The Orc King’s remark sent the chat into an uproar.

▶You’re sending your underlings?

[Noblesse Fire]▶You were from the Dersia continent?

[Squishy Queen]▶What do you intend to do by sending your underlings?!

As curiosity filled the chat, the Orc King snickered and continued typing.

▶Squishy will fight alongside the hoomans, obviously. I’ll specially pick out some strong ones to send.

▶But your underlings will die. You okay with that?

▶? They’re my underlings, and I’ll use them however I want for my own amusement. What’s the problem?

▶Damn, lmaooo.

▶He’s on a whole different level.

▶Honestly, anyone weaker than me should do what I say, lol.

No one criticized the Orc King for sending his underlings—members of his own species who were weaker than him—to the slime. They might all be monsters, but they were different species anyway. There was no reason to pity his underlings, however harshly he treated them.

After all, monsters believed in survival of the fittest! It was only natural for the strong to follow the weak. Unlike the intelligent monsters who used the system, the weaker, less intelligent members of their species were mostly little more than underlings who obeyed them. Some monsters treasured their own kind, but those were strictly a minority.

Besides, being the Orc King made it all the easier to carry out this sort of content. Fewer members of his species? He could just increase their numbers again, couldn’t he? That was all the thought he needed to give it!

Most viewers were instead looking forward to whatever entertaining content the Orc King’s actions might produce.

▶Squishy, stay in that village. Then the underlings I send will attack it.

▷No attacking! People get hurt!

▶Lmao, I don’t care if hoomans get hurt. If you don’t want them hurt, try your hardest to defeat my underlings.

▶True enough, lol.

[Madam Cat's Cradle]▶You can do it, Squishy!

[Slam First Ask Later]▶Let’s see your slamming skills by wiping out every last underling he sends!

[Gothic Luxury Bone]▶Hoho, we’ll finally get to see Squishy in action again.

[Squishy Queen]▶My kin! Show your strength! Defeat the incoming hordes and grow stronger!

Rather than stopping the Orc King, the other viewers cheered the slime on or looked forward to seeing it in action. It might have been different for Jessi, Godric’s Party, Amelia, Paulen, or Gracie, whom they had seen on the stream several times. But as monsters, they had no reason to care about injuries to humans they had never even seen on the stream and felt no particular attachment to. Their concerns lay elsewhere.

▶So what kind of underlings are you sending?

[Squishy Queen]▶If you are sending them to kill my kin, I shall not forgive you!

▶Orcs. I’ll mix in some Orc Warriors, too. If Squishy fights better than expected, I’m thinking of sending Orc Champions as well.

[Noblesse Fire]▶What, you’re a hooman-fucking bastard just like the goblins.

▶Come on, don’t lump me in with goblins...

▶So you admit to being a hooman-fucker? Lmao.

▶Hey, lol, facts are facts.

[Slam First Ask Later]▶There’ll be plenty of them, so we’ll get to see lots of slamming!

'Orcs! Lots coming!'

The slime thought the Orc King would send his orcs even if it told him not to. In that case, all it could do was fight the orcs that intended to attack the village.

▷Orcs! I’ll beat them!

▶Ooh, lol.

▶Squishy’s fired up.

[Squishy Queen]▶A fine ambition, my kin! Show your strength to that fellow whose only talent is multiplying!

[Madam Cat's Cradle]▶You can do it, Squishy~!

▷Yeah!

Taking the slime’s enthusiastic response as acceptance of his content idea, the Orc King said:

▶It’ll take my underlings a few days to arrive, so kill some time doing quests with the hooman you’re with.

+++

'What should I do?'

It was her third day in Chilture. After two days of proper rest, Claire had completely recovered from the fatigue of traveling.

'What do I do?'

Her reluctance to travel a long distance had eased considerably from yesterday. But one of yesterday’s excuses—the possibility of missing them while she was on her way to the Holy City—now seemed like something that really could happen. After giving it more thought...

"... Bouncy."

Claire decided to ask the slime’s opinion.

"Are you going to the Holy City?"

'Can’t go to Holy City! Orcs coming!'

At Claire’s question, the slime twisted its body from side to side.

"You don’t want to go?"

'Yeah! Can’t go now!'

BOING!

"I see."

'The slime probably doesn’t want to miss them either.'

Claire guessed that the slime didn’t want to go to the Holy City for the same reason as her. She hadn’t told it they might miss each other on the road, but she didn’t consider every little detail like that.

"Then what should we do here?"

'Quests!'

BOING!

POP!

The slime bounced once to get Claire’s attention, then extended a tentacle and pointed in one direction.

"Hm?"

Claire looked where it was pointing. She was sitting in the dining room on the inn’s first floor, and the adventurers’ guild lay in the direction the slime indicated.

"You want to go to the guild?"

'Yeah!'

BOING!

"... All right. Hop on."

BOING!

The slime immediately hopped onto Claire’s head. At its request, she headed to the adventurers’ guild.

As soon as they entered the guild, the slime climbed down from Claire’s head to her shoulder, extended a tentacle, and pressed it firmly into her cheek.

"... What is it?"

'Quests!'

It stretched its tentacle out toward the quest board so Claire could see where it was pointing.

"You want to do a quest?"

'Yeah!'

The slime vibrated enthusiastically. Seeing it suggest a quest of its own accord, Claire thought:

'What a strange slime.'

A slime that wanted to take quests to exterminate fellow monsters!

But a moment later, she tilted her head.

'Maybe it’s... not strange?'

Come to think of it, the slime had attacked other monsters to protect her when they first met. Was it really so strange for that slime to want a monster-extermination quest?

'Either way, I can kill monsters.'

Regardless of this exceedingly strange slime, Claire’s desire to kill monsters that harmed people—that tried to hurt them—remained unchanged.

"Let’s take a quest."

'Yeah!'

The slime vibrated eagerly.

Claire went to the quest board, chose a suitable quest to exterminate C-rank monsters near the village, and brought it to the receptionist.

"I’ll do this one."

"Understood. By the way, what are you planning to do about the slime?"

"I don’t know yet. I’ll think about it some more."

"Understood. Good luck, then."

+++

The monster Claire had chosen was the C-rank Ugly Mouth. It was an extremely bizarre-looking creature, with a long, straight body, a round head, and thick teeth. Its head didn’t even have eyes, a nose, or ears—only a mouth—earning it first place in the village’s ranking of bizarre monsters.

It was rated C-rank because it was tough enough to be difficult to bring down, and attacks backed by its powerful bite could easily sever a person’s body.

As soon as they left the village, Claire sharpened her senses and tried to find an Ugly Mouth. The most time-consuming part of monster extermination was finding the monster in question. So much so that some adventurers specialized in finding monster tracks, forming a separate profession known as trackers.

As beastfolk, however, Claire had a keener sense of smell and hearing than humans, making it easier for her to find monsters than other human adventurers. But there was someone even better at finding monsters than Claire: the slime.

'Ugly Mouth! I’ll find it!'

ZZZZING.

The slime used Sensing as soon as they left the village. It took in its surroundings with greater precision and over a wider area than hearing and smell alone could provide.

After Claire had spent fifteen minutes moving around in search of an Ugly Mouth, one entered the slime’s sensing range.

BOING!

POP!

'This way!'

The slime climbed down from Claire’s head and extended a tentacle to point the way.

"...? You want to go this way?"

'Yeah!'

BOING!

The slime bounced off in the direction it had indicated.

Following behind it, Claire wondered whether this was a good idea. After all, when the slime first carried her, it had been heading away from the village. Besides, she had some confidence in her own monster-tracking skills. She couldn’t help doubting that the slime had already found one when she hadn’t.

Those doubts soon vanished, however.

'There’s one.'

As she continued following the slime, ears pricked and senses searching, Claire could feel it too: a monster lay in the direction the slime was heading. She couldn’t be certain it was an Ugly Mouth, but at least she knew the slime wasn’t moving at random.

Continuing after the slime, Claire came face-to-face with the monster she had been looking for: an Ugly Mouth.

'It’s ugly.'

It had looked bizarre even in the illustration on the quest sheet, but in person, its appearance was so unappealing that she couldn’t help grimacing.

Humans weren’t the only ones who felt that way.

▶Ugly as fuck.

▶So uggly!

[Squishy Queen]▶What is that grotesque creature?

[Madam Cat's Cradle]▶It’s not cute at aaall!

[Noblesse Fire]▶How does something like that even exist?

The monsters watching the Ugly Mouth through the stream were just as harsh in their assessments. The instant Claire found it, she tensed her legs, preparing to charge. But before she could...

BOI-OING!

THWACK!

GWEK!

The slime struck the Ugly Mouth with Bounce Tackle. The powerful impact shattered its large teeth, sending them falling to the ground.

[Slam First Ask Later]▶Damn! That tackle was right on target, Squishy! Great timing! Great power, too!

▶Now it takes out any mediocre opponent in one hit.

▶Lmao, those tentacle muscles weren’t built for nothing~.

[Squishy Queen]▶Excellent work, my kin!

[Gothic Luxury Bone]▶There can’t be another slime at Squishy’s current stage with this much skill.

'Heehee. Nice!'

The stream of praise in the chat made the slime happy.

Meanwhile...

'It really is amazing.'

Claire marveled at the slime’s performance. It could deliver those powerful tackles again and again.

'I can’t let it beat me. I’m going to get stronger.'

Another adventurer might have assessed the slime’s performance and decided they could finish the quest with little effort. Claire was different. Instead, she burned with motivation and vowed to become stronger than she was now.

'Next time, I’ll attack first.'

First, Claire gathered the Ugly Mouth’s teeth to submit as proof, then addressed the slime.

"Bouncy, I’m fighting the next one."

'Yeah!'

BOING!

Having fought cooperatively with Godric’s Party before, the slime understood the idea of taking turns in battle.

"Good."

Pleased with its immediate response, Claire continued:

"Let’s find another. Can you find one?"

At her question, the slime used Sensing again.

ZZZZING.

'Found one!'