Chapter 4

Two weeks after the duke left, Ryouma has been spending his days hunting and taking care of the slimes. One day, four people suddenly appeared before his house.

“Hey! Ryouma! Open up! It’s me! Hyuzu! We’re not enemies!” [Hyuzu]

Yelling out from in front of Ryouma’s house was none other than the person he took care of. Jill, Camil, and Zeff were with him.

The path to Ryouma’s house was blocked by a boulder, so they had to call out in a loud voice to be heard.

Only, Ryouma was actually in a thicket behind them.

“I’ll, open it, now.” [Ryouma]

“Woah!? You were outside?” [Hyuzu]

“Went out to, hunt… Why did you, come?” [Ryouma]

“I wanted to thank you again for your help last time. We brought some gifts with us… There’s quite a bit, so we had to store them away via dimension magic. There’s a butler who can use it in the Jamil family. He’s currently waiting for us with two other maids and Reinhart-samas’s family. They have some business in the forest, so we went together. If you’re not busy, I could bring them now.” [Hyuzu]

Ryouma became thoughtful for a moment, and after realizing he didn’t really have any pressing matters to pursue, he decided to let Hyuzu call them over. Besides, he wasn’t really about to chase away some people who went out their way to visit him.

The four guards left to call Reinhart and his family.

Meanwhile, Ryouma decided to call back his slimes that he sent hunting and prepared to receive guests.

30 minutes later Ryouma had finished his preparations and a horde of almost 1000 slimes could be seen sunbathing in front of his house. That horde jostled about as they waited for Ryouma’s guests.

After awhile Reinhart-sama and his entourage arrived.

When the slimes noticed a large group of people approaching, their bodies began to shake.

Ryouma straightened his clothes and watched the forest, and very soon he noted some people approaching.

There were 11 people all in all. There was a beautiful woman and a beautiful girl behind Reinhart, as well as a dignified muscular old man. Behind them were two maids and a butler just as Hyuzu had mentioned. The four guards, Hyuzu and Co., walked in front.

(Judging from the way they’re dressed, those people behind Reinhart-san must be his family. The butler aside, those maid outfits sure stand out. Isn’t it hard to move in them?)

“…Is it him?” [Maid 1]

“That’s a lot of slimes…” [Maid 2]

“Ho? I heard he’s tamed a lot of slimes, but I didn’t think he would actually tame so many.” [Old Muscle Man]

“They might only be slimes, but it’s still commendable to have tamed so many.” [Beautiful Woman]

“Even though the more familiars one has the harder it is to tame new monsters.” [Beautiful Girl]

Reinhart’s group approached Ryouma while he wondered about the practically of maid uniforms.

When the maids saw the large group of slimes, they couldn’t help but find their face cramping.

Reinhart’s whole family except for himself looked on at the large group of slimes with amazement.

When they had finally arrived at the entrance of the house, the first to talk to Ryouma was Reinhart.

“Ryouma-kun, it’s been 2 weeks since our last meeting. We’ve come to thank you for your help back then. We’ve brought some gifts.” [Reinhart]

“Thank you.” [Ryouma]

“Don’t sweat it, they’re just some goods we had lying around.” [Reinhart]

“Dear, before that how about introducing us?” [Beautiful Woman]

Reinhart introduced his family.

“Let me introduce you. These here is my father, Reinbach, and this beautiful woman here is my wife, Elize. And this here is our lovely young daughter, Elialia.” [Reinhart]

“I’m Reinbach Jamil of the Jamil Household, the former master of the family. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” [Reinbach]

“I’m Elize Jamil. Thank you for helping my husband and subordinates.” [Elize]

“My name is Elialia Jamil. I’m happy to make your acquaintance.” [Elialia]

“The pleasure is mine… I am, Ryouma Takebayashi… I come from, a distant land… It’s not much, but please let me offer you, my hospitality.” [Ryouma]

Though Ryouma would pause from time to time and could not speak straight, his words were still polite. That alone was enough to stupefy Reinhart’s family and their entourage.

“You don’t need to be so formal. Just talk to us as you normally would. To begin with, we’re the ones troubling you for coming here so suddenly.” [Reinbach]

“Thank you. Well then, please… Ah.” [Ryouma]

Ryouma was about to lead the people into his house when it suddenly occurred to him that the entrance was being blocked by all the slimes, so he had to first order them to go inside.

“Seeing them in a bright place, I have to say that’s one impressive group of slimes you have there. By the way, is it just me or are there more of them now?” [Reinhart]

“They multiplied… After everyone left.” [Ryouma]

Ryouma’s slimes current numbered as follows:

Sticky Slime x 364

Poison Slime x323

Acid Slime x211

Cleaner Slime x11

Scavenger Slime x730

Heal Slime x2 (NEW)

Skills Heal Lv1; Increased Vitality Lv1; Photosynthesis Lv3; Digest Lv1; Absorb Lv1; Split Lv2

Frankly, after the slimes multiplied Ryouma found them too numerous, and he finally had troubles feeding them.

Moreover, he also started to worry about the longterm effects of the slimes on the ecosystem. For the meantime, Ryouma decided to just feed the slimes enough to sustain them, not feeding them a meal more to meet evolution conditions or increase their numbers.

If that didn’t work Ryouma had prepared himself to thin out the slimes, but fortunately, he found a new goblin village two weeks ago, which he wiped out.

The goblin village didn’t just provide Ryouma with food, it also gave him an unexpected boon, for when Ryouma tried to heal the slimes injured during the battle, two of the slimes evolved into heal slimes, a new kind of slime that could use healing magic.

Seeing a new kind of slime appear lit Ryouma’s fire once more, but fortunately, he managed to hold himself back after considering the circumstances.

“Can all that actually fit inside?” [Reinhart]

“It’ll be… fine…” [Ryouma]

“What do you mean?” [Reinhart]

“This.” [Ryouma]

As Reinhart asked that question, Ryouma gave a command to the slimes.

Space was certainly an issue after the slimes multiplied, but three days after the fact, that issue was coincidentally solved. And the solution came from a mere question.

When the slimes had grown too numerous to fit in their room, they started to spill into Ryouma’s bedroom, and so, wondering what to do, Ryouma muttered to himself.

Can’t these slimes fuse or something? You know like Do*kue?

In that instant, the slimes vigorously shook, and those of the same type fused together to form one slime.

Panicked, Ryouma quickly checked their status.

Big Sticky Slime x1

Skills

Sticky Liquid Lv5

Hardening Liquid Lv4

Sticky String Shot Lv3

Physical Attack Resist Lv1

Enlarge Lv2

Shrink Lv4

Jump Lv2

Digest Lv3

Absorb Lv3

Big Poison Slimex1

Skills

Produce Poison Lv4

Poison Resist Lv4

Produce Paralyzing Agent Lv4

Physical Attack Resist Lv1

Enlarge Lv2

Shrink Lv4

Jump Lv2

Digest Lv3

Absorb Lv3

Big Acid Slime x1

Skills

Produce Acid Lv5

Acid Resist Lv4

Physical Attack Resist Lv1

Enlarge Lv2

Shrink Lv4

Jump Lv2

Digest Lv4

Absorb Lv3

Huge Scavenger Slime x1

Skills

Disease Resist Lv5

Poison Resist Lv5

Lead Belly Lv6

Clean Lv6

Deodorize Lv6

Deodorizing Liquid Lv4

Stench Lv5

Produce Fertilizer Lv4

Physical Attack resist Lv2

Enlarge Lv3

Shrink Lv5

JumpLv2

Digest Lv6

Absorb Lv3

To Ryouma’s good fortune, the combined slimes had an ability called ‘Shrink’, which allowed them to shrink their normally humongous bodies.

The bigger slime variants ate several times more than their smaller counterparts but effectively consumed less when compared to the food consumption of a hundred slimes. To put things into perspective, the bigger variants consumed about 20 to 50 percent less than their uncombined form. In other words, the issue of space and food had been largely dealt with.

Seeing how the slimes had a solution for the very problem that was bothering him, Ryouma couldn’t help but wonder if this was some sort of self-defense mechanism that the slimes had to keep them from endangering themselves from eating up all the food or other overpopulation issues.

There needed to be at least 100 slimes to form a big slime and they all had to be of the same type. Upon fusion the slimes lose the ‘Split’ skill, responsible for slime reproduction.

It was a mystery where all the mass goes upon invoking ‘Shrink’, but in any case, Ryouma was happy to see the space and food problem solved.

Ryouma figured showing to be easier than explaining, so he ordered the slimes to fuse.

When they fused in front of Reinhart and the others, they couldn’t help but open their eyes wide in shock, many of them speechless as they stared at the big slimes.

“Big Slime!?” [Reinhart]

“Impossible!?” [Reinbach]

“No, there’s no doubt about it. This is definitely a big slime? You managed to tame a big slime?” [Elize]

“…Is that, strange?” [Ryouma]

“No one has ever managed to tame a big slime before.” [Elize]

“Eh?” [Ryouma]

This time around the one to be shocked was Ryouma.

When Reinbach noticed that, he explained.

“The contract doesn’t work on big slimes. Many have tried, and some still do from time to time, but no one has ever succeeded.” [Reinbach]

“But, of course… Contract… Meaningless.” [Ryouma]

All eyes gathered on Ryouma as he explained.

“Big slime is… a gathering of many, slimes; therefore, contract conditions can’t, be met.

The contract, only works on one monster. Contracting, several at the same time, is impossible.

Contracting one out of, one hundred, is also impossible.

Because there, is only one nucleus… So, the contract won’t, work.

I succeeded, because I contracted, many slimes individually, and then gathered them together.” [Ryouma]