Athenia, the city of zeal and home to the king, was surrounded by lush land with tall waving greenery. Even the outskirts of the land were stuck in an everlasting spring. But with fertility came bounty, and with it came monsters as much as the forces of evil trying to usurp the land of its beauty.
"I hate slime," but for Aria and company, those monsters were currently low-level slimes.
Hunting them for their elemental core, they've been farming them for hours, but no matter how many they killed their population doesn't seem to be dwindling.
"Why are we even killing so many?" Her whole body covered in slime residue; Aria turned to the others behind her.
"Because apparently, someone spent all of our money," Raven responded, his hand folded as his eyes darted toward Amedith.
"I had to! It was a necessary expense!" The Hero retorted but continued to keep what he bought a secret.
Thinking back on his encounter with the Hero in his room, Raven had a pretty good idea of what it was. The painting depicting Mel nude must've cost a fortune, especially when whoever made it probably received some extra gold to keep their lips shut.
'I can tell the others about it, but then once the cat is out of the bag, I can't use that secret to manipulate the bastard anymore.' Although enraged at the Hero, Raven figured it was better to keep his mouth shut for now.
In the meantime, a sudden squeal from Erica in the background broke the flow of their conversation. Turning around to look, Raven as well as the others noticed Erica laying on her butt with acid slime residue sprinkled all over her priestly attire. Damaged beyond repair her hat lay on the ground beside her, while the streak of her blue and white gown slowly disintegrated from acid. Thankfully her skin hadn't been scorched by the slime, however, a different sort of problem decided to present itself.
As her top melted into smoke, her chest was nearly laid bare with only one strap of her burnt bra holding those massive breasts together. Gawking at her cleavage reddened by the acid's heat, Raven as well as Amedith couldn't get their eyes off of her. Aria, noticing the two guys drooling over her, however, wasn't as passive about the matter.
"Get up!" Grabbing Erica's hand, the barbarian elf pulled the priestess back to her feet. "This is why I keep telling you to wear a breastplate, not these flimsy clothes to flaunt the size of your tits!"
Still petrified by the scary situation she'd been through; Erica posed no retort and simply crossed her arms to cover her exposed body.
"Shut up Aria," jumping in for Erica instead, Mel began walking towards the group. "I'll take her back to the city; you can keep farming these low-level monsters. They shouldn't be a challenge for you anyways, isn't that, right?"
Stopping before the dark elf barbarian, the elven archer glared into her eyes. The two had a rivalry running as deep as their blood, but having chosen as the Hero's aid they often tried not to act on them. However, today didn't seem to be that kind of day.
"Go on then rush back to safety, I doubt a pale elf like you can handle the harsh sun anyways," Aria retorted, crossing her arms with a massive smirk.
"You bitch…" Biting the urge to skewer her eye with an arrow, Mel grabbed Erica's arm and began leading her away.
Watching Mel heading back to the city, Aria ran her hand through her white pixie hair while smiling as bright as the day. Being a barbarian who often dressed in an armored tunic with bandages to lessen the effects of her blows on her hand, she felt great joy watching the two soft-bodied girls walking away.
Unaware of the two men watching her from behind, she looked down at her own sweaty abs and began admiring them by running her finger down from the middle.
"Muscles and power, that's all you need!" Chuckling to herself, she returned to hunting more slimes.
"She's weird," whispered Amedith, but Raven liked his future women to be varied.
"Not really, a simpleton perhaps but not that weird," hearing the dark mage mention the word 'simpleton' the Hero was reminded of the stunt Raven pulled with his mom.
Puffing his cheeks lightly, he kept glaring at him from the back. Drawing his sword back up, Amedith rested it over his shoulder before speaking up.
"You're weird too for asking my mom for a good luck kiss," he complained.
Shrugging his shoulders, Raven gave but a quick reply.
"Not my fault we were raised by the nuns at the orphanage," looking back from over his shoulder, Raven glared at the Hero with a dagger-sharp look. "And not by a loving mother like someone I know."
"That…" For a moment Amedith wanted to respond, but thinking over how it would sound he decided not to do it after all. "It's not my fault, only I got picked."
Turning his attention back to the task at hand, Raven spoke once more before returning to hunt some slime.
"I know, you've been lucky so far, but maybe it's time for someone else to take the spotlight," with those words, Raven whispered a spell and leaped towards a group of elemental slimes.
After an hour of continuous slime hunting, the group had gathered enough elemental ores to power the entire city for months. And as if that wasn't enough, they'd slain a bunch of goblins and kobolds trying to sneak into the city plains from within the corrupted forest that outlined the outskirts.
Carrying with him the bounty, Raven was leading everyone back to the city. However, noticing some disturbance at the city gates he decided to get closer and check for himself. At a glance, it appeared as if the guards had stopped a carriage from entering the city, but as Raven and his group were still behind, they heard something quite shocking.
"Oi girlie, if you wanna get in you gotta pay some extra toll," it didn't take a genius to figure out what the guards were trying to pull.
Thus, moving swiftly to the front, Raven decided to confront the greedy bastards.
"What's going on here?" He asked, his eyes glaring at the stationed guard.
Noticing the hero's aid as well as the Hero himself behind him, the duo of guards were petrified in shock.
"Raven?" However, before a conclusion could be made about the situation, the familiar voice of a girl trailed into Raven's ears.
Turning to the sound, he realized that the girl the guards had stopped was no one else than Aerin, the girl he'd saved in the forest.
"Thank god you're here!" She muttered, taking her hands off the horse's reins to wipe the tears that had welled up already.
Watching his women cry, an intrinsic rage bristled up inside his heart. Slowly shifting his attention back to the guards, he stared them down for a moment–before sending the idiots flying.