Adventure King (R-18)

It dawned on me that the 'water' here was actually the coalescence of hundreds of slimes, their transparent cores glinting subtly in the strong morning sunlight. Of course I knew about slimes, but even so I never fully appreciating just how convincing their camouflage could be, or just how quick they moved. 

Nate picked up the core of the one he had slain, before pointing towards Art, one of the twins who had brought spears.

"We're going to try clearing out this pond here. Let's see if we can do it before sundown. Art come here, you have a spear so you'll be the first to try it. " Motioning for him to come closer. 

"Aim your spear at the core while you approach, slimes are simple-minded and will always follow when you get too close. Move back when it attacks and jab it."

Art nodded before stepping forward, seeming eager to hunt his first monster. 

He readied his spear and inched closer to the pool, waiting for the slime to react. 

The water rippled up like a fountain, trying to grab at the spear and impaling itself in the process. The water-like goo dissolving into actual water the moment its core was pierced. Nate let Art keep the core of the slime he had killed, seemingly not all that interested in the item despite knowing its value. 

Next he called up the other twin, Sebast, having him repeat the earlier demonstration. Luring a slime up from the water and killing it in a bout of repeated stabbing. 

Nate motioned to me, it looks like I was was next up.

I began to unsheathe the sword I had brought, before he stopped me. 

"You have a weapon, but it's not the best for the task. The reach is too short for a beginner and puts you in greater danger, try using this and see how you do. If you feel more comfortable with a sword and want to switch afterwards, that's fine as well." 

Nate handed me his spear, and urged me towards the slime-pond. 

I felt more comfortable with a sword than a spear, but I was somewhat excited at the prospect of trying out such an expensive weapon. 

Focusing in on a single slime-core, I moved towards the water anticipating the moment it tried to lunge at me. The water seemed to erupt like an explosion as the slime shot out at me with its formless body. I almost couldn't react in time, even though I was ready for it. The wall of slime-water rose up around me and impaled itself on the spear, stopping its momentum and allowing me the opportunity to pull the spear again and stab at the core. The core was truly like jelly inside a shell of more jelly and moved ever so slightly from the application of force, even so my fear started to abate quickly, the force exerted by the slime onto the spear was surprisingly little and it seemed these creatures likely posed minimal threat outside of surprise attacks. 

Regaining my composure, I found the core with the spear and pierced through it. A bright light washing over me with the voice of an old man echoing directly in my mind with a cheerful voice. 

"Congratulations, summoned hero. You have taken your first step in the world, and are now level one."

I froze in place, trying to comprehend what exactly had just occurred. What was that light, what is that voice?

Looking back at the group, they seemed incredibly nonchalant about the whole thing. Could they not see what happened? Did they not hear the voice?

Seeing my shocked state Nate looked at me with sympathy, patting me on the shoulder for reassurance. 

"Don't feel too down, it's fairly common for new adventurers to freeze up like this. All in all, you did pretty well, just take it slow and you'll get used to it in no time. We'll have multiple opportunities today to practice."

They thought I was afraid from fighting the slime. 

Okay. This confirms it, they really didn't notice what happened. But what exactly was that? I thought to myself while pulling the core off the spear and thanking Nate for his consideration.

The archers went next, Nate lent them his spear to use like he did for me and I watched them struggle as I pondered over the current situation. 

This probably had something to do with the letters I could see in mirrors. Some part of me seemed to understand this intuitively, though I wasn't exactly sure why. 

The slime killing process repeated until it my turn came up again, I killed a slime collected my core, sat back down and made small talk with the other boys. We continued this until lunch, which by then I had five cores in my bag, considering they were a common alchemical good and would fetch a copper each, this was indeed a good outing for me. Munching on some jerky I had brought along, I was feeling pretty happy about the way today was going. 

The four boy were wanting to form up a team and continue these types of outings in the future together, and seeing how well we seemed to be doing I agreed that it was a good idea. The guild encouraged cooperation and my intention for coming to this event in the first place was to find a party to join. We continued our slime hunt after lunch, which was starting to become tedious once we got a hang of how to deal with the slimes efficiently. Nate still made us hunt one at a time, so that he could intervene should anything happen. 

Later in the afternoon, on my tenth or so slime, the phenomenon from earlier happened again. A rush of light filled my vision and the voice of the mysterious elderly man spoke into my mind again.