“I see, so that’s the cause,” I said to myself. “To think the Dryad was actually useful after all.”

Three days had passed since I had recruited the spider and although nothing major had happened, I did manage to get useful bits of information. For a while, I had a feeling that my body was more adept than it should’ve been for my assumed age. And the reason for this? One of the dryads four skills: [Resonant Soul]. Basically, as long as the dryad sacrificed ten MP, my natural abilities were doubled for three minutes. Although the dryad had high MP, its MP recovery rate was pretty low, so it couldn’t use it more than twelve times a day, unless we gave it a good three hours to rest. And here I thought that I was actually pretty badass.

“What about here?” Eliquis asked, looking at an opening in the woods coming up.

I looked up at the sky to judge the time and estimated our current position compared to where the town should be, then nodded my head to her. Then I sent a message to the slimes to scout the surrounding areas, and let the spider set up temporary traps around where we would be camping.

I reflected on the past three days, building my class level up to four, and Eliquis managed to get hers to level three. Although I hadn’t bothered to even look at the new skills yet, I realized that we were making good pace in forging a path ahead of us. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to mark any flying creatures as of yet. I had assumed it was because it only affected things on the land, but I was given an option to place a bran on a fish. I didn’t actually do it, but I was pretty aggravated at not having eyes in the sky to scout for potential dangers.

I also learned quickly that no matter how much time passed, Eliquis’s fear of spiders was going to remain. I mean, my spider had grown to about eighty centimeters tall and a meter long, and Eliquis would start crying every time she saw it. It was definitely a pain, seeing how I had to leave the spider way behind as our rear guard. But, luckily, she wouldn’t be alone forever. Yes, she. Apparently this spider transformed into a [Lower Maglaneae] when it got corrupted. A species of female spiders that lay eggs every sixty days and the eggs hatch after thirty days.

A few worries came up when I first learned about this. For one, usually spiders lay thousands of eggs, right? Well, apparently this race only lays two eggs at a time. Which is a relief, but then I also realized that if I wasn’t around when the eggs hatch, there would be monsters untamed by me, with as much strength as my own roaming around. And it would be a huge pain in the ass to deal with them if they multiplied too fast. However, that was unfounded as well, since the slimes taught me, using their skill [Mitosis] as a test. I say ‘their’ but only one slime was able to use it since it had eaten enough food to use the skill, but it split into a second slime, making my total count four ‘Devil Slimes’. And I didn’t even need to corrupt it, not place my bran. There is a chance that the spiders hatched from eggs would be different, but I highly doubt it, since this seems to be the way that slimes reproduce.

So, our marching order was changed to have one slime accompany me and the dryad, with Eliquis staying no more than eight meters in front of us, and three slimes accompanied the spider. I effectively split my fighting force into a rearguard and vanguard faction, but the balance was definitely lacking. But I couldn’t move the dryad away from me, since I needed its effects, and the ability of a slime to change its shape in the heat of a battle seemed to prove more useful than not. Sorry miss spider. I promise you that your kids will keep you company, but bare with me until then.

Once our makeshift camp was set up, by having Eliquis make a small tent out of blankets, I took a look and was immediately confused. Barely one of us would be able to fit. Oh you sly girl. You made it like this on purpose. I looked over at Eliquis who averted her gaze instantly. Caught ya red handed. You’re lucky I don’t want to hear your cries all night, otherwise you’d be sleeping with the spider.

I turned when I heard the sound of rustling leaves and watched the birds start flying from deeper in the woods towards our direction. I can’t mark any of these either. What a pain. Oh well, I guess I should go investigate what is happening.

“I’m having the slimes guard this area and the spider finish making its traps. You can stay here or come with me to investigate,” I said as I started moving through the forest without waiting for her response.

“I’ll go with you. It didn’t sound like it was too far from our camp.”

And that’s how we walked almost head first into watching how slave traders capture children in the forest. There were four armed men, pinning two people to the ground. One had the ears of a wolf, and his hair silver. He seemed like he was drugged, since his eyes were glazed over. I glanced from him, to the other one that was on the ground and the three corpses that were probably the family of the wolf kid.

If this is the racism that I was warned to watch out for, then why is that other kid being targeted as well? He’s definitely human. Well, questions for later. Four guards, the wolf kid is drugged, the other kid is injured. Four thugs tying them down, one in the woods with a carriage and.. OH I CAN MARK THOSE BIRDS THAT ARE DRIVING THE CARRIAGES! Oh wait, focus. Looks like there’s two carriages and four birds total. I’m totally stealing them. One guard and one important person there. Should probably assume there might be another guard back there. Okay, let’s kill these bastards and take those birds. Oh… I guess I should save the kids too.

“Eliquis, there’s at least two at the carriages. Make sure the birds live.” I whispered the orders to Eliquis who nodded and flanked around the woods to go meet with our friends, the birds.

I was no longer using the long sword anymore. Now, I had found a better way of fighting. I made sure the dryad was hidden under my jacket of CMP real well, and confirmed Eliquis’s position as she moved closer to her targets, then sprang out of the woods as the armed men finished tying the two kids arms behind their backs.

They only remained shocked for two seconds, but that was enough time for me to cross nine meters, and take out the first thug with a black short sword that had a shadow-like figure to it. Yes, the mana blade.

I learned that I never had to sheath them, and I could make quite a few of them and hide them within the CMP to draw them out when I needed them. And when I dropped them, they eventually made their way back to me, unless they were broken somehow. But I fixed that by using the additional skill of Mana Blade to strengthen them. They weren’t anywhere near omnipotent and unbreakable- hell I broke quite a few of them already, but I had eight of them, so breaking one or two in this fight would be fine.

I left my blade in the thug's throat and let him fall forward, using his corpse to cover the sight of me while I crouched low and strained my ears. Two are closer to my left, so let’s go right. I dashed to the right, from under the falling corpse and was met with the next thug swinging his sword horizontally. He assumed I was unarmed and let his guard down slightly, giving me a chance to quickly whip out another Mana blade and stabbing it into his left knee. He attempted to bring his sword down as the other two thugs charged at me, but I used my right hand to stab his right wrist. Between the impact and the pain, he dropped his blade and fell on the third mana blade that I just pulled out of nowhere, essentially.

The two thugs charging at me were met by an unexpected volly of seeds from the dryad, and halted their advance to guard themselves. That was enough time for my trusty slime to get behind one of them, turning into a mass of chains that wrapped around one of them, binding his body. I charged at the other, who was confused at the whole thing playing out. My instincts immediately screamed out, and I immediately changed my course to the left, rolling on my left shoulder and landing in a crouching position. Fireballs were flying towards where I was standing.

Magic? Fuck, I forgot people can use that. I felt the presence of the four mana blades returning to me, so I met the thug head on dodging fireballs as the dryad made pop shots at him. I jumped left and right, rolled and dashed, but the fireballs were becoming more accurate, so I took up drastic measures and threw my mana blade at the thug. Then I brought two more to my hand and threw those as well. The thug dodged the two that were aimed for him, then realized the third had hit its target- his partner. But it was too late at that point, because the slime had already changed its form into a puddle and hid underneath the corpse. But the thug didn’t know it. He was too panicked by the sight of me slaughtering his friends and wondering why his buddies not too far away weren’t coming.

“They’re already dead,” I said to him calmly.

“What?”

“Your friends over there,” I pointed with my thumb over my shoulder. “I made sure to kill them first.”

I studied his face as I spoke and realized that he was indeed panicking, so I took advantage of his weak emotional state and threw four blades at him in rapid succession, while the dryad shot out a flurry of seeds to seal his movements. He dodged the blades but the seeds did get him. Although they weren’t powerful, my little sniper was good at hitting weak spots and she got him in the crotch. I created my last mana blade, smirking at the thought of my little flower castrating men like him in the future, then without hesitation or a second thought, I thrust my blade into the thug's face. With all the mana blades used up, I realized that I made a grave mistake in thinking eight would be enough, so I created one more, then collected them back into my CMP jacket.

I moved over to Eliquis, having the slime watch over the kids on the ground, and fired four Brans. They all hit their targets: the birds. But I ignored their rapid growth and had Eliquis remove them from the carriages. We loaded up what supplies we could on the birds, and had them run to our camp. In the meantime, we moved the rest of the supplies we wanted towards the other two kids and I began my work in assessing our current situation.

“Help me strip everyone that’s not alive and have the slime eat them and the blood,” I ordered. Eliquis gave me a puzzled look but didn’t question it.

We can’t forget where we are. These corpses are going to attract monsters that we don’t want to deal with while protecting these two. The clothes and shoes from these guys should prove somewhat useful and their weapons might be useful for a little bit. Man, why does this feel so natural to me?

I slapped the non-wolf boy’s cheek to wake him up. Apparently he fell unconscious during the fight. He came to, but was still sluggish as he tried to sit up on his own. Then he looked over my shoulder horrified at the sight of the slime eating a pile of corpses.

“Oi, focus. We don’t have time for that. Explain what happened to you and this kid, and do it before monsters find out we’re here.”

“Oh. R-right. Um… their family had been taking care of me since my parents passed away from sickness. We used to live over there, but these guys found us and…”

“Okay. come with us or figure it out on your own.”

I left the kid confused about my words as I greeted my four new birds. Amu’s huh? They obviously weren’t done transforming just yet, but they were currently just over two meters tall, from feet to the top of their head and didn’t look like they flew well, or at all. Their feathers were different variants of red and black mixed together, their body could fit three of us sitting on their backs, easily. I wonder if we could fit six kids on them when they stop mutating. I thought to myself looking at them. Then I realized that when I first saw them, they had just two massive wings, but I could see two more growing in front of them. Interesting.

There wasn’t much left from the slave traders that we wanted, and it all fit on one Amu, so I decided to try something I’ve been wanting to see for a while. I watched as the slime morphed into a figure just under two meters tall and slowly took on the appearance of a human. But, it definitely was androphinous in its appearance. I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a girl or a boy. I’m going to say boy since it’s lacking anything in the chest area. Although his hair was a dark blonde and glowed radiantly like it should’ve been on the head of a princess.

This… this is going to be difficult. I don’t know how to address this. I know I said I would call it a he, but when I look at his face, I want to say she- especially with that hair. How do you grow something like that? Ok, enough of that, let’s just have him get dressed and we can get going.

“What just-”

“Later. Mind your surroundings,” I reminded the kid, as I secured the wolf kid onto the back of one of the amus. I helped the other kid onto that Amu as well, and when the slime finished getting dressed and arming himself with a sword, he also got onto an amu, then led the way for the two kids through the woods. I climbed onto the only amu left without supplies. I was half tempted to tell Eliquis to leave on her own, but let her on the amu and we trotted back to our little camp.

Once at the camp, I laid the wolf kid on some blankets and had the other kid sit there next to him. I looked over the supplies briefly, then decided it would be best to keep everything we can do a secret for now. But there was one thing I had to do, now there was an excuse to do it.

I looked over at Eliquis and grinned as I said. “Tear down the tent and put up three new ones.”

The look of shock on her face was priceless, and left her to handle that while I started checking on the slime we had with us. It seemed like he was able to use [Mitosis] now, so I had him go off in the woods to do that, and return fully clothed when he was done. The other three slimes were helping Eliquis, so I decided to deal with the two kids myself.

“What’s your name?” I plopped in front of the kids.

“Bellamort. You?”

“Garem. That there is Eliquis, and the slimes are… oh. I never did give them a name. I don’t even know if he can talk or not. This was a test run to be honest,” I shrugged as I made a mental note to test if slimes could even speak while imitating humans. “And who’s that?”

“He’s Gavin. A demi-human like your friend.”

“Well, I can see that much. Anyways, I’ll give you two options here. And you can take tonight to discuss them with your friend. First option is for us to drop you off at the village we’re planning on checking out. Should be somewhere in that direction. Second option is to follow us. But that choice requires resolve. You’ll be put to work and probably won’t be living peacefully for a while.”

While I spoke to them, I used the flint we graciously received from the slave traders to start a fire in the firepit that the slimes created. Wow, these slimes may be weak but they’re so useful. I wonder what else I could have them do to ease our workload. I threw a few twigs and one decent sized branch over the small flame I just made and listened to the crackling of the fire while Bellamort sat in silence thinking about my choices.

“Will we be safe here tonight?”

“Hm? Why wouldn’t we be? I know slimes normally are pretty weak but they’re not the only things in my arsenal. And besides, I’ve already got my claws into those amus, plus a little secret weapon is finishing the security of this clearing with temporary traps. It’ll take at least fifteen people rushing us from every angle and some luck to actually breach this campsite. It’ll take more to kill at least one of us,” I explained. “Just rest up and discuss your options with your buddy. We’ll be leaving early tomorrow.”