"Hey Ryan get up.", a voice calls out to me, which snaps me out of my dream.

"Got it Lee.", I respond back.

Within a minute I am on the ground standing next to Lee, who is leaning on his spear, and the others, waiting for Dylan to come down. Standing there, I begin to blankly stare into the depths of the forest and start thinking back on my dream.

'Bad memories.', I think to myself, before a loud voice breaks my train of thought.

"Get down already Dylan.", Sophie's voice echoes through the surrounding area.

"I'm trying.", he shouts back, carefully stepping down from tree branch to tree branch to avoid falling down again.

"You're too slow.", Sophie says back, as she bands towards the ground and picks up a rock.

Pulling back her arm, she throws the rock at Dylan, who flinches upon impact, and falls 3 feet to the ground.

"What was that for?", Dylan cries out, while rubbing his now sore back.

"If I didn't give you a helping hand, we would have been here until noon.", she replies.

"Well what a helping hand that was.", he says in a quiet voice.

"Alright let's go.", Sophie says walking out in front of the group with her unsheathed sword pointed forward.

"Ah...", she says freezing and then turning around.

"After you Bruno.", she then says.

Bruno gives a short nod, wields his shield, and starts leading the group forward, once again, down the river to the shadow of the building in the distance.

***

"Finally my leg is healed.", Sophie says enthusiastically after eating the newly acquired slime core.

Looking at her out of the corner of my eye, I can see her stretching and jumping around to test it. As if making sure that it being healed isn't an illusion. Soon she stops moving and gives a smile while staring down at her leg before saying, "Now we can up our pace guys. Let's try to get to that building today."

***

After around an hour of jogging all that can be heard from the group is the sounds of intense panting.

"What's wrong with you guys?", Sophie questions us.

"I wasn't ever really good at cardio.", I respond.

"But I think Alice is even worse than I am.", I continue, gesturing to Alice, who looks close to falling over,

"Maybe we should stop then.", she says back to me.

The group stops jogging, with many immediately sitting down. I walk over to the river, and sit down next to it. I then plunge my head into the water, and rapidly start gulping down the flowing water. Pulling my head back out after close to 15 seconds, I am greeted to the image of Alice face down in the water next to me. I tap her on the shoulder, and say, "Hey are you alright?", but I receive no response. After waiting another couple of seconds in case she didn't hear me or isn't finished yet, I pull her back out of the water. She then begins gasping for air as soon as her head is removed from the river.

"Thanks.", she says in a small voice, which I can barely hear.

"No problem. But why didn't you just take your head out of the water?", I say back.

"Tired.", she says once again in a small voice.

"Ready to get going again?", Sophie says in a loud voice to the group, which leads to a mix of groans and yeses.

Turning back to Alice, I ask her, "Are you ready?", to which she responds with a nod. Then she stand back up, but upon trying to walk forward she falls back to the ground.

"Do you need me to carry you?", I ask.

She nods her head nervously, with a red blush spreading across her cheeks. I put out my hand for her to grab, and pull her up. I then squat down, and say, "I'll give you a piggyback ride." She then puts her arms around my neck, and I grab her legs, before standing back up. Looking back towards the group, I can see Sophie staring and the pair of us, and she then says, "I guess we won't be jogging anymore." I can then feel Alice try to hide her head in my back in embarrassment. Sophie then turns back to the group, and gestures to Bruno, who walks to the front of the group, and starts walking down the river again.

***

Our group stops moving, as a run down courtyard and fallen set of doors greets us. Stopping by the edge of the forest, we look inside the courtyard, and I can see the same 5 slimes that I fought last time, 1 mutated, 3 normal, and 1 commander. I breathe out shakily as I hope that this goes well.

"Whoa, that's a lot of slimes.", Dylan exclaims.

"Yeah.", John says despondently.

"Don't worry about it.", says Sophie. "If we have a good plan, this will be a cakewalk."

"So what is this plan.", John says back.

"Do you have any ideas guys?", Sophie asks.

Clearing my throat, I say, "What if Bruno and Alice take care of the big one, I'll take care of the small one, and Lee, John, Dylan, and you Sophie take care of the normal ones."

"That sounds good.", Sophie says. "Alright everyone get ready to go in."

As I remove my staff from my belt loop, I can hear Dylan mutter under his breath, "What a pussy taking the small one." Looking at him I think to myself, 'You know nothing, only I know how dangerous that small one is. I have to kill it before it screeches; I have to.'

"Let's go.", Sophie then announces, and we begin walking into the courtyard.

Immediately upon stepping into the courtyard the group of slimes notices us, and the commander slime in the back lets out a small screeching noise and all the slimes start moving towards us, with the commander hiding behind them. Bruno and Alice start heading towards the mutant slime, and Bruno bashes it with his shield pushing off to the side to separate it from the rest of the slimes. I and the rest of the group head towards the rest of the slimes with Sophie and Lee in the front and me and John in the back. The slimes start rapidly rolling towards us, and we dodge to the side tp avoid their charge, but suddenly the commander slime starts heading towards John extremely quickly.

"Watch out John.", I shout out.

John looking back to the commander slime, flinches at the sight of it barreling towards him, and the slime suddenly jumps up impacting him on his face.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.", he cries out, as the slime falls back to the ground.

He drops his gun and puts his hands the right side of his face, where basically half of the flesh on his face is sloughing off. He falls to the ground trying everything in his power to ease the pain he is in, soon resorting to slamming his head against the ground to either ease the pain, or put himself to sleep so as not to feel it anymore. Turning back to the commander slime, I point my staff at it, start up my chant, and blast it with as much flame as I can muster.

"Die you bastard!", I yell, still blasting it with so much fire, it is singing my eyebrows.

But to my horror, I hear a loud screech come from the slime just before it evaporates, and my ears begin ringing in pain. Staring blankly at the small pile of only gold coins at the site of its death, my face quickly turns pale, and my eyes loose focus.

"Good job Ryan.", I hear a couple of my teammates say behind me.

'No no no no no no no no no no no no. How could I let this happen. I killed us all.', I think to myself as I fall to my knees.