I Formed a Party with a Girl via an Adventurer Matching App - Chapter 32
An Age to Act Cool
"P-Please, mercy……! If my magic core is destroyed…… a monster can no longer regulate the mana required to maintain its physical form. If that happens, I-I'm going to d-die……!"
We actually beat her.
The location was the "Tower of the Slime Queen," a structure situated far beyond the borders of the city we called our base.
The spire consisted of roughly fifty floors, narrowing progressively closer to the peak, with the structural threat level of the resident slimes escalating at every tier. Waiting at the absolute apex to ambush passing adventurers was the entity holding the third seat among the Demon King's Elite Four: the Slime Queen.
……And she was currently the exact monster about to have her magic core—the functional equivalent of a monster's heart—annihilated by Cordelia.
"……H-Help me……! I—I don't want to die……! I beg of you……!"
Pleading through a continuous stream of tears, the Slime Queen possessed a face, a torso, and limbs that precisely mirrored human anatomy. Her long, unkempt hair cascaded downward, its tips reaching all the way to her backside. Judged purely by silhouette alone, her physique presented the perfectly proportioned, beautiful outline of a human woman.
However, if there was a singular, definitive variable that separated her from humanity, it was—as her title implied—the fact that her entire form was constructed from a thick, viscous gelatin.
Furthermore, her entire body was stained a sinister, malevolent shade of purple, completely detached from any natural pigment found in human skin. It was an aesthetically repellant hue, looking as though every ounce of malice in the world had been systematically condensed into a single entity.
Beauty and monstrosity. Two conflicting concepts intertwined, achieving a bizarre harmony within a singular, mysterious lifeform.
That was the visual reality of the Slime Queen.
Right into the Slime Queen's slender, feminine waist, Cordelia’s right arm had been aggressively thrust, plunging straight through the gelatinous exterior. Consequently, the Slime Queen’s absolute critical vulnerability—her magic core—was currently resting firmly inside Cordelia's palm.
"P-Please……! I'll officially resign from my executive position in the Demon King's Army! I'll disclose every single piece of classified information in my possession! If you insist, I'll happily become your submissive servant! No, please, let me become your servant! I am begging you, don't kill me!"
As a general rule, ordinary slimes are simple organisms, completely incapable of communicating with humanity. However, the Slime Queen hadn't claimed a seat among the Elite Four on a whim; her cognitive capacity was light-years ahead of her lesser brethren. The fact that she was actively executing a coherent plea for her life was living proof.
Her gelatinous face was entirely warped with absolute terror, an unceasing cascade of tears and fluid bursting from her features.
……
For the record, the following choice quotes represent the exact dialogue this very same Slime Queen had confidently delivered to us a mere few minutes prior:
"Slarararararaaa! Well, well, well? What do we have here? I could swear the atmosphere in my personal chambers is suddenly saturated with the foul, reeking stench of unfamiliar, pathetic trash!"
"You honestly intend to execute a subjugation raid against me with a party of a mere two people? Know your absolute place, you miserable simpletons!"
"Oh well! Let's sweep up the garbage so the Demon King can shower me with praise!"
"My innate capability allows me to leverage my amorphous slime anatomy to completely neutralize bludgeoning, slashing, impacting—literally every single variety of physical assault! Your pathetic ne-NEVER-xt move doesn't e-EVER-ven exist, there's no fu-FUTURE-ture for you here!"
"Now, burst into pieces……!"
She had been riding such an absurd high that even I, the guy who had actively shown up to slaughter her, found myself thinking, Wow, is this girl seriously going to be okay?
And then, as a completely predictable consequence of our flawless party coordination, she found herself entirely outmatched, effortlessly pinned to the ground by Cordelia without ever mounting a meaningful defense.
Straddled on the floor of the boss chamber, the Slime Queen looked up at Cordelia—who was completely neutralizing her movements from a dominant mount—and wept continuously as she begged for quarter.
"I am begging youuuuuuu! Please, just spare my lifeeeeee!"
"Hmm, whatever shall I do with you?"
"Too light! Your valuation of my life is entirely too light! I'm so completely backed into a corner at this point that it's actually getting funny! Ahahaha, wow, I am so incredibly screwed!"
"Tell me, where exactly did that 'Slarararararaaa!' laugh of yours vanish to, hm?"
"That was just a calculated persona I was actively forcing for characterization! Obviously, when I'm genuinely on the brink of execution, it's not going to come out!"
An executive general of the Demon King's Army shouldn't be forcing a persona for characterization in the first place……
Letting out a heavy sigh, I stepped forward, approaching Cordelia's back as she kept the Slime Queen pinned.
"Cordelia. That's enough."
"Kent."
Hearing my voice, Cordelia turned her head to look back at me. Conveying my exact intent with a subtle shake of my head, she reluctantly withdrew her smooth, pale right hand from the Slime Queen's abdomen.
Feeling the oppressive weight lift, the pinned Slime Queen's expression instantly relaxed in sheer relief. It was a pathetic, pity-inducing look, completely unbecoming of a supreme military commander holding the third seat of the Elite Four.
Moving with light, casual steps, I walked right up to the Slime Queen's side. She looked up at me, her eyes overflowing with sudden hope—
"An adventurer's absolute golden rule is to obliterate the core without a moment of hesitation."
Completely ignoring her pleading stare, I slammed the heel of my boot violently straight into the Slime Queen's slender waist.
Squelch—CRACK!
An agonizing shriek escaped from the depths of the monster's throat. Simultaneously, with a sickening, definitive crunch, the magic core buried deep within the Slime Queen's body shattered into a million pieces beneath my sole.
The magic core was the vital organ regulating a monster's entire reservoir of mana. Once it was destroyed, the slime instantly lost the specific magical cohesion required to hold its anatomy together, causing the gelatinous body to collapse. True to form, the Slime Queen let out a faint, unintelligible wail as her silhouette rapidly dissolved into a shapeless puddle.
Then, a fraction of a second later.
Clatter. A sharp, metallic sound echoed from directly behind Cordelia.
Looking down, situated in what had been Cordelia's blind spot, was a razor-sharp dagger that had just been clumsily dropped. The hilt of the weapon was heavily stained with a thick, purple mucus—an identical shade to the fluids of the now-dying Slime Queen.
Cordelia looked down at the knife that had been covertly tracking her blind spot to strike a critical vulnerability, let out a sharp snort, and stood up. Offering her a casual, relaxed grin, I called out to her.
"That was a pretty close call."
"Not particularly. I was perfectly aware of its presence. Even if you hadn't stepped in, I would have cleanly executed her myself before she ever landed a scratch."
"No doubt. Let's just say I wanted a quick chance to steal the spotlight for once."
"My, my. Is someone at an age where they feel an absolute compulsion to act cool? How thoroughly boyish of you."
"Oh, shut up……"
"Still, are you entirely certain that was wise?"
"About what?"
"Killing her off so quickly."
"Huh?"
I tilted my head in genuine confusion. Was it wise? Of course it was wise. We literally climbed the tower to slaughter her in the first place.
Fixing her gaze on the slime residue clinging to her right arm, Cordelia addressed my confusion.
"That's not what I mean. Since the opportunity presented itself, wouldn't it have been far more advantageous to keep her alive under duress to extract whatever intelligence we could? As an executive of the Demon King's Army, she was guaranteed to possess highly critical operational data."
"Well, I suppose that's true."
Apparently, Cordelia had purposely held off on delivering the final blow with the specific tactical intent of milking the Slime Queen for actionable intelligence.
I see. Her logic was fundamentally sound. In the grand scheme of humanity's ongoing conflict with the Demon King's forces, it might have been a highly necessary step.
However, even taking that into consideration, I still shook my head.
"Cordelia. You only recently graduated from the training academy, so the reality of the field probably hasn't fully set in for you yet."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Facing Cordelia as she skeptical narrowed her brow, I delivered the reality check.
"Based on my own considerable experience as an active adventurer: greed, even in the most minuscule quantities, is an absolute death sentence on the battlefield. We marched up here with the explicit directive to subjugate the Slime Queen. If that is the objective, then every single action we take until the final second must be aligned strictly toward executing that subjugation."
An Adventurer's Creed
On the battlefield, predicting variables is a statistical impossibility. The moment you compromise your primary objective to pursue a secondary luxury is the exact moment you invite absolute catastrophe.
"You never know what kind of hidden trap is waiting to spring," I added, executing a sharp kick against the dagger rolling across the floorboards.
The moment the weapon shifted, a tiny, concealed slime burst from a microscopic cavity within the hilt, attempting to flee. The creature coated in a venomous, toxic red glaze—the exact strain of slime whose fluids could instantly scorch and ulcerate human skin to the bone upon the briefest physical contact.
Cordelia’s eyes instantly went wide with absolute realization. While she had correctly detected the trajectory of the incoming dagger, the possibility that a secondary, lethal toxic slime was actively nesting inside the weapon's hilt had been entirely outside her calculations.
Sprinting forward, I brought my boot down hard, cleanly crushing the tiny red anomaly into oblivion. With that final stroke, absolute silence descended over the Slime Queen's chambers.
Cordelia pouted her lower lip in a thoroughly disgruntled expression, aggressively sweeping her blonde twin-tails back over her shoulders.
"……So you really are just at an age where you want to act cool?"
The words were spat out with the absolute maximum amount of venom she could muster—yet to my ears, it felt like nothing more than a thoroughly adorable kitten playfully swatting at my hand.
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