The Assault

A wavering, weak fireball flew past Otto to hit the slime square where its mouth should've been, a barrage appeared. The slime's icy grip on Otto ceased almost immediately as Otto scrambled up to run to where the rest of his party was as Otto took out the sword that Ater had bought previously, slamming the thing to his chest. He felt like he was still choking, but there really was no time to continue on with the choking as he positioned himself to face the huge slime, pointing his gun at it. The thin red line appeared again as he shot another time, hitting the slime flat through the other eye as it froze once more.

[Target Locked; Searching for Hit-Points… Hit-Points found (13)]

"Physical attacks won't work on it," Ater said, stopped Adrian from heading in, "Currently, the only people who can help are people who use mana as a main source of an attack. That includes you, Klaus. The slime is now permanently blind, we need to head for its core, which should be located somewhere in that bulging mass of slime-ness. Elizabeth, Hai-rong, and I will have to go in to slice off bits and pieces of it. William, Klaus, and Adrian should be able to destroy the core once we get it out but you three need to defend Otto, Hai-rong, Ade, and, and Otto and Hai-rong will just have to continue distracting it. Someone try to coax Ade into using his personal skill, basic summoners are useless, it's a gacha system in the beginning. Hiro, Otto no chikaku ni ite kudasai. Kare wa dare ga komatte iru no ka oshiete kuremasu. It's a vivisection people."

"W-wait, are you seriously suggesting for us to kill that thing?!" Elizabeth hesitantly pulled out a long thin sword from her inventory. It was silvery and had a sheen to it that made it look precious if not for the rugged handle. She looked awkward with it. The slime was still frozen, sniffing around, searching.

"We don't even know how to use our weapons?!" Elizabeth waved the sword around a clear lack of finesse.

"I took kendo classes when I was really young," Mei-wan offered, "But how are we supposed to attack it if it's that high?" Ater gave a low groan before staring at the slime. It wasn't frozen anymore, but it was distracted by Otto, who was staring at it indignantly. Hai-rong's mana conduction tool* was hovering up, ready to be used at a moment's notice and Klaus was talking to Ade, trying to convince him to use his skill again.

"You'll figure it out, just remember to coat the sword with mana," Ater said, "C'mon, it's still in shock from the shot that Otto shot. We need to land at least one hit on it before it wakes up." Mei-wan and Elizabeth nodded before they took a quick step or two forward, their bodies feeling much lighter than normal. Running forward, the rain started to hit the three's faces much harsher as continuous shots slammed into the slime's bulbous body, with some crackle of the fire that hit randomly, some missing. Suddenly there was a large swish and a bang as Ater made contact with a corner of the slime, jumping to reach the required height before he sliced through a piece of the slime. His sword, previously rusty, was now glowing slightly red as the area he cut steamed.

Mei-wan lifted the light weapon before she attempted to slash through the thick goo, it parted almost immediately, easily splitting. There was no core as she did it again, cutting off bits and pieces as she tried to jump. Her body flew through the air surprisingly easy as she tried to aim her sword downwards, slicing through the slimy material, cutting a quarter of the remaining Lebhaft slime off. Nothing useful fell out and the slime lurched around, condensing the air around Ater before he could continue. It tried to freeze Ater but the rusty old sword kept the freeze away, heating at the area around him too much for the condensation to freeze.

There was a slight yelp as Elizabeth tripped over her feet and cut off a tiny part in the corner, still unused to the feeling of a long thin sword. A small black orb appeared and rolled in the grass as the slime turned suddenly to stare at it. William ran forward, reaching for it before the slime twisted a part of itself off to get the piece back, scaring Elizabeth in the process. She dropped her sword, stabbing the small arm that was trying to reach the orb. William jumped, rolled, and grabbed the black orb before he tried to stab it, his weapon bending against it.

"Ater! It's not breaking!"

"Give it to Adrian!" Ater yelled back, stabbing a revived eye as one of Otto's bullets met his sword. The bang that resulted forced Ater to shield his eyes. The slime splashed onto him and he felt some scratch across the side of his face, dying the light blue mush to red. It felt like the skin on his face was skinned off and as if his bones were bare to the rain, infecting it with the possibly clean, possibly unclean water. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't alert other people. There was a shout and he was enveloped in something shiny gold. It was Hiro and the benefits of having a healer on the team.

Adrian had long abandoned Otto to reach William, who had found himself trapped in-between what looked like a slime cage. Even as he tried to cut open it, the slime would simply regenerate and with each attempt his hold on the black orb loosened, prompting an attempt on the orb. The slime tried to drown William in slime, only for Hai-rong to sting it with bolts of electricity that ran through it. Her aim was horrendous and could only hit large groupings of slime, but it was enough to keep William from drowning in slime. Otto attempted to shoot at one of the thin lines, only for it to nearly graze William as the slime destroyed the slime bar that was about to be shot at.

"William, I coming! Careful!" Adrian yelled as he swung his large blade at the bars, easily breaking through them all before he grabbed William by the wrist and pulled him out before the slime could regenerate them all. The slime tried to focus on getting back the orb, but Mei-wan and Elizabeth stabbed it near its recovering crown. Its crown tried to shoot a weak beam at Otto, whose bullets always managed to hit spots that made it froze, but the beam barely reached Otto before Klaus deflected it with the edge of his spear. Ade was still hiding behind Otto, with Klaus trying to get him to coax out his skill.

William handed the orb to Adrian before Adrian slammed the huge sword down on it, shattering the orb. Suddenly, the slime twitched and began attacking recklessly, it spread out its slime bits and began throwing hit after hit after hit, not caring if it was hitting something. Mei-wan was hit in the head by a flying bit of slime before she fell to the ground with a crash. Elizabeth dodged before she landed herself too close to Ater, with whom she collided. The slime made a grab for William and Adrian, but it was easily parred with a single strike from Adrian, the arm cut off with a flick of William's wrist. Ade turned to Hiro and pointed at Ater, Mei-wan, and Elizabeth. Hai-rong had sent bolt after bolt after bolt at the slime, shooting sparks through it as it tried to kill the three, who were now trapped with Emilia's house right behind them and the slime right in front. The citizens of Murret Stilhed were still gathered down in their hiding places. They had complete trust in Rhys' ability to find them and help them and they couldn't trust anyone else.

There was a shout, a blue shield, and the entire area was frozen. A tall bearded man with a ghostly appearance came, his dark blue eyes blank. Ade wasn't responsive as he stood, while Otto stared in amazement. There were several shields erected around everyone, preventing the cold from affecting them as Hiro struggled to keep it up, his eyes blinking heavily as he tried to stay awake against the mana strain. The ground froze, the slime froze, everything was cold and the entire landscape looked like some icy wonderland.

Adrian took a step forward. The slime was crystallized, its blueness captured in the clear ice as it remained still, the piercing slime limb that was headed for Ater and Elizabeth stopped mid-strike. A sharp gleaming icicle stared at them as they scuttled back to where Otto was. Mei-wan had already crawled back, with Elizabeth helping her halfway. The slime was frozen in ice somehow, unlike what Ater said earlier.

"Adrian, crack the ice," Ater called from the other side before he dragged Elizabeth up, along with Mei-wan, who quickly stumbled towards Hai-rong. Adrian nodded and he swung at the ice, cracking it in a single straight line. The crack slowly grew and grew before the slime shattered into millions of pieces*, black goo flying everywhere. The bits and pieces quickly melted afterwards, but without the orb, it failed to heal. It squirmed and squished before eventually turning into the black ooze, melting the area around it with a clear hiss of steam.

[Congratulations, Party Strawberry Pudding has defeated a Lebhaft slime! Rewards are being processed… … … Player #1001, 1012, 1231, 1373, 1643, 1715, 1733, 1815, and 1873 level up 5x, 20x slime sylva is collected and distributed evenly. Exceptions: Player #1001 – Reduce level up to 2.5x]

"Was that a message for everyone?" William asked, "C'mon I'll read what mine says, "Congratulations, Party Strawberry Pudding has defeated a Lebhaft slime! Rewards are being processed. Play-"" * Elizabeth shushed him as everyone was rampant to open their stats, check on everything. As the message said everyone, except Otto, had gone up to level 5. Otto mumbled something incoherent as he complained to Ater for his measly level 2.5.

"That was interesting," Hai-rong huffed. She was out of breath from her overuse of mana, the air was prickly around her as Hiro slumped onto the ground, holding his head from dizziness. Ade was relatively fine with minor scratches from nowhere. His eyes were slightly hazy as he also stumbled a little bit, but overall, he was the one with the least harm. Ater was irritated, pissed, and mad as he dropped to the ground with some frustration.

"What's wrong?" Otto asked. He didn't use up much of his mana, one per shot, and he didn't shoot too much. There was a trembling manner to his hands that could only be attributed to the freeze that he was subjected to some time ago and he was only a little bit tired. Ater blew some of his hair off his face as he threw his sword at Otto, who caught it with newfound skill. Ater sighed and hung his head before patting Otto's leg to egg him down, "What?"

"How is it that me and Hai-rong cut off fucking half of the entire slime, and Elizabeth, goddamn Elizabeth, trips and cuts off a piece that just happens to have the fucking orb?" Ater whined as Otto stood back up and ignored him, "Like, I get, she's luckier than us, but it was literally 50% of the slime! All the movement and energy lost to Elizabeth tripping and cutting. The girl doesn't even know how to slice things. She tripped while walking and she found the orb?!"

"S-shut up," Elizabeth said, embarrassed, "I didn't mean to trip. It just felt weird to stick some sword in front of me and swing it. Body proportions and whatnot, y'know?" William nudged her as he picked at the black pieces of the orb. It was shattered, broken beyond repair, and the leftover pieces were sharp, dangerously sharp. William was careful to not nick himself on one as he picked one up, "Besides, can't you tell where the orb is?"

"Like hell I can," Ater bit back, "I'm a familiar not some magical fortune teller that can tell you where everything is and where everything is going to be. If anything, Otto here is more like it. Go whine to him that he can't tell you where to shoot the monster." Elizabeth opened her mouth, but before she could do that, Klaus interrupted. He was the only one who barely did anything, something that was sort of arguable but also unarguable as a single shot from a slime surely would do nothing.

"What do we do next? Rhys isn't back yet," Klaus said sternly, "The villagers are still in the house waiting, and they might not even believe that we defeated it. Not to mention we didn't eat, sleep, or drink in a very long time. At this rate, we'll die of dehydration, not to mention we should have felt the effects of not eating some time ago." Ater laughed as Klaus everyone on their indifference to their lack of food and water.

"We need to find some food and water as soon as possible while also finding time to sleep before we go insane."

"It could be stats?" Otto offered, "I mean maybe our stats need to recognize us as actually needing food and sleep before we feel the need for it?" Ater gave Otto a thumbs up, "So I'm right."

"Spot on," Ater said, smiling as if he was Otto's dad, proud, "As long as we find food within another day, we shouldn't die."