We ran away, around the players but as straight as possible. Turns out, calling a slime army was exactly what it did, and it sicced them on us. They weren't exactly fast, but they were clearly not in a normal state. My own little Gel seemed terrified at what was happening. Clearly, the only ways out were running into town, where I would be arrested immediately, and running into the woods as it was getting dark. Good lord, so much running today. This might do wonders for my Stamina, but when the hell am I going to get to stand and fight?

Whatever, I'll keep going. He can't get out of the meadow, so let's run for the woods. I got a PK penalty to lose. Won't be long. This time, Biiro can follow me out. He's a bit weird, though. He's slowly turning back into a regular yellow feather ball. Maybe being a Field Boss gives you extra powers? Yeah, that's most likely the case. His are waning, and soon he sits on my shoulder. Off into the woods we go, and a happy chirp resounds in my ear.

So now here I am, Gel in my arm, rare bird on my shoulder, army of level 1 slimes on my heels, because they can cross the border too apparently, jogging away at a rhythmic pace. This is the life, right there.

A slightly deformed dog bursts out of a bush in front of me, chased by a boar. Seems like I found the locals. Wild dogs, not wolves, but close enough. They might be an issue, but they're ugly so it's fine. That might sound cruel, but I don't like canines. A fox bit me once and I feared them for a while, then that fear was transformed into hate via the means of becoming a VERY edgy teenager and it remains unsolved to this day. I grew out of the edgy phase, but the mindset stayed.

I picked up the pace, eager to finally lose the slimes but not wandering too far so I could return to the city. They were tumbling over each other and some were fusing into big slimes. Well, that area of the meadow's going to be way harder. I hope nobody saw me aggroing the big boy, though... They'll either thank me or curse me.

After a while, I finally lost all those slimes. Jeez, that was hard. I sat on top of a big boulder nearby to pull out the roasted nuts and feed them to Biiro, as I'd promised. Now that we had a quiet moment, I could ask the question that had been bothering me for a while.

"Hey, Gel. You don't have a name, do you?" "Pii?"

"I said, do you want a name, little Gel?" "KII!"

When it understood what I was saying, it bounded all over me. That was a yes. First, I needed to know.

"Do slimes have boys and girls? If so, are you a boy or a girl, and should I name you as such?"

"..."

That's either a no or a what and I don't care to know what it is. A fancy name it is. How about something powerful and intimidating? The cuter it is, the scarier the name. I don't know much about scary names, though. Not for a slime, at least. I'll just name it Crush.

"From now on, you are Crush. You represent that word, the action, the noun... Everything about you is crushing now. Live up to it, little Gel."

"Pi!"

It shuffled over to a smaller rock on the flat edge of the boulder and bounced on it over and over, going "Pi! Pi!" each time. Well, it's trying. Keep going, Crush, you'll get it.

"What about you, Biiro? Do you want to keep the name?" *nod* "Okay. Biiro's just fine anyways."

Then he resumed gorging himself on roasted nuts. Looks like I made a good choice taking those, huh? If he likes them then I'll keep them in mind, I guess.

I don't want to spend this free time doing nothing, so I'll do like the trainer girl taught me and run laps around the boulder, kick the trees, run again, et cetera. I want to do stuff, but I don't feel like exposing my nads to creatures with actual teeth, ya get me? Anyway, I got to running around the little clearing, circles and circles and more circles, until my Stamina ran down to zero. I tried sprinting around but it's hard to turn so I stuck to regular running for now. I did this twice, then got to kicking. Now that I had plenty of time to figure it out, I'd get good at kicking.

I took a fighting pose, then did a test kick. Feels just like the dummy, that's good. Now, to repetition. I figure that if I just keep kicking, I'll get it eventually. It'll click. So I kept swinging my leg at the tree, bam bam bam, again and again. Faster, slower, with more force, with less force, I slowly got the hang of kicking.

Kicking has leveled up!

Great! I'm doing it! I'm not sure what "it" is, but I'm doing it! Now, the other leg as well. I'm ambidextrous, but my legs need balance too. A lot of kicks later, I was down quite a lot of HP. Almost too much, in fact. My legs were in huge pain and felt weak as hell. Why do I keep doing this to myself? With difficulty, I hoisted myself onto the boulder and used Rest. Hopefully it worked on HP too.

Max Stamina has increased by 2!

Constitution has increased by 1!

Dexterity has increased by 1!

After recovering all my HP, I was about ready for a bit of night wandering. Taking my companions (and the rest of the nuts) with me, I ventured properly off into the forest. A nice walk, with actual crickets and fireflies, was had. Then I met a wild dog. It was not happy to see me. At first, it barked. Loudly and repeatedly. It had an aggressive stance that said "I will pounce you, better get away", but stepped forward when I stepped backward so I figured I might as well shut its damn mouth before it called its friends.

I walked towards it and, not one to back down from a challenge, it ran at me and leaped for my throat. I was ready and jumped aside, then attempted to kick it when it landed but it was too swift for that. I'd have to try something else. It backed off a bit, unsure of what to use on me, then tried to circle around and pounce again. I hit it in midair this time, as I did a circle of my own in the other direction and caught in the side with a big left. 22 Strength is no joke, because its entire momentum was shifted to my right and it hit the ground with a whimper. Struggling to get up, it was too late as I stomped on its head.

I would've felt bad at violently crushing a dog's head with my feet, but deep-seated hatred, remember? It died fairly quickly, with a second stomp ending its life. It dissipated into red particles.

You won!

You get: 35 XP

1x Dog's Tail

5 Gold

Oh. Players are worth more than I thought. This thing's like level 5 or something, right? Though I guess the slimes are too, now. I mean, I guess it's fair that we're worth more than monsters, because we're smarter and grudges are a thing. It's possible for us to have rematches, while for monsters it's always a single loss.

Okay, resume walk-- *BARK BARK!* for fuck's sake. I turn around and there's three wild dogs. This one's going to be tougher. I could run, but I don't want to. I'm not losing to a fucking dog of all things! Square up you flea-bitten trash heaps!

I dashed at them and opened with a jump kick, met by the lead dog's open maw. Shoved its teeth right back into its skull. Following it up by grabbing it by its front paws and slamming it into the second dog, who was coming from the right. The third was on a delay, it seems, because I'm somehow fast enough to dodge its leap entirely. I kick its ass, literally, and it's flung right into the path of Crush, who comes up with a creative way to live up to its name and bodyslams it midair.

"Do you stupid mutts ever go for anything other than the throat?"

The lead was in bad shape, its mouth was stuck open and one of its front legs broke, but it somehow stood and faced me. The second was almost perfectly fine though, and it pounced at my head again. Seems they really do only go for the throat. I missed the timing on my counterpunch and it bit down on my forearm. That hurts! I try to shake it off, but it holds on tight. The lead, meanwhile, tries to crawl over to me and I end its attempt forever by slamming my foot into its head. It dissolves while spinning sideways. I punch at the second's gut until it does the same. Bastard wouldn't let go until it died. I check on the third, to see that Crush wrapped itself around its muzzle and mouth and is suffocating it.

I decide to let it finish it off, so it gets the XP. Three minutes later, the dog dissipates.

You won!

You get: 80 XP

1x Dog's Tail

3x Fang

15 Gold

Crush gets 30 XP

Alright, I'm done. Fuck this place, I'm going back to the Meadow. I don't wanna have to fight pack after pack of these damn things. I'd rather take on the Slime King and be a PK forever. Why couldn't I have met the boars instead?

As I'm retracing my steps, I come across a boar. It seems a bit small, and bristly... Wait, that's not a boar! It's some kind of porcupine with tusks! I couldn't really tell, because I think night finally fell. It looked straight at me then walked away, so it seemed fine. Was that a day creature running late or a night herbivore of some kind? I couldn't tell. This place is weird. Keeping on my way, I managed to find an exit to the meadow in a different place from before.

"Okay, we're going in the Meadow. These dogs are suited to night ambushes better and I refuse to give them any more of my attention."

I hear a strange sound, a squeaky, nasty imitation of a howl, answered by hundreds, in the meadow. Do the rabbits go mad at night or are the slimes berserk? Or both, maybe? I can't see much, there's a gap between the woods and the denizens here, so I'll have to get closer if I wanna know.

The birds are nowhere to be seen, but I see dark shapes in the distance. Way taller than any bunny has the right to be. Are they wererabbits or something, the damn things? After observing them for a while, I get a better idea of how they look. I'm still far, so they won't come at me, but they're a bit clearer now. It helps that they move around just a little bit not much. They seem strangely lanky, and their legs have backwards knees. More importantly, I can now see their telltale long ears. Yup, they're mad rabbitmen.

But surely, they can't be lethal to the point of scaring all the players off, right? I mean, I can't see a single person in there! I do see a lot of light to the left and right sides of the city, in the distance, but this part is really dark. What kind of monstruous speed, strength and/or sharp claws do they have?

I can't risk fighting them. I'm gonna go around. I can see a lot of commotion over there, is that the Slime King fighting a lot of people? Most likely, if he's still mad. Let's go there instead. As I get closer, I can feel a strange excitement rise in me. Like I really want to go there. I can tell Crush is feeling it too, by the way it starts to jiggle. Biiro is strangely silent and still, where he would usually chirp and click and rustle his feathers.

"You nervous, Biiro? It's fine, you're a rare monster. He's just a leveled-up normal. I mean, if you look at it, you're also leveled-up but it's different, you don't evolve as easily as he does, I mean they're slimes, it's what they do. No matter what, I'm still gonna protect you, buddy. Don't worry. I'm right here. I always will be." *coo*

You have tamed a Level 8 Ballbird (Unique)!

You have earned the trust of the ex-most powerful monster in this region! That's not something easy.

Biiro wasn't tense anymore, or rather he was but this time, instead of fear, there was determination. I could feel it, like a fire was burning on my shoulder. We headed straight for the Slime King.

There were a lot of players standing together, windmilling their blades at a torrent of slimes. Basic, low-level spells were cast, loads of fireballs, electric arcs and water spurts forming all over. The slimes were turned into mindless drones, throwing themselves at humanity. In the background, the Great Slime King stood, slightly bigger than it was when it evolved. Slimes were spawning en masse. As I got closer to it, at an angle different from the players of course, a counter popped up on the upper-middle part of my screen, it had an icon of a cartoon slime on it and read 3,782/5,000. I'm guessing that's the amount of slimes to kill before the next phase starts-- this IS a boss fight, after all.

As I got a bit closer, I saw a small stream of slimes spawn and come to me. Crush hopped off my shoulder and let out a series of whistles, most likely slime language for "stop, you fools!". There was no response. Then it hopped ahead and whistled out more things. There was no response. As they got closer to it, Crush tried to stop them with its body.

There was a response.

The first slime collided directly with Crush, and tried to swallow it. A combat indicator popped up next to its name, a little sword icon. The slimes were totally brainless. Crush, most likely astonished by this, stood still within the confines of the slime for a second, then pressed itself to the ground and burst upwards, leaving a big hole in the slime with a -18 floating off it. Killed instantly. Crush was very clearly mad now. This big slime was making the other slimes attack everyone, and it needed to stop.

I didn't even have to do anything. Crush hopped towards the Great Slime King, completely livid. Every slime in its way was systematically destroyed by the power of its superior form and absolute fury.

"Crush! Stop! He'll kill you in an instant!" Seeing that it wouldn't stop, I rushed to stop Crush from making a mistake. The eyes of the Slime King turned to us for a moment, and it opened its mouth. A deep, tuba-like note was heard, and three more streams of slimes started spawning just for me. Catching up to Crush, I told it to stop again, not that it had a choice. Slimes could jump too, and they weren't only after me.

The slime reinforcements were too much for Crush, and even though it killed them through fine control of its far harder body in a single blow, it needed to put all of its weight into every attack. Thus, it was forced to retreat to avoid getting dogpiled.

The counter was quickly approaching 5,000 now and I would get to see what happens then. Soon enough, a minute or so later, it hit 5,000 and was replaced by an HP bar with an icon of a green slime next to it, about two-thirds full. The small slimes kept spawning, but in far smaller amounts, and the King moved. It slid over in the direction of the mob of people and started spewing out loads of balls of goo. Tankers raised their shields, mages screamed in terror or tried to fire back with their own projectiles, melee DPS stood there, unsure what to do... Pandemonium.