"—Yes, I am still alright."
"We'll turn back when it gets hard, so let me know."
"… Yes."
Their search continued. They divided into two groups, so their efficiency doubled.
In a good mood because of that, the adventurers continued advancing further into the cave's depths.
Their speed was much faster than what it was on the second day. Therefore, their stamina was also depleted faster than on the previous day.
"We've gone pretty far in huh."
"… We have."
It wasn't shown in her expression, but Satia's shoulders were moving up and down slightly.
Advancing while covering her mouth due to the dust quickly drained her stamina. They were inside a tunnel still, but the men decided it was a good time to take a break.
Sitting down in suitable spots, they sighed. It was still dusty, but just that much was fine for the body.
At that moment, a drop of liquid fell on the neck of the eldest man.
By the time that the man wondered what it was, it was already too late.
—As soon as the man collapsed, Satia and the other man crumpled forward as well.
"W-wha…!?"
He couldn't speak. He confused by suddenly not being able to move even a finger.
They could just barely breath, but doing so was painful.
What happened?
While thinking that, the field of view of that man who had been carrying the lantern was enveloped by an exhaustive amount of black mucus.
Her other comrade unable to move and collapsed on the floor as well, Satia encourage her numbed body to get up, relying on her staff.
The appearance of Satia somehow forcing herself to stand was the last thing the man saw in this world.
*
On the morning of the third day, the adventurers had some breakfast while unfurling the abandoned mine's map.
The abandoned mine's search wasn't progressing how they thought it would.
If they continued at the pace they had on the second day, it would still probably take another three days.
They didn't think that all of the mine had to be examined, but even so they wanted to explore all of the major paths.
There was hardly any danger, so their exploration was rather monotonous. Among the five, they felt that neither their target of subjugation nor Frederica was in the mine.
In that case, they would cease their search for Frederica… they'd probably hand that over to the kingdom's knight orders.
Certainly, even though adventurers occasionally accepted commissions for missing person searches, there was a limit. Usually, an adventurer's job nowadays was to subjugate beasts that appear close to highways, as the number of monster and bandit subjugations had dwindled.
Searching for people was for knight orders.
Although they asked for a higher commission fee than adventurers, they were more reliable than adventurers.
However, adventurers hated knight orders.
They had titles, so they tended to look down on the occupation of 'adventurer'.
"How about we split into two groups today?"
Because of all of that, this suggestion popped up.
They had judged that the mine was harmless these past two days. Although there was a lot of dust and poltergeists, that was it.
There weren't any bandits or beasts either, so it wouldn't be any problem even if the skilled adventurers divided into two groups.
"That sounds good."
So Alfred agreed with it.
Since there was no danger, they could search which double the efficiency.
There search would advance even faster, so they could guarantee securing Frederica's safety if she were still alright.
They separated into groups of: Alfred and one man, Satia and two men.
Mages were valuable. Although they didn't expect there to be any unforeseen situations, the two mages would be their greatest fighting strength if worse came to worst.
They went with this to avoid losing both at the same time.
Like this, the adventurers split their group.
Confirming their state from a long distance away, the slime chased after the adventurers, returning into the abandoned mine so as to not be noticed.
The first thing it followed? The woman.
There was nothing to be done about it.
It was instinct.
*
Depending on the lantern's light, Satia's group advanced through the abandoned mine. One of the men held the lantern and map while the other walked in the lead, confirming their footing.
The two men stood in positions as though to protect Satia between them.
The three's speed as they advanced silently had hardly changed from the second day. The slime chased those three while adhered to the ceiling.
About the time that it had thought of giving up on attacking them and just turning a blind eye to the whole thing, the adventurers split up.
But even so, it didn't rush. It wouldn't attack until it could separate them even more.
Above all, the woman that walked between them was a mage. An opponent that it absolutely had to render unable to attack before it was able to use magic.
Carefully, ever so carefully—the black ooze followed the three people.
After humans continued on for a little while, their stamina would deplete and their concentration would slip.
This was something that the slime learned from pursuing them on the second day.
Those adventurers would never even think of something like a pursuer following them on the ceiling as they advanced farther and farther inside the mine's interior with only the slightest amount of caution.
Satia, with an expression similar to that of a doll's, let out a small sigh for being apart from Alfred, her master.
It was a small feeling that could almost be called dissatisfaction, but even so her concentration didn't slip.
This was because she knew that unless she did her job properly, it could lead to inconveniences.
"… Phew."
"Are you alright, Satia-chan?"
*
The same moment that Satia prepared her staff, a tentacle twined around it.
However, before the staff was tossed away, the woman created a flame in front of her to light up the abandoned mine's darkness.
"A slime!?"
Seeing the appearance of a monster that shined due to the flames, Satia called out the name of the monster with a surprised look on her face.
However, that lasted for only a moment.
Her shocked expression was once again concealed behind her usual sagely expression. The tentacle that was coiling around her staff was burnt off by the fire.
"… Flame!"
The girl fell to her knees along with firing off a ball of fire.
It had used paralytic poison on her, but it appeared that the potency was too low this time. It was able to render the men powerless immediately due to using its highest potency on them, but it diluted the woman's too much.
Her body was small, so it used an even smaller dose than what it had used on Frederica. However, that backfired. The black ooze felt that it was troublesome disempowering women.
Even so, it hurriedly negated the fireball by using magical power it had stolen from Frederica on it.
"Eh—!?"
It couldn't be called magic… but it just expelled magical power, once again tearing down Satia's usual expression, astonishing her.
Although the slime was a troublesome monster that could nullify physical attacks with its viscous body, it was an existence that couldn't tolerate magic in the least.
At the very least, common knowledge said that slimes couldn't use magic.
Dragging her numbed legs, Satia started to take a small distance from the slime.
She was slightly troubled as to why the paralytic poison was weak on her, but she didn't have the time to think about it just then.
The slime absorbed one of the fallen men, the other one was still on the ground unable to move an inch.
Currently, the only one among them that could fight was Satia. She had used fire magic on the spur of the moment in order to see in the darkness, but if caused an explosion, the worst case would be the mine collapsing down on all of them.
She couldn't use fire, the slime's weakness.
However, Satia could use both fire and wind-type magic. Both were unsuitable attributes for fighting inside an enclosed area such as this.
Satia couldn't figure out why there was a slime in a place like this. Thinking that she absolutely had to escape this place to warn her master of the danger, she moved her numb body.
She skillfully moved her staff, dragging the lower half of her body along the way due to its slowed reactions.
Fortunately, the slime moved even slower than Satia after being numbed through the paralytic poison.
It was because it was digesting the other two as its prey, but Satia kept herself from thinking about that.
Even so, as though to ridicule her efforts, a tentacle shot out from the slime's main body and seized the boot on Satia's right leg.
Turning behind her in a panic, shining in the lantern's light, the two men had already been completely absorbed by the slime.
And one of her legs had been caught by it.
She couldn't shake it off with her numbed body. Satia's small body wasn't that strong to begin with.
"Hii…"
She was going to be absorbed by the slime.
Moreover, she would be alive as it happened. A stiffened cry escaped her lips due to the horror of seeing herself dragged into hell.
She kept trying to free herself, but her paralyzed leg wouldn't move. Although she could somewhat feel it rubbing against the ground, it wouldn't listen to her and remained still.
"Fire!"
Using that, she burned off the tentacle seizing her leg with the weakest fire magic.
The tentacle was burned by her fire arrow and it caused a small explosion when it hit the ground, but it didn't cause the cave to collapse.
It was unfortunate for the other two, but she couldn't save them.
Trying to escape, a subtle sound reached her ears.
At that moment, Satia's staff was yanked out of her hands and tossed away.
"—Ah!?"
Before she even noticed she had lost her staff, tentacles captured Satia's thin arms and legs.
Her small body was lifted into the air and forced into a shape similar to [大].
Despite her fervent attempts to jolt her body free, her paralyzed body wasn't responding to her that well. By the time she was lifted into the air, she had become unable to resist.
The fear of being absorbed like that struck her mind like a hammer.
Cold sweat flowed down her numbed body as she continued trying to break free somehow. However, her resistance was pitiful. She gradually became aware that she lost feeling in her arms and legs. By her frantic movements, she had simply quickened the poison's speed.
(Paralytic poison—what kind of slime…)
Although there were many varieties of slimes, in truth, the difference was only about as much as a change in color or size.
There weren't any slimes that could use poison depicted in the books. It was something that Satia couldn't realize was due to the blessing of mutation.
Knowing that the feeling in its catch had dulled, the slime decided to move on and get started.
Due to its knowledge, it knew that its prey could still use magic without a staff.
However, the black ooze also knew from disempowering that offensive magic from earlier that it could use its quantity of magical power to nullify whatever magic this woman could use at her level.
Setting its caution aside, it carried Satia's small body before its main body.
Her small limbs were covered entirely by her black robe. Her rich platinum hair was brought together on the left side, some of it stuck to her sweat-soaked cheek.
Her usually sleepy-looking eyes now looked as though they were glaring at a bitter enemy, forcefully glaring at the black ooze. Even so, she couldn't hide the fear swirling about in her eyes.
Not seeming to mind any of that, the slime exposed two of its tentacles before Satia's eyes.
"—?"
Not understanding what it intended to do, Satia knit her brows slightly.
She thought about calling for Alfred before it was too late for her to try to do so, but she didn't want to accidentally incite the slime.
For some reason, it didn't look like the slime intended to kill her immediately. Understanding that, she somehow subdued her urge to scream out of fear.
Alfred would notice the usage of magic and come to her aid. Thinking that, the girl endured it.
Satia knew that mages were sensitive to changes in the flow of magical power. Alfred taught her that. That had saved him many times.
However, in the next moment, the girl's eyes opened wide from astonishment.
For some reason, the two tentacles the slime showed her entered into her clothes from the rim of her robe.
"Hii!? N-n-no! Why!?"
Her thought of not wanting to incite it disappeared in an instant.
The tentacles, covered in a viscous liquid, ran along Satia's thin legs, passing over her panties as they slowly climbed towards her abdomen.
She had goosebumps from the disgusting sensation as she attempted to shake her numbed body to drive out the tentacles. Because of her roughened breathing and sweat, her body's metabolism increased, causing the paralytic poison to show its effect even faster.
Even her resistance weakened after a while. As a result, the slime was able to uneventfully capture a mage with a diluted paralytic poison.
As though satisfied by the result, the black ooze wriggled its tentacles. It stroked Satia's abdomen, stimulating her as it smeared a viscous liquid onto her tiny backside.
This action seemed entirely like what a man would do to caress a woman. Although Satia didn't have experience in it, she knew about it and was aware of perverted acts.
"Kuh—N-no!"
She hated that it was moving across her abdomen, she was irritated that she was feeling it, but the thing that disturbed the mage's thoughts the most was her butt being caressed. As a result, the caress obstructed her use of magic.
Lit up by the lantern that had fallen to the ground, the black robed girl danced in the dark.
Her robe quickly absorbed the mucous, snugly sticking to Satia's limbs. There were undulations up and down her limbs, but they were all simply tentacles wriggling about under her robe.
It was a strangely obscene spectacle.
As both her arms and legs were incredibly numbed by this point, she could only resist by shaking her body.
"Goshujin-sama… help me…"
With her small, weakened voice—
—she begged for her beloved master's help.