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I dashed forward with all my might, using my sturdy legs that even a slime lacked.

“Hey, what are you doing! Don’t just stand there like a fool, hurry up and come over here!”

I commanded Luna and Yui, who were staring blankly at me.

Luna managed to keep up somehow, but Yui, being a reclusive mage by nature, looked like running was quite a struggle for her.

“Wait a moment! Let’s go together…!”

Behind us, King Slime once again launched its acid, like it was spitting.

“Haha! You think I’ll get hit by the same attack again?!”

Thud.

“What?”

A strange sound emerged.

Instead of melting away like before with a hiss, the acid made a sticky sound like a gooey monster.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out it had split its body and shot it out.

“That wasn’t the same attack.”

They said it was intelligent, and indeed it was the second smartest monster I’d seen after the vampire.

A group of slimes flew ahead to block our path.

“Luna!”

Luna unleashed a gust of wind toward the obstacle in our way.

Unlike the focused point attacks I had seen before, she seemed to wildly fling the wind as if to clear the obstruction.

Thanks to that, a path opened up temporarily.

If we could just get past that, we’d be outside the King Slime’s range.

“Hah… just a moment…”

Yui, with her poor stamina, began to wheeze.

Reluctantly, I scooped her up with one hand and tucked her under my arm as I ran.

“Hii—!?”

She was so light, perhaps because she was skinny, even lighter than the greatsword I wielded.

If I increased my strength stat just a bit, I could lift her with just my pinky finger.

Thus, we escaped the area where King Slime resided and returned to the edge of the forest and the plains, the very place we had disembarked from the cart.

“Um… Luke, it may be a bit late to ask since the situation has already unfolded, but…”

“What is it?”

“Why did you run away—?”

“Strategic retreat.”

“…Why did you need to retreat strategically? You’ve never done that before.”

Well, I had up until now.

But back then, there was no need for it.

This time, a retreat was simply necessary.

“Can you guys take it down with just your magical power?”

“…That would be difficult.”

“I think it’s impossible for me too…”

See? Then why talk about retreating?

“Luna, no matter how much of a manly man I am, I don’t hunt with my brain turned off.”

Go swing a sword at a beast that’s clearly resistant to physical attacks and see what happens.

That’s not being a manly man; we agreed that’s just reckless.

And I’m a manly man, not a fool, so I simply made a rational choice.

“What you call reckless, I call being a manly man, okay?”

“…What’s the difference?”

“A reckless fool is an idiot, and a manly man is smart. And I am a manly man, got it?”

“………….”

“You get that?”

“…Yes.”

There’s a famous quote from a renowned general back on Earth.

“Fight desperately, and you’ll live; try to live, and you’ll die.”

If you want to die, you will die, and if you want to live, you will live.

From my genius perspective, that’s all a load of nonsense.

So did he want to live and ended up dying?

If you want to die, you die; there’s no living involved.

If that were the case, every person in the world would have marks from cuts on their hands and ropes around their necks.

That’s the only way to live.

If you realize it’s not going to work, retreat and devise a plan—that’s true strategy.

Not clinging to some weird notion of “We can win!” and becoming a suicide squad.

“So, what now…?”

We didn’t have a single explosive magic wizard or a lich that excels in wide-area ice spells.

However, it appeared that the slimes moved slowly and didn’t follow us this far, so wasn’t it unnecessary for us to engage at all?

“Then…”

I pulled an axe from my inventory.

“Here, take this.”

“”…?””

As I handed the axe to Luna and Yui, they looked at me with puzzled expressions.

“Don’t you know what an axe is? It’s a tool for chopping wood.”

“Um, it’s not that I don’t know; I’m just wondering why we need this…”

“Get some wood. We’re going to make a fire.”

“To hunt with fire…?”

“Are you an idiot?”

I frowned.

I wasn’t some prehistoric caveman discovering fire for the first time, so why suggest such a ridiculous method?

“Then why wood…?”

“To eat.”

“Here…?”

“Yup.”

“Right now…?”

“Yup.”

Is eating a meal really something to look at me like I’ve lost my marbles?

My belly is practically glued to my back.

They say you can’t appreciate a mountain without having something to eat first.

It’s far past lunchtime, so let’s eat something since I’m hungry.

After all, we’re doing this so we can live; it’s fine to hunt while eating, and we won’t be late if we do it afterward.

“Go get that iron plate I brought this morning; not the small twigs, but the wooden logs.”

While heating the plate, we should grill the meat we brought along.

We all scattered to chop wood for lunch.

We gathered wood using our most efficient methods.

Luna used wind magic, and Yui created an axe with blood magic.

As for me, just swinging my greatsword once would fell a tree.

By now, everyone had long tossed their axes aside.

We cut down all the logs around us, laying the ones we brought in a line on the ground, pouring oil over them and setting them ablaze.

Normally, logs don’t catch fire easily, but didn’t we have someone who supplies oxygen to the fire really well?

“Luna.”

“Yes?”

With a powerful gust of wind, the small flames quickly spread and engulfed the whole log.

On top of that, we placed the large iron plate we brought earlier, measuring 4 meters in diameter.

How many people in the world could carry such a large thing?

Undoubtedly, none.

The author must have been foolish to assign an F-rank inventory advantage so blatantly.

On the preheated iron plate, I grilled the meat I brought from the inventory that morning.

Zzzzzzz.

The sound of meat sizzling is just so much more pleasant than hearing the slime’s acid melt something.

“…I’m starting to wonder if this is the right thing to do while hunting.”

“I’m thinking the same…”

“What’s wrong with eating? Lunchtime is long gone.”

There are always those who nitpick despite being able to eat well.

“Enough. Eat up. You can’t fight if you don’t eat.”

“…Yes.”

“Yup..”

*

“Burp.”

Ah, I’m so full.

Truly, being filled to the brim increases my motivation and strength.

“Now, shall we begin?”

With a stretch that sounded almost old, I stood up.

Luna and Yui followed my lead as they stood up.

A slight turn of my gaze brought me to the still-stationary King Slime in sight.

“Do you have a plan in mind?”

“We’re going to catch it with this.”

Ping—I flicked the iron plate with my finger.

“Weren’t you supposed to take that out just to eat…?”

“Who carries around something so needlessly large just for a meal?”

Of course, I had asked for this to hunt.

I had a rough idea of how to hunt since seeing the description of King Slime.

Actually, I had considered making a hot iron ball and throwing it, but…

Throwing a round iron ball to hit was ultimately blunt force, and seeing those ‘What happens when you put a 1,000-degree bullet on ice?’ videos on YouTube shows how quickly they melt.

The reason I didn’t do that was that I thought it would be too much trouble to do it just once.

How many would I have to throw to melt the giant slime with hot iron?

I couldn’t be bothered to do such a thing.

And while the iron plate wouldn’t actually reach 1,000 degrees, it’d surely be hot enough to evaporate liquids in an instant.

After all, I had heated it up while eating.

“Yui, you said the slime was strong.”

“Yes! At least from what I know!”

That’s nonsense.

You think a slime is strong?

Today, I’ll teach you why slimes are nothing to be afraid of.

“I’m going to tell you your roles. Luna, you’ll create a platform, as strong as possible. Yui, you can use all your magical power to keep that slime from moving.”

“Understood.”

“Okay! I’ll do my best!”

“Good. Let’s start right away.”

I placed the iron plate back into the inventory.

From now on, it’s a race against time.

Hot iron cools surprisingly quickly.

So I need to finish the hunt before it cools down.

I urged my idling legs to charge forward towards the direction of the slime with all my might.

“Luna!”

As I called her name, she immediately made a wind platform right in front of me.

Just like in a game, if you jump on the wind, you get boosted high.

The power of the wind matched with her magic created an immediate effect.

“Woohoo!?”

No matter when I feel it, flying in the sky always feels exhilarating.

The breeze was refreshing, and I felt lighter.

True, the lack of safety measures was the biggest concern.

“Yui!”

Next up was Yui.

Given that I told her she could use all her magic, the scale of her spell was massive.

In an instant, blood pooled on the ground, and spikes erupted to block the slime’s movement.

Now it was my turn.

I pulled the iron plate that I had put back into the inventory beneath my feet.

Iron is weak against acid.

If it was made of regular iron, it would have corroded and melted away in no time.

But an Iron Golem isn’t real iron; it’s a monster that’s something stronger than iron.

After all, an Iron Golem is a C-Rank high-end monster, so it’s at least as strong or comparable to King Slime.

As a product made from such a monster’s material, it won’t easily melt away.

“Iron plaaaaaaate!!!!”

I didn’t need to exert much force or apply weight. Gravity would take care of that.

The slime wiggled, sensing danger, and began thrashing to escape.

Late to divide its body, it sent splintered parts flying in all directions and struggled to move even an inch away.

However,

“NO ESCAPE!!!!!”

Thanks to Yui’s solid barricade, escape turned to naught.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!

As the iron plate made contact with the slime’s body, steam erupted due to evaporation, and the slime’s body started to shrink.

It was as though pressing a hotteok with a weight.

Standing on the iron plate, I felt myself sinking down as the smoke gradually began to clear.

[ Level Up! Check your stats! ]

[ Level Up! Check your stats! ]

[ Level Up! Check your stats! ]

[ Level Up! Checking… ]

As my view drew ever closer to the ground, the level-up notices signaled the end of the hunt.

‘That was boring…’

Well, I didn’t expect something remarkable from the very beginning.

As expected, a slime was indeed just a slime.

 

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