Adventurers are people who take on quests, fulfilling them and receiving the reward money for this quest.
Although most of the time, the quest area they need to go to is close to the guild they're part of, so they don't need to travel far and complete them.
Sometimes, the area or place this quest needed them to be, required them to travel for days and maybe weeks if necessary, depending on how far the quest maker lives.
Within this moment, a group of adventurers consisting of five members is going home to the town they live in.
Within the last two weeks, they have finally completed the quest they have taken, where they needed to travel for four days straight to the north. Just to get to the designated area for their quest to be completed.
While moving the sole male of the group, who is the leader of the group too, asked his team: "What do you guys want to do first after getting home?"
"What else? Take a long bath!" The half-dragon lady answered, while looking back at the Elf and Bunny lady behind her.
"Right!!" Another woman said, to the side of the man. "Because the quest we took needed us to fight an entire goblin group, we haven't cleaned ourselves all this time."
"I see, so I have to reserve my mana then, so I can provide enough hot water for you guys." The leader said to them, with a bright smile.
The four women looked at each other and nodded. Moving closer to him, each one of them held onto his body and said in unison:
"You'll be joining us! Right!?" Pressing their body against him, to see his reaction to their question.
Nodding, the leader said: "Of course." With the plan set the moment they got home, the group hurried up their movement to get home.
As they moved, the group felt the ground shaking, making them alert. "An earthquake!?" The Bunny lady said. Seeing the situation before them, the group sped up their pace, wanting to avoid unnecessary problems.
While moving within the path, a brown skin man suddenly appeared from the forest.
The man was around 5'9 at best, wearing a simple white long-sleeve shirt, with a pair of dark green pants and leather boots. Within his waist, a tiny box was clipped to his belt.
The dragon lady, with her enhanced eyes, could tell that the man who suddenly appeared had long, messy hair, as if he hadn't cut his hair for a few months.
This wasn't the only thing she spotted on him; on his face, a panicking expression was on it, like the man wasn't moving without a plan. It's more like this man was running away from something.
The moment the man jumped to the other side of the forest, the ground shook violently once again, and a few seconds after that, a giant moving hill around 8-11 meters in size came running after the man.
Watching the event unfold before them, the group was in a daze. Was the thing they saw just now real or an illusion only?
Suddenly, the Elf of the group screamed: "Wasn't that Nine!?"
Alerting the others with this. "Nine?" The leader said. "You mean that man who hit us with a chair, that we got the force to take 5 quests without payment?"
"Ahh. Yes, that's him." The Elf replied. Confirming the man's identity, the group looked at each other, before chasing after them.
***
"FUUUCK!!!" Nine screamed as he ran away from the slime he had found.
A moment ago, he had just run back into the pathway back to the town, because of the speed of the slime chasing after him, he couldn't turn towards the town, forcing him to jump to the other side of the forest.
"Holy shit! How is this thing moving so fast!?" Nine questions, looking back at it, keeping up with his movement. Watching the Hill Slime side moving, Nine realized what it was about to do.
"Shit! It's about to throw another tree!" Saying those words, the center of the Slime's body suddenly shoots out a broken-down tree towards Nine.
"Sorry, but I'm already used to your attack!" Nine yelled out, stopping his movement then taking on the moving tree towards him. Forcing most of his strength to his legs, Nine sharply jumped to the side, avoiding the attack.
It has been more than twenty minutes since Nine found this slime. Moments after the slime made that slashing attack that destroyed tens of trees, Nine faced against its other attack.
In his findings, he learned that this Slime had three types of ammo in its throwing attacks, these are: Slime chunk, Tree, and finally, Earth ball type.
The slime chunk is the Slime's simplest attack. As the name suggests, the slime detaches a chunk of its body and hurls it at Nine like a cannonball.
The second creature: Tree. When Nine was tracking it, Nine encountered fallen trees along the path. The slime would use these fallen trees to launch spear-like attacks at Nine, with significant piercing power that can surely impale Nine to death.
Finally the Earth ball ammo. Like the first one, the Hill Slime would use its own body to create this massive ball of Earth and hurl it towards Nine.
Out of the three ammo, this one showed the strongest destructive power that can clear out a tens-of-metre range area.
'Powerful as they are, each one has a risk affecting this Hill Slime. The first one makes its body smaller with each attack. The second one slows down its movement after using it. And finally, the last one lowers its defense, along with making the body of it smaller than before....."
'.....Even so, this thing would just refill its size since it would take back more dirt as it's moved.' Realizing the problem before him, Nine knew that running away wouldn't change anything but only make things worse for him.
As long as this slime takes back enough soil each time it moves, it will eventually be over for him. Understanding this, Nine glared towards it, ready to take it on.
"Running won't save me, so!" Nine screamed at the Hill Slime. "Come! Attack me with all you got!"
Nine already had a plan, making the slime use its own body to attack him; it would eventually lose all the tree, soil, and stone within its body and would eventually go back to its original size of a normal slime.
Since Nine, Salt Killing Slime would be ineffective against it, since it has a great resistance to the lightning element, being earth and stone. Nine would wait for most of this to be gone from it, then would use the salt to kill it.
With the plan in mind, Nine started fighting against the slime's attack. Running around it, dodging, and avoiding all three types of ammo that the Hill Slime has.
-----
"God, I know he was good at dodging... But, this is too much." The leader said, watching Nine dodge all the incoming attacks from the Hill Slime.
After the Hill Slime threw a tree towards Nine a moment ago, the group has been watching since then. When Nine decided to face the attacks from it, the group had been silently sitting behind the scenes watching everything happen.
It has been more than ten minutes since then, and the group couldn't' believe what they were witnessing. Each time, the Hill Slime throws a tree towards Nine, Nine would glare at it, then dodge in the last second.
Each time this happened, Nine would make use of a few seconds of the immobility of the slime after the attack to hammer some chunk of its body, before running away from it.
The moment the slime can move again, Nine entered the dodging moment again, where he would avoid both of the first and third ammo attacks.
"How is this guy still moving?" The dragon lady said, watching Nine dodge the giant Earth ball towards him.
"I know right? Like, not once had he even been hit by those attacks." The Bunny lady said. "Each time the attack gets near him, he would force out his strength in his legs then avoid them in the last second."
"... I hate to say this..... But, I admit this guy is stronger than anyone I know of. I can now say, that he won against us back then not just by luck." The leader said, remembering how they were beaten by Nine a few months ago.
"Well, of course he would win. Since this person is using some type of technique." The Elf said.
"What do you mean by that?" The group asked.
"Haven't you guys realized it? This, Nine, we are watching right now has been constantly using a technique all this time. I mean looked! His movement would instantly change depending on the type of things moving towards him."
"And if one of those trees got close to him, he would slightly tap it, then change its trajectory, allowing him to throw them back to slime."
"From the sudden change of his movement, the techniques he's using are something about Weight itself. Like he can control his body weight to disappear and come back at will." The Elf explains.
***
"Just a bit more and I can win this!" Nine said, watching the Hill Slime slowly shrink with each attack. From the continuous attack of the slime, the slime's body went from 10 meters at best to 6 meters now.
"Hooo." He breathes out. "I'm so glad I can still use the Feather weight technique from my world. If I couldn't use it, I would surely have been hit by now."
[Feather weight technique]
A body weight technique Nine knew in his original world. Like its name, this technique allows Nine to make his own weight the same as a single feather of a bird.
It was thanks to this, that Nine has been doing great at dodging all the attacks from the Hill Slime. Nine had been using this technique since he was the age of 7, which allowed him to run away from his adopted mother beating him, when he did something horrible at school.
With years of using this technique, Nine managed to develop it to not only make his body weightless but also allow him to place it on anything he touched.
It was this technique, that allowed Nine to change the trajectory of the tree flying towards him back to the slime.
"Just a bit more, and I'll go in attacking mode." Nine muttered, still continuing to dodge the attacks from the Hill Slime.
After another ten minutes of avoiding the attack from the Hill Slime, its size has shrunk to only a meter in size. Looking at it, Nine smiled and pulled out the tiny box from his waist.
"Is that the paper-making artifact!?" The leader said, watching Nine taking it out of his belt.
*****
End of chapter 22.