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By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 13




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Chapter 6 Episode 13: A Glimpse at Infinite Possibilities

“Next up...” I was holding a large basket full of three types of fish that each resembled stingfish, pufferfish, and eel. Back in Japan, all these were considered delicacies.

“You said people don’t eat these around here?”

“They’re all poisonous, so it isn’t safe,” Nikki said.

“Can’t people just cut the poisonous bits off? I had fish like these in my hometown, and we could eat those.”

“Well... We’d only eat this one if the weather’s too poor to fish, or if we don’t catch anything else.” Nikki pointed at the eel-like creature. Apparently, these were a steady catch throughout the year, even now, and filled up most of the basket. “On top of the poison in its blood, it stinks, it’s full of bones... It’s gross. And it has parasites this time of the year... This one with stingers on its fins barely has enough meat on it to eat. As long as we can fish out on the lake, we get plenty of fish that actually taste good, so no one will eat any of these. Oh, and this one that blows up will kill you! Never eat this one!”

“I see...” I’d have loved to try and cook them, but I decided to hold off. I had parasites to consider too.

“We sort out the ones that get caught in nets, but it’s better not to fish anything we don’t eat. Dad says the fishermen don’t like fishing them out of the lake.”

“Really... My slimes are loving them.” Specifically, the poison, medicine, and the one bloody slime that had reacted to the parasites. I was going to chalk it up to them reacting to the poison and parasites, when I noticed something.

“What’s up, Slime Guy?”

One of the poison slimes was showing particular interest in the stingfish-like catch out of the three. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was only eating the stingers on the fish’s fins!

“Stingers, huh... I’ll have to think about that later. What’s next?”

“Uh... We have shellfish. Some are poisonous, some aren’t.”

“Let’s start with the poisonous ones.” Both the poison and medicine slimes recognized it as food, but nothing more, unfortunately.

“And the edible ones?”

“Sorry, these are empty... They already ate everything inside.”

“Oh, well. We did ask for trash. Looks like we already have a few bites.”

“What?”

A few acid slimes had already nuzzled up against Nikki, still holding the bucket full of shells. He began giving them some of the shells, and the slimes happily ingested them, slowly dissolving the shells into tiny bubbles. There was a chance that the acid slimes could evolve through eating shells. One of them, in fact, had been asking for eggs every morning... Would it evolve into yet another species? Eggshell and seashells were both primarily made of calcium carbonate, but I’d need to keep a close eye on them.

“And now for the pièce de résistance... Crab.”

There were live crabs as well as crab shells, but the sticky slimes showed interest in both of them. “One for the shell, and one for... Guess I’d better keep an eye on them as well.”

“Next is the rest of the trash from the fishing nets.” Nikki brought me the basket just as I was about to ask for the next piece. “There’s waterweeds and algae in there.” He seemed to be getting a hang of things.

What a great assistant he was turning out to be... As expected, the weed slimes responded to these. I had already observed some of them reacting to water plants before. At the same time, some of them were also showing interest in the algae.

“And next up is this.”

“A tattered net, eh... Let’s see what happens... Oh? This is surprising.”

“What’s going on?”

“Hm... The sticky and metal slimes are coming up to it.”

I could kind of see the correlation between a net and how sticky slimes could spew string, but I wasn’t sure why the metal slimes were reacting...

Metal + net = ...a fence?

Perhaps I would have to wait for them to evolve to find out. In any case, this was something else to keep a watch on.

“Here’s the last two!” Nikki said, holding a pail in each hand. One was stuffed with sand, and the other with shattered pottery.

“Right, let’s see... The stone slimes like both, and I see a poison slime going for the sand.” The poison slime in question had been eating coal in addition to poison lately. Would it evolve into something that related to both coal and sand, or something else entirely...? I’d just have to wait and see.

With further examples of evolution, I could find commonalities and evolution conditions that were not based on their diet. I considered getting more poison slimes to look for other specimens that would eat coal... Then, I wondered if I should simply grow my slime population as much as possible.

Prior to all of this, I had good reason to aggressively multiply my stone slimes, so I decided to double down on that. Experimenting with their evolution was an important process to me. I was sure that I would reach some conclusion before they flattened the abandoned mines of Gimul...

“That’s all of it!” Nikki exclaimed.

“Oh, right. Now, let’s jot down the slimes that have a chance of evolving, and their diet. Item Box.”

“You got it!”

I produced a set of stationary, and wrote out the possible evolutions for each type of slime:

•    Sticky slime 

o    Crab slime

o    Crustacean slime

o    Net slime

•    Acid slime 

o    Shellfish slime

o    Stinger slime

•    Metal slime 

o    Fence slime

•    Bloody slime 

o    Parasite slime

•    Stone slime 

o    Sand slime

o    Porcelain slime

•    Weed slime 

o    Water grass slime

o    Algae slime

“That makes thirteen evolutions in all.”

“From just seven species of slime?” Nikki asked.

“These are just possible evolutions, but I didn’t expect to get so many in one day. Now that I have it all laid out, I can tell a lot of the food is exclusive to this location, like the fish and crabs. I can work with sand and porcelain, and even grow some water grass and algae in my Dimension Home, but stingers and parasites would have to be caught here in the wild...”

“Why don’t you just move to our village, Slime Guy?”

“I wish I could, but alas, I have other commitments...”

Even though I had mostly delegated the management of my shops to others, there was still some paperwork that required my approval, plus I needed to regularly patrol the abandoned mines.

I could send someone here to look after the slimes and report back to me, but Nikki was too young, and no one in Sikum’s Pier was a tamer... Maybe I could just build another branch in the village, and appoint Culkin or someone else to be in charge?

The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. I had just discovered numerous evolutionary possibilities in a new environment; it was highly likely that I would find more as I traveled to new locations, but I didn’t have the time to travel everywhere and conduct experiments on my own.

If I could just expand the laundry business, setting up branches in various locations and appointing tamers and researchers to conduct experiments with the slimes at those locations, I could keep up with my business and research at the same time... Note to self: discuss this with Carme when I get back.

“Pretty sure your hands are tied right now, Slime Guy.”

“I know, this is all in the future... Wait, was I thinking aloud?”

“And how. So, what’s next?”

“I’ll feed them these things while I’m here, and gather the non-perishables as much as I can before I leave. Other than that, I’ll wait and see.”

Slimes ate everything. If an item in their feed which could spark evolution were to run out, they’d just move onto something else. If they ended up evolving into a completely different species, that was no skin off my nose.

“It’s not like they’re going to starve; I’m in no hurry to make them evolve. Just gonna take it easy.”

“Okay. What do you want me to do next?”

“Well... I think we’ll have to call it a day.”

The processing station must have closed for the day, as I could see women flooding the plaza to pick up their children. Nikki would have to go home soon. Sure enough, we soon heard a voice calling.


“Nikki, let’s go home.”

“Mom!”

“Ryoma, thank you so much for keeping him company.”

“He’s a great assistant.”

“Mom, I helped take care of the slimes today! There’s so many different species!”

“Now that sounds like a fun day.”

“Sure was! Oh, Slime Guy. How long will it take for the slimes to evolve into the species you found out today? I want to watch them evolve!”

“Unfortunately, I think that’s going to take a few more months.” I’d have loved to show Nikki some slime evolutions during my stay, of course, especially after he went to all the trouble of helping me out, but those were the breaks.

“Okay... Can I help you take care of the slimes tomorrow?”

“Of course! It’d be a big help.”

“Sweet! See you tomorrow, Slime Guy!”

Nikki walked away, happily waving at me with his free hand as his mother led him home by the other.

■ ■ ■

That evening, my recollection of the day’s events was met with joyous laughter.

“And he asked to help you out tomorrow?”

“You’re becoming his best buddy, Ryoma.”

“All thanks to what happened yesterday, no doubt.”

Kei, May, and Kai seemed sure that I had earned Nikki’s admiration. I felt like I was just rambling about my hobby, but I was happy that he was opening up to me.

“Are you two going to collect more trash tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that should be the plan.”

“Can you take our trash too? You don’t mind, do you, dear?”

Her husband simply nodded as he set down his drink.

“That would be great, thank you. I think dinner’s about ready.”

Tonight, cooking was on me. As thanks to May and her mother for gathering up all that rice and other food for me, I had made yellowtail (or boneless fish, as they called it) with radishes—the perfect repast for a cold winter night.

“Here you are, eat up!” I moved the pot from the oven to the hearth, scooping a serving into everyone’s bowl, starting with Hoy.

The family began eating the dish with curiosity.

“Mm! That’s a lot of flavor.”

“You really softened up that hard root.”

Oh, right... I almost forgot.

“Try some of this with it,” I said, offering some shaved horice.

“Now this is different from putting it in soup.”

“Not bad...” Hoy finished the drink that had been poured for him. “Quite a nice pairing, I’d say.” He was getting louder and more energetic with every sip he threw back.

“You go ahead and eat too, Ryoma. We’re going to clear this out in no time.”

“I would imagine so.”

I started with the boneless fish that I had been curious about. True to its name, the fish had come out of the boil completely boneless. I took a bite to find the texture was strangely soft, but its flavor was smooth and tasty. Then I moved on to the radish, warm and calming in its aroma. It crumbled in my mouth, melting into a flavorful flood of seafood broth. I took another piece of the fish, this time with some horice; the pinch of spice really elevated the flavor.

At this point, I decided to crack open something special.

“Excuse me a moment... Item Box!”

“Is that a drink?”

“Yes. A gift from a dragonewt friend of mine.” It was a bottle of high-end daiginjo sake that I had been gifted by Asagi a while back. I’d held onto it, since it felt like a serious luxury, but if there was ever a time to open it, right now seemed to be the perfect opportunity.

I produced cups with the bottle, and took a sip. The clear, vivid taste flowed through me. This, combined with the incredibly flavorful radish, turned out to be...

“Delicious!” I exclaimed. “Though on a day like today, I bet it’d be even better served hot.”

I started a boiling pot of water on a magical stovetop. “Would you care to indulge with me?” I asked the table.

“Hey, I like the way ya think. Don’t mind if I do.”

“Take it easy, Kai.”

“For a kid, ya really seem to know your way ’round your liquor.”

“I was raised by a dwarf. And I’m blessed by the god of wine.”

“Blessed by the god of wine? Dang! Now it all makes sense... Right, why don’t you try this one until yours is ready? It’s nothing fancy, but it’s brewed locally.”

“Gladly.”

I took a small cup, one that resembled a traditional sake vessel, that was filled with a milky white liquid. It made me think of doburoku, one of the cloudy variants of sake. Upon tossing it back, I could taste the granulated ingredient mixed with a strong sweetness and the slightest hint of tartness; it was kind of like amazake. At the same time, there was a pinch of familiar bitterness.

“Is this made from grainspear grass?”

“It sure is. You know your stuff.”

“Wow... I’m a bit surprised you can make a drink from that.” It hadn’t come up in my appraisal, and I hadn’t thought of it after eating it all this time.

“You can’t just use raw grainspear. You need the grass that turns it into a spirit.”

“There’s such a thing, Kei?”

“Yeah. Grows practically everywhere.”

As he spoke, Kai headed to the door and threw it open, swooping down to grab a fistful of grass from the ground. He rushed back to the table. “Brr, it’s vicious out there! Here, this is it.”

It really did grow everywhere. It just looked like a patch of weed growing by the sidewalk... It wasn’t on my radar of knowledge of herbs and poisonous grass, anyway.

“It’s pretty much just a weed to us as well. It just so happens that it can make a good drink.”

“I wonder who came up with that idea...”

Could I grow this plant if I gave it to the weed slimes? Another experiment to keep in mind for my stay. If I could make alcohol from grainspear grass, it would actually be a lot of help to me. I would save money on feeding the drunk slimes, and I wouldn’t have to plan trips into town to procure the alcohol they need!

“Can anyone teach me how to make this?” I asked.

“You want to learn? I can show you tomorrow, if you like.”

“I didn’t know you could make that stuff, mom.”

“Come now, May. A woman’s got to know how to brew a good hooch.”

Accordingly, it was common practice for each household to brew their own “hooch,” and every woman learned how to do so before marriage. However, it took time and technique to make the drink right. As the village became wealthier, villagers began purchasing the drink from households that made it well.

“I haven’t made any in a while... This could be a good opportunity to pass down our secret family recipe.”

“You never told me we had a secret family recipe, mom.”

“If it’s any better than this one, we could have become the local ale house.”

“Ha! That ain’t sayin’ much, is it now!” Hoy roared, and the room filled with laughter again.

Amidst all the merriment, my sake was fully heated.

“Let’s keep the good vibes going! Here you are, Kai.”

“Thanks... Phew! Kei, this stuff is delicious. Have some.”

“Really? Then... Do you mind if I take a sip?”

“Go right ahead.”

We enjoyed a night of merry conversation, delicious boneless fish, radishes, and drinks. By the end of it all, our hearts and bodies were as warm as the air outside was cold. Satisfied that I was able to gather new feed for the slimes, I crawled into bed and drifted off to sleep in no time at all.



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