Starting the day after the orcs' first attack, the slime acquired a new daily routine.

"I'm counting on you!"

'Okay!'

The slime bounced up and began vibrating vigorously.

"Ah, aaaah~!"

Its new routine was to climb onto the heads or shoulders of adventurers and guild employees who asked for massages and give them one.

The slime had demonstrated its massage skills before all of Chilture's adventurers. Everyone who received one looked so blissful that their faces practically melted, piquing everyone else's curiosity.

It began when Claire came downstairs to the inn's ground floor for breakfast. An adventurer staying at the same inn asked whether he could get a massage too.

"Oh, of course I don't expect it for free. If I buy it something to eat, I can get one, right?"

"Bouncy, what do you want to do?"

Since Claire wasn't the one giving the massages anyway, she asked the slime.

The slime bounced.

'This one!'

Understanding the man's words, it immediately pointed to an item on the menu with a tentacle.

"It wants you to buy this."

"Of course I will!"

The slime ate the food ordered as payment, then started the massage right away.

It vibrated vigorously.

"Uuuh, oh, ooooh~ My body's melting~."

Not only the other adventurers in the inn but also villagers passing by saw the scene. Word quickly spread that the slime would give an incredibly pleasant massage in exchange for food.

Claire had planned to take a break from quests that day anyway and relax while wandering around the village. But as soon as adventurers and villagers who had heard the rumor spotted her and the slime, they approached—with food in their hands to pay for massages.

"I hear it'll give you a massage if you give it food. Would this skewer do?"

"Would fruit be all right? Oh dear, my back's been aching something awful lately..."

"They say those massages help with hair loss. Is that true?"

Many people came, including some who had heard distorted versions of the rumor.

"Uh, um."

With so many people suddenly crowding around her, Claire didn't know how to answer. She normally avoided talking to people unless she needed to and devoted most of her time to quests, so she struggled to respond when everyone started talking to her at once.

And so...

"Bouncy, you handle it."

Claire left dealing with the crowd entirely to the slime. After all, they had come to see it, not her!

[Squishy Queen]▶That insolent human! Attend to my kin!

▶Lmao she can't be bothered dealing with them lol.

▶Furry bastard lol. So she was a loner all along?

▶Too many hoomans. Trouble.

[Gothic Luxury Bone]▶Squishy is intelligent, so I believe it will manage perfectly well on its own.

[Squishy Queen]▶Indeed! My kin will manage splendidly! But abandoning it is an entirely different matter!

For the viewers, watching Claire leave everything to the slime was another amusing, entertaining sight.

Besides...

"Aaaaah~."

"M-my back! My back's meeelting~!"

"Uh, oh, oh, oh, oh."

▶The noises these hoomans make are fucking hilarious lmao.

▶This was the fun part back when the stream first started.

▶Hoomans making weird noises? Hmm... I'd be down.

▶Blue.

▶Red.

▶Purple!

They could enjoy the ridiculous spectacle of humans making strange noises under the slime's massages like a comedy show.

Meanwhile, one viewer found none of this satisfying.

'Tch. They're just sitting there laughing without a care.'

It was none other than Tailwind King—the Orc King.

He was already unhappy that the first piece of content he had organized hadn't resulted in a single human death. Seeing them so happy on top of that somehow made him feel as though the humans were laughing at him.

'Fine, then let's turn up the heat!'

"Hey! You go out and fight too!"

He had originally intended to send only one Orc Champion. But in his irritation, the Orc King decided to send another of the Orc Champions in the nest.

"What? Why me too...?"

The Orc Champion who had suddenly been ordered to deploy was incredulous.

Orcs only gained access to the system upon becoming Orc Champions. To this one, who had been watching other monsters' streams in the nest, the order was a bolt from the blue.

Their leader had recently been watching all sorts of streams. Then he had started watching some weird, obscure slime stream and issuing bizarre orders.

"If I tell you to go, you go! Or... what, are you defying me?"

In addition to the aura that compelled his kin to obey him, acquired the moment he became the Orc King, his sheer strength made it impossible even for an Orc Champion to refuse.

"N-no, sir."

"Tch. You should've said that to begin with."

When the Orc King returned his attention to the stream, the Orc Champion moved over to the one who had already been ordered to go.

"This is fucking bullshit."

"What? I'm the one getting screwed. He already sent the others. Why do I have to go too?"

"You're not the only one going. I'm going too."

"...? Why you?"

"The boss suddenly lost his temper and told me to go."

"Heheheheheh!"

Orc Champion B, whose deployment had already been decided, burst out laughing now that Orc Champion A was in the same predicament.

"You're laughing? This is funny? You think this is funny?"

"It's fucking hilarious! Welcome! You've ascended to my level!"

"You've picked up more weird shit from streams, you bastard."

Orc Champion A sat beside Orc Champion B and asked,

"What are you watching?"

"A female yeti's workout stream."

"Ugh, what a taste you've got."

"Respect my tastes, please. It's better than that nobody's stream the boss watches. A slime? Seriously, a slime?"

"Agreed. But I hear some monsters way stronger than the boss watch that stream too."

"What? Who?"

"A fire dragon, a bone dragon, and Arachne? Apparently Fenrir watches too. Oh, and I heard the Slime Queen does."

"The Slime Queen? That bitch who does tricks with slimes, right?"

"Yeah."

"I can see why the Slime Queen would watch, since she's a slime too... But why do the others watch?"

"How should I know?"

"Ha, fuck. Why is the boss even sending us? All he says is to keep going that way and attack the hoomans we find. Are we attacking some big hooman nest?"

"It's not like this is the first weird order the boss has given."

The Orc King hadn't explained to his underlings why he was issuing these orders. They would obey no matter what, so he couldn't be bothered explaining every little reason.

The Orc Champions were the only ones who might have been able to work out why he was giving such orders, but they had no interest whatsoever in the slime stream he watched.

Around the time the slime was wandering through the Green Elf Forest, they had watched it once out of curiosity about what on earth their boss was watching. They had lost interest and never watched again.

They only heard rumors through other streams that powerful monsters regularly watched the slime's broadcasts.

Of course, it was fascinating and surprising that such a weak slime could already stream. But that was all.

All a slime could do was bounce around or eat weeds. There were plenty of more exciting, entertaining streams, so they had no reason to stay interested.

In fact, the slime's stream had relatively few viewers compared to others. Thus, the Orc Champions had no way of knowing that the Orc King had grown bored watching it and issued these orders so he could use them as content.

"Sigh. Guess I'll watch that reverse-scale reveal stream."

"You gave me shit about my tastes, but yours are even worse!"

"Honestly, I don't care about the reverse scale at all. It's just funny watching the same old geezer get mad and kicked out."

Before setting off the next day, the Orc Champions watched their favorite streams to vent their frustration over the unreasonable orders.

+++

"Oh, Bouncy. Thank you again today~."

On the third day after the great orc raid, the slime had become famous not just among adventurers but throughout the village.

Its massages were more effective than anyone had expected. Adventurers found their knotted muscles loosening at once, while elderly recipients could feel their bodies growing lighter.

And when word spread that it could do more than sit on someone's head and vibrate—that it could give targeted massages with its tentacles—every elderly person in the village lined up.

The slime liked seeing the humans happy after receiving its massages. Besides, it even got food for giving them.

'People! Happy! Good!'

"Munch, munch, munch."

While the slime happily gave massages, Claire sat beside it eating the food people had handed her.

She wasn't taking the slime's food. People assumed that Claire, who was always with it, was its owner, so they brought food for her as well.

"Oh, it's time."

Claire sprang to her feet.

"Bouncy, it's about time we did a quest."

'Quest!'

No matter how many people came and gave them food, Claire had no intention of settling for that and remaining idle. What she wanted most was still to defeat monsters that tried to kill people.

'Okay!'

After finishing its current massage, the slime bounced onto Claire's head.

Claire wasn't the only one who wanted to do quests.

'Want to investigate!'

The slime was brimming with enthusiasm for its new hobby.

Giving so many massages to elderly people had taught it something.

Most of the humans it had massaged until now had been physically healthy. Some of the servants and maids at the Rudendion mansion had been older, but they were healthy.

That went without saying for adventurers and Paulen, a Paladin. Amelia and Gracie were healthy too; they simply didn't spend much time being active outdoors.

But the elderly villagers were different. Age had made their bodies far less resilient than when they were young.

To the slime, their bodies were fragile and riddled with weak points. It could feel this while giving targeted massages with its tentacles.

'Weak here!'

In particular, it couldn't use the same vibration intensity on the areas they wanted massaged as it did on healthy people.

"Owww! Th-that's a little strong!"

Some elderly people had found its usual treatment painful, so the slime had lowered the vibration intensity to suit them.

"Oh, that's better. Oooh~ That feels good~."

'Different! Want to know!'

The experience had sparked its curiosity about why these differences existed.

Through three days of massages, the slime had come to understand that living creatures each had vulnerable areas—weak points—and that these became more apparent with age.

Having learned where humans were vulnerable, it wasn't content to stop there. Now that it knew human weak points, it wanted to learn those of other living creatures—other monsters.

And so the slime's new hobby became investigating the weak points of monsters it defeated. First it would bring down a monster, then extend its tentacles and probe and massage various parts of its body to find its vulnerabilities.

'Bouncy's doing something weird again.'

Of course, since the slime couldn't explain itself directly, Claire couldn't understand the purpose of this behavior it had suddenly taken up.

But it didn't take long, and after a few prods it would return its attention to the quest, so she didn't stop it.

Then, the next day...

"Damn it! Emergency! Emergeeency! Another horde of orcs is coming!"

Crisis had come to Chilture once more.