Eh? What was all this?! Why was there a mountain of food around her?! Why was there so much?! She couldn’t even see the end of it all! And why was there a hamburger there?!
Wait, this was the final trial! Not a rest area! How was she even going to eat all this?! She’s not some shounen character who had a universe of space within their stomachs! I’m looking at you, Luffy.
“Umm…So I just…eat?”
Slowly, she picked up a hamburger from within the pile, and bit!
*Chomp!*
“Mmm…Is this beef? This doesn’t taste tha-, Bue?!”
Before she could even swallow the food, her entire body jerked as a foreign energy entered her. In the shock, she dropped the half eaten hamburger, dropping it coldly onto the stone floor below her.
“W-What kind o-of hamburger w-was t-that…? T-That was h-horrible…a-agh…”
Lying down, she curled up into a ball and held her stomach in pain, softly whimpering as she withheld the pain in her stomach. Whatever had just entered her, it was not kind!
Still, what the hell was her objective again?! All she was given was a mountain of food and that was it! At least give her some kind of sign or something! She couldn’t just sit here and chomp through this endless supply of food!!
After about 3 minutes of writhing in pain, she stood up and picked out a hotdog. Eh? Did the sausage just glow blue? Were her eyes playing tricks on her? Well, ahn~.
*Chomp!*
“Guhue?!”
Once again, another internal attack occurred, causing her to lie down again. Was this how it would go?! Was the orb thingy taking pleasure seeing her get damaged like this?! Was all the food like this?! Give her some answers damnittt!!
But she would not back down! Not until the end!!
-3 Glowing Hamburgers later-
“Uuu…M-My stomach…A-Ah…”
A-Ah, why was this happening to her? All she wanted was a good fight for the last trial, but this was what she got?! Was this dungeon laughing at her?! Was it trying to tempt her with her hunger?!
Her stomach wasn’t even getting filled! Even though she shoved in about a whole day’s worth of hamburgers, her stomach still felt empty!! Where was all the meat going?!
But then, out of the shadows of the surrounding food, a hero arises~!
*Boink!*
“S-Slimey!”
Yes, Slimey has arrived to save the day! In delight, Slimey hopped up to Diana and jumped onto her head, calmly resting on its master’s head.
Ah, its asleep already………Might as well join!
And so, surrounded by a mountain of food, the two slept peacefully.
-3 hours later-
“A-Agh…”
Once again, Diana was lying on the ground, clutching her stomach as the oddly hot pizza slice she ate went to work on her stomach. Seriously, just how long would this take?! She was getting nowhere!
The situation looked dire, hopeless even! She had a huge pile of food she needed to finish before she starved to death! What’s with the insane failure penalty?! She couldn’t even logout!! Damn you, Kayaba!
*Boink!*
By her side, Slimey was watching anxiously. It had never seen its master like this, and even if it wanted to help, it couldn’t! No! It needed to help her! Slimey couldn’t let its master do all the hard work! There must be a way!
Slimey cautiously approached a cake slice, and ingested it! I say ingested, but all it did was put the cake slice into itself. Wait, slimes don’t even have to eat! Abort plan!
But then, something magical happened!
*Voom~*
A low humming sound began to play from Slimey, as the cake slice floating within it began to glow! What was this incredible concoction?! Was Slimey about to evolve or something?!
The light from the cake slowly faded away, and Slimey quickly popped it out. Ah, the cream went everywhere. Hey, maybe this cake slice wouldn’t be that mean to her! Might as well try it!
“Ahmp.”
5 seconds…nothing. 10 seconds…nothing? Eh? Where’s the pain? C-Could it be? The cake wasn’t a lie after all?! Amazing! A food that was actually food! What does that even mean?! Who knows!
Taking out a cookie she found within the pile, she gave it over to Slimey. Once again, the same occurrence happened, and the magic that was once in the cookie was completely devoured by Slimey!
And taking a bite, no pain could be felt! Victory! She had found a way to finish this trial! Hell Yeah!
Ah, but she still had the mountain of food to eat through…Was she even capable of eating this much? This would probably take her a couple months of eating to finish! And she would become fat! That would suck!
A couple minutes later, she ate one more hamburger and sat down. A~, she’s full now~. Eating through all this would take a while…
-Several days later-
And days seemed to fly by as she went through her days sifting and eating through the pile of food supplies she had at her disposal. Of course, if she stayed dormant and ate all day, she would get fat, no doubt. So, she decided to take a daily jog too!
Oh! Would 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and 10 Km jogs grant her superhuman strength?! Would she be able to shout *One Puuaaaanncchhh!!* After all that?!
But let’s put that aside for now! Something terrible just happened!
[The title [Friend of The Dryad] has been lost. -1 [Wisdom] and [Longevity]]
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
This was terrible! Not only did she lose a title, she also lost some stat points! How did this happen?! Did the dryad die or something?! She hadn’t even found the dryad yet!
*Boink, boink!*
“Huh? What is it?”
Walking up to Slimey, who was hopping up and down rather excitedly, Diana examined the interesting item Slimey found within the pile of food. Eh? A small green seed? Why was this here? Did that orb get this mixed up?
Well, let’s keep it!
Shrugging her shoulders, she put the seed into the one pocket she had on her pants. With that done, let’s have lunch!
-Several more days later-
This was getting annoying. Really, annoying.
Seriously! How much food was in this pile?! It’d been about a week, and she couldn’t even see a slight change! How was she going to finish this?!
Even Slimey was getting fat from all the magic it was consuming! She couldn’t just force Slimey to do her bidding at all times!
Besides that, nothing much had happened really. Her stats hadn’t changed all that much, no new monsters had appeared, and the orb thingy seemed to have gone silent. It was starting to get pretty lonely actually. But Slimey’s here, so no need to fret!
By now, it was about noon, and Diana was spending her time sitting still, focusing to her utmost potential as she continued to train her [Internal Mana Manipulation] skill. It’s been a while since she last trained this skill, so why not, right?
Still, this was hard~! It had been about 4 days of training, and nothing! Well, she might be a bit impatient, but levelling this skill up was insanely hard! Not having someone to guide her wasn’t helping either!!
-2 weeks later-
…This was endless. How much longer would this take? Two months? Six? A whole year? Two years? Would she even be able to get out of here?
She couldn’t do this for much longer!! She needed a faster way! But how?! She couldn’t just vacuum all the food here into her mouth! She would die!
That was when, an amazing idea struck her mind! An idea that the orb would surely not have thought of! Now Slimey, go~!
*Boink!*
While waiting for Slimey to return with the results, Diana sat down and began to train her [Internal Mana Manipulation] skill once more. Since that ended with a failure, she ended up spending her time playing with her [Bubble Magic] instead.
*Boink!*
And Slimey had returned! But it wasn’t alone! Behind the green blob, was a giant group of cave rats, bats, and other cave monsters Slimey could find hiding within the cavern walls. Under Diana’s command, Slimey brought them all here.
“Chuu?”
One of the rats stepped up and looked at the huge pile of food, a daunting wall standing before its small self. She took out a chicken wing and gave it to the rat. Timidly, it went up to the chicken wing, sniffed it a bit, and bit.
*Nom*
“Chuu!”
With a warm smile, Diana petted the small little rat as it chomped down on the chicken wing. Go little guy! Eat as much as you want!
“Come on! You guys too!”
The other monsters understood her gesture and dived in, greedily biting down the food supply! More and more monsters began to show up, and they too dived in and took some food! Come now~! It’s a banquet!
In just a couple hours, the whole entire pile had disappeared! What terrific eating speed! These guys must have been really hungry…Well, it was a win for both sides.
[[Beast Taming] has been acquired. 5 Skill Points gained]
Eh? Her giving food to the poor monsters counted as taming? How? That was just her being kind! And that wasn’t even her own food! But, she wasn’t complaining! A skill or two was always accepted!
Unknown to her, the orb was tearing its hair out from the frustration, figuratively of course! The orb had prepared this with an open mind, but this?! Where did those monsters come from anyways?! Wasn’t Crawler taking charge over these guys?!
“This girl…She’s too strong…”
With that in mind, the orb reappeared before Diana, and spoke.
“Congratulations young adventurer. Now, only one last trial lies before-“
“THERE’S ANOTHER ONE?!”
“…Before you. I wish you luck.”
Before she could speak any further, darkness descended upon her. The lights from the blue crystals seemed to dim into the shadows. A chilling atmosphere took over the entire cavern, as if a whole bucket of ice cubes had been thrown in for good measure.
Oi, this wasn’t funny. What’s with this chilling feeling creeping up her back? This feeling…Doesn’t this just scream of her death? Aha~, can’t be…right? Surely not, right? Eh? Why were the monsters backing away? E-Even Slimey?
The darkness swirling and gathered before her, as a crystal began to form within the shadows. It shined an ominous black light, as if the light from the crystals failed to even reach it.
“U-Umm…”
Uwah…This is bad…This is bad! Whatever that crystal was, it surely wasn’t something good! A low hum began to fill the air, as the crystal continued to grow. Wait, was the crystal going to explode?! Would the wither appear or something?!
With the best intentions, she jumped up and ran back towards the tunnel, which was blocked?! Sh*t! Plan abort!
But it seems, it was too late.
*BOOOOOMM!!!!*
“Kya?!”
A loud explosion resounded behind her, sending her flying back towards the wall! Ouch~, that hurt! Turning around, she looked towards the crystal, and there, she saw…A staff. Eh? What? Where’s the boss? Did it glitch out or something?
The dark blue staff merely floated, with the black gem resting atop the staff. The whole room froze, as if time itself had frozen over. Slowly, the staff began to float towards her. The air seemed to vibrate as it slowly moved across the air.
D-Doesn’t this staff feel more menacing than that demon? She mustered her courage, and fired her [Slime Cannon], but the slime bounced away!
A torrent of dark energy gathered within the crystal, violently contained within that tiny little black crystal. Sh*t, this wasn’t looking good! Not at all!!
And then, a beam of darkness shot out, precisely aimed, for her skull.
“A-Ah…”
Was this the end? Even if she did cast another [Slime Cannon], what would she do then? Wouldn’t she just fail again? Would she wake up in a hospital after this? Or would she ascend towards the skies, forever leaving this world? She didn’t know, she didn’t want to know! She shut her eyes.
Time slowed to a crawl, and slowly, she opened her eyes. It was then, she realised, that she really had been saved.
*Vuuuuu!*
Between her and the beam, a green figure jumped up, and took the full damage! Slimey had come! In a last attempt, it casted aside its fear, and jumped towards the beam, to sacrifice itself for her!
Its wish, was fully granted, as Slimey then exploded, tearing apart as the beam fully tore it apart. The green remains of Slimey shot out into the surroundings, splashing loudly against the stone floor.
“……E, Eh?”
She could only let out a stupefied voice, as she stared at her surroundings. Her eyes fell upon the remains of her green friend, scattering across the stone floor. Her eyes froze as her mind slowly caught up. It was then, she realised,
That her friend, had been blown away.
“SLIMEY!!!”
Her anger fully erupted. Her soul blazed. There was no fear. There was no remorse. Only anger!
Slimey had died for her, she couldn’t let its efforts go to waste! Gritting her teeth, she jumped and grabbed onto the staff! If she could guess, that crystal was the main danger!
Taking hold of the crystal, she tried to pull it out, but to no avail. The crystal seemed to be completely glued onto the staff!
‘B*tch! I ain’t letting you take me alive!’ Was what the crystal said as it began its retaliation! A dark miasma began to seep into her fingers, tainting them black. The miasma continued to spread further across her hand, slowly crawling up towards her arm.
But what came out, was not a voice of fear. Instead, there was only determination!
“Yes! Give me more!!”
A big “?!” appeared above the crystal. After all, what kind of person would be excited to have their body taken over?! Now, it realised why Vade, its colleague was so afraid of her. And frankly, it was too!
The darkness creeping through her skin seemed to stop. No, not just stopped, it was slowly disappearing! The crystal broke out in cold sweat as it saw its nullified. Such intense resistance!
Diana herself didn’t seem to realise what she was doing, and kept trying to pull the crystal off. No matter how long this would take, she would not complain! Slimey had done all it could, and now it was her turn!
To go on a slight tangent, it was quite odd why she felt no sadness from Slimey’s death. Was it because she had [Slime Army], which allowed her to form more slimes. Or was it simply because she assumed there was some magic capable of bringing it back to life?
Alright, back at the main channel!
Although the dark miasma had stopped advancing, it didn’t mean that the crystal’s assault had ended. In fact, it hadn’t stopped at all! It was then, that it realised. This wasn’t just resistance; its powers were being absorbed!
In fear, it tried to break away, but Diana’s grip kept it in place! ‘This girl sure is being stubborn! Just let me go already!!’ Were the thoughts that went through its mind.
A minute of constant struggles passed, and the miasma on her hand had completely disappeared! The crystal was getting incredibly worried. The title [Soul Conqueror] had much more power than it initially thought!
Damnit! It needed to run!!
*Bakun!*
Using the awkward stance she was in, the staff moved and sent an uppercut towards her chin, sending her flying back! *Bak!* Diana flew and crashed down! Using this chance, the staff turned around, and ran!
“Oi! Don’t run away!”
Getting back up, Diana quickly made chase. And so, the staff frantically ran around the cavern, closely followed by an enraged Diana.
Why does this remind me of the second trial…?