8 8

"Take the lantern and report to the others," I advise quickly, already walking backwards while drawing my revolver and big sword with either hand. The giant sword took a little longer to unsheathe, but once it was out and I could rest its spine on my shooting arm to balance the recoil, I started blindly drawing back the hammer and firing at the closest targets. Those closest targets, though, ate the bullets with several inches of rubbery skin so that they barely penetrated to mucus.

When three targets were barely bounced up and back a little from three shots, I focused the last three shots in my chamber on the same slime. This one was repeatedly pushed back into the others while three sets of three bullets ruptured a crooked line down the front of its body. With a hopeful estimate of two bodies per spare load, I could not even account for half of the bodies in this push of mindlessly aggressive and silent blobs.

Holstering my sidearm to wield my sword with both hands, I take a quick hop forward and slice the end of my sword down another slime's front with the full reach of my blade and arms. The blade at the base of the steeply angling point punched shallowly into the slime's outer membrane, but once the outer membrane was breached the rest of the tanto-style point of my sword cleaved cleanly down the front of their body with my weight and strength behind it.

The full eight inches of 'point' to my sword opened the front of the slime, spewing out most of its contents as I leaped backwards and away before my sword could strike the ground. I could hear that Carlos had already reached the others by the echoing of voices and then footsteps, so I did my best to keep myself relaxed with a slow and steadying breath while stepping backwards once again.

Leaping forward into another cleaving strike when a new slime takes the lead from the others, I continue to leap in and out and back away to perpetually retreat while maintaining attention. However, after the next two slimes fell away in quick succession, the others started piling around the sides around the trail of bodies. This gave them the necessary angling to approach two at a time.

Hearing Carlos nearing by the sword of a large sword being drawn, I stop in place to greet the first of two nearing slimes in a wide stand to swing around from my hips and club the first slime with the flat of my sword. After bouncing off of the slime that bounced away, I rode the momentum back the other way with the sword held horizontally to rip open the next slime's 'middle' area. Thick gallons of acidic and slippery slime soon pooled at my feet just as I was jumping back and to the opposite side of Carlos.

Relying on Carlos waiting beyond the mess I made to control that side of the dented crowd, I used my big sword once more to chop a slime almost in two down the middle before sheathing it wet in its rubber-lined iron scabbard. Taking the time to speed load my revolver while hopping left and right out of range of the slimes' shortened limbs, I wait until I can draw my saber before freely firing my first shot into the first slime.

Following those three bullets was a swift thrust of the short and broad sword into the bullet wound facing up. Flicking my wrist to angle my saber further upward, I step and lean back while ripping my sword up the slime's heavy body before pulling free half of the way up. My second shot soon followed as I hopped back again to steady myself, aiming for the next slime behind the one who's upper body now deflated and sagged forward.

Aiming again for the middle upper body of the third slime in line as Fred and Ms. Gwyn finally join us in the middle of the tunnel, I fire a third shot the breaches my next target in line. Carlos himself had already deflated two slimes on his own, bringing the overall numbers to half of what they once were. I could not even begin to fathom how many charred core remains might be found at the end of this tunnel.

Taking the time to slash twice back and forth across the second slime I had shot to open its body, I bluntly kick it up after accepting a waist deep soaking of slime from its ruptured body. After punting this slime out of the way and forcing much of its gelatinous insides up out of the opening, I simply stepped forward and thrust the full reach of my saber into the third slime's body. Bracing my sword arm with my gun arm, I turn, raise, and throw the three or four hundred pounds of weakened blob monster up over my head and back down the tunnel after sliding free of my sword.

Sheathing my saber, I turn about face toward the main body of enemies and empty my gun into the next slime in line. Holstering the Protector Revolver once again, I tiresomely draw my big sword out with both arms and in the same motion lunge forward to cleave through the next slime.

My breathing was starting to come in shorter and shorter breaths despite how much I tried to inhale evenly and my arms were well past the point of becoming warm and fuzzy. As I once again speared and tossed a slime from the side and back down the tunnel, my arms started going numb as my shoulders went warm and fuzzy. Even my ribs started aching from the awkward exertion.

I had no choice but to switch focus on simple chopping and pushing after pulling that one slime from the tanker's aggro. After slicing open one slime head-on and then clubbing the next into the tunnel wall, I turn back the other way by shifting stand on the balls of my feet to face the slimes I had previously thrown. The first I had thrown with my saber was already lurching into reach of my big sword, finding itself swiftly carved down the middle before being kicked roughly from my sword.

Leaving the other slime that was still a few yards out of reach alone, I turn back toward the main front to find that Ms. Gwyn had started spewing intense yellow flames from her wand and down my side of the tunnel to control the crowd in my brief absence. Proving her situation awareness, no sooner had I turned back around when she stopped using flames to block the tunnel.

Stepping forward to thrust my sword into the closest slime, instead of trying to throw this one I simply swung from the hips and twisted the sword to tear sideways out of its body and chop into a neighboring slime.

Even though the tanker was constantly being pushed back and randomly struck about the arms and legs around his shield, Fred still managed to swing his mace up and around at every opportunity to rip open slime bodies and render limbs useless. Carlos on the other side was mostly out of my sight, but the walls and even the ceiling on that side of the tunnel were wetly shining and dripping with slime fluids in the LED lantern light. I almost felt comfortable turning away from the main body once again with my big sword raised overhead.

Sighting the slime still just out of reach of my sword, I simply chop lightly forward and release halfway to send my sword rotating forward for six feet and dipping into the slime's body to strike the ground through its back. Drawing and reloading my revolver as smoothly as possible, I flick my wrist to snap the chamber back into the gun and catch before pulling back the hammer.

Because most of Fred's blows came from over the sides of is immense round shield, I crouched low to the ground to aim along my side of the tunnel in front of the tanker so the bullets wound up going down the middle through the less than a dozen wounded slimes remaining. When my gun, arm, and aim was steadied, I started swiftly firing and using the recoil to cock the hammer back against my other hand.

Instead of one shot per second, I emptied the revolving chamber in just under four seconds to rupture the lower bodies of many slimes behind their front lines. When it was finally their turn to face the tank, a solid blow down on their heads would force much of their upper bodies out through the lower regions.

Looking back briefly while holstering my gun to make sure the wounded slimes were at least crippled if not dead, I draw my saber to begin roughly stepping into the slimes, stabbing sideways, and dragging the wounded front line away from the tanker. After three draining sacs in almost half as many seconds were dragged aside to make room for the rigged slimes, I had no choice but to ignore their flailing limbs and go for the finish.

Even though I thrust my saber down into the back lower bodies toward their cores and wedged the short sword around, I mostly only opened and removed the few connective tissues around the cores to cripple them. After all of this fighting without even laying eyes on the boss, I wanted all the reward I could get.

Once the pressure on the tanker finally began to peter out after the first slime flooded the floor through its lower side under their mace, the fighting soon became much easier. Only a few moments later, it was over and I was sitting on the floor after retrieving my big sword. While the big sword and its inorganic polymer scabbard were specially made to maintain 'coatings', I had no choice but to take the time to clean my saber and its sheath.

When everybody was finished with their weapons checks and brief rest, it was shortly debated on whether or not to continue down to the end of the tunnel and see if there was anything still alive. However, Ms. Gwyn simply brushed it off by saying she could directly report this to the Bureau. With our business in the side tunnel concluded, we started the twenty-minute walk back to the main junction.

When we got there, the rest of the party was already there resting while putting away some light trash. Their tanker and Emile looked a little worse for wear with a few tears and splits in their leather armors but were otherwise whole and healthy. Leon, though, looked like he was absolutely exhausted.

That was probably an affect of a low level mage forcing the use of life energies to stimulate healing.

Someone naturally inclined to that form of 'magic' like his wife, Ms. Gwyn, would be able to produce 'life energy' with much smaller restrictions. Even an F grade healer like her was offered high salaries by private groups and the Bureau because of how rare proper healers were. In higher ranks when she is strong enough she could even overdose a person on healing energies and produce various forms of buffing and even berserk modes.

If I was right, even at her current level, if she could shove half of her MP worth of mana into a healthy person they could get buffed pretty decently.

Mr. Leo provided a brief report of what took place on their end, which was the discovery of a large caved in cavern that probably led out to other parts of this world. They took down a little more than thirty spiders overall with the greater numbers of them seeming to be excavating. Supposedly, the spiders they caught moving boulders and widening the tunnels were all weak and wounded.

A quick wash of fire not unlike our own gas explosion tactic made the rest of their enemies into easy pickings.

The main problem here was the collapsed cavern. If the cavern led to greater areas, the portal might not close even if we cleared the available cave system. If that happened, the time limit would probably drain out as we tried to excavate the tunnels ourselves.

If the portal turned black and we had already breached the other side, the portal would never close and anything inside would be able to start coming out. There were already more than a dozen territories walled off around the country, one like this with unknown variables like this one could end up being a B or A grade territory.

*

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