Yem the Slime

Page ran into the main building alone while the rest went looking in other areas. He saw a red pillow on the ground with a stand shaped like a hemisphere. He stopped and sensed five mana sources hiding behind a door. As he approached it, he noticed one of them was growing dimmer while the other four moved away from the door. He couldn't yet tell if it was an enemy or friend so he swung the door open and hid to the side.

Two pebbles weakly flew out. Page looked in and saw four children, two boys, and two girls, huddling around the head of an old man.

'Leardio?' Page jumped around to see them.

The children who saw him recognized him but were still wary and thought, 'How are you speaking to our minds?'

'That's not important, kids, I'm Page, do you remember me? I was here last time we outed the cult. What happened to him?'

'Some lady came and tried to drown us in water, he pierced our bubbles but she made jumpy balls and beat him up.' They thought back, wracked with worry.

'Bouncy balls?' He thought.

The floor beneath him cracked and bulged, leaking water from it. Page leaped forward and pushed the five aside just before Thraz and Gror burst out. Yemisia froze him in a layer of ice but he molded them away and ran into Page.

In the orb, Yem cackled, "Hey, you took too long. I got started with the killing without you."

Zeeth began slowly walking, first around the orb then in a strange zigzag. "Did you know, Yem the devil, that humans, biologically, are amazing creatures?"

'How did he know my name?'

God's eye told him, [Yem the Demon, created an A rank contract with Yemisia (boost in shared abilities and desires)]

"I mean, looking at most animals on the big planet, we have our bodies built for basically anything. As a part of our default settings, we can run for days on end as long as we have the right bodies. And our arms, they were built for a myriad of things, throwing, creating, fighting. Isn't it wondrous? I learned about all this from my homeland. I'm not sure if science in these parts knows all this."

"What is this, some history lesson?"

"Sure, dragons might be stronger and faster, so why are they not ruling the planet? Because we seemed to have evolved in a way to survive just these conditions, I mean we are rewarded for staying in groups and both outnumbering and outsmarting prey and even predators. We are omnivores, spending years practicing to find solutions to a vast variety of problems, cures for diseases, and change the literal environment. I mean, even predators are prey at this point."

"Speaking of points, what's yours?" She asked. She didn't know why, but he was stalling and it was perfect for her to build up her magic and release it all at once.

Under her skills list it said, [ultimate skill: using pure mana built up over time, this skill can create a powerful laser of energy that can go up to 75 times normal attack strength. Ranges from 5-100 minutes.]

She had been building up this laser beam behind herself the entire time he was talking.

"But in this world, it seems these advantages aren't so clear. Especially when it's so common and everyone has them, but amongst the animal kingdom, we do rank at the top. So my question to you is, do you think you can make an impact on the world as a whole? If you were to kill me here and now, and then take over this village, do you think you can vanquish all humans? Listen, dragons went on a rampage thirty years ago and destroyed a lot of things, yet humans survived even that. So why do you kill and terrorize?"

"For the fun of it!" She yelled, unable to hold herself back, and revealed the white orb that instantly shot out like a perfect shot spear of light, shooting forward like lightning.

Zeeth, already predicting it, ducked away and left a puddle of water behind for the laser to shoot. It took a smooth chunk of water out and landed into the water orb surrounding them. Zeeth moved his hand and the orb twisted and wrapped around the point that the laser touched and stopped it in place, allowing it to dissolve in the water.

Yem trembled, aghast at what just happened. Not only had he stopped her laser, but he also somehow took away her domain. 'That was what he was doing while he was talking?'

"Yem, I want to thank you for this great skill. We greatly appreciate it." Zeeth brought the water with the laser in it and began drinking it.

"What are you doing?" She asked, darting her eyes around.

"Just trying to see which slime would be the most compatible," he said, now bringing the water to one slime and allowing it to soak it all in. Before all this, the slime was simply, [An unnaturally strong slime with a high water affinity.]

The slime now said, [Yem the Slime, and unnaturally strong slime with a high water affinity even amongst slimes.

Demon Laser: using mana and water built up over time, it creates a powerful laser of energy that can go up to 30 times normal attack strength. Ranges from 1-40 minutes.]

Yem could sense the magic swirling around the slime. Its insides were glowing white and only growing stronger and Zeeth said, "Hey, thanks for charging that up while I was talking. I really wasn't doing much, just taking control of your water."

'I… Did I walk right into his hands? I was doing what he wanted me to do? What the hell kinda slime is that?'

Page parried a punch that Yemesia threw, ducked from her kick, and slammed a chunk of metal into her face.

"That's it!" she yelled, holding her nose. She began crying and Page leaped in to stop her but an arm had already reached up and stopped him. It was an elf who had lived here before but had since been killed with a hole through his heart. Two more arms reached from behind but Page swung them at Yemesia. She created a barrier of water and began drawing her tears away, forming small balls with them.

Gror yelled, "Fremia! Don't use their dead bodies!" and charged at Yemesia, who pushed with both her hands and sent her tears to his chest, sinking into his gut and throwing him aside, coughing.

"I had hoped to shoot those through your stomach. What a tough body, I would love to add that to my collection," she giggled.

The tears she threw fell to the ground, bouncing. Although they didn't slow down, in fact, the balls were bouncing faster and higher as she cried more and summoned more of the dead. Dead dwarves and elves rose from the ground and clawed at him. But with each undead summoned, the smarter and more heavily armed they were. Elves carrying magic bowed and dwarves holding hammers or their old items rose from the ground, groaning and clawing at him. One elf finally became aware enough to pull back an arrow that weakly flew down.

Page swept their feet, knocking them to the ground but more simply rose and surrounded him.

"Ahaha!" Yemisia cackled in a similar manner, "what can you do, Page? Nothing! I've done nothing but torture and kill this past year, I've grown beyond you!"

She threw one of her beads at him which missed, hitting one of her dead. But it sped up and narrowly flew past his head, hitting a dwarf in the chest and knocking him aside. The ball sped up each time it hit a target and was soon speeding around Page, who was trying to avoid it with as little movement as possible as she kept adding more to the encirclement.

Page looked down, smiled, and stopped moving. The beads hit his body but he didn't move.

Yemisia stared at him, confused. "What are you doing? Giving up already, our leader who can hold five whole skills?"

He chuckled and said, "you think that's impressive? I've since opened my eyes to the world. It's time you do as well."

He buffed up his arm to twice its size and jumped at Yemisia, jumping around her slow guards like the wind and slammed her face into the ground, causing blood to gush out. Her face was bloody but she was trembling, 'why is he so strong? I had the greatest skill of all, why is he beating me?!'

"I can control the dead and water, you can only buff your limbs! I'm stronger than you, my skill is the GREATEST!"

"Ah, yes. The sign of a smart and strong woman, telling about her own greatness. The world is bigger than us, bigger than the little help we were doing before. My new goal is to move on from small towns and family, onto the entire world!"

Page hit her in the neck and caused her to pass out, dropping all the corpses and tears.

With the dome down, their fight was in the open. Zeeth wanted to lock her down with water and knock her out but she was still a demon of water affinity, it would likely give her ammo. He instead formed a ball of grey stone around her rapidly, leaving only her head exposed to knock her out. But just as the ball finished holding her still, a trident spiraled out of the air at her. She saw the trident, bent the moisture in the air to slightly tilt the trident just in time for it to break the greystone and not allow Zeeth to react.

Zeeth moved water to hold her down but when it touched her skin she gained control and ran off. He tried moving the ground but only trapped her leg, which she tore off to create a bubble of her own blood that Zeeth couldn't control and flew off.

"What the hell was that?!" A man in a red helmet and hair barged out of the ground, revealing his trace of mana for the first time as well as two others underground. All three were color-coded, the red man yelled at Zeeth, the woman in all blue jumped out and pulled up the other man in brown.

"I could ask the same of you. Who are you people?"

"Uuuuu, hah, the Three Raiders. The best A rank hero's around." The man in red scoffed.

"And why are you here? To mess me up?"

"Hey, you messed us up! And we don't need to answer you!"

"I am terribly sorry, we didn't mean to free her," the man in brown replied, "we just wanted to freeze her. The trident has a function to freeze the blood of anyone it pierces."

"Why would you tell him that, Gunner?"

"Why are you here?"

"We were sent by the Council of Jarlon. We heard this village was under attack so we came to save it," The girl in blue replied.

Page held Yemisia in his hands, carrying her back to Zeeth, and saw the three talking to him. He ran forward and asked, "Hey, What are you three doing here?"

"The red moron sent a trident that freed Yem. Her foot is still over there but the rest of her got away."

"I am not a moron. We are the Three-"

"Yeah, Yeah, the Three Raiders, you are Cunner, Gunner, and Ras."

"Ah, so you know us," Cunner said proudly.

"Yeah, as arrogant, incompetent fools."

"We are not-" Cunner started, taking off his red helmet.

"Then why would you throw the trident? That was something only a moron would do after seeing that I had captured her."

"That kill was ours! We've spent weeks here, digging underground and scouting out our opponents, we had the best tools they could offer and we were very close to taking her down! Her body was ours to take."

"Cunner, stop. You're making our situation worse!" said Ras.

"No! We are the best they can offer, we are the backup to the backup."

"Back up?" Asked Page, "what backup?"

Gunner explained, "Plenty of C rankers came and failed, even a few B rankers came and were brutally killed. So they finally employed us, A rankers to take care of this, and you came in the middle of our mission. I'm sorry, Cunner is just a little mad right now since we've been here so long. But clearly, you were the one to trap her and all, we apologize."

"Apologize?! Gunner, what are you talking about? We need to hunt her down and collect our reward. That leg, that's ours too! Without the trident, she wouldn't have torn it off!" Cunner yelled, pointing at it.

"Cunner, please. Shut up." Ras watched Zeeth cautiously. She had just watched him take down the demon that had terrorized this village for months and forced them into hiding for weeks. She and Gunner both knew he wasn't someone to be messed with, but Cunner was too deep into his misery and jealousy to care.

Page put a hand on Cunner's shoulder, "Cunner. Do you think you could've taken the demon woman? You, an A ranker?"

"Well, duh. All demons are weak."

Page chuckled and said, "yes, so far the ones that you may have fought are weak. But not this one. She could've killed you at any moment."

"Psh, yeah right. They're just demons, she's weakened by the air around here."

"Actually, she made a contract with a human, meaning the air doesn't poison her like others. But you think you could've defeated her for sure?"

Ras and Gunner knew Page was leading up to something with his questions and tried to stop Cunner but he stopped them and said, "yes, I can, how many more times are you going to ask?"

"Well, I would love to see you do it."

"I would too." Cunner nodded.

"Unfortunately, it seems she has already left. But I think I have a solution. His man here.," Page pointed to Zeeth, has just locked her down, so defeating him will be like defeating the demon, right?"

"Well-"

"And you also accused him of stealing your kill. I mean after all that, you must have the ability to back yourself up, right? Really, all that bark and no bite? To accuse someone of such an act, are you going to back yourself up? You think you can also take this man here?"

Cunner looked at Page then at Zeeth and yelled, "yeah, yes I will!"

" How about this, if you can land a single hit on this man before he knocks you to the ground, you get the kill and we give you the leg. Demon parts should go for quite a deal this time around, and I can guarantee this foot can get you at least 15000 Styrs."

"Really?!" all three said at once.