Chapter 411: Infinite Loop
The slime dragons had been starving for a very long time.
After their lord abandoned the dungeon, they instinctively understood they were trapped in a dungeon they could never escape. They survived by eating whatever monsters and magic stones remained.
They slept so deeply it bordered on suspended animation, minimizing energy consumption. When they simply couldn’t endure any longer, they resorted to cannibalism to replenish their strength.
If there was one small mercy, it was that within their confined space, they had at least one means of ’replenishing their food supply.’
The surviving slimes had to grow even stronger to survive, and in the end, true to the phrase "survival of the fittest," only the strong slimes remained.
And now, the slimes were on the verge of losing their minds over the prey that had begun entering from outside for the first time in ages.
The newcomers even gave off such a delicious scent that the slimes hardly knew what to do with themselves.
They wanted nothing more than to stuff those intruders into their bellies and dissolve them on the spot, but having gone so long without moving, some slimes had even forgotten how to move, making pursuit difficult.
They had lost the knack for locomotion. Their movements had become utterly rudimentary, and in the end, the prey that seemed to have come from outside the dungeon slipped away.
But slow as they were, if they just kept pushing forward, they would reach the end eventually.
The command given to the slime dragons was to capture and devour any intruders. They would have done it without being told, but now that orders had been issued, there was nothing holding them back.
Inch, inch.
A snail would have been faster, but the slime dragons diligently crawled forward. To catch their prey, they crawled ahead with every ounce of effort they had.
Squelch, squelch.
If anything stood in their way, they opened their maws and ate it. While one slime dragon cleared the path ahead, another climbed over its back and advanced.
Before them lay the Big Slimes that had been "farmed" far from the main cavern, now dead with their bellies burst or their cores ripped out.
Squelch, squelch, squelch.
The slime dragons were saddened that all their daily bread had been slaughtered, but they swallowed their tears and devoured the Big Slime remains. Delicious prey may have passed through, but they were so famished that they wolfed down the Big Slime scraps as though possessed.
Slimes are monsters that grow stronger by eating. Following instinct, the slime dragons ate and ate and ate.
Screeech!
Some of the Big Slimes blocking their path resisted violently, sinking their teeth into the slime dragons.
But 2-star Big Slimes stood no chance against 3-star slime dragons, most of which had reached the cap of level 55. The Big Slimes’ teeth couldn’t even pierce their hide.
Crunch!
A slime dragon bit off a Big Slime’s head. Having swallowed it cleanly from head to toe without spilling a single drop of slime, the slime dragon licked its lips and continued crawling forward.
But then.
Gurrrgle.
Something began to churn inside its belly. A slime whose defining trait was dissolving anything in acid, getting a stomachache? The slime dragon at the front looked around, wondering if something was wrong with it, when.
SCREEEEECH!!
The slime dragon right beside it let out a shriek and flipped over backward. Its entire body had turned purple, and after trembling violently, it went still.
A moment later.
Booom!!
A small explosion erupted from inside the slime dragon’s belly. Its flank burst open, and a mixture of red and purple slime began oozing out like blood.
Squeak, squeeeak.
The slime dragon tried to heal itself by re-ingesting the slime leaking from its own body. But before it could, it needed to move.
Squelch, squelch.
The slime dragons beside it turned their heads, one by one. They weren’t targeting the intruders they were supposed to be chasing. Instead, they bared their teeth at the wound of the slime dragon whose flank had just ruptured.
Crunch!
One of them shoved its head into the wound. Although their mutually tough hides meant they couldn’t tear through each other’s skin, an exposed wound with flesh hanging out was easy enough to devour.
Squelch, squelch, squelch.
The slime dragon that had eaten the purple Big Slime had its flank burst open and was consumed by its fellows. The slime dragons, having instantly converted their comrade(?), into experience points, pressed forward once more.
Boom, boom, ka-boom.
Squelch, squelch, crunch.
Eat, explode, eat, explode.
The slime dragons had nothing left in their heads but the thought, ’must eat,’ and failed to notice anything amiss.
***
At that moment, Raspica Castle.
"Two women are making love together. Then a man barges in and joins them. In this case, what sentencing should apply?"
"A terribly difficult question.... The man surely entered because he was turned on by the two women going at it."
"There isn’t a man alive who wouldn’t get hard watching two women kiss, ras. Just thinking about slipping your dick between their intertwined tongues... ngh, ngghhh."
"What are you even saying? Shouldn’t we hear the women’s side of things too?"
A human, an orc, an Andras, and a cream elf had gathered in one place, deep in the middle of a meeting. Salem, seated as the human representative, was recording the heated debate among the various species.
"Listen. What’s the point of what women do with each other? It’s not like they can even penetrate."
"Are you kidding? Did you forget when that witch Levis Ann ground herself on the elves and violated them? The Legion Commander himself said, ’Ah, that is what they call scissoring.’"
"I’d love to try it, ras. But finding a partner with that kind of taste is extremely difficult, ras."
"Right? And on top of that, do you think same-sex couples would even want to let a guy join in? No chance."
"...Excuse me."
Sensing the conversation was about to drag on, Salem raised his hand.
"Shouldn’t we hear from the women on this matter?"
"Oho."
"Specifically?"
"W, well, if both women say it’s okay, then it’s legal."
"A brilliant idea, ras!"
The demi-humans applauded Salem’s proposal.
"If both women simultaneously consent to the man’s entry, it’s consensual!"
"But if even one of them refuses, that’s rape."
"Unwanted play is not Ras. Forcing Ras on someone who refuses sex is only permissible against enemies of the legion or prisoners. Hmm, that works. So what kind of sentencing do you think is appropriate, newbie?"
"Uh, um...."
Salem scratched his cheek and answered.
"...For the man’s case, how about making him have Ras with two demi-humans at the breeding ranch and produce two offspring?"
"Human, no, Salem. You are a genius, ras."
"...Indeed. So this is the level of brains you’d need to serve as the cock for three elves."
"What do I do...? I feel bad for my sisters. Hey, before you go in tonight, let’s you and I have a little chat."
"Ha, ha ha ha."
A chill ran through Salem’s body. As if someone were standing right behind him.
Tap, tap.
"Who’s th..."
Salem came face-to-face with a ghoul wearing a black helm and promptly fainted.
***
"Being brainless saved them. Heh heh, those things don’t seem to have any clue it’s a corpse explosion, do they?"
Having reentered the dungeon, we slowly resurrected Big Slimes and used them to detonate slime dragons.
The blown-apart corpses became food for other slime dragons, which in turn ate more Big Slimes, exploded, and became food for the slime dragons behind them.
"Behold, this is what they call an infinite loop."
Well, not truly infinite.
It was a tactic that would become unusable once we ran out of Big Slimes to use as corpse bombs, or once Rastujad’s magic power ran dry.
Glorp, glorp.
But an enormous number of Big Slimes had already died.
The Big Slimes that Lune and I had killed together easily exceeded a hundred, and the ones that had died from cannibalizing each other under Rastujad’s control numbered in the hundreds as well.
We’d farmed until two slime dragons’ bodies were packed to the brim with marble-sized low-grade magic stones. So there was no shortage of Big Slimes to use as corpse bombs.
"Watching them pop one after another is like a fireworks show. Lune, do you happen to know of a tactic called the human bomb?"
"Didn’t you use that last time, Master?"
"That time it was a humanity bomb that detonated aphrodisiac. I mean an actual human exploding. Kaboom."
"Isn’t that a bit much? A person blowing up right in front of you?"
"Fair point, right? Not that those things care in the slightest."
Whether a comrade exploded next to them or not, the slime dragons didn’t care. In fact, the instant one burst, they’d whip their heads around and devour their fallen companion. They felt less like comrades and more like colonial organisms merely sharing the same space.
"I wonder if there’s a way to weaponize that later...."
"You want to feed them corpses...?"
"No. Spread a plague. ...I’ll need to do some research."
[Are you intending to use corpse venom? If so, I should be able to do that once I grow a bit stronger.]
"No. I won’t be using corpse venom."
Just a different kind of poison. I mentally sketched out plans for conquering the Leo Marquisate, the County of Sagittarius, and various other human territories while waiting for the slime dragons to cannibalize themselves into oblivion.
"Master, Rastujad’s magic power seems to be running low. I’ll resupply his magic fluid."
[Wait, hold on. Madame, my mana is still perfectly fi, GURGHK!]
Shaitan pried open Rastujad’s mouth by force and shoved in a pouch of slime.
What filled the slime dragon hide taken from a sub-dungeon was, naturally, magic fluid. Rastujad chugged the magic fluid in one shot and recovered his mana. With more mana restored, more corpse bombs would go off to blow up slime dragons, and from here on out, all the hunting credit belonged to Rastujad.
"In terms of both level gains and magic power efficiency, having Rastujad solo everything is definitely the best approach, but...."
"Is there a problem?"
"Time is the problem."
Slow didn’t begin to describe it; they were abominably slow. We’d squeezed out maximum efficiency on mana consumption and EXP gains, but the pace of the hunt was agonizingly slow.
"Were those things grubs in a past life? They’re not slime dragons; they’re slime grubs. Has to be. How else could anything move slower than a sloth?"
Even after we’d gone back up to base, reorganized, and come back down, they still hadn’t reached the dungeon entrance. At that speed, I wasn’t sure they could even cover half a mile in an hour.
"But aren’t they coming forward pretty quickly, actually?"
"They only move fast when there’s food ahead of them. And even then, they’re slower than Lime was back in her slime days. Dammit."
[Lord of the legion, could those things possibly be....]
Rastujad tilted his head and raised another corpse.
"Hm? What?"
[...Never mind. I’m sure it’s just my overthinking.]
"Say it. There’s always the chance it could actually be true."
[...Could it be a movement penalty caused by exceeding the floor’s population cap?]
"...Oh."
As expected of a sharp-minded dark mage. It was a highly plausible theory.
"There’s no way 3-star monsters are deliberately moving at that speed. Hmm. Rastujad, I commend your insight."
"Whatever the reason, if there is a movement penalty from exceeding capacity... then there must be a staggering number of slimes on this floor."
"Well over a thousand?"
"Heh heh, and every single one of them is a magic stone. Rastujad, keep in mind that the enemy could regain their original speed at any time. You cannot afford to slow down your corpse bomb production."
[...I feel like I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.]
"Heh heh heh, don’t be like that. Every one of those things is EXP for you. Let’s not rush it; let’s take it nice and steady. In the meantime, we’ll enjoy a leisurely stroll."
While Rastujad worked himself to the bone, I held Lune and Shaitan close and slowly caught my breath.
"Master, let’s do that thing!"
"No. Too dangerous."
As much as I wanted to go prone and take a stroll in that position right away, there was no telling when the enemy’s numbers would drop below the cap and their speed would spike.
They looked pretty formidable even at a glance, so I had to stay on guard, ready to react at any moment, thinking of it like the instant the hundred-times gravity gets released.
"Just relax."
One hour.
"...Just a little longer."
Two hours.
"...Is this actually their top speed? Shit."
Three hours.
The moment we realized the slime dragons’ mobility had genuinely atrophied was after Rastujad had killed over 500 of them.