Sakimi and I walked up to the quest board. A few people gave us suspicious glances, considering the scene from earlier, but there weren't any confrontations.
Conveniently enough, someone had posted a C-rank quest to destroy a slime nest in a cave outside of the city. This was perfect. Slimes were easy monsters, and they gave mounds of experience points.
I took off the quest sheet from the board and handed it to the Guild receptionist. Because of my earlier dungeon raids, I had already increased my own rank to C, so there was no problem when it came to approving the quest. After the receptionist gave Sakimi and me the green light, we headed out of the Guild Hub.
"Slimes?!" Sakimi exclaimed. "Why do we have to waste our time on them?!"
I felt the same way, but they were the easiest way to grind experience points.
"Consider it training," I said to the girl.
"This is gonna be so boring!"
I shrugged.
Mechanicsville and Eden were near the coasts of Rivenvalius, so there weren't too many demons. Enzo, the archdemon, kept most of his army in the center of the continent. The attack from the beginning of the game's prologue must have occurred when a demon patrol went out farther than their usual routes.
Still, edge cities had to deal with a multitude of wild creatures, with the biggest problems being goblins and slimes.
Both species bred uncontrollably, so the Adventurers Guild would post an extermination quest for them every so often. I've already explained why people hated goblins, but slimes were a different matter.
Slimes were one of the few monsters that were docile, meaning they didn't attack unless provoked. Unfortunately, they were like mobile weeds, sucking the nutrients out of all the vegetation around them. They were an invasive species without any natural predators, so it was up to Adventurers to prevent any ecological disasters.
When Ayame and I exited Mechanicsville, it wasn't long until we spotted our first slime. It was medium-sized—half a human's height. The slime hopped around the field of shrubbery, undulating its translucent dumpling-like body every time it impacted the ground. Slimes came in every color of the rainbow, and this one just so happened to be light blue.
The instant we entered the slime's field of vision, it stopped moving and stared at us with its beady, emotionless eyeballs. Every slime reacted differently when they spotted a human. Some would run away, some would continue minding their own business, and others—like this one—would just stare at you.
It was creepy.
"Frozen Beam!" Sakimi said.
A ray of ice shot out from the girl's staff, blasting straight through the slime's soft body and blowing it apart into gooey bits.
Sakimi's spell reminded me that I still had to learn magic for myself. I keep forgetting that I gained a spell slot when I reached level seven.
"What the—" Sakimi said. "More of them came out!"
Two small slimes had emerged from the medium-sized one. I quickly dispatched both of them with a single slash.
"You didn't know that?" I asked. "Slimes split whenever they take sufficient damage. Luckily, they can only get that small, so it won't split up anymore."
Sakimi pouted. "I knew that! I was just testing you!"
"Right, right."
"You sound like you don't believe me!"
"I dunno, maybe I do, and maybe I don't."
The two of us continued down through the greenery, following the trail of dying plants. Soon enough, we ran into about five medium-sized slimes and one large slime.
Fun fact: a group of slimes is called an "ooze."
A famous Serial Slain streamer came up with the term, and it stuck ever since. I always found it amusing how there were ridiculous collective nouns for animals, like a murder of crows, a parliament of owls, or a conspiracy of lemurs.
But I digress.
This was the perfect opportunity to use some of my new skills. I activated Angelic Blaze, coating my sword in a pure-white flame. Then, I performed a sweeping slash, sending that flame outward. As it expanded, it bisected the entire ooze of slimes while inadvertently chopping down some trees that were in the way. The wave ended up traveling about thirty feet until dissipating.
Then, Sakimi said, "Rain of Comets!"
A tiny blue ball shot out from the end of the staff, reaching high into the sky until it blew up like a firework, sending chunks of ice crashing down. The spell lasted for a few seconds, completely obliterating every slime.
"Hah!" Sakimi said. "Take that!"
"You specialize in ice magic?"
"Yup. I prefer ice, but I'm just as good with most arcane spells since I studied them with my sister."
Her sister...Ayame.
It still felt weird to be mentioning Ayame, but it seemed like Sakimi had already moved on. She always lived in the present, and she didn't allow the sorrow from past events to weigh her down.
Sakimi and I continued clearing out the slimes. They formed a trail that got denser and denser as we neared their nest. Finally, we arrived outside a small cave, which was our destination. Unfortunately, there were too many slimes for us to get through. On top of that, they were all large slimes, meaning that they were made up of two medium slimes and four small slimes. It would be a tremendous hassle to take them out one-by-one. If all the creatures were outside, Sakimi could have used Rain of Comets, but most of them were just hanging out inside the cave.
Waiting around for an answer wouldn't do any good. It seemed that the slimes had already done their toll on the environment, since all the trees in the surrounding area had lost their leaves, and there was no grass in sight.
"Sakimi," I said. "Do you have a way of launching me into the center of that cave?"
"I might be hard to aim, but I could probably use telekinesis to throw you."
"Do it."
Sakimi pointed her staff in my direction and concentrated her mana. She then swung her staff like a baseball bat, sending me flying into the cave entrance. Luckily, the opening was tall enough that Sakimi had some decent leeway in her aim.
I landed right in the middle of the slimes, who all turned to me with aggressive looks in their eyes. I had just trespassed into their home where their queen lived.
"Cleansing Inferno!" I said, activating my skill.
A wide circle formed around me, and with a flash of light, every living thing erupted into searing holy fire. My health dropped to seventy-five percent, but almost all the slimes were dead. Even though the monsters split upon death, the constant burn damage melted their HP bars.
Technically, my skill that would restore my HP every time I hit an opponent should have been activating right now, but it didn't seem to be working. I'll have to check on that later.
But anyway, Sakimi could now deal with the stragglers outside while I took out the queen.
At the far edge of the cave, a humongous slime shaped like a donut was trying to back away from the white-hot flames. It was the slime queen.
In the original Serial Slain, you could create early-game exp farms by trapping slime queens and forcing them to generate offspring for easy kills. It was cruel, but it was no crueler than harvesting livestock.
Regrettably, slime queens could only procreate if they absorbed natural nutrients. It wouldn't matter if this was the base game, but I didn't want the people of this world to see me as a greedy adventurer that sought personal gain at the cost of environmental destruction.
It kinda reminded me of capitalists in real life.
"Lightbringer!" I said, using my third skill.
With the increased damage, I took down the slime queen in about five attacks. Since it was so huge, it couldn't do much to fight back. I tried to make its end as quick as possible so that it wouldn't have to go through much more pain.
Now, the job was complete. I headed out of the cave and met with Sakimi, who cleaned up everything outside.
"Let's head back," I said.
"Man, that was so easy."
"That's why I like hunting slimes."
"Aren't you supposed to be the Hierophant? You're supposed to be taking down archdemons!"
"Maybe when I get strong enough."
"Pfft," Sakimi said, crossing her arms.
Overall, this quest was the most productive I've ever been. Every time a slime split, it expelled experience points, so by the time I defeated the slime queen, I had managed to reach level twenty-six. For every new level, my base stats would increase by a randomized amount, so I was slowly getting stronger and stronger.
Slimes were jackpots when it came to grinding exp.
For the most part, the new perks from the skill tree were just extra boosts to my stats, but I did manage to get two great things: an improvement to my holy magic proficiency and a second spell slot.
I was making good progress in my road to preparing for the archdemon, Enzo. Now, I just needed to get a replacement weapon for the Frigid Edge that I lost. Lastly, I needed to get the Skyfire helmet.
I still had a long way to go if I wanted to beat this game.