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TL Note: The chemist referred to in this chapter is the chemist (薬師) from final fantasy V. It's a pretty specific term.
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Volume 3 Chapter 14
Three months later... (Half a year since parting with the duke and his family)
It's been so peaceful lately~...
The ruffians have mostly stopped attacking. Most likely, it's because more and more of their employers are being arrested. Without anyone to hire them, the ruffians won't have a reason to come.
Speaking of which, some of the arrested employers happen to be merchants. Apparently, because I'm a newcomer, some of them wanted to destroy my store to threaten me, and get me to join them so as to gain the secret behind my business. But because of that, the merchant guild found a reason to investigate their stores. As it turns out, they've apparently done the same thing to many other stores. Moreover, there are those amongst them who apparently have a connection with the dark guild. That news really shook Gimuru, and even caused unrest for some time. You might not think so, but several companies actually ended up being closed. So now, the guild's started to investigate even the branches and the main stores in the other towns. This case has really turned into a big one.
Fortunately though, the merchant guild covered for the affected stores and the people who've contracted with them, preventing anything too big from occurring.
To give an example, amongst those who've sent a thug to my store is the owner of a pharmacy who wanted to know how I made my deodorizing liquid. That storeowner seems to have been getting his medicine from an exclusively contracted chemist. But because of the recent case, that storeowner's been arrested and his store, closed, causing the chemists to be unable to conduct their wholesaling business. And now, they're jobless. But the guild master gave them some appropriate positions such as the ones in a wholesale store, and like that they managed to find a new job.
Amongst those workplaces that the guild provided is Serge-san's Morgan Firm. After all, Serge-san's store also sells medicine, so they had some room to hire some new employees.
Incidentally, the Morgan Firm was mixed up in the confusion of this case's uproar, and the firm managed to take the customers of the now closed store, greatly increasing their profits. After all, one of the stores that were closed were one of the rival stores of the Morgan Firm. The guild master said so herself, so there's definitely no mistaking it.
Going back to the main topic...
There hasn't been any problems lately, but in exchange, the number of cleaning stores that have opened recently in an attempt to imitate me has increased. Unfortunately for them though, their rate of mixing up the laundry and tearing it up is quite high. They're not able to wash away the dirt from the laundry that well either, so in the end they couldn't get a lot of customers. And even when the stores do manage to do a good job, because they're using human employees, they are unable to keep up with the salary, resulting in them barely making any profits. As a result, the branches tend to close quite frequently. But that's not my store's fault, so no problems came out of it.
The disturbances in the store have mostly stopped in this regard, but in a place I don't know, I've apparently begun to stir new trouble.
This is actually something I heard about since coming back from Renauph, but apparently Matthew stormed the merchant guild and demanded that the tamer guild be responsible for my store.
At the start, Matthew wasn't shouting or yelling, but because the guild master told him to cut his explanation short, he got mad at the guild master, and the few words he yelled was condensed.
Matthew's few words were hard to understand, so when he asked for a detailed explanation from the guild master, he was only given the main points.
There are other merchants like me in the merchant guild who use slave magic. Such people often transport goods by land or peddle to dangerous places. People like those and myself are somewhat in-between being a slave magic user and a merchant, but because we're doing business, we should still be under the jurisdiction of the merchant guild. And normally, the tamer guild shouldn't try to interject in such cases.
But of course there are exceptions, such as when the slave magic user's slave monsters go out of control or on a rampage. It's dangerous when magical beasts aren't handled properly, so disciplinary actions in regards to second hand offenses and recurring problems need to be handled swiftly, but those cases are rare. Moreover those cases are limited to when slave magic users are the cause of the problem or when the merchant guild itself is the one who requested the tamer guild's help.
But then in that case, I haven't even caused any problems once, and I haven't failed any jobs from the tamer guild either. Although to begin with, I haven't actually taken any jobs from the tamer guild. With no scandals to use, Matthew tried to force the issue by using my young age and my supposedly half-baked knowledge regarding slave magic, since it was only learned from my grandmother, as a reason to get me under the jurisdiction of the tamer guild. At the same time, he pestered the guild master with some shameless lie about how they need to take the future of young slave magic users into consideration or something.
"It's imperative that talented, young slave magic users receive appropriate guidance." [Matthew]
"Regardless how excellent a child is, there're bound to be problems with his management of magical beasts. And that's precisely why our tamer guild should guide them." [Matthew]
Or something like that.
Of course, the guild master just rejected that. But Matthew wouldn't give up, and he tried everything he could to try to butter up to the guild master as he proposed the same thing over and over.
"Doesn't this mean that Matthew's somehow involved with the disturbances?" is what I thought. But then it doesn't seem to make sense for him to talk directly to the guild master like this... Moreover, I don't really have any evidence that he employed the ruffians, but it is true that he's been somewhat troublesome. Still though, why is he being this direct? Doesn't he know that the guild master is my ally? Or is he really unrelated to the ruffians?
No matter how much I thought about it, I just couldn't seem to grasp what Matthew' was thinking, so I figured I'd just leave this to the guild master.
The guild master said that as long as she kept rejecting the requests, eventually Matthew will give up. But when she said that, a terrifying smile surfaced on her face. Most likely since Matthew's charade isn't hurting her in anyway, she plans to stay like this until he makes his move. But then at that time she'll be dealing with him thoroughly.
In any case, because of that I don't have any problems right now. And I've been spending my days training and completing some adventurer requests. There might be a storm brewing in a place I don't know of, but from where I am, everything's peaceful, and not a hint of typhoon can be seen.
But then all of the sudden, on such a fine day like that, I was suddenly called by the guild master of the adventurer's guild, Wogan-san, and was brought to his office.
"Ryouma, it looks like you've been doing well lately. There was a time when I thought you'd just work as a merchant, but it seems that's not the case." [Wogan]
"It just ended up becoming bigger than expected, so I just couldn't get my hands off of it. Being the owner, I can't really just leave problems lying around." [Ryouma]
"Well... that's true. Once you take a position that has authority over others, it doesn't matter whether you're suited for it or not, you have to take responsibility... Going to the main point though, are you free a week from now for two weeks?" [Wogan]
I don't have anything planned in particular. I've already stocked up on the cloth treatments too.
"Yeah, I'm free." [Ryouma]
"I see, then in that case I have a request. It's only a harvesting request, but because of the amount, space magic will be necessary. So can you take on the request as a transporter? The magical beasts you want to fight so much will also be appearing in the gathering points, so... Anyway, I'll give a more detailed explanation tomorrow after I gather people, so come tomorrow afternoon to the guild. If you feel like participating after hearing the details, then I'll register your name." [Wogan]
"I understand, I'll definitely come. By the way, what's the monster that's going to appear in that request?" [Ryouma]
"Treant." [Wogan]
A treant is a plant type magical beast that looks like a tree. They like to hide themselves amongst the trees, and prey on people and other magical beasts. There should be a lot of them living in the Great Forest of Shurus. There's a constant threat of surprise attacks from these magical beasts, so they're considered to be very dangerous.
"I understand. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon then." [Ryouma]
"Yeah, take care."
I left the guild and went to the abandoned mine. And then some time after passing the northern gate, I opened my 'Dimension Home' and took out my iron slimes and my metal slimes. I've been running with these guys lately whenever I went back home or left the house.
At first, I thought these two's weakness was their slow mobility, but after some time had passed since taming them, their movements have gotten smoother to the point that there are now way more opportunities when I can take them along with me. I'm honestly quite surprised about that.
As for the impetus that changed them, well... at first I just had them try to change their body through training, but then they would just fall down from the slope of the mines all the time. But then, I suddenly realized something.
In those days, they weren't as flexible as the other slimes and were limited in their transformations, but it was still possible to make slight changes. At the same time, their bodies were also harder than the other slimes who were soft all over. Using those features of theirs that made them quite different from the others, I concocted a plan to make them more mobile.
With my new idea in mind, I ordered them to change their bodies into a ball. It's not really that much different form their original bodies, so they succeeded without a hitch, and the two of them turned into two balls that were slightly smaller than normal. Using this shape, the two slimes were able to move at a speed faster than the other slimes by relying on the slope. This was the beginning of their growth.
After that, one week of rolling down and crawling back up the hill passed. Then a change began to occur. Previously, the two slimes could only roll on the slope, but now for some reason, the slimes have become able to roll even on level surfaces.
When I investigated it a bit, the secret was apparently in their nucleus. Transforming is hard, that's a given. But moving the nucleus inside the body isn't. So with that in mind, the slimes apparently started transforming into a ball, and then while still in that form, they would move the nucleus inside their body to shift their center of gravity, which would then allow them to move even on level surfaces!
After that, a few weeks passed again. When they started out, they could only roll slowly. But gradually, they've started to transform a part of their body to kick the ground to accelerate themselves. Because of that, they've become able to move at a similar speed on level ground as they do on downward slopes. It was then that they successfully learned the 'High Speed Movement' skill.
Later, they became even more used to transforming a part of their body to accelerate that they've started to do those small transformations nearly instantly. Turning a part of their body into tentacles is a given, but whenever I see them move, I couldn't help but be reminded of the tires of the bicycles back in my previous world. Seeing that uncanny resemblance, I thought of having them transform into tires.
At first, they couldn't quite get their balance down properly, and they kept falling. But after a bit of training, they've started to slowly change from that ball form, to a fat tire with a small diameter. And then that fat tire gradually turned into a thinner one with a bigger diameter, until eventually they succeeded into a tire that looks just like the bicycles' back in my previous world. Because of this, the two slimes' speed became even faster.
The tire form can go fast on straight lines, but unfortunately it's quite difficult for it to move on sharp curves and tight turns. The ball form can't go as fast as the tire form, but they can do sudden stops from max speed, allowing them to easily change direction, thereby making turns easy. So the slimes are normally in ball form. But when they need the extra speed, they can transform to tire form to go faster.
Also, after I fed those two slimes iron and aluminum in large amounts and made them split, I got a big metal slime and a big iron slime. I was wondering whether they could become a bicycle or not, but apparently it doesn't work. No matter how many times I tried making a part to ride on, their center of gravity just kept braking, and they couldn't move at all using the nucleus trick.
I thought of making something like a chain to pedal with, but unfortunately that didn't work either. As a unicycle it's possible, but it's too slow, so there's no meaning to it. There's no way to tell when a magical beast might come when one is outside the town, so in that regard, the safeness of the unicycle is an out. With that, I postponed the idea.
Oh, and by the way, the big metal slime and the big iron slime both require around 100 slimes to transform, but because I fed them too much, I now have 200 of them.
As I thought those things, I ran. When we got closer to the abandoned mine, I called out to the slimes. Actually, I don't really need to, but I feel like it, so yeah.
"Just a little bit more! This is the last one!" [Ryouma]
At those words, the slimes transformed into tire form, and accelerated. In order not to lose, I also sprinted.
Not long after, we arrived at my house by the entrance of the mine. I opened my 'Dimension Home' and I let loose the slimes, letting them do as they please. Recently, this has been our routine.
"Recently, these guys have started developing an individuality..." [Ryouma]
Lately, whenever I let the slimes out, most of them have been performing self-practice. Most of them would practice with their staffs or their spears, while the metal and iron slimes would mostly practice running around the mine. They tend to run a bit too fast, so there were some accidents in the past. So in order to keep that from happening, I created a race track for them.
The accidents happened because they sped up too much, and since their bodies were hard, they ended up flying. In other words, they didn't have much grip. It's only a given they'd get into an accident though, after all, they ran like the tires of those four-wheel drive cars that go off road in television back in my previous world. Jumping about, bumping into the mountain, and falling off a cliff... if it wasn't for their hardness and physical attack resist skills, they would have already died long ago.
Recently those slimes have also started to moderately soften their skin, allowing them to absorb the shocks better. Also, from the looks of things, they've properly learned to grip the surface, and the instances of jumping about has become very rare. The ground of the race track is also pavement, so there's really been little to no accidents lately.
... But still aren't these guys growing up too fast? It's not a bad thing, but lately I've been getting surprised so many times, it's starting to be a little troublesome. If I try to relax and focus on my research, I'll end up forgetting about the other things, so I have to be careful.
Incidentally there's something I don't understand. Lately, there have been slimes that do nothing but jump in circles nonstop in the same place. Are they bunny-hopping?
That aside, lately I've also been training the magic of the earth slimes and the dark slime. The other slimes can grow as long as I give them their training menu, but I enjoy studying with these slimes that can use elemental magic.
The number of slimes that can use elemental magic has also increased compared to before. Since the slimes managed to evolve into earth slimes and dark slimes, then I figured that they should also be able to turn into slimes of other elements. The result is that I got the wind slime and the light slime... But then a question came up. Why is it that the slimes I catch generally favor earth element and dark element magic power the most?
The slimes I caught number 10. The number of slimes that like the wind element is only 1. I couldn't find any slimes who liked the elements: fire, water, ice, lighting, wood, poison, light, or space magic. And no matter how much I fed the slimes that liked neutral magic power, they wouldn't evolve.
The wind slime evolved within 3 days, but the light slime who didn't like the light element took 3 months to evolve. The remaining eight slimes haven't evolved yet. But as expected, it's best to feed them their preferred magic power as that's the fastest way for them to evolve.
Also, although the wind slime and the light slime have different elements from the dark slimes and earth slime, their statuses are mostly the same.
Wind Slime
Skills:
Wind Magic Lv2
Wind Attribute Resistance Lv8
Wind Magic Absorption Lv1
Jump Lv1
Digestion Lv3
Absorption Lv3
Split Lv1
Light Slime
Skills
Light Magic Lv2
Light Attribute resistance Lv8
Light Magic Absorption Lv1
Jump Lv1
Digestion Lv3
Absorption Lv3
Split Lv1
When this magic absorption is hit with an attack magic, then provided it's the same element as itself, its magic power will be sucked, and the force of the attack will weaken. It seems to be a skill used to nourish one's self. With this skill along with the resistance skill, the damage received from the same element will be mostly negated.
Also, the magic the wind slime can use are 'Breeze' and 'Wind Cutter'. The light slime can use 'Light' which lights up the surrounding area, and the low level light element attack magic, 'Light Ball'. Its abilities seem to have an effect on skeleton and other undead class type monsters, but there're no other effects aside from that. Right now, I'm receiving some lighting from it inside the mine. Overall, it's an undead specialist slime.
"Well then, it's time for training."
As I began the day's training, I thought to myself, "Should I keep the training light in preparation for tomorrow?"
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