The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 1 - Chapter 14

Chapter 14:

A Strange Creature

I BUMPED INTO a lot of slimes on the way to Ratoto. Apparently, they spawned in large numbers along this particular village road. I hadn’t heard about them during my information gathering, but maybe slimes were just too weak to bother talking about. Either way, I was tired from all the running. I was almost at the next village, though, right? I just needed to…

Oh no. I’m out of water. I’d better refill it somewhere. I could tell myself I was close to the next village, but I didn’t know for sure. If it was still far, I’d need more water. I listened carefully and heard rushing water. It sounded far, but I had no other choice. I went into the woods and let my ears guide me.

Led by the sound of water, I arrived at a wide lake. “Wooow…incredible!”

The surface was scattered with flowers I’d never seen before. I didn’t know what any of the plants were called, but a whole tangle of foliage floated on the surface. Delicate stems reached out through the gaps on the surface, their full white and pink blooms swaying with movement of the water. The flowers entranced me for a moment.

I caught myself, panicked, and looked around for danger. Don’t let your guard down in the forest, not ever…

I made my way over to the river that fed the lake and filled my canteen. I wish I could’ve carried more water, but almost nobody used canteens, and all the discarded ones I’d come across were broken. Maybe I ought to make one for myself if I find some bamboo?

I searched for the green cords I’d left in the forest to mark my trail and recovered them as I returned to the village road.

Just before I reached the road, I found, uh… A weird…

Creature? 

“What’s this?” At a glance, it looked like a slime, but…not quite? Its body was more like a slime stretched sideways. It was a translucent blue, and its eyes were…well, lovable, despite belonging to a monster.

“Cute…” Here I was, thinking it was cute for a monster. I couldn’t make fun of Past Me now. But for some reason, this thing that looked like a collapsed slime was actually really cute.

The slime-thing stared at me. Wait. A slime-thing that looks collapsed…I recognize this from that old monster guide!

“You’re a collapsed slime, aren’t you?”

The book had mentioned a rare slime without any official name, a slime considered the weakest of all slimes. Its unofficial name, given its appearance, was collapsed slime. Most people thought that rare monsters were automatically stronger, but that’s not really how it works.

“You guys disappear when the wind blows too hard, don’t you?”

The weakest, just like me. But who wants to be called the weakest? Yeah, let’s go with collapsed slime! I felt like I’d found a friend. While I was watching, the wind blew enough to ruffle my bangs. Right before my eyes, the collapsed slime plopped over.

“You really are weak, huh…”