By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter 6

Chapter 2 Episode 6: Afternoon Expedition and a Gift

With Reinhart sitting out of the afternoon expedition, it was decided that I, Eliaria, Elise, and Reinbach would operate together.

“Honestly, Father’s always like that when it comes to work...”

“He shouldn’t be neglecting you and his own daughter. Don’t you agree?”

“Since I was one of the reasons for it, I have no right to speak... and Reinhart is just passionate about his work. It’s better than being lazy.”

“That’s true... We’ve arrived; it’s here.”

The two adults had led us to the entrance of a large mineshaft.

“Now from here onwards, the two of you will be making the main decisions. Father-in-law and I will follow you. We’ll step in if you’re in danger, but we won’t assist otherwise.”

“This is mainly an activity for Elia to gain experience, as Ryoma already has a lot. Sorry for asking this, Ryoma, but could you refrain from taking the lead too much yourself as well?”

Eliaria was suddenly given a mission.

“I’ll do my best.”

“I understand.”

Seeing the young lady accept the task without hesitation made me realize she was used to being given surprise missions from these two. When she boldly stepped inside the mineshaft, we could see that the shaft this time was wider and the walls were covered in moss here and there. It looked like it could be easy to slip on. We should be careful.

“It’s so dark, I can’t see very far.”

The thought had crossed my mind in the morning, but unlike me, who was used to hunting in the darkness of the night, it seemed like Eliaria didn’t have much visibility.

“Ryoma, what do you do when you’re hunting at night? Do you use light magic?”

“In the cases that I don’t mind my approach being noticed, yes. But when I’m attacking bandits or acting stealthily, I use the neutral magic Probe. There’s a risk of having the magic energy detected, but it’s less obvious than Light.”

“I can’t use Probe very well. How do you do it? I learned that it was like widening your awareness, but I don’t understand it well.”

Probe was... let’s see... After thinking for a moment, I used earth magic to create a bowl and filled it with water magic.

“Look at this.”

“Hm?”

I showed her the bowl and dropped a pebble into the center, which naturally created ripples along the surface.

“The pebble in the middle is you, and the ripples are the flow of your magic energy. Using yourself as the center, spread your magic energy out as waves and search for any monsters.”

I dropped in several more small pebbles, suppressed the waves with magic, then dropped another stone in the center. Ripples traveled across the surface once more, but this time they were hindered by the small pebbles.

“Your magic energy will be interrupted by monsters in this way. If you think of it as the probe catching monsters and people in this way, then...”

“I see, that’s a better explanation than before. Umm... Probe!”

The moment Eliaria activated the Probe magic, a rather large amount of magic energy scattered from her. An amount so large, I had only ever felt that much from myself before.

Even if I didn’t concentrate, I could feel it. It was, to put it simply, amazing. But if there was ever an enemy magician, they’d probably notice it immediately...

Being able to feel the magic energy within yourself was the most basic of the basics for magic. In other words, no matter one’s specialty, there were no magicians that couldn’t detect magic.

“There are many a little further ahead.”

“Then it’s a success. But, you used a little too much magic energy. If there was a magician here, you would have definitely been discovered.”

“R-Really? I’ll need to practice more.”

“I’ll take care of the front line and using Probe. You should focus on your magic just like in the morning.”

“All right. In that case, I’m counting on you, Ryoma.”

Leave it to me. Since she said there was something in front of us, I also used Probe to confirm that there were a large number of monsters. However, it seemed like a gathering of rather small individual bodies.

“The road widens to a large cave in front of us, and it seems like there’s something covering the ceiling there. If they’re on the ceiling, are they cave bats?”

“The ceiling should mean they’re cave bats. But if they’re covering the entire ceiling, wouldn’t that be a bit tough for Elia?”

“If it were just one or two it would be good accuracy practice, but a swarm means firing anywhere would make contact.”

Cave bats were bat monsters that mostly fed off insects, and were around the size of an adult hand. They were basically the same as Earth bats. They barely had any form of attack, and they were weak enough for even a child to defeat, but they were fast and flew around so they were hard to hit. As monsters, they were ranked F. Which made them quite annoying when they swarmed together. The two adults didn’t look that enthusiastic about it either.

“How about an experiment, then?”

““‘Experiment?’””

“Yes. If it goes well, we might be able to take out all the cave bats at once.”

I first confirmed that the cave bats were pretty much the same as Earth bats once more. Which was why my suggestion was to use sound. If we used magic to fire a loud sound at the cave bats, wouldn’t they all be knocked out at once?

After all, there were non-lethal weapons like stun grenades in my previous world, and sound could be removed by suppressing the vibrations in the air with Silent. Contrarily, vibrations could be amplified to make sounds louder with Big Voice. There were also things like Voice Change, which altered a voice to resemble the effects of breathing helium, Whisper, which could send sound as far as the eye could see, and Sound Bomb, which combined the effects of Big Voice and Whisper. These and many more were all sound related magics I researched while I was in the forest, which should make things work out.

Especially Sound Bomb, which burst a black bear’s eardrums and knocked it out during one of my experiments. My only worry was that the sound magic Whisper required practice where I stood in a room alone continuously mumbling to myself, which made me feel so lonely that I stopped using it over a year ago... If the magic didn’t fail, it should have an effect on the bats.

The other three issues were whether the mineshaft would collapse from the loud sound, whether there were other people in the vicinity, and what to do if the cave bats weren’t finished off.

“There’s no need to worry about the mineshaft. The shaft has been secured with earth magic to prevent cave-ins, so there’s very little chance of that happening. I’ve confirmed the lack of people with Probe, and if you can’t finish them off...”

“...Shall I rely on the slimes?”

“Indeed. If that doesn’t work, we’ll assist.”

With that decided, I took a big sticky slime out of my Dimension Home.

“Work hard, you guys.”

I ordered it to maximize itself to block the mineshaft then approach the cave bats slowly, making its body into a mesh net. Once it followed those instructions, a sticky net was set up before us. Finally, I used barrier magic to surround everything past the slime net to the depths of the cavern, putting up a soundproof barrier to prevent sound from leaking out.

“It’s ready.”

“You can go ahead whenever.”

“Then, Sound Bomb.”

The next moment, a tremendous explosive sound probably echoed within the mineshaft. Even if we couldn’t hear it, we could see the shadows dropping from the ceiling.

“It looks like it worked, let’s go.”

After undoing the barrier, we pressed forward with the slime net as a shield to find a mountain of cave bats had fallen on the floor of the mineshaft. Most of them were knocked out and unable to flee, there were just barely 10 bats left flying. Those that remained fluttered unsteadily into the walls and fell. Some of the cave bats made it to us, but they were entangled in the sticky slime’s net.

“Oh my, this is...”

“He really defeated them in one spell.”

“That’s amazing, Ryoma!”

“It’s been a while since I used it, but I’m glad it worked. Looks like the sharp ears of the cave bats became their downfall. Ah, can I feed them to my slimes?”

“You’re the one who finished them, so you can do as you please.”

“There’s nothing profitable from cave bats anyway.”

I ordered the big sticky slime to separate and let the 364 individual sticky slimes eat all the cave bats.

Oh, some of the sticky slimes were ready to split again. I’d have to let them split once we returned to the inn...

After that, the slimes and I continued to support Eliaria in hunting the remaining monsters in the mineshaft for the next hour.

■ ■ ■

“Hey, Ryoma!”

We came out of the second mineshaft to find Reinhart was waiting for us at the entrance.

“Did something happen?”

“It’s about the iron. I was hoping you could make a lump of iron to show the store owner as a sample. Preferably in the shape of a long ingot, if possible.”

“I can do that. If I use the alchemy circle for transformation, it will only take a moment.”

“Really? Then I’d like to ask for it right away.”

And so, Reinhart and I swapped spots as I went about making the ingot. Reinhart offered to help, but I could do it alone so I sent him off with Eliaria. The work wasn’t so difficult that I needed help, so he should treat his family with his presence instead.

As proof my thoughts weren’t wrong, the ingot was done in no time at all. The time it took to move to the spoil tip was the same time it took to work.

“Sebas, I’m done with the ingot.”

“Indeed, I shall hold onto this. ...What will you do now, Master Ryoma?”

“Let’s see...”

I was thinking of returning to the monster extermination, but the others were already inside the mines.

Should I go into a mineshaft by myself? But the monsters here were honestly too weak to put up a fight, and considering the amount of time left until we had to go back to town... Not to mention, today’s goal was investigation. The overall subjugation would be done by hiring adventurers from the town, so there was no need to rush... I should take this time to increase my slimes.

“My slimes are about to split, so I think I’ll work on forming contracts and training.”

“In that case, please use the square. The space is free and I’ll be within range if you need anything.”

Thus, I let my slimes split and spent the rest of the time practicing leisurely.

One hour later.

Eliaria and the others returned to a square that was occupied by slimes split by type.

“Ryoma!”

“Ah, my lady. Have you finished your training?”

“Yes, I’m done for today. I have a present for you.”

“A present?”

“Fufufu... I think you’ll like it a lot.”

Eliaria and Elise said, as Reinhart handed me a stone box.

“There’s a monster inside. It’s weak, but be careful when you open it.”

Reinbach warned me accordingly, so I warily opened the lid. The next moment, my breath was taken away by the monster inside the box.

“A slime?”

Inside was a dark gray slime I had never seen before, squirming as it searched for the exit.

“It’s a metal slime, one of the many advanced species of slimes out there. We came across it by coincidence and caught it.”

“Can I really have it? Thank you very much! I’m so happy! Another new species of slime...”

“A slime is still a monster, so you’d better make a contract with it first.”

Oops, that was right.

I snapped back to my senses at Reinbach’s words and conducted the taming contract. The metal slime settled down inside the box, so I picked it up and found it really was of a metallic texture. It was also heavier than the other slimes I’ve had. If this was a metal slime, then its diet must be metal.

“Oh right, Reinhart. Can I take some of the dirt with iron particles in it to feed this slime?”

“You’re going to feed it dirt?”

“Either the dirt, or I’ll take out the iron and feed it. Also some to experiment on the other slimes.”

“In that case, you can take as much as you want. They were originally thrown out as mining waste. If you hadn’t mentioned it, we wouldn’t have even looked at it.”

“Thank you very much!”

If I piled it all up in a corner of the dimension home, I should have enough for a while. If I fed a slime metal... Would it turn into a metal slime? Or would it turn into a different slime... I looked forward to seeing the results.

“By the way, Ryoma, what are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m increasing my slimes and practicing a little combat...”

“Combat... with slimes?”

Eliaria didn’t look convinced. Well, I could get what she meant. Even if the things I had told her until now helped her understand that slimes were convenient, she still didn’t know much about their combat. From society’s point of view, slimes were G-rank monsters that could be defeated by children. And in reality, they were weak.

However, their soft half-liquid bodies and immortality when their cores were protected were very useful characteristics.

Slimes were also able to move their cores anywhere in their body, so they could protect their core while being kicked by moving it to the opposite side, then absorb the shock with their half-liquid body. If they were blown away, they could similarly avoid damage during the landing. These were all possibilities I had once considered.

Wild slimes were sluggish so I had assumed it was impossible, but ever since I noticed the slimes I had spent a long time with were more keen and nimble, I had been training with them in the forest.

Techniques to slip past an opponent swinging their weapon down in a one-on-one battle, avoiding the weapon and entangling the arm that drew closer with the approach. Making use of their half-liquid body to evade a weapon or attack, increasing their evasion and defense — that was what I focused on teaching them. However, the current result was slimes with parts of their bodies stretched to hold spears or staffs.

“That being said, they still can’t take on a goblin in one-on-one battle, and generally just lack power.”

“No no no, a slime holding a weapon is amazing already!”

“Ryoma, how about you take a beginner lesson at the Tamer’s Guild? You’ll learn a lot of general knowledge.”

“If anything, they should be the ones asking Ryoma to hold the lessons...”

I had faintly realized it already, but my slimes were really looked down on.

The three of them suddenly had tired looks on their faces, but I asked them for assistance and Eliaria helped me move the red dirt from the spoil tip.

We spent the rest of the time doing that, and by the time we departed from the mines there was a mountain of red dirt blocks stacked in a corner of my Dimension Home.