Chapter 61: Persevere The type of demons that appeared changed as we got deeper into the forest.
Demons resembling carnivorous plants decreased and ones resembling mushrooms increased.
Although they resembled mushrooms, they had a poisonous hue to them and were inedible.
Like its appearance indicated, the mushroom demon also inflicted abnormal status.
The knights were poisoned and paralysed from the spores it puffed out.
I haven"t seen this yet, but there were even spores that could burn if it stuck to the skin.
We progressed carefully while I cured abnormal status every time it happened.
How far did we go?
The knight, who was leading, called out to Captain-san who was walking next to me.
I nodded that it was fine since Captain-san looked at me for a moment and he quickly walked to the front.
"What happened?"
"I can"t tell from here, but it doesn"t seem like an emergency."
I asked the court mage next to me, but they didn"t know what was happening.
I can wait here, but I"m curious. Should I walk to the front and ask?
I looked at Captain-san and saw that he was having a conversation with several knights while scowling; it didn"t seem like they were panicking, so it should be fine for me to go to the front.
"What happened?" I called out to Captain-san when I got to the front and he looked at me with the scowl still on his face.
I felt like he looked like the knights who were with us.
A problem has certainly occurred.
"They"ve found traces of a nasty demon."
"A nasty demon?"
"Yeah."
I looked at the directions that the knights were looking at when I heard the word "traces" and saw fallen trees.
People came into the forest to take resources, but fallen trees also weren"t uncommon.
I tilted my head wondering what was wrong with it and the knights pointed to a spot on the fallen trees.
Hmm?
I concentrated my attention on that spot and saw that it was a bit glossy.
What is it?
The traces of a slug?
"What is this?"
"These are the predatory traces of a slime."
"Slime!"
The image that came to my mind was of a blue drop type monster that appeared in a certain famous RPG game.
So far, I"ve encountered animal, carnivorous plants, and mushroom demons. We encountered more plant-type demons the further in we went, so I thought that I would encounter myxomycete next, but I can"t believe it"s a slime.
Slimes are similar to myxomycetes, so I guess my expectation wasn"t necessarily wrong?
I was heedlessly thinking such things, but I realised that the slime in this world wasn"t a cute low level monster that showed up in games while listening to Captain-san and the knights talk.
It was one kind of demon they didn"t want to encounter if possible because it was annoying to defeat.
Most physical attacks are ineffective, this is what one hears when speaking of slimes.
"Will magic work?"
"Yeah. Most slimes are defeated with magic."
Isn"t it fine to defeat it with magic if physical attack doesn"t work? My old friend"s words resurfaced in my brain.
I nearly burst into laughter at that thought but managed to hold it down.
There are a lot of knights with us now.
Captain-san and I could use magic as well, but there was only one court mage with us.
There weren"t many court mages with us in the first place, so each group got one to three mages.
There were some knights who could use magic, but only the minority.
And, of course, the knights" magic abilities are nowhere near that of the court mages.
Our current group composition could probably deal with one or two slimes.
But what would happen if they keep popping up one after the other like at the West Forest……?
It"ll probably be difficult to deal with them then.
It might be possible to wipe them out all at once with the 【Saint】technique. But I"m still a little anxious.
I"m not used to using it, so I don"t know if I can activate it in an emergency.
It might be reckless to make it into a magic attack in this situation.
"I"m a little anxious about this group since it could only be defeated with magic."
"It"ll be fine if only a few appeared, but we won"t be able to handle dozens of them."
"Should we stop here and go back?"
"…… No, let"s go in a bit more. I want to survey the condition there."
Captain-san was thinking the same thing I was.
However, he gave priority to investigation because of the risk.
Of course, with the premise that we retreat if the slimes become too much to handle.
We encountered slimes several times as we advanced.
We were fortune because not many appeared at the same time, so Captain-san and the court mage could defeat them.
I didn"t attack but I did do something.
The slime also inflected abnormal status like the mushroom, so I diligently cured it.
I looked around after we battled with slimes several times and noticed that the forest scenery had changed.
There were less weeds growing at our feet and I could see the ground in several places.
Were there only this much weed? Is it my imagination?
I thought, but it wasn"t.
I became bothered by this because I noticed it, so I started to carefully look around the forest.
The next thing I noticed was that there were more withered trees.
The trees withered because of external factors, but isn"t this too much?
It became a problem when trees withered because of acid rain in my previous world, but did that happen here too?
No, no way……
There aren"t that many withered trees for that scenario.
"What"s wrong?"
"The forest is getting somewhat weird."
"I knew it…… I also feel that something"s changed in here."
"There aren"t that many weeds here and there are more and more withered trees."
Captain-san thought for a while and then instructed the nearby knights to examine the trees.
As soon as the knights began examining it they exclaimed, "Woah," and "Ah."
"What is it?"
"Look at this. The trees probably withered because of the slimes."
Captain-san looked at where the knights were pointing and he saw a hole had opened near the trunk.
The hole was quite deep, but it hadn"t penetrated to the other side.
Furthermore, it stretched in a vertical position.
The outside was left, but the inside of the tree might be almost hallow.
The entrance of the hole was a glossy substance similar to the traces we saw before, so was this eaten by a slime?
Is it possible that the other withered trees were eaten up as well?
"There are traces on this tree."
"Here too."
The other knights who were examining the nearby trees also called out one after the other.
I might not have noticed it until now, but perhaps the other trees were also withered the same way.
"What should we do, Captain? Do you still want to move on?" Captain-san put his hands to his chin and thought when he was questioned by the knight.
We would encounter more slimes and withered trees the further we go in, so I only have a bad feeling about this, but we have to confirm how bad it was back there.
I don"t know if Captain-san knew what I was thinking, but he looked at me.
I don"t know what he was aiming with that look, but I could feel that he wanted to proceed and nodded.
It seemed like I was able to convey my feelings to him. He instructed the knights to carry on and we began walking again.
As expected, we saw more withered trees and the scenery got dreary.
I was really surprised when a slime dropped down from a tree that still had its leaves.
Moreover, it had fallen near me, and although I didn"t scream, I felt disgusted afterwards. I rubbed my arms and stomped on it.
I pretended not to notice that Captain-san was looking at me with a slightly troubled expression as he lowered his eyebrows.
Falling from the top, it"s a very powerful attack, you know……
"Let"s go back soon?" Captain-san spoke when the chills in my spine subsided.
He decided to go back since we kept getting surprised by slimes.
We were going to stay at a village near the forest, so we could stay in here for a relatively long time.
But if we don"t go back soon, then we"ll end up spending the night with the slimes.
It was more dangerous to stay in here rather than a village even if someone was on guard.
The knights thought the same and nodded at Captain-san.
We turned back and walked in the direction we came from when everyone made their decision.
Captain-san"s expression changed into a grave one when we hadn"t even walked that much.
"What"s wrong?"
"Quiet."
The knights stopped and they tensed up.
Is there a demon?
I could hear the sounds of the wind shaking the leaves when I hid and listened carefully.
"It"s here!"
"Wh!"
A knight raised his voice and we saw slimes oozing out of a hole in a withered tree.
Of course, this caused the other knights to raise their voices too.
The slime that was sliding down the tree like sap was several times bigger than those I have seen up until now.
Everyone was paying attention to the slime and I heard the knights, who were surveying the area, take a sharp intake of breath.
I looked around and saw that slimes were oozing out of the many withered trees.
It was large and a large number of them oozed out.
I understood that the situation was grave when I looked at the court mage next to me and saw that he had paled.
"『ICE WALL』," a wall was formed at the same time Captain-san said his aria.
He continued to chant his aria and we were surrounded by a wall except for the front.
"It"ll erode sooner or later, but this is better than nothing."
"We don"t have to worry about the back," the knight added as if complementing Captain-san"s explanation.
The wall was to relieve the situation since they were surrounded.
And the battle began when preparations were done.
Only Captain-san and the court mage were attacking the slimes.
The knights were trying to keep the slimes from approaching so that they wouldn"t get closer than a certain distance.
I also cured their abnormal status and healed them.
The battle continued for a long time and the wall of ice slowly began to erode and a hole was opening.
Captain-san saw that and casted 『ICE WALL』in between the battle to rebuild the wall.
His MP seemed to have been exhausted since he took an MP potion from his waist pouch and gulped it down.
Although he was the Captain of the knights, he had less MP than a court mage so he had to drink MP potions quite frequently.
Even if their base levels were 10, the maximum amount of MP between a court mage and knight was quite different.
Even though we had a moderate amount of potions prepared, they would run out sooner or later.
Nevertheless, the surrounding slimes didn"t feel like they were decreasing even if they were getting defeated one after another.
Aren"t they coming from the back?
I looked up at the sky because I expected that the situation would get worse.
Huh?
The branches above my head were glistening in the sun and I concentrated my attention on them.
I thought I was just imagining things, but I wasn"t.
Slimes were clinging to the branches.
I grew pale because I predicted this would happen.
"They"re also coming from above!" I said and Captain-san looked up.
My voice must have become the signal, because slimes were falling from on top of Captain-san.
It"s dangerous, I thought and felt magic swelling up from within.
The 【Saint】technique activated at once to purify the surrounding slimes.
The effect of the technique was small since I was panicking.
However, the slimes above us and those within a five meter circ.u.mference all disappeared.
"Sei, can you do it again?"
"I can!"
"Can you open a path in that direction?"
"Absolutely!"
"Alright, we"re withdrawing!"
Fortunately, it appeared that I could activate the technique again.
Captain-san called out to the knights and they came back from the front.
When we gathered together, I activated the technique in the direction that Captain-san asked me to; the slimes in that direction disappeared and a path opened up.
We quickly ran out before the path was blocked and managed to get out of the encirclement.
Translator: Blushy
Editor: Sam