Chapter 28

True to its name, the Slimy Corridor had sections where the floor felt slick and slimy.

At first, I thought it might be slimes or some other amorphous monster, but it turned out to be just plain moisture.

Could that be why monsters that favored damp environments ended up spawning here?
Though, a slime’s attribute and preferences varied depending on its specific subspecies.

“Slip.”

I cast Slip on the next slime that appeared, and Gina took it down using the exact same routine.

“If slimes keep showing up like this, it probably means there aren’t any other aquatic monsters on this floor.”

When I made that observation, Gina gave a small nod.

“Yes. It’s said that slimes and other monsters don’t really get along.”

The reason was simple: slimes possessed the characteristic of suppressing the growth of moss and mold, which served as food for other monsters.

On top of that, they came with the bonus of being notoriously resistant to physical attacks from monsters in the same level range.

Inside dungeons, slimes were hunted purely for experience points and drops, but anywhere else, they were essentially beneficial monsters—the equivalent of helpful insects or livestock.

Outside of a dungeon, Gina would probably advise against hunting slimes altogether… with a few exceptions, anyway.

“Is the first floor only going to have slimes?”

Now that we had already scored a Slime Robe, honestly, I didn’t have much use for slimes anymore, but I suppose it couldn’t be helped.

“…Slimes have a habit of eating moss and things like that, so if we gather some moss and leave it out, wouldn’t they all gather around it?”

When that thought suddenly crossed my mind, Gina nodded thoughtfully.

“Shall I gather some moss and place it in one spot?”

“Yeah. If they’re all gathered in one place, we can wipe them out together with Thunder.”

Thunder wasn’t officially classified as an area-of-effect attack, but it had a trait where its damage radius would disperse and spread out when used against water attributes or in water-logged locations.

Let’s make use of that property this time around.

“I will handle that, so please rest, Master.”

With those words, Gina diligently set off by herself to gather moss.

Well, I was in the position of a prince after all, and if I started doing manual labor, it would undermine her role.

I decided to take her up on her kind offer and used the downtime to let my mana recover.

Gina gathered armfuls of moss and arranged them neatly in the center of the corridor’s hall before stepping back to observe.

As time passed, slimes began to gather one by one around the moss until about ten of them were swarming over it.

Sneaking up close, I released my spell upon them.

“Thunder.”

Weak against lightning attribute attacks and tightly clustered together, the entire group was wiped out at once, causing my brooch to vibrate.

I was slightly surprised to find that single move had pushed my level all the way up to 8.

“If we pull that off one more time, I should be able to reach level 10.”

“I’ve reached level 17 from that just now as well.”

Hearing my words, Gina reported timidly, and the two of us exchanged smiles.