Speeding Along

I looked up to the sky and simply stared in wonder.

'It's been a few months since I have arrived here... Time flies, doesn't it?'

{Indeed it has, and it seems that things will stay peaceful for a while longer.}

'You know, this seems like the kind of moment where you see a training montage.'

{Haha, and what training have you done in these past months? There won't be a training montage, that's for sure.}

~But there still may be a montage.~

{Oh no.}

'You know, for once I can agree with you. Oh no.'

-A few months earlier, after our last chapter left off-

I was sitting in my room, dreading the next battle.

'Why Akira of all things?'

{Some things are not up to us, sadly.}

'Do I at least get to know when this fight will occur?'

{We will not spoil your future, but we will tell you one thing: The battle is your choice alone, and it will happen when you want it to.}

'And how will I get to decide?'

{You will find out when the time comes.}

-A week later-

I looked up above me, observing the ashen stalactites.

"This place seems so much less traumatizing now that I have come here on my own."

{You seem to either have extremely good luck, or extremely bad luck when using teleportation potions.}

"Last time was bad luck, but this time was good luck. It all depends on the details."

{Indeed.}

"So why am I here again? And why do I need this weird grape-flavored potion?" I asked, holding up an obsidian skin potion.

{Stop acting like you're stupid. This place will not be easy to survive, and you may die at any moment.}

Their words were only accentuated by the sight of a gigantic worm made of bones with a draconic head tearing through an obsidian building.

I promptly spun on my heel and turned around.

'Nope! Not dealing with that!'

As I turned I saw a group of slimes made out of lava bouncing in my direction.

'But these guys? Easy to deal with.'

{Well obviously. It is quite literally impossible to be attacked by a normal slime after you obtained that crown.}

'Define normal.'

{Lacking in position.}

'What kind of slime has a position?'

{You know... Royalty, deities, etc.}

I accepted the answer for a moment before I realized what the Gods had just said.

'Wait a second, Deities? As in Gods? For slimes?'

{Well, more along the lines of 'gods', since their only real godlike feature is the fact that they are super powerful.}

'Okay, that makes me slightly less worried.'

{It's a good thing you won't have to fight one.} The Gods commented.

'That makes it sound like I'm going to have to fight one.'

{Nooooo, that would never happen. Have we ever lied to you?}

'No.' I reluctantly thought.

{Then trust us on this.}

'I really can't bring myself to sadly.'

{Why's that?}

'Because trusting you is a bad idea.'

The Gods just laughed.

I grew annoyed at them and remembered an unanswered question.

'So are you going to tell me what I am doing here or what.'

{Fine. You're looking for hellstone, the only ore that exists down here.}

'And why would I need it?'

{Cool armor and powerful weapons?}

'That I could get from the dungeon?'

{But these ones are better.}

'I see. Why did I trust you on this.'

{Because we are persuasive.}

I scoffed at the statement.

'You wish.'

{Then you're just a gullible person.}

'I am not gullible.'

{What if we said that the bone snake was behind you right now.}

I immediately turned around and saw nothing.

'Damn, I got tricked.'

{We did trick you, but now our lie is the truth.}

'The hell does that me- Oh.'

I turned around again and came face to skull with a bone serpent.

'You know, this is getting less and less surprising. I would think that I would have been running by now.'

{We recommend it.}

'Point taken.'

And so I turned and ran, leaving the serpent to burrow back into the ash.

{We also recommend that you jump.}

And so I did. I jumped right before the worm launched itself through my previous location.

'Are they supposed to be that fast?'

{Nope~} The Gods said in a sing-song voice.

'Then why the hell is it that fast?!'

{We don't know~} The Gods said in the same obnoxious tone.

'I despise you with all my heart right now.'

{We're glad that we were able to make you use your full heart.}

'Huh.' I said in a flat voice.

{What?}

'I somehow have reached the point of cold anger.'

{Ooh that doesn't mean anything good for us, does it?}

'Nope~' I said, copying the sing-song voice of the Gods.

{Don't steal our jokes!}

'I would never~' I said in the obnoxious voice.

{You know what? We dare you to jump into the lava.}

'I accept that dare.'

I pulled out the obsidian skin potion and drank it down quickly since the serpent was returning.

'Grape?'

{We all know that anything grape flavored just tastes like purple.}

I could only agree.

'Yeah.'

I looked at my arm and saw that it had turned a deep purple, so I tapped on it a few times.

'Apparently the potion was very direct about its effects...'

{Most potions are.}

And then the serpent burst out of the ground.

I rolled to the side to dodge the serpent...

Right into the lava.

'Damn me and my bad luck.'

{Bad luck is good luck in the eyes of some, and vice versa. Don't blame it on something as vague as luck.}

'When the hell did you start giving advice? I thought you were here for comedic relief and annoyance.'

{Just now?}

'That's a dumb ass answer, and you know it.'

{Did you expect something else?}

I paused for a moment.

And then sighed. Boy do I sigh a lot.

'No... No, I did not.'

{Good, now get to mining that sweet, sweet hellstone.}

'Gods you make that sound creepy.'

{We try our best.}

I was still falling down, and I could see absolutely nothing through the lava.

'When can I see again?'

{When you get out of this lava.}

'Great, I'm blind.'

{It could be worse though.}

'How could this get worse?'

{Like this.}

I was suddenly tackled by the serpent.

'Fucking hell! I came here for some ores, not a jumpscare!'

I was struggling to keep the jaws of the serpent from clamping down on my legs, and I was quickly losing the battle.

I somehow wrestled my way out of the jaws of the beast after it stopped clamping down.

And then it burrowed underground. Again.

I only had one thought in my mind at that moment.

'Fuck.'

And then it burst out of the ground. Aggressively.

I was quickly launched out of the lava lake and into the air.

My air time gave me several moments to look at the serpent's face, and I saw something that might work in my favor.

A flaming flail was embedded into the serpent's eye socket, which seemed to have been badly damaged via blunt force.

The chain was still hanging from the weapon, and I was falling back down.

Right into the serpent.

It was a Gods-given chance, and I took it.

I reached out towards the handle of the flail and grabbed onto it.

Which turned out to be a bad idea, as the serpent seemed to notice what I had grabbed and began to thrash. Violently.

'I'm gonna be sick.'

It looked like I had become the flail instead of the wielder since I was being flung about, but I held onto the weapon tightly, as it was the only thing that seemed to be able to damage the serpent.

The thrashing died down after a few minutes, leaving me somewhat drained in stamina.

Too bad the serpent decided to go underground right after it stopped.

I was nearly dragged under the ground, but I stood my ground on top of a patch of untouched ash.

It was surprisingly stable.

Too bad I wasn't.

I felt like I was fighting against a very strong fish, and I was losing.

And then I heard a crack. And then another.

And then the sound of a bone snapping in half sounded out.

I felt the strain on my arms fade into nonexistence and immediately knew that the flail had broken free.

In a very brutal way.

I looked into the hole the serpent was trying to dig and saw that the skull of the serpent had been snapped in half, allowing the flail to go free.

I felt gratified by my victory, but the Gods had to ruin it.

{Your obsidian skin potion wore off.,and we only brought one.}

I couldn't help but groan, since this meant one thing:

I was going to be back down here soon.

-A few days later-

"What did you tell me a few days ago?"

{That you weren't going to fight a slime god?}

"And what am I doing right now?"

{Fighting a slime god?}

"Yeah!!"

{We should have expected this to happen...}

"I should've never trusted you on this matter."

{You really shouldn't have.}

+A little glimpse into the next chapter, since the recap is gonna be going until I am at the WoF+