Episode 22: Resistant to Heat?
Raindrops began to fall.
In the morning, Yuma, with an umbrella in hand, headed to the hole as usual.
Slime subjugation on rainy days was the worst, but there was one good thing. Strangely, the rain didn’t enter the hole.
It was as if it were protected by an invisible barrier.
This strange phenomenon was the only saving grace on rainy days.
He placed the umbrella next to the hole, lined up the Gas Burner and Cooling Spray underneath it, and descended into the hole. Yuma turned on the Flashlight and illuminated the depths of the hole.
Then, he felt something was off.
“Ah!”
It was the same shock he felt when he found the Metal Slime.
Before his eyes was a bright red Slime. No, looking closely, it was probably a Metal Red.
It was like a Metal Slime that had gone bad and become aggressive.
“Do these guys have color variations!?”
As Yuma wondered, the red Slime suddenly began to move. It hopped around, moving in a zigzag pattern as it attacked.
The Metal Slime was fast, but the red Slime was even faster.
“Whoa! Wait, wait!!”
Yuma hurriedly jumped out of the hole. Looking down at the hole while being hit by the rain, the red Slime writhed its body as if saying, “Come down here!”
“What is this guy!? He’s incredibly belligerent.”
Yuma was surprised by the unexpected attack, but he became angry as if the Metal Slime he defeated every day was picking a fight with him.
“You bastard! If you want to do it, let’s do it!!”
Yuma put strength into his whole body with a huff. Black marks spread across his hands and face, and in a few seconds, a metallic body was completed.
Metallization—the only ability Yuma could use.
He grabbed the Cooling Spray and Gas Burner and jumped into the hole again. The red Slime immediately attacked.
It rammed into his legs, knees, stomach, and arms with tremendous power, but only metallic sounds of “kin’ kin kin” echoed, and it didn’t hurt or itch at all.
Yuma looked at the red Slime with a cool face.
“Heh heh heh, it doesn’t hurt at all! Physical attacks don’t work on this body.”
He aimed the nozzle of the Cooling Spray at the Slime and sprayed. The red Slime was wary and ran away, but its movements gradually slowed down, and it stopped moving in about a minute.
“Alright, alright, next is the Gas Burner…”
He pulled the trigger to ignite it and began to scorch the Slime. But he soon noticed an anomaly.
“Huh? Something’s wrong.”
Normally, after the frozen body was thawed, it would glow red with heat, but this time, the frost melted, but there was no sign of heat. The Slime started moving again.
Was it hard to tell because it was red? Thinking that, he sprayed the Cooling Spray again.
Then, in a few tens of seconds, its movements became sluggish, and it began to freeze. “That’s strange,” Yuma muttered with a grimace.
If he tried to freeze a Metal Slime that had been scorched with a Gas Burner again, it wouldn’t freeze easily because it had heat. But the fact that it froze so quickly meant…
“It’s not being heated! Does that mean fire doesn’t work!?”
Since the color was different, it wouldn’t be strange if it had special abilities. Even so, it was troublesome that fire didn’t work.
He repeated cooling and heating several times, but the fire still didn’t work.
Yuma thought for a moment and then returned home to search again on his smartphone for ways to break metal.
Then, several methods of rusting metal came up.
“Rusting… I see… but, can I do it?”
He was skeptical, but if the surface rusted, fire might become effective. Yuma decided to try it anyway.
Fortunately, today was a holiday, and he heard that his parents would be out from the morning.
Yuma immediately took Mamezou for a walk and went to the drugstore. He took the desired item from a shelf with various items.
When Yuma returned, his parents had already left.
“Alright… now I can work without worry.”
He placed a bucket next to the hole and poured in the acidic detergent he had bought at the drugstore.
A considerable odor drifted around. Yuma put on Rubber Gloves and a mask and evacuated Mamezou to a safe place.
He put strength into his body with a “huff!” and descended into the hole after “Metallizing.” The red Slime attacked Yuma with the speed of a raging fire.
There was no pain when it hit his body, but he staggered from the force.
“Damn it! Don’t get cocky!”
He held Cooling Sprays in both hands and stopped the Slime’s movement with a double spray. After confirming that it was frozen solid, he placed the bucket he had prepared outside inside the hole.
“Will it really work?”
Slightly doubtful, he put the frozen red Slime in the bucket and rolled it around.
He soaked it in detergent for a while, then took it out and left it on the ground. If the thawed Slime started moving, he would freeze it again with Cooling Spray.
He didn’t think it would rust easily, but there was no doubt that Metal Slimes were weak to indirect attacks.
Maybe it rusts more easily than ordinary iron? Yuma repeated ‘detergent’, ‘rolling’, and ‘leaving’ a total of twenty times for six hours with such expectations.
“Hmm, is it rusting? I can’t tell because it’s originally red.”
He was suspicious, but it seemed that the color was duller than before.
Should he try it? He took the Burner in his hand, and after ‘Metallizing’ again, he scorched the frozen Slime. Then—
“Ah!”
The Slime’s body glowed red. It was proof that it was generating heat. The Slime that started moving immediately moved away from Yuma and attacked with lightning-like speed.
While enduring the fierce attack of the approaching red Slime, he grabbed the Cooling Spray he had prepared outside the hole.
He sprayed the spray like crazy and repeatedly heated it with cooling and the Gas Burner.
Preparing for a long battle, he repeated it sixteen times.
“This is tough… how about this!”
When he scorched it with the Burner, a crack ran across the surface of the Slime with a snap.
—But it was still shallow.
When Yuma repeated it three more times, the surface of the red Slime became tattered.
“It should be about time.”
Yuma raised the Hammer and swung it down on the red Slime. Pa-lin—
The Metal Red’s body shattered into pieces.