Gun Chapter 32: Battle (Patreon)

An endless stretch of low-lying marshland spread out before him, the ground covered in puddles of all sizes. The water in them was murky and tinged with a faint green, while the surrounding soil was slick and sticky, overgrown with short moisture-loving plants. The sour, rotting smell in the air grew steadily stronger—this was the main habitat of the slimes.

Wakasha stopped and found a relatively dry mound of earth. He crouched down, set his bag beside him, then slowly stood up again, his eyes sweeping across the muddy marsh as he pushed his perception to its limit.

With the increase in his Intelligence, his perceptive ability had improved noticeably as well.

Very quickly, he picked up multiple faint presences. They were scattered around the puddles, most of them weak and steady, clearly ordinary green slimes. But among them was one presence slightly stronger than the rest, carrying an odd fluctuation. It came from a large puddle about fifty meters away to the left—that was probably the mutated slime.

Wakasha didn’t act rashly. He remained crouched on the mound, carefully observing the surroundings.

Around the large puddle to the left were seven or eight green slimes. Their bodies were a pale green, round and jelly-like, slowly wriggling across the muddy ground. Every now and then they extended small tendrils of slime to grab nearby weeds and slowly consume them. Their movements were sluggish, and their vigilance was pitifully low.

And among those ordinary slimes, there was indeed one that stood out.

It was larger than the others by a full size, pale blue all over, with tiny white speckles across its body. It moved much faster than the rest, and the acidic, rotten smell coming off it was much stronger. From time to time it would lift part of its body and scan its surroundings, clearly far more alert than the others.

“So that’s the mutated slime?”

“It kind of looks like a variant of a blue slime.”

Wakasha fixed his gaze on the pale blue slime, a trace of caution flashing through his eyes.

“Larger body, faster speed, higher alertness... It definitely looks harder to deal with than an ordinary slime.

But fortunately, there’s only one, and the number of ordinary slimes around it isn’t too high. If I take out the mutated one first and deal with the ordinary slimes afterward, it should be manageable.”

Wakasha circled around to the side of the large puddle and hid behind a clump of low-growing marsh plants, his body fully concealed behind the leaves, only a pair of sharp eyes visible as they locked onto the mutated slime.

He slowly rose to his feet and adjusted the straps of his leather armor so they wouldn’t hinder his movement. Then he extended his right hand. A wisp of light flashed, and Deathbird appeared instantly in his palm.

The familiar cold touch of the gun, along with the sense of connection to his soul, eased his taut nerves slightly. He stirred his mental power, and a snow-white mental bullet silently formed at the muzzle, surrounded by a faint shimmer.

He slowly raised Deathbird and aimed at the mutated slime’s core. Just like ordinary slimes, the core of a mutated slime was hidden inside its gelatinous body, a little above the center. But because this one was larger, the core was easier to make out. Through its pale blue body, he could vaguely see a tiny blue point of light—that was the core.

Then Wakasha spent mana and loaded Spark at Fingertip into the bullet waiting at the muzzle.

With a faint muffled sound, the mental bullet wrapped in orange-red flame shot out like a meteor, carrying intense heat as it flew straight toward the mutated slime’s core.

The projectile moved so fast that all the eye could catch was a fleeting streak of fire through the air.

The mutated slime sensed danger and frantically lashed its tendrils, trying to block the bullet, but it was still too slow.

Szzlaa—boom!

The bullet struck the mutated slime’s core instantly. A harsh corrosive hiss mixed with a faint explosive crack. Its pale blue body was ignited at once, and the intense heat melted its gelatinous form in an instant. The pale blue core inside let out a faint sizzling sound before shattering and dissolving into a wisp of light that vanished into the air.

The mutated slime gave one final shrill hiss. Its once-tense body collapsed all at once, the white speckles on its surface dulling as the pale blue mass melted rapidly in the flames. In the end, it dissolved into a puddle of dark blue liquid that seeped into the muddy ground, leaving behind only a strong acidic stench and a faint scorched smell as proof it had ever existed.

[Monster Killed: Mutated Blue Slime. Obtained 5 EXP

Talent: Law of the Jungle activated. EXP ×10, actual EXP gained: 50

Concept Armament: Deathbird gained 50 Skill EXP

Spell: Spark at Fingertip gained 50 Skill EXP]

Now this was the real way to play!

Looking at the instant 150 total EXP he had just gained, Wakasha couldn’t stop smiling.

Without pausing for even a moment, he immediately began firing bullets loaded with Mage Hand at the green slimes in the puddle.

Thanks to the precision effect, he barely even needed to aim. He just pointed and fired.

The bullet’s trajectory would correct itself afterward.

[Monster Killed: Green Slime, obtained 1 (2) EXP

Talent: Law of the Jungle activated. EXP ×10, actual EXP gained: 10 (20)

Concept Armament: Deathbird gained 10 (20) Skill EXP

Spell: Spark at Fingertip gained 10 (20) Skill EXP] ×8

Only after every slime had been killed did Wakasha step forward and use the extractor to collect their remains.

In the end, 9 portions of slime gel were stored in the extractor. But even after purification, the slime gel extracted from the mutated slime still looked different from the rest.

Its color was deeper, and it looked denser, more refined—probably a higher-grade form of slime gel.

He’d ask Kufuku about it when he got back to the guild.

Thinking that, Wakasha put the extractor away and continued moving forward, searching for more small groups of slimes.

Maybe because he now had spells—real, genuine “supernatural” power in hand—Wakasha felt just a little more secure when facing low-rank monsters like slimes, and his hunting speed had increased noticeably.

But the more important reason was actually that, after leveling his skills, his mental power and mana reserves were no longer so small that every single bit had to be used with extreme care. As long as he didn’t waste them recklessly, normal combat consumption was no longer a problem.