A Slime Summoner's Talent
The slime clinging to the girl’s shoulder spat out a blob of water like it was spitting saliva. The goblin that took the water projectile straight to the face had its teeth explode outward like popcorn from its snout, its nose crushed flat as it spewed blood and collapsed.
Did that just cave its skull in?
The slime’s attack was plenty powerful. The real problem, however, was the sheer number of goblins. What the hell had she done to get twenty of them chasing after her?
I wouldn’t actually die even if I got killed, so getting chased like that wouldn’t be a huge issue for me. But it was definitely a problem for her.
Nothing I could do about it.
I hid my body between the trees and gripped my hand axe. It would’ve been nice if I’d learned stealth techniques, but Siwoo had said she’d only teach me after I mastered the basics, so I still didn’t know any. Still, I could at least hide my presence and energy waves. I crept around behind the goblin pack as stealthily as possible.
Whoosh— Thud!
The hand axe I threw split open the head of the rearmost goblin. Oops. I’d been aiming for one a little closer.
The goblin right next to it, naturally startled by the axe that had just grazed past, spun around. Before it could finish turning, I dashed forward and sliced through its neck.
Luckily, the other goblins were too excited chasing the girl to notice their comrade falling behind them. I snatched up the hand axe the dead goblin had been holding, hurled it, and split the back of another running goblin. When I missed, I simply closed the distance and took its head off.
I kept picking them off one by one like that until only seven goblins remained. Only then did both the goblins and the girl they were chasing seem to sense something was wrong.
When the goblins stopped and began scanning their surroundings, I threw the hand axe now stained blue with goblin blood. It sank perfectly into the forehead of the goblin standing right beside the one I’d been aiming for.
“Kerrrrk!”
As soon as I stepped out in front of the remaining six goblins, they flew into a rage. It was now six against two. Assuming the girl didn’t pull some ungrateful stunt and run away, that is.
But contrary to my worries, she summoned another slime and got into a fighting stance.
“Watch your eyes!”
She lifted the slime and shouted the warning. I couldn’t exactly close my eyes, so I raised my arm to shield my vision. A moment later, a burst of light erupted from the yellow-tinted slime—bright enough to sting the skin.
“Kerk!”
“Kieek!”
Two goblins clutched their eyes in agony, while the remaining four, having already been hit by it once, covered their own eyes in advance.
I hurled my hand axe, smashing the heads and legs of the two blinded goblins. “Tsk. Maybe I should learn throwing techniques?” For some reason, the axe kept flying in completely different directions from where I aimed. Still, since I was close, my accuracy wasn’t terrible.
The girl also used her water-spitting slime to cave in the heads of two more. It seemed the slime could only fire two water blobs at a time, since there was no follow-up attack. I’d wondered why something with such powerful attacks had been running around so helplessly, but it looked like its options were actually quite limited.
Even so, in terms of raw power, it should’ve been enough to clear the tutorial. A hobgoblin was only superior to a regular goblin in size and strength—its durability wasn’t much different.
I approached the blinded goblins and swiftly cut their throats. Once every goblin was dead, the girl collapsed on the spot as if all the strength had left her body.
“Thank you. I really would’ve died without your help.”
“How did you end up getting chased by so many? I heard goblins usually only travel in groups of two or three.”
She looked like a high schooler, but since this was our first meeting, I figured I should speak politely. She wiped away her sweat and answered.
“I was hunting goblins and unfortunately ran straight into their den.”
That really was unlucky.
“Can you stand?”
“Ah… Could you wait just a little? My legs feel like jelly right now…”
I nodded and expanded my senses to check for any hidden goblins. That was when I felt mana flowing out of the dead goblins’ bodies. Half of the escaping mana scattered into the air, while the other half surged toward me and the girl.
I instinctively leaped back to dodge it, but the girl just stared at me strangely. Even though I’d avoided it, the mana still came straight for me, lingering near my skin for a moment before vanishing. In contrast, the girl absorbed roughly half of the mana that had flown toward her.
“Um, are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m fine. For some reason, I feel stronger.”
As if to prove she wasn’t lying, the girl slowly stood up. It hadn’t even been ten seconds since she’d said her legs had given out.
That sight suddenly reminded me of what the Old Librarian had said—that I had an astonishingly low affinity for the Tower’s “talent.” He’d also told me I’d figure it out soon enough. Could this mana absorption be the “talent” he was talking about?
My absorption rate had been less than one percent of the mana that came at me. The girl’s, even conservatively, had been over fifty percent.
I finally understood why the Tower’s returnees said they’d simply climbed and somehow grown stronger without realizing it. By killing monsters and unconsciously absorbing invisible mana, their bodies grew stronger. It was no wonder they couldn’t tell when or how it happened.
In the end, it was just like a game—killing monsters to gain experience and grow stronger. The only difference was that the stats were distributed automatically.
Come to think of it, the term “Mana” commonly used in games originally referred to the “power of struggle” that arose in Polynesian cultures of the South Pacific when one defeated a powerful enemy. The slain foe became a kind of offering, and the victor drew strength from that sacrifice.
The Tower was essentially strengthening its climbers by making them kill monsters and accumulate mana. But why did the Tower invite climbers in the first place and subject them to these trials?
If the goal was to fatten them up like livestock before slaughtering them, it didn’t make sense that people could leave the Tower whenever they wanted. Maybe, just as the Old Librarian said, I’d understand once I climbed higher?
While I stood there lost in thought, the girl glanced at me nervously.
“U-um… This is all I have as thanks for saving me…”
She held out some mana stones she’d harvested from the monsters she’d killed.
“Ah, I didn’t help because I wanted a reward, so don’t worry about it. The mana stones from the ones I killed are enough for me.”
I’d only come outside the city to earn some Shop Points and test my current abilities. I’d already earned plenty of money, so I had no intention of demanding compensation from someone I’d helped.
“By the way, are those slimes summons?”
“Ah, yes.”
She stroked her slime and gave a bitter smile.
“I originally tried to find a party in the city, but everyone said a slime wouldn’t be helpful and looked uncomfortable, so I ended up coming out alone.”
“Summon-type abilities are supposed to have a rarity of 5 or higher, so I can see why you’d have a hard time in the early stages.”
“Huh? Rarity?”
The girl blinked as if she were hearing the term for the first time. She didn’t know about rarity?
“Didn’t you look it up in the library?”
“I did, but there was no explanation about my ability. Is a high rarity… bad?”
Now that I thought about it, I’d only learned about rarity from the Old Librarian. I hadn’t seen anything about it on the community forums. It was probably something only discussed once you reached the Tower’s mid-layers. In the lower floors, most climbers had low-rarity abilities, so there probably wasn’t much interest in the concept.
I drew a simple graph on the ground with a stick, just like the Old Librarian had done for me, and explained it to her.
“Ah, so my early growth is going to be slow.”
“Well, from what I hear, summon-types usually have high rarity.”
At my words, the girl let out a deep sigh.
Those with high-rarity abilities usually compensated for their slow early growth by obtaining low-rarity abilities through Ability Stones or by finding companions to hunt in a party. My own ability was probably even rarer than a summon-type, but since I could spend time growing in another world, it wasn’t a big problem.
Still… I had spent a full four years—three years in perceived time—training in martial arts, yet according to my status window, I was only at the level of someone active on the 10th floor. People on the community said you could see clear growth after just three months. Just how high was the rarity of my ability? Was it possibly a 9 or even a 10?
“Um… If it’s not too much trouble, would you be willing to form a party with me? I promise I won’t be dead weight! Actually, I’ll be the pack mule!”
Her desperate gaze made me pause for a moment.
Looking purely at her ability, forming a party with this girl wasn’t exactly the smartest choice. Even though her ability was rare, we were still in the absolute beginning stages on the 10th floor, and summon-types were known to grow as slowly as their rarity suggested.
But after seeing how much mana she had absorbed earlier, it seemed climbing the Tower wasn’t purely about ability strength. Which made sense. No matter how good the ability was, the person using it mattered most. And this girl had at least a hundred times more talent for climbing the Tower than I did.
Seeing her stare at me so anxiously, I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“You don’t have to be the pack mule. If you’re okay with it being temporary, let’s form a party.”
When I offered my hand, her face lit up. She grabbed it with both of hers and bowed deeply.
“Thank you so much!”
Seeing her this grateful actually made me, someone with practically zero talent for climbing the Tower, feel a little embarrassed.
“I’m… Han Jiwoo.”
I almost introduced myself as Cheon Jiwoo but caught myself.
“I’m Lee Suyoung! Seventeen years old! A bright and cheerful high school girl! You seem older than me, so please speak casually!”
“Uh… I’m twenty-two.”
According to the age shown on my status window, I was already twenty-one after my birthday.
“Then I’ll speak casually. Lee Suyoung.”
“Please drop the last name and just call me Suyoung!”
I was already starting to feel drained. As an introvert, I wasn’t sure if I could handle the energy of someone who was clearly an extrovert like Suyoung.
“Then shall we start by collecting the mana stones?”
“Yes!”
Suyoung took out a dagger from her inventory, harvested the mana stones from the goblins’ hearts, and cut off their ears.
“Huh? Why are you cutting off the ears?”
It looked gross. At my reaction, Suyoung looked flustered.
“Jiwoo oppa, have you not been to the Climbers’ Association yet? They offer quests for beginners where you hunt goblins and bring proof. One right ear gets you 100 credits and some contribution points.”
Ah, now that she mentioned it, I vaguely remembered the guidebook mentioning something about the Climbers’ Association. There had been so many things to look up that I must have missed it.
“The association sells items necessary for climbing at cheap prices, but you need to gather a certain amount of contribution points first. That’s why I came out here too.”
“Really? I only just got here yesterday, so I didn’t know.”
“Ah! That makes sense then. I’ve only been on the 10th floor for about a week myself. The first day I was so amazed that there was an actual city inside the Tower that I just wandered around. I spent the next couple of days only browsing the community before finally visiting the association on the third day.”
I see. But didn’t she say she was a high schooler? It was early July, so school shouldn’t be on summer break yet. Was it okay for her to be here? If she entered the Tower a week ago, had she even finished her final exams? Or was it rude to ask something like that to someone I’d just met?
Worrying about exams before worrying about parents who must think their daughter had gone missing… I really was a hopeless Korean after all.
I worked with Suyoung to collect the goblin loot and split it according to how many each of us had killed. We continued wandering the forest along the trails, taking down more goblin groups, and talked about future loot distribution as we headed back to the city.
(To be continued in the next chapter)