By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 29

Chapter 4 Episode 29: Abnormality

-Slime Observation Record-

Today I acquired two new slimes as familiars. Here’s what I know about them.

Stone Slime

Skills: Harden 2, Physical Attack Resistance 2, Consume 3, Absorb 3, Split 3, Camouflage 10

This slime looks like a rock that you’d find anywhere. As you’d imagine, it only eats rocks. I’ve yet to notice any preferences when it comes to the type of rock or the minerals contained within. But when I feed it a rock, it becomes the same color as that rock and even emulates the texture. As a test, I closed my eyes, rolled around on the ground a bit, and opened my eyes again, and it took me a while to find the slime. I was able to in the end, thanks to my contract with it, but finding it with my eyes alone would have been a challenge. Another experiment taught me that it has a preference for earth energy, and that its body is affected by earth magic. Going forward, I’d like to obtain more stone slimes and feed them some ore, jewels, and magic crystals to see what happens.

Weed Slime

Skills: Vitality Enhancement 5, Photosynthesis 5, Consume 1, Absorb 1, Growth Acceleration 5, Split 8, Camouflage 9

Much like the stone slime, the weeds that grow from this slime’s body can be found anywhere outside. If it hid in a thicket, it would be difficult to detect. It subsists on weeds. I showed it some medicinal and poisonous herbs I had in stock, but it showed no interest. It did, however, eat the grainspear grass I collected during the training meetup. Maybe that counts as a weed? Or maybe this specific weed slime happens to like grains? It’s still unclear, so I’d like to obtain more weed slimes and compare them. Thankfully, I can get plenty of weeds and fertilizer to feed it at no cost to myself. This also seems to be the sort of slime that multiplies fast, so it shouldn’t take too long. I also gave it some fertilizer made by the scavenger slimes, and it was pleased. Fluff slimes also like fertilizer, so maybe this applies to all plant slimes. I’d like to keep experimenting with and observing these slimes going forward.

For both of these slimes, the first thing I’ll need to do is get more of them. Speaking of which, there’s another slime I’d like to have more of.

Bloody Slime

I’m currently observing these slimes. The effects of the poison seem to be gone, thankfully. I’ve ensured that they developed antibodies against bush snake poison. But they did also have resistance to poison and diseases to begin with. That being the case, I can assume that they have antibodies against other poisons and diseases as well. I’d like to research this in the future.

Getting more bloody slimes would help with that, but they need quite a bit of food before they multiply. Sieg’s shop is currently my best source of bloody slime food. However, I already take everything I can get from him, so I’ll have to find another source. One candidate I can think of is the Saionji Trading Company, where they also handle meat. To do something with that, though, I might need to leave some bloody slimes with someone at the laundromat in Lenaf and have them handle it.

As far as places that are close to me, the Adventurer’s Guild has a place for dissecting monsters and animals. I heard during the training meetup that anyone can use it as long as they pay a fee. I’ve never used it before, so I don’t know what they do with the unwanted parts. But maybe I can get some blood from there. Even if they just have bones and scraps of meat to offer, I could use that as food too. It won’t hurt to ask.

■ ■ ■

I finished writing out my thoughts. I had already eaten dinner as well, so I didn’t have much else to do before bed. I was curious about how my mushrooms were doing, though. When I checked yesterday, some thin ones were sprouting up. Before going to sleep, I headed to the passage where I kept the mushroom bed.

As soon as I opened the first door I’d installed yesterday, I heard a sound. It was like something small was scratching at the other side of the door, so I thought maybe a small rat had gotten in. I cast Investigate to be sure, and there did seem to be at least ten to twenty of something on the other side of the door. They weren’t small rats, though. They were something smaller. I quickly called upon my sticky slimes to set up a sticky trap.

■ ■ ■

I checked to make sure the sticky trap was ready, lit up the room with light magic, and shut the door behind me. Prepared for anything, I threw the next door open. I was shocked to see some mushrooms running around. Two legs were attached to their stems. They fled from me, crashed into a wall, and fell over.

I guessed that these were running mushes. I didn’t know they were monsters, but I did know them as materials for medicine. They were mushrooms that had been magicified by magical energy, and they served as extremely rare materials for magic medicine. The medicine was effective as a vitamin supplement and for improving physical constitution. Most notably, though, they could enhance the medicinal effects of other medicine. That could potentially make the medicine poisonous, though, so some caution was required.

They were even more scarce than ordinary mushrooms and they could run fast, so obtaining them was no easy task. They were primarily found in the Numel Wetlands, especially during the rainy season. Not only were they rare, but the regions where they were found would yield more mushrooms the following year, so they were said to bring good fortune to those who found them.

If they were supposed to be so rare, though, I didn’t know why I was seeing several dozen of them. I thought these might be some other type of mushroom monster, so I cast Monster Appraisal.

Running Mush

Skills: Spore Production 6, Spore Spread 4, Rapid Movement 6

They turned out to be running mushes after all. Their skills also seemed to indicate why more mushrooms would be around the year after they appeared.

These had to have come from the mushroom bed I was using. Upon closer inspection, their legs and sharp-clawed feet were the only way in which they looked different from the mushrooms I was trying to cultivate. I was just trying to grow ordinary mushrooms, but they must have been transformed by magical energy. I didn’t know where that magical energy came from, though. I did use water magic for the water, but that didn’t seem like enough for magicification. Running mushes were supposed to be pretty rare as well, so I couldn’t imagine that just a little energy was enough to transform them.

Then I thought maybe the scavenger slime fertilizer had something to do with it. It was possible that slime bodies were made of magical energy, so if some was contained in the fertilizer they made, that might have done it. If so, then I couldn’t even grow normal mushrooms this way. Not that it was much of a loss, all things considered, but it was kind of disappointing.

At any rate, I needed to catch the running mushes and do something about them. I could think about the rest later. They were medicinal ingredients, so I considered feeding them to a medicine slime. I also needed to make some medicine to deliver to Glissela, so that was another possibility. I thought about what to do after I caught the running mushes, chasing them into my traps like a sheepdog.

■ ■ ■

An hour passed after that. I messed something up, but maybe that was a good thing. A medicine slime on the floor of the medicine mixing room seemed delighted after eating running mushes. I gave it only one at first, but then I accidentally left out a basket of them as I started making a new mushroom bed. The medicine slime used its tentacles to snatch and eat one running mush after another, and next thing I knew, it had taken more than ten of them. I only wanted to feed it one to see what happened, but thankfully it didn’t get sick. I used Monster Appraisal to see if anything changed.

Medicine Slime

Skills: Medicine Production 5, Poison Resistance 3, Disease Resistance 5, Physical Attack Resistance 1, Jump 3, Consume 3, Absorb 3, Split 3, Spear Mastery 1

The mushrooms had a clear effect. The medicine slime’s Medicine Production skill had jumped two levels. I also checked what types of medicine it could produce.

•    Nutrition Drink

•    Vitamin Supplement

•    Medicinal Effect Enhancer

Those three had been added to its existing list. It was now able to produce medicine with the same effects as the running mushes. I didn’t know exactly how to make use of these, particularly the third one. By reacting to the magical energy within a drug, it could enhance the effects. Raising the effects of medicine too much could turn it into poison, though, so I would have to be careful with that. I didn’t know how much it would enhance the effects. The existing recipes that running mushes were used in already had specified uses, but that didn’t apply to the medicine slime’s enhancing fluid. I had no way to be sure that it would be exactly the same as the running mushrooms either, so I had to experiment to make sure it was safe. In any case, it didn’t seem like these would be usable right away. I decided to write this all down for later.

■ ■ ■

When I used the medicine I made as an excuse to visit the Merchant’s Guild the next day, Glissela was stunned.

“You’re really something, you know,” she said. “You never cease to amaze me. I’d understand if you brought me four or five running mushes, but more than thirty at once?” And that was just what I had left over after the medicine slime ate the rest.

“I’m glad you like them.”

“I thought you were just cultivating mushrooms to eat on your own. So they happened to all grow into running mushes, and you’re not sure how you should go about growing regular mushrooms, is that right?”

“Right. I think it’ll be fine if I grow them without using magic, so I was wondering if you could tell me about fertilizer that doesn’t contain any magical energy.”

“I’ve never used any fertilizer intended for mushrooms. Mushroom cultivation is a bit of an odd hobby to get into, in my opinion. Why don’t you just eat the running mushes, if that’s what you want to do? It looks like they were originally edible mushrooms, so they should be pretty good.”

“They’re edible?! I just knew about their medicinal properties.”

“I haven’t tried them myself, mind you. And I think there are better uses for them anyway.”

“True.”

Running mushes could be used in a wide variety of medicines. That included cures for diseases often thought to be incurable, which could go for a hundred thousand sute even when bought locally. It could be even more expensive depending on the time and place, so I could make a fortune off that alone.

What I cared about was the flavor, though. If they happened to taste better than normal mushrooms, then I guess I’d have nothing to complain about. I didn’t want the medicinal effects to do anything weird, though.

“I can give you some fertilizer that farmers would typically use. You’ll have to find out if they work for mushrooms on your own. In exchange, I’ll take one running mush and ask you to mix some medicine for me again. Then we’ll be even.”

“Thank you!”

“I’ll make some money off that medicine, so don’t worry about it.”

We chatted as the ingredients for the medicine were being prepared, and Glissela mentioned something that caught my attention.

“Bandits? Around here?”

“I’ve heard a few times that some suspicious folks have been sighted coming to the area. But there only seem to be four or five of them at most. There was a group of bandits that got taken out in Gaunago, so maybe these are survivors from that. I don’t know if you’re interested in taking a job around here, but I’d be careful when walking outside the city if I were you. You probably look like a good target, whether you actually are or not.”

“Thank you for the information.”

I decided to check out the job at the Adventurer’s Guild.