The village of Tseuk consisted of about a dozen houses facing a square in the centre with the fields surrounding them. It was practically a storybook village come to life. Or maybe they intended it to be that way. Now that I knew the truth, I couldn't help thinking that everything we saw here was more or less a facade. It made me want to see how the real Shyi'eld was like. Hopefully my parents would take us some place nice after this quest.

There were no fences around the village, so we strolled right in and asked to see the person in charge. A couple of villagers pointed us to the house in the middle, which was somewhat larger than the others, so we headed in that direction. Just before we reached the door, a man stepped out and waved at us. "You must be the Tans!" he exclaimed with a smile. "I just heard from the guildmaster that you were coming to defeat the Giant Flame Slug for us!"

We exchanged surprised glances, but nodded. If they had teleports, surely it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for them to have telephones too, right? Ok, maybe not exactly a telephone, but some other form of long-distance communication. Maybe something magicky like a crystal ball or magic mirror instead? Hopefully I could ask him about it later.

"We've received news that the Flame Slug is on its way to another nearby field!" said the village headman. "I'll have one of my villagers show you the way." He glanced around, then called out to a young man loitering around. "Guido, take them to the field!"

"Why me?" grumbled the man under his breath, but he beckoned to us and headed out of the village at a jog. We followed him at a similar pace. Fortunately I had done plenty of adventuring, so my physical condition wasn't too bad. Masa was fit as well, and my parents had done nothing but farm since we came to Malaysia, so they were fine too. In fact, our guide was the one who ironically ran out of stamina first. His pace showed after around five minutes and he was lagging behind us after ten.

"Just…go right ahead…huff…I’ll catch up…later… The Slug should…come into view…soon," he said, bending over and panting hard.

We weren't even running very fast! Just how out of shape was he?! Pretty strange for someone who lived in a farming village, if you asked me.

Anyway, we followed his instructions and sure enough, there was smoke rising from a field a couple of hundred metres away. Oh dear, had we arrived too late? The trail of smoke and burnt grass had apparently started from the road and went straight into one of the neighbouring fields. I assumed the slug was at the end of the trail, which was at least one metre wide. Strangely, the fire had not spread. It seemed to blaze up and then immediately die once the slug passed by. Still the presence of the five-metre-long slug itself caused no small amount of damage, so we did have to get rid of it.

"Is there a way to somehow put out its fire?" I asked. "Like throwing water at it or something?"

"I can try," said Masa, raising his hand towards it. "But I doubt it will work. The slug's heat comes from within its body. It only burns up whatever it consumes. According to the encyclopaedia, they are pests with no natural enemies once they get to a certain size, so it's fine to exterminate them."

"Right then, let's get to work," said my dad, his eyes turning serious. He held out his hand towards Mum, who passed him a nondescript western sword she must have taken out from her Void. This was the sword he normally used, and it was a plain straight, double-edged sword without any fancy decorations or markings on it. It resembled Eins superficially, but unlike our "unique" swords, it just did what it was meant to do.

Deux complained non-stop when it first saw that sword, but my dad simply paid it no heed whatsoever. He must have had many years of experience ignoring that whiny thing. In the end, it sulked and went silent, for which I was grateful. Unfortunately, the reprieve didn't last and the sabre continued correcting my swordplay whenever it had a chance. It was so annoying, but my Swordsmanship skill did improve, so I couldn't complain too much.

All four of us armed ourselves, with Masa drawing Roku, me wielding Eins and my mum holding several throwing knives at the ready. Dad nodded, then we went forward to confront the huge black slug with red flame-like patterns on its flanks. Or attempted to confront it, at any rate. It was blatantly ignoring us and simply munching its way through the tall grass. We couldn't possibly trample onto the grass and destroy more of the crops, so in the end, Masa had to toss some fist-sized water balls at it to annoy it and force it to turn around and face us.

We leapt out of the way as a blast of searing flame came in our direction. So it really could breathe fire after all! Masa had given us a short briefing about the slug's defenses, but I hadn't completely believed it. Shouldn't fire-breathing be the domain of dragons and such? I might even allow it for salamanders because of the name, but a slug? Didn't they require a moist skin to breathe? Wouldn't heat evaporate that moisture?

But well, this was no time to speculate about magical (or game-made) creatures, so I focused and did my job of aiming for its midsection. My mum was providing cover fire for Masa and Dad, who were attracting the slug's attention while I was supposed to cut its body into two from the side. Easy-peasy, right?

Except that it didn't disappear into dust once I dealt the final blow. The two halves stopped moving for a few seconds before reforming into two smaller slugs! Oh great! What were we supposed to do now?