“What in the nine hells are going on here?” Sharon whispered, more to herself than to the rest of her party. The others silently shared her sentiment though.

The five of them had reentered the boar dungeon after a night of rest, ready to earn their next round of income. After walking for several minutes, however, they noticed an oppressive silence. That’s when they realized that there were no mobs in sight. The meadow, as far as their eyes could see, was empty.

Unsettled by the lack of monsters to kill, and slightly panicking as their only source of income might have disappeared, they rushed about, trying to figure out what happened to their precious dungeon. Not that the dungeon belonged to them, of course, but considering that no team with any amount of genuine worth came here, and taking the dungeon solo was just suicide for anyone at the appropriate level, their group found themselves being the only ones that farmed the resources here. At least, that was the case up until now. With no sign of any boars, they could only assume that someone else came here before them and cleared the place out.

If that was the case, they had to find out who that is and stop them. This is their livelihood, after all.

A long, frantic search brought them to the site of a great battle. As long time veterans of the boar dungeon, the group knew quite a bit about how fights would play out here. The boars would always leave trails of kicked up dirt from their charging attacks, and the dungeon would restore the ground overnight. In the middle of a dive, it was not uncommon to see big patches of upturned soil as the aftermath of a fight. Sharon and the others were quite used to seeing that.

What they saw in front of them now, however, was on a completely different scale.

“Did they lure every freaking boar over here to farm all at once or something?” Louis asked in mild disbelief. As the group’s scout, he should have been able to read the battle traces and give an accurate report of what happened, but he was more interested in stabbing and looting things than staring at dirt. He never felt the need to improve on either skill.

Rachel, lighting up her long pipe to calm her nervous energy, responded with a cough. “Who knows what they did, who cares? I just want them to stop cutting into our cash.” She took a deep hit and let out a long tendril of fumes, curling it around her body with her class skills. The action served no real purpose. Louis looked at her with disdain. “I hope you’re not gonna lose it before we even find them, don’t know if we’ll need to show them who’s boss around here.”

The smoke slowly dissipated as she scrunched up her face at him. “Oh shut it already,” she huffed. “It’s the good stuff, not the good stuff. Not yet, at least.” Yazmine, off to the side, looked between the two of them, shaking her head but not interrupting.

“Can we get a move on? We won’t find anyone just standing around looking at a pile of dirt, no matter how messed up it looks,” drawled Joseph. The barrier mage would sound more authoritative if he wasn’t holding a bottle of Moonglow in his hand. The day barely started and he was already down half the bottle. Thankfully his speech had yet to start slurring. If it came to a sudden fight, he would be ready. Sort of.

Sharon was the only one to feel a sense of discomfort. Although she too believed that they needed to find the group that threw a wrench in their daily routine, something kept nagging at her thoughts. Something here was just wrong, but she couldn’t pinpoint it no matter how hard she tried. Deciding that further talk was useless, she gathered the rest of the team and pushed deeper into the dungeon. With how large the expanse was, they would need significant time to search out any culprits.

They did not have to search too far, however. Following the path made by the boar boss earlier, they stumbled upon something that went far beyond their expectations. Instead of finding another adventuring party, they found a monster.

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Only, this monster clearly did not belong here.

***

I made no attempt to hide myself. For one, the appearance of these people was too sudden. For another, hiding places were lacking in supply. As I had noticed earlier, this dungeon was designed as an open meadow with practically no obstacles, giving the tusked pigs all the room they needed to maneuver. The dungeon played up to their strengths and took away the chance for any enemy to use convenient cover.

That fact meant that I had no cover either. Not that my increased size would have let me utilize it in any case.

I focused my attention on the one whose voice I heard. It was a scrawny looking man, dressed in dark leather armor that would blend in nicely in dark places. He was staring at me with his jaw hanging slightly open, confusion and a bit of fear evident on his face. Four others gathered around him with similar expressions. I surmised that they did not expect to find me here.

“What...is that…?”

“Uh...I think it’s a slime…”

“This IS the boar dungeon, right? We didn’t enter the slime dungeon by mistake, did we?”

“Who knows, who cares…”

“WE CARE! That thing looks the size of a dungeon boss! The boss here is supposed to be a mega boar, not this thing! We can’t fight that!”

“*gulp gulp* Ugh, you guys are noisy…”

“No way, you are not getting drunk right now, we need to figure this out!”

“It’s not even alcohol, who cares…”

I watched as the group of adventurers, whom I recognized from earlier, converse with each other. I realized that I could not understand their language, but as I used to be human, I understood their body language and facial expressions. They seemed to be devolving into arguing amongst themselves, perhaps about what to do with me. At least I confirmed that there is a language barrier. I wondered how to overcome that. If I should bother doing so at all.

Hearing the argument increase in volume with nothing getting done, I decided to make a move first. I slowly moved forward, recreating the menacing approach that I unintentionally used earlier. I was cautious, but not exactly concerned. For some reason I felt no sense of danger. I could not tell if this was related to my lack of emotions, but whether it is or not made no difference at that moment. When I crossed half the distance between us, the adventuring team finally noticed my movements.

“It’s coming this way! We should leave, NOW!”

“*burp* oh come on, it’s just an oversized slime. Here, watch, we can take it easy.”

One of them, the guy in flashy robes, seemed to make some sort of declaration as he raised his hand towards me. Not the one with a bottle in it, his free hand. I raised my awareness, watchful for anything he might do. His hand glowed with a silvery light, and a silver colored transparent circle appeared right in front of me. I did not stop in time and bumped into it. My mind quickly jumped to conclusions, expecting pain or something to happen, but...nothing. Carefully, I extended a tentacle to prod the circle. It just hovered in the air, slightly above the ground but fixed in place. Was it...meant to stop me in place?

I watched as the mage smirked to the others. He spoke again, probably bragging to them. I ignored him, which was easy considering I had no idea what he was saying, and continued to test out the obstacle. Using the same tentacle, I struck the silver circle with a bit of force. It held up without a tremor. I lashed at it again, with significantly more force. My tentacle just bounced right off. This was my first true exposure to magic, and it left me fascinated. However, I did not want to give the party more time to organize themselves. They seemed like the lacked cohesive teamwork and discipline, and they were probably going to turn hostile if they felt I could be handled with a simple barrier. It would be stupid to not take advantage of their carelessness.

So, instead of playing around with the magic hanging in front of me, I chose to simply flow around it. Under, to the sides, above, my slime body essentially covered the whole circle only to leave it behind me. It was not difficult at all.

One of the adventurers noticed my actions with a bit of panic. She pointed me out to the mage. He turned to look at me, his smug expression slowly vanishing. Although I still could not understand his words, the sentiment of what he said next transcended all languages.

“Ah, crap.”