[Book 1 Completed] Industrial Mage: Modernizing a Magical World [Kingdom Building LitRPG]
B2 | Chapter 12 – The Slime King’s Chamber

"He found it." Baron Ashton didn't bother with a greeting.

Theodore cocked his head.

"Rufus?"

Ashton nodded.

"There was a collapsed shaft he found recently. He cleared the rubble, sent a pulse, and the detector spiked off the scale. It's down there, the Slime King, and it's blue. Mana variant."

For a moment, Theodore said nothing. His thoughts shifted gears almost audibly.

"Rank?" he asked.

"Unknown," Ashton said. "But it's most likely Rank 3."

That word ignited a spark behind Theodore's eyes.

Taking a breath, Baron Ashton ran a hand through his hair.

"We're forming a kill team. Rufus will lead it."

"I should lead it."

"You'll be on it," Ashton said with a careful tone. "We need you. But we also need Rufus, and his men trust only him."

Theodore nodded after giving it some thought.

"Fine."

Ashton seemed nearly relieved. He took a step back from the desk, poured himself a drink from the decanter, and drank it all at once.

"Let's end this," he muttered. "The mine's too unstable with that thing down there. Once it's gone, we can push deeper. Set up proper stations. Maybe even clear a line through to the underpass."

Theodore was no longer listening to him but instead he was looking forward to finally fighting the slime. And he was also excited about the options that would open up for his classes as well as the things he would be able to do once he formed a bond with the slime and made it his Body Familiar.

What kind of slime had survived this long in a sealed chamber? How had it grown? How intelligent was it?

***

"Theodore! Heard you were joining us. Couldn't ask for better!" Rufus called out, raising his hand to say hello.

Theodore was surprised that Rufus was so damn cheerful about the whole situation. When they reached the mine entrance, Rufus had run over the muddy plain toward them with an easy smile on his face. There were maybe twenty men behind him.

Although it was a little alarming that he appeared to have a large number of men under him, they all appeared to be Rank 1s.

"Rufus. These are your men?"

"The best I've got. And you've brought your own crew, I see."

Theodore rolled his eyes in his mind. Theodore had really overestimated this man if that was the best he had to offer. Observing Rufus's face intently, he searched for any cracks in the smile but he found none. If the fact that Theodore and his team would be involved was bothering Rufus, he concealed it well.

"Perfect! Between you and our experience with these tunnels, we'll have the advantage. Baron's waiting inside. Says we should move as soon as everyone's geared up."

The entrance chamber of the mine had been transformed into a temporary war room. The far wall was covered in drawings, maps, and annotations. In the yellow light, Baron Ashton appeared gaunt.

"Lord Theodore. Everyone's here now… it is nigh time we finalize the approach."

The group gathered around the table and discussed everything. At the end, Rufus repeated their plan:

"So, we'll move in a standard formation. My men take front and rear. Lord Theodore's mages in the middle for protection until we need their specialties. Sir Roland here is here just for safety." He glanced up. "That work for you, Lord Theodore?"

"Yeah." Theodore nodded.

"Alright," Baron Ashton interrupted. "You've got four hours of daylight left. I want you down and back before dark if possible."

Rufus turned to his men. "Check your gear. We move in ten."

Rufus stayed with Theodore while the others of the party scattered out to make last-minute arrangements. His grin had softened to a more contemplative one.

"Been looking forward to working with you, you know," he said quietly. "Heard stories. The incident at Holden. The Outer God. Was that real?"

Theodore raised an eyebrow. "Those weren't pleasant experiences, but yes they're real."

"So you really defeated an Outer God?"

Theodore blinked once. Of course that's what people were saying.

"…Defeated" was a generous way to put it.

"Outer Gods aren't what people think," he said. "They're not all big and impossible monsters with a thousand eyes and gravity-screaming names. They're just… things. From somewhere else. Some are strong. Some aren't. This one wasn't."

Unsurprisingly, Rufus didn't seem to fully understand.

"It hadn't even crossed over fully so it didn't have power at all. I didn't kill it; I killed the host. It got forced out of here. Oh, and I had help I wasn't alone"

"Never are," Rufus agreed

They gathered at the tunnel entrance ten minutes later. They had prepared their weapons and now everyone's mana was alert so much so that it all came together in resonance and a faint hum sounded in the air before going away.

Positioned at the front, Rufus casually held the ax against his shoulder.

"Everyone clear on the plan? We move steady, stay tight. Let's move," Rufus called, and they filed into the darkness.

***

Theodore didn't waste time admiring the splattered remains of the slimes he'd obliterated because a rush of warmth flooded his system.

He was thrilled since it was a very familiar feeling. The sensation was so intense that Theodore froze, allowing it to pass over him like a wave of liquid sunlight.

Your class, [Mage], has leveled up – Lvl 24 > Lvl 25!

Your Class, [Mage], has reached MAX level!

A grin formed on his lips.

You have hit a threshold!

Class Evolutions available...

Of course. Even though he had anticipated this, the confirmation nevertheless made him shiver.

To access Class Evolutions, bind a Body Familiar...

Smiling, he continued forward with the men. Every step felt steeper than the last as they descended gradually into the center of the mine.

Theodore rubbed the wall with his fingertips. The uniformity of the surface appeared odd, almost unnatural. It seemed that whatever attack Rufus had used to clear this place was as strong as Theodore's orb of doom. However, Theodore still needed to refine that spell, so he wasn't so worried about it.

He heard a very faint hum in the air which was weird but they pressed on anyway. It was because they couldn't stop now, and the sound wasn't really a sound. He could feel it even in his bones, more like pressure or vibrations.

"Mana saturation?" Sensing the flash of blue light around them with [Arcane Awareness], Theodore questioned Roland. His skill showed hundreds, perhaps thousands of swirling motes suspended in the air like dust.

"It's not just saturation. We're inside its range. It is a Rank 3 monster and a mana slime at that so it has a lot of control over the mana around a certain radius."

"So it's definitely a Rank 3 now?"

"Oh yeah."

As they went on, Theodore frowned without responding. The fact that Rufus was acting oddly and, more significantly, that he hadn't sensed Velka's presence today—which was surprising considering she had been following him around a lot lately—made him feel uneasy about the entire operation.

When the tunnel opened up Theodore was very surprised to see the massive chamber they got into. It resembled a nest more than a cave, with a vaulted ceiling that was obscured by shadows and walls that were veined with luminous minerals that gave out a subtle pulse akin to a live heart. Strands of slime fell from stalactites overhead like the webs of some mad spider, while pools of same sticky liquid speckled the floor.

This was a slime nest… there were so many slimes here.

And in the center of it all was something atop what could only be described as a throne.

The stone was covered in crystallized fervidite and hardened slime.

The "something" sitting on top of it was none other than the Slime King.

Theodore thought it was bigger than it had any right to be. It was a heaving mass of semi-transparent blue slime that was easily four to five meters tall and equally wide. Inside, it shone with blue tiny twinkles like glowing algae. Theodore saw a mellon-sized core inside the slime's center that pulsed in time with the mana surrounding it.

They were not attacked by the Slime King. Actually, it did nothing except observe. He had a vague sense of being watched by a mana skill. In fact, it was a lot like [Arcane Awareness], but it also reminded him of the times he felt Aunt Karmicheal teleporting around whenever she wished. So all Theodore could hypothosize with this limited information was that the skill had something to do with mana and space.

"Do you think it's intelligent?"

Theodore didn't immediately answer Roland's question. Instead, he was seeing how the mass of the slime rippled in place, how its pseudo-limbs faintly twitched, and how its center slanted ever so slightly to follow their movements.

Roland had said to him that he will not intervene unless Theodore was in a lot of danger and that this was a learning experience for him. Theodore had agreed and now this question from Roland seemed to be some kind of a test.

"Yes. I do think it's intelligent." Theodore said finally.

Carefully, they moved into the edge of the room. Rufus held up his hand to prevent the men from launching a rash attack as they lifted their guards and weapons.

Although the Slime King did not move, the air pressure rose.

Suddenly, the enormous thing began to move. The throne then began to pulsate. Something started to emerge from the surrounding pools with a crack and a sharp hiss.

At first, Theodore thought they were eggs, but then he frowned.

They looked like bulbous sacs of transparent slime rather than eggs. They pushed themselves out of the muck and opened up like blossoming flowers, releasing dozens or maybe hundreds of tiny slimes. They were all about the size of a head and were writhing in the direction of the intruders.

"Protect the rear. Don't let them flank us!"

The men jerked into position, their faces focused and fierce, their weapons drawn.

As his mana began to rippled about him, Theodore pushed it into his body and reinforced everything, the power to seep into his limbs. Then he evoked four elemental lances that hovered about him with a flick of his wrist.

"Target the core of the big one?" Roland asked.

"Not yet. It might just go berserk. Let's see what it does. We can handle it, for sure. You alone should be able to, no?"

"Well, yes. But I'd rather you do it."

Theodore shot Roland a look and the latter shrugged with a smirk.

Little slimes rushed forward.

Theodore loosed his lances. They skewered three of the slimes outright, a fourth bounced into the air from the shockwave and splattered across the wall, and the remaining ones swerved, splitting their approach.

A member of the White Fang Guild was too slow.

A glob shot upward and smashed into the man's face. As the goo tightened over his lips and nose and started to envelope his head, he yelled through it all and thrashed backward with a panicked expression, desperately pulling at it with his hands. Theodore formed another lance and launched it. Without making contact with the man below, the lance struck with surgical accuracy, cutting the slime in half.

With a gasp, the guard fell, goo dripping from his face like melted wax.

"You alright?" Theodore asked.

With shaking hands, the man gave a nod.

"Y-yes. Thank you"

Roland sliced through two slimes with his sword releasing silver light arcs into the air. While he did that Theodore considered something suspicious just now. No one from the Guild had tried to save the man let alone Rufus. In any case, he was also thinking about something else.

"They're not trying to kill us," he said suddenly.

"What?" Roland asked.

"Look," Theodore nodded toward the chamber. "The King isn't moving. The small ones aren't going for the kill. They're testing us, more like, there goal is something else. They're trying to latch onto the men. For what, I do not know."

The Slime King's mass started to churn and bubble like boiling, slowly increasing in volume, and Theodore stopped talking.

"Increasing in mass?"

"Yeah, slimes get that ability at Rank 2. They can store their slime mass inside a storage of sorts, Or it's just watching, trying to intimidate us. It is rather intelligent after all."

"Either way," Theodore said, "we don't let it finish."

He willed a [Mana Bolt] into existence and a needle of pure power encased in spirals of air current was the end result of his will. He threw it. The bolt rebounded after hitting the Slime King's surface. It had no effect let alone harming the slime. It was only a ripple, like a stone tossed into a pond, but over the creature's body.

"Huh," Theodore said flatly. "That's new."

The ripple kept going until it reached the core of the creature's body. The Slime King gave one pulse.

And then it opened.

Its body parted in half like a flower in bloom, exposing a cavity filled with glowing tendrils.

…There was way too much mana in those tendrils. In fact, they practically glowed white due to the mana inside them

As the Slime King's tentacles started to whip forth, not attacking but attempting to capture them, they took a dozen steps back. In fact, one of the men was grabbed by one of the tendrils and sucked inside the slime, where they saw the man dissolving in a few seconds.

Ah… so the slimes were just trying to take the humans as food to the king…

Now that they had failed, the Slime King itself made the decision to act.

As the tendrils thrashed, circles and glyphs blazing with light carved themselves into the ground where they passed.

Runes… Old ones?

Theodore gasped.

"That's not natural."

"You think?"

"No, I mean really not natural. That's a spell structure, it's preparing a casting. What the hell. Since when did monsters do that? This fat slime is far more intelligent than we thought!"

Around the chamber, the runes flared once.

Roland gave Theodore a grin. Theodore wanted to swear when he saw it.

He knew, didn't he?

The slime pools started to bubble. And underneath them, something shifted.

Roland raised his sword. Dozens of javelins formed around Theodore and his [Mana Shield] also formed around him. He had no clue what was happening but he also considered forming an orb of doom.

Just as the bubbling reached a peak—

The stone beneath their feet trembled.

***

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