Sewers (2)

Mike and Synthia were walking through the sludge and muck of the slums now trying to find anything that might be some indicator of where Daniel may be held. He was happy that Gary was alright but still, Mike knew that he had only bought himself some more time with him now having someplace to stay. Still, Mike had to focus on finding Dike before talking to Abbey once again to get some answers about some stuff and checking his current status from the system to see how much he had improved through the workout routine. Still, Mike was getting off track and needed to pay more attention to what was happening in front of him to make sure that he did not miss anything or gets attacked by something.

They both stayed in this hellish place under the city for around two hours trying to find something but ultimately concluded that the slums area of the sewers held nothing but corpses, human fecal matter, and other disgusting and smelly stuff that they had to go through. So they both move on to the other areas within the city's sewer system to see if there was anything else.

16

'Alright, I don't know if I missed this thing or not...' Mike says seeing how he now had to start rolling for everything that the system was back

There were some perks to having the system but Mike did not like the fact that he had to constantly roll in his head and that would determine the outcome. Mike believed that the system did not only influence him but also the world around him, but Mike had no proof of that and he would prefer not to ask Abbey since he believes that he should figure things out on his own without relying on a cheat.

Still, the roll was high so Mike was certain that he would not miss anything drastic so he just let the number influence his actions as he had to pay attention not that much. Eventually, the roll started to show its worth as Mike started to gradually notice that the area that both he and Sheila were walking through was a lot cleaner. In fact, the water that they were walking through looked more like regular water, unlike the slums area where the water was brownish-green in color and emitting a toxic smell that made Mike's nose quit on him and turned off his sense of smell.

However, now there was practically nothing that was flowing through the sewers as they both went on with the gunk and trash that should be down here being almost non-existent. This put Mike on edge as he soon believed that there was someone or something down here but he felt like there was something that should be down here that could do this, but he could not place his finger on it.

'What in the world could it be?' Mike says as he starts referencing the mythical creatures that could be found within the role-playing world

'Wait don't tell me it's that...' Mike thinks as he suddenly gets an inkling of what might be down here with them

"Synthia what types of slimes are there?" Mike asks

"Slimes? Why do you want to know about them?" Synthia inquires at this random question

She had also noticed the lack of garbage in the sewers here but she just attributed that to the city cleaners and adventurers. Cleaning the sewers is a good beginner quest for new adventurers as it is not that difficult to complete and is a good way to clean up the sewers to prevent blockage and reduce the amount of stench that gets into the city.

"Just curious and I also wanted to talk a bit," Mike says telling the truth

"Well there are various slimes out there that some have dedicated their whole lives studying those creatures while others have also gone beyond to create new variants though it is frowned upon by various religious groups"

"So what are the most common ones?" Mike asks wanting to see if the slimes in this world are the same as the ones in the roleplaying universe

"Well the most common would be red, green, and blue slimes"

"What do they do?"

"Green dissolves natural materials such as wood, grass, and other materials some of the bigger ones can even dissolve skin albeit slowly to the point it is not noticeable so a while"

'Okay this one is different than what I know'

"Red slimes dissolve metals at a rapid pace making it difficult to fight against unless there is a magic wielder, but even then it will not just let itself be attacked and killed," Synthia continues

'Well then I guess I need to get a monster book now,' Mike thinks seeing that this worlds monsters may be significantly different than the ones that were made on Earth

Would there be similarities? Yes, there would be, there might even be someplace out there that has the same monsters and creatures that were made up, on Earth but that would be difficult to find on its own.

"The blue slimes are the worst though and are to be eradicated once someone finds them," Synthia says getting extremely serious all of a sudden

"What... does it do?" Mike asks scared of the answer

"Blue slimes dissolve stone and rock"

'Oh, that is why...'

Mike now understood why blue slimes were considered to be a threat in this world. The reason was simple, almost everything was made up of stone or rocks. Even a simple farmer's house might have a stone foundation underneath and if a blue slime found its way there it could cause trouble. If it got into a city or something then may whatever gods there are help that city if it is not found quickly or becomes unstoppable.

"So what are the weaknesses of slimes then?" Mike asks narrowing down the culprit of the clean sewers to either a green slime or some lose variant that may have found its way here

"Fire magic is a good way to combat them but they can just regenerate, so unless their core is destroyed they won't stop eating and growing"

"What do the cores look like?" Mike asks curiously

"It is just a white ball in the center of the slime that can be broken with a simple strike or blow making it quite easy to beat, however, the bigger the slime is they may be able to move their core around their bodies or even send them out of there bodies"

"What is the biggest slime ever?" Mike asks wanting to get an idea of how big these things could get

"Well the biggest slime in legend says that it was about the size of a small kingdom spanning 100 miles in diameter that the gods had to personally smite it," Synthia says with a bit of reverence

'Hey, Gary anything like that ever happen before?' Mike asks him

"Hm... oh that slime? Yeah a few of the lesser gods did come down to kill it but it was not as big as that lady said it was only around 90 miles in diameter," Gary tells him

'That is still pretty big...' Mike thinks to himself while trying to comprehend how massive that thing would be

'So what happened to it? You lesser gods kill it?' Mike asked

"No we went down there to kill it but eventually we found we couldn't so instead we decided to make it into a minor god"

'Wait... there is a slime god?' Mike asks trying to make sure that he is not getting things mixed up

"Yes but there are not many believers since it does not really try much to get many followers even now"

'It has sentience?' Mike asks

"Yeah but it is extremely lazy just staying in his realm most of the time and doing whatever it is that it does"

'Well... interesting' Mike thinks to himself seening that a slime became a god in this world and even was sentient

That intrigued him a lot since he did not know how one would be able to be a god in this world, but for the slime it seemed like the gods did it to make sure that it did not cause much havoc to the world. It may seem like the gods did this to help the people out of good will but Mike had a feeling that they just did it to be selfish.

Gods need followers and if there are no more followers then the gods would not be happy causing them to go down and deal with the problem to the best of their abilities. Mike assumed that not all the gods could descend at the same time based on logical thinking and reasoning. However if the gods cannot defeat the thing killing their followers then they will have to bargain with it if possible by giving it things to make it promise it to not attack or kill any more people. Since the slime was a slime Mike can only assume that it had not gained sentience before becoming a god so the gods could not barter and offer it items to make it stop and had to resort to god hood.

That was Mike's assumption of the gods and the slime god incident since he was drawing from what he knew back on Earth and from partaking in various roleplaying games Mike made this assumption of the gods and their ideals.

As for why gods may want to save their believers Mike could only assume and not make anything solid out of it. In the world of Dungeons and Dragons gods need followers to keep them alive and that is how they gain most of their power with those who have more followers having more power and a higher standing. Still Gary said that only applied to lower gods when he asked him, so for the higher Gods Mike had no idea how strong they were or anything reguarding them. Still Gods and higher beings were something that Mike could not deal with now and something that was confusing to think about without enough information on.

*Plap*

The sound similar to a hand hitting still water rings out through the sewers causing Mike to focus once again on his surroundings to see that something is moving on the ceiling from the way they came from.

"Um... Synthia what about black slimes" Mike asks

"Never heard of a black slime"

"Alright then guess we will need to find out what it does then," Mike says as he grabs her shoulder and turns her around to see what he is seeing

The sewer that they just came from was pitch black was in and of it self normal but the thing is that Mike was able to see that the darkness was following them as the sides of the sewer were being enveloped by the darkness now that they had stopped. It was advancing slowly for now but Mike did not want to know what this thing did once it latched onto someone.

Synthia seeing the slime moves forward in front of Mike while he gets ready to cast his [Burning Blue Palms] spell against this thing.

Then Synthis moves forward and stabs into it while Mike rushes forwards and attempts to place his hands on the slime and burn it.

1

'I did not miss this' Mike thinks as the curse of the one takes place

So what happens is Mike slips on something as he was running forward and catches himself on the ground but as a result his burning hands are extinguished emitting steam and releasing a terrible smell from the water. Still that is not all as Mike was also trying to attack the slime was near by and as a result was close to it where it envelopes him whole inside its body.

Instantly Mike can't break inside its body and starts to suffocate as he cannot get out immediately and Mike cannot see anything in this darkness. His body soon starts to want air as Mike suddenly feels the slime acting weird, but he cannot do anything about it for now as he is stuck inside its sticky jello like substance.

8

Eventually after trying to struggle out Mike passes out from lack of oxygen even after trying to utilize his mana to cast some spell, but he cannot do it for some reason so everything turns black as he passes out.