“Salting? How do we do it?” Bunny asked
“The landscape is to our advantage, we are on higher grounds.”
“This will be expensive” Angel grumbled
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“I can provide poison artillery if you don't mind me destroying the meat”
“Poison artillery?” Bunny questioned
“My class,Animist Druid, has many companion alternating skills like Animal Armament and Animal Accessories. Let me show off a little”
With a grin, Gene showed a bracelet he worn on his wrist. The classy looking accessories looked slightly familiar; it was 3cm thick, consisting of a single row of segmented scales overlapping in a clockwise direction. The aligned pieces looked like a part of a scale mail.
“Does this look good?” He asked
“It looked classy and kind-of appealing” Bunny answered
“And you showed me some stupid disgusted face when I first said it was cute.” Gene complained at Bunny who showed a troubled looking face. She didn't know what he meant.
Removing his scalemail bracelet and setting it on the floor, the item returned to its original form: It was an oversized worm over 3m tall, looking like an oversized millipede without legs; The Litvart worm Gene took as an animal companion. Looking as the classy bracelet turned into a disgusting worm boss, Bunny was very surprised by the change. A quick Scan told her, it was the 'Queen', which spew poison sludge instead of simple mist.
Casting another spell, the worm started morphing into a cannon. The upper portion did not change much, it just straightened itself, with the worm's maw becoming the cannon mouth, but the bottom turned into a stand, which anchored the worm stably onto the ground.
Eyeing the bio-turret, Bunny couldn't stop herself from asking:
“Does that mean your bear can also morph?”
“Ehhh... You rode a horse here, so you wouldn't know, I made the bear into a jeep, running on legs instead of wheels. It came with 2 seats which makes riding it easier.” Gene replied off-handedly while beaming at the flabbergast girl with Rabbit-Ears.
Angel brought the attention of the duo back on track.
With Gene's 'cannon' ready, Bunny ordered the animals to start piling the salt near the edge, indirectly increasing the depth of the depression by creating a salt wall on the ledge. An area of 5m width below where they stood was also covered with a layer of salt to destroy incoming slugs. With preparation done, Gene fired off his poison sludge into the middle of the cluster of slugs.
The cannon shot a blob of viscose fluid which splashed onto the center of the cluster. The greenish semi-liquid which were splattered over a large amount of slugs started affecting them; The toxican not only poisoned the huge beasts, it also causing goo and slime to fizzle at the slug skin it touched. Bunny couldn't tell if it those substance worked like salt or were they simply acidic and dissolving the skin of the enemy. As long as it worked, she didn't really care about the workings.
As the Slugs were lured towards them, the army at the ledge got ready. The first 5 slugs got trapped and melted by the salt layer, others slugs then used their bodies to continue charging forward. As if on cue, the animal army started shoveling salt from above... shoveling, not sprinkling due to the sheer amount. Since the slugs were near, Gene's bio-cannon stopped launching blobs but instead started spraying like a garden hose, raining onto the advancing slugs with toxin
If we cut out all the drama, it was a simple battle of the 3 meter height difference between the location of Bunny's army and the slugs. The slugs were trying to reach the ridge to be on even terrain while the animal army were trying their best to repel the slugs' effort. If more then 3 giant slugs managed to achieve their objectives, the animals would lose their ground advantage and be forced to retreat.
Luckily for the animals, the slugs after salting deflated like balloons, refusing to create a stairway of monster corpse. Adding more luck, when one of the stupider slugs swung its weapon against the cliff, it actually helped the army above by causing an avalanche of salt to pour over. There was only ONE slug that almost made it to the top, but it was blown backwards with a point-blank shot from the cannon.
Overall, the battle was very chaotic, but finally it settled down when the last monsters fizzled into gooey puddles with grotesque smell. Thinking better of moving into what looked like a cesspool filled with salt, toxic goo, poisonous slime and venomous mucus, the trio decided to allowed 'nature' to 'decompose' the remains.
*****
After 10 minutes of waiting, the area was 'magically' cleaned, with the gore disappearing into white wisp. Continuing their way, directed by the doll, the trio located their finishing point as a white structure in the center of the depression. It looked like a white marble block acting as an altar, standing at a meter-tall and 2-meters in other dimensions.
Finding a circular indentation in the middle of the block, Bunny placed the doll onto the altar. The base of the container holding the doll fitted perfectly, as if completing a puzzle. The combined pieces now resembled a squirrel humanoid, knelt in a praying position, above a square marble table. Then it started glowing.
Sucking up the glow from the altar, the container surrounding the doll, scintillate with a bluish light, before fading away. Fire of life then infused into the dead eyes of the doll. Slowly, it regain conscious and looked around in half-daze mode. Seeing the humans, it directed its attention to them and started speaking:
“Greetings, Androg is busy at the moment, so this chapter ends here in a cliff-hanger.
But fear not, it will be updated... *grin* ”
----------------------------------------
Author's Notes:
In the beginning when I started writing Lady Bunny, it was intended to be only 15 chapters long and finished within 1 month. Somehow it became much longer and I found myself not having the time to update as frequently as I wanted.
I will continue the story, but at a slower pace, so bear with me. Nov till Jan are busy months for me, so don't expect anything. As the saying goes: 'No expectation = No disappointment'
----------------------------------------
Back to Main
Continue to Chapter 28