Next morning Rivel shuffled through town, dragging his feet with a defeated look plastered across his face.
All that money… it could've been mine.
After a while of dragging his feet behind him he reached the edge of town, where he took out the quest paper for the mini slimes from his jacket pocket.
"Erna said the place isn't too far out from the town and that it should be just near the forest clearing, but… that forest is huge!" He shouted to himself in realization.
Rivel dragged a hand down his face as he continued to walk. "That forest might just be half the size of the town. And it took me nearly an hour just to find the Adventures' Guild, then just how the hell am I supposed to find a small clearing when everything looks the same!"
People who walked past Rivel towards the town avoided his eyesight believing him to be a mad man.
"Don't look at him." one whispered just low enough for Rivel not to hear.
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A few hours later, Rivel finally arrived at the forest clear with sweat dripping down his face.
"How does this world have all these magical advancements, yet not a single GPS marker?" He complained, as he continued onward to the center of the clearing.
I don't see any mini slimes, nor any others… Did I come too late?
Soon as he processed that thought, something smashed directly into his face catching him off guard completely.
Rivel stumbled back, clutching his nose as the sting of being rammed in the face settled in. "What the hell?!"
As he looked around to see what hit him a tiny blue ball that sloshed around with each bounce came into his view near his feet.
Rivel stared at it in silence
A mini slime?
Once the realization hit, a wide grin spread across his face, as he struck the mini slime hard as he could with his foot, sending it flying into a tree.
"Score!"
He then slowly paced over to the mini slime that slowly evaporated into the ground leaving only its core behind.
That's the core right? He questioned himself as he crouched down to examine it.
But, just as he was about to grab it, another mini slime slammed right into the side of his face.
"Are you serious!" He yelled, quickly rising only to see tons of mini slimes covering nearly the entire clearing.
Rivel could only gape in silence, as he slowly backed away from the hoard of mini slimes.
Didn't Erna say these stupid things were rare!?
He held out his hands in front of him with his nervous smirk creeping onto his face. "You know… I don't even need the core. You guys can keep it. And I'm so sorry for killing your fellow… um slime." He winced, hoping for the mini slimes to accept the apology.
But of course the mini slimes didn't respond nor listen to his words as they all started darting at him.
Rivel, not wasting any time, instantly dove behind a tree as the first couple of mini slimes flew by nearly grazing his head.
Behind cover he slowly tried to peek out, but as soon as his head came into view a mini slime flew right at him, piercing only the tree as he nearly dodged it.
Rivel glanced at the chunk missing from the tree, and his pupils shrank.
Ok! There's no way in hell these are typical mini slimes!
Before he could process anything else a mini slime darted out from the side cutting him along his left arm as he tried to block.
He winced, but didn't waste time dashing away as he struggled to grab onto the crimson dagger Velmira gave him.
"This can not be real!" he yelled, slicing through a slime leaping at him.
As he continued to run he finally made it to a more dense-area, as he came to halt to face the hoard of on coming mini slimes.
"Alright… this feels a bit fair now." He stated, twirling the daggers in his hands as he got in a fighting stance.
The tiniest moment of silence swept through the area, merely seconds before the mini slimes all started to bounce their way towards Rivel at a rapid pace.
Rivel, now wearing his now usual scowl dropping his nervous smirk from earlier dashed at the hoard of mini slimes cutting through any that jumped at him.
Even with his speed, he couldn't avoid every hit. Some slimes still slashed across him, each jump faster than the last.
Rivel cut through another mini slime, wincing in pain as another landed a slash across his leg.
"SSkkk! It feels like I'm receiving hundreds of paper cuts all over my body at once!"
He continued to push through the bleeding as he continued to slash through more, and even kicked some that got too close to his feet.
The mini slimes still showed no signs of stopping, but as he continued to slice he noticed the numbers dwindling which egged him on to try even harder.
"I'M GOING TO DESTROY YOU ALL AND THEN USE THE COINS FROM YOUR CORES AS GAMBLING MONEY!!" He hollered, stabbing through a slime with expression of pure greed written all over his face.
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As time passed, Rivel finally cut through the final mini slime with no effort.
He stood there in silence, arms dropping to his sides as he stared up at the empty blue sky surrounded by heaps of cores.
Then after a long moment of silence he burst out in a crooked laughter as he brushed back his hair.
He continued like that for a short second, until he let out a deep gruntled groan with a tired expression.
"I better receive a rank up plus extra pay along with my pouch of coins back for this," he remarked, glancing back down at all the cores.
Guess I have to figure out how to carry all of these as well.
He tried to pick up one of the cores, but without even time to react he suddenly plummeted onto his knees catching himself before he could fall over.
Am I really that tired… I mean I was walking for what felt like hours without resting, then I had to deal with all those slimes.
Rivel glanced down at himself now noticing how much he was bleeding from head to toe covered in cuts. Fresh blood still dripped from his arms and face.
"You gotta be kidding me… slimes did this to me… the weakest variant at that?!"
Rivel slowly struggled to stand back up after nearly falling over once or twice and slowly took off his jacket that was repaired just a few days ago, now littered with holes and cuts all over.
"So much for that repair," he groaned in pain, as he tied the jacket in a way to hopefully use it as a bag to carry all the cores.
Fortunately his shirt managed to survive with less holes, but is drenched nearly everywhere in blood.
As he picked up some cores and tossed them into the bag an idea suddenly came to mind as he remembered something about the horned headband on his head.
I can see someone's stats with this headband right? So maybe it could work on these stupid cores. Probably could explain to me why the hell these so called "mini slimes" didn't feel so mini.
He glared hard at the cores he tossed into the bag until a title plate appeared right above each core labeled—
[Mini Slime Core]
Grade: ???
"It worked…but…" He paused, examining the grade of the core.
You've gotta be kidding me!!
He tried to sigh but only winced in pain due to cuts on his face. "Did I find an error or something? Or is it one of those special grade items that turns out to be extremely op?"
He took one out to examine it more closely, and it looked like a marble, but with a faint mist swirling inside.
Well nothing happens when I touch it… and it doesn't look edible so I can rule it out as being an item I can consume to grow stronger I guess.
When nothing else seemed to come to mind he just shrugged it off and tossed it into the jacket along with the others.
Each time he bent down to pick up another core he would hiss in pain.
"Either I'm extremely weak or those slimes were just exceptionally strong."
"I'm hoping it's the slimes." He muttered thinking about Erna's words for when he returned.
"The mini slimes did this to you," Erna asked, looking him up and down. "...Maybe you should reconsider career options… I heard a shopkeeper was looking for some new hires." She advised with a tone of pity.
Rivel snapped back to reality as the thought started to frustrate him despite it being his imagination.
"She's not even here and she's managing to get under my skin."