Frosty Cavern Part 1

The Glacial Zone was already cold, but the winds that were coming from the cave were even colder. Icicles could be seen hanging over the cave entrance, as an indicator of how cold it was. None of them could see it but Vitiate could see it clearly; the floor within the cave had bits of frost on it.

"Use the scanning device to see the rank of this cave again, we need to double-check to see." Vitiate suggested again, he had to be certain. He himself had a device that could check this—but he had Lucas do it instead.

"Right..." Vitiate and everyone was within range to check the mana signature of the dungeon, which gave an accurate Danger Level. This was in most cases as some Dungeons were capable of hiding their threat level; this was fairly worrisome to Vitiate.

"Yeah, the Threat level is at White Grade 2 Dungeon, nothing's changed about it." Lucas looked back at everyone and assured.

"Perfect, it doesn't seem to be much light in this cave, we also have to look out for traps." This was Zelman's main worry, he couldn't see anything and that was the first problem.

"No worries, there should be light on the first floor; there usually is." Rigor said with a stiff expression.

"It's confirmed to be a White Grade 2 Dungeon, so let do what we came here to do." Vitiate was ready, he wanted that Dungeon Core!

Everyone looked to Vitiate, he was clearly going to lead the way from here on and they saw no problem with that; he was the strongest, after all. Vitiate had already suited up in the armor that was given to him by the Dwarf sisters, as it was underneath his standard Adventurer wear.

Vitiate began approaching the cave in a not too fast or too slow manner. Lucas, Zelman, and Rigor followed him closely from behind.

"Damn...it's cold as all hell near here!" The temperatures were quite low, but it was unknown how low. Above the cave entrance said Frosty Cavern that was written on a slab of wood that tilted sideways.

Once they entered the cave, the temperatures dropped slightly. Vitiate was sensitive to these changes, so he noticed it right away. The cave was dark but he could see perfectly, however, there were lights up ahead that lit up the whole cave from there on.

"Careful..." Vitiate's perception wasn't any good but he had a bad feeling about something.

Everyone paused after his words, then Vitiate walked over by himself.

TCH!

Vitiate seemed to have stepped on something hidden in the floor; at that moment, sharp Icicles came crashing down from the ceiling like arrows. It looked like artillery, even Lucas and company wouldn't be spared from this attack despite it being some ways away, it was meant to level this whole area!

"Not Good!" To be a victim of a trap, something he loved setting up in his dungeon. He wasn't worried about getting killed by these attacks, but the possibility of the others outright dying.

Suddenly, the tattoo on Vitiate's arm flashed blue for a second, and the Icicles all shattered like glass. The sudden bombardment of death had dissipated just like that!

"W-what just happened?" Lucas and the rest could barely see anything, but they could feel the threat upon them.

"It was a trap, some sort of Icicle bombardment." Vitiate secretly sighed in relief; traps were truly dangerous.

"Yes, there will probably be quite the amount of those, and none of us are good with dealing with traps." Rigor said indifferently.

"Crap! Hey, Slayer, aren't you good at dealing with and detecting traps?" Lucas asked.

"Nope, not even!" Vitiate said with no shame.

"..."

"However, there shouldn't be any traps from where I am and you." Vitiate kept walking before speaking in his mind.

'Little Dragon, are you finally awoke?'

'Hehe, I've been awake for a while now.' The dragon said cheekily.

'How long?' Vitiate knitted his eyebrows.

'Since you were being attacked by that assassin yesterday.' The dragon yawned and said.

"....."

Vitiate didn't say anything and kept walking, he thanked the dragon but she quickly got a big head over it and started ranting. Simply saying, you owe me an all I can eat buffet, you need to recruit more dragons so I can create my army; that fat guy is weird, and so on.

"Okay, quiet, you're giving me a headache. I need to be aware of the traps as I keep advancing." Eventually, they made it to the light, and from there on the cave would be lit up.

"Hmm, there are no more traps on this floor, but there are quite a few monsters up ahead in hiding, that is." The Little Dragon concluded.

This alarmed him, and he relayed this message to the rest of the group.

"Huh? I thought you said you couldn't tell if traps were around or not." Lucas looked at Vitiate with a somewhat ugly and questioning expression.

Vitiate didn't know how to reply to this, he couldn't just say that a dragon told him.

"You roly-poly, just shut and follow my orders!" Vitiate said, but... that was only his voice!

"W-what? M-my bad!" Lucas was shocked.

"Aye, that wasn't me, some monster is using my voice to say such things!" Vitiate mouth twitched intensively before he started yelling at the Dragon to shut up or she'll be having a date with the Ratmen in the dungeon!

'EEEK! You're so cruel!' To her, that was some serious hell to spend; the way they looked at her made her fearful.

'Good! I can forgive you, you just have to get me through this Dungeon and locate all of the monsters in hiding, or to come.' Vitiate scoffed and said.

'Of course, I wouldn't want you to die, or I'll die.' Vitiate once again warned them about the monsters up ahead.

Everyone was ready, but Lucas was still quite surprised by what just happened; it sure sounded like him!

'They're there, they aren't hiding, though.' Right as the Dragon said this, they appeared.

There were many of them, they were in groups but Vitaite had seen these creatures before. However, their color was different from the ones he had seen before, as they were Cyan in coloration.

....

|Name: Frost Slime 🔴

|Title: Sloucher, Slow Witted,

|Race: Slime

|Race Type: Manifestation

|Age: 2

....

The number of Slime around the Dungeon was simply uncountable, and no one had time to count them all.

The group of Slime didn't need to see Vitiate and company to know that they were there, since they were alarmed by a certain someone.

"We got a fight on our hands! Be careful, they look weak as hell, but they can shoot Liquid Nitrogen, and it's really cold!" Zelman warned. Many people in the past had underestimated these little things and paid for it.

VItiate nodded, but he had the help of an Ice Dragon on his side to deal with such attacks. Everyone knew the nucleus in the center of the Slime was its weak point, or it wouldn't die otherwise. Of course, fire could, and other certain elemental attacks could take them down.

Zelman was the first to attack, he quickly drew his rapier and began killing Slime left and right. Vitiate was the same, he was easily able to target the nucleus of the Slime with little effort. They weren't the fastest around or even the smartest at that.

Rigor used his fist to attack the Slime, he wore a gauntlet but he found that he couldn't kill a single one with such blunt attacks. They would just come back together and reform themselves after being blasted by his fist.

"Sigh~!" Rigor sighed and took a step back, not thinking of fighting the Slime anymore as it was useless without a sharp-cutting weapon or tool. Lucas didn't participate, he wanted to save his mana for real monsters.

The group of Slime didn't let them off despite no participating, they shot clear liquid from their bodies that targeted both Lucas and Rigor.

"Oh...!" Lucas hurriedly and moved away from the attack and so did Rigor. They were practically dancing since they were being shot at by multiple Slimes who seemed to have concluded that they were the weakest in the group.

Vitiate and Zelman attacked and killed many Slimes but more kept appearing!

"Is there no end to these things!?" Zelman's face scrunched.

'Ah, I should have bought the Fire Attribute!' Vitiate could only say to himself. Despite this, he kept killing as many Slimes as he could.

The Slime attacked Vitiate and Zelman as best as they could but they were both just too fast to catch and hit. They could only rely on their numbers, this was all they had going for them at the moment.

Right then, the Slime all stopped; they weren't that big, to begin with. At that moment, the Slime started coming together in one area.

Vitiate and everyone's eyes opened wide from surprise, they were starting to fuse to create a bigger Slime! Its mass began to grow at the rate the human eye could see, everyone just watched in disbelief. Vitiate had seen this in novels and anime before but not in person, he wasn't even sure that this world's Slimes could do this.

Upon reaching its complete form, its mass completely towered over everyone in the cave. This part of the cave was far bigger than usual; Vitaite could understand that this was with reason.

Zelman frowned coldly and darted over towards the Slime to attack its Nucleus in the center of its mass. Sticking his rapier in the mass of the Slime, it didn't reach the core of the Slime at all; in fact, his rapier got stuck in its slimy mass.

The Slime formed tendrils and used them to swiped Zelman away. Zelman knocked away, he grunted lowly before landing on his feet. He looked at himself and saw a bit of frost on his side and arm, but it wasn't anything life-threatening.

...

|Name: Great Frost Slime 🔴

|Title: Sloucher, Slow Witted, Sticky Body, Defensive,

|Race: Slime

|Race Type: Manifestation

|Age: Can't Be Determined

...

"Who knew Slime could be this annoying." Vitiate knew that his weapon would get stuck in its body all the same. And touching it would cause some frost to form over your body, in regards to the standard green Slime, it was acidic instead.

But Vitiate had an idea right away.

"Lucas, can you charge up one of those fireballs and a strong one at that?" Vitiate turned and asked.

"Uh, I can but it'll burn my mana. But it's okay, I have mana potions to restore my mana." Lucas nodded and said.

"Okay, get to charging, once this thing is defeated we can head to the next floor." This creature was clearly the guard on this floor holding them up.

"My rapier is still stuck in its side, I need it to do anything," Zelman grunted seeing his sword trapped within the body of the Slime. Getting close and taking it would be dumb in itself to do against something that could pull you into its body and freeze you to death.

The Slime didn't let up in the least and started to shoot Liquid Nitrogen towards the group from different parts of its body. Lucas was charging up his fireball, well, what he called a Super Fireball.

Vitiate jumped in front of him and put up a large vine wall. Too bad though, this was useless against Ice based attacks, as it was quickly overcome by the Liquid Nitrogen. He used his weapon and twirled it around to block the attack.

With the help of the dragon, this was easily done.

Many tendrils began to attack Rigor, he punched the tendrils; causing them to explode into a gooey cold mess, leaving a bit of frost on his gauntlets. All at once, Vitiate summoned many vines to attack the Slime to occupy it, he knew it wouldn't work but it would distract it a bit.

The vines quickly attacked the Great Slime, they even pulled out Zelman's rapier and tossed it to him. Within moments, the vines were slowly being frozen over by the Great Slime, who was defending itself from the vines.

Lucas had already charged his Fire to the highest he could, this would hurt it but surely not defeat it.

"Lucas, attack it!" Rigor was still being attacked by tendrils despite the Great Slime being distracted by vines.

"I've waited for this, have a taste of my Super Fireball!" Lucas cocked his arm back and threw the fireball with all his might. The frost on the ground melted slightly, then it came into contact with the occupied Great Slime.

A burst of fire exploded on the Great Slime, causing it to shriek in pain. This attack damaged it on a cellular level, so its wounds would take time to heal from such an attack.

This was why trolls had a hard time dealing with fire, acid, and other cellular attacking skills; walling their ability to heal themselves like they usually did.

Though it didn't kill the Great Slime, it had left an opening for anyone to attack. It was a big gaping hole that revealed the core nucleus of the creature!

Vitiate raced over towards the Great Slime to give it one last decisive blow.

"Die!" Vitiate's weapon turned into a spear and he stabbed the core of the Great Slime. The Great Slime's screeches were maddening but they started to die down quickly, as its body began to liquify to nothingness.