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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Vine
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I ran with all my might, using my sturdy legs that the slime lacked.
“Hey, what are you doing! Don’t just stand there, hurry up and come here!”
I commanded Luna and Yui, who were staring blankly at me.
Luna managed to follow me somehow, but Yui, a born shut-in mage, seemed to be struggling quite a bit.
“W-wait! Let’s go together…!”
The King Slime, watching us from behind, once again spat out acid as if spitting.
“Haha! You ~fool~! Do you think I’d get hit by the same attack twice!”
-Splat.
“?”
A strange sound was heard.
The acid, which should have melted with a sizzling sound like before, made a viscous, slime-like sound instead of melting.
When I looked closely, it had split its body and shot it.
“It wasn’t the same attack.”
They said it was intelligent, and it is indeed the most intelligent monster I’ve seen, after the vampire.
The slime group that flew ahead of us blocked our path.
“Luna!”
Luna unleashed wind magic in the direction we were heading.
Instead of the focused attack I’d seen before, she wildly swung the wind as if to blow away any obstacles in front of us.
Thanks to that, the path was temporarily cleared.
If we just get past there, we’ll be out of the King Slime’s range.
“Huff… Wait a minute…”
Yui, with her poor stamina, started panting.
With no other choice, I simply picked her up with one hand and carried her under my arm.
“H-hiik…!”
But maybe because she’s so thin, she was lighter than the greatsword I was wielding.
With a little exaggeration, if I increased my strength stat a bit more, I could probably lift her with just my pinky finger.
Thus, we escaped from the place where the King Slime was, back to the border between the forest and the field, the place where we got off the carriage.
“Um… Luke. It might be a bit late, but since the situation has already happened, I’m going to ask now…”
“What is it?”
“Why did you run away━━.”
“Strategic retreat.”
“…Why did you make a strategic retreat? You’ve never done this before.”
Well, that’s true.
But back then, there was no need to do so.
This time, a retreat was necessary.
“Can you two take that thing down with just your magic?”
“…It would be difficult.”
“I… I don’t think it’s possible…”
See.
Then why ask why I retreated?
“Luna. No matter how much of a manly man I am, I don’t hunt without a brain.”
If I were to swing my sword at a guy who obviously looks like he wouldn’t take physical damage.
We have a social agreement to call that not a manly man, but a reckless fool.
And I’m a manly man, not a reckless fool, so of course, I made a rational choice.
“What you’re thinking of is a reckless fool, and I’m a manly man, okay?”
“…What’s the difference?”
“A reckless fool is stupid, and a manly man is smart. And I’m a manly man. Got it?”
“…”
“Do you understand?”
“…Yes.”
There’s a famous saying from a renowned general on the Earth I lived on.
If you seek death, you shall live; if you seek life, you shall die.
In my brilliant mind, I think that’s all bullshit.
Then did he die because he sought life?
If you seek death, you die; what’s this about living?
If you really had to seek death to live, everyone in the world would have slash marks on their hands and rope marks around their necks.
Because that’s the only way they could live.
The real strategy is to retreat and come up with a plan when you think you can’t win.
Not some weird self-hypnosis like ‘We can win!’ and going on a suicide mission.
‘Then what should I do now…?’
We don’t have a mage who can use explosion magic, nor do we have a Riche who is good at wide-range ice magic.
But that slime moves slowly, and judging by the fact that it hasn’t followed us here, it doesn’t seem to come out of the field. Do we really need to fight it the hard way?
‘In that case…?’
I took out an axe from my inventory.
“Here, take this.”
“”…?””
When I handed the axes to Luna and Yui, they looked at me with puzzled expressions.
“Don’t you know what an axe is? An axe. A tool used to cut down trees.”
“No… It’s not that we don’t know, but we’re wondering why we need this…”
“Go chop some wood. I need to start a fire.”
“Are you planning to hunt by setting the trees on fire…?”
“Are you a caveman?”
I frowned.
Even cavemen who discovered fire for the first time wouldn’t use such a stupid method.
“Then why the wood…?”
“To eat.”
“Here…?”
“Yeah.”
“Right now…?”
“Yeah.”
Is eating such a crazy thing to stare at like that?
My stomach is about to stick to my back.
Even the best scenery is enjoyed after a meal.
It’s way past lunchtime, so let’s eat first since I’m hungry.
We’re doing all this to survive, so we can’t be hungry.
We can hunt while eating, or we can do it after eating; it won’t be too late.
“Bring back logs, not small branches, so I can place the iron plate we got in the morning.”
I’ll heat the iron plate and grill the meat I bought on the way here.
We each went our separate ways to cut down trees for lunch.
We each used the most efficient method for ourselves to cut down trees.
Luna used wind magic, and Yui used blood magic to create axes.
As for me, one swing of my greatsword and a tree falls.
Everyone had already thrown their axes to the ground long ago.
We cut down all the nearby logs, laid them out on the ground, poured oil, and lit them on fire.
Normally, logs don’t catch fire easily, but we have someone who’s very good at supplying oxygen to fire.
“Luna.”
“Yes.”
When she created a strong gust of wind, the small spark quickly spread and burned the entire log.
On top of it, I placed the large iron plate, 4m in diameter, that we brought today.
How many people in the world could carry this huge thing around?
I can say with certainty, none.
It clearly shows the advantages of the inventory that the author thoughtlessly set as F-rank.
On the moderately heated iron plate, I grilled the meat I bought in the morning from my inventory.
-Sizzle.
It’s the same sound as the slime’s acid melting something, but the sound of grilling meat is so much better.
“…I’m questioning whether this is the right thing to do during a hunt.”
“M-me too…”
“What’s wrong with eating? It’s already past lunchtime.”
There are always those who complain even though they’ll eat it anyway.
“Anyway, eat a lot. So you’ll have energy after eating.”
“…Yes.”
“Yes…”
***
“Burp.”
Oh, I’m full.
When you’re full, your motivation and strength increase.
“Shall we start now?”
Creak, I got up from my seat, making an old man sound.
Luna and Yui followed suit and got up.
If I turn my gaze slightly, I can see the King Slime, still in the same spot.
“Do you have a plan in mind?”
“I’ll use this to catch it.”
Ting, ting, I flicked the iron plate with my finger.
“Wasn’t this for eating…?”
“Who would carry around something this unnecessarily large just to eat?”
Of course, I asked for it to be made for hunting.
I had roughly planned how to hunt it when I saw the King Slime’s description.
Actually, one of the methods I considered was making an iron ball instead of a plate, heating it up, and throwing it.
Throwing a round iron ball is technically a form of impact, and if you watch YouTube, you see things like ‘I put a 1,000-degree iron ball on ice,’ and it melts instantly.
The reason I didn’t do that was because it seemed like it wouldn’t work in one go, and it would be a hassle.
How many of those large, heated iron balls would I have to throw to melt it?
I can’t do such bothersome things.
And the iron plate might not actually be 1,000 degrees, but it should be hot enough to instantly evaporate liquid.
It’s been heating up the whole time we were eating.
“Yui, you said slimes were strong, right?”
“Yes! At least according to the information I know.”
Bullshit.
Slimes are strong?
Today, I’ll show you why slimes are trash.
“I’ll tell you your roles. Luna, you make a foothold, as strong as possible. Yui, you can use all your magic, just make sure that slime can’t move.”
“Alright.”
“Yes! I’ll do my best!”
“Good. Let’s start right away.”
I put the iron plate back in my inventory.
From now on, it’s a race against time.
Heated iron cools down surprisingly quickly.
So, I have to finish the hunt before it cools down.
I urged my idle legs and sprinted towards the slime with all my might.
“Luna!”
As I called out to Luna, she immediately created a foothold made of wind in front of me.
A foothold that, when you jump on it in a game, makes you jump higher.
As it was filled with magic, the effect was immediate.
“Uooooooooh━━!?”
No matter when I feel it, flying in the sky is quite a pleasant feeling.
The wind is cool, and my body feels light.
The biggest problem was the lack of safety measures.
“Yui!”
Next up was Yui.
As I told her beforehand that she could use all her magic, the scale of the magic Yui used was enormous.
Blood quickly filled the ground, and then spikes rose up, blocking the slime’s movement.
Now it’s just me left.
I took out the iron plate I had put in my inventory and placed it under my feet.
Iron is weak against acid.
If it were made of ordinary iron, it would corrode and melt instantly.
But Iron Golems, although called iron, are actually monsters, not real iron, and are made of something stronger than iron.
After all, the Iron Golem itself is said to be a monster in the late C-rank, so it’s either stronger than or equal to the King Slime.
Since it’s made from such a monster’s material, it won’t melt easily.
“It’s an iron plateeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
There’s no need to exert force. No need to add weight. Gravity will take care of it.
Wriggle, sensing danger, the slime tried to escape desperately.
It tried to split at the last minute, shooting its split body in all directions, and moved its slow body to try to avoid it even a little.
However,
“Too slow!!!!! Escape is impossible!!!!!!”
Because Yui was blocking it well, the escape was in vain.
-Sizzleeeeeeee!!!!!!!
As the iron plate touched the slime’s body, smoke from the evaporation rose, and the slime’s body began to shrink.
It looked like pressing down on a hotteok with a press.
Standing on the iron plate, I felt it sinking, and I could see the smoke gradually clearing.
[ Level Up! Check your status! ]
[ Level Up! Check your status! ]
[ Level Up! Check your status! ]
[ Level Up! Check your… ]
As my field of vision got closer to the ground.
The level-up notification popped up, and I realized that the hunt was over.
‘It’s too anticlimactic… ‘
Well, I didn’t expect anything great from the beginning.
A slime is still a slime, after all.
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ROAD ROLLER DA!