Reinhart-san won't be able to join us in the afternoon training, so our group only consisted of me, the ojousama, the madam, and Reinbach-sama.
"Good grief, father always ends up like that when it concerns his work…" [Elialia]
"I can't believe he actually neglected Ryouma-kun and his own daughter." [Elize]
"I'm partly responsible for this too… But at least he's really devoted to his work, right? I mean wouldn't it be worse if it was the other way around?" [Ryouma]
"Maybe… We're here." [Elize]
As the 2 adults led us, before we knew it, we were right before the entrance.
"From here on, the two of you should be the ones to decide how to proceed. Me and grandpa will just quietly follow. We'll help out when things look bad, but don't expect us to provide any help other than that." [Elize]
"We're here to help Elia gather experience, after all. Ryouma-kun you already have plenty of experience, so I'll have to ask you to let Elia make her own decisions." [Reinbach]
All of the sudden, the ojousama has her work cut out for her.
"I'll do my best." [Elialia]
"I understand." [Ryouma]
Seeing how the ojousama wasn't perturbed in the slightest, it seems she's used to these two suddenly giving her an assignment.
We continued into the tunnels without a word of complaint from the ojousama.
The tunnel this time was a lot bigger than before, and parts of the walls were covered in moss.
We could slip if we're not careful, so we better watch our step.
"It's dark, so I can't see very far." [Elialia]
I've realized this since this morning, but it seems unlike me who's used to hunting in the night, the ojousama has a hard time seeing in dark places.
"Ryouma-san, you have experience hunting in the night, right? Do you use light magic then?" [Elialia]
"Only if I don't mind others noticing me. Otherwise, I use the neutral spell, Search. There's still a chance the target might notice me because of the flow of mana, but the odds are much lower." [Ryouma]
"I can't use Search very well. How do you do it? I know I'm supposed to spread my consciousness, but I don't really get it." [Elialia]
Search, huh. Well…
After thinking a little, I made a vessel out of stone using earth magic, and then filled it with water using water magic.
"Please look at this." [Ryouma]
"?" [Elialia]
I threw a stone into into the vessel, and ripples rose on the surface of the water.
"Think of the center as you and the ripples as the flow of mana. Make yourself the center of the mana flow while you spread it around you, and when a monster shows up—"
I threw several more pebbles into the vessel, calmed down the ripples with magic, then threw another stone into the center. When I did, ripples appeared again, but the small stones interfered with some of the ripples.
"Mana will crash into the monsters just like these ripples. You should treat that as the reaction a monster or a human gives to Search." [Ryouma]
"I see. That's a lot easier to understand. Umm… 'Search'!" [Elialia]
When the ojousama invoked the Search spell, a great amount of mana gathered around her. It was an amount I've never felt before from anyone else other than myself.
It's amazing how I can feel the mana hitting against me even without focusing, but if there's an enemy mage present, we'll definitely be found out.
Sensing mana is the most basic of basics, so there's no such thing as a mage that can't sense mana.
"There's a lot of something up ahead." [Elialia]
"You succeeded. But you should rein in your mana a bit more. If an enemy mage were around, we'd definitely get found out like this." [Ryouma]
"R-Really? It seems I really do need to practice some more." [Elialia]
"For now, let me be in charge of the front and Search. You just focus on your spells just like you did this morning." [Ryouma]
"Alright. I'll be counting on you, Ryouma-san." [Elialia]
I used Search to see what's up ahead, and just like she said, there were indeed a lot of monsters. But it seemed to be a gathering of many small monsters.
"The road opens up up ahead, but there seems to be a lot of something filling up the ceiling there. I think they might be cave bats." [Ryouma]
"Those are probably cave bats, yes." [Reinbach]
"Could Elia take them all out?" [Elize]
"That would provide some shooting practice, but if it's a huge cloud of bats, then it wouldn't matter if she aimed or not, she's bound to hit something." [Reinbach]
Cave bats are only about as big an adult's palms and mostly fed on insects. They don't have a lot of options for attacking, but they do fly around, so they're ranked F. Even children could beat them, but they can get troublesome when they're all bunched up. The two adults didn't look like they wanted to deal with a cloud of cave bats either.
"Then how about we try an experiment?" [Ryouma]
"An experiment?" [Reinbach, Elize, Elialia]
"Yes. If it goes well, then we might be able to take out all the bats in one go." [Ryouma]
I double-checked on the ecology of the cave bats, and as expected, they're no different from earth bats. In that case, I should be able to knock them out if I cause powerful sound waves to erupt.
Stun grenades were a thing in my previous life, so as long as I use my magic, I should manage.
Silent, a spell that seizes the oscillations in the air to mute sound, and its opposite, a spell that amplifies the oscillations in the air to make the sound louder, Big Voice.
Voice Change, a spell that changes one's voice like when one sucks in helium, and Whisper, a spell that allows one's voice to reach greater distances.
And lastly, the resulting spell from the fusion of Big Voice and Whisper, Sound Bomb.
All of the above are spells I came up with after much experimentation in the forest.
I came up with Sound Bomb specifically for situations like these. It's pretty effective too considering it was able to rupture the eardrums of a black bear and knock it out.
I should be able to knock out the bats with it as long as the spell doesn't fail.
Speaking of Whisper, I practiced it a lot before by talking to myself in my room, but I haven't used it since.
Anyway, the possible problems I see with this method is one: the tunnel might collapse; two: there might be other people nearby; and three: cave bats might survive.
"You don't have to worry about the tunnel. This tunnel has been reinforced with earth magic to prevent it from collapsing, so it's unlikely you'll cause it to collapse. As for the people, we'll check with Search to ensure there's no one in the area, and in the case you're not able to kill all the bats…" [Reinbach]
"…How about leaving it to my slimes?" [Ryouma]
"Alright. If that's still no good, I'll lend a hand." [Reinbach]
And with that our plan was decided.
I took out a big sticky slime from my Dimension Home.
"I'm counting on you." [Ryouma]
I ordered the big sticky slime to block the tunnel with its huge body while taking care not to alert the cave bats as it approached them.
With that my sticky net was ready.
Lastly, I erected a sound-muting barrier to cover us.
"I'm ready." [Ryouma]
"We're ready too." [Reinbach]
"Then… 'Sound Bomb'" [Ryouma]
In that instant, a terrifying explosion sounded from outside the barrier. We couldn't actually hear any of the sounds, but we could still see the shadows falling from the ceiling.
"Looks like a success. Let's go." [Ryouma]
After dispelling the barrier, we continued onwards with the slime net as our shield. Before long we came across a great number of cave bats laid out on the ground.
Almost all of the bats were knocked out.
Of those that did manage to fly away, they did not number even 10. And yet even then, some of those remaining bats flew in a daze, eventually crashing into a wall.
Some of the cave bats did manage to fly toward our direction, but they immediately found themselves within the sticky slime net.
"Ho, not bad…" [Reinbach]
"You really took them all down with one spell, huh." [Elize]
"That's amazing, Ryouma-san!" [Elialia]
"It's been a while, but it looks like it's a success. Cave bats have good ears, but that's also their weak point. Ah, do you mind if I feed these to my slime?" [Ryouma]
"They're your spoils. Do as you please." [Reinbach]
"Cave bats don't have any parts worth selling anyway." [Elize]
I ordered the big sticky slime to break up and eat the sleeping cave bats. When I did, 364 sticky slimes treated themselves to an eat-all-you-can cave bat buffet.
Oh, it looks like the cave bats can now split again. I'll have them do it back at the inn.
After that I continued to support the ojousama with both action and word of advice as she hunted the remaining monsters in the tunnel for the next hour.
"Hey, Ryouma-kun." [Reinhart]
After cleaning up the second tunnel, Reinhart-san was waiting for us at the entrance.
"Did something happen?" [Ryouma]
"It's about the iron. Can you make me a sample to show to a possible partner? It'd be best if you could make it rectangular like an ingot." [Reinhart]
"Sure, no problem. Alchemy also has a formation for changing shapes." [Ryouma]
"Really? Then if you could ready one soon, please." [Reinhart]
Like that I exchanged places with Reinhart-san and went to work on the ingot.
He offered to help too, but it wasn't necessary, so I suggested he follow after the ojousama instead.
It's not difficult work, after all.
As proof of that, I was able to finish making the ingot almost immediately. It barely took longer than walking to that slag heap.
"Sebasu-san, the ingot is ready." [Ryouma]
"Thank you. What will you be doing now, Ryouma-sama?" [Sebasu]
"Hmm…" [Ryouma]
After completing the ingot and handing it over to Sebasu-san, I didn't have anything left to do, so I was thinking of following after the ojousama to help out with her monster hunting, but they've already entered for quite some time.
Should I just go ahead and enter a tunnel on my own? But the monsters around here are weak, so there's not much merit in fighting them, and it's also questionable whether that's a good idea considering how much time we have left… Moreover, our main purpose here is to scout out the place. A lot of adventurers are gonna be hired to take care of the monsters here, so there's no reason to rush. Huh, in that case, I think I'll just let the slimes split.
"I think I'll just let the slimes split for now. After that I'll contract them and do some training." [Ryouma]
"In that case, please use the corner over there. It's open and if something happens, we'll be able to hear you." [Sebasu]
And so, that's what I did. After the slimes split, I leisurely spent the remaining time training.
One hour later.
The ojousama and the others came back. They walked over to where me and the slimes were.
"Ryouma-san!" [Elialia]
"O-Ojousama. Are you done with your training?" [Ryouma]
"Yes. We're done for today. Actually, I have a present for you." [Elialia]
"Present?" [Ryouma]
"He he he… I think you'll like it very much, Ryouma-kun." [Elize]
As the ojousama and the madam said that, Reinhart-san came with a box of stone.
"Inside is a monster. It's weak, but you should still be careful when you open it." [Reinbach]
When I heard from Reinbach-sama that a monster was inside, I carefully opened the lid. In the next moment, I saw the monster inside.
"A slime?" [Ryouma]
Inside was a dark gray slime, a slime I'd never seen before. It wriggled about inside the stone box as if it were looking for the exit.
"It's one of the many advanced slime variants, a metal slime. We stumbled onto it by coincidence and caught it." [Elize]
"I can have this? Really? Thank you so much! I'm so happy! I have another slime variant I can add to my collection." [Ryouma]
"It may be a slime, but you should still contract with it first." [Reinbach]
Oh, right.
Just as Reinbach-sama reminded me, I went ahead and formed the contract. After that the metal slime started behaving within the box. When I lifted it up, it was indeed made of metal and was harder than any slime yet.
So this is a metal slime. I guess it must feed on metal then.
"Reinhart-san, could I get some of the iron soil around here to feed this slime?" [Ryouma]
"You're going to feed it with soil?" [Reinhart]
"That or the iron from it. I also want to run some experiments with the other slimes." [Ryouma]
"Take as much as you want. Originally, all this soil would have just been treated as trash. If not for you, we would have never looked at it again." [Reinhart]
"Thank you so much!" [Ryouma]
It should be fine if I get just enough to fill a corner of the Dimension Home.
Will the slime eat iron? Will a slime turn into a metal slime after eating iron? Or will it turn into something else? …I can't wait to find out.
"By the way, Ryouma-san. What were you doing?" [Elialia]
"Oh, I was letting the slimes split just a while ago, and then after that I thought I'd train them a little…" [Ryouma]
"Train? You mean the slimes?" [Elialia]
The ojousama could not comprehend.
Well, it's not like I don't understand.
She might understand how convenient slimes are, but I'm sure she still can't see them as anything but useless in battle.
Slimes are weak, after all. I mean they're G-Ranked monsters that even children can beat.
But the truth is that slimes possess a super flexible semi-liquid body that won't die unless the nucleus is hurt.
Slimes can move their nucleus anywhere in their body, so if for example a slime is kicked somewhere, it could simply move its nucleus away to protect it while nullifying the damage with its semi-liquid body.
At first, that was just a theory of mine, but after spending a lot of time training with the wild slimes – and I mean a lot of time since at one point I even thought it was hopeless – the slimes became agile.
They learned to use basic martial arts, allowing them to dodge an incoming weapon while rushing into the enemy to secure his arm.
They learned how to use their semi-liquid body to parry attacks – My teachings focused mainly on defense and evasion – And today, there are even some among them who can extend a part of their body and use it to control a spear or a rod.
"That being said, they still can't beat a goblin one on one. They just really lack the overall strength needed." [Ryouma]
"Not at all! I think it's plenty amazing that a slime's actually learned to use weapons." [Elize]
"Ryouma-kun, what do you think about attending a short course for beginners at the tamers guild? It might do you good to learn some common sense for once." [Reinbach]
"Maybe he should be teaching them instead…" [Reinhart]
It looks like they're starting to get that my slimes are amazing, but… That was uncalled for.
The expression on the three adults quickly changed to that of exhaustion as they listened to the crazy things my slimes can do.
Before long the ojousama came to ask for help and I went to get my red soil.
After that I spent some time until it was time to go back.
By the time we left, there was a mountain of red blocks at a corner of my Dimension Home.