Appearing in the forest again, I close my eyes and take a deep breath, inhaling the refreshing scents that surround me. Opening my eyes back up, I can see my party members loitering around the starting area looking for a hint as to what to do. I walk over to the river and scoop some water into my hands to drink. Soon I can hear some footsteps behind me but I ignore them as I focus back on drinking the water. Then feeling a tap on my shoulder I turn around and face Sophie who is bent down and staring at me only, with only a few inches separating our faces.

"Ah", I say startled.

*Pft* "You didn't have to be so surprised.", Sophie said with a smile on her face.

"What do you want?", I reply with slightly annoyed tone.

"I just wanted to ask if you had any ideas on where we should go."

"Hm" I look up and into the distance seeing the shadow of the building which I was killed in last time I was here. Nervously I say, "What about that building in the distance.", while pointing at the shadow.

"Well... that sounds good to me.", Sophie says and she then starts walking back to where the other members are at.

"Hey guys how about we go to that building in the distance.", Sophie says to the others.

"What building.", the man with the bow responds.

"Well Dylan, that one.", she says as she points in the direction the building is.

"...What building.", he reiterates.

"What are you talking about, I just pointed it out.", she says before looking in the direction her finger was pointed. "Ah, I guess you can only see it from the river." Then as she grabs Dylan's hand, she pulls him over to where I am still sitting, and points at the now revealed shadow.

"Oh OK then.", he says.

"Alright everybody, come over we are going to go.", Sophie says loudly. Within 60 seconds everyone has gathered by the river, and readied themselves for the journey ahead.

"Off we go.", Sophie says as she leads the group along the side of the river.

***

After walking an hour along the riverbank, with infrequent conversations filling the journey so far, we finally encounter our first slime on this floor.

"Hey what's that.", Sophie, still leading the group, says while pointing at a small green blob around 25 feet from the river.

She then begins walking towards it, and the slime turns around facing her, before quickly rolling towards her.

"Watch out that is a slime; a monster.", I shout out.

"Thanks for the heads up.", Sophie replies before grasping the leather-bound grip of her sword, and unsheathing it. She then raises the sword above her head and slashes the sword downwards once the slime entered her range. The sword whistles through the air as it travels towards the body of the slime, with a squelching sound heard on the impact, and the slime is sliced right down the middle.

"Piece of cake.", Sophie says putting her sword back into the sheath, and turning around. But behind her the slime can be seen reforming from its now two halves, and it rolls right back to her touching her right calf. A load yelp of pain can be heard from her as she stumbles forward to get away from the slime, and I am reminded of my own mistakes from the first time I was on this floor.

I point my staff at the slime and start chanting my spell to free Sophie of the danger that is now right behind her. "Spirits of fire, flow into my body. Rise from my mana, and grant me control over you. Fire Creation." Fire spurts out from the tip of the staff and starts evaporating the slime, which takes around 5 seconds. Looking at my mana, it is now 100/130. 'My efficiency is not so great right now. I shouldn't have let that extra skill point get away from me.

"Thanks for the save Ryan.", Sophie says with a grimace on her face.

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"No problem Sophie, but I think that maybe Bruno should be leading from now on."

"You might be right.", Sophie responds as she struggles to get up. I quickly run up to her and offer a hand to help her up, which she accepts.

"You should probably wash that off.", I say.

"Alright.", she says slightly downtrodden as I help her walk to the river.

Helping her sit down at the river bank she just stares at me, slowly looking more annoyed at me as I don't know why she is doing such a thing.

"What is it?"

"Are you just going to look at me as I get undressed? That goes for all of you too.", she says looking back at the group, who then turns around.

"Oh", I say feeling embarrassed, and then I turn around as well.

Glancing at the ground, and fiddling with my staff, I can hear the rustling of clothes and the sound of a light splash of water. I then hear an "Ouch" from Sophie, before I speak up and say, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah I'm fine it just hurt more than I though it would when I touched it to clean it off."

"Okay then. Oh yeah you should probably wrap that when you are done.", I respond before going back to fiddling with my staff.

After around five minutes of waiting with a couple more comments on the pain, I head the unsheathing of a sword and the cutting of fabric. Then around another minute later, Sophie announces that she is done and that we can turn around once again. Looking at her jumpsuit the pant leg where she was injured has been cut off and now wraps around her calf.

"Let's get going again. Bruno you're up.", Sophie announces.

Bruno, a tall man standing about 6ft 4in with light brown hair and a muscular physique that can be observed even through the thick fabric of jumpsuit he is wearing, removes the large metal kite shield mounted on his back and slips it onto his arm, and begins walking to the front of the group.

"Off we go.", he says in a low tone before he starts to walk down the river, with the rest of the group following his lead.

***

Around another hour of walking later, we encounter another two slimes, still eating a rabbit whose skeleton can be seen slowly dissolving in the two slimes' bodies.

"We should probably attack them from a distance to prevent more injuries.", I say.

"Alright. Alice do you want to help him?", Sophie replies, to which Alice nods her head silently.

Both Alice and I position ourselves around 15 feet from the slimes, we point our staffs towards our targets and begin our chants simultaneously.

"Spirits of fire, flow into my body. Rise from my mana, and grant me control over you. Fire Creation."

"Spirits of water, rush into my body. Rise from my mana, and grant me control over you. Water Creation."

Both a plume of fire and a pressurized stream of water shoot out of our staffs towards the slimes, but an error occurs. As we use opposite magics, and the slimes are too close together the spells cancel each other out, and a cloud of steam is created. Then the slimes who now know we are here start rolling towards us.

"Shit", I mutter. "You kill your target first and I'll take care of the other after you are finished.", I say to Alice, who nods back at me and begins her chant once again.

At around five feet away her target is blasted apart from the water stream, but the second slime is also heading towards her.

"Back up for now Alice, that other slime is also trying to attack you.", I say to Alice, who quickly retreats towards the party. I then begin my chant again and start blasting the slime with fire, while backing up at the same time, to stay out of its attack range. After a couple of seconds this slime dies as well.

Looking at the areas where the slimes fell I see a gold coin and a slime core, the gold coin being from the slime Alice killed, and the slime core being from the one I killed.

"Hey Alice, the slime you killed dropped a gold coin.", I loudly said so that Alice could hear from the group. Bending down to pick up the slime core, I can hear Alice's footsteps stop beside me. Standing back up I mutter "Identify", and the slime core window appears before me.

Slime Core The core of a deceased slime that has a chance of dropping when it is killed. When consumed, it has an equal chance to have one of 3 effects: restoring 1 point of health, restoring 5 points of health, or dealing 1 point of damage

'Still the same.'

Looking over at Alice, I can see her staring at the slightly wriggling green sphere in my hand without saying anything.

"It's a healing item.", I say, to which Alice gives me a nod and picks up her gold coin before muttering silently, and then the coin is absorbed into her.

We then begin walking back to the group and I walk up to Sophie, and hand her the sphere.

"What's this?", she asks.

"It's a healing item... Well it has a chance to be a healing item."

"Identify", she mutters. She then places the core into her mouth, and her lips immediately begin to pucker.

"I'm not good with sour things.", she says through tightened lips.

"So how much healing did you get?", I ask.

Which compels Sophie to open her personal profile and says "One HP. I guess I'm not that lucky.", she says with a chuckle.

*sigh* 'More lucky than me.'