The Slime

Preparations for the arrival of the giant slime began immediately, every pair of hands in the village switched all their attention towards creating the lye that would be necessary to kill the monster.

The men went out in shifts to chop down as much lumber from the surrounding woods as possible. They would need vast quantities of hardwood to create the lye. Rudolph led this team, the swing of his ax was so strong that it could fell any tree in only a few strikes, impressing everybody who witnessed him.

The women, along with the other men who aren’t on lumber shift, would stay back in the village and work on converting all that wood into the substance they sought after.

They all worked together in a coordinated manner, like a modern factory or assembly line. Many of the villagers were already well-versed in the production of lye, so Haruki didn’t need to tell them twice what to do.

First, the wood would be burned in large fires until it was ash, which was then set aside and allowed to cool. The wood ash would then be piled into barrels with a straw filter and small holes at the bottom, and water would be poured in. The water would slowly seep through and be collected below the barrel in a container. This liquid would repeat the filtration process several more times, until all the blackened impurities were removed. The golden-brown liquid that was left was the lye water, and would be simmered down over a flame until it was reduced to a powder.

This is how the lye was made, but Haruki wanted to go one step beyond that: turning the lye into potassium hydroxide. A really strong base like this would be needed in order to counteract the highly corrosive acid in the slime’s body.

However, Haruki was no chemist. Although he’d done somewhat well in the one college chemistry class he took, he didn’t know how to make this substance for himself. He only remembered the simple chemical formula: KOH.

This is where Lillianna’s magic played its role.

The process of using Lillianna’s magic to turn lye into potassium hydroxide was a difficult one, taking a lot of trial and error to finally get right. The lye already contained most of the molecules necessary, it just needed the extra hydrogen. However, the true names that Lillianna’s magic worked with weren’t anything like chemical formulas, so Haruki had to educate her about each of the molecules in terms of their properties.

He described to her how hydrogen was an invisible gas that is lighter than air, and most importantly that it combines with the oxygen in the air to make water. This last detail was what finally enabled her to understand the idea of hydrogen.

“So it’s just water minus the air, you should have told me that to begin with!”

“Yeah, more or less,” Haruki replied. Although that’s a massive over-simplification.

Nevertheless, it somehow worked for Lillianna. She finally became able to change lye into the much stronger potassium hydroxide.

Using magic to transmute chemicals… now I really feel like an alchemist, Haruki thought to himself.

She couldn’t hold the alkalines directly when changing them though, or else she’d risk getting severe caustic burns. She had to hold them in buckets, transforming them indirectly. These were seriously dangerous materials, but anything less wouldn’t be enough for the enemy they were facing.

Upon attaining the bases Haruki needed for his plan, they started preparing the grounds around the perimeter of the village for the attack.

They mixed the potassium hydroxide with fertilizer and spread it in intervals around the village, spacing it out roughly every 10 meters, so that the slime wouldn’t be able to fit through the gaps.

They created two concentric circles around the village in this manner, so that if they’re lucky it would get the sense not to continue any further after passing over the first line.

Haruki hoped this would be enough to at least deter the creature from entering the village, but considering its reported size he wasn’t certain.

However, merely deterring the creature from entering the village was only half of Haruki’s strategy, he would not be satisfied with only playing the defensive. He was intent on killing the beast, so that it could no longer threaten their village or anybody else.

***

By late July, reports of the giant slime being spotted in nearby areas reached Haruki’s ears. Some of the villagers proposed fleeing, but Johannes made them understand that no other place around was as safe as their little village.

Finally, on a humid Thursday morning they heard that fateful sound. A steady rumbling noise arose from off in the distance, growing in size and intensity until the ground itself began to shake.

The men in the forest quickly scurried back within the perimeter.

“It’s coming!!” Rudolph screamed, his voice echoed across the entire village, alerting everyone.

Those who weren’t going to participate directly in the battle fled back into their homes to hide, but even in their cellars they knew they wouldn’t be any safer.

Haruki, Lillianna, Johannes, and Rudolph stood at the very edge of the village, facing the direction the quakes were coming from.

They heard the loud crashing of trees off in the distant forest, and then they saw it: above the tree line appeared the dome of a massive transparent blue blob. It was now over fifteen meters in height, even larger than the previous reports. It had clearly been eating well.

The demon crashed through the trees, sucking them into its body like a vacuum, where they quickly disappeared.

It entered the outermost fields, making its way towards the village.

Unfortunately, not all the crops can be saved. There will have to be some sacrifices, Haruki thought.

The enormous blob rolled its way towards the four of them, charging straight for a head-on collision.

They all stood there facing the monster, it was now within a distance where they could no longer run from it even if they wanted to. Its gargantuan size loomed over them. If their barrier doesn’t work, in only a few seconds they will all be annihilated.