Tales of the Slime Tamer

A young man was floating on the calm waters. Miraculously, he was still alive despite fighting the currents for so long.

The first thing he saw when he woke up was a shiny, glittering light at the edge of the dark cave he found himself in.

"Where… am I?" The young boy slowly crawled out of the pond that he was in. The darkness of the cave would have made it impossible for him to see if not for the light on the other side.

"What happened?" The young man began to recall what had happened.

As he was still groggy, it took him some time to recall what had happened.

He was with his fellow Tamers investigating a mysterious thump that he heard which led them deep down a certain cave. They found a massive underground river that rushed out, and an ambush of a powerful pack of wolves occurred, and the young man fell into this river as the fighting grew intense.

If not for the fact that one of his allies immediately threw a large piece of wood that was supposed to be used to investigate the river's depth, the young man would have drowned from the rushing current of the river.

Remembering that his friend threw a piece of wood at him, the young man glanced around and saw the broken pieces that saved him as he was being carried away by the current. He couldn't even remember how long he held on the wood and avoided the rocks and how he ended up in the shallow pond where he was now.

And even though he had regained consciousness, the bruises and wounds in his body were still aching that he had no strength to keep moving. As such, he remained floating and was slowly mustering the strength to make him swim towards land.

Flay Eulser was a young man belonging to a tribe of monster Tamers who could tame monsters through their Ability, the Taming Hand. Flay's right hand had a strange black jewel embedded on his backhand. But alas, Flay was considered a 'dud' among his tamer clan. While the weakest tamers had red jewels, the average tamers had yellow or orange, and the superior ones had green, Flay had a black jewel. It was as if it was empty and devoid of any power to tame.

"Where am I?" Flay looked around as he gained more awareness of his surrounding.

THUMP!

A massive thump could be heard, and Flay was startled. They were on a hunting expedition to search for food and tame more monsters when it became an investigation. The hunt had very strange occurrences, including the appearances of monsters that never appeared in the region where they hunted in safety. And Flay, who had amazing hearing, heard a muffled thump and tried to search for its source, hoping to solve the many mysteries that these tamers encountered.

But now, that very thump was nearby!

"ROAR!"

A tremendous shrill cry echoed throughout the cave.

Flay was a Tamer and was learned in the sounds that the beasts of the land made. But this sound was from a beast he hadn't heard off.

"What gigantic beast is causing this?! Am I in his lair?!" Flay was horrified. With his amazing hearing ability, they tracked the source of the sound to the cave and discovered the underground river. The sound of the thumps and the roars was heard through it. And since Flay fell inside, he realized that he ended up right into the lair of the beast!

He began to slowly swim towards the s crouch down, and he slowly moved in the darkness of the cave. The strange lights he saw nearby drew his attention, and he decided to investigate.

He checked his back and was thankful that the sword he carried was not carried away in the wild waters.

"ROAR!"

THUMP! THUMP!

The thumps continued, and Flay was now sure that the sounds came from this cave.

"What monster is this? With its size, it could easily be a D-ranked monster!"

The Tamers and the nearby Kingdom ranked monsters on certain levels, and it was equal to the strength of their strong warriors and mages. A D-Ranked monster would be the fourth realm in the Ranks of Power. This means the monster would be equal to Expert Knights, Expert Mages, and other Expert classes!

Flay himself was only on the first realm of the Ranks of Power. He was a Level 6 Rookie. And that was even controversial!

Flay moved closer and closer and could smell a dreadful stench.

"What is that smell?" Flay frowned as he moved. As he approached the glowing lights, he realized that several corpses of various monsters were nearby.

"Might Wolves… Bewilderbisons… Is that a Battle Steed?!" Flay saw the creatures and was horrified. And then, he saw a large, rotting creature. It was two meters wide, and its length couldn't be measured easily as it extended to the back. Flay knew of this creature from the reports of the Scouting Tamers.

"An Overlord Worm… But they are only found in the Desert Lands up north?! What creature ate this?" Flay was now even more afraid of where he was. These beasts could swallow Bewilderbisons, yet something larger could easily kill and eat half of it and even brought home some take-outs for snacks!

"I've got to get out of here and warn the village! The danger to the homeostasis is even more dangerous than we thought!" Flay hurriedly crept slowly and went towards the source of the shining light.

It was in a deep pit, and near the bottom of the pit was a strange pool.

"Did the monster dig this?" Flay wondered as he could see a closer look into the mysterious deep water.

The pool was full of strange, slimy water that had various colors. It was glowing with red, yellow, and blue lights. At the bottom of the pool were skeletons of various beasts.

"What is that thing?" Flay frowned.

"ROAR!" Suddenly, the monster roared, and various thumps and loud flapping of wings could be heard. A strong gale even blew inside the cave, and Flay took cover.

"It flies?!" Flay cursed. Such horrors of a beast could mean the end and destruction of his village!

"I need to get out! But I need proof of its existence!" Flay began to look around. He needed to report the existence of these beasts and sought proof.

"An unknown monster! That's it! The skull of several unknown monsters that isn't native to our region! If I bring a few backs, I could use it as claims that something strong that can fly is hunting them!" Flay then searched for any strange creatures around and looked at the skulls nearby.

Flay noticed that the bones had a thick layer of mucus and concluded that the creature eating it had a highly corrosive acid that allowed it to melt the flesh away and would spit out its bones,

"Clucktus, Boar Bisons, is that a Spike Turtle? No wonder Spikey wandered near our lands! This beast must have attacked the bale of Spike Tortoise, and Spikey escaped!" The Tamers had just tamed their first Spike Turtle a few days ago. And it seems that the family of this tortouse was attacked by this same beast.

"Might Wolves… Is this a Pegasus?" Flay was surprised that even the fast Pegasus became food for them.

He then searched more and noticed that there was another pile of monsters on the next end that still had their flesh and scales on.

"Looks like this is the next snack of that beast…" Flay turned his attention to look for the creatures there and finally found strange newer ones.

There was a large red bird, a large snake whose tail could not be seen, and there were several mantis-like creatures.

The mantis was the smallest one in a pile, and Flay decided that it would be the proof he would bring back. Only the head was protruding out of the pile, and its head was roughly the size of a human head.

"I never heard of the Scouting Tamers reporting mantis creatures. Maybe this will do…" Flay took out his sword and approached the pile. Since most of its body was under the pile of various monsters, Flay didn't have a clear shot at slicing off the head.

"Guess I'll have to pull this one out." Flay held on the head of the mantis and pulled.

But even with his strength, the monster pile on the top was just too heavy.

Flay used his sword and stabbed it on the pile of monsters, and pulled down his sword like a lever to flip the monsters on top of the pile.

Some of the monsters fell, and Flay went back to pull the head of the mantis.

But as he pulled, the head of the mantis suddenly began to squirm. With the weight on top lifted, the mantis now had the strength to break free.

The pile of corpses suddenly fell down like the arms of the mantis forced itself up and broke free from the heavy weight. The long sickle-like arm of the mantis immediately swiped an attack at Flay.

Flay was taken aback and stumbled back just in time to evade it. Flay was very tired, but he knew he would die if this mantis broke free.

With his training as a fighter and the dangers Tamers faced daily, Flay was no stranger to such life-threatening situations. He even had several of those when he was younger and when monster raids would attack his village.

He gritted his teeth and wielded whatever Brute power he could manage.

STAB!

The sword stabbed right at the head of the mantis, but it didn't even leave a shallow wound.

The mantis grew angry and began to claw its free arm at Flay while its other arm was trying to break free from the pile of corpses.

SLASH!

Flay slashed his sword, but the attack couldn't penetrate deeper.

"How strong is this thing?!" Flay cursed and kept on slashing and slashing when suddenly, its other arm broke free and managed to throw the pile of corpses to the side.

Seeing this, Flay immediately ran back.

The mantis began to move, and it pulled its body off the pile. It didn't have a lower body, but only the upper half chased at Flay.

Flay retreated, but the mantis was using one arm to throw itself forward and another to attack Flay.

Flay ran and kept making turns, but he was nearing exhaustion when he remembered the strange glowing pool with the bones of monsters at the bottom.

"The pool! I'll drop this mantis in that pool!" Flay had hope and ran towards the pool of slimy glowing water.