I reached the Floor 5 boss room of the Minato Ward Dungeon and lowered Hinata-san from my back, preparing for the fight.
Drawing my sword, I stepped into the large chamber. In the center of the room, the familiar light of a magic circle flickered to life.
"Takeo-kun, what should we do about healing?"
"Let's see... just to be safe, a Heal for now, please."
"Understood."
At my request, Hinata-san cast a single Heal on me. White light enveloped my body, and my HP recovered by 100—which meant I no longer met the activation requirements for the second stage of Blood Vengeance. My stats dropped immediately.
That said, even with the healing, I hadn't recovered to over fifty percent, so the first-stage buff remained active.
Ideally, I would have liked to try fighting without the buffs entirely... but asking her for more healing would be a waste of MP, so I decided this was fine.
By then, the slimes were being summoned from the magic circle.
There were sixteen colorful slimes in total. While the slimes that appeared on Floor 1 were about the size of puppies, by Floor 5, each one was roughly as large as a full-grown Golden Retriever.
Their ranks consisted of green Venom Slimes, red Fire Slimes, yellow Thunder Slimes, transparent Acid Slimes, and crystal-like Crystal Slimes. There were three of each of these five types, totaling fifteen.
And at the very back of the pack was a single, slightly larger, grey slime—a Legion Slime.
Altogether, the group made for sixteen targets.
The relationship between a monster's spawn level and the floor number was the same here as it was in the Shinjuku Dungeon. Therefore, every slime in this room was Level 12.
Considering the level gap between us, there was no way I'd struggle, but...
"Hinata-san, I'm going to fight normally at first to get used to how they move. Please stay back."
My only experience fighting slimes was with the normal slimes that appeared on Floors 1 and 2 of the Shinjuku Dungeon. Since those encounters hardly qualified as a "fight," for all intents and purposes, I was a complete novice at fighting slimes.
Even on the way here, I had just sprinted past them all, ignoring them completely.
So, I figured I'd take this chance to rack up some actual combat experience.
"Okay, I understand. Be careful," Hinata-san said, stepping back.
『Leveling Junkie Bro, don't let your guard down!』 『Even if they're just slimes, don't be careless!』 『Focus!』
"Understood."
I nodded in response to the viewers' warnings and finally began the battle.
First, I activated Taunt to grab aggro as usual.
"You guys look delicious, like gummies!!"
『What kind of reaction is that? lol』 『By the way, you'll die if you eat them. lol』 『I could tell that without eating them! lol』 『Takeo-chan, how many times has Mommy told you not to eat things you find on the ground!』
I wished they'd shut up; they were ruining the tension. "Focus," they'd said. I thought as I slowly closed the distance.
Then, once I reached a certain proximity, the slimes made their move. Their wobbling bodies inflated like balloons.
Immediately, Danger Sense reacted. A chill ran through my entire body.
I sidestepped, dodging just as the slimes spat mucus past the spot where I had been standing a moment ago.
The fluids were a poisonous green, or emitted flames, or were wreathed in electricity, while others gave off smoke the moment they touched the floor. The projectile fired by the Crystal Slime wasn't mucus at all, but a hard crystalline mass that whistled past with the momentum of a bullet.
Except for the Crystal Slime's attack, their range was a few meters at most.
Poison, fire, electricity, acid, and crystal bullets with the power of a handgun—they were all vicious attacks, but since they had a clear telegraph before firing, dodging them was easy.
Having understood one aspect of slime biology, I broke into a dash and closed in.
The slimes all began moving at once.
They spread out, crawling across the floor with snail-like motions. Surprisingly, they moved at about the speed of a sprinting adult male, but—
"Wait, they're so slow!?"
For an explorer capable of reaching Floor 5, they moved at a speed that might as well have been standing still. It seemed the slime species generally had low agility stats.
I deliberately refrained from attacking and ran circles between the scattered slimes.
I discovered that for a slime to spit mucus, it apparently had to stop in place first. None of them fired while moving around.
I didn't know if that would change as their levels increased, but...
Of course, slimes had other means of attack besides mucus, like body slams and pounces. Basically, they would leap with great momentum to ram into you or try to flatten you from above. Just like this.
"Whoa, they jump pretty high..."
I used a simple step to dodge an Acid Slime as it plummeted toward me after jumping higher than my own height.
As expected, their movements were slow, making them easy to avoid... but even so, one would likely regret underestimating a mere body slam.
If you were hit by a body wreathed in fire or electricity, or one made of poison or acid, you'd take a fair amount of damage. And if they latched onto your face, you'd suffocate—or worse, depending on the type of slime.
So, playing around and intentionally taking a hit was strictly forbidden.
The troublesome thing about slimes is that because they are amorphous, once they latch onto you, they're quite hard to peel off.
"I see..."
Having observed the slimes' movements and attacks, I had a general grasp of things. Now, it was time to actually attack.
"Shi! Oraaa!!...Wait!! This is...!!"
I quickly realized another of the slimes' annoying traits.
With the normal slimes that appeared on Floors 1 and 2, I could just stomp on them. That would stop their movement and make it easy to plunge a sword into them.
However, once you reached the slimes on this floor, they were all dangerous to touch carelessly, even through boots, so stomping was out of the question.
Therefore, not being a mage, I had no choice but to cut them with my sword, but...
"They're hard to hit...!!"
A slime was roughly the size of a large dog, but its body height was much lower than a goblin's. To land a hit, I either had to crouch low and swing horizontally or swing my sword downward as if striking the ground.
Alternatively, I could wait for the slime to jump and cut it in mid-air, but having to wait for them to attack every single time was extremely tedious.
Well, it wasn't impossible, so I started taking them down one by one.
First, I attacked normally without using Sword Aura.
Since the opponent wasn't a goblin, the only multiplier applied to the damage was the 2x from Increased Damage with Bladed Weapons. It had been a long time since I'd used an attack with such a low damage multiplier, so I felt a bit uneasy about whether it would work. But—
"Oh! I guess with this much of a level difference, it's a breeze."
The Venom, Fire, Thunder, and Acid ones were all easily bisected in a single strike.
Having tested that much, I decided to wrap up the trial run.
To end the battle quickly, I backed away from the slimes, activated Sword Aura, and began firing 1 HP Flying Blades at them.
Directly attacking them was a bit annoying, but Flying Blades were a different story. I slaughtered the slimes one after another—until...
"Hm!?"
『Oh!』 『No way!』 『It endured Junkie Bro's attack!!』
A Flying Blade hit the Crystal Slime, but failed to kill it.
The blade carved a deep crack through about half of its body, but with a wobble, it returned to its uninjured state in the next instant.
I didn't think Crystal Slimes had any healing skills, so this wasn't recovery; it had simply reverted to its original shape due to its amorphous nature. It should have still taken damage.
As proof, when I hit it with another Flying Blade, it died normally.
Still, having to attack twice to kill it was a pain.
Crystal Slimes were like the Goblin Knights of the slime world—monsters with particularly high constitution. They also possessed a skill called Crystal Body that reduced incoming damage. However—
"Hmph!"
『One-shot this time!』 『But that was petty, Junkie Bro!!』 『Don't get so worked up! lol』
Switching from Sword Aura to Magic Sword and firing a Flying Blade, I killed it in one hit this time.
Just like the Goblin Knight, the Crystal Slime had high constitution but only moderate spirit. Because of that, it had no means of defending against magic attacks. If I used a magic-type skill, I could defeat it easily.
I alternated between Sword Aura and Magic Sword, cleaning up the slimes one by one.
After I had defeated twelve slimes, the only one left was—
『Huh!?』 『Did that guy get bigger!?』 『Wait, didn't the number of slimes decrease?』 『Did we already kill fifteen?』 『It's a Legion Slime.』 『It's a Legion Slime, guys.』 『The Legion Slime must have eaten them.』
Only one slime remained.
The Legion Slime.
It appeared from Floor 4 Monster Rooms and continued to show up until Floor 10 in this dungeon.
Its ability—or rather, its skill—was Fusion Absorption.
It possessed a skill to literally absorb monsters of the same species and strengthen itself. This thing could actually use the skills of the slimes it absorbed. Additionally, while its level wouldn't increase, its stats would rise slightly based on the strength of the slimes it consumed.
Otherwise known as a King Slime.
However, unlike in games, it would merge with any type of slime.
By the way, a Legion Slime strengthened by absorbing other slimes also provided more experience points. However, the XP would be calculated by multiplying the Legion Slime's original XP by "fusion count ÷ 2 + 1."
Essentially, half of the original XP of a Legion Slime would be added for each absorbed slime. Therefore, in most cases, you'd get more total XP by killing the slimes before they could be absorbed.
Apparently, the individual before me had absorbed about three slimes. Its height had grown to about the level of my navel.
On top of that, seeing as parts of its body were as transparent as crystal, it seemed to have absorbed a Crystal Slime as well. If so, it should also have Crystal Body, making physical attacks less effective.
So, I just fired a Flying Blade with Magic Sword and killed it normally.
Even if it was strengthened, it was still a one-shot kill at this stage.
The battle ended, and Hinata-san walked over.
"Good work, Takeo-kun. How was it?"
"Based on how it felt to fight them, we'll be fine! I think we can make it to Floor 10 without any issues!"
"I see, that's good then."
『Good work, Junkie Bro!!』 『A win!』 『I didn't think he'd struggle, but that was still a breeze.』 『Junkie Bro didn't even activate Fighting Spirit.』 『Compared to goblins, aren't slimes just overall weaker?』 『Well, they're slow.』 『Their attacks are varied with fire and lightning and stuff, but they don't have weapons or armor.』 『Hmph, they're just slimes after all.』 『Wait, isn't the Crystal Slime actually pretty strong?』
I'd been a tiny bit worried about how not being able to use Goblin Genocider would affect things, but it looked like it wouldn't be a problem.
Fundamentally, slimes in modern dungeons were weak.
This was obvious if you looked at their species values.
A species value is the base experience point value possessed by a normal class, Level 1 monster of that species. For a goblin, it's 10; for a slime, it's 5.
Generally, monsters with higher species values are considered to have higher initial stats, which conversely means that monsters with lower values are weaker.
From actually fighting them, the monsters on Floor 5 of the Slime Dungeon were considerably weaker than the goblins on Floor 5 of the Shinjuku Dungeon.
Even without Goblin Genocider, reaching Floor 10 would be more than possible.
Not only had I leveled up and strengthened Blood Vengeance, but I'd also upgraded my other skills. Hinata-san had become quite strong too. I was confident that even if we encountered that special variant goblin from the Floor 8 Monster Room again, we could probably take it down without Goblin Genocider now.
I didn't know exactly how strong the Metasla in a modern dungeon would be, but we should be fine as we are. Gahaha!
Anyway, after gathering the magic stones and dropped items scattered around the room—
"HRAAAH!!"
To adjust my HP, which had risen above twenty percent due to the heal, I once again fired a Great Flying Blade imbued with Mighty Blade at the dungeon wall.
A deep fissure was gouged into the wall, and the roar shook my eardrums.
『So loud!?』 『Again!!』 『Stop the environmental destruction lol』 『Suddenly breaking the dungeon wall is just too insane lol』
With the second stage of Blood Vengeance now active, I sheathed my sword and once again hoisted Hinata-san onto my back.
Then, I began sprinting with intense momentum once more.
At this pace, we'd easily reach Floor 10 by the end of the day. Probably.