Splash! Splash! Splash!

I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Star showed me that if I hit them as soon as I reach their aggro range, they won't even have a chance to attack. They're practically powerless if we take advantage of the opening.

Even then, I wasn't at Star's level when it comes to combat. I can only approach one slime at a time, carefully reading its movements as I find an opening. Meanwhile, Star is running around swinging her blade left, right, and center without a care in the world. I don't even know how she manages to hit every single slime so accurately.

It was fun, though. Killing all these slimes, blocking their attacks, watching Star murder a whole family of slimes. I could feel my stress level plummet with every dead slime.

Eventually, because every slime respawned at the water puddle in the center, the amount I got to kill started dwindling. Star had started camping the spawn, and she killed every slime as soon as they appeared. It was brutal, but I guess this is just what grinding looks like in person.

After a while, I think Star saw me just standing there idly without slimes to kill. She started letting a few slimes leave the puddle for me to kill. Maybe it was out of pity, or maybe she just didn't notice the slimes leave, but either way it was a nice gesture.

We had so much fun killing the slimes that we had completely forgotten about the quest. I had the sudden realization that we've just been killing slimes very pointlessly thus far.

So, I shouted, "Hey, Star! Weren't we here to do a quest? What was it again?"

Star paused her genocide to answer my question. "Yeah? We're doing it right now," she yelled.

"What's the quest?"

"I think it was to get 10 rare drops from slimes! We're really not finding any luck here, but—"

Splat. Splat.

…

The slimes around her had started lunging at her.

I thought the slimes were strong enough to knock down any player with their attacks, but Star was unharmed and unfazed by their strikes. She stood well balanced with her feet planted on the ground. If anything, she seemed to be enjoying the slimes' abuse.

"Aw… Look at them try~. So cute~!" Star said as she patted one of the slimes. "What I was going to say was that the rare drops are very rare… Who would've thought, right? I think yesterday I fought the slimes for like, 2 hours before finishing this requirement for our quest."

"2 hours? Really? That long? Also—hey, you should really kill those slimes."

"Hm? Oh yeah, no, I'll get to it. But yeah, it's gonna take a while before—!"

Splash!

"!!" Star uttered a silent grunt. A ball of spit had hit Star right in the face. She backed away from the slimes as she gathered herself and processed what just happened. She seemed startled; it must be her first time being hit by the attack.

"I didn't know you could do that!" She said while pointing at the slime.

She's in trouble!

That slime hit her straight on the face. She's going to be affected by dizzy!

Back in the tutorial, I had already felt the effect myself. The series of headaches and nausea that struck were incapacitating. I couldn't even stand up; that was how bad it affected me.

But what about Star? She's standing there nonchalantly without a care for the attack that just hit her. Does she not know? Or maybe she's immune? I just don't know!

It made me start panicking for her. "Star! Come here, quick! Before the other slimes shoot spit at you too!" I yelled. She was still in the middle of all the slimes. Most of them ready to shoot at any moment.

Alas, Star wasn't heeding any of my warnings. She was barely paying attention to me and instead looked around at the slimes that surrounded her.

Out of nowhere, she exclaimed, "Oh! It actually smells like mint!"

…

Girl…

YOU'RE FOCUSING ON THE WRONG THING HERE!!

A rain of slime spit hit Star as she stood there without moving an inch. Now, I'm less worried about killing the slimes, but instead about how Star's going to survive that.

I could barely move a muscle back then. And that was from just one dose of slime spit.

She must've gotten hit by at least 5 slimes there. What if the effect stacked? I can't imagine the amount of nausea she'll feel when it strikes.

『Don't worry, the effect does not stack in severity. But, the more she gets hit, the longer she will be affected by dizzy. The first hit will affect her for 2 minutes. Every time she gets hit by attacks after the first, that timer will be multiplied by 1.5 and accumulate. Meaning, on the second hit, she will have 3 minutes on the timer, 4.5 minutes on the third, 6.75 minutes on the fourth, and so on.

I estimate her current timer is at… 51.2578125 minutes』

"Wh—STAR, YOU IDIOT! GET AWAY FROM THOSE SLIMES!!"

51 minutes?

51 minutes, practically an hour by that point. She'll be paralyzed for a whole hour! I don't think anyone can withstand being dizzy for that long!

This is all because she paused and got careless.

And yet, even as I shouted at her, she still hasn't run away from the crowd of slimes. Instead, she was admiring the smell and taste of the slime that hit her. It was utterly gross, even when seen from afar.

『You should focus on getting her away from the monsters. Slimes will still be aggro-ed towards her even as she's knocked out. Your objective should be to get her to a safe place as soon as you can. Especially since your friend is an idiot』

…harsh

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

But I listened to Celeste and immediately sprinted my way to Star. "Star! Just get away from them!" I shouted.

----

I readied my sword and carefully maneuvered through the slimes. As I ran, I swiped away at the slimes in my way and cleared a path for myself. Though it wasn't enough to kill every slime, at least I knocked them out of my way.

As I reached her, I swiftly grabbed Star's arm and dragged her away from the slimes. "H—Hey! Wait! They're still alive!" She complained.

It's her fault that the slimes were still alive. So, I kept dragging her away without being bothered to answer her.

Once we were far enough away from the slimes, they finally dropped their aggro and ignored us. It has been minutes since Star was hit by the first slime; how come she's still unaffected by dizzy?

But then, it finally hit. I felt a sudden increase of weight on my left hand, and it was followed by the sound of a thud, like something had crashed onto the grass. The 51-minute timer has finally started.

Her weight prevented me from pulling Star any further. I'm sure by this point, I'm far enough away that the slimes won't approach us. Even if there were some, their numbers would be manageable.

I dropped her onto the soft grass and made her lie on her back. It was the first time I'd ever seen Star look this sick. Her face was all pale and lifeless. And I've never seen someone's eyes look so empty before, much less Star's.

She was limp all throughout her body; only the occasional twitching of her fingers showed that she was alive.

I was worried for her. She's got a whole hour of this effect on her. I can't imagine the amount of suffering she'll have to go through.

"You're sure this effect doesn't stack?"

『Certain』

"What about curing the effect? I mean, there must be some sort of antidote, right?"

『There are doctors and clinics all round town. Unfortunately, neither of you have the gold necessary for their services or medicines』

"Well, we can sell our things, right? I can sell my weapons. Is that any good?"

『Every single one of your items has no value. Remember, your weapons are freebies given by the tutorial』

"What about the map? The town map. There were a bunch of people queuing up for it yesterday. It must be of some value, right?"

『Only adventurers find value in your map. They're produced every day by the Scribe and will always be obsolete in a week as they're updated on a weekly basis』

"Is there literally anything I can sell?"

『Unless you count Sanguine's clothes and her sword, you have nothing of value』

"Wh—So she's going to be in this state for the full hour?"

『You tell me. You don't have any money, you don't have anything of value, you don't have an antidote, and you don't have any other choice. It's neither of our faults that she's this careless.

She will be affected by dizzy for another 49 minutes and 32 seconds. You should make good use of that time while also keeping her away from the slimes』

"… I guess I'll just sit here for a while then."

…

"Wasn't she… holding a sword?"

The realization hit me as I looked at her empty hands. She must've dropped it when the effect hit. That thud I heard wasn't her fainting; it was the sword that she dropped.

I looked back at where we ran from. Out in the distance, amongst the blue and green slimes, there was that sword glowing purple. It lies on the grass unscathed.

It also seems like the sword attracted a lot of the surrounding slimes. I noticed an irregular number of them around the sword compared to everywhere else. Maybe they're attracted to it.

『Yes. Slimes are attracted to any player items』

I guess I should leave it there for now. I can't fight that many slimes away at one time. Maybe the slimes will despawn or lose interest after a while.

『Player items will despawn 30 minutes after being touched by a player if they're dropped outside of a safe area』

"What?"

『If you don't take the sword, it will cease itself out of existence』

"Oh... Oh, come on. Really?"

『Yes』

I scrunched up in frustration.

Out of everything that this game offers, why isn't "items persisting indefinitely" one of them? It's the first and easiest thing to implement in every game. It takes effort to code in a despawning system. Why the hell would the devs implement item despawning?

I've played this game for a few hours now. From what I've gathered, it seems like the devs want this game to feel as realistic as possible. People can feel pain; apparently, we can taste, feel, smell, hear, and see everything in the game, and we can even have jobs in the game. If anything, the game is preventing itself from having game systems.

I have yet to see a single player menu or an inventory UI in this game. That's because they don't exist!

And yet items still despawn after a period of time!

『From what I've gathered, it is to prevent item pollution by potential trolls』

"Trolls?! What trolls?! I have yet to see any criminals in town, and yet you're saying the devs are worried by potential trolls?!"

『Don't get mad at me. I'm not the one who made the game』

"You're an AI specifically designed by the devs to help me in the game. Isn't that what you told me?"

『…』

I guess all this sulking will bring us nowhere. Star seems to really like that sword. She did say it was a gift from her pals from yesterday. I don't want to lose it just because I couldn't kill a couple of slimes.

I stood up and dragged Star further away into a safer spot to prevent any slimes from attacking her. Although it would be a problem if a stray player or NPC came up to her and hurt her. Can you watch her and warn me whenever she's in danger?

『Your eyes are my eyes. I can't see what you can't see. But I will help you keep track of her whenever she's in your vision』

"Any help will do."

----

I took out both of my weapons and ran into the sea of slimes. With each swing of my sword, I carefully struck each slime and sliced them completely in half. Hopefully, this will prevent me from getting too tired when fighting them.

Star's sword was still a long way from me. I had to kill the slimes in my path to reach the sword. I ran and swung my sword in rhythms. Keeping away at unnecessary strikes to keep my balance and focus.

One wrong step will completely fumble me over. I kept caution of the danger these slimes may pose, occasionally glancing at Star to remind myself about the dizzy effect, and to see if she was still safe.

After 5 minutes of fighting, I've reached the mass of slimes that surrounded Star's sword. They were all around it, slithering and bouncing around the glowing sword. It was a slimefest.

I took it upon myself to get the sword back. I won't back away when I'm this close, even if it makes me a little nervous seeing this many slimes in front of me. I mean, even if I got hit, Celeste can just log me out before the effect gets to me.

『Try not to get hit』

"Sure."

It's nice to have the option.

I slowly stepped towards the slimes while keeping my shield up for safety. They're likely going to be in their melee state; it shouldn't be a problem if I block their attacks and pick them off one by one as I get closer.

But, when I reached their range, they didn't immediately start their attacks. This was strange. They should be attacking me by this point. Even as I carefully walked so close that my sword could reach them, they were still not aggro-ed.

It was like they weren't paying attention to me at all. It wasn't until I smacked one of the slimes that that one slime started looking at me. I immediately killed it out of caution, but the rest of the slimes were still unperturbed.

This made me drop my guard as I stood there in confusion. There must be something preventing them from being aggro-ed. Is it because of the sword's enchantment or something?

『I do not know』

It must be something weird if even my AI has no idea what's going on. But it made fighting the slimes really easy for me.

I picked them off one by one. A free stab for every slime in the vicinity. It was oddly satisfying to have these globs of liquid burst out like a balloon. I hadn't noticed it before, but I think the slime juice that sprays out actually does smell like mint. The more slime I popped, the more minty the air smelt. The atmosphere was cold by the time the last slime was killed.

The area was finally clear of slimes. I picked up the Star's sword and examined the design of it.

It was nicely made. The handle was made of rope and wood, giving the user an easy grip. It was also surprisingly lightweight; I could swing this sword better than I could with my own sword. There was an engraving on the blade's body. It must be written in runes because I can't read it at all.

One edge of the sword was covered in gold. It highlights the sword whenever it's swung by the user. Overall, a well-balanced, nicely made sword. I'm surprised someone would gift this to a newbie like Star. It looks expensive.

I guess being a girl in game does have its advantages sometimes.

But I moved on anyway and brought the sword back to where Star was.

----

『May I ask you some questions?』

"What's up?"

『Why do you call Sanguine "Star"?』

"It's her real name IRL."

『Do all players have "real" names?』

"Most of us. It's uncommon for us to use our IRL names in the game."

『What's your real name?』

"Oh. Mine's still Hallowell."

『Then why does Sanguine call you by the name "Lucy"?』

"It's my nickname. Actually, you can only speak to me, right?"

『For now, yes. What of it?』

"My real name is Lucien Hallowell. The people at school started calling me 'Lucy' because of Star, and now it's my nickname."

『So people still can have other names as well as their game name and real name?』

"It sounds strange when you put it that way, but yes."

『How peculiar…』

----