The Slime King’s Dilemma

Wawalde, sword raised, ventured first into the secret passage.

Sovenia followed, a massive black leather backpack weighing heavily on her slender back, its bottom nearly brushing the hollow of her thighs.

This forced her into an awkward gait, resembling an upright snail burdened by an excessively heavy shell.

‘What a frail elven form,’ she mused.

Still carrying the backpack prepared for Jimi the Cruel, Sovenia continued to trail behind Wawalde.

The secret passage was not long, and they emerged from it swiftly.

The exit opened into a wide corridor, where skull-shaped candelabras adorned one wall, casting a dim, flickering light.

The opposite wall featured a collapsed breach, revealing a bottomless, dark chasm below.

Sovenia closed her eyes, sensing the direction of her head; a surge of energy emanated from the dark chasm—the very direction where her head lay.

Concurrently, a stench akin to kitchen refuse wafted up from the chasm’s opening.

“Is there more space beneath the Demon Queen’s hall?” inquired Wawalde, the Hero.

‘Of course, that’s where the Demon Queen’s refuse is handled,’ Sovenia thought.

‘It’s teeming with slimes down there, specially bred to consume waste,’ she mused internally.

Several drops of viscous liquid dripped from the ceiling, landing on the flagstones before Wawalde with a soft ‘plop.’

He halted, his gaze rising upward.

Within the ceiling’s shadows, three or four green gelatinous masses, each the size of an ox, writhed incessantly, their surfaces gleaming with an oily sheen.

Upon realizing they were observed, they detached from the ceiling, plummeting to the ground like several heavy waterskins, splattering rings of green slime upon impact.

Devoid of fixed form, they merely extended pseudopods, surging towards the two individuals.

Wawalde instantly spun around, shielding Sovenia behind him, his scorched longsword pointed forward.

“Be careful!” he warned. “Get back! These slimy demons are not to be trifled with; don’t let them touch you.”

‘Humans classifying such low-tier monsters as ‘demons’ truly speaks to their poor taxonomy,’ Sovenia thought, a hint of disdain in her mental voice.

Sovenia peeked out from behind him, observing the slimes, then Wawalde’s grim, battle-ready expression.

‘It’s truly perplexing,’ she mused.

‘How can he, who severed my royal head, assume such a grave posture when faced with a mere few slimes?’

Wawalde crouched, pushing off with his feet, instantly closing a four-meter distance. His longsword carved a fierce arc through the air, cleaving into the large slime with a whistling rush, its blade sinking deep into the gelatinous mass, splitting it in two.

A wet, tearing ‘splorch—!’ echoed.

The large slime, far from dying, merely split into two medium-sized slimes.

They swayed, rapidly regaining their motility, then converged on Wawalde from left and right.

Concurrently, the other large slimes extended corrosive pseudopods, lashing out at Wawalde’s body like viscous tentacles.

Wawalde’s combat prowess was undeniably masterful. He sidestepped a large slime’s lunge, simultaneously bringing his sword around in a backhand stroke to cleave both the attacking pseudopod and the slime itself in two. The large slime, once again, split and joined the assault on Wawalde.

The slimes were endlessly cut apart, only to split into ever smaller individuals, their numbers multiplying rather than diminishing.

Before long, the formidable Human Hero Wawalde began to show signs of injury.

A pseudopod lashed out, striking his calf. He grunted, his movements faltering for a crucial instant, and was immediately encircled by several medium-sized slimes.

He continued his undignified ‘swim’ through the sea of slimes.

Sovenia stood behind him, observing the spectacle with an unreadable expression.

The thought that *this* was the individual who had severed her head filled her with a profound sense of indignity.

She unshouldered her massive backpack, unzipped it, and after a brief rummage, produced a full bag of coarse salt.

Just then, a medium-sized slime sprang from the side wall, leaping over the embattled Hero like a green cannonball, hurtling directly towards Sovenia’s head.

“Look out!”

Wawalde whirled around. Ignoring the surrounding pseudopods, he brutally shouldered aside a slime, forcibly breaking free from the engagement. This earned him several opportunistic attacks, yet he spun back, charging towards Sovenia.

“Holy Severance!”

He bellowed, his longsword glowing with a soft white light, and unleashed a full-powered strike at the airborne slime.

It was the first time in this battle he had expended his precious magic on such a costly technique.

The sword light flashed, and the medium-sized slime, struck mid-air as if by a colossal pillar, saw part of its body dissipate, while the remainder fragmented into three pieces.

These three smaller slimes landed before Sovenia, writhing, poised to reform and pounce on her once more.

Sovenia, unhurried, tore open the salt packet and scattered the coarse grains over them.

“Scree—!!!”

A piercing shriek rent the air as the three gelatinous masses violently writhed and bubbled, as though doused with potent acid, spewing forth copious white foam.

Within mere seconds, they completely dissolved into steaming puddles of green liquid, leaving behind damp stains on the flagstones.

Wawalde rushed to Sovenia’s side, staring at the liquid on the ground, his voice filled with astonishment.

“You just… solved it? With salt? My gods, I never knew they were vulnerable to that.”

By then, the remaining slimes had caught up, once again encircling Wawalde.

“Do you have more salt? Quickly, scatter it on them!” Wawalde urged. “I can’t afford to waste Holy Severance on these creatures.”

“Don’t rush, scattering it now would be useless,” Sovenia calmly stated. “You attack first, cut them apart, and I’ll seize the tactical moment.”

Though puzzled, Wawalde faithfully swung his longsword once more, cleaving a large slime in half. The two halves landed, writhing as they began to reform into new slimes.

Sovenia flung a handful of salt.

Another piercing shriek erupted, and the two slime masses, following in their companions’ wake, dissolved into puddles of liquid.

The ensuing combat became remarkably straightforward. Wawalde focused on cleaving with his sword, while Sovenia scattered salt.

Before long, the slimes were utterly annihilated.

Wawalde surveyed the liquid-strewn ground, his disbelief palpable.

“I can’t believe it,” he murmured. “These troublesome creatures usually require several spells from a mage in the party to resolve.”

“How did you deal with them before?” Sovenia inquired.

Wawalde explained:

“A mage would cast Haste on me or Conan… a barbarian warrior. We’d then hack at them with blade and sword until they could no longer split. It was time-consuming, but it conserved magic.”

‘So this is how the top-tier human warrior parties dealt with such feeble monsters?’ Sovenia mused, a note of incredulity in her thoughts.

“I’m surprised you didn’t even know this,” Sovenia remarked.

“That doesn’t add up,” Wawalde countered, a frown deepening on his face. “Our scholars experimented with live slimes; they must have tried salt, but it never had any effect. How is it that you managed this?”

“Because they have a skin,” Sovenia stated blandly. “You have to scatter the salt when they’ve just split open, before their new skin has fully formed. Alternatively, burning them with fire to remove their skin works too.”

Wawalde paused, taken aback. “That’s it?” he uttered, dumbfounded.

“Slimes are inherently weak creatures.”

“You know so much, far more than our scholars,” Wawalde said, his tone genuinely sincere. “But… didn’t you say you’d forgotten many things?”

Sovenia’s heart skipped a beat. Her gaze flickered to Wawalde’s longsword; she certainly couldn’t afford to have her head separated from her body, splitting into two elves.

‘Lying is truly far more exhausting and difficult than having one’s head chopped off,’ she thought, a wry observation.

Her face, however, remained impassive. Her golden eyes shifted away, evading Wawalde’s gaze, and she reiterated, “I don’t know.” (She still hadn’t conjured a suitable lie.)

Having spoken, she crouched down, her eyes unfocused as she stared at the puddles of liquid. Her silver hair cascaded over her shoulders, obscuring her profile.

The light from the skull candelabras cast flickering shadows upon her, and the massive backpack resting beside her only accentuated her slender form.

Crouching there, she seemed like a lost child, starkly out of place within the grim, decaying halls of the Demon Queen’s abode.

Wawalde observed her delicate profile, a wave of pity washing over him.

‘She must be reliving past nightmares,’ he thought. ‘What exactly did that scoundrel Jimi the Cruel do to her?’

In truth, Sovenia’s seemingly unfocused eyes were actually fixed upon three grey cards, visible only to her.

[Slime Mucus]: Cost 1. Add one Slime Mucus card to your deck. Consume this card to use one cost.

[Weak Regeneration]: Cost 1. If at least 1% damage is sustained during combat, restore 2% of health after the battle.

[Pseudopod Attack]: Cost 1. Your attack will inflict the target with Slime Mucus once.

‘All trash,’ she dismissed with a glance, her interest waning instantly.

This was her unique ability: by personally slaying specific creatures, she could acquire random cards.

As for who could drop cards…

Her gaze lifted, settling on Wawalde before her. Above his head, a golden card hovered, its face emblazoned with a question mark.

‘A Gold Card,’ she thought. ‘If I kill him, I can choose one top-tier Gold Card from three random options.’

Gold Cards were crucial for power enhancement. During her assassination attempt on the Demon Queen, she had unleashed the terrifying ‘Incineration’ thanks to a Gold Card that multiplied her strength.

Sovenia had long harbored a plan: once this foolish hound was battered and bruised, his usefulness exhausted, she would personally betray and slay him, thereby acquiring a Gold Card to further augment her power.

Noticing her prolonged stillness, Wawalde assumed she was still lost in sorrowful memories.

He stepped closer, his voice softening considerably.

“Are you alright?” he asked with a gentle smile. “Are we ready to go?”

From the maw of the vast chasm below, an unseen ripple of energy emanated.

Sovenia rose, confirming this was indeed the inevitable path to where her head resided.

‘There’s also a Slime King down there,’ she realized. ‘If I let that foolish dog go first, I could claim the kill and potentially get a good card.’

Pointing towards the gaping maw of the chasm, she rapidly spun her pre-meditated lie:

“I know the way. If we descend here, through the caverns below, there’s a shortcut to leave the Demon Queen’s hall. It’s quite safe, safer than other routes.”

Wawalde scratched his head, then winked at her. “You speak Demonic tongue quite authentically.”

Sovenia’s body stiffened.

‘Damn it! I subconsciously used Demonic tongue again!’

She quickly corrected herself, repeating the statement in Common.

“Wait, let me think…” Wawalde mused, producing a parchment map from seemingly nowhere. “I have a map here; let me take a look first.”

The moment Sovenia saw the parchment, she froze. This… this map was the “gift” she had anonymously sent to the Hero’s party when she was Jimi the Cruel, to facilitate their assassination of the Demon Queen and create an opportunity for herself.

Wawalde unfurled the map, scrutinizing it carefully by the torchlight. His finger traced a path across the parchment, then pointed towards the corridor’s sole exit.

“See here, the map indicates that going straight ahead is the shortcut,” Wawalde explained, gesturing forward. “That hole down there… the map labels it ‘Garbage Dump’ and even depicts a crowned slime. It seems quite dangerous. Let’s just proceed straight, Miss Sovenia.”

Sovenia felt a headache brewing. ‘The pit I dug myself has now buried me,’ she thought with exasperation.

She absolutely had to persuade him to take the lower path. If they wasted time, she might be stuck as an elven woman for life—a terrifying prospect. Moreover, there was a Slime King down there that could be used to weaken Wawalde.

Wawalde, having folded the map, turned, ready to depart.

“Ready? Let’s go.”

‘What now? How can I make him change his mind? What lie can I possibly concoct? This is so difficult!’

‘Ah, right, I can listen to his thoughts.’

Sovenia suddenly stepped forward, and before Wawalde could take another stride, she extended both hands and tightly clasped his.

Wawalde halted. He looked down at Sovenia; he was very tall, taller than Sovenia had imagined, and she had to tilt her head slightly to see his face, half-scorched by burns.

This made Sovenia, who was accustomed to looking down on frail humans, quite uncomfortable, and at that moment, Wawalde’s thoughts flooded into her.