The support-class first-year stepped forward. She was a short girl with braided brown hair, and the green armband around her sleeve marked her as a [RESTORER], the same class as Harris.

Her hands were trembling so badly that the potion vials hanging from her belt knocked softly against one another.

"W-What buff do you need?" she asked.

"Speed. Anything that can make me faster."

She hurriedly searched through her satchel before pulling out a narrow vial filled with pale yellow liquid. "This is [SWIFT STEP]. It’s only E-Rank, but—"

"It’ll do. Use it."

She uncorked it and pressed the vial into his hand. Damon drank it down in a single swallow, and the effect came almost at once, a faint tingling spreading through his legs before settling deep into his muscles.

[BUFF RECEIVED: SWIFT STEP - E-RANK]

[EFFECT: +5 AGI - 3 MINUTES]

[AGI: 19] → [AGI: 24]

Twenty-four agility. Higher than most C-Ranks.

"Stay back," he told the first-years. "If it charges at you, run. Don’t lock up."

They nodded, their faces pale.

Damon turned toward the King Slime. By now, the creature had pulled its full mass into the chamber, its enormous body nearly sealing off the tunnel entrance behind it. The trapped student inside was no longer struggling.

Whether they were unconscious or something worse, he couldn’t tell.

There wasn’t time to think through a plan.

He moved.

With [AGI 24], the world seemed to drag, as if everything around him had been forced into slow motion. The King Slime’s pseudopods snapped toward him, three at once, each one striking for where he had been only a heartbeat earlier.

Damon slipped between them, the acidic edges hissing past his shoulders close enough to scorch the leather of his chestpiece.

The core. He needed to reach the core.

The King Slime’s body was too thick to carve through from the outside. His longsword would disappear into the gel long before it struck anything vital. He would have to get inside somehow, or find another opening.

One pseudopod came crashing down from above. Damon rolled aside, rose onto one knee, and drove his longsword into the nearest mass of gel.

The blade sank deep without resistance, but the slime gave no sign that it had felt anything at all. No pain receptors. No vital organs, aside from the core.

The trapped student drifted near the upper-right section of its body, suspended in a thicker concentration of acidic gel. Their clothes had almost completely dissolved, and the skin underneath was already red and blistered.

"Crap..."

Damon threw himself backward as the King Slime struck back, a volley of pseudopods lashing through the air toward him.

He raised his sword and cut through the first three before they could reach him. The blade sizzled at every hit, streaks of slime clinging to the steel and eating shallow grooves into the metal.

He was going to need a new sword after this.

The fourth pseudopod came in wide. Damon twisted aside, but when it slammed into the stone behind him, the impact sent a shockwave rolling outward.

The force whipped through his hair and nearly knocked him off balance. His ankle turned on the uneven rock, and for a split second, he staggered, arms jerking out as his footing gave way.

That was all the opening the King Slime needed.

Two more pseudopods shot toward him. Damon managed to recover in time to cut through the first, but the second was already almost on him.

He barely got his sword up.

The strike slammed against the flat of the blade with the force of a battering ram. The impact ran through his arms, into his shoulders, and down his spine. Damon clenched his teeth and forced it back, driving the pseudopod away with a surge of strength that left his muscles burning.

He remained where he was for a moment, chest rising and falling, sword still raised as the King Slime’s massive body rippled in preparation for another volley.

"I may have underestimated this bastard..."

The King Slime’s core throbbed beneath its translucent blue body, a dark, steady pulse that Damon kept his eyes on as he tightened his grip around the corroded longsword.

At best, the blade had four or five strikes left before the acid finished eating through it.

He would have to use them well.

The trapped student’s hand gave a faint twitch. Alive, then. But only barely. Blisters were continuing to spread, and the redness had already begun crawling farther up the arm.

The King Slime shifted as one, its mass rolling toward him while the pseudopods withdrew from their previous locations. For a brief moment, the trapped student drifted toward the outer edge of its body, nearer to the membrane.

Nearer to getting out.

If he could just reach them in time.

Damon lunged forward. With [AGI 24], the distance disappeared beneath him. Three quick steps, a sharp pivot around a lashing pseudopod, and he was at the slime’s flank with his sword already raised.

He didn’t go for the core, not yet. Instead, he sliced a long horizontal cut through the outer membrane just beneath where the student hung suspended.

The gel split apart like soaked paper. Acidic slime poured out in a hissing rush across the stone, and with the membrane broken, the student slipped downward with the flow.

Damon caught them before they struck the ground. The first-year was limp and unconscious, but still breathing, however shallowly. He turned and threw them toward the students waiting behind him.

"Take care of them!"

The support-class girl caught the body with a startled yelp and nearly folded under the weight. The two boys rushed in at once, helping steady the student before dragging them back farther from the fighting.

The King Slime noticed immediately. Its attention snapped toward the retreating group, and one pseudopod whipped after them.

Damon cut it off.

He brought the longsword down with both hands, splitting the pseudopod apart before it could reach them. The severed end slapped against the wall and sizzled there uselessly.

The sword let out a strained groan. A crack ran up from the hilt, branching through the blade.

"Make that three," Damon muttered.

The core was pulsing faster now, flashing with an angry, unsteady yellow. It had lost its hostage. It had lost its meal. And the small creature standing in front of it with a piece of sharp metal was still alive.

The King Slime surged at him, giving up the probing movements of its pseudopods and simply throwing its full weight forward. Three meters of acidic gel crashed toward Damon like a wave about to break.

He didn’t try to meet it head-on. He couldn’t.

Instead, he ran straight for it.

At the last possible instant, he dropped into a slide, letting his own momentum carry him beneath the front edge of the slime’s body. Acidic gel brushed across his back, and his leather chestpiece hissed as it began to burn.

But he made it through.

He came up behind the King Slime, already turning, already lifting the sword again. The core was right there, visible through the thinner membrane along its rear flank.

"Got you."

He drove the longsword through the membrane and straight into the core.

The King Slime screamed.

It was not a sound any ordinary creature could make, but a deep, resonant vibration that shivered through the stone, the water, and the air itself. Its huge body convulsed, pseudopods thrashing wildly as they slammed into the walls, the floor, and the ceiling.

Damon tore the sword free. The blade was little more than a cracked, acid-ravaged strip of metal now, but it held together for one final strike.

He stabbed into the core again.

The King Slime burst apart.

Gel exploded in all directions, harmless now, its acidic nature fading with the death of the core. Blue sludge washed over Damon, drenching his hair, his shoulders, and what remained of his ruined chestpiece.

He stood at the center of the collapsing mass, breathing hard, the hilt of the longsword still clenched in his hand. The blade itself had finally failed, snapped cleanly at the guard.

[KING SLIME - D-RANK BOSS DEFEATED]

[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 200]

[SLIME CORE FRAGMENT +1]

[ROYAL SLIME ESSENCE +3]

[SOVEREIGN’S TRIBUTE: +30]

[LEVEL UP]

[LEVEL: 1] → [LEVEL: 2]

[+1 ALL STATS]

[STAT POINTS AVAILABLE: 3]