Slimes vanished with almost no resistance whenever I pierced them with my Light-Blade Dagger. I’d considered simply stabbing them through right there in the fields, but I reconsidered. There was always the chance a treasure chest might drop, and I’d feel terrible if it appeared on top of the crops and ruined them.
Because of that, I was carrying every slime I found out of the fields one by one before finishing them off. It turned out to be more tedious than I’d anticipated. They weren’t particularly heavy, but having to crouch down and lift them over and over put a real strain on my back. Farmers had to do similar work for much longer periods during harvest season; I really had to hand it to them.
The request’s quota was five Slime Magic Stones, a minimum requirement I cleared almost immediately. For some reason, magic stones were a guaranteed drop every time I defeated one. By the time I’d taken down five, I was already done. Shiroru had the next highest acquisition rate; she found a stone roughly every four or five slimes. As for the other three, they were all about the same, getting maybe one stone for every twenty slimes. Looking at it that way, the request was probably designed with the expectation that an adventurer would hunt around a hundred slimes to finish.
As a party, we’d already reached that hundred-mark. I was just thinking it might be time to wrap things up when it happened.
“Ah, a treasure chest.”
A chest finally appeared after my thirty-second kill. It was a rather shabby-looking wooden box, just large enough to fit a few slimes inside. Of course, when it came to dungeon chests, you couldn't trust appearances. Spatial distortion was common; I’d seen greatswords taller than I am come out of boxes no bigger than this one.
I checked for traps first, but as far as I could tell, there weren’t any. It wasn't even locked. I suppose that was only to be expected for a low-quality chest on the First Floor.
While I was inspecting it, the rest of the group gathered around from their own search areas. I’d intended to call them over before opening it anyway, so this saved me the trouble.
“Hmm... I wouldn’t get my hopes up for anything good,” Spira remarked, eyeing the chest’s exterior.
Generally speaking, the more ornate the chest, the better the loot. Going by that rule of thumb, this one was bottom-tier.
“No way, you never know with Tort!” Halfa said, sounding oddly confident. “I bet there’s something great inside.”
I wondered just how much faith she had in my luck. Granted, even with identical chests, the quality of the loot tended to swing upward to an unnatural degree when I was the one opening them, so the possibility was there. Still, this was easily the shabbiest box I’d ever seen.
『Well, we won't know until we look!』 Shiroru chirped.
She was right. There was no point in standing around speculating.
I was fairly certain there were no traps, but I stayed on guard just in case. I caught Lowell’s eye; he rested a hand on his sword and gave a sharp nod. He’d caught my drift.
“Alright, here goes.”
I announced my intent, placed my hands on the lid, and pushed. It gave way without resistance, revealing the contents. Inside was... a bundle of paper strips?
I used Appraisal. The bundle turned out to be an item called "Attraction Slips." Their effect was to randomly draw in nearby monsters. They were consumables, but the bundle was thick enough to suggest quite a few uses. Even so...
“A bit underwhelming, isn’t it?” Halfa muttered once I explained the result.
The others looked equally disappointed. Given the effect, I couldn't blame them. If it pulled in allies, it could be used for emergency escapes, or if it pulled in a specific monster of our choosing, it would be great for luring targets into an ambush. But pulling in a random monster was a gamble. You could use it to force a monster’s position if there was only one target in range, I suppose, but that was a very niche situation.
“It might have been useful before we started the request,” Lowell said with a wry smile.
He had a point. If we’d used the slips earlier, we could have forced the slimes out of their hiding spots in the crops. It would have saved us the trouble of searching and the physical labor of lugging them out of the fields. Then again, if it took one slip per slime, we’d have burned through the bundle in no time. It felt like a waste to use consumables on slimes.
However, Spira made an unexpected observation. “Does it really only pull in one at a time?”
“Eh?”
“I mean, looking at the Appraisal, it doesn't actually specify a limit, does it?”
...She was right.
The word "randomly" implied it wouldn't pull in every single monster in the area, but there was no way to tell if that meant one or several. If it could pull in a decent group, it might actually be efficient for extermination quests. Still, it felt like a bit of a waste.
Then again, I might think of a better use for them later. It would be best to confirm the actual effect now, rather than being surprised later. If I went in assuming it only pulled one and it ended up dragging in a whole crowd, we’d be in trouble.
“Hmm. Let’s test just one, then. After that, we can call it a day. Sound good?”
『Ooh! In that case, first come, first served! I’m gonna snag the last kill and win this!』
Oh, right, we were supposed to be competing. I was winning by a landslide in terms of magic stones, but in terms of kill count, we were all probably neck and neck. The one who got the last kill would definitely have the edge.
“Okay, using it! Attraction!”
I pulled a single Attraction Slip from the bundle and made a grand declaration. There wasn't any technical need to shout the name, but it felt right.
The moment the words left my mouth, the slip crumbled into ash. Simultaneously, a small magic circle manifested in the air.
『Whoa!』
“Whoa, what? That’s bright!”
Something flashed with a brilliant light. It wasn't the magic circle itself—the light was coming from the single slime that had materialized out of thin air.
The slip had pulled in a single monster. It looked like my initial hunch was correct, though I’d need more than one test to be absolutely certain.
Well, I could always test it again later. For now, there was something else to worry about.
“A weird slime appeared! I knew it—it wouldn’t be Tort if things stayed normal!” Halfa said with a mischievous grin.
The slime was gleaming with a golden Metal Body. Like Halfa said, it was clearly no ordinary slime.
By the way, what was that supposed to mean? What kind of image does Halfa have of me anyway?