The Slime Dungeon: Book 1 (The Slime Dungeon Chronicles) (9 page)

Chapter 12

In the coming days, Doc found himself in a predicament. Thanks to his new abilities, he was swarmed with adventurers trying to make a living off of him. He was forced to constantly pop out new slimes at night and he even had to make some during the day. Since the number of parallel realities he could have was unlimited, the tired dungeon lord was forced to use most of his energy creating in order to prevent the more seasoned adventurers from getting too close to his room.

While the majority of adventurers were E through C rank, a few B-ranked adventurers sometimes came as part of a weaker team and led them to the boss room. It was rare, but occasionally his overslime would be defeated and the herbs would be gathered.

After a week of exploring, various changes took place in the base camp.

The base camp finally finished setting up stores and stalls, creating a miniature town next to the forest. The tavern soon became the most popular spot for adventurers, while the Adventurer Guild outpost was soon assigning various quests to be accomplished.

Due to the nature of Doc's dungeon, the magic enchanting business was doing quite well, attracting various artisans and blacksmiths to the area. The most common weapons were made of copper mined from the dungeon itself. The realities/instances did not start until after the first room, which prevented a surplus of copper and forced the adventurers to assign times for when individuals could mine.

The dungeon underwent a few changes as well, mostly in the variety of slimes. With the first evolution perk unlocked, some of Doc's slimes had undergone evolution and propagated. The most common evolution was the herb slime: a slime created after ingesting a certain amount of herb plants form the heart room. They gained a green color and abilities to poison or paralyze their prey by shooting small bits of themselves. Their loot expanded to include a slime extract that was used in remedies for poison and paralyses.

The second slime type that arose came from the pitfall traps where the few unlucky/dumb/’accidentally pushed’ fell in and were devoured. This led to the evolution of hungry slimes: pale purple slimes with a hint of grey that actively hunted humans. According to Claire, they were the first step toward gelatinous slimes and had a more intelligent instinct to ambush prey. They also had an increased defense toward physical weapons, though magic still killed them quickly.

The last slime was the rarest form. It arose from slimes that actively ate a variety of living things. Humans and the occasional elf were not the only things to enter Doc's dungeon; sometimes, rats, bugs, bats, birds, and other animals entered as well. The animals somehow bypassed the instances, but were usually promptly eaten. This led to the evolution of a lesser mimic slime that arose from the variety: blue slimes that could change their form to whatever they had previously eaten. They were weak because they were small and could only copy the form and abilities of anything smaller than themselves. The only exception was a slightly larger blue slime that slept in Claire's house. She had somehow gotten it to change into a bed, and slept on it.

The two new slimes types dropped parts of whatever they had previously eaten, including armor from the hungry slimes and animal parts from the mimics. This increased the value of his dungeon, and thus improved the town's commerce as well. Besides that, there was a curious amount of female adventurers who seemed hell bent on finding something. They always left disappointed; however, that never stopped them from coming back.

Doc sighed as he felt the last adventurer group leave his dungeon. He slid into the overslime and relaxed until the slime was a puddle on the floor. Claire flew out of her home and flew over him in circles. "Oh my, Doc, you're melted! Is having a body really such a relaxing thing for you?"

Doc sighed contently, "Being me means I can stay awake and concentrate, but being a slime lets me lose focus and rest. It's a really nice thing, kind of like the baths you take."

Claire turned red, "Do you watch me take a bath? You…!"

"What are you talking about?" Doc asked, "You know I don't watch your home unless invited. You're the one always talking about how nice a bath is. Anyway, why is watching you take a bath bad?"

Claire coughed awkwardly, "Well, it’s the same feeling as if a person handled your real body."

Doc imagined for a moment, "Okay then, I'll be sure to never watch you bathe. Anyway, how do you think I'm doing as a dungeon?"

Claire landed on the edge of her pedestal and stretched her arms and legs. "Well, you have a good setup going here. The adventurers are happy, the slimes are evolving, and you are gaining a little magic power from every adventurer." She paused, nodding to herself, "I was surprised when you figured out how to passively absorb mana from adventurers on your own."

Doc smiled, "Since I'm kind of averse to killing, it seemed like an obvious thing to try out."

"They still die though,” said Claire.

"Yeah, but I don't cause it. I just don't stop it,” Doc said.

They shared a slight chuckle. Besides the one incident, Doc hadn't felt the same rush of emotion he had when he had seen the princess in trouble. A few of the women adventurer groups had had accidents and "accidents," but he viewed them with the same indifference he had the men. Only one C-ranked adventurer had fallen in his dungeon, and that had not provided a significant boost to his mana capacity; none had the smatterings of E and D-ranked adventurers. The cost had decreased his magical reservoir to slightly less than his original amount before the death of the B-ranked jerks, and he had just now only approached his original level.

Claire, of course, kept up reminding him that his growth was substantial for a new dungeon. He still sulked a little bit, though on the inside, but was pleased with the new size of his core. Now he had doubled his previous body in size and was larger than Claire, which was a private victory.

"It is kind of boring though," he commented from the ground, "They mostly come in for the copper now, and few actually try to get to my herbs. Killing the herb slimes seem to be enough for them these days."

Claire nodded, "I agree, we need to come up with a better reward to encourage the greedier adventurers to come deeper."

They thought together for a while, tossing ideas back and forth. Claire dismissed his idea for gold mines, citing that the greed would be too great and his walls would be mined to death. Doc disagreed with her idea of creating pet slimes to be claimed arguing successfully that he didn't want to give slimes away; besides, he had no idea how to in the first place. After a couple more ridiculous ideas, the two sighed and took a small break.

"Why don't we make better herbs?" He asked from his floor.

"Because we can't grow anything silly. Remember, I got those herbs from the forest myself. Now I can't leave because of the danger from those people outside."

Doc pondered for a moment, "Why don't I make a small path for you to the forest?"

Claire's mouth fell open, "Err… I… um… yeah, that could work.”

“Great!” Doc smiled, “I’ll get right on it.” As he turned his attention away, Claire’s smile slipped from her face as she began to sniff and hugged her legs to her chest. Startled by the sound, Doc looked back just in time to watch the tears forming in her eyes.

“Claire, why are you sad?” he asked her with concern.

Even though she was right next to him, she gave no sign she had heard him. Instead, she flew to the corner and began muttering to herself. Doc listened closely to her as she muttered, “Failure, I’m such a failure. Such a simple solution and I couldn’t think of it. How can I call myself useful if I don’t think of these things?”

Concerned over her sudden depression, Doc quickly created a new slime and had it drop onto her from above. Startled by the sudden entrance, Claire struggled to escape her new slimy prison as she stared around wildly.

"Enough of that Claire!" He commanded. "You are my only friend and the only reason I've gotten this far. I don’t know why you’re strange, but I'll punish you if you ever say you aren't good enough again."

Doc then had the slime unceremoniously spit the tiny pixie out onto the floor. Still in a slight shock from the experience of being eaten by a slime, Claire paused long enough to ask, "What kind of punishment?"

Doc paused, obviously not expecting to give an actual answer. "Um… I'll watch you bathe in your bath suit." Claire had told him about the outfit she wore during her baths once, but he had never seen it himself.

The little purple fairy turned into a bright red fireball as she raced around the room, shouting things that offended Doc's non-existent ears. Out of reflex, he made tentacles to cover where he instinctively thought his ears were. Of course, as a slime, sound traveled through his body like he was made of water, so the action was pointless.

"Okay, okay, okay!"  He shouted, "I won't do that!" He relaxed as Claire calmed down and returned to her natural purple color. "Seriously, was it that bad of a punishment?"

"Yes, you dummy! I don't want my naked body to be seen!"

"Naked?"

"Without my clothes."

"What are clothes?"

She pointed at her dress.

"Oh, I thought that was another slime sticking to you,” Doc replied.

"..."

Doc had a sudden thought, "So, am I naked too? Do I have to cover my crystal body?"

Claire began to giggle uncontrollably, amazed by the whole situation. "No, you silly! You don't need to. You don't have parts to cover up."

"Why would anyone want to cover themselves?" Doc asked confused. “Are parts valuable treasure or something?”

Claire paused, "I have no idea. Mommy never got to explaining it to me before I left. I just know she told me to never let anyone look at me in the bath besides other girls and a special person. Though she did say some things that sounded like treasure; balls of gold and orbs of man’s desire."

With a sad sigh, Doc said “I guess I’m not special enough for you.”

Claire blushed furiously, but became thoughtful. "I guess that's true; you are the most special person to me. Okay, you can watch when I wear my bath suit." She lowered her voice, "But please let me know, okay?"

"Okay.” Doc was happy again. He then became serious, "Now, tell me, why you got so depressed earlier? I've never seen you like that, and it seems kind of out of character."

Claire frowned and crossed her arms as she thought to herself. She shook her head, "I'm not too sure myself. To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a clear memory, even though it just happened. This is very strange; especially since this isn't the first time you’ve suggested a better way of doing things."

They both ‘hmmed’ for a while, then shrugged and filed the incident away for later. Since both of them were not that experienced, whenever they could not figure certain things out, they would put them away for later dates.

"Ready for your forest tunnel?"  Doc asked.

"Yup!" said Claire eagerly.

Using his mana, Doc expanded his influence down from the dungeon to create a pixie sized tunnel that came up in the forest a safe distance from any human activity. Thanks to all the practiced he had done he was able to finish quickly and even had time to add a little stone door in her house that opened into it. Claire happily thanked him and promptly flew into her home and down the new tunnel.

He followed her down the tunnel, but the farther he got the more sluggish his mind felt. "Sorry Claire, I can't go much farther."

"It's okay," she thought back, "I'll be careful. Just watch from there and let me know if you sense anyone coming."

She flew out the exit and began searching the forest in the rapidly approaching twilight. Doc felt increasing frustration as she cooed and awed at every little thing she saw while collecting a variety of plant sprouts.

"Hurry up! I don't like being away for too long."

She stuck her tongue at him, "It's important that I take my time in this decision. I have to pool at all my options and then narrow them down to what I think is best. Oh, what a pretty flower!"

Doc mentally slapped his crystal at her actions. He groaned, and then paused as he felt something.

"Claire, something is coming this way." He frowned as felt the vibrations in the earth, "It feels like horses, but smaller."

Instantly, she flew back over to him, holding as many plants as she could carry. "Close the tunnel, close the tunnel!"  She cried out as she entered the tunnel.

While confused, Doc obeyed and closed the tunnel with stone. Once it was done, Claire breathed out in relief as her legs failed and she sat on the ground.

"What was coming?"  He asked her.

Claire shuddered visibly, "Wolves; those were wolves in the woods. Wolves are a type of predator that hunt in packs. All the new activity from the adventurers must have attracted them to the area."

"What do they look like?" He asked curiously.

"You don't have anything to imagine them with," she explained, "It's better to wait till they get closer to you and then you can see them for yourself."

"Can the slimes eat them?"

"I doubt the mimics will be able to, but your overslime should have no problem. Like all monsters and animals, the wolves will be naturally drawn to the magical nature of your dungeon for safety. You'll have to decide what to do with them then; whether to keep them or eat them. I had a relative who was eaten by a wild wolf, so I'll be hiding when they come in initially."