“What the hell…”

I glanced around, though I knew deep down it wasn’t someone playing a prank on me. The voice was too similar to the announcements from before my transfer to this place. What it said, however, didn’t make any sense.

I waited for the voice to speak again and was rewarded with silence. Several awkward minutes passed before I managed to convince myself that it had been a trick of my imagination.

I levelled up already? Is it really that easy?

I turned towards the town in the distance. From the short glimpse, I had seen some movement. Movement meant people, people meant food, shelter and information. Though I was penniless and lost, it still wasn’t enough to make me give up hope. There would be some way to make money, which would solve my short term issues.

The town lay in the distance, though I couldn’t see any buildings behind the large walls that surrounded it. Walls made sense, of course. If I lived in a world where huge slimes could pop out of bushes, I would put a barrier between myself and them at all times.

“Srreee.”

A weird sound came from the field to my right. I pivoted around, my staff held aloft to intercept any further attacks. After I surveyed the field beside me for several seconds, the creature that had made the noise became apparent.

It was a slime.

Compared to the Slime Queen it was tiny, barely bigger than two fists put together. In a way, it was cute as it bounced towards me. Still, I didn’t let my guard down. It jumped through the air one more time before it landed a few feet from me. Either by chance or design, the little critter was out of reach of my staff, though I did turn my weapon towards it.

“Go on! Get!” I yelled as I thrust my staff towards it. It worked for normal animals, why couldn’t it work for a slime?

My exaggerated display kept it entertained. The creature waved back and forth in time with my swings, as though it were my partner in some weird, interpretive dance. It seemed relatively harmless. I pulled back my staff and relaxed my guard a little as the ball of goo wiggled before me.

“SCREE!”

It shot towards my face like a cannonball the instant my staff had moved out of the way. I wasn’t able to move my weapon before it slammed into my face with a peculiar plopping noise. My head snapped back as it bounced off. My vision was lost as a wave of blue goo covered my eyes. I wiped my face to remove the chunks of its body covered my eyes.

In a panic, I stepped back and tripped over a rock. A waft of air blew past my head, a sign the horrible little monster had launched yet another attack. Its miss gave me a chance to regain my feet as I wiped the blue liquid from my eyes.

The slime quivered at the bottom of a nearby tree. A long blue smear caked the side of the trunk as several chunks of goo clung to its rough bark. Its body had collapsed slightly to reveal yet another orb, like a smaller and duller version of the slime queen core. No further hints were required as I dashed forward and swung my staff towards it.

My staff struck the core dead on and continued on into the floor. The slimes body melted away as its core was cleanly buried into the dirt. I took a deep breath and propped myself up against the tree. Battle, violence, potential death. Those were the only three things I had found in this new world, and I didn’t like a single one of them.

Well, that was easy. I guess these are the low-level versions of the slime queen, but it still doesn't take much to take them out. Is it because they're weak, or that I'm strong?

It was two for two on creatures that tried to kill me as soon as we met.

The slime queen core was an item, so maybe a normal Slime core was counted as well? I leant beside the tree and dug my fingers into the muddy dent left behind by my staff. After a minute or so of frantic scrabbling, I pulled out a relatively intact core from the dirt.

**Slime Core acquired.**

As expected the voice spoke once more. It was slightly different from the automated voice in the room, to be fair. This one had a musical lilt to it, as though it would burst into song at any moment. The announcer in the weapon room had been stark and dull in comparison. At least this one was a little nicer on the ear.

The core had vanished, though that did not surprise me too much. The word ‘acquired’ could mean many things. Were these items being stored for later use? Was the voice merely announcing its theft of my hard earned goods? Or had I absorbed them in some way, like a literal human Slime?

For the time being, I forced myself away from that rabbit hole. The slime had vanished into the ground without a scratch. Maybe they were part of the ecosystem. The first one had been near a huge bush after all. Maybe whatever made up their bodies served double duty as fertilizer for the vegetation around me.

It made sense. Most things in nature worked in cycles.

“Never mind.” I shook my head and set off towards the town once more. It was likely that every bizarre theory would turn out to be pointless in the end. These creatures had existed here longer than I had, so someone else would have figured out their life cycles by now.

I could stay out and grind for more levels. Logically, that would give me some benefits, or skills... but I could also go into the town and learn a bit about this world. Hmm.

After a minute or so of deliberation, I made my decision. I put off the idea to increase my levels against the slimes in favour of going into the town. That might open up more efficient paths, and it wasn't like I knew much about the world yet. The only bit of information I had was that my friends would appear on the tenth day of the tenth month, but the God who sent me here said I had a short while to wait.

These things are weak, so I doubt they are a good target for me to grind. If I can squash them without an issue now, they probably won't give me much experience...

The issue was how vague he had been. His words could mean I had hours, days or even weeks to wait. In the first instance, grinding wouldn't make much of a difference as I wouldn't have enough time to raise myself sufficiently anyway. In the latter options, a short trip to town would probably prove useful in the long run. With my mind set, I moved towards the town with a purpose.

Several more slimes attacked me as I moved closer to the town.

After the previous attacks, I now knew to initiate combat myself with a preemptive strike. The strange dance of the first slime made sense now. When my staff swung towards them, they dodged back as though they expected my attacks to reach far further than they did.

I used their reactions to my advantage as to force them into a rhythm of feint, dodge, strike. I missed their cores once or twice, though after a few fights I got the hang of it. It took a few strikes to beat them at best, but at least I didn’t get any more blue goo smacked on my face.

They were able to move the core around their body at will, at least until they had taken significant damage. It caught me by surprise a few times until I figured out the trick. If my first strike missed, it would still do enough damage that I could take out the weak point at my leisure with the next blow.

The hunter became the hunted as I searched for more encounters. Though every slime had a core, it wasn’t a guaranteed drop. Sometimes they were obliterated as my staff smashed down on them, though their destruction didn’t seem to be related to how much power I used. Despite that, the harvest of cores reached five in total as I glanced around for my next target.

“Halt!”

A man’s shout jerked me to a stop. I glanced up and finally noticed how close I was to the town. Lost as in my little game of cat and mouse, I had walked up to the walls unconsciously.

“Oh, hi.” I turned to face the man who had shouted. The two guards by the town wall stared back, their expressions a mix of curiosity and trepidation. They both rested their hands upon the swords sheathed at their waists.

“Hello, friend.” One of the guards took a step towards me as she gave me a quick look over. “You seem to have been through a few wars.”

I glanced down at myself. Though my armour wasn’t damaged it was covered in multiple smears of blue goo, though the general colour did manage to hide it slightly. I didn’t even want to imagine my face at that point, though.

“I guess you’re right.” I mumbled. The guard's humorous looks didn’t help the sense of shame that rose up within me. “I was attacked by a huge slime-”

“Hahahaha!” The guard near the wall cut me off as he chuckled. “A huge slime, you say? Was it a king, perhaps?”

“No. It was a slime queen-”

“HAHAHAHA!” The man doubled over as tears streamed down his face. I could feel a tide of anger rising up, but I held it back. These people were well-armed, and likely high level. It would be stupid to overreact before I had more of an understanding of the world. The man's companion gave him a sharp look before she turned to face me.

“Ignore him, he’s like this with everyone.” She patted my shoulder. “You need to get cleaned up. Here.”

She passed me a small, rough piece of cloth. In a past life I wouldn’t have used it to clean my house, but now wasn’t the time to be picky. The tough fibres rubbed against my face without mercy. It took several minutes before I was sure the remnants of my battles had been cleared. The man had calmed down a bit, though he still gave the occasional repressed snort as he held back his laughter.

“That should do it. You need to visit the guild, you should be able to trade whatever you got for a good night's sleep.”

I nodded at the woman before I moved into the town. The man waved at me, though I didn’t return the gesture. The pair started an argument the moment they thought I was out of earshot. The woman berated her colleague for his rude behaviour.

Well… She seems nice, at least.

A street lay before me with several carts along each side. The buildings that lined it were one to two stories at the highest, but they were well designed and maintained. It wasn’t like a medieval village, so that worry was proven unfounded. I took a step down the street, but then a voice rang out from behind me.

“Oy, you! Give me all you’ve got!”