By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 13 - Chapter 16

Chapter 8, Episode 16: Our Destination and a New Slime

“As we suspected,” Sever said.

We had nearly arrived—we could see the City of Lost Souls ahead as the red of sunset was beginning to stain the sky. As we’d suspected, things looked dire enough to draw sour expressions from the faces of my companions well experienced in monster hunting.

The City of Lost Souls was an expansive, abandoned prison in the center of a crater. To prevent inmates from escaping, watchtowers had been built to form a perfect octagon around the structure. We stood at the far end of a path carved out of a cliffside that led to the front gate of the prison. The gate was closed, preventing us from seeing past it. But there must have been a crack in the gate somewhere, because Undead monsters clogged up the gate-lined path beyond the halfway point. It was similar to the situation we’d faced yesterday, which had given me an excuse to use up half of my oil stockpile.

Breathing was difficult, despite the clear weather and steady breeze. I felt a persistent sense of discomfort, almost like I was sick.

“Cursed energy is flowing out of there... Are you all right?” Remily asked.

“Shouldn’t slow me down,” I said.

“Good, but don’t hesitate to say so if it gets worse. Cursed energy is a form of magical energy, so it’ll feel gross even if you don’t know it’s there. This level of cursed energy might just make you a little nauseous, but that won’t go away as long as you’re near its source. Don’t overextend yourself. Oh, and if you start to see cursed energy—it’ll look like a black blur—be careful. When cursed energy is dense enough to be visible, coming into contact with it can kill you. Stay away from pools of cursed energy as much as possible, and get rid of any Undead coated in cursed energy as quickly as possible. Those are your two rules,” Remily explained.

“Got it.” I’d keep a close eye on my physical condition. The question was where to start from.

“It’s a shame, but midnight dew will have to wait. We need to whittle them down as much as we can, while we can,” Sever said.

“I second that. Even I won’t go herb gathering while the city’s in this state,” said Remily.

“Me neither,” I chimed in.

“Shall I jump to Teresa to report this?” Sebas offered.

“Faster for me to call a dragon and turn them to ash,” Reinbach said. “It would take too long for news to reach the local lord, and even longer for the militia to arrive.”

“Either way, we need more information. Why don’t we take the closest watchtower and consider our options from up there?” Sever proposed.

The adults were far more relaxed about this than I’d expected. No better company for tricky situations.

Our route to the nearest watchtower was simple: down the path and up a thin set of stairs. To go down the path, of course, we’d have to go through a horde of Undead.

“Should we set up defensive parameters again?” I asked.

“Only after we reach the watchtower,” said Sever. “Remily? Can you take care of this?”

“Sure, but you boys take on whatever’s upstairs,” she answered. “Ryoma, I’m going to wipe out that horde with a big spell. Once I do, can you ask your slimes to barricade the bottom of the stairs?”

“Absolutely.” I didn’t doubt Remily’s ability to pull that off. She wouldn’t have fibbed about something like that. Not now. I was more concerned with not missing a moment of her grand spell.

“I’m just going to fire it before they notice us.” Remily sauntered out into the path and chanted, “Laser.” Then a thin beam shot out of her outstretched staff, much like a laser pointer back on Earth. I remembered that some models could leave a light burn or blind someone, but that didn’t seem powerful enough to handle a horde of zombies. Just as that thought crossed my mind, every Undead on the trajectory of the laser vanished. The laser followed a split second later, piercing the air where the zombies had stood. As Remily flicked her staff left and right, the laser followed and wiped out the rest of the Undead. In a matter of seconds, the path was clear of Undead monsters.

“It’s that easy...?” I blurted out.

“This spell has spectacular penetrating power, so you’ll achieve something like this in an open space. It costs a lot of magical energy, though, so I can’t fire them in quick succession. Can you secure the stairs sooner rather than later?”

“Right!” Sprinting, I asked the emperor scavenger slime to block off the stairs by splitting into a swarm of scavenger slimes that could deal with any Undead that approached them.

Once the bottom of the stairs was secured, we carefully climbed the stone steps. The Undead had made their way up the watchtower too. Zombies and Skeletons popped up in the tight corridors, making perfect targets for a scattershot. “Light Shot,” I cast.

“Oh, that’s the spell you made in our competition,” Remily noted.

“Looks efficient in small quarters. That may come in handy when fighting indoors,” Sever said.

“Remily’s challenge wasn’t a waste, after all.” Reinbach laughed.

“Definitely not. I wasn’t sure about the competition at first, but now I’m glad I accepted.”

“Maybe I’ll give that a try.” Remily began mimicking my Light Shot, covering me as we advanced.

Although the first casting didn’t scatter well, once I gave her a few pointers—at her request—and she’d cast the spell three more times, she seemed to have mastered it. Thanks to Remily’s quick learning, we were making our way through much quicker.

“I know I asked for it, but you may want to keep this spell a little closer to your chest,” she said.

“Right. Knowledge of shotguns might give me away as a child of the gods,” I said.

“That’s not what I mean,” Remily countered. “Just say you got your inspiration from old fairy tales, or something. The problem is that the spell is too useful. You’ll have people flocking to learn it.”

I’d been casting the spell without much thought beyond the initial improvisation, but Light Shot apparently required advanced magical energy manipulation and careful maneuvering, meaning the spellcaster had to be reasonably skilled and experienced to maximize the spell’s effectiveness.

“Every spell is affected by the caster’s talent and experience, and Light magic is particularly difficult to master... No harm done if everyone who tried and failed to cast Light Shot chalked it up to their inability, but I know there will be plenty of people who won’t accept that conclusion.”

Remily, a master sorcerer, had been sought after countless times as a mentor in spellcasting. Many of her less successful students blamed their shortcomings on her, calling her an ineffective teacher or even accusing her of withholding information to keep her spellcasting a secret. She cautioned me to carefully select any potential students, and to keep my teachings to the basics. Even a well-meaning offer of tutoring could lead to a hassle. While Remily gave her advice, Sebas was nodding along. Apparently, he’d had similar experiences while trying to teach Space magic. I took their advice to heart.

I cast the spell one last time. “Light Shot. That about clears them up.”

The watchtower was simply a cylindrical tower with an adjoining shed that must have been the break room of the watchmen. Despite the facility being long abandoned, the tower had retained its structure. The base of the tower, which stood on a small patch of leveled ground, was elevated above the surrounding landscape, with no handrail in sight. While I wondered if the rail had crumbled and decayed over the years, its absence made it much easier for us to overtake the tower.

Once I saw that we were safe, I turned to assess the current state of the city. The thought of climbing the tower still made me a bit nervous, so it was lucky for me that the base was already elevated enough to serve as an overlook. Past the gate, the former prison was a series of undecorated rectangular buildings made of heavy stone. In the center of them all stood a tower similar to the watchtowers that formed the octagon’s perimeter, only bigger. Predictably, the City of Lost Souls looked decrepit, with visible moss and cracks throughout the structures. Still, few of the structures had collapsed. I still couldn’t see what was behind or within those structures, but I didn’t see anything like the pool of cursed energy Remily had described.

“As far as I can see, it’s just low-ranking Undead throughout,” Reinbach remarked. “Cursed energy is spread wide and thin.”

“We should still deal with them at once, but it is not an emergency,” said Sever.

“A silver lining,” Sebas added.

What looked to me like a scene from a zombie movie where all hope had been lost was apparently no big deal. I was relieved by it enough to start imagining what sort of catastrophic pandemonium would have to occur to rattle these four. Then I felt it.

“What is it, Ryoma?”

“Is something the matter?”

“Some of the slimes I stationed down there are... Well, they’re not in trouble, at least. I don’t sense any nervousness or danger from them.” For a second, I thought they’d overeaten the Undead monsters before realizing that it was most likely an evolution.

I told my companions about it and headed down the stairs to find about ten scavenger slimes showing signs of evolution. Protected by a circle of their kind, they continued releasing and absorbing magical energy. I assumed that they became defenseless during an evolution. Slimes had always evolved while I protected them—or hidden somewhere.

Could I touch them during the evolution? I wondered. I’d read on Earth that touching an insect in metamorphosis could adversely affect its development... I thought that was what I’d read, anyway. My curiosity had been piqued, but I’d feel bad if something were to happen to these slimes because I touched them during their evolution. Besides, this was the first evolution of slimes on an Undead diet. I could afford to just watch.

Focusing on observing the evolutions, I saw more magical energy than evolution usually produced. I could chalk that up to the fact that several of them were evolving at once.

“So that’s how slimes evolve,” Remily said.

I jumped, noticing that Remily and Sever had joined me. “You scared me. I didn’t expect you down here.”

“Reinbach said you might be too distracted by your slimes to keep a good guard up. These slimes must be very interesting,” said Remily.

“I’m sorry; I really didn’t notice you,” I admitted.

“Don’t be too sorry, although keeping your guard up is always a good idea. She cast Hide on us just to sneak up on you,” Sever said with some exasperation. Remily was shooting me a mischievous grin.

After that, we watched the slimes evolve. Neither of them had seen a slime evolve before; they watched with genuine interest.

“Looks like they’re done,” I said after some time.

The evolved scavenger slimes had all turned the color of dark soil. At a diameter of about sixty centimeters, each of them was much larger than any other regular species of slime. A perfect size for a chair, I thought. Of course, I didn’t sit on them.

Through Monster Analysis, I discovered that they were a species called grave slimes. For a moment, I thought they were glaive slimes, like the weapon. Then I read their skills. 

Grave SlimeSkills: Attract Spirits 1, Absorb Spirits 3, Lay to Rest 3, Disease Resistance 7, Poison Resistance 7, Cursed Energy Resistance 8, Foul Feeder 6, Cleanse 2, Deodorize 7, Physical Attack Resistance 2, Jump 3, Consume 7, Absorb 3, Split 2, Unarmed Combat 2

Attract Spirits, Absorb Spirits, and Lay to Rest were new, obviously death-related skills they had acquired. As a trade-off, the level of their Cleanse skill had gone down and they’d lost their Deodorant Solution skill entirely. On the other hand, they had retained all the skills they had built through training with me. The elements they preferred were Earth, Dark, and Space.

Space?!

“Incredible.” I’d never had a slime that preferred Space magical energy. Providing normal slimes with Space magical energy had never led to an evolution. Just when I was starting to doubt their existence, Space magic wielding slimes seemed plausible!

And I had to test out their new skills. To see the effect of Attract Spirits, which I assumed was to pull Undead monsters towards the slime, I had the scavengers still dining on the Undead monsters make way.

Their skills turned out to work as expected. As soon as the grave slimes began glowing pale blue, the Undead monsters that had been attacking random scavengers began walking straight towards them. Then the Absorb Spirits skill apparently allowed them to wholly consume the Undead that were drawn to them. What made this more impressive was that most of the Undead didn’t even resist, unlike when they were being absorbed by the scavenger slimes... Is this another of the grave slime’s powers? I wondered. Watching the Undead march up to the grave slimes even gave me the impression that the monsters wanted to be taken in by the grave slimes. Lay to Rest, the last of the new skills, allowed the slimes to absorb Undead monsters without dissolving them as well as take them back out at any time. I couldn’t imagine that this particular skill would be very useful if they could only store Undead, but if their power extended to animal carcassess, they could carry any game I caught during a hunt.

“There’s so much I need to research!” I exclaimed.

“Ryoma, can we interrupt you now?” Remily asked. “We’re not familiar with slimes, so we wanted to ask you some questions.”

“Oh, yes. Of course. Let’s go back upstairs. That would be a better place to talk.”

All the way up the stairs, I felt Remily and Sever’s eyes on my back, like they were parents keeping an eye on a child who might at any minute run off to play with no regard for his own safety.