By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 3 - Chapter 32

Chapter 2 Episode 32: Slime Abnormality

The next day...

I went to the store first thing in the morning to confirm there were no problems, then went to the abandoned mine. I got started on the waterproof cloth production, but then I was left with nothing to do again. I fell asleep yesterday while I was thinking about what to do today, so nothing came to mind. In my past world, I would have read a book or played a video game to pass the time, but now I needed something else.

I received 45 strips of cloth today, the same as yesterday. My work was already over. I had gotten more used to it since yesterday and finished even faster than before. I didn’t quite know what to do now, and I had already trained my slimes.

After some thought, I decided to gather my scavengers together into a king scavenger for me to fight one on one. My king scavenger slime had the following skills.

Skills: Disease Resistance 7, Poison Resistance 7, Foul Feeder 8, Cleanse 8, Deodorize 8, Deodorant Solution 6, Stench Release 8, Nutrient Reduction 7, Physical Attack Resistance 5, Maximize 5, Minimize 6, Jump 3, Gluttony 4, Unarmed Combat 2

The Physical Attack Resistance that the scavengers had meant that the king scavenger had the same skill one level higher. Scavengers also had an Unarmed Combat level of only 1, but king scavengers had it at 2. Compared to individual scavengers, its skill level was higher all around. I couldn’t be sure of this, but maybe when they combined, the experience of each slime mixed together or something.

When I fought the king scavenger, its Physical Attack Resistance was highly effective and my attacks hardly worked. Its elasticity had increased enough for attacks to bounce right off. Its skills weren’t especially honed yet, but its defenses were excellent.

For example, when I hit the king scavenger with a serious punch, it endured the blow entirely. Of course, I avoided hitting the core just to be safe, but piercing through the slime took a lot of time and effort.

But its downside was its low attack power. It could use Maximize to grow and increase its mass to crush enemies, but lacked in muscle strength, if that was a thing that slimes had at all. I could just shake it off if I wanted to, and its strike attacks didn’t pack a punch.

This was to be expected, so I considered having it stretch its body into tentacles to use like whips to attack or ensnare opponents. It could use their momentum against them, take advantage of its own elasticity and use its Maximize ability to perform a sort of shoulder throw. I taught it these and a few other skills I came up with. The basic strategy I had it use was to protect itself from enemy attacks, then use the force of their strikes to throw them and, once they fell on the ground, use Maximize to crush them.

This took a fair amount of time, but still not enough for the cloths to dry. They were nearly ready, so I figured I could take a walk with my slimes, and they’d be finished by the time I was done.

I got my slimes together and was about to go outside, but then one of the slimes I made a contract with began to behave strangely. The effects of the taming contract gave me some grasp on the situation, but I didn’t know what was happening.

When I reached the slime in question, I found it was one that I captured for my metal slime evolution experiment. It was jiggling, but didn’t seem ill. That could only mean one thing.

“Evolution?!” I shouted. I thought maybe I was getting ahead of myself, but it was the only answer I could come up with. I watched in silence until the slime went still, at which time I sensed a bit of magic energy that it seemed to be releasing. But it wasn’t using magic. In fact, it seemed to absorb all the energy it released. For what purpose, I didn’t know. Maybe it was required for evolution, or maybe it was doing it unconsciously.

The magic energy entered and exited its body dozens of times, during which the slime steadily changed color. It ultimately turned silver, which I could only guess meant it had safely evolved. It seemed to be acting normal now. But metal slimes were supposed to be more of a dark gray color, while this slime was a bright silver. I used my Monster Appraisal skill.

Iron Slime

Skills: Harden 3, Physical Attack Resistance 2, Jump 1, Consume 3, Absorb 3, Split 2

It was called an iron slime. Its skills seemed the same as a metal slime’s, but its Harden skill was one level higher. This happened because I fed it iron, I presumed.

“But metal slimes eat iron too, right?” I asked myself. If they consume the same food, why did mine turn out this way? “Iron is just one type of metal, so maybe metal slimes need more varieties!”

I took out some stone meant to be fed to metal slimes and appraised it.

Stone (Red Clay)

Dirt and sediment found in a mine and consolidated with earth magic.

Contains the following metals: iron oxide, aluminum oxide

As I thought, red clay contained aluminum oxide. It reminded me of a part time job I had in road construction, and a conversation I had with a coworker about this subject.

“Metal slimes don’t just eat iron, but aluminum too. Maybe some other metals too,” I said. I used alchemy to extract iron and aluminum from some bricks, then called my iron slime and metal slime over, splitting up the materials between the two of them. The iron slime only ate iron, but the metal slime ate both types of metal. I called the metal slime closer and petted it.

“So you’ll eat anything that’s metal? Seems like it. The iron slime’s just made of metal, I’m sure, but what about you? Some combination of iron and aluminum or what?” I asked the metal slime, but got no answer, of course. “Well, at least I know how to evolve you now. That was the first time I saw a slime evolve.”

Every time prior to this, they evolved while I was asleep for some reason. If you feed slimes well enough, they tend to evolve within half a year, but you never know exactly when it will happen, and staying up every night to keep an eye on them wouldn’t be easy. Now I knew that they spat up and sucked in magic energy while they evolved. It was fascinating, but I worried that I might be late to get home again if I thought about it for too long.

“That reminds me, I think I’ve figured out this Appraisal spell a bit better,” I said to redirect my thoughts. The non-elemental spell known as Appraisal produced information similar to that of an internet search. When I used it out of curiosity before, all that popped up was a name. Later when I tried to get detailed information out of it, it only returned simple data.

But when I was cleaning the pit toilet the other day and used Appraisal on the roof, it showed me the word ‘Disinfection.’ Using it on filth presented me with the word ‘Germs.’ It was probably based on the user’s knowledge, so depending on how much you know, the information provided could be different.

I tried it a few more times and learned that to check something in detail, you need to think about whatever details you want to know in a way that can be understood with your own knowledge if you want the best results. For example, I wondered about the weight of this red clay and the percentage of it that was composed of iron and aluminum.

503.9g Stone (Red Clay)

Dirt and sediment found in a mine and consolidated with earth magic.

Contains the following metals: iron oxide (4.2%, 21.1638g), aluminum oxide (5.1%, 25.6989g)

Now I got this much detail, likely because my thoughts were more detailed when I cast the spell. This seemed useful, though I didn’t know to what extent. It was nice that I could get more detailed information, but I didn’t especially need it at the moment. Maybe I could use it to sort the iron ingots I brought to Serge by weight next time. Or maybe I could ask Serge for some of the highest quality iron ingots in this world and create my own based off of them. It would be worth it if that meant the ingots I made didn’t stand out anymore, but there didn’t seem to be much use for Appraisal for the time being. The way it worked so far was good enough anyway.

As I waited for the waterproof cloths to dry, I practiced making 500g, 80% pure iron and aluminum ingots over and over. When the cloths dried, I gathered them together, returned to town, and delivered them to Serge’s store. After that, I received another 300 strips of cloth and went back to the inn, but it wasn’t quite time for bed, so then I headed to my store. It was too late to accept any jobs at the guild, so I decided to check on my employees.

■ ■ ■

When I got to the store, the same hordes of people were there. There might even have been more customers now. I used the employee entrance to enter the break room, but nobody was there. Maybe everyone had to work to keep up with all the business. I opened the door to the store area and found Fina, one of the trio of girls.

“Boss, it’s nice to see you,” she said.

“Nice to see you, too. I noticed nobody was in the break room. Is everyone busy?”

“There’s not a lot of free time, but I wouldn’t say we’re that busy. At least we have plenty of employees. We figured out when we get the most customers, so everyone’s doing their part to deal with the big rush.”

Everyone got used to the job while I was away. It looked like I didn’t have much to worry about. But then I noticed something and gasped.

“What’s wrong?” Fina asked.

“The cleaner slimes are ready to split.”

“Huh?”

Cleaner slimes used this method of cleaning as a way of getting food as well, so all the sustenance they had been getting every day put them in a state where they could divide.

“We’re going to get more slimes that can clean. That’ll improve our cleaning efficiency,” I said.

“Really?! Wow!”

“Thank the slimes for a job well done. I’ll be over here for a while, but don’t mind me.”

“Okay!” Fina said and ran off with some finished laundry. Now it was time for me to do my part.

■ ■ ■

I made a contract with the new slimes, now having a total of 54 cleaner slimes. Cleaner slimes didn’t divide that often, but a whole ten of them multiplied twice. It must have been because of the job they were doing. Also, when I had the cleaner slimes divide, their increased numbers helped them work that much faster. Their work rate had more than doubled. There was no way I could let this efficiency go to waste.

“Oh, perfect timing, Fina. You too, Carme,” I said when they came to get laundry. I summed up the situation for them and suggested that they go help take orders from customers. I had previously told everyone taking orders from customers to also take and return their laundry, but with the additional manpower we now had, I also suggested we divide up the work between us.

“I’ll carry the laundry around, you two return it to the customers.”

“To increase efficiency, I assume? Let’s try it.”

With that, the two of them went out front. I gathered up the finished laundry and brought it out as well.

“Next customer!”

“This way, please!”

“Customer #18.”

“How does it look?”

“Oh my, it’s so clean. And it was all affordable too. Very nice.”

“Thank you! Please come again! Next, Customer #8!”

A few minutes after we divided up our work, the flow of customers had become noticeably faster. Maybe the slimes were hungry after they had just split up. It felt like they were working more vigorously than before. There were times that we almost ran out of numbered signs for the customers, and we had more people waiting for their laundry to be returned too, but a temporary return to the way we took orders from customers before solved that. The increased number of cleaner slimes and service windows raised the speed at which we could process orders and serve the customers. Eventually we got through peak business hours and reached closing time in one piece.