The Labyrinth Raids of the Ultimate Tank

Chapter 60: Pressure

Translator: “Pink Tea” Editor: ”Ryunakama”

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A certain day’s morning.

I found it hard to breathe, as I felt something pressing on my face.

Something soft. But certainly not breasts. Sad to say, none of the girls in this house have bosom bountiful enough to cover one’s face.

I reached for it with my hand, and my hand sank. When I opened my eyes, something flowed into them.

A liquid.

The thing sitting on my face was a slime.

I panicky began thrashing around. At this rate, I’m going to suffocate.

Perhaps this is its aim all along.

If this could be used for assassination it could be unstoppable……

While I thought that, the human slime seems to have noticed what is going on and moved off my face.

Being able to breathe once again, I glared at the human slime.

「……What are you doing all of a sudden?」

The slime shrank dejectedly.

But after that, began jumping in place.

Before I noticed, it grew in size to about the size of a human head.

As we used water magic on it from time to time it eventually grew this big.

I wonder what will happen if it merges with the main body.

The human slime desperately was pointing at something, trying to shape the liquid that the body consisted of into the shape of a finger.

Which reminds me, I can’t talk with it.

Marius has his power as a guardian, which is probably the reason why he can converse with monsters.

Just what is the human slime trying to say?

It is pointing in the direction of the orchard.

For that, there could be only one explanation.

「You want apples?」

「……」

The human slime silently drew closer to my face.

I’m just kidding.

「You got a message from Marius?」

It nodded.

What might this be about, for Marius to go out of his way to contact me?

Some kind of urgent matter perhaps?

That, or maybe this is related to the matter of bringing the main body of the human slime here.

「So, is Marius coming over here? Or should I come to him?」

The human slime raised one hand, gesturing for me to wait.

Then, taking Manicia’s appearance it folded its arms and closed its eyes.

The pose suggests that it is in thought.

Then, it opened its eyes and began fervently pointing to the orchard.

「So I should go?」

It nodded.

「Got it. Can you ask if this can wait for after breakfast?」

「……」

It repeated its action from a short while ago and once again nodded.

So it’s not urgent. Then don’t wake me up by almost suffocating me to death.

I’ll complain to him when we meet.

And I also have to give him news about the labyrinth.

Perhaps because of the new adjustments that he made after coming back, but the reputation of the labyrinth improved among the adventurers.

Still, many complaints remained.

At the moment I had the twins gather such information for me.

So I can inform Marius.

And I also bought a few extra magic stones at the guild.

Most of the stones he bought at the city of adventurers were C or B rank.

Creating monsters from them will take a lot of energy.

Marius didn’t think of that, so he is still unable to start making new monsters.

In my opinion, to attract new adventurers more efficiently, we should add D rank monsters.

I bought 4 stones in total, and all were brought by adventurers from different towns.

I’m looking forward to what kind of monsters we will get.

After changing my clothes and eating breakfast I head to the labyrinth.

I go alone, as always, but today, human slime also tagged along.

For some reason, it shrank in size and now looked like it always did when I found it riding on my shoulder.

……Slimes really have no constraints here.

When we reached the orchard, the human slime, that was hiding in my pocket, moved on top of my shoulder.

Swaying left and right it appeared to be in a good mood.

「Having fun?」

It nodded.

From time to time, human slime would touch me with its cold body.

「Can you get a bit larger and wrap around my neck?」

Then, it wrapped its body around me just like when it almost choked me to death in the morning.

Nice and cold sensation.

This is great. In this hot season, it can even charge money for this.

I enjoyed this feeling for a while, but eventually, the slime absorbed enough heat.

Yeah, the world is not that convenient.

I discover a few goblins. Upon finding them, I go through an effort of defeating them.

It’s rare to see them near the town, but the militia isn’t hunting them lately.

……When did they multiply so much. Sinanis’s group even got a request for their extermination.

It’s extremely rare for adventurers to hunt monsters of their own volition.

They will keep waiting until the guild puts up a request.

If attacked, they will fight to protect themselves, but there is a huge gap in reward between killing monsters per request and killing them on your own.

From my point of view, getting new requests is not such a bad thing.

Since it will increase the probability of adventurers sticking around.

Ideally, I would like to have a constant flow of different requests. Even so, allowing goblins to cause damage to the town, bringing complaints from the townsfolk is also a problem.

A delicate balance has to be found.

I should contact the guild later.

Thanks to having the human slime with me, it didn’t feel as boring as going alone.

Entering the labyrinth, I was immediately greeted by a trap. I guess Marius was watching from the control room.

Step on it, and the next moment I stood right in front of Marius. A bit dizzy, but nothing serious.

「Hey, Rude. Sorry for calling you so early in the morning.」

Marius welcomed me with a warm smile.

「I was very surprised to find the human slime sticking to my face. A very effective way to wake someone up.」

「Ha ha ha, glad to hear that.」

Marius stood near a pond, the surface of which showed all kinds of information, related to the labyrinth.

「So, why did you call?」

「You wanted the human slime, so I thought I’d hand it over to you.」

「Ah, as I thought. ……Thank you.」

「No problem.」

Yet, this posed a certain problem.

「Marius. I can’t converse with the human slime. ……In the end, the only thing I understood is that you wanted to contact me. Is there a way to improve on that?」

「Now that you remind me, that’s true…… Well, if a human slime evolves, you might be able to talk with it……」

「Evolve……? Such a thing is possible?」

「Yeah, with the energy collected so far. In fact, look at that.」

In the direction he pointed stood a goblin.

However, that goblin was not an ordinary goblin.

Larger than normal, it also seemed smarter.

Looking closely, it was the appearance of a goblin leader, the one that leads other goblins.

Until now there were no such monsters.

「I evolved that goblin leader. Pretty impressive monster for an E rank, right?」

「Yeah. So even such a thing is possible……」

「Yeah. Next, I’m planning to further evolve a goblin leader, and create a goblin capable of ruling over other goblin leaders, then, place it on one of the floors. Gradually increasing the strength of the monsters with floors will make things more convenient for adventurers, right?」

「Looks like you’re beginning to understand the feelings of adventurers.」

「But of course. After all, I’m something of a first-rate adventurer myself! And also, from time to time I’m sneaking out to Avancier, to gather information.」

「……Sneaking? Until a short while ago you were actively looking for fights with adventurers? Won’t they recognize you by silhouette alone?」

「No, I’m using a disguise, so it’s fine.」

「Disguise?」

「Yeah, like this!」

With a clap of his hands, his appearance changed.

A conical hat, and a half-mask. His red eyes peeked at me from the depths of the mask covering his face.

Brushing away his shoulder-length white hair he smiled.

The same get-up in which he came to see me yesterday.

「I’m looking forward to coming to the clan gathering in this appearance, and then clap, removing the disguise, and saying『Actually, I’m a guardian』in front of everyone.」

「Don’t.」

「It’s just a joke. Then, let’s get to evolutions right away.」

Marius grinned.

Evolution, huh.

I wonder what will come out of it.