“A boss.” Nora repeated. “I know you guys are new, but come on…”

“No, I know what a boss is.” Theo hastily clarified. “But they’re dangerous. After seeing that hydra up close, I don’t want to go anywhere near it.”

Nora’s red eye gleamed.

“Oh? Were you the one who poked that bear?”

“Of course not.”

“Darn.”

Nora’s jovial tone slipped for a moment, but she quickly recovered.

“If you find the idiot that did, let me know, ok? I don’t want Rainy to start rampaging again.”

“…Rainy?”

“Technically she’s called the Torrent Guardian, but that name’s a little…you know? It doesn’t resonate.”

Theo wasn’t sure why a boss’s name needed to resonate, but he nodded anyway.

“Anyways, Theo, the two of us are planning to fight Rainy in the near future and we’re recruiting a bunch of teams to come help us. If you want in, now’s your chance.”

Theo watched Nora carefully as he listened to her request. On the surface, she seemed quite genuine. He could have asked how his group would profit, but that would probably cause Nora to rescind her offer. Only a complete newcomer would ask that. Dungeon bosses were fundamentally different from normal monsters. They grew larger and had unique abilities, but that wasn’t all.

Dungeons were alive, they were living ecosystems with their own will and a set of rules. Naraka’s will controlled how tunnels formed in the first layer. It maintained the pathways and bridges in the second. Even this jungle’s incomprehensible structure was likely guided by the dungeon.

In the same way, dungeon bosses received more attention than normal beasts. When they were defeated, the dungeon would mark that victory on the winner’s soul. Anyone who received it would be able to teleport freely between that layer and Naraka’s entrance. Rewards were also given out through the dungeon’s will. The raiders that contributed the most would receive the best rewards.

Back in Jigou, Theo and his brothers had treated boss monsters like standardized tests. They were a perfectly unbiased means of competition. Of course, none of those monsters were anything like ‘Rainy’.

In short, Theo’s group would be guaranteed to gain the third layer’s teleport privilege. They might also get some very valuable gear, if they contributed enough.

“Why do you want to fight this boss specifically, and why do you want our help?”

“Good questions.”

Nora raised two fingers.

“First, why Rainy? We haven’t found a sure-kill strategy, or anything like that. It’s because of the equipment that she drops. Rainy has been alive for a lot longer than the other bosses in this layer, which should be reflected in her rewards. More importantly, those rewards will be very helpful in the fourth layer.”

Theo, Mavis and Vivian all perked up when she mentioned the fourth layer.

“How, exactly?” Theo asked.

“Duh, because the fourth layer is hot. Like, really hot. Rainy is one of the only monsters in this layer that can drop water-related enchantments. If we had something that could shoot water like Rainy’s heads, then we wouldn’t have had to cut our last expedition short.”

Theo could see that Vivian wanted to ask more but being too interested in the fourth layer would be suspicious. They had only just entered the third layer, after all.

“Ok, so why us? You must have close relationships with other teams?”

“You don’t get it.” Nora shook her head. Her exasperation was clear to the point of hyperbole. “Those people already know how great I am. Newcomers like you get the chance to understand that, and we don’t have to fight a seven-headed hydra on our own. Everyone wins.”

“…” Theo paused for a moment, but Nora just stared at him. “Is that answer bullshit or are you testing us?”

Nora’s red eye gleamed again as she grinned.

“Hypothetically, if this was a test, what would be the correct answer?”

Theo put a hand to his chin and began to think aloud.

“You’re fighting this boss to get equipment, which means that your team will need to contribute significantly more than anyone else. But you can’t fight it alone either. Hydras are difficult for small groups, since their heads can move independently. In an ideal world, you’d recruit people who were competent enough to hold the hydra’s attention but not so competent that they’d cut into your rewards.”

“Correct~!”

Nora clapped, and after a nudge, Linderman clapped half-heartedly as well.

“This is a rare chance for newcomers like you.” She continued. “I don’t need to mention the teleport privilege, but treasure from bosses is always good.”

“I’m guessing you got that arm from a boss?”

“Correct again. Though, that was just a stroke of luck. Hundreds of teams have killed bosses in the third layer, but we were the only ones to hit the jackpot.”

Nora took a storage crystal out of her pocket and retrieved two items. The first was a compass and the second was a piece of parchment. She crumpled the paper around the compass and tossed them to Theo.

“We still need to gather more teams and prepare, so this hunt will take place in two weeks. That compass will show you where we’ll meet. The paper has the rest of the details.”

“Uh, we didn’t agree to anything.”

Theo glanced at the jungle slime’s corpse.

“How about you give us that slime? If you do, then we’ll definitely come to the meeting.”

“Fine.” Nora replied indifferently.

Theo, Mavis and Vivian leaned forward and then they visibly deflated as Nora sucked the slime into her storage crystal.

“If I give it to you at the meeting, then you’ll be sure to come.”

“No.” Theo folded his arms. “We won’t go unless you give it to us upfront.”

“You’ll give up such a great opportunity because of a slime’s corpse?”

Nora raised an eyebrow, but Theo kept his poker face.

“There could be something that you’re not telling us. It’s hard to think that we’ll get a fair deal with the boss if you’re this stingy.”

“Stingy…? We were the ones who killed it.” She sighed. “Fine. A benevolent and popular person like me can spare one monster corpse. But if you don’t go, I’ll be angry. Ok?”

For once, both of Nora’s eyes looked intimidating as she glared at Theo. He found himself nodding reflexively.

Nora tossed the slime out of her storage. After waving goodbye, she and Linderman climbed back into the canopy with practiced ease.

“We…We’re going to fight that hydra…” Vivian breathed. She looked a little anemic.

“Technically, I only said that we’d come to their meeting.”

“But it will be hard to leave once we’re there.”

“Well…”

Theo trailed off as he remembered Nora’s glare.

“…Yea, probably.”

Turning his attention to the compass, Theo realized that it was more impressive than he’d thought. By channeling mana into it, he could sense the approximate distance between himself and the meeting point. It also told him the time of day, which was invaluable in areas like the third layer.

Theo swallowed nervously. Nora would definitely be mad if he didn’t come.

“What terrible luck.” Vivian lamented. “Somehow, I don’t think they would have let us say no.”

“Need…gear. I think…good luck.” Mavis replied.

“Gear doesn’t matter if you die.”

Stowing the compass, Theo turned to Vivian.

“I’m fine with taking risks in the third layer if it means we’ll be prepared for the fourth. Plus, there’s a small chance of getting a platinum-tier treasure. With one, we wouldn’t need to go into the fourth layer at all.”

“Also, I doubt that we met them by chance. Nora is probably looking for the team that attacked ‘Rainy’. She doesn’t want anyone killing that hydra before her.”

With their discussion over, the trio’s eyes turned towards the deceased slime. Examining it out in the open was dangerous, and so they took it back to their hollow. Mavis’s hair waved nervously as Vivian dumped it on the ground.

Even though the slime was dead, its body hadn’t decayed yet. Mavis could still merge with it. This was something that raiders had to worry about when fighting multiple slimes at once.

Mavis compressed into its blob form and approached the jungle slime. Theo and Vivian watched carefully as it extended a tentacle holding its core. When it was mere centimeters from the corpse, Mavis stopped. Somehow, it had a bad feeling about this.

As Mavis tried to pull away, memories of its life in the first layer flooded into its core. It had spent a tremendous amount of time in those caves. Years, by human metrics. Mavis had lived in a haze, crawling around as an ignorant animal. For much of that time, Mavis had let its body move automatically. Even when it did take the reins, the slime’s life had been filled with disappointment and confusion. Despite being born in the first layer, Mavis couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t meant to be there.

It couldn’t leave this mystery unanswered.

Mavis plunged the tentacle with its core into the slime’s corpse. The two masses of slime shook as they connected. Then, in a scene that seemed to refute the laws of physics, the jungle slime’s body was sucked into Mavis’s core. After a few seconds, the monster’s corpse had disappeared.

Theo and Vivian rushed to Mavis’s side, but it didn’t respond. The slime’s core floated silently as its body naturally moved to center itself. Minutes passed slowly as the two humans tried everything to rouse the slime. Ultimately, these efforts were futile.

Mavis wasn’t there.

- - -

Clapping.

The first thing Mavis heard was the sound of countless hands clapping.

The world it found itself in was frustratingly vague. Its sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste were all muted and distorted like light passing through stained glass. Some force was holding it back, preventing it from experiencing the scene properly.

Even so, Mavis could glean a basic outline of its situation. It was sitting in a chair in the center of a bright room. There were so many people clapping that they blocked Mavis’s view of the walls and floor. It quickly gave up looking for minor details and followed the audience’s gaze. They were, in fact, not clapping for Mavis. Every person in the room was watching someone approach it. When it looked down at its hands, Mavis found that it was clapping as well.

“…” Words left its lips, but the distortion rendered them inaudible.

The man wading through the crowd didn’t reply.

When he reached Mavis, his figure blurred even further. In the next instant, Mavis felt a terrifying pain in its chest.

Yes, terrifying.

As a slime, Mavis had never received a single injury in its life. Tearing or severing a slime’s body parts would cause discomfort, but this was completely different. The flesh that normally deformed under pressure was shredded as a blade pushed its way through.

For the first time ever, Mavis released a shrill scream.

Back in the present, Theo and Vivian shot up from their sitting positions and ran over to the slime. Mavis’s core shook violently as it howled. The two humans watched helplessly, their faces straining with pained expressions. After half a minute of screaming and writhing on the floor, Mavis calmed down. It slowly and hesitantly returned to its human form.

“W-What happened?” Theo asked.

“I…” The slime trailed off.

Something was very strange.

Mavis checked its senses, but they were working normally. If anything, they were stronger than ever. It only took the slime a moment to realize what was truly different. Back in that dream, it had been looking with its eyes. It had heard with its ears, touched with its skin, smelt with its nose and tasted with its tongue. A slime could replicate these senses with magic, but they weren’t the same.

At the time, Mavis hadn’t thought much about it. Now, the answer was staring it in the face.

“I…I was…human.”