Ignoring Adele's silent tantrum, Adonis leaned against the counter, a comfortable silence settling between him and Rosy. He was about to inquire about the E-rank quests when a booming voice cut through the air.
"Adonis! There you are!" A burly dwarf with a thick, braided beard and a booming laugh lumbered towards them, his booming voice echoing through the bustling guildhall.
"Barnaby," Adonis greeted with a smile, recognizing the boisterous dwarf as a veteran adventurer he'd encountered on a previous quest.
"What brings you to the guild today?"
Barnaby thumped a hand on the counter, his laughter shaking the parchment stacks.
"Heard there was a young pup lookin' for a challenge," he declared, his gaze flickering to Rosy for a brief moment.
"Figured maybe I could point you in the right direction."
Rosy raised an eyebrow, a playful smile tugging at her lips.
"Seems like everyone's looking out for our Ice Boy today."
Adonis chuckled, momentarily caught off guard by the unexpected intervention. Before he could respond, Rosy cleared her throat and leaned towards him, her voice dropping to a low murmur.
"Actually," she began, "there's a new E-rank mission that just came in. Seems there's a bit of a slime infestation plaguing the city's sewer system. Needs a brave adventurer to clear things out."
Adonis grimaced. The prospect of venturing again today into the city's dank, fetid sewer system wasn't exactly appealing. Still, with his current E-rank status, he couldn't afford to be picky. He straightened up, a determined glint in his eyes.
"Sewer system it is," he declared, accepting the quest parchment Rosy extended towards him.
"Anything for the good of the city, right?"
Rosy offered him a warm smile.
''You'll need to clear twenty of them. 170 Coris per slimes killed.''
''Not bad.'' Adonis decided to immediately depart.
"Be careful down there, Adonis," she said, her voice laced with genuine concern. "And good luck."
He nodded in acknowledgment, a silent promise hanging in the air.
With a final farewell, he turned and headed out of the guild.
He exchanged a few words with Barnaby before they separated.
Stepping out of the bustling guild, Adonis wrinkled his nose at the faint, putrid odor that wafted in the air – a sure sign of his destination. The city sewer entrance, a rusty iron grate set into a cobblestone alleyway, seemed to exude an oppressive darkness. Sunlight, a precious commodity down here, barely managed to pierce the grime-encrusted bars, casting long, skeletal shadows that danced with an unsettling life of their own.
Adonis lifted the heavy metal cover, a wave of stale, fetid air assaulting him as he did. The descent into the sewer was a treacherous one. A rickety wooden ladder, its rungs slick with moisture and green slime, led down into the inky abyss. The air grew colder, clinging to his clothes with a damp, clammy touch. The only light came from a magical orb he'd procured from a street vendor, its cool, blue luminescence casting an eerie glow on the surrounding brickwork.
The walls, slick with moisture and glistening with a bioluminescent slime, pulsed with an otherworldly green. The ground beneath his feet was uneven, a treacherous mix of cobblestones hidden beneath a layer of slush, rotting debris, and the ever-present slime. The oppressive silence was broken only by the occasional drip-drip of unseen water and the echoing scrape of his boots against the damp stone.
The labyrinthine passage stretched endlessly before him, each branching tunnel a potential gateway to an even deeper, darker unknown. The oppressive weight of the city above pressed down, creating an ever-present sense of claustrophobia. This was no ordinary sewer; it was a sprawling underworld, a forgotten city beneath the bustling metropolis, a realm ruled by unseen creatures and the ever-present threat of disease and decay.
Adonis, accustomed to the sewer's stench as he might be, still felt a shiver crawl down his spine.
"This is still disgusting," he muttered, pulling a bandana tight over his nose and mouth to filter the noxious air. Unfurling the map Rosy had provided, he deciphered the twisting tunnels, his magical orb casting an ethereal glow on the damp parchment. Navigating the labyrinthine passages, he finally arrived at his designated destination – the reported epicenter of the slime infestation.
The sight that greeted him was grotesque. A writhing mass of gelatinous green, pulsating and oozing, feasted on a pile of… well, best not to dwell on it.
Ssss~
With a feral hiss, the slime blob turned its collective attention toward Adonis, its pseudopods launching themselves toward him. He reacted instinctively, a smirk playing on his lips.
This was child's play.
Raising a hand, he unleashed the power of Rain of Ice Spears. Moisture from the air coalesced around his palm, forming a colossal shard of ice. With a flick of his wrist, the shard shattered, transforming into a deadly hail of icy shrapnel. The hail rained down on the slimes, each shard piercing their gelatinous bodies, freezing them instantly. The once writhing mass fractured into a glistening field of motionless ice shards, each shard pulsating with a faint, green light – the telltale sign of a magic stone.
Dealing with regular slimes was a child's play with his ice magic. He progressed through the tunnels, his steps echoing in the oppressive silence. Each encounter with the gelatinous foes ended the same way – a flash of blue light, a shower of ice shards, and a collection of magic stones. Finally, he reached the area marked as the heaviest infestation - a vast cavern choked with a pulsating green mass.
"This should clear them out," he muttered, a hint of excitement flickering in his eyes. With a deep breath, he unleashed his most powerful spell: Snow Blizzard.
The air shimmered, then erupted in a frenzy of swirling snow. A miniature blizzard engulfed the cavern, a blinding white maelstrom that roared with chilling intensity.
The slimes didn't stand a chance. Encased within the swirling snow, they were rapidly frozen solid, their pulsating green glow extinguished. When the blizzard finally subsided, Adonis stood amidst a graveyard of shimmering ice sculptures, each one containing a magic stone.
''Beautiful!"
He couldn't help but admire his handiwork. With a triumphant snap of his fingers, the massive ice formations shattered, showering the cavern floor with a glittering bounty.
Adonis wasted no time. He efficiently collected all twenty-three magic stones, a haul that significantly exceeded the guild's minimum requirement.