68. First Job – Slime Valley

Shiro and the others decided to take on a request from the Adventurer Guild,兼ねて周辺の survey of the town.

"Thinking I'd like to keep the request active while I check out the area around town?" Shiro asked.

“Perpetual request?” Aria asked, her expression asking, What now?

"Ah. Herbs and such?" Shiro said.

"……Why are you gathering herbs at Adventurer Rank A?" Aria asked, incredulous.

"No, first quests are always herb gathering—plus, I want to collect potion ingredients while I’m at it," Shiro said with a smile.

"……oh, so it's decided," Aria said, expressionless.

"Gathering medicinal herbs is like a picnic—nice."

And so, with Shestia speaking innocently, we decided to start with a survey of the area around the town—arbitrarily choosing the forest. Everyone’s soft on Shestia, apparently.

Aria said she’d better check the locations where herbs could be gathered at the Guild, since it’d been so long since we’d gone picking. So we headed to the Guild.

According to the Guild's records, the medicinal herbs we're short on can be found along the river in the northern woods, so we decided to head there.

Of course, the receptionist, Karen, gave us a look—what kind of nonsense is this, you two collecting medicinal herbs?

Leaving through the northern gate, walking for about an hour, he heads to the woods along the nearby river. Then, Shiro uses the 【Scan】 skill to locate the medicinal herbs.

The area along the Fraser River to the north, beyond a short distance from Sotohaim, is a vast canyon, with marshlands and steep cliffs lining both banks.

Medicinal herbs grow thickly in marshy areas.

The canyon’s steep cliffs are riddled with ravines and waterfalls. Shiro silently recalls how it reminds him of Columbia Gouge, the town he once lived near—some nostalgic pang flickers through his mind.

Shiro and Mitoka use their scouting abilities to gather medicinal herbs first.

Shestia and Aria seem to be enjoying themselves as they search and collect. “It’s been ages since we did something like this,” they chirp, laughing and chatting.

After gathering a decent amount, Shiro suddenly detects a swarm of Slimes through his scouting.

“This is a Slime swarm. About 800 meters that way?”

he announces to the group.

“Ah, that direction… that’s the Slime Valley, isn’t it?”

Aria replies.

A section of this canyon is known as the Slime Valley—a place teeming with Slimes. There are *a lot* of them.

Slimes are relatively easy to defeat, but don’t yield much coin, so they’re rarely hunted.

And they don’t grow abnormally fast if left alone, so most people just ignore them.

“Slimes! Of course—this is what fantasy’s all about. Was this a constant quest? Let’s go, definitely!”

Shiro’s mood spikes instantly.

Aria and the others exchange blank looks—what’s so exciting about that?

Shiro’s energy builds, and he starts walking ahead. The rest have no choice but to follow.

The Slime Valley stretches about twenty meters wide at its base, running roughly a kilometer deep. The sides are steep cliffs, and a three-meter-wide river cuts through the center. The riverbed is mostly stones and sand, with a slightly clay-heavy texture.

The Slime is on the cliffside away from the river, atop sandy ground. The sight of various-colored Slimes swarming about is either impressive or unsettling—hard to say.

“Different colored Slimes, huh,” Shiro said.

“Well, the colors are vivid and nice to look at,” Aria added. “But I’m not fond of them.”

“Beautiful,” Shestia said. “Actually, this is my first time here.”

Albert stood expressionless, observing. He’s generally quiet.

Shestia explains.

“Can be easily defeated with physical or magical attacks above a certain threshold. But the liquid released when a Slime bursts is toxic, so ranged attacks are best. Avoid fire magic—Slimes explode on impact. Getting caught in the blast means severe burns from the slime’s fluid. By the way, the proof-of-kill component is the core.”

Shiro prods a nearby gray Slime with a stick and knocks it down. When it dies, it leaves behind a core and dissolves into liquid, seeping into the ground.

But Shiro notices the smell. Gasoline?

“Shiro, the composition is naphtha,” Mitoka says.

“Seriously? That’s… too convenient, isn’t it?” Shiro blinks.

“No, it’s the same as natural crude oil seeping up. To date, the utility of these Slimes hasn’t been recognized in this world. They’re hard to capture, fire magic is dangerous due to explosions, and the Guild only buys them for magic stones. By the way, gray Slimes are naphtha, but black Slimes are chemically closer to crude oil. The differences in black shades seem to reflect refinement levels.”

Ah. Still, Shiro thinks, this could be the start of chemical industry development here.

So, what exactly is that differently colored Slime? Shiro thought, and proceeded to鉴定 and analyze each colored Slime.

Silver Slime is silver nitrate; the various colored Slimes are organic compounds—phenol, butadiene, styrene, and so on. The colors come from pigments embedded within them.

"This is… oddly intentional," Shiro murmured, momentarily at a loss for words at how perfectly convenient these components were.

"Shiro, originally, dungeons in this world were created by the gods as a resource. So the Slimes might just be part of that system. Regarding the direct monster generation by Miasma Spirits—"

That mechanism, colloquially known as "Monster Pop," works like this: mana transforms into Miasma, and in an environment rich in Miasma and methane, the raw material for magic stones forms. Inside dungeons, the Dungeon Core then uses that material to generate any monster at will.

But outside dungeons, it becomes Slime. And these Slimes absorb methane and other carbon compounds, synthesizing a wide variety of inorganic and organic compounds. In fact, Slimes function as the equivalent of petroleum in this world.

Mitoka explained. Shiro nodded. Ah, so that's how it works. Quite clever.

Shiro picked up a Slime core and examined it closely. It resembled a regular magic stone, but was coated in something like a thin membrane.

Curious, he studied the membrane and noticed tiny, intricate patterns—like miniature magic arrays.

"Ah… could this array be responsible for chemical synthesis? Or material synthesis?" Shiro mused, impressed.

"Shiro, is there something interesting about the Slime?" Shestia asked.

"Ah… infinite potential, huh. Could be an incredibly useful resource. Might want to run this by Sophia," Shiro replies.

Aria, having overheard the exchange, opens her mouth to speak—

"Shiro, about that...," she starts, then stops.

Shiro and the others follow his curiosity deeper into the Slime Valley. Near the riverbank, where Slimes don’t gather, they can advance upstream with little trouble—just careful footing on the stone path.

At around five meters wide, with fewer Slimes scattered about, Shiro suddenly halts. He stares into the valley’s depths. Then,

——‘[Miasma Sight] Level 1 acquired.’

A dense patch of Miasma lies ahead. And there, as expected, are countless of those mushrooms.

"Miasma," Shiro says. "Going further… is it dangerous?"

"Never been this deep before," Aria says. "Can you tell how thick it is?"

"Yeah. And if we go further, you’ll start poisoning," Shiro answers.

Tiny waterfalls pour from both sides of the valley, their droplets drifting like mist in the air.

——Is it the valley itself that traps this Miasma? Or is something here generating it? And those mushrooms… are they multiplying because of the Miasma?

Shiro wonders, but no amount of inspection or analysis reveals anything definitive. So he turns back, deciding to head home for the day.

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