Matt's blade cut a deadly arc through the air as it swung for the wobbling mass of slime in front of him. It easily separated the slime into two pieces that slowly stopped wriggling. They had only been trying to antagonize some of the tiny creatures outside the town when they had come across the slimes eating away at a garden.
"I'm feeling stronger already! Yeah! I'm gonna smash all these stupid foes and go stab that stupid demon thing's face in," Matt cackled as he stabbed his sword at another slime. This time however, the slime didn't perish when his sword bit into it. Instead, a small portion of jelly wrapped itself around the blade and crawled up its length. He pulled back on his blade and the slime came with it, most of the mass hitting him in the chest. It felt like getting hit in the chest with one of Lance's tank rounds. As the slime hit the ground, it seemed to smolder for a moment before bursting into flames.
"First stab the stupid slime's face in, alright you idiot?" Natalie shot a scowl at Matt for distracting her. She turned her focus back to the enemies that continued to emerge from the woods and watched as one slime exploded as it was penetrated by a bullet from Lance's signature gunblade. After a moment of focus and a wave of her staff, another slime was suddenly turned into a shishkabob by an icicle.
"Hey, it was Lance's idea to try hunting some monsters to try to level up," Matt protested.
"I didn't say we should level up, I said we might be able to get back some of our power by doing some actual fighting." Lance was certain that he had made it quite clear that despite his earlier analogy at the restaurant, this was most definitely not a game. If he and the others didn't have any way to regain their abilities, somebody other than him was gonna end up dominating or destroying the world after all. He couldn't exactly have that.
Mixing in amongst the swarming slimes were several creatures that covered themselves in branches and leaves, looking like living bushes, or perhaps they were simply murderous plants. Each of these only took a quick hit to disperse into a small cloud of scattered foliage. Even so, they made the overwhelming numbers of the weak monster even greater.
It was a harsh fight, and each of the heroes was beginning to feel stretched and spent, when finally they found that no more foes were left before them. Matt still continued to slam his blade into one of the unmoving slimes, Natalie simply plopped to the ground where she stood and took deep breaths, and Lance pulled out the device he had dubbed his status menu to check their progress. He smiled for a moment, seeing that his idea had worked.
"Looks like we got a small amount of our strength back," Lance called to the others. "We should keep fighting some of these woodland creatures until we can really start moving to reach that mountain."
"I'm too tired," Natalie complained, "If I don't get a snack first, I'm going to leave you two to do all the work. I need to rest to recover my mana or eat something sweet to bring it back right away."
"I could go for a soda," Matt chimed in, finally abandoning his dead slime.
"Fine," Lance submitted, "but I want to test to see if my status menu is right or not. Did you try any of your talents during that fight?"
"They're called Sword Arts, but yeah. I tried them and they didn't work." Each of them had different ways of channeling their power, and Matt's was to literally affect his surroundings by focusing the mana into his blade.
"I think you might be able to do one of them now. Try something small, like a little Fume," Lance suggested. Matt looked at him doubtfully, but gripped his blade in both hands. He paused for a moment before swinging his blade into the soil at his feet. Almost immediately, a shower of sparks erupted from the ground a meter away from him, scorching the grass where it emerged.
"Sweet, now we can really get cooking!" Matt pulled his blade from the ground and speared a slime carcass.
"Not this again," Natalie sighed. Matt had a bad habit of trying to eat literally anything he killed. When they had been on their mission to stop Lance, he had talked her into trying a little bit of a giant sand worm they had encountered. She wasn't sure which had been worse, the taste or the life threatening food poisoning. Still when she got him to sit down in an actual kitchen with real food, he wasn't a hopeless cook.
Matt was already roasting the green jelly over the small embers that he had started, and it smelled like boiling tar. Natalie put a cloth napkin she kept handy to her nose and Lance audibly gagged when the scent hit his. All three of them were focused in one way or another on Matt's cooking as the others tried to convince him to stop. They didn't notice that many of the other dead slimes had vanished from behind them.
By luck Matt turned in time to see the massive form as it silently loomed behind him. One of the smaller slimes had still been alive and had consumed the other deceased monsters around it, growing and swelling in size until it was almost as tall as Matt.
"Now there's a real challenge," Matt said with a grin. He swung his sword around to face the giant slime while the others scrambled to grab their weapons, or in Natalie's case to grab her staff and quickly scarf down a small cookie. As he swung around, the slime that was spitted on his blade slipped free and flew into the giant monster. It quickly surrounded and dissolved the roasted slime, growing slightly in size.
"Hey, that's my dinner, you overgrown sauce-ball piece of crap!" Matt shouted at the slime as he charged forward. His blade cleaved through the air and bit deep into the slime a few times before he took a pace back. Just as he did, a glowing red round slammed into the slime and exploded in a fiery blast, followed quickly by another that crackled with purple plasma.
"Back off!" called Natalie, "My turn." She swung her staff, focusing her mana on its tip. A glowing star formed above her and fell down, slamming into the slime and bursting with a yellow light. Still, the slime didn't go down. It surged forward, oozing its way toward Natalie. A green tentacle like a vine snapped out from the slime and cracked like a whip as it snapped at her, catching her ankles and swiping her feet from under her. She fell and hit the ground hard, dropping her staff.
As the slime loomed over her, it stopped for a moment. After a moment of hesitation, the slime exploded around the spike of earth that had erupted from just beneath it, courtesy of Matt's Tremor art. The remains of the slime scattered in globs, covering the grass around it, as well as Natalie.
"Thanks for the save," Natalie muttered as Matt ran over to her, a little embarrassed. She could see what looked like a pained expression on his face as he moved beside her. She was thankful and a little glad that he was so worried about her. They had been traveling for a while together, so it was only natural for him to care.
"My dinner," Matt lamented as he fell to his knees. Natalie felt like heat was rising to her face and promptly slapped him across the face.