"What do I need to do?" Those were the words that Kotori had said in response to Winry's material shortage.
Winry took a step back. She waved her hands in front of her trying to calm down the fired up Kotori
"Please don't act so serious, It's not like I'm going to ask you to kill some dungeon boss"
[Oh!] Kotori toned herself down a bit. She was not realizing how skewed her worldview was. She had been fighting all this time and now she approached every problem like it was going to be a fight.
[Am I becoming a battle idiot?] Kotori had the image of Amelie in her mind as she thought this. She was horrified at the fact she had ben so ready to fight just now.
[Ok, Ok, we'll have to deal with this later, what does Winry need then?] Kotori thought
"So how do I mine this Manatanium" Kotori asked.
Winry's face grimaced
"That's the hard part, you don't mine' Manatanium" You farm for it.
"Farm?" Kotori asked
[Does it grow from the ground] She thought
"Manatanium is acquired from killing Guiggles" Winry said
"Quiggles?"
Kotori had no issue with killing monster for loot. That what she had been doing before she had gone to the village anyway. The problem was that she hadn't heard of a "Guiggles" monster before.
"Is killing a Quiggle hard?" Kotori asked.
She was imagine some sort of impressive beast that require multiple strong party members to take down.
"Not really… They're actually pretty easy to kill" Winry said.
"Then why are you acting like this is such a difficult task" Kotori asked she was getting fed up with how opaque Winry was being.
"The problem… is catching them." Winry explained
[Catching Them?] Kotori thought
She asked Winry to describe the monster in question
After hearing Winry's description of the monster Kotori only had one thought
[Isn't that just a metal slime! Isn't this world a little too much like an RPG!] Kotori thought as her eyes widened.
The humble metal slime, a staple in games like D***** Q**** was a monster that gave an extremely large amount of XP but would often run at every encounter making it extremely difficult for the player to kill them unless they had the correct party composition.
[That will be… Difficult]
Winry told Kotori about the nearby dungeon which held them, and she was on her way.
** ** **
*Squish*
*Squish*
Kotori's foot took another plod into a wet pile of mud.
[Yuck Yuck Yuck] Kotori thought
She was currently in the Metal Slime dungeon which was, unfortunately, a swamp forest type dungeon.
Apparently the mana concentration was quite good around here which made this swap exist.
"Kotori-sama are you alright" The soft voice of Umi asked. On her face was a concerned expression. She must've seen Kotori 's discomfort navigating the swamp.
"Umi is right, you shouldn't force yourself this much" Amelie said
Kotori had brought her party to the swamp to help her farm the Metal Slimes. They were initially quite confused but once Kotori explained that she want help gathering materials for a weapon they dutifully followed her along.
They really were a loyal party, even going as far as to help Kotori with this tedious task. Layla had rejected the offer stating that she wasn't interest in roaming a swamp
["That damn ojou-sama" Kotori muttered thinking back to the memory.
Despite roaming the swamp dungeon for over an hour Kotori was unable to find any traces of metals slimes. She was almost sure that Winry had given her the wrong direction until she had found some distinctly metallic droplets on the ground nearby.
[Farming is hard] Kotori thought
She was dreading encountering one. Not because it was going to wipe her party but because she was sure it wasn't going to be easy to kill.
Her party composition was just bad.
She had two melee fighter who were middling in agility, a spell caster, and herself.
There was no way they would be able to catch one like this.
They search another hour before Kotori saw a glint of metal from her eye.
"Over here!" She said
She saw a small blob zipping across the forest floor
it was only there for an instant before it disappeared from Kotori's field of view
[So fast!] Kotori thought
This was not a game world, Kotori would not be able to force slimes to encounter her. They would run away at first sight.
They decided to spread out and make their chances better.
The day soon grew long and the sun began to set.
Kotori had fruitlessly searched around and although she saw a few more blobs she was not able to catch any of them. Their agility stat was hopelessly large.
Quiggle
Race: [Metal Slime] Age: N/a
HP: 5
Mana: 2
Agility: 156
Strength: 1
Defense: 1
Skills: [Dodge]
Traits: [Magic Absorption]
Kotori trudged her way back to the spot her party agreed to meet up at. She was sweaty, muddy and overall, quite tired.
She expected that nobody else was going to have anything to show for it. Soon the figures of Umi and Shu appeared. They shook their head indicating they were not able to catch anything. Amelie appeared soon after a smile on her face./
"Did you get anything Amelie?" Kotori asked
"Mhmm!" She said holding out her hand.
In it sat a small dowel of metal. Barely the size of Kotori's pinky finger.
Kotori looked at Amelie she was impressed that Amelie had been able to catch a slime.
"How?"
"Kotori, I have the [Ninjitsu] remember?" Amelie said
[Oh, that makes sense] Kotori had forgotten that Amelie had the [Ninistu] among the people in their party she was probably the closeted suited to hunt metal slimes. [Ninjitsu] would let her conceal her presence and launch a surprise attack.
"So you only got one," Kotori asked
"Actually I kill about 10" Amelie explained
Kotori made a harrowing realization upon hearing Amelie say that
[This shitty game! The drop rate isn't even 100%!]