10 Slimes Are Not As Simple As I Thought

I reached the east gate with a few minutes to spare. There were a few farmers entering and exiting through the gate, and even a merchant caravan that was being escorted to the port city of Rottabel by some powerful looking adventurers. I was watching the goings-on of the town while I sat on one of the crates stacked against the wall of the east gate's guardhouse.

A few children were running through the streets, while their parents watched from the sides. Cheerful laughter could be heard alongside the sounds of people going about their business. This town was peace itself. I smiled to myself as I looked around.

Twenty minutes later, Bella still hadn't arrived. I started wondering if I was at the right place. Too bad this world didn't have cell phones. It was difficult to get in touch with people on short notice. I jumped off the crate to start looking around for her.

Just as I was about to start my search, I heard Bella calling to me. "Luke! Why are you here so early?"

"We said noon, no? Isn't it you who is late?" I responded, confused as to why she would say I'm early.

"Actually, I had said we would meet after lunch... You need to clean your ears out." Bella said. "Anyway, let's go. There is a rocky area a bit outside of town where we can use magic without worrying about others getting in the way."

I followed her out the gate and started talking about what we did after we split up yesterday. She was apparently still tired from our fight against the goblins and had gone back to sleep until this morning. When she woke up this morning, it was already well after the morning rush so she took it slow and after eating, met up with me at the gate.

I had been lazy yesterday too, and I told her as such. After that, I started talking about the quest I took this morning and when I got to the reward, I asked her why the slimes are so profitable.

"In reality, they're not that profitable. It's only at F rank that that holds true. Also, the amount you collected would normally be the equivalent of five adventurers splitting up for the same amount of time." She said all that in one breath before continuing, "Also, many F rank adventurers don't like taking slime hunting quests, since the slimes barely give experience and they are gross to touch, even with the gloves."

"If that's the case, why don't they just hire children to kill them?" I asked since it seemed like an easy way to get rid of the slimes while raising potential new adventurers.

"Well, first of all, there is the danger that they will touch the slimes body and get burned. Second, The gloves that the adventurers guild lends out are expensive to buy, as they're the only material that doesn't get burned by a slime's body. The gloves were only created a few hundred years ago. Before that, slimes were a huge problem everywhere, and many towns and villages were destroyed just because slimes would reproduce too fast. The guild does plan to one day make the gloves available to anyone, that way they can deal with the slimes more easily and not have to pay to kill them." Bella explained.

That was a lot of new information I just received. I had only one more question to ask Bella. "I was wondering. What happens to a monsters body after they die? After we killed the goblins, we just left them there to rot. If everyone did that, wouldn't that cause problems after awhile?"

"We don't know much about that, but it seems that monsters are created from mana, or evolve from something because of mana. Once they die, they will eventually disperse back into the mana in the air. Only the parts that are removed from monsters stay behind, such as the ears we had to remove as the proof of our hunt." Bella answered my question before looking at me a with a suspicious expression.

"What? Did I do something wrong?" I asked her, confused why she would look at me like that.

"Well most people know these things from a young age so I was just wondering where you lived that you don't know about this." She responded before shaking her head. "You don't need to tell me. I was just curious."

It wasn't like I could tell her in the first place. I didn't come from this world. That would be a long talk right there, and one I didn't want to go through right now.

Just as I was thinking about my old life on Earth, she announced that we had arrived. I stopped my daydreaming and saw what looked like a jungle gym made out of stones and boulders. There were a few people here, though they were all spread far apart. I looked more closely and realized they were practicing magic. Some of them were chanting spells and some were doing as Bella had done and were just concentrating.

Bella walked over to a big boulder that was a small distance away from the other people here and claimed up on one of the surrounding stones. I followed after her and climbed up a different one before sitting facing her.

Bella closed her eyes for a moment. After taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and said, "Well, now we can start. Let's teach you about magic."