TL Note: The part with Japanese characters, is basically just Ryouma saying one word in borrowed English, and another in Japanese.
Volume 2 Chapter 15
The next day.
The first thing I did in the morning was to go the store. After I had confirmed that there were no problems in the store, I went to the abandoned mine.
I started the production of the waterproof cloth again when I got to the abandoned mine, but thanks to that I’m bored again. While I was thinking about what to do while waiting for the cloths to finish last night, I ended up falling asleep. Thanks to that I wasn’t able to come up with anything. In my previous life, I’d just read light novels or play some games. But there’s nothing like that here.
I have already finished treating all of the cloths I received. I finished 30 yesterday, so all that was left for today was 20. With that, I finished faster than yesterday… Now what…? I’ve also already finished training the slimes…
Because of that, I thought of turning the scavenger slimes into a King Scavenger Slime and try fighting it 1 on 1.
This are the current skills of the Scavenger Slime:
Skills:
- Disease Resist Lv7
- Poison Resist Lv7
- Eat Filth Lv8
- Cleaning Lv8
- Deodorization Lv8
- Deodorization Liquid Lv6
- Release Stench Lv8
- Return Nutrients Lv7
- Physical Attack Resistance Lv5
- Enlarge Lv5
- Compress Lv6
- Jump Lv3
- Overeating Lv4
- Taijutsu Lv2
I wonder if it’s because the scavenger slime also learned the physical attack resistance, that the king scavenger slime’s physical attack resistance rose by a level. The Taijutsu of the scavenger slime is also only level 1. But after becoming a king scavenger slime, it’s become level 2.
When you compare the king scavenger slime to an individual scavenger slime, the level of skills seem to increase wholly. While I don’t have any proof for it, I guess something is added to the slimes’ individual experience, causing the level to rise.
By the way, I fought with the king scavenger slime, bare-handed. But because the effects of the physical attack resistance level 5 was quite high, my attacks barely had any effect. The entire body is elastic, so when you hit it, the impact just slides off. So while its techniques are still amateurish, defense-wise, it’s quite excellent.
When I put some serious effort in the power I use, I was able to get a hit in. My power, according to the status board, is B. It’s at the level of a first-rate adventurer. So the slime’s pretty good. Since, if I have to force my way in like this every time, it becomes quite exhausting.
Its weakness though, lies in its lack of offensive power. With ‘Enlarge’, the slime can increase its mass and pin down its opponents, but what about its physical strength? In regards to that, it has next to nothing. Putting it bluntly, its attacks have no power behind it at all.
With only this, it can’t be helped. So I taught it things like, stretching its body into a tentacle and using it as a whip to attack. Or using that tentacle to wrap around the opponents arm when the opponent comes attacking and using ‘Enlarge’ to stick itself to the enemy. Or using its elasticity while taking advantage of the opponent’s energy to throw the opponent. And a bunch of other stuff.
I also taught it a basic fighting tactic, where the King Scavenger Slime protects its body by parrying the attacks with its body. Then after using the opponent’s strength to throw them off, pinning them down with its body after using enlarge.
Doing all this took quite a bit of time, and yet the cloths are still not done, drying. It would be a good idea to try doing something else, but if I get overzealous, I’ll lose track of time again. So I took a walk with my slimes instead.
As I was about to go out after I had thought that. All of the sudden, one of my slimes started acting weird. I can understand to some extent the status of the slimes because of the contract, but I don’t know what’s going on right now.
What is going on?
I quickly go over to the strange slime. The slime that had gotten weird, was the slime I caught for the metal slime evolution experiment! Its body continued to shiver, but it didn’t seem like it was sick or anything. Then, in that case…
“No way. Could it actually be evolving?” [Ryouma]
It’s still far too early for its evolution, but aside from that, I can’t think of any other reason for its behavior.
I ended up shouting, “It’s evolving faster than I expected!” And at that moment, the slime suddenly stopped moving. And although it was miniscule, I felt the presence of magic power. The slime sucked in the magic power that leaked out. And then again, and again. It continued this behavior for dozens of times, and as it did so, its color changed. In the end, its color changed to a silvery-white color.
Did it successfully evolve? It seems to be fine and there are no abnormalities. Only, this isn’t the color of a metal slime. The color of a metal slime is dark grey, yet this slime’s color is like that of a lustrous silver. Realizing something was off, I quickly use ‘Monster Identify’ and look at its status. What I saw was…
Iron Slime
Skills
- Harden Lv3
- Physical Attack Resistance Lv2
- Jump Lv1
- Digestion Lv3
- Absorption Lv3
- Split Lv2
According to the information, its name is Iron Slime. The skillset is similar to that of the metal slime’s, but its ‘Harden’ skill level is one level higher. Iron… huh? Is it because I fed it iron that it became like this?
“But the metal slime also eats iron, right?”
They eat the same thing, so why did it turn out different?
“Iron(鉄) is iron(アイアン)… then, metal(メタル) is… metal(金属)…!!” [Ryouma]
As realization hit me, I promptly took out the stone I used as feed, and used ‘Identify’ on it.
Building Stone (Red Soil)
A lump of the soil thrown in the mines, and hardened with earth magic. Includes the following metal: Iron Oxide, Aluminum Oxide
“As expected. I had forgotten about it, but while the red soil may include iron oxide, some of it also includes aluminum oxide.” [Ryouma]
A former kouhai of mine, from my construction job, told me about this before. That guy seemed like the young master of a good family, but for some reason he worked part-time at a construction job. Did his father make him work as a form of education?
That’s probably it. That guy was forced to work part-time, so since he wanted to play hooky, he stalled for time during breaktime by talking about various stuff. I thought he was just a hindrance to work, so I just generally ignored most of his mumbling… But who would’ve thought that his knowledge would actually be useful here?
“Metal slimes didn’t only eat iron, they also ate aluminum. In fact other metals may have also been mixed up with their food.” [Ryouma]
I immediately extract the aluminum and iron from the brick, with my alchemy. And then, I called over the metal slime and the iron slime.
What happened next, was that the iron slime only ate the iron. But the metal slime was able to eat both the iron and the aluminum.
I call over the metal slime, and caress it.
“You were actually omnivorous when it came to metals? Iron slimes are iron, but I wonder what’s going to happen to you. Will you turn to alloy, since you combined both iron and alloy? Hmm… I don’t know much about it, but…” [Ryouma]
I tried asking the metal slime, but naturally, it didn’t answer.
“Well, in any case, I‘ve come to understand the evolution conditions. Oh, and speaking of which, it’s my first time seeing a slime evolve, huh?” [Ryouma]
Actually, this is my first time, seeing a slime evolve. I don’t know why, but for some reason they all evolved while I was asleep. It may be true that as long as I give them enough food, they’ll evolve within half a year. But I don’t actually know the exact date of their evolution. And it’s not like I could actually watch them all the time.
But still, to think that they actually evolved by releasing and absorbing magic power… this… ah, no good, no good. If I start thinking about this now, I’ll end up forgetting the time again. I have to do something else…
“Come to think of it, I wonder if I’ve come to understand more about ‘Identify’.”
I don’t know how the neutral magic, ‘Identify’, worked, but it felt kind of similar to how you’d get information by searching on the web. When I ask, “What is this?” vaguely, all it does is give out the name. Even if I ask for something more detailed, all it gives is a bunch of basic information.
But, during the time when I was cleaning the latrine pits. When I used ‘Identify’ back then, the word ‘sterilization’ came out. And when I used ‘Identify’, the word ‘pathogen’ came out.
That kind of knowledge doesn’t exist in this world. So does that mean that the information that will come out, will change depending on the user’s knowledge?
When I tried it out several times. I came to understand that it showed me more detailed information, when I better visualized the specific things I wanted to know according to my knowledge.
For example, the weight of this stone, the percentage of its contents and their weight.
Building Stone 503.9g (Red Soil)
A lump of the soil thrown in the mines, and hardened with earth magic. Includes the following metal: Iron Oxide 4.2% 21.1638g, Aluminum Oxide 5.1% 25.6989g
Look, it became this specific. By visualizing it, I was able to make it more specific. I can use this! … Right?
Although it’s good that I’m able to get more specific information now, it’s not like I need it for something now… Or, I guess could gather the iron ingots I bring to Serge-san by grams.
Or I could get the iron ingots that are circulating in the market of this world, use ‘Identify’ on it, and then pattern my own iron ingots according to it. Since I don’t want my own iron ingots to get attention, there’s some value in doing that. But there’s really not a whole lot of application for this new ‘Identify’ right now… Besides, everything’s been fine so far.
After thatb while waiting for the waterproof cloths to finish drying, I made a bunch of 500g 80% ingots and aluminum ingots.
And as soon as the cloths finished drying, I took everything and dropped them off at Serge’s.
After that, I took 300 sheets of cloth, and went back to the lodging. It was at an odd time when I got there, so Elia and the others were not yet home.
So I decided to go the store. After all, it’s already too late to get requests, so I thought I’d take a look at the store.
When I got to the store, there were plenty of people as usual. Actually, doesn’t there seem to be more people than usual?
I entered the store through the employee door, and then went to the lounge… but no one was there. Could it be, that there’s so many people, that unless they all work, they can’t make it?
When I thought that, I went to the store, opening the doors one after another, as I briskly walked. When I got there, one of the three girls, Fina, was there.
“Boss, you came?” [Fina]
“Good work, today. I went to the employee lounge, but no one was there, so I thought you guys had your hands full.” [Ryouma]
“While we’re not free, we’re not that busy either. To say the least, there is quite a number of people. We’ve started to understand when the peak time is, so in order to match that, we’re all dealing with it.” [Fina]
Looks like they’ve gotten completely used to the job while I wasn’t here. I was worried, but it looks like I’m not needed.
While I was thinking that, I noticed.
“Ah…” [Ryouma]
“What’s the matter?” [Fina]
“Looks like the cleaner slimes are ready to split.” [Ryouma]
“Eh?’
To the cleaner slimes, this job is basically eating. And since, they’ve been eating a lot for a few days now, they’ve reached a point where they can split again.
“The slimes doing the laundry are going to increase. Since the preparations for that have already been completed, they’ll increase a bit, and the efficiency of the laundromat will rise.” [Ryouma]
“Really!? That’s amazing!” [Fina]
“Yep, slimes are amazing, you know? Well, don’t mind me.” [Ryouma]
“Ok!” [Fina]
As Fina-san said that, she took a nearby laundry and ran along.
Let’s do this!
After that, I had the slimes split and contracted with them. Because of that, the cleaner slimes now total to 54. Even though cleaner slimes don’t split much, there were 10 of them that split twice.
As expected, by eating so much every day in a store like this, they’re able to split quickly. Moreover, once I let the cleaner slimes split, their numbers will increase, and their work will become even faster, increasing the store’s efficiency rate by folds. This rise in efficiency won’t be put to waste.
I’m here too, so I decided to have the people that can receive the customers, receive them. Because of that, the ones who ended up working as receptionists are, Karma-san, Karla-san, Fei-san, Li Ling-san, Maria-san and Fina-san. While me and Jeanne-san carried the laundries.
Because of the rise in efficiency, and the increased number of receptionists, the transactions were able to flow smoother.
After a while, the peak time subsided, and the employees were able to get some rest by alternating. In the meantime, I went around performing some maintenance on the store’s surrounding.
After that, we were able to safely close the store again.
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