“Are you sure you want to go out with that appearance?” The silly Goddess asked me.

“Why not?” I asked back. “It is safe and I can use tentacles to do a lot of things, so, why not?”

“…don't you think that you will be instantly attacked once the Players see you in that appearance? Do you forget that even your Slime was attacked furiously? So, it is possible that you will be attacked too.” Donald said.

“Ah, what you said is reasonable.” I nodded. It was really troublesome, as that meant that I couldn’t go out with this appearance. But without the Slime Armor, I wouldn’t feel safe at all. What to do…?

“Actually, I have an idea.” Zero spoke after clearing his throat.

“What idea?” I asked.

“I don’t know whether it is doable without knowing the specs of your Mochi Form though.” He said.

“Hm? Wait, this is not Mochi Form, this is Slime Armor! Don’t call it a Mochi Form!” I retorted quickly.

He smirked and ignored my retort. “So, the question is, how long you can stretch it? Also, can you compress its huge body?”

“…I can compress it into… a head’s size. As for the tentacles, I can make it as long as ten meters, perhaps?” I was not sure myself as I never measured it. Well, if I used more Mana, I could theoretically stretch the tentacles as long as I wanted. I didn't have a lot of Mana though, so it was impossible to stretch the Mochi... ah, I made a mistake. I meant, the Slime Armor... I glared at Zero for giving it a weird name, but he ignored it without batting an eye.

“Alright, I think that’s enough. How about you compress your Slime and put it on your back, just like a backpack?” Zero suggested.

“…but that defeats the purpose of having Slime Armor to laze, I mean, to be my anchor.” I said. Yep, it was not because I felt comfortable walking using Slime Armor. Also, definitely not because I was too lazy to walk.

“…actually, you can laze around using only your tentacles, right?” Zero asked.

“Nope, my tentacles are weak, they snap even when they are as thick as my hand.” I replied. “Also, tentacles don’t make me feel as safe as Slime Armor.”

It was just my imagination, but I felt safer wearing Slime Armor than using tentacles as the anchor. As for dealing with the Players… well, let’s think about it later. It seemed Zero ran out of ideas as he stopped suggesting ideas.

“Well, alright, I’ll consider it later. More importantly, how about that Rhino-Bear?” It was the most important part. In the past few days, the Rhino-Bear killed hundreds of Players already. Worse, none of the Players could damage it at all. No, someone like Zero and the silly Goddess could hit it, however, they couldn’t damage it significantly. As for other Players, I heard that they couldn’t even hit it at all. Only a handful of Players could hit it and it didn’t even make a single scratch at its skin.

“No luck. Today, several Players are killed by it without doing any damage. Some can retreat safely, but eighty percent of them were killed.” Donald replied.

To outrun that Rhino-Bear was almost impossible, so I believed the Players who saw it scattered as soon as possible. And the twenty percent were lucky, not because they were skilled.

“Also, perhaps it is only my imagination, but don’t you think that the Rhino-Bear becomes even stronger and smarter? Like, when the first time it appears, people noticed it from five hundred meters away, but now, Players were ambushed by it and our survival rate diminish tremendously.” Donald said.

“…I don’t want to think about it, but do you think Monsters can gain Experience just like Players and NPCs too?” I asked curiously. The others looked at each other and realized the exact same thing. The longer we let that Rhino-Bear lived, the stronger it would get to the point that it would be undefeatable by us.

“…if they can, it will be a catastrophe!” The silly Goddess said while holding her head. I knew what she thought. The last time we fought it, the Rhino-Bear was strong enough to defeat all of us. Well, we were able to retreat though. Now, a few days had passed, if that Monster became stronger, we weren’t sure we could retreat safely now.

“We have to make a plan to kill it as soon as possible!” That was the conclusion after talking about it for a night. As for the plan… actually it was not a plan but rather a gamble.

Alright, without further ado, the plan was quite simple. In the next few days, all the Players were forbidden from going out to hunt. The top ten Players from every Class would get EXP Potions free, and they had to raise their level so they would be able to fight the Rhino-Bear. For the next few days, it would be boring days for the Players as they could only stay in the village. A certain person suggested that I created an event so the Players wouldn’t get bored.

That was reasonable, though honestly, I didn’t want to have another handshake event or even worse, an idol contest. It was not that I didn’t have any confidence, but I just didn’t want to. So, after thinking hard, there was only a single thing that I could think of at the moment.

…

The next day. The Players were bored as they couldn’t go out to hunt monsters or procure materials. It was a game for them, after all, so, who wanted to play a game where you couldn’t kill monsters?

Well, some of them adapted quickly by raising their Life Skills. Unlike Battle Skills that were used for battle, Life Skills were kind of useless. Well, concocting Potions was not useless, but it was just one of few useful Life Skills in this world. As for other Life Skills like Calculus… who wanted to study inside a game? Moreover, it only improved a Mage’s Magic strength by a few points at best. However, there were several Mages attending a Calculus class and Ancient Language class. Seriously, they were diligent.

There were people who studied and increased their Life Skills, there were people who walked around the village to see the shops of the NPCs, and there were lucky people who walked with their lover and having a date inside the village.

As for me…

“Muahahaha! The Great Slimerin has returned!” I shouted excitedly while standing on top of the village chief’s house. It was the biggest house in this village after all, so standing on it would be conspicuous.

“Ah! There’s a monster inside the village!” A female Mage who walked with a male Tank screamed in fear. After all, she was one of the victims when I hit her previously.

“That is the Slimerin!” Her boyfriend exclaimed in surprise as he raised his shield. “Everyone, form the formation!”

Instantly, they made a formation just like their previous formation. I had to say that this kind of formation was kind of good against me previously. However…

“Muahaha! The Slimerin today is not the Slimerin yesterday! I have grown stronger, foolish human!” I said as I grew tentacles from all around my body.

“It has tentacles now!” Someone exclaimed.

“Don’t worry! Archers, prepare to shoot it! Mages, prepare your Fireball! The other elemental Mages, wait for the instruction!” The male Tank surprisingly took control of the situation.

Yes, they were using the exact same strategy as the previous encounter. After the male Tank ordered the Archers to shoot their arrows, countless arrows flew to me and around me. There was no place to dodge, and even though I could dodge, I believed the Warriors had prepared to block my path and killed me again just like the previous encounter.

However, now…

“What!?”

“How can that be!?”

The surprised exclaim from the Players rang out in my Slimear, cough, Slime Ear. All of them were surprised because my numerous tentacles caught all the arrows in a radius of three meters around me. Yep, I caught all the arrows without missing even one by using my tentacles. Well, Slime senses were different than human senses, so I could see everything around me easily.

“Muahaha! Like I said, the Slimerin today is not the Slimerin yesterday! You cannot defeat me with the same strategy!” I laughed heartedly.

“Don’t be flustered! Fire Mage! Shoot your Fireball!” The male Tank ordered and countless fires were shot towards me. However, I only laughed and jumped down from the house slowly. By the way, I was using the Slime Armor size to create this Smokeless Slime, so it was slightly taller than a little girl like me.

A Warrior ran forward in order to stab me with his steely knives, however, I easily caught his hands, stole the knives, and threw him away. Even though this Slime didn’t have enough strength, my experience was not low and I had the basics of Slime Martial Arts, which was using minimum strength to misdirect attacks coming toward me in Slime’s body. So, attacking me with a simple attack like that was useless.

As for his knives, I threw it at him and it almost hit his heart, if a female Knight didn’t step forward and blocked the knives. The Warrior warned, “Be careful of its tentacles! They are fast!”

“Make a way! I’m going to split it into two!” Another Warrior with a huge sword dashed to me with his sword raised high. Honestly, it was impossible for me to grab that big sword of his as my tentacles were weak.

However…

“Ugh!? What…” The Warrior was confused as his aiming was off by quite a bit. He aimed at my middle and tried to bisect me into two, however, what he hit was the ground on my right without harming me at all. Moreover, for a slow warrior like him, he couldn’t see the movement of my tentacles, so it was normal that he was confused.

“Retreat! Earth Mages! Seal its movement!” The male Tank gave another order as he pulled the reckless Warrior.

After that, the ground beneath me shook. It was [Tremor], a low-level Earth Magic. Against normal human or normal Monsters, it would be effective as it could cause them to lose their balance. Against a Slime, however… have you ever seen a Slime fall down because the ground shakes?

So, it was a useless Magic against me who was in Slime’s body. Well, except the fact that my vision was shaking a bit, it didn’t bother me at all.

“Fire Mage! Shoot!” The male Tank ordered.

Was he planning on shooting me with fire while I lost my balance? Like I said, it was a nice plan if I weren’t in Slime’s body. But since I was in Slime’s body, it wasn’t really good.

“Muahaha! Do you think you can kill me by using this kind of strategy?” I said as I compressed my whole body and shrank a lot. Previously, I was as tall as a little girl, perhaps around 150 cm in diameter. Now, I was only 25 cm in diameter. Also, I used my tentacles to grab the wall behind me and moved quickly to that wall. The Fireball hit the ground I was previously stood, but it didn’t touch me at all.

“Fire is its weakness! Keep attacking with Fireball!” Someone shouted. That was not entirely correct. Actually, arrows and swords were my weaknesses too, as well as other Elemental Magic. However, unlike arrows that I could grab and swords that could be parried, I couldn’t do anything about Fireballs so I had to avoid them.

After fighting for half a day and destroying half of the village (not really, just the ground and a house, as I tried not to damage anything as much as I could), I was getting tired mentally, so I retreated. Naturally, I didn’t forget to leave some words for the Players.

“Muahaha! Weaklings that can’t even kill the evolved Slimerin! I’ll be back again soon to have fun with you guys!” After that, I left them and went outside the village as far as I could get. Well, it was just an experiment to know the range of my connection between the Smokeless Slime with me. And the range was actually around 5 km. Not bad.