"Woooaaaaahhhh!" Kenji, Kenji! Check it out! This whole area is a field! There's trees and some rolling hills over there! This is so cool! It's like a painting!" Tael shouted out. He had been positively elated the entire time we have been outside, forgetting his nervousness from earlier.
We've been walking for around fifteen minutes at this point. When I turn, I can still see the wall behind me, but it's growing more and more distant as time passes on. What Tael has been describing is true. The immediate area around us is a grassy field and in the distance there appears to be a small forest with rolling hills. Honestly speaking, this is the first time I've ever seen so much space that hasn't been claimed by civilization before. The sight is impressive.
Tael ran up to me and began hopping up and down. "Kenji can you hear me? It's super cool, right?" His sharp expressions from earlier had been replaced with those of a child that just experience their first taste of sugar.
"Y-Yeah it's cool..." I closed my eyes and placed my hand upon Tael's shoulder. "Look, you need to calm down. We've got a lot of walking ahead of us and I don't want you bowing out halfway."
Tael rolled his eyes. "Ugh... Fine. You're way too tense Kenji. We're just going to be going to slay goblins and stuff after all." Tael began to walk ahead of me as he dismissed my issues.
I jogged forwards to keep up. "What do you mean by 'just?' Have you ever actually killed a monster before?"
Tael shrugged and then smiled. "Nope, but people in my stories do it all the time, so it's not like they're invincible or something." He stopped and turned towards me, pointing his thumb at himself and striking a pose as he did so. "As long as you have me with you, we're invincible!"
I simply closed my eyes and exhaled.
We continued to walk for a little while before I decided to start another conversation. Despite my face feeling like it's about to burn off, I took a deep breath and spoke.
"Ahem… I-I'm a virgin..." I quietly muttered. I didn't dare look at Tael as I spoke.
"Huh?" Tael stopped in his tracks. "What are you saying? Kenji I'm sorry man but I don't swing that way." Tael waved his hand in front of his face.
My embarrassment turned into anger as my face became even more red. "I don't mean it like that you dunce! I just…" I started flinging my hands around in an attempt to communicate before I slowly calmed down. "We're going to be trusting one another with our lives, so I feel like it's important if we share some personal information like that with one another. Form a bond or something, you know?"
"O-oh… I see."
Tael looked towards the ground for a moment before bringing his blushing head up to face me.
"I-I am also a virgin!" He nervously shouted out. "I've never had a girlfriend, b-but I prefer women with a big ass over big boobs! If I had to give an exact account I would say that I prefer a girl with a four to six ratio of boobs to ass!"
I crossed my arms nodded my head at his declaration.
"I personally prefer a seven to three ratio, but I respect your preferences." I said as I gave a thumbs up.
"M-me too!" Tael said as he returned my thumbs up. I feel like we just formed a connection that is rarely shared between people.
After we had made this connection, I felt the tension between us dissipate as we turned from co-workers on a job together to new friends that were out on a stroll. The late spring breeze is pleasant and the scenery is easy on the eyes. This strolling went on for a little while as nothing eventful happened.
"So Kenji, tell me about yourself." Tael asked as we walked.
I shrugged. "What's there to tell? I worked at that-"
"Slurp… Slurp…"
I can hear a familiar noise.
"Kenji, why did you stop talking? Do you have the runs or something?" Tael looked at me with confusion, but I held up a finger to silence him as I closed my eyes to listen harder.
"Slurp… Slurp…" The noise continued.
I took a look around and spotted the perpetrator. A small green blob is heading towards us along the ground.
"I think it's coming from that." I pointed towards the slime. "It looks like a slime from Dragon Quest." I muttered to myself.
"That thing's a dragon?" Tael jumped back and began nervously aiming his wand towards where I had been pointing.
"N-No I just said it was from... You know what? Never mind. The fact of the matter is that it's a slime and it's coming for us." I turned towards the green blob as it continued its approach.
Tael relaxed his grip on his wand and adjusted his hat. "So that's a slime, huh? I read about them in my books. They're pretty basic but they're acidic. Don't let them touch you if you can prevent it."
"Understood." I said as I began to draw my broadsword.
Tael grabbed my arm to stop me. "Hey wait, didn't you hear me say that they're acidic? That thing might be able to melt steel."
I darted my eyes between Tael, the slime, and my sword.
Now that I'm looking at it closely, the path that the slime has been moving on is completely devoid of grass. Has it been consuming the area around itself? I'm worried about what it would do to my skin if it came into contact with it...
"Hmph! Step aside Kenji. This is where I come in!" Tael declared as he stepped forward.
For the first time since I met him, Tael looked like he was actually reliable. Tael drew out a white wand from his robe and pointed it towards the slime. The wind began to dramatically make his robe flutter. I had to brace myself from the sudden gust.
"Hmph! Behold, the essence of magic! Weep at your weakness and bow before me if you can, monster! Firebolt!"
A small magic circle appeared in front of Tael's wand and a small streak of fire spewed out towards the slime. Once the beam made contact with the slime, it split into several pieces.
Tael quickly turned around and began hopping in place. "Alright! I just cast a spell and killed a monster!" He ran up to me and began pointing at the exploded slime. "Kenji, did you see that? Huh, Kenji? Wasn't that super cool?"
Despite the fact that what had just happened was actually fairly cool, I couldn't help but continue to watch the slime. Much to my dismay, something is wrong.
The slime pieces that had been blown apart were slowly bringing themselves back together.
"H-Hey… that thing isn't dead." I pointed.
"Eh?" Tael quickly turned around and looked at the slime in horror. "That's not possible! I just hit it with my magic!"
I began walking towards the slime that was still reassembling itself. "Do slimes actually die when you break them apart?"
Tael gave an energetic wave of his arms. "I don't know! Why wouldn't they?"
If this thing refuses to die then that will be a problem. Instead of waiting for it to reform, I instead pulled out my dagger as I slowly crept towards the slime. Steel might melt, but I doubt adamantite will.
Before I came within a meter of the monster, I turned to look at Tael. "Cover me, Tael. If this thing looks like it's going to attack me I want you to shoot that thing at it again."
"O-Okay!" Tael nodded enthusiastically before looking downwards. "Woah I'm being relied on, I'm so cool!" He whispered.
Ignoring what I heard, I went towards the slime and examined it closely. It appears as if it's reassembling itself around some darker object in its center. This object looks like a marble of sorts. Perhaps this is its brain?
I turned to look towards Tael. "It has some marble thing that it's forming around. I'm going to stab it. Be ready to firebolt it, alright?"
"By 'marble thing' do you mean its core? If so then good luck. You can leave the rest to me!" He pointed his wand precisely towards the remnants of the slime.
I readied my dagger and brought it to the core of the slime. With a plunging motion I stabbed my dagger into the center of the slimes core and straight into the ground. My action seems to have struck true as it quickly lost all of its congealing properties and instead turned into a simple green liquid once I did this. The liquid that was once the slime quickly faded into the ground.
"Woah! Kenji, we killed it!" Tael ran forwards and crouched down with me.
I have just killed my first monster. A slime. This isn't impressive enough to celebrate, but it is important enough to mark as a landmark in my road to defeating the Demon King.
I looked at my hands. I just killed a creature, but for some reason I don't feel different at all. I hope I'm not secretly a sociopath.
"Status." I said out loud. Tael quickly followed suit.
Kenji Fujima. Level 0
Strength: 20
Dexterity: 16
Constitution: 18
Mana: 30
Magic Power: 1
Luck: 7
Experience: 4
I actually gained experience. Seeing that number go up, while small, is exhilarating.
"My experience went up!" I heard Tael also shout.
"Huh?" I stood up. My status screen disappeared as I shuffled over to Tael. "How did you gain experience if I got the kill? How much did you get?"
Tael looked over his status screen. "I got 6 experience points! Alright!"
Wait, why did he get more experience points than I did? I'm the one that killed the thing!
"At this rate I'll level up by the end of the day! Level two here we come!" He was hopping up and down.
...I decided to not interrupt his fun.