Arriving at the top floor of the guild building, the crimson flame knight narrowed his eyes in a somewhat uneasy manner as he gazed towards the interior of the room in front of him.
Even from a glance, he could see several small slimes bouncing around the place happily, as every inch of the place had already been covered in some kind of slimy substance left behind by the slimes as they bounced around the place.
However, the most important thing was not these slimes who seemed docile as they moved around inside the guild master’s room without doing much, but instead the short woman who was sitting in the middle of the room while carefully examining one of these slimes with a cheerful smile on her face while being covered in the slimy substance created by the slimes themselves.
"Ehm!" Seeing this as well and noticing that the woman didn’t seem to notice them making their way inside the slime covered room, the guild leader standing beside the crimson flame knight let out a small coughing sound to catch her attention.
"Hm? Ah! Guild Leader! Great to see you! Are you here for the dragon devourer slime? Is this person the one you told me about that would help with catching it!?" Turning her head the moment, she heard the sound, the woman smiled happily as she said this while carefully placing the slime in her arms to the side before standing up to greet them.
"Yes, he is and there is no need for greetings, we have to get going as fast as possible before that slime ends up causing any more damage than it already has." Seeing her reach her slime covered hand towards the two of them, the guild leader avoided her hand as he made up a convincing excuse.
"I see, I understand, I will get some of my children and meet you outside." Nodding her head in understanding, the woman didn’t seem to doubt him as she instead turned towards the slimes that were bouncing around the room and began to collect them one by one into her sleeve.
"Let’s get going..." Not knowing what else to say upon seeing this, the guild leader turned to look at the crimson flame knight as the two of them quickly escaped from the slime covered room before one of the slimes still bouncing around the place ended up colliding with one of them.
Soon enough, the two got back down in front of the guild building where they once again glanced at each other for a brief moment before looking towards the entrance to the guild building.
Although the woman didn’t really do anything to both of them so far, they were clearly on edge faced with her after seeing the large number of slimes bouncing around inside the guild master room.
Even though she hadn’t done anything to them so far, the reputation of those obsessed with taming and researching slimes was not easy to ignore. Especially considering their tendency to involve other people in their experiments from time to time, something that was a rather unpleasant experience for those not used to being close to slime all the time.
This was even more so for the crimson flame knight, who had once ended up as an experimental subject to one of these slime tamers, thus resulting in his current unease in being close to one of them.
No matter if he was stronger than the other party or not, he didn’t want to end up falling pray to one of these terrifying people ever again.
"I’m ready~~"
For this reason, as the slime tamer in question left the branch guild building with five different slimes sitting on top of either her head or shoulders, the crimson flame knight made sure that there was a certain distance between him and the new branch guild leader of the small dungeon town.
"Great, let’s not waste any time and get going."
Luckily for the crimson flame knight the guild leader standing beside him acted fast and immediately turned to leave following the arrival of the new branch guild leader. Giving him the opportunity to quickly follow after him as he made his way in front of the guild leader to lead the way towards where the dragon devourer slime had last been spotted. Wanting to get things over with as fast as possible so he could go back to doing what he had been doing before being called back into the dungeon.
Even beginning to think about switching to a different dungeon to stay around in the future to avoid this new branch guild leader.
Of course, that was for the future, for now, they would first have to deal with the dragon devourer slime and prevent it from causing any more damage and growing any larger.
After all, even if they had someone specialized in dealing with slimes with them, they would still not be able to deal with the dragon devourer slime if it ended up growing too large and powerful. Especially so considering that the dragon devourer slime was among the most powerful slimes in the world.
If it had a chance to grow, it would spell trouble not only for the adventurers in the Howling caverns, but also those outside, as a monster like the dragon devourer slime would inevitably end up breaking out of the dungeon.
Thinking about the chaos a fully grown dragon devourer slime could create, it wasn’t hard to guess that this should have been the original goal of the Holy Flower Sect before they had been discovered inside the dungeon.
Not only revealing their plot related to the ancient dire wolves being nurtured, but also seemingly revealing the dragon devourer slime that they had been secretly nurturing somewhere else on the third floor of the dungeon. Likely having shown up at this time because it had run out of things to eat now that the person from the Holy Flower Sect had ended up dying.
...
Boing~ Boing~ Boing~
Unaware of the attention it had ended up attracting to itself, the now much larger dragon devourer slime happily bounced through the forest as it devoured any living thing it encountered along the way, be it a human adventurer unlucky enough to be in its path or a monster that was just going about its day. Everything was devoured by the dragon devourer slime.
The reason for why it had begun to devour these monsters and humans without any dragon blood flowing through their body was rather simple, as it had discovered that although it didn’t taste good to eat these monsters and humans not related to dragons, it did seem to increase its size. Making it easier to fight against any of the dragon-related monsters it encountered.
After all, even though its encounter with Scaly was relatively brief, it still clearly remembered her and the fact that it had been unable to devour her because it had been far too small to full encompass her entire body.
In a sense, the main motivating factor for the dragon devourer slime to act different than a normal dragon devourer slime would, was because of Scaly and the fact that it had been unable to devourer her.
And... Given that it had not managed to encounter her again and only thought about devouring more monsters and humans and continue growing larger so it would be able to devour her, it ended up going down a starkly different path compared to other dragon devourer slimes.
If things ended up continuing like this in the future, it wasn’t out of the question for the dragon devourer slime to evolve into a different kind of slime in the future, one that would be more suitable for what it was currently doing.
"G-Giant slime!"
Hearing the scream of yet another human echoing out not too far away from its current location, the dragon devourer slime once again turned like it had grown used to over the past few weeks, as it bounced across the forest floor at a terrifying speed that made it impossible for the human to escape-
"NOOOoo-!"
Bloob~
And without any delay, the human could only let out a terrified scream as it was absorbed into the massive body of the dragon devourer slime, where he struggled around for a few seconds before ultimately giving up and beginning the process of being consumed by the dragon devourer slime, a process that would only take a short time given the dragon devourer slimes superior absorption ability compared to normal slimes.
Although this increased efficiency in absorption would be required if it wanted to devour something like dragon blood, when it came to normal monsters or humans, it allowed the dragon devourer slime to fully consume them close to five times faster than what normal slimes would. Allowing it to grow stronger at a far faster rate compared to other slimes, as it didn’t have to wait long before it could start hunting for prey again.