At first I could only see about 5 slimes crawling out of the muck, but soon there were 8, and then 12 attempting to come out. More and more churned around in the muddy water, making it obvious that dozens of rock slimes must have lived in there. Casting a [Judgment] or any of Kale or the guy padin’s abilities quickly proved to not really matter all that much, since as soon as we would kill one slime, another would just come forward to take its pce. At this rate, it seemed like we were going to get buried under the approaching rock slime army any moment now if we didn’t run away.

  Actually, at this point it's pretty likely that my [Benediction] would get broken through and we’d be riddled with holes as we tried to run away anyways.

  “Your Holiness! We can’t stay here! We have to leave this pce, now!”

  “Um…!”

  I agree, I really do, but if we run away now then getting back to this muddy ke now that we’ve pissed off all of the rock slimes is going to be wayyy more difficult than it was this time, when we snuck up on them.

  “...Kale, how many slimes do you think you see in there?”

  “Just a moment.”

  As we all cautiously made our way back from the approaching slimes accompanied by the sounds of shotgun fire constantly echoing through the mineshaft, Kale stopped in pce and opened his eyes wide. His arms gently fpped a bit, creating a short gust of wind. He took a few seconds to survey the muddy water, and when his eyes squinted like he didn’t like what he was seeing, he started moving backwards with us again, having finished his task.

  “From the ripples on the water, I believe there are at least 60 in there, maybe more.”

  “60?! Really?!”

  I knew that there were probably a lot of them, but I hadn’t expected that many to be hidden in such a small looking ke of mud!

  Kale nodded, as if he understood why I was surprised.

  “It’s hard to see from here, but the water actually continues off into a hidden cavern behind the wall.”

  Oh, so that’s where they were all coming from. They just had a secret hidden ir or whatever that they’d been staying in... Or maybe the more appropriate thing to say would be ‘multiplying’ in.

  “...If that’s the case then that decides it; We can’t leave here right now.”

  If we ran out of here, there’s every chance that the 60+ slimes would follow after us. And if we were too slow, or they were maybe too persistent, then there’s the possibility that they would come out of the mine after us and wreak havoc on the town outside. It’s not such a bad seeming outcome, considering that we have two padins, a Saintess, and a very strong Kale on our side. With extra space to fight against them, I sure we could easily take care of any slimes that came out, given the time.

  But consider this: What if the slimes come out more slowly than we expect?

  What if enough time passes that we decide to give up and leave?

  And what if that is when the slimes that we angered finally make their way out of the mine?

  …I don’t want a bunch of people to die because of my mistake. In a way, me not being careful enough has already killed hundreds of people indirectly. I really don’t want to increase those numbers even more.

  “Your Holiness, you have to reconsider-!”

  “No. We’re staying here. I said I would get rid of the slimes in this mine for those people, and I will. I’m not going to let them get hurt because of this.”

  “But look! Look at all of them! And there’s only the three of us, stuck here in this small tunnel! If we could only go somewhere else to fight them, then-”

  “I said no, and I meant it. We can’t leave this tunnel. If we leave the nest as it is, then us killing all these slimes will have been for nothing.”

  We’d already almost backed up too far for my liking as it is; It’s gotten pretty darn hard for me to see the muddy ke from all the way back here already. I’m sure that ke must be the source of all of the slimes, or at the very least it’s their home and breeding ground. If I can’t absolutely eradicate the source of them all, then this whole thing will eventually just repeat itself.

  That being said, how do I possibly do that? How do I get rid of the muddy ke? Or do I just have to kill off all of the slimes that are inside of the water, and then the ke won’t matter…? Is that how it works?

  “Kale.”

  “Yes, Saintess?”

  “How do monsters spawn?”

  It’s a fundamental question that I don’t really know the answer to, having only been in this fantasy world for a short time. It seems to me that monsters have to have the right conditions to exist, like all of those undead spawning in the forest because of a hidden mass grave out there, but I might just be misunderstanding something. It might just be that that was a special occasion, and that monsters are less magical and more regur in regards to where they come from. They might just give birth and exist just like any other animal would. Maybe I just keep finding slimes in watery pces because they simply like the water, or maybe they just need to be in water to help them breed. If that’s the case, then I don’t have to do anything to the water in this mine, and my only option is to annihite every slime in here.

  But if they follow a more video game approach to spawning? If the Goddess really stuck to her video game logic for all things magical in this world and not just me, and monsters simply spawn somewhere just because the conditions are right? Then even if I kill off every st slime in this pce, so long as this muddy ke is intact then this will be an endless cycle.

  If I wanna know what the right thing to do here is, then this is a question that has to get answered first.

  Kale looked confused about why I’d even ask that question in this situation at first, although he wiped the look off his face rather quickly. Even the guy padin seemed like he was questioning my sanity, or at least my IQ, for a moment. Still, I can always trust in Kale. No matter how weird of a thing I do or say, he’ll always be on my side.

  “Monsters… They come from malevolent energy. The power of darkness. When the conditions are right for a certain monster, a pce is left alone for long enough, and enough dark energy or raw power is focused in a certain pce, monsters will spawn there.”

  Oh, interesting. That’s… much more fantasy of an answer than I expected. Then again, I suppose it fits with my ‘video game logic’ theory in a way; How else would you describe video game spawning to people who’ve never seen a video game or technology before?

  Well, if that’s the case, then getting rid of the ke is going to be the only option-

  “That being said, once a monster has been created, they can and do breed. This amount of slimes would never spawn naturally. They must have created more amongst themselves, for there to be this many.”

  Oh. So they do breed, there just has to be an existing naturally spawned monster to do it first? Well damn, then how am I supposed to deal with this?! Are you telling me I have to get rid of all the slimes and the ke?!

  “I’m sorry to interrupt this little lesson you both are having here, but I don’t think we can stall for time any longer than we already have!”

  Ah, right. Yeah, the guy padin is totally right. Even with all the distance that we put between us and how slow the slimes are, they’re only about a minute away from crushing us in a rock slime tsunami. There’s also the fact that my [Benediction]'s shields on us are already about to run out. Honestly, with how constantly we’ve been getting shotgun bsted with rocks and shrapnel by dozens of slimes, it’s actually a wonder that my shields on us have sted this long. The guy padin actually has a real, physical shield of his own that he’s been using to block some of the hits, but Kale and I have just kind of been letting them pelt us this whole time, and yet we’re still being protected. I’ve always been pretty proud of the amount my [Benediction] can block, but this is still far more than it should be able to take; Judging from what broke it in the past, this should definitely have been enough to break it by now, if not double the amount.

  Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter right now. I’ll save worrying about why my [Benediction] got stronger for after we’re out of the life-threatening situation. For now, I’ll just be grateful that it’s working so well, and reapply it.

  And now? Now that I’ve made sure we’ll be safe for a little longer? What do I do? I only have a few seconds left before we’ll be buried and won’t be able to do anything for much longer. I still have around 2500/3200 energy to use on this, so I’ve got a pretty good amount to work with. What skill can I use that’ll fix this situation?

  …Do I bite the bullet and bring out Inaiah again? Her powers seemed absolutely crazy, so maybe she would have a way to get rid of the ke? Ah, but if I die again from energy exhaustion now, then there’s a chance that I’ll die for real after I wake up. Besides, who knows what she’s gonna do once I take her out? Just because I want to get rid of all the slimes and their muddy ke doesn’t mean that she’ll want to. There’s also the fact that Kale is here, and she might just act all… weird with him again. I really don’t wanna sit through all of that again if I don’t have to… Aw, but what other options do I have?! Is there anything else that I can do?!

  Ugh, if only I just had a second to think! I’m sure I could figure out something to do if I could just take a better look at my skills… If these slimes weren’t about to grab us any second, then-!

  Oh… Well actually, I have a bunch of energy to spare right now, don’t I? Then maybe I can stall for a bit of extra thinking time! Why didn’t I think of this before?!

  “...[Pressure of the Divine]!”