Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Although he was a 123-year-old gray dwarf who was weak, helpless and a little bit of a gluttonous child in his parent’s eyes, Ironfelt actually had experience that matched his age as a craftmaster. Even if he had not been to the surface before, he would hear about it from traveling gray dwarves as they bragged away every other day in his nightly drinking session in the Magma City Tavern after work.
Ignoring the narrators’ boasting and cleaning up the stories, the humans depicted in those dwarves’ stories were more or less the same. At a rough glance, their lifestyles did not differ much from the dwarves’, but because humans had much shorter lifespans, they did not display the same demand for excellence or the same passion towards their craftmanship, and most of them live out their days dully and muddleheadedly under the rule of churches and nobles.
Moreover, the humans were so great in numbers that their gods could only favor a select few, leaving their species weak.
In the first place, Ironfelt did not want to stay in human territory for a long time, but he didn’t consider it to be difficult—he would at best forge some slapdash weapons and that would fool them, because how hard would that be for a dwarf who had mingled with fire and steel over a hundred years? Just like the Furnacewatcher had put it, he would think of it as having a holiday.
Eventually, things end up upside down the moment Ironfelt stepped out. He had not seen a single slime in the tunnel, and when he was assuming that they were cleared off by the miners, he ran into a Big Slime which was a fused form of many Slimes, sticking atop the dark tunnel above the portal and waiting to ambush any dwarf about to teleport.
Caught off guard, Ironfelt slipped up and was gulped down the Big Slime’s stomach. Worse still, the portal was already activated, directly teleporting him along with the Slime enveloping him. They reached the northern reaches of the Valla Empire on the surface, and into an isolated forest, with Ironfelt unable to get help from any gray dwarf passing by.
However, just when Ironfelt thought that his fate was sealed, two human younglings and one dog suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Alone, Slimes were very vulnerable since they were the weakest magical beast there was. Although their outer gel layer protects them from physical blows, the magic stone which was their vital part was very distinct, and any child with a stick could scare them off. On the other hand, when multiple Slimes gather and fuse into a Big Slime, their ability increases exponentially—the gel layer over their body increases in mass, whereas their vital part that was the magic stone would not enlarge despite fusing, significantly reducing the chance of a critical hit. At the same time, their massive sticky bodies provide them formidable hunting ability, and prey like Ironfelt who were completely covered in the gel wouldn’t be able to exert their strength, just as they couldn’t escape without outside help.Read more chapter on v ip novel. com
Long story short: Those two human younglings were never going to defeat the Big Slime!
Ironfelt opened his mouth to warn them, but he couldn’t make a sound from inside the Slime’s body. The gel that had weak digestive function would pour inside his mouth, and he was almost losing his sphincter—if the gel started pouring in from both places at the same time he is going to end up as a pasty piece of cheese soon enough. The reason Ironfelt was still holding on was entirely thanks to dwarven robustness and durability to survive in all sorts of hostile environments, but those aspects naturally did not include their innards…
So why the f*ck were those two still trying to fight the Big Slime?! Go your parents! Ironfelt was bellowing inwardly.
Still, it was clear that the two younglings were incapable of telepathy. As Ironfelt watched them attack the Big Slime, and he thought that he would soon be joined by two fellow prisoners and one dog.
He was extremely surprised soon enough.
Those two younglings could actually fight!
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One of them was a warrior—holding a sword and a buckler, he would provoke the Big Slime from time to time, stabbing it and causing its surface to ripple. He then summoned some humanoid spectral that was throwing a barrage of punches while crying ‘ora-ora-ora’, and Ironfelt could fear the sheer force behind those blows even deep inside the Big Slime’s body.
The other human youth was even more mystifying: he was continuously summoning seafood to feed the Big Slime with.
Yes, feeding.
From land squid to sharp-finned swordfishes, dwarven-height crabs, hermit crabs with anemones growing over its shells, big spotted garden eels poking their head out of barnacles to provoke the Slime… in short, creatures that would be gobbled up by the Big Slime in no time at all.
At first, Ironfelt was assuming that the young summoner didn’t have powerful familiars and was rather weak, which was why he kept summoning more seafood to cover the young warrior’s attack.
Slimes were brainless magical beasts after all. They fed without restraint, and hence virtually didn’t refuse any of the seafood offered.
Eventually, the increasing bulk of seafood squeezed Ironfelt to the edge of the Big Slime’s body, with one octopus wrapping itself tightly around his face. As he got the feeling that some parasite was about to plant its eggs into him, he promptly realized what the young summoner’s intention was.
And just as Ironfelt predicted, the dog which had not much of a part to play from the start had slipped to the Big Slime’s rear… which was not really a rear since Slimes had neither face nor tail. Anyway, while the Big Slime was being battered by the humanoid spectral that the young warrior summoned, the creature never noticed the big hound slipping towards it.
The dog seized its chance too, biting down on one of the octopus’s tentacles which it had extended out of the Big Slime’s body started to pull it out firmly.
Hence, Ironfelt’s head also poked out of the Big Slime’s body, with the dog pulling with even more strength when it saw what was happening, and dragged the gray dwarf out altogether even as he screamed ‘My scalp! The octopus is going to tear my scalp off!’ and braved the risk of disfigurement (Ironfelt only).
“Alright, I’m hitting it one last time!” The dwarf exclaimed as he got to his feet almost right after he landed, whipping out his beloved hammer to join the battle.
In the end, however, he noticed that it wasn’t him who had been pushed to the edge, but also the Big Slime’s magic stone.
The young warrior made a look that said ‘We’ve-seen-too-many-kill-stealing-dirtbags-like-you’ before stabbing his single-handed sword viciously into the Big Slime’s core.
The creature immediately made a sound that resembled a shriek as its body split apart like a water balloon, its disgusting goo form spraying everywhere as its body rapidly shriveled like seafood.
Left standing in the cold wind with the octopus over his head, the gray dwarf was left utterly confused: Who was it who said that humans are weak? Were all those dwarves who came on the surface before rum-brained?!