By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter 17

Chapter 2 Episode 17: Fight Over, Fight Ongoing

The battle continued with several turns resting and healing the injured, until the goblins finally stopped coming at over the 2000 mark.

Thanks to the efforts of the healers and healing slimes, there were no serious injuries among the adventurers, but there were so many goblin corpses along the front line there was no space to stand.

Then suddenly, four men appeared through space magic.

“What’s the status here, everyone?!”

“Sorry we took so long! What is the situation?”

“It looks like everything’s okay? ...Wow, there’s a ton of corpses here too.”

“Leipin, Asagi, Gordon, Sher. You came for us.”

They must have had a hard-fought battle themselves... Other than Leipin the magician, everyone was covered in blood splatters.

“Oh! You’re safe, Ryoma!”

“It seems like you’ve been through a lot yourself. There’s blood all over you.”

“We’re not ones to talk, though.”

“That’s true. But what was with those numbers? Over 2000 goblins came this way. Though judging by your appearances, you had to deal with quite a few on your end too...”

“Indeed, we owe you an explanation about that.”

“Erm, who’s the person in charge here? We’d like to ask about the situation here.”

“That’d be me!”

Ploria ran up to the four men and explained the situation until now.

“...I see. So that’s how it went.”

“Yes. We were able to endure it thanks to Ryoma and his slimes. Our team would have been wiped out otherwise.”

“With this many numbers... it’s a miracle you all survived practically unharmed.”

“At any rate, it’s great that everyone’s safe.”

“Umm, how did things go in the main army?”

“For now, the situation has come to an end. However...”

“While there were no deaths, there were some serious injuries. Their numbers were far beyond what we expected when scouting, and there was even a goblin king. It had crowds of goblin knights as lackeys.”

“There was a goblin king?!”

Ploria’s shout stirred our surroundings.

“You lot! The goblin king has been dealt with already, so don’t worry!”

Gordon’s single statement calmed everyone a bit, before they burst into cheers. As they did, the explanation continued.

“We planned our strategy around a map of the mines, but it seemed like the goblins had dug their own mineshafts and expanded their village. The scouts’ probes couldn’t reach to the depths of the mineshaft, which actually turned out to be connected to another shaft that wasn’t on the map.”

“The village we thought we were attacking was ultimately a small piece of a larger whole. Their numbers had grown significantly on the other side, so they continuously streamed from their nesting hole. We only noticed that the real village and boss was on the other side of the shaft some time after we began our attack. Because of that, many goblins fled through a different route and ended up surging through here. We were completely inadequate; forgive us.”

“So that’s what happened... None of us were severely injured, so we don’t have anything in particular to say about that, though... How did a village of that size go unnoticed until now?”

“We believe their numbers grew that large because they never approached the town and stayed hidden in the mineshaft, feeding off other monsters. There were an enormous number of small rat and cave bat remains left behind. And it seems like no one has approached this abandoned mine since last year, so...”

“Because the folks at the public office were negligent. With no more iron being harvested, maintenance of these mines are nothing more than an expense. However...”

Leipin looked around at our surroundings.

“You truly did very well, managing to escape unharmed against this many enemies. If there are no problems here, may I take several of your healers with us? I’d like to get the injured on the other side treated.”

“I understand. Anyone with healing magic and enough energy left, gather up!”

Four people including me stepped forward at Ploria’s words.

“Hmm... Unfortunately, three is the maximum number of people I can take with space magic. I’d have to ask one of you to make your own way there...”

“In that case, I’ll stay back. I’ve started learning space magic myself recently, so I’ll catch up in no time.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Ah, Leipin. Are you able to take a few more things?”

“As long as they aren’t very large.”

Hearing that, I called forth my two healing slimes.

“Then please take these two slimes. I can still only teleport myself.”

“I understand. But what type are they? These slimes.”

“Healing slimes, slimes that can use healing magic.”

“Oh ho! So these are healing slimes! I’ve studied monsters for a long time now, but this is my first time seeing one. All right, I shall take responsibility for these two.”

“Thank you so much.”

“No problem. We’ll be waiting on the other side. Warp.”

As soon as he said that, Leipin took the three others with him and teleported. I bid farewell to Ploria and the others before setting off too.

“Ploria, I’ll be leaving my slimes behind, so please take care of them. You can just leave them alone.”

“Leave it to me. Thanks for taking care of the other side.”

“Yes. Now then... Teleport.”

I repeated my short distance teleportation until I reached an isolated location, then used the intermediate spell Warp.

■ ■ ■

The location I arrived at had many injured people receiving treatment.

“Ryoma! This way.”

Leipin was there. I ran over to him and received my two healing slimes from him before I was led to the recovery supervisor and given orders.

The two healing slimes and I were first allocated to those with comparatively lighter wounds. They were all conscious and surprised to be receiving treatment from a slime’s healing magic.

Once I finished my work there, I was immediately ordered to assist with the treatment of the more severely wounded patients.

Since I was running low on magic energy, I drank the magic recovery potions I received from Serge the other day as I went about treating patients.

There were only a few people who were wounded to a life-threatening level, but those people were bleeding profusely and being taken care of by several healers with the intermediate healing magic High Heal. The wounds were too big for us to treat, but I helped out all the same, as it would provide temporary relief. I distributed a few of my potions on hand to the other healers as well.

“Guh...”

We had to stop the bleeding as soon as possible. If the magic stopped, the person before me would be closer to death.

The bustling movement here was on par with a battlefield. There was no time to think.

“Huh?!”

As I silently continued giving treatment, someone looking after a different patient to me suddenly yelled out loud.

“What’s wrong?! Do you need assistance?!”

The man who was healing the same patient as me shouted back.

“N-No! There’s no problem here!”

“The slime assisting us here suddenly used High Heal, so we were surprised!”

...WHAT?! My healing slime?! The healing slime should only have been able to use Heal, though? It’s never used anything else before...

When the man heard their answer, he looked to me as though asking if my slimes could really use High Heal.

“I think they only learned it just now. I’ve never seen them use it before.”

“The more help, the better!”

And with that, we returned to healing. Not too long after, a different person looking after another patient also yelled when the other healing slime started using that spell. It was an unexpected development, but it was a success.

Process aside, their treatment efficiency rose dramatically, and with the large number of magic recovery potions I retrieved from my Item Box, we somehow succeeded in healing the patient. He would still need some time before he could get back on his feet, but his life was no longer in danger.

With the urgency of treatment slightly relieved, I appraised the healing slime’s skills to find its healing magic skill had risen to level 3. Additionally, when I looked at my own status board, I found I was now level 2.

“I suppose using it that much would raise it... Hmm?”

I was suddenly surrounded by over 10 people, thanking me profusely through my confusion. Apparently we had healed a friend of theirs. They insisted through their tears and crying that their friend would have died if it hadn’t been for me, my healing slimes, and my potions.

While I was troubled for a response, the guildmaster wandered over and let me escape with a message to pass to the ambush team. The message was to gather before the mine entrance.

Thanks!

I expressed my gratitude for the guildmaster’s actions in my heart, and hurried back to the ambush team.

■ ■ ■

Once all the adventurers that could move gathered before the mine entrance.

“Good work today! It was a bigger job than expected, but that means your rewards will increase accordingly!”

The guildmaster announced as he appeared, receiving cheers.

“The minimum reward for this job has been raised to 1 large silver coin for everyone!”

The cheers grew louder at that. Especially among the G rank adventurers. One large silver coin was 5000 sutes, enough to live on for 50 days. They had probably never received such a high reward before.

“Anyone with complaints? No? Good! It’s still early in the day, but you can all go home after cleaning up the goblin corpses!”

That was when the guildmaster looked at me as though he remembered something.

“That’s right, Ryoma!”

“What is it?”

“You said you were buying the bodies of the monsters, but you can have the goblins for free.”

“I’m very grateful to receive them, but are you sure I can have them for free?”

“There are no profitable parts to a goblin, after all. Is everyone fine with that?”

There were many adventurers around me that were unaware I was the one buying the monsters and reacted in surprise, but no one objected. There were even people who appreciated the less effort required on their part. Normally they would have been disposed of by incineration, so the fire magicians wouldn’t have enjoyed being sought for their fire magic when they were low on energy as it was.

“Then I shall gladly receive them. I’ll let the slimes eat their fill as their reward.”

But I felt bad for simply taking them, so I’ll offer a cleaner slime bath to anyone who wants one later as a service.

The adventurers returned to their posts and I returned to the ambush team too.

I retrieved my acid slimes that had reabsorbed their acid and threw all the goblin corpses into the remaining pit for my sticky and poison slimes to eat their fill. This way, the poison slimes could determine the goblins that had died from poison and eat those, while the sticky slimes ate the rest.

I ordered my scavenger slimes to eat the blood and body parts remaining on the ground, and once they were done there wasn’t a trace left.

Wouldn’t this be the perfect way to conceal evidence of a crime...? Better make sure it never fell into the wrong hands. Well, I had no intention of giving them to anyone anyway.

...Now, just one job left.

While the slimes had been feeding, I first taught the E, F and G rankers about the abilities of the cleaner slimes and then demonstrated on myself. After I showed them how my body, equipment, and clothes were rid of all dirt and scents, the number of people interested surged. In fact, all of them said they wanted to try it.

After the 11 cleaner slimes had cleaned everyone up, we waited for the slimes in the pit to finish eating before heading to the main team in the goblin’s nest.

There were several piles of goblin corpses left around, so we disposed of those and cleaned the equipment and people again. The scavenger slimes once more ate the dirt on the floor and around the goblin’s nest.

As with before, the cleaner slime baths were extremely popular due to how difficult it was to wash off goblin blood and scents.

Once everything was disposed of, we were dismissed to return via horse carriage.

My slimes and I rested from a distance as we watched the adventurers do that.

By feeding the goblins to the slimes today, the poison, acid, and cleaner slimes were ready to split again. However, I had no magic energy to form contracts, so I was waiting for that to recover.

To recover as quickly as I could, I was leisurely waiting for the final carriage, rather than scramble to board one as soon as possible.

Time had flown past since I was added to the healing team... I was bushed...