But for a Slime

Chapter Seventeen

The next morning, Joe woke in a sour mood, his excitement to see new jobs coming to him dampened by the fact he had been robbed. The breakfast, as delicious as always since he had paid the innkeeper in a slime gem, was subdued as both Garnedell and the innkeeper proved reticent to interact with him. When Joe left the inn after breakfast, he considered his options, and decided that he couldn’t leave the incident alone.

He took Garnedell with him to the blacksmith, and began explaining what had happened. Joe was fairly certain that the smith had nothing to do with the theft, but he still watched carefully as he tried to explain what happened. After a few moments, he found the language frustrations compounding with the theft leaving him very impatient to deal politely with the situation and he waved Garnedell in to explain to the smith. Garnedell easily understood, and he saw the smith look shocked before quickly becoming angry.

Joe spent about an hour and a half on the pursuit following their meeting with the smith before deciding he didn’t have the time to waste on this. He needed to be out in the forest continuing his growth and getting his base stats up. He spoke to Garnedell, telling him to stay in the town to look for the lost gems. He mimed by pointing at Garnedell, the gems, the town, and the blacksmith. Garnedell understood pretty quickly and Joe smiled in gratefulness before he pointed to himself and then out towards the forest. The boy seemed to be sad a little, and Joe smiled before trying to reaffirm him.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. Try to take care of this for a couple days. I don’t think we can find anything, but do the best you can. I promise I’ll not leave you behind, but I don’t think I can ignore this. And I can’t waste time on it either. Alright?”

Joe waved goodbye to the two, and disappeared into the forest, continuing his desperate quest to maintain his current skills. He killed the first five or so the normal way, then decided to go back to his uber farming method of creating a great slime from a trapped slime before killing it. The rest of the day was spent doing exactly that.

* * *

Garnedell walked the streets with Kargallen, guided by the smith as he introduced him to various peoples to find the thief while Joe followed behind him. Garnedell felt reserved because of Joe’s anger, but Kargallen was quite terrified because of what had happened. Strong fighters were rarely patient with any who targeted them, and a village disappearing because of a single foolish person was not exactly unheard of. Joe had already chosen incredible forbearance when he allowed the blacksmith to investigate with Joe’s apprentice. Kargallen could only assume it was because the foreigner had chosen to take on the position of reeve for their small town. This would greatly increase the wealth, privilege, and growth of the town. He could only hope that this act would not drive Joe from their town. They maintained their silence while Joe was around, but when Joe left, Kargallen could only feel relief. I can only thank you, great one, for giving us the time to solve this and the trust for us to do it alone. We will not fail you!

They watched Joe walking down the street before Kargallen finally felt comfortable to get the specifics.

“There was a thief in your room? What was stolen! Did the foreign expert lose any of his precious artifacts or weapons?”

“My master lost no personal belongings. The thief targeted our hunting gains. The thief was thorough and knew exactly where we held our winnings.”

“Your hunting gains,” Kargallen sighed with a bit of relief as he realized that Joe hadn’t lost his personal artifacts, “Then all should be well? Did he lose any alchemical materials or crafting items?”

“I would not be so relieved, master smith! Yes, it was only our hunting gains. All his artifacts and weaponry are safe, but what he lost was not materials, alchemical or crafting… well… I guess monster cores can count as crafting items.”

“Cores,” Kargallen gasped with shock, anger quickly overwhelming him, “The fool stole cores! What fool would steal cores from a master! Any warrior who can take a core is already elite! How many were lost? Five? Ten? Why did he not keep such cores on his person?”

Garnedell looked at the smith with a considering look, eyes narrowed as he considered the smith’s anger.

“The master is a much greater warrior than you could ever consider. He did not lose ten cores. He lost almost two thousand!”

Kargallen froze in shock, Garnedell walking beyond him for several moments before stopping to see the smith staring in horrified awe. Kargallen did not move, even after some time. Garnedell tried to hiss at him, but to no avail. Finally, he returned to tug at the smith’s sleeve.

“Master smith! Please! We must go. And please do not reveal this. I tell you this because I only wish you to know the severity of this crime. I feared he would have destroyed the town when he saw last night. He refrained and kept his temper, but his anger was great. While I am not… very happy with how the town has treated me as of late, I still care for many of the people here. I do not wish to lose what friends I have left to his anger. We do not need to tell any others the severity, but I felt you should know. We need to find this!”

Kargallen shook himself from horror and came aware once again, his fear only erupting even higher, “Did he say he would destroy us? Is this our end?”

“I… I am not certain, master smith. While he did not say he would destroy the town, nor even seemed ready to take action against you all, he was angrier than I have ever seen. He has never been angry, never in all my time have I seen him angry, even as I fail him or as I have made mistakes, in training or in combat, in learning or in dealing with the drunk priest to the west. I have never seen his anger before today, not as this. He has been strangely angry in the forest while hunting several times, but never at me or any other person. And that anger was never long. This is the first time for the anger to last longer than a day.”

Kargallen stared at Garnedell with some trepidation before nodding his head, “I will do all that is possible. Please calm your master’s rage. I promise to find and free the town of this debt.”

Garnedell spent the rest of the day following Kargallen as the man resolutely and firmly overwhelmed people to enter the rooms. Each home invasion was met with polite resistance, but once behind closed doors, Kargallen’s stark explanation was more than enough to bring terror and acquiescence to the household. Garnedell and Kargallen spent the next five days searching every home and informing people of the impending tragedy, going to every home in the village.

* * *

Joe spent the five days of Garnedell’s investigation hunting in the forest, turning slimes into greater slimes before killing them to double his experience gain. On the fourth day, Joe finally hit level sixteen metropolitan, quite satisfied by his growth, although nothing unusual really showed up except for a new skill that metropolitan received at level fifteen. It had gained the calculate taxes skill five levels before the commoner did. Joe had been so ecstatic when he saw that! Sarcasm alert! Joe had actually rolled his eyes when he noticed the skill he gained.

On the fifth day, Joe was in the middle of killing a slime when he came to an incredible idea. Hey! I wonder what happens if I put in two gems, or a double gem? As the slime he was killing erupted in size, Joe plunged his spear in, struggling a bit to pierce the skin, then killed it with a quick ejection of its gem. With the death of this gem, Joe considered the idea of making a triple slime, whatever it would be named, and planned carefully.

Since the slime erupted in size when it got a second gem, Joe figured it would be a good idea to carve a larger stake to handle the increase in size. After carving another middle sized stake and a massive stake for the new triple gem slime, Joe picked his battle ground carefully. As he sat at the location waiting for the slime to arrive, he considered his battle plan, and remembered the difference in the surface strength of a regular slime and a greater slime. Huh… maybe I should have the spear spoon already stabbed into the body before I drop in the third gem. Huh… should I do two single gems or one double gem?

Joe’s thoughts continued, planning and setting up his actions beforehand while dismissing others until he had what he thought was a decent plan. His plan decided, he looked for the slime, but it still hadn’t arrived yet. He considered simply moving on to the next one, but remembered how overwhelmingly different the greater slime that attacked the village was. If just a single extra gem generated that much of a power difference, he worried what would happen with two, and decided that he would need all the advantages he could have just to be safe. He continued reviewing his plan while keeping an eye in the direction the slime would come from. And while he considered carefully, he didn’t make any changes by the time the next slime had come. As it came into view, he stood up and prepared.

“Well, slime. We’ll see how things go. Hope I don’t die from this! Heh.”

The slime came into detection range, then quivered as it bee lined towards him. The battle played out as it normally did, his smaller spike nailing the slime to the ground, then tossing in a gem while preparing the larger spike. He thrust the larger spike in as it grew, spiking it firmly to the forest floor. He added the much larger stake he had created to the left opposite side of the slime’s gem from the previous stake, leaving enough room to maneuver his spoon spear to get at the gem, but still deciding to be cautious. He then took his spoon spear and stabbed it into the slime and tossed another gem in even as he maneuvered the spoon spear into position to kill it when ready. He tensed as his spear floated under the double gem, waiting for the third gem to be pulled towards it. As with the taking in of the second gem, the slime fluttered and quivered, then suddenly froze as it zipped the third gem towards it’s other two. When the third gem arrived, it spaced itself equidistant from the other two, forming an equilateral triangle and the three gems began spitting out slender threads to all three gems. Immediately as the gems started forming into three, the slime began to grow in size, and Joe gulped.

“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! It’s too big!”

Joe began pushing his spoon spear to eject the forming triple gem, but he couldn’t get leverage as the slime had grown to engulf most of the spoon spear shaft. He still heaved to dislodge the gem, moving it slowly and painfully away from the center, gaining leverage as it reached an edge and more of the spear shaft became available to grasp. When he saw that he had it near the edge, Joe began to calm down, thinking that he would be fine, he had enough reach on the spear to bring it to bear, although it was becoming much more difficult to maneuver the gem out. Even as he was forming his stance to begin his wild flick to drive the gem out, the slime suddenly shivered, the gem fully forming. It then began vibrating violently, and Joe realized it was moving much faster and more aggressively than even the greater slime. I really need to get this thing dead now! This… this was a mistake!