Road to Suriad

I was about to brag about the Slime Bed, only to get bragged at about Nika-chan's lullaby instead.

"Ooh! That's nice, you two… By the way, mine was using Gin-chan's tail as a body pillow!"

Sleeping while hugging a fluffy fox tail…!?

"… Ugh, I-I'm not jealous or anything!?"

"… Tch, I'll just have to unlock Nika-chan's wings and counter with a feather comforter, yo!"

"Yours are both enviable too. I'll make a king-bed-sized box next time, so how about we all sleep together? Oh, but Gin-chan's tail won't be enough to go around."

"Think I could get Miitei-chan to use Mimicry? She can mimic a cat beastkin, so maybe just a fox tail on its own would work…?"

"Slimes really are versatile, yo."

Speaking of which, it turned out Nika-chan wasn't actually human.

She had wings growing out of her? She was basically an angel. Was that why she could purify Defilement?

"She had what looked like a bump on her lower back, but it turned out to be wings, yo. Apparently they grow as she purifies Defilement, yo."

"Huh."

And so the bed contest ended in a draw.

Now then, time to resume the wagon journey, but…

First, there were dead monsters outside the Home from overnight attacks, so we cleaned those up.

There were a ton of small insect types, but also plenty of birds. Maybe I'd have Penpen turn them into yakitori.

"Eek… Th-this many monsters attacked? I didn't notice at all."

"It's fine, it's fine. Home doesn't even flinch against small fry like these."

"Looks like the birds came to eat the bugs and got zapped to death, yo?"

"The birds are still fresh, so that's probably what happened."

More precisely, I'd set it up to zap back as a counterattack. The ones killed by that were the dead monsters lying around outside.

The ones that survived the zap had probably fled. I'd like to say I don't enjoy unnecessary killing, but since they gave XP it wasn't wasteful at all, so I couldn't help but go "Tch, they got away."

"If we left these out, mid-sized monsters that prey on birds would probably show up next, yo."

"And if large ones that prey on the mid-sized ones came after that, even Home's defense functions would struggle. It uses MP too."

"Even before that, the simplified offensive barrier wouldn't kill them outright; they'd just break through. It'd be fine if they just ran away, though."

On the flip side, what if you dropped your Home in the middle of a locust swarm? Unlimited XP farming?

… Your MP would run out, for one. Besides, just fighting monsters normally would probably be more efficient.

"Alright, let's head out. Same positions as yesterday?"

"Think we'll arrive today?"

"Driver duty's on you, yo."

"… Oh, okay."

We stored the Home and set off. Miitei-chan, protect Merchant-san for me, okay?

 

"Spirit-samas! Bandits!"

"Ooh. Hold on, yo, I'm at the good part…"

"Come on, Alto. Enemies incoming, time to sortie."

"They're just small fry and there aren't any cute ones anyway. Leaving it to you, yo… Hmm, am I stuck here, yo?"

"Who knows? Fufufu."

Leaving those two to their board game battle (now properly magnet-equipped for wagon-shake resistance), I stepped outside the wagon.

"Still, bandits sure do show up a lot."

"Y-yes, Slime-sama. We chose this kind of route, so…"

I see, so it was a reckless, lawless shortcut route.

… Oh!?

"Hey Alto, Penpen, there's a cute one!"

"For real, yo!? This is no time for board games, yo!"

"Hey! Running away just because you're losing is cheating!"

She was a cute girl. Assuming she wasn't actually a boy.

And yet. There was a ring floating above her head. A simple ring.

"Hm? There's a ring floating above her head, yo…"

"A player! Is this PK!? … Huh?"

"Geh!? Th-three Spirit-Possessed!? W-wait! Hear me out!"

"Hmm, no questions asked. HYAHHAA!!"

We wiped them out. Player or not, bandits die without mercy. Cute ones get captured, though.

And so, the cute player girl was safely captured.

… Yeah, there were three of us. Three! No way she was winning! Even if she was a first character, we had a combat-specced first character on our side too!

"You've got it wrong, it was a quest! A misunderstanding!"

"Yo-ho-ho! Even if you're a player, anyone who PKs is a criminal, yo. No rights for you, yo!"

"Please contact the Adventurer Guild, I'm begging you…!"

Her face looked vaguely familiar, so I decided to ask her name.

"By any chance, are you the one who goes by Aruru on the Wiki?"

"Aruru? … Um, Spirit-sama, are you an acquaintance of Mahariku-sama?"

"Oh! This girl is Aruru-shi's 'third,' yo! The one from the screenshot that got posted, yo!"

"What!? That player already has a 'third'!?"

"Nah. Actually, there was talk that she might be a 'first,' yo."

"What's that mean?"

If I recalled correctly, Aruru-shi's gameplay had evolved into a company management style, with their subordinate count steadily growing.

And this character was their third subordinate.

"So she belongs to a player on the Wiki. Got it!"

"So, um, could you let me go…? No?"

"Nope, yo?"

"A-ask the Adventurer Guild, and you'll see it was a quest…"

"Well, even so, you'll be treated as a prisoner until we reach a town where we can verify that."

"Nooo… sniff…"

And so, having captured another player's subordinate, we arrived at the town of Suriad that evening.