I went to floor five of Tennessine for the first time. There, I stood and waited for a friend to come. After a while, a warp gate opened, and the mini-sage Miike emerged from the vortex of light.
Miike carried─or hauled, rather─a slime about his size along with him. The slime struggled, but it couldn’t escape him.
“Thanks for waiting,” he said. “I caught this in Tellurium.”
“Thank you,” I replied, accepting the slime and then firing a restraining round at it.
Indeed, Miike was the only being in all the world that could bring himself and another monster across dungeon borders just by touching it.
A unique monster─that was the term used to refer to monsters that had undergone individual evolution and obtained powers unique to them.
Miike had obtained the power to go in and out of dungeons freely, something that even dungeon masters and spirits couldn’t do. Thanks to that power, he always went around with Aurum. He was even spirit-blessed as a result, giving him the name Miike Aurum.
As such, I’d had him bring the slime here.
“What are you planning to do with it, Great Ryota?”
“Check this out.” I left the restrained slime there, fired another round just in case, and had Miike leave the area with me.
While we watched from a safe distance, one of Tennessine’s shadow monsters appeared and slithered toward the slime. The poor thing tried to bounce at it in retaliation, but it couldn’t move due to my restraining round.
Instead, the shadow attacked the slime. Since it was weak, I fired a recovery round at the same time to keep the attack from killing it.
Thanks to my help, it had managed to survive just barely. Instantly after, the shadow transformed.
So a basic shadow will always transform into the first thing it attacked, huh?
“Miike, take care of the slime for me. Stay where I can see you.”
“Okay. Leave it to me, Boss!”
We stepped out of hiding, and Miike took charge of the monster. The shadow transformed into a slime, and twelve star marks appeared on the original.
Today, we were going to test what would happen when all twelve marks disappeared. I was also curious what a fake slime would drop, particularly compared to the basic slime’s bean sprout drops.
With these intentions, and having confirmed that the stars had appeared, I turned to the fake slime─
“Ghah!” A powerful charge caused me to see stars.
The transformed fake slime was fast and strong. It had attacked me the instant I took my attention off it. It wasn’t as strong as Neptune, but I’d consider its strength and speed both A-rank level.
Even within a rank, there can be minor differences in numbers. People of this world didn’t seem to think about that much, but since I’d raised my stats one point at a time in Nihonium, I did.
I fired a growth round to shake off the fake slime. After backing off, it jumped up to head height, took a deep breath, and swelled to twice its size like a balloon.
Instantly after, it spewed fire like some kind of dragon.
“Kh!” I fired a bunch of freeze rounds with both guns to try and stop its fire breath.
Fire and ice collided, creating an explosion of steam. Expecting that, I charged forward, using the steam as a smokescreen to close in.
I knew its strength and speed now. It was time to figure out its defenses. Instead of using my guns, I balled up a fist and punched the slime so I could feel it in the flesh.
It was tough. A normal slime would’ve burst to pieces from that punch, but the fake slime just flew away, more or less unaffected. It felt as if I’d just punched a hard bouncy ball.
“About B-rank vitality, huh? That’s tough.”
The slime landed. There was a dent where I’d punched it, but sparkly light glowed around it, and it began to heal.
It can even heal? The max power of a slime is terrifying.
Still, I was used to seeing slimes that could grow and get strong, so I wasn’t surprised.
After I’d sized up its stats, I got serious. First, I fired a barrage of regular bullets with both guns. Then, I used them as cover to charge. I closed in on the slime and fired point-blank trash rounds at it from all angles.
By doing so, I’d immobilized it. Dents began to appear all over it. I’d discovered this method just recently. It took more time and effort, but this was like an upgraded restraining round. Restraining rounds could be torn off, but trash rounds could not be stopped, like nailing it down with eight nails that couldn’t be pulled out.
While it didn’t last as long as a restraining round, it had worked perfectly. Thanks to that, I defeated the restrained fake slime with ease. It dropped a white lump of…something.
Now that the fight was over, Miike slowly approached. “What is that?”
“I wonder… Oh, a truffle?” I’d only ever seen them on the internet, and never in their original shape, so it took me a moment to realize, but it was a white, fragrant fungus. This only strengthened my hypothesis about this dungeon’s drops. “Anyway, how are the slime’s stars?”
“One went away!”
“Okay. Keep following me, okay?”
“Got it!”
Miike and I walked around floor five of Tennessine. When I saw fake slimes, I killed them with Repetition.
As we knew already, each kill reduced the stars by one. I steadily killed eleven, leaving just one star.
“Repetition.” With Repetition, I killed the final slime, reducing the original’s stars to zero.
We watched the original in silence.
I’d braced myself for something to happen, but nothing did. We waited and waited, but there was no change. Another fake slime even came by, and I killed it with Repetition, but it did nothing to the original.
“…Was it all a bluff?”
“I think it might be…”
“Hmm. But it can’t possibly be nothing.” I found it hard to believe that such a big, grandiose effect could lead to nothing.
The number twelve seemed significant. With each kill, it went down by one. Even if you stopped killing monsters, it would go down with the passage of time as well. The stage was perfectly set, but nothing was happening at zero. I couldn’t accept that.
There still had to be something. I was certain of it.
“Nothing’s happening. Let the little guy go.”
“Okay!” When Miike released the slime, it attacked me with an angry look on its face.
I guarded. Its offenses hadn’t changed; it was just the same as any old slime from Tellurium.
“What’s going on?” I wondered aloud.
“Umm, what should we do about the slime… Oh!” Taking advantage of Miike’s distraction, the slime ran away. “Waaait!” He chased after it desperately. I decided to follow.
When I found the two of them again, they were at the staircase leading down to B4, which the slime was trying to headbutt. It headbutted it over and over, only to be bounced off every time. It was as if there was some kind of invisible wall in its way.
Miike seemed surprised by this as well; he just watched without grabbing the monster.
“Could it be…?”
“Huh?”
“When all of your stars disappear, do you end up trapped inside the tower?” I hypothesized as I looked upon the trapped slime.