By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 10

Chapter 6 Episode 10: April Showers Bring May Flowers

The next morning, I awoke to the sensation of the crisp, morning air.

“Good morning,” I called as I walked up to the sink.

“Good morning, Ryoma.”

“You’re up, I see. That was quite a fiasco yesterday.”

Kai and Kei were there to greet me, also getting ready.

Naturally, we were still talking about what happened last night. After I left Nikki’s secret lair, things went off rather smoothly. Nikki came right out after me, and even though he seemed to become tenser as we got closer to the village, he didn’t run off again. It helped a lot that Thane and Kei had hurried back to the village as I was coming out of the lair, bringing the news to the whole village that Nikki was safe. Well, except for the part where his father tried to smack him upside the head as soon as we returned to the plaza, the whole thing went off without a hitch. They were able to just talk it out.

“How’s your face doing, Ryoma?”

“I’ll live. Nothing serious.”

“Good. We were all surprised when you dove between them.”

“Right. I know you said you promised to keep Nikki from being hit, but still...”

“Well... Seeing how worried his father was, I didn’t want to just pin him down or anything.”

“Did you have to stop his fist with your face, though?”

I could only laugh in response to that. We were simply happy that Nikki was safe.

We finished getting ready and had breakfast before heading out into the streets in the pre-dawn dark once more. On our way to the shore, I spotted a face I had become familiar with.

“Wait, isn’t that Nikki and his parents over there?” I asked.

“That’s them.”

“What are they doing out here?”

The family seemed to spot us and gave us a big wave as they approached.

“Good morning, Slime Guy!”

“Good morning, Nikki.” I greeted his parents as well.

“Thank you so much for finding our boy last night,” his mother said. “We never got the chance to thank you properly.”

“Well, it was pitch-dark by the time we came back,” Kai said.

Kei chimed in as well. “We did get held up with all that talking.”

Nikki’s father faced me. “Doesn’t matter. I got to thank you face to face.”

“So that’s why you’re here... Well, thank you,” I answered.

“Why are you thanking them?” Kai interjected and we shared a small laugh.

“Guess what, Slime Guy? I’m going to work at the processing station, starting today.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“He kept the whole village worried yesterday, so we’re going to have him help there in the mornings for a while as punishment and a token of apology,” his mother explained.

“We were waiting for him to grow a little bigger, but he’s apparently got too much energy. He can handle water duty, at least.”

“Now that’s one heck of a punishment, Nikki,” Kai remarked.

“Why’s that?”

Kei explained, “It’s just getting water from the well, but they use a lot of water every day, so we’re talking a lot more than a few hundred trips. The grownups work water duty too, and they take turns. It’s hard labor so most kids are a bit older than Nikki when they start.”

“I see... You got this, Nikki.”

“You too, Slime Guy!”

We smiled at each other, and the group turned to the shore. Nikki held his parents’ hands along the way, excited for the morning ahead... Maybe they had more to talk about last night after we parted at the plaza.

■ ■ ■

“See you later, Slime Guy! Won’t you teach me about slimes after work?!”

“You got it. See you later.”

Once we reached the shore, the team and I waved Nikki off and went to prepare for the hunt. Of course, all there was to prepare was to summon the slimes and station them. That’s why I wanted to be very thorough with it.

“First wave!” the leader called, and the crowd on the shore erupted into action as I was double-checking the slimes’ conditions around the processing station. “Wave,” of course, meant a horde of mad salamanders.

“Ready, Ryoma?!” Thane shouted above the crowd.

“We’re all set!”

“Let’s do this!” He took his position, and I hurried to mine.

With the processing station behind me, I looked over the slimes sprawled over the beach. They were quiet on the surface, but I could sense their excitement as they braced for battle.

I began to hear the fishermen’s call that informed me they had begun fighting the salamanders as they pulled in the seine.

I waited several minutes trying to steady my heartbeat.

Just as the first batch of fish was carried into the processing station, the first salamander came ashore.

“Here it comes!” Kei warned from his position at the edge of our team’s perimeter.

“I see it! If it breaks through, it’s all yours!”

The salamander darted straight across the beach towards the fishermen hauling the catch...when it suddenly flopped over. I couldn’t hear its cry, but it was clear from its violent thrashing that it was in agony.

“It worked,” I muttered. The first part of the defense plan was the line of iron and metal slime keeping the salamanders from passing. These slimes had that weakness of not being able to maneuver well on the sand. The solution was to keep them stationary. I had them stretch thin and hide under the sand like rays, telling them to form part of their body into a harpoon when a salamander steps on them.

It worked perfectly. The salamander stepped right onto a spearhead that wasn’t there a moment ago, and started thrashing to pull it out. The slime, however, pushed its appendage deeper into the wound, entangling itself around the creature and weighing it down.

The first salamander was slain without even reaching the spears of the poison slimes. In the meantime, ten or so salamanders that followed were now writhing on the beach, each ensnared by a metal or iron slime.

The leader of the adventurers approached me. “You almost feel sorry for them.”

“Good morning.”

“Just came to check on you, but it’s looking good.”

“More or less. The trapped salamanders will steadily grow weaker. If more keep coming, some of them will even get trampled.”

“It’s part of the plan if they climb over the fallen. And they’re going to mitigate any large waves with dark magic, right?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered. The leader stayed quiet for a few moments. “Is something on your mind?”

“Hm? I was just thinking, if this plan works well, we could manage with fewer adventurers here.”

Accordingly, this was not the only village attacked by mad salamanders this time of the year. Whenever there’s a surplus of fighters, the leader explained, he had to consider relocating some of them to other villages that were short-handed.

“If we have more than enough here, of course. We will never endanger the location we were assigned to first.”

“Makes sense.”

No matter the job, payment demanded responsibility. I really wanted the slimes to do their best for my own betterment too.

“I’ll make a decision after I see how it goes this morning. Show me what you and your slimes can do.”

“Absolutely.”

As more fish were carried to the processing station, more and more salamanders assaulted the line. I saw the leader off and renewed my determination to make this a successful hunt.