I woke up feeling fresh and ready for the day.
I looked outside the window and to my surprise, I could see the sun rising.
"Didn't we arrive a little after Noon in the village? Did I sleep through the whole day and night? I must've been truly tired then."
But now I felt fully rested, so after I had my early breakfast with whatever food I had left in my inventory I went outside to explore the place.
The first thing that stopped my movement was the safety rail two blocks away from the door.
Since everything was built on wooden beams, I could see the swamp all over the place.
It was similar to Venetia but uglier in a way.
Since it was still earlier in the morning I couldn't see any people starting their day, so the streets were empty around me.
"I should explore this place before I'll be more restricted on where I could go."
With the plan made I slowly walked along the wooden path, I passed houses of similar style but different sizes.
In the distance I could see a small structure that had an item frame on top, if I squinted my eyes I could see an iron pickaxe displayed in the frame.
That must've been the mine, I wonder how deep they go?
I walked some more and now I saw their farming area, it was a total copy of a farming field from any village in the game.
Logs were put as a frame, and inside were four rows of dirt blocks with running water in the middle of them.
It was a funny sight to see, something that I'm so familiar with in an unfamiliar place.
They mostly grew potatoes, carrots, and wheat. And with the size of those farms, you could easily feed 100 people.
I didn't stay too long there, this was their food source which I'm very sure they'd like to protect, and I don't want to make the residents of this place more suspicious of me.
The next interesting sight was the most fun one, the Slime farm.
A large fenced area over water and land held a few dozen jumpy slimes.
The smallest ones stayed on the land and occasionally jumped in the water for a short while, the bigger ones were mostly in the deeper water having fun in their own way.
But I didn't see any huge ones. Were they not in this world?
Or once they reached that size they got harvested?
Suddenly I could hear some steps coming towards me, I quickly turned around and saw a witch with a purple robe and a straw hat.
"Careful! They bite if you get too close."
His voice was old but filled with power, which made me instinctively listen to him.
"Sorry Sir, I was only fascinated by this farm, I know that slimes are still monsters that can be dangerous."
He seems to chuckle at me, not really bothered by my presence.
"You must be the new stranger in our lands. You sound more polite than what the other fellows told me. Jack is my name, and if you want to get some answers, take this rotten flesh and feed the slimes with me."
He handed me ten pieces of rotten flesh.
While in the game it didn't look too appealing, it was still kept in the chest in case it was 'needed' in the future.
But since I actually live in the game, when I have a piece of rotten meat in my hand, my first reaction is to gag from the smell.
I can't imagine anyone trying to eat this as well. There is no benefit however you look at it.
However I had a convenient tool named inventory that helped me hold items without dealing with its consequences, so I only needed to hold it in my hand when I had to throw it to the jumping slimes.
Jack was the first to pass the wooden gate, he had a shield in his hand already prepared and slimes were already flicking him.
It was quite an interesting sight to see, but unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to enjoy it for too long as I soon had to join him.
Not too late after I joined with him, but a little further from him to take off some stress that was accumulating on him.
The slimes weren't fast, and most of them were the smallest kind.
If they didn't try to kill me, I would've thought this was a cute sight.
My shield was up, and three were already banging their head against it, I felt no strength behind my defense.
After ten gatherd around me, I threw some rotten meat on the ground.
Soon, they all ignored me and jumped over the piece of food. I threw two more to spread the pile a little, otherwise the I'll squish themselves to death.
It took around four small slimes to fish one piece of meat, and after I threw one more, they seemed to be satisfied and left me alone.
The little ones just sat calmly on the piece of meat and I could see through their transparent body how the food was getting dissolved.
"Look's like you can hold yourself. Let's feed the bigger ones now. Careful now, those can pack a punch."
Jack said and gave me another ten Pieces of rotten flesh.
The little ones seemed satisfied, so they didn't follow us anymore, but it wouldn't make a difference since we had to go into the water.
The first three blocks away from the shore, I could feel a slab under my foot. My theory was that they were placed there for the little slimes to not get drowned, but still had enough water to wash themselves.
As we got into the one-block-tall territory, the other seven slimes seemed to notice us, so they all jumped towards us eager to get their breakfast, or eat us if necessary.
Our shields were up, but we didn't wait for them to reach us, as we already started to throw the rotten flesh towards them.
Since they were bigger they could each eat a whole piece of rotten flesh, so once food was thrown to them, they stopped and I could see with the naked eye how it got dissolved inside them.
Some of them reached us and I could feel some force after each hit, but nothing too hard.
After we gave them each two pieces to eat they seemed satisfied and left us alone.
But one of them seemed to freeze in one place, I thought that even those slimes couldn't live on a diet exclusively of rotten flash, so this one was having a tummy ache.
But no, instead it started to pulsate, and after each time it got bigger and bigger.
It felt like a Pokemon was evolving right in from of my eyes.
Once it grew to my high it finally stopped and finally moved.
Its face was looking towards us, and it was weird to see its eyes after a layer of green mucus.
He jumped towards us and I could feel the force behind that attack. It was heavy, we had to actually brace ourselves when he did that.
"Well I'll be damned, looks like you'll see how we get slime balls as well today. Follow me."
With moderate speed but still ready with our shields, we brought the slime back to land, on one side of the fance I could see a wooden box three blacks tall, and we got the slime in there.
While I was distracting the big slime while standing on the wall, Jack was on the other side blocking the monster in, now he was stuck in a 4x4x3 room with no way to get out.
"Now what?"
"Once he's down, you'll yell go and I'll push that lever."
He pointed to the lever that was connected to a few sticky pistons through Redstone.
I just nodded my head and waited for the exact time when the slime would land from his jump.
"Now go!"
The lever was switched and the pistons pushed the bottom wall into the poor slime, it was caught, and it suddenly took the shape of a square balloon that was trying to get out, but with no luck.
If it wasn't a monster that wanted to kill me a few minutes ago I would've pitted it.
"We got the slime, what's the next step?"
"Now it's time to split them up."
Jack took an enchanted iron sword from his inventory and sliced the huge slime. It wiggled vigorously from what I could guess was pain, but soon it exploded and Buck jumped down to take three of the smaller remains of the slime.
I could only guess that those were the slimeballs. But while he took those pieces, the rest of the green gue was slowly gathering in three piles forming a medium-sized slime.
But their life was short-lived as Jack killed them brutally like their predecessor. He got two slime balls from each slime.
As I expected, the rest that couldn't be picked up slowly gathered on different piles and formed ten more small slimes.
To much surprise, Jack started to kill those as well, not all of them just half and he got eight slime balls from them.
After the slaughter was done, he fed the small slimes some rotten flesh and then let go from the wooden box.
In total he got 16 slime balls out of this and five more potential slimes for the future to be butchered, it was a profitable business indeed.
"Wouldn't be better to have more slimes?"
"Nah, that is the most we can afford to keep with our food supply, there's no need to expand."
"Would it help to have some looting on that sword? Unless it already has."
"It would, but you can't find anywhere cheap books like that. This sword has only Sharpness to help out with cutting."
I nodded in understanding, maybe I'll buy a few looting books next time I come here as a token of friendship.
"Are you the only one who works with the slimes?"
"Nah, my brother helps me from time to time, it's not that hard, we only need to feed them twice a day and in ten days they grow to their full size."
"Fascinating, and what do you use the slim balls for?"
"We mostly sell them, I heard the Coral Kingdom really like them so they buy them as soon as they appear."
So this was their main income. But why would they need so much slime?
There aren't a lot of recipes that you can use them for and from what I read the Coral Kingdom isn't known for their redstone machines, only their crafting item's.
"Thank you for showing me your farm, can I come at night to help with the feeding again?"
Jack started to laugh out loud with his deep voice.
"Help is always welcome. "
With that, I said my goodbyes and went back to explore the rest of the place, but when I got back I saw someone familiar.
Catherine was waiting in front of a door, it was Froggy's place from what I could remember, but she looked like she'd been waiting in from of the door for a while.
"Morning Catharine, did you manage to rest well last night?"
"Oh Trader, I didn't see you. Yeah, I was pretty tired from all the movement I did in the past few days, so this sleep was well deserved. I was sent to check on you two if you were awake."
"How long have you been waiting at the door?"
Catharine decided not to answer my question.
"Did you knock on the door?"
"Five times already! But I can still hear him snoring on the other side."
I could only sigh at Catharine's rookie mistake and passed her to open the door. You can't wake up my friend with a gentle knock, you have to be rougher.
Soon I could see Froggy sleeping in his bed without a care in the world, a few steps later I was right beside him and Catharine looked already uncomfortable with me burging into his home.
I did not care instead I took the blanket off him and started to sake his shoulder with force.
"Wait don't be so-"
"What?! I don't want to do any more training Omar leave me alone!"
"We can't do that Froggy we need to swing that sword at least 1.000 times to learn it right."
"1.000 times?!"
Now he was up and fully awake, but once he had his eyes on me, his shoulders lost some tension.
"Oh Trader...morning..."
He knew what just happened, so he didn't even bother to complain, but got off his bed and did some stretches.
Catharine seems very shocked by what just happened, and she only spoke after Froggy was done with his morning exercise.
"Froggy, Trader. Elder Flora wants to see you two, why don't we get some food, and then we can meet her."
We both accepted the deal, so we left to get some food.
I wonder if they eat something exotic here.