Chapter 4: Slime Field

“For a field filled with slimes, the place seems to be really big.”

Zeph started darting around the open plains, admiring the view of the mountainous area enclosed by a fence.

Slimes aren’t normally large; they usually grow as big as a human skull and in rarer cases a young child. The main defining feature of all slimes is they are translucent liquid bodies held together by a visible core inside of them. Most of them (at least the ones I’ve raised) either eat the plant life on the ground or decomposing animals that passed away.

“So these are the slimes you raised, they looked kind of small for such a big place.” The spirit said looking at one of those creatures with a noticeable glint in his eye, sparkling brighter than his flames on his body.

He began to probe around a blue slime eating the grass, looking around and observing what the slime. Zeph audibly expressed his amazement seeing as the grass dissolved into nothing as the slime digests it. It seems that the slime doesn’t mind the spirit’s company.

“So why is the field so big for such a small creature?” Zeph asked, seeing the open view. The area is pretty large with trees scattered all around it. “There’s even a lake in here” He exclaimed, spotting the pool of water on a short distance to the right.

“I’m raising around a hundred of them in this farm, I made it big enough so that the slimes don’t stick together too much.” I answered.

I remembered back then, I complained to my dad that the slimes kept on getting lost in the fields since it was so huge and asked what so wrong with putting slimes in a smaller space, in which he laughed it off and replied:

“There are cases when those slimes combine each other to grow larger, sometimes to the point that they can be as big as a house.”

The light-hearted mischievous look he normally wears on his face still looked the same but with a slight dark expression mixed into it. He flashed another grin at me and patted my head as he told me not to worry about it.

I was interrupted from my reminiscence as Zeph replied in pure excitement.

“A hundred! That’s so cool” he exclaimed.

I was shocked by how the so-called great spirit Zephyr reacts, seeing how he went from his usual rambling, careful and sharp-eyed spirit to one who is easily excited on anything around him like a child.

“Is it your first time seeing those creatures?” I asked, curious of his response.

“Yeah, it is to me.”

I was wondering if the world of those spirits doesn’t have any slimes but then realized of course there isn’t since it is the world of the spirits. So, it would make sense if there are only spirits in there.

“What do even do with those many slimes?” Zeph asked.

“Usually, we used them to clean up the trash we got in the village, usually bones and leftovers.”

“But recently, I’ve been helping out to train them so that they can be safe to be touched by the other villagers with the help of my parents.”

“Don’t they like dissolve bones like you said? They seem pretty acidic to be touched by a child” Zeph stared at me with concern.

“Well, they’ve been touching me a lot and I haven’t had any accidents. so, I assume that it had to do with affection or something” I answered back.

While the two of us were talking, a certain familiar slime came and took notice of me. Immediately coming to my direction.

“Ah, I forgot to introduce you to one of those slimes who’s close to me” I said. It was hard to notice them from far away since they are practically the close to the same color as the grass but as soon as you find their core, it’s pretty easy to spot.

I scooped them up from the grass with the palm of my hands and showed them to the shocked spirit.

“This is Laurel, my cute green slime” I said with the grin in my face.

As if in cue, the slime started to wave around, probably showing its greeting to the spirit.

“Isn’t it hard to find that slime in the field” Zeph tilts his head.

“Yeah, it is but apparently it always comes close to me whenever I’m around. From what I’ve heard slimes usually come in blue but its not that rare to find them in other colors, especially green.”

“This little fella is the proof that its possible for slimes to get friendly with humans.” I said proudly.

“But it seems like whenever my dad wants to touch it or any of the slimes, he gets hurt.”

Zeph started to space out and think, saying “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Oh, don’t worry, slimes don’t hurt you too much as long as you don’t touch it at all” I said thinking that he was worried about that.

“No, it doesn’t make sense that you would want to leave all of this behind for some adventure” the spirit said, staring at me intently.

“Why would you want to go on adventures, when you have all of this going for you” he continued.

“Why are you so against letting me have any adventures? Is it not good to be a legend like all others?” I asked him, shocked that he suddenly brought it up.

“So that you don’t regret anything before you go” Zephyr answered in contempt.

And before I could even make a remark, a voice called out to me outside the field, stopping our argument.

The voice belonged to my neighbor.