Slime Hunter!

If there was one word to describe the town of Paveil, it was unremarkable. There was nothing in particular that differed it from other settlements in the Kingdom of Avernore. It had a marketplace, a temple, some stores, some taverns, and a local branch of Adventurer’s Guild, where aspiring fighters, mages, and rogues looked to make a name for themselves before moving up to larger urban centers.

Of course, being relatively insignificant wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The town didn’t have to deal with bandits, rogue necromancers, or orc incursions. The biggest problem every spring was a slime infestation. As the temperature went up, and the rainstorms announced changing of the seasons, nature woke up from beneath the snowy curtain. And along with it, so did various elemental monsters.

Slimes, although classified as a lowest level threat, posed a serious danger to crops and local vegetation. Thus, every April, the Guild would offer extermination quests to whoever was willing to undertake them.

Our story begins with two twelve-year-old girls who undertook one such quest. Now they were bravely prowling the woods, their respective weapons at the ready, eager to prove their worth to the adults and kill as many pesky slimes as they could.

A white-haired girl in an expensive-looking frilly dress seemed to be the leader. Outgoing and brave, she casually swung a bamboo sword as if it was a formidable weapon, occasionally striking nearby bushes and trees; for what purpose, only she knew.

Her companion, a smaller girl with black hair and pointy ears, silently followed in her companion’s footsteps. Her gray robe, a wide-brimmed hat, and wooden quarterstaff left no doubt as to what her profession was. Nervously glancing left and right, and not paying much attention to what her friend was saying, one wouldn’t be wrong to assume that she was either shy or nervous….or perhaps she was actually formulating some kind of clever plan that would make their hunt easier?

Suddenly, she tripped on her own feet and fell face down into the shrubbery.

Alas, it often happens that clumsy absentmindedness is mistaken for wisdom.

“Ahaha, Agatha, you did it again! You’re a bigger danger to yourself than the slimes are!”

If they weren’t such good friends, these words would certainly seem rather cruel. But as thing stood, it was just some playful teasing, that the two of them often engaged in. With the smaller girl usually being on receiving end, that is.

But this time, she’d have none of it! Using her quarterstaff as a support, she slowly got back up, huffing and puffing and shaking her little fists comically, trying to think of an appropriate comeback.

“You...! You know, you’re too loud! The slimes are going to hear you from a mile away, and we will come back to the Guild empty-handed!”

“Ahaha, what are you even talking about? The slimes have no sense of hearing. Didn’t miss Tabi teach you at least that much?”

“S-shut up! I’m busy studying high-level monsters, it’s only natural I forgot about low-level trash like that!”

“Whoa! Our little Agatha learned to swear?”

The young magician couldn’t take it anymore and swung her staff at the source of her troubles. However, the dexterous warrior dodged the clumsy swing without trouble and quickly retreated beyond the range of further attacks.

“Hoh, you think you can just run? Did you forget I am a mage? I can just hit you with spells, you know?”

“What, that rainbow thing you shot instead of fireworks at the winter solstice festival?”

“Ha! As expected of a philistine such as yourself. It’s not a rainbow, but a dazzling spray! Any creature hit by it at no more than 3-meter range is going to blinded and confused for several minutes...”, after proclaiming that confidently, Agatha scratched her cheek, and whispered timidly “Or was it several dozen minutes?”

Just as Faith was preparing a devastating comeback of unseen proportions, eager to capitalize on this sudden and favorable display of self-doubt, the nearby bushes rustled menacingly.

“Who goes there?”

“Who’s there?”

The girls immediately forgot about their little quarrel and turned their attention to the source of the noise. And soon, a loud plopping sound thundered through the woods, and many more similar sounds soon joined it in a grotesque symphony.

“S-slimes?”

“Told you, they heard us!”

They were surrounded by several dozens of blue, green, red, and yellow jelly-like oval objects!

“W-what do we do?” asked Faith timidly, her former bravado but a faint memory. She kept glancing nervously at the slimes, and at Agatha, her wooden sword at the ready, but her hands shaking ever so slightly. As usually in unexpected situations, she relied on her sidekick’s judgment to get her out of trouble.

“First...”, started Agatha in a serious tone, “we need to figure out how they eat if they have no mouth.”

“....”

“I mean, just hit them and see what happens, I guess?”, added the magician girl hastily, just a bit embarrassed that her joke didn’t quite land. Perhaps the mood wasn’t right?

“O-ok..! Hiyaa!!”

And so, without further ado, Faith charged at the nearest opponent with a brave battlecry that would sound terrifying in mouth of a heavily-armored orc berserker, but was rather amusing when shouted with a high pitched voice of a prepubescent little girl.

*BOING*

Her sword bounced off the squishy surface of the jelly-like body, temporarily denting the slime, but failing to do any real damage. Soon enough, it reformed to its previous shape, and now its attention was fixed on Faith alone!

“W-what? Ahh!”

The creature’s vicious counter-attacked commenced! Several balls of colorful substance were shot at the perceived threat, and splattered with a loud plopping sound, staining her red-and-white dress in a rainbow of different colors.

“Uhh, disgusting...awawa..awawa...”, Faith kept repeating, going in circles and swinging her sword randomly at the air.

“Ah, for Goddess’s sake! She’s confused now!”

Agatha didn’t anticipate that. Status-alignment inflicting slimes were rare, and haven’t been seen in the area since she was a little. What could have brought them here now? And more importantly, how would she turn this situation around?