Becoming an Adventurer

"Mmph! Mmphh!"

Meruru thrashed wildly, her face buried in the giant blob of jelly.

The sight was so far beyond anything I could have imagined ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that I froze — then the thought that Meruru was in danger snapped me back to my senses.

"Meruru!"

I seized her shoulders from behind and threw myself backward, putting everything I had into peeling her off the jelly.

"Mmph—! Mmmphhh!"

It wasn't easy. Her arms and legs were flailing faster and more frantically by the second. She was clearly suffocating.

"Aaaargh—!"

I put every last ounce of strength I had into pulling her free. Bracing my feet against a nearby rock, I wrapped my arms around her from behind and hauled.

"Mmph—! Pwah—!"

"Meruru! Are you okay? Breathe! Breathe!"

"Hah… hah… heh… hehh…… M-Meruru thought she was going to die, so she did!"

Having finally pried her face off the giant jelly, I looked her over with concern. Fortunately, aside from nearly choking, she didn't seem hurt.

"What the hell is that thing?"

"What……?"

This thing is… a slime?

Weren't slimes supposed to be the staple hunting fare of Novice adventurers? The enormous Blue King Slime squatting in front of us looked dangerous no matter how I sliced it. Was the idea that slimes were pushover monsters for beginners only true in games?

Either way, one thing was certain: we needed to get away from that thing, and fast.

"Meruru! We need to run! Now!"

"B-but! There's a Daily Meat Party under that thing, so there is!"

So that was it. The Freya's Blessing was apparently buried in the ground beneath where the Blue King Slime had planted itself.

"Daily Meat Party or a meat waterfall — it won't do you any good if you're dead! Let's go!"

"O-okay, so it is!"

I grabbed Meruru's hand and plunged into the undergrowth, sprinting back the way we'd come.

We hadn't made it more than a few steps before another slime appeared in our path.

"What is that……?"

It was smaller than the Blue King Slime, but still roughly my size — a writhing mass of blue jelly blocking the way. I tried to veer around it, but every time I changed direction, another slime rose up ahead. We darted left, then right, hunting for any path that wasn't cut off, and before I knew it, dozens of Blue Slimes had closed into a ring around us.

"There's nowhere to run……."

I never thought it would come to this. By the time I took stock of the situation, we were completely surrounded. Translucent blue blobs of nauseating jelly had sealed off every escape route, and the circle was slowly tightening. They were herding us back toward the Blue King Slime.

There hadn't been a single one in sight just moments ago. Where had this many even come from?

"Yunoa! What should we do?! Those things are creepy, so they are!"

The slimes inched toward us, bodies undulating. Meruru cried out as she watched them close in. I swept the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠area, searching for any hole in the net. Slime to the left. Slime to the right. No matter how I looked at it, there wasn't a gap wide enough to slip through. And we couldn't just stand here and let them close the noose.

Right. They were slimes. Seeing them up close had filled me with dread, but from an adventurer's perspective, they shouldn't have been all that strong. The Blue King Slime was so enormous I couldn't even imagine how to fight it — but the Blue Slimes ringing us were another matter. Kubel wasn't far; at a dead sprint, we could make it. If we could punch through the slimes blocking the road back, we might still get away.

"Meruru! We're punching through the ones that way!"

I snatched a sturdy branch off the ground — something that looked like it would swing well — and charged the slime blocking the way to Kubel, putting everything I had into the blow.

Squelch. The branch sank about a hand's breadth into the slime's body. But there was no impact at all in the hand that had swung it. It didn't feel like I'd struck anything. It felt like the slime had seized the branch and refused to let go.

"Meruru will help too, so she will!"

That was when Meruru came charging in from behind, a rock clutched in her fist.

"Hey! Wait—!"

Splat! Before I could stop her, she brought the rock down on the slime.

"Kyaaah—! It feels weird, so it does!"

Her hand, rock and all, had sunk into the slime's body up to the wrist.

"Get it out of there!"

"Meruru's hand won't come out, so it won't!"

She wailed, her face crumpling. I tried to wrench my branch free, but instead of coming out, it snapped with a dry crack. Just like when Meruru's face had been swallowed by the Blue King Slime, these things grabbed whatever touched them and did not let go.

To make matters worse, other slimes were closing in from both sides of the one still clamped around Meruru's hand. She thrashed, trying to yank herself free — and planted a foot against the slime's body.

Shlunk.

"Gyaaaaah—! Meruru's foot got stuck too, so it did!"

Fully panicked, she clenched her remaining fist and punched the slime. That hand, of course, was sucked in as well. In the end, every limb but the one foot still on the ground had been caught.

"Hey! Stop moving!"

"Waaah-waaah-waaah!"

"Uraaaaagh—!"

Just as I had pulled her off the Blue King Slime, I wrapped my arms around her from behind and hauled with everything I had. Bit by bit, I felt her hands and feet begin to peel free. It was like trying to drag someone out of a thick, clinging bog.

I was straining to pull her out when something cold and squelchy brushed the back of my head. I glanced over my shoulder. Another Blue Slime had crept up close enough to touch me.

Slime to the side. Slime in front. Slime behind. A slime prison, through and through. At this point, even pulling Meruru free had lost all meaning. The slimes were closing in from every direction like the walls of a trap, slowly swallowing the two of us whole.

"Nnghhh! It won't come out, so it won't! Meruru can't move, so she can't!"

"Meruru…… I'm sorry."

No matter how hard I turned it over, I couldn't see a way out. I felt a slime slowly adhering to the back of my head and my spine. Meruru was a breath away from being swallowed by the ones pressing in from the front and both sides.

Is this where my life in another world ends?

Maybe I got too greedy.

Sensing the end, I pulled Meruru tight against me from behind and shut my eyes. The warmth of her body seeping through mine was a small comfort, at least.

I'm sorry, Meruru.

You never should have followed someone like me……

Shhk—!

That was when it happened. A sharp, slicing sound — and the viscous grip of the slime slowly swallowing me from behind vanished. I opened my eyes and looked back. The slime that had been stuck to me collapsed like water.

"Haaaah—!"

A young man with a sword had appeared from nowhere, and he was cutting down the slimes surrounding us one after another. Every time his blade swept through, a slime's body split clean in two and lost its viscosity, crumbling into a puddle. The one still holding Meruru turned into a pool of water under a single stroke.

"Uraaaagh—!"

He didn't stop. He charged straight at the remaining slimes. Sensing the danger, the Blue Slimes that had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠formed the encirclement broke ranks and began clustering in front of the Blue King Slime. The young man dropped his stance and drew his sword back, as if chambering a round.

His blade swept in a great horizontal arc. A razor-sharp wave of Sword Qi surged along the path of the cut, carving through the gathered slimes in a single stroke. Even the Blue King Slime — which had looked as though nothing could so much as scratch it — split cleanly in two and collapsed. In moments, every last Blue Slime that had packed the clearing was gone.

"Are you all right? Are you hurt anywhere?"

The young man who had wiped out the slimes came straight over to check on us.

"Ah… I'm fine. Thank you for saving us."

"Mmphhh……."

Meruru still hadn't come back to her senses. I propped her up as the strength went out of her and offered the young man my thanks. He smiled, bright and easy.

"Let's head back to town together. I'll escort you."