A curtain of slime liquid blocked the only entrance to the elevator chamber, cutting it off from the rest of the labyrinth, and Wasserstein crawled toward the light of Solario’s torch with a growing desire to absorb and assimilate.

I didn’t provoke this boss, so I don’t think it’s after me. It wants to eat Timathor and the elf. Vance checked his scarred arm. I would’ve preferred to skip this fight, but it’s too late now. He sighed. I guess I’ve found the first disadvantage to having a goblin on my side: it can drag me into its battles. He retreated into the darkness, disappearing like a shadow at dusk. But I decided to raise Timathor, and I have to accept everything that comes with that decision.

As Timathor snarled viciously, as Solario waved his torch and sword, and as Wasserstein extended its body in a lateral embrace, Vance swung his arm with a Spectral Execution and drove his dagger into its giant mark. Dark-green cracks spread across Wasserstein’s clear surface. Upon such a hit, a normal Water Slime would have lost the ability to keep its body together, but Wasserstein compressed itself and maintained its integrity.

Not enough, huh?

The Spectral Execution failed to eliminate its bulky target, and as a result, Vance was teleported to the safety of the shadows. Nevertheless, he had dealt a good amount of damage and created a chance for Timathor and Solario to escape digestion. The two ran to the other side of the chamber, and Wasserstein followed them without any change in strategy. They were helpless against its massive body. Their weapons were too short to reach the deep-set nuclei, and unlike Vance, they didn’t have any Skills that inflicted magical damage.

“You have to do something, human,” Solario shouted, after he couldn’t repel Wasserstein. “If I die, I’ll take your goblin with me!”

Vance neither replied to this provocation nor gave commands to Timathor. He was planning to go for a second sneak attack. His Mana regeneration rate had increased from 1 to 10 points per second, and this tenfold jump allowed him to perform more than one Spectral Execution during the same fight. Only 19 seconds after his first attack, his arm was coated again in the dark mist, and he appeared behind Wasserstein like the Grim Reaper. This time, however, things didn’t go as smoothly as he hoped. Before the deadly tip of the spectral dagger could even touch its target, Wasserstein exploded into nine smaller slimes, each with its own nucleus.

“What the hell is happening?”

“It’s one of its accursed abilities,” Solario said, as he yellowly ran into hiding. “It activated Distress Mode.”

“Distress Mode?”

“It split into Eins through Neun! Eins through Neun!”

Vance had many questions in mind, but he hardly had the time to breathe, let alone ask or complain. The smaller slimes bounced off the ground and jumped at him like gelatinous cannonballs. They were corrosive projectiles with some homing capabilities and with the annoying persistence of pests. And in a matter of seconds, they had created a scene of rampant chaos.

Vance stepped back and avoided Eins. He bent forward and dodged Zwei. With a bounce, Drei attacked from above his head, so he quickly rolled to the side. Turning to look behind him, he noticed an imminent threat from three slimes. Vier and Fünf hurled themselves at his arms, while Sechs aimed for his torso. He sidestepped twice to avoid the first two, which splashed behind him and bounced away. Then he adjusted his grip on the spectral dagger, rotating it deftly in his hand, and stabbed Sechs before it could collide with his chest.

Immediately, the stabbed monster disintegrated into a watery puddle, and its nucleus deactivated, losing its red color and faint glow. Vance thought that he had achieved a small victory, but Sieben passed by quickly and absorbed the lifeless remains of Sechs. Inside Sieben, the defeated nucleus reactivated with a brief vibration and a rapid flicker. Then it split apart to create an independent monster—so that the total number of enemies remained stuck at nine.

“You have to destroy all nine nuclei at the same time,” Solario shouted, from his hiding place behind a stone pillar. “Or at least in rapid succession.”

“Stop stating the obvious, and come join the fight.”

“You can’t expect me to battle. We had an agreement about this.”

“Then find some other way to make yourself useful.”

Without a response, Solario disappeared behind the stone pillar.

That elf … Acting as if I’m his personal guard …

Vance ducked and let Acht pass above his head. Now I know why this thing is the Area Boss. He ran a few steps and slashed the glutinous mass of Neun. Its level isn’t that high, but it has regenerative powers, and it can tire anyone out. He jumped nimbly to the left, shaking off Vier and stabbing Fünf. It’s a rigid test of stamina, but you can’t defeat it with stamina alone. He searched for Timathor in the dark and found it standing in a distant corner, with an expression of fearful confusion on its green face. You either have the Skill that can destroy all nine nuclei at the same time, or …

“Timathor!” Vance shouted. “Charge, little buddy! Charge!”

“Ow-ushga-Vance!” Timathor recovered from its confusion and drummed on its belly. Then it charged at the bouncy slimes with all the courage that Solario lacked. “Ow-ataag-suluum! Abje! Vance! Abje!” It penetrated through the ranks of the enemies, waving its steel dagger right and left before it thrust its short spear at the nuclei. None of the crafty slimes received a fatal blow, but the brave offensive lowered the pressure on Vance.

“Attack! Attack! Attack!” Vance repeated, driving Timathor berserk. Then he hurried to join it in the tumultuous heart of the fray. Building on Timathor’s ceaseless attacks, he dashed forward and stabbed the retreating Eins. The slime disintegrated into a puddle, and its deactivated nucleus rested on the ground. “Don’t stop, Timathor! Attack!” Vance shouted again, and Timathor wielded its spear with the ferocity of tribal warriors. As it kept the enemies busy, Vance ripped a long piece of cloth off his cloak, wrapped it around his left hand, and reached for the deactivated nucleus with tentative fingers.

You either have the needed Skill, or you suffer a few burns like a man.

He picked up the nucleus and immediately grimaced as the alkali began to eat his skin. The pain was piercing and intolerable; he felt as if he had dipped his hand in boiling oil, or as if the archeologists had launched an excavation through his flesh in search of bones. But he ground his teeth to suppress the pain and shook his hand until the nucleus dried up. Then he threw it in his bag.

Now the other slimes can’t reach this motherfucker, and it can’t get reactivated. He smiled and looked at his burned palm. In the old days, I wouldn’t have needed to resort to this ugly solution, but it’s all I can do at level 26.

He checked his vitals.

HP 427/440 MP 590/830 Stamina 419/830

It cost me a bit of HP, but it’s doable.

Having decided on this crude stratagem, Vance turned his attention back to his surroundings. With dark-adapted eyes, he noticed that the guileful Drei was sneaking up on Timathor, who was still fighting the other slimes head-to-head. Before Drei could take the goblin unawares, before it could swallow its feet and immobilize it forever, Vance shouted, “Evade!” Then, as Timathor sidestepped out of harm’s way, he hurried to its aid. With consecutive slashes, he struck fear into all the slimes and forced them to retreat without any gains.

“Vance! Vance! Enami-eshbekat-mi!”

“I’m here, little buddy. Don’t worry.”

Vance and Timathor stood next to each other and assumed the battle stances suitable for their weapons. Their appearance side by side was intimidating, and the slimes paused their chaotic attacks, skulking in the dark as if to reevaluate the situation or hatch up a stratagem.

“They’re up to something,” Vance said. “Do you need healing, Timathor?”

“Ow-gkill-enami!” Timathor drummed on its belly. “Ow-ushga-Vance!”

“I guess that’s a no,” Vance smiled. “Keep up the good work.”

“Ow-gkill-suluum!” Timathor shouted, and Vance laughed.

So far so good. But let’s see where things go from here.

***

After a period of calm, the eight remaining slimes, the fragments comprising Wasserstein, were on the move again. Menacing and malevolent, they bounced forward twice and then propelled themselves at Vance and Timathor. In a flash, they appeared from the dark like the shells of an artillery barrage. And there was something odd about them: they were glistening; they were more energetic than before. It was as if they had abandoned their old selves and reconstructed their bodies from a fountain of youth.

They didn’t retreat to reorganize. They fucking healed.

“Evade!” Vance ordered.

A quick step right, a diagonal scuttle, an advance for better vision, a zigzag through enemies, and a last-second dive out of danger—Vance and Timathor mirrored each other’s movements, eluding the leaping enemies with flexibility and perspicacity. The slimes splashed everywhere, but the human-goblin duo remained superbly light on their feet and emerged almost unscathed, suffering only from the mild burns caused by wild drops of alkali—the flying shrapnel. Wasserstein’s grand offensive failed, and it was time to retaliate.

“Attack!” Vance shouted.

Hearing its favorite command, Timathor turned where Vance pointed and slashed at the isolated Zwei with its steel dagger. The slime tried to counter the slashes with a caustic shot, but Vance grabbed Timathor’s arm and pulled the goblin out of danger. Then he took aim and brandished his spectral dagger, forcing Zwei to retreat. No, you’re not gonna escape. He chased after it into the darkness. They heal every time they retreat. I gotta stop this, or there won’t be an end to the fight.

“Vance! Abje! Abje!”

“Don’t worry, little buddy. I’ll be back after the kill.”

An uneasy look appeared on Timathor’s face as it watched Vance disappear in the dark. Then it found itself sandwiched between Vier and Fünf.

“Vance! Enami! Enami-eshbekat-mi!”

No response.

Vier and Fünf didn’t waste the chance and lunged forward. For a moment, it seemed as if Timathor was in a dire situation, as if it would return to its state of confusion, but then there was a spark inside its head. It tightened its hold of its weapons and adjusted its stance as no wild goblin would.

“Emzaj-betkhemi-Timathor!”

It thrust its dagger at the enemy in the front and its spear at the one behind. And both of its fast attacks hit the mark with commendable accuracy. It struck the nuclei of the two slimes and sent them flying in opposite directions. Fünf landed somewhere in the darkness, but Vier fell near Vance’s feet, and having already caught the retreating Zwei, the Adventurer Slayer welcomed the extra gift with a grateful smile and a perfect stab.

The little rascal is doing better than I expected. It makes me feel all the training was worth it. Vance looked down at the large puddle at his feet—the remains of Zwei and Vier. With his left hand, he fished for the deactivated nuclei and felt a pang of pain. Ah, my heart feels really warm right now, but I can’t tell if it’s because of Timathor or my burning hand. He waited for the nuclei to dry and then flung them into his bag. Fuck me. I have to repeat this again and again.

And he did. With patience and perseverance, he isolated one retreating slime after the other, and as Timathor kept the rest of the horde distracted, he killed his prey and threw its nucleus into his bag. The tide of the battle turned against the slimes as their numbers dwindled. Wasserstein had no means to resist this divide-and-conquer strategy, especially because a disastrous Spectral Execution would be waiting if it tried to reassemble into one. In the end, seven deactivated nuclei lay inside the tombal bag.

Only two more to go.

Vance checked his vitals.

HP 329/440 MP 830/830 Stamina 181/830

We can do this.

He turned to search for the last surviving slimes—Sieben and Neun. His eyes scoured the chamber for any signs of them, but they had already vanished without a trace. Did they run off somewhere underground? He was tempted to draw this imprudent conclusion, but then a blinding red flash came from above. He looked up in surprise and witnessed a confounding development: the nuclei of Sieben and Neun were suspended in the air, equidistant from the chamber’s four pillars. They were rotating around each other and emitting parallel beams of uncanny light. Slowly, slime liquid—the caustic and corrosive alkali—began to rise from the cracks in the ground and gather around them.

“Don’t just stand there and gawk at it, human!” Solario shouted, appearing behind one of the four pillars. “Come here! You need to take cover with me!”

“I forgot you were even there,” Vance said.

“No time for sarcasm,” Solario shouted. “Hurry up if you want to live!”

Vance looked up at the two rotating nuclei. Seeing the immeasurable amount of alkali that had gathered around them, he realized that Solario was right: he had only a few seconds to act before an irreversible disaster. He turned around, grabbed Timathor’s arm, and started running for shelter. After he had taken only two steps, he felt an ultrasonic pulse passing through his body. Then the lethal alkali, which had formed an enormous sphere in the air, exploded with an ear-splitting blast. It descended upon the chamber as the waves of a tsunami descend upon a port.

Vance picked up Timathor, spun once in place, and launched the little goblin into the air. It landed against one of the stone pillars and grabbed hold of it. Then it started to climb, escaping the flood of burning liquid. Simultaneously, Vance continued to run as fast as possible. He could hear the gurgling sound behind him; he could feel a burning sensation catching up to his heels. But he refused to give up now. At the last moment, he made a dive for safety and slid on the ground until he found himself behind the stone pillar. Solario grabbed him with both hands and pulled him away from the torrents.

“You didn’t follow my advice, did you?” the elf said, with his back against the pillar. “Instead of destroying all the nuclei at once, you deactivated them one by one and kept them out of reach. Smart for a human, but not enough.”

“What’s happening?” Vance raised his head and looked around him.

“You forced Wasserstein into Deluge Mode. It’s going to flood the chamber in an attempt to recover the lost nuclei.”

Vance looked beneath his feet. He was standing on the edge of a large hole in the ground. Instead of accumulating, the alkali was falling through this hole into an underground cavity.

“You dug this?” Vance said.

“I removed the floor tiles with my sword and probed the elevator machinery. Wasserstein managed to erode a few old cogs, but the emergency mechanism is still functioning.”

“Do you mean we can get out of here?”

“Yes, I made all the necessary tweaks and triggered the emergency activation circuit, which should send a Mana pulse to the rotors … right about now.”

At that moment, as if in compliance with Solario’s wishes, the ground started to shake with consecutive tremors. Each one was stronger than its antecedent, and the last could be described only as an artificial earthquake. The high ceiling retracted sideways to reveal the afternoon sky, and the chamber began to rise toward the stratus clouds. It emerged from deep in the rocky earth, ascending to the grassy plains of the Cromish lands.

***

“You owe me more than you think,” Solario said, after he had paid respects to the glorious sun. “Now that we’re outdoors, it’s impossible for Wasserstein to maintain Deluge Mode. It will adopt Jet Mode, which is really the weakest and dullest of all modes. The antithesis of innovation!” He paused and blinked twice. “No, wait … Jet Mode has a direct link to the fallback. My incompetent assistant didn’t remove the state transition, did he? Oh, I knew this day would come! The stress is sufficient to cause trauma. The timer is a grade CQ-93. And this means one thing …”

“Stop muttering to yourself,” Vance said. “What’s the problem?”

“You have one minute and 45 seconds to defeat Wasserstein, or it will enter Self-destruct Mode.”

“Self-destruct?” Vance looked at Solario in disbelief.

“The nuclei will co-explode. Anything within a radius of 100 meters will be pulverized.”

“Fuck! You really overdid it with this slime.”

“Elven intelligence is unrivaled … although the overcomplexity was indeed the reason we deemed Wasserstein a failure.”

“Enough. I don’t want to hear another word from you, Kaz.”

“It’s Ki—”

“No.”

“Sol—”

“Not a word. Hush!”

Solario inhaled deeply and then punched the pillar in frustration.

After the alkali subsided, Vance hurried out of hiding. With only 80 seconds left, he ran toward the two rotating nuclei, which were now hovering near the ground. As he got closer, they flashed at him. Then they fired a caustic shot. Unlike previous attacks, this one traveled like a jet of steamy water. It was fast and well-aimed, and it forced Vance to stop and dodge to the side.

When he landed on his feet, another shot had already been traveling toward him, and he had to dodge yet again. Normal slimes couldn’t fire in such rapid succession, but Jet Mode gave Wasserstein this annoying ability. As the timer ticked below 60 seconds, it became impossible to make any progress. Because of the rapid fire, Vance would advance a few steps, only to retrace them afterward. And he couldn’t even reach into his bag to retrieve a black marble and create a much-needed smokescreen.

I’m just wasting Stamina like this. He stopped pushing forward and instead focused on dodging, allowing his Stamina to recover. The timer ticked below 30 seconds, and the pressure mounted up. I see only 20 meters between us, but I can’t close this gap. He clicked his tongue. The time limit will fuck me up. I need to find a way to distract Wasserstein. After another dodge, he took a deep breath and suddenly remembered that he wasn’t alone. Timathor is my last viable option. It might die in the process, but if I don’t take a risk, we’re both doomed.

“Timathor!” he called at the top of his lungs. “Attack!”

“Ow-ushga-Vance!” Timathor shouted with blind obedience and jumped off the pillar to which it had been clinging. It curled into a ball and spun in the air. Wasserstein fired shots at it, but none of them hit the fast-descending target.

The timer ticked below 15 seconds.

This is our last chance. Vance grabbed Timathor before it hit the ground, spun around without losing momentum, and flung the little goblin back into the air. It flew toward Wasserstein at an incredible speed, and Vance followed with a desperate spurt. It’s do-or-die.

The nuclei flashed at Vance and Timathor with rapid alternations, as if they couldn’t finish a computation. In the end, however, they settled on the human and fired like a Gatling gun. Anyone would’ve stopped in the face of this attack, but Vance tapped into his remaining Stamina and saved none for the future. He pushed forward, with the exploding bullets on his heels.

If the shots continued for long enough, they would’ve hit where it hurt most and caused critical damage. But Wasserstein was forced to divert its attention to Timathor, who was now near the end of its flight. It fired at the moment the goblin landed on the ground. The well-timed attack was impossible to evade, but luck and preparedness had the final say in the goblin’s fate: the caustic shot hit the light armor and melted it away, and Timathor suffered only superficial burns as it pushed forward like a juggernaut.

With only five seconds left in the countdown to destruction, Vance appeared on Wasserstein’s right and Timathor on its left. The synchronized duo raised their eager weapons and delivered simultaneous stabs. The short spear pierced right through Sieben; the spectral dagger penetrated and disabled Neun. Then the two nuclei fell on the ground, announcing with a final clink that the battle had reached the most desirable conclusion.

Battle Result Area Boss defeated. You gained a reduced 0 EXP.

Vance took a few steps back to avoid the nocuous puddles. Then he sat on the ground and breathed a long sigh of relief. “This was way more than I asked for,” he muttered, panting wildly, feeling dazed and exhausted. Part of him wasn’t convinced that Wasserstein was defeated, but he slowly became certain of this reality, and it filled him with a sense of accomplishment. How long has it been since my last boss fight? It feels like a hundred years … He gathered his strength, stood up with a slight stagger, and approached his companion.

“Hinjaoor!” Timathor was dancing cheerfully around the deactivated nuclei. “Hinjaoor! Hinjaoor! Ow-gkill-suluum! Hinjaoor! Hinjaoor! Ow-gkill-suluum!”

Vance patted it on the head and gave it a large piece of beef—the reward that he had been saving for the end of their training. Then he looked at it through his monstroscope and realized that it had reached level 21. Well, aren’t you an overachiever? He stroked its head as it chowed down on the expensive beef. I gained no experience from this boss fight, but the same can’t be said of Timathor. He smiled contentedly. The little rascal pulled through, even when it was underleveled. It’s shown real mettle, and now I know I can count on it.

“You can come out of hiding, Kaz,” Vance said. “Your over-accessorized slime is finally dead. What should we do with the nuclei?”

There was no reply, however. Vance looked around him, but there was no one. I guess the elf won the 100-meter dash. Smiling, he dug nine holes and buried the nuclei under a thick layer of soil. I don’t know how to dispose of them, so this should be enough. With nothing left to do, he called Timathor, and they walked home, hand in hand, as if they had only been on a relaxing stroll through the picturesque countryside.