I couldn't believe it.

Ever since I got here, everyone supported me, no matter how silly my ideas were. The orcs always watched curiously how things would turn out. They were patient, doing their best to help me, even before the Goddess appeared. But not today. My newest idea stirred quite the opposition.

"No, Nati, don’t," Fenna told me firmly. "You want my masterfully crafted gifts to be destroyed by slimes?"

"According to Mabel, they won't dissolve clothes right away." I tried to explain. "But they can eat the grime and dirt within seconds."

"I get it, you want a big common laundry to make life easier for the tribe, but why not do it the regular way?" The fox girl protested with everything she got. "We have a dozen goblins looking for easy jobs. They can help clean, and even gather herbs, but why are you adamant about using slimes?"

"Because that's the most isekai way of doing it," I claimed, giving up on the sensible arguments. I saw her confusion. "We could also use them to filter out the waste of this village because I don't want to pollute the environment. Charlotte said the slimes made this stream so clean too..."

"Yes, that much is true. That idea has merits, but please don't ruin the clothes of the entire tribe." She pleaded with me as I headed out. I refused to make promises. This plan was genius in my head.

I couldn't stop my tail from swishing while I reached the swamps. First off, I needed something to keep the slimes in. They'd dissolve anything organic, so my choices were limited. Large metal containers were practically unheard of. It was possible to cast one, but in the size I wanted it, they would weigh too much for me to carry.

"Fenna didn't like the idea, and no luck with the smithy either." I filled in Mabel, shaking my head. I met the orc girl at the marsh. "The blacksmith was busy training his new subordinates..."

The golem Alex made for him doubled his productivity, but that was still not enough. It was the biggest of the bunch, probably the same size as Bastion, the ogre. He worked as a power hammer while his legs operated the grinder. Made of clay, the golem didn't need to worry about burning itself while handling the white-hot metals.

Thanks to his consistent punches, the blacksmith finally made prods for the crossbows on his own. Even if they were a little thicker than the ones made with magic, this freed up Omerta to take on other important tasks. And we had plenty of those in Nateaser.

"I was thinking of carving one out from stone..." Mabel pondered, but that also seemed like a hassle. I shook my head, still thinking.

"What about clay pots? Would they eat them too? Seems to be the easiest to make, and the kilns are lit all day..." I asked, hugging my tail.

"Oh, I haven't thought about that." The orc girl admitted. "I have a jug somewhere nearby. I forgot to take it home when I mixed your shampoo in it earlier. I think we could fit a few smaller slimes into it."

"How big are they anyway?" I asked curiously. I heard so much about them, but haven’t seen one.

"It varies... When they divide some are like a droplet of water. Most of them will grow the size of my fist, but I've seen one bigger than my head." She explained, showing her body parts as units of measurement. She had pretty big fists for a child, but that's how orcs were built. "Ah, found the jug, let's go hunting them."

And this is when I finally spotted the first one. It looked delicious, like a gummy bear, although shapeless. I reached out to touch it without thinking twice, but that was a mistake, and I paid a high price.

It was like an electric shock, except it kept burning long after I let it go... My palm swelled up immediately and turned red. Mabel couldn't help but laugh at me. It was all my fault for ignoring her warnings. They were like jellyfish, just cranked up to eleven. It was bad. I performed an awkward dance, shaking my hand, but it didn't help.

As if on cue, the Goddess of Luck suddenly materialized behind me.

"You all right?" She asked, sounding worried. She indeed felt everything that happened to me, wherever she was...

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"I'm sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." I was moved, tearing up a bit. Not just because she rushed in to help me but because it hurt.

"What are you guys doing here?" Seeing how there wasn't any danger, she got curious. My heart could not calm down with her around. She wore the blue tunic on her colorless shell, the same one I had on when she transported me into this world. Now that I saw it on her, it did show way too much of the thighs, but she could get away with it.

"Uugh, I tried to catch a slime..." I explained, sobbing a little.

"We are working on a laundry," Mabel added, still grinning.

"A laundry? With slimes?" Alex seemed intrigued. She reached for my hand, and the moment, her cold, marble-like fingers touched my skin, the pain was gone. But my heart only beat faster. "I wanna see that."

"Help us gather a few of them." The orc girl demanded. She pointed at the small colony we found earlier. It was about half a dozen slimes, nearly transparent, tinted light blue or green. They were roughly fist-sized indeed and even after getting stung by them, I wondered how they tasted.

"You didn't try to touch them, did you?" The Goddess looked at me like people look at notorious idiots. That hurt almost as much, as the sting itself. I could feel my tail drop between my legs. "Hmm, you don't have these in your world I guess. Most species aren't as harmless as they look."

"I am sorry..." I looked down. I didn't think this through.

"That's fine. I was asked to make more golems for transportation, I might as well do it now, and stick around." Alex offered with a bright smile. I felt like a child, blushing and smiling at whatever she said. "So what was the plan? I can levitate them into your jug if you want..."

"Well, I thought about keeping them in a big iron container... Like a washing machine of sorts." I started my explanation. "You'd throw your stuff in, the slimes do their work, and you pull out the clean clothing."

"Yeah, that's not going to work like that." She shook her head. She reached out towards the slimes, and one of them started floating. It still bounced around and I saw no eyes or inner organs, just a gelatinous blob. "They'd stick to the fabrics, and then bite when you try to remove them. Plus, they wouldn't be compelled to clean consistently. They'd just burn holes in the clothes..."

The first slime splashed down inside the jug. If I was concentrating on my ears, I could hear its little squeaks. They looked and sounded cute for something so stingy, but the Goddess made me think.

"Hmm, do they leave a trail?" I asked curiously. "Like snails?"

"No. If anything, they leave a clean mark behind." Alex shook her head. "As they dissolve living things while they move."

"How could I weaken them?" I pondered, looking at the little guy.

"The tiny ones are pretty weak," Mabel claimed, drawing a small circle on her palm. "They are only this big when they multiply. You could even keep them in your hand, it would barely sting."

"Soooo... How could we make them multiply?" I asked.

"They will start dividing when they have plenty of food, water, and a dark place." Alex educated me. My brain went into overdrive. These circumstances were perfectly achievable.

"We could keep them in the bathhouse." I came up with the idea. "They could keep the pools clean if I close them off within the water pipes. They'd be in the dark, plenty of food, inside water..."

"How'd you separate the small ones?" Mabel asked, and I didn't know.

"You would need a dense filter, otherwise they'd flood the pools." The Goddess warned me, but that helped me think of something.

"I'll have a metal plate with tiny holes that would only allow the water through. I'd dig out a small chamber underneath, and replace the floor with a similar plate, but larger holes on it..." I explained my plan in detail. "That way, the small slimes would fall on their own."

"That might work... Down a chute, right into the laundry basin... And then..." Alex tinkered with my idea. "It usually takes them a week to grow, but if they were constantly fed with dirt, you couldn't use them longer than a day... So then back they go into the bathhouse?"

"There, or to a different container to filter waste elsewhere." I nodded, happy how we could come up with this together. "We'd put the clothes into an iron basket, lower it into their tank, then squeeze them out, and rinse with water to ensure they don't hide inside..."

"Even better, rinse it with water full of herbs." She one-upped me, rubbing her hands. "It would practically operate itself, and shouldn't take more than a minute for a full laundry. Not bad."

"And what will we do with all the slimes?" Mabel asked, scratching her head. "At this rate, we'd be swarmed with them in a month..."

"Indeed, they would breed faster than die out..." The Goddess confirmed. "But we could just boil them once they are no longer useful."

"That... Sounds quite cruel..." I noted, a bit worried. Having some beasts working for me was one thing, but then murdering them on a large scale didn't sit well with me. "Can't we just set them free?"

"They would ruin the ecosystem." Alexandra shook her head, then lifted a finger. "But if we boil them, they could be used for many things. From glue to perfume, or in food... I read in the Magic Academy that they are the perfect ingredient for healing potions."

"Oh? This world has healing potions?" I asked although I shouldn't have been surprised at this point. "Do they cure everything?"

"Not really, no... More like, they work as painkillers, and speed up the natural healing processes." Alex explained. She levitated all the slimes into our jug, and now that it was full, we decided to head back to the village. "They are nowhere near as effective as a trained healer, but most people aren't lucky enough to have them around, so they sell at a good price... Lambert could make some, maybe Gitaut too."

"I love slimes more and more," I noted. Charlotte always complained about needing more goods to export. "Can you make them too?"

"I'm too busy as is..." She noted, but she didn't make golems after all...