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The next day, Joe stopped by the priest to turn his job back to metropolitan and was running back to meet Garnedell for their day of hunting. On the run back, he was trying to figure out how he could increase his experience gain when he remembered killing the great slime. Wait! The great slime gave me two experience per kill instead of one, right? So I could double my leveling, right? Joe’s fast jog slowed down to a walk when the thought came to mind, and then a smile came to him as he took a detour to his room. When he looked in his loot drawer, he was a bit taken aback by how many gems he had captured. Bit overwhelming! The gems stuffed the drawer all the way to the back, thousands of them. He knew that he was returning with hundreds every day, but since he simply tossed them into the drawer, he never realized how many he’d taken. They were quite small, tiny even, but now stuffed the drawer.
Seeing as how the drawer was so full, he sighed and decided to transfer a bunch of them to his main travel bag, packed and laying in the corner. He grabbed one of his spare bags that he had been given and dumped as many of the gems as he could in it. He was able to pack almost half of the gems away in his spare bag and decided to leave the rest in the drawer. He took the bag and stuffed it deep into the bottom of the pack under all the belongings, partially for safety, but mainly because he didn’t want to have to rummage through it when he had to get to his camping supplies daily. This half he had stuffed at the bottom of the bag would be enough if he had to get out of Dodge quick. Returning to the drawer, he took another third and stuffed it into his … fanny pack… I’m wearing a fanny pack! Joe sighed as he dropped the gems in his… waist pouch! That’s a lot better… no… wait! Coin pouch? Isn’t that just another name for a purse? Coin purse, right? Hm… do I want to wear a fanny pack or have a purse!
Joe shook the disconcerting thought from his mind as he left his room, leaving the remaining gems in the drawer as he tied his… coin pouch… Joe sighed. Joe dismissed the extraneous thought and came out of the inn to find the boy waiting for him. Huh… guess he saw me coming back.
“Hey, kid. Good to see you. Ready to go? I’ve got a crazy idea to try! You’ll probably think I’m insane.”
Joe could tell that Gardenell didn’t understand him at all, but he just pretended all was good and led them into the woods. By the time they made it to the execution site, Joe had already set up his plan. He was pretty sure it would work out great! He decided to play it safe, and sharpened a new stake. He usually had to do that every week or so because they weakened pretty badly under the acid of the slime. His old one was still relatively new, but since he would be dealing with a greater slime, he figured it would be wise to be prepared. They took the path north again, since he knew it so well by now, and the return allowed a couple more slimes to appear so that the kid could practice his kills as well. He hadn’t really gotten any better or stronger, still needing a running start to plunge the spoon spear in, but he had got much better at ejecting the gem out.
They came upon their first slime, and Joe took it the normal way, spiking it to the ground with the stake. But, things changed at the next step. As it wobbled in its trap, Joe pulled out a slime gem and threw it into the ooze. When Garnedell saw what he had done, he actually shouted in shock, screaming a bit at what he was watching.
The slime seemed to freeze for a moment, its wobbles and movements to escape stopped. The gem slid into the ooze, then it suddenly began to shiver. The shivering continued for a bit then stopped instantly when the gem zipped towards the other. The two merged together forming a single gem which seemed to orbit around each other. Even as he pulled back his spoon spear to begin his strike, he suddenly noticed the two gems begin to send out slender threads towards each other, forming up into a singular gem like the previous greater slime’s gem he had taken. When he saw the two gems forming up, he held his strike. Soon, the threads interwove, tying the two gems together as a unit. As soon as the gems had melded into one, Joe pulled his arm back for the strike, the spoon spear digging in. But even as his spear plunged into the slime, it erupted in size, growing almost twice in size and quickly enveloped the stake he had plunged into it.
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Joe freaked out a bit, pulling back a ways, but then gritted his teeth and maneuvered the spoon spear into position and quickly flicked the gem out. The gem flew out with a sploosh and the ooze collapsed all around them. Joe leapt to the gem, picking it up quickly and flicked off the last of the ooze. And with that, the great slime died. Joe grinned with a victorious smile and took a look at his log. When he looked at what he gained, it was double what his actual learning was, and he smiled. Ha! It worked. But I think I’m going to get a bigger stake. Joe turned towards Garnedell with a big smile and an excited high five.
“Hey, kid! What do you think! That was pretty awesome, right? We can double… What’s wrong, kid? You OK?”
Joe’s victory celebration was cut short and he quickly came to the boy’s side in concern. The boy looked at him in total shock and then anger, shouting loudly and waving his arms. When Joe saw his actions, he leaned back and began to smile, watching the teen scream and rant at what Joe had done. Joe let it go on until Garnedell sputtered to a stop, then he clapped him on the shoulder.
“All ready to do the next,” Joe asked with a smile, then pulled the kid after him to the next.
With this, he should be able to finish his climb to twenty in half the time. Maybe a little over half the time sense he did have to slow down his killing speed to wait for the slime to grow to its double size, but the speed loss was very minor compared to the amount of experience he gained.
He took the time to carve out a much bigger stake, almost as tall as his shoulders, and then hunted after the next slime. The next slime wasn’t quite as successful because the much larger stake made it a bit difficult to wield, so with his third slime, he took both stakes, using the smaller one to spike it to the ground, then tossed in the second slime gem before taking his larger two meter long stake to spike it alongside the first stake while it was forming into a greater slime. For the rest of the day, he continued to create greater slimes and slaughtering them. By the end of the day, he at acquired two more levels, and a good chunk of the way into his third. He was quite surprised and happy by his gains, and returned home just a bit earlier to enjoy his bath and evening.
Joe spent the meal in a language exchange with Garnedell, the meal as delicious as always, then returned to his room for the night. When he opened his drawer to dump in his old single gems and the bunch of double gems, he froze in shock, noticing that everything was now gone. Wait… Was I just robbed? Joe blinked a few times in consternation before shouting loudly, and angrily. He pulled Garnedell over and pointed to the drawer, and Garnedell also seemed shocked before quickly becoming quite angry himself.
He left the room with great angry strides and soon returned with the inn keeper, shouting loudly and pointing at the drawer. His angry cries echoed down the hallway, and Joe simply stood and glowered in anger at the inn keeper. She apologized quite profusely, and even seemed genuinely embarrassed, but ultimately proved to be ineffective and useless. The evening faded into night, and Joe became tired of the whole affair, shooing the inn keeper out of the room and hushing Garnedell’s anger.
“Kid. I’m exhausted, and we can get a lot more. Let’s just get to bed. Besides, it’s unlikely we can do anything now anyway. Uh… I tired. No angry. Sleep soon, yes, Garnedell?” Joe shifted to the local language at the end.
The boy looked at him with some confusion, a bunch of new words that he didn’t really understand making the conversation even more difficult before he finally nodded and headed to bed. Joe blew out the candle and settled in, angrily brushing his hair from his eyes back over his ears, his bangs now quite long and most of his hair easily covering his ears and almost touching his shoulders. Look like a freakin’ hippy! Joe grumped a bit angrily. Hair wasn’t something he really cared about, to be honest, but the evening had proved quite frustrating. It was quite a while before Joe’s heart calmed, his mind settled, and sleep came after.