Chapter #10

It turned out that farming slimes would not be quite so easy as Nergal had assumed.

First of all, he needed them to stay in one place. Increasing their population wouldn't help him if they were scattered all over the Outlands. Especially since they could wander into the territory of some other, far more dangerous monster that Nergal could do nothing about.

Wrangling them up had been a chore. Half of the slippery bastards had already disappeared by the time he'd realized the need to avoid free-range farming. He'd managed to get back two of the stragglers but couldn't find any of the others. Either they'd gone too far for him to follow or they had been killed off by some other monster.

The captured slimes were then corralled into a pen of his own making. Though, it was less a 'pen' and more of a two-meter deep pit. A rope-ladder was rolled on the side, ready to be dropped down whenever he needed to get in.

It was somewhat of an eyesore but it worked, which was the point.

"Definitely better than a fence…" He thought aloud.

The fence had been his first plan when the necessity of gathering the slimes had been brought to his attention. That idea had been taken off the table when he realized what would happen if he left the acidic creatures in an enclosure made of wooden planks.

So, he'd given the slimes a home. A cramped, makeshift home but a home nonetheless. The next requirement was a bit harder to satisfy.

Food.

Well, calling it hard was a bit much. Slimes ate anything– ate everything, really. But they also needed to eat all the time. Especially if they were going to breed at the high rates Nergal demanded.

So he'd taken to cutting the branches off nearby trees.

With a pop, Roisin appeared once more. She was staying outside of her gemstone more often now, at least when no-one else was around, and had claimed his left shoulder as her second home.

"Time to head back to the shelter, Nergal~" Roisin sang happily.

Nergal hefted the axe over his shoulder and wiped his brow. "Hmm… I'll haul the rest of this over there tomorrow, then."

Before leaving he checked over the pit. Across from the rope ladder was the pile of branches he'd collected in the past week and a half. Much of the trees in the area were now stripped of their foliage entirely. Inside the pit were a good fifty or sixty slimes, happily dissolving leaf litter. It would be enough to hold them busy over the night, he reasoned.

"I think they're about ready to be harvested, right?"

As Nergal began trekking back to the shelter, Rosin furrowed her brow. "... You're really getting into this whole farmer thing, aren't you?"

"I'm farming my cultivation. Why wouldn't I be excited?

"Hopefully you don't go overboard and keep doing it for 300 years. It's not a very good way to get strong, you know?"

"It helped me jump from the second level to the third in an hour. I wouldn't call it bad." Nergal insisted.

Rosin pulled his ear. "That's because you're really, really, really weak."

"Did you have to say really three times?"

"I was being polite. You're actually really, really, really super weak."

"You added a super?" He asked, amused.

The sound of arguing voices caught their attention. Reflexively, Rosin disappeared back into her gemstone.

"And I keep telling you I'm not a damn GPS! How am I supposed to know where the place is?" A high-pitched girl asked.

"We've been walking in circles for hours, Yuze…" A boy whined.

"You're such a baby. Why don't you pester somebody else?"

"Because you're my sister!"

"Not by choice."

His ears perked up. Pushing his way out of the branches, he saw five weary looking travelers. They were covered in mud, clothes torn with faded blood stains all over. Two of them were boys, the shortest of them clearly related to the girl he was currently arguing with. The siblings were like mirror images of the other. Both had fair skin, blue eyes and blonde hair. They were the exact same height- very short. Only reaching around the middle of Nergal's chest.

The largest of the group was the biggest girl Nergal had ever seen. She was a head taller than him, with shoulders half-again as broad and lined with bulging muscles. She looked like a pro linebacker with the face of a very cute teenage girl. A massive axe was slung over her shoulder.

The second boy was nearly Nergal's height and rather plain-looking. A spear was strapped across his back and though weary he kept sneaking glances toward the girl at their lead.

"Yuze, Yuji. Quiet. We're being watched." A calm, refined feminine voice announced. Immediately they readied themselves for a fight, weapons out.

Nergal carefully parted the branches, holding his hands up in peace. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." Then his eyes widened. "It's you?"

Sure enough, the last person in the group was the very same girl who'd saved his laundry. Just as pretty as he remembered but now wearing a shimmery set of armor. She looked just as surprised to see him.