Chapter 81 : Slimes Fight Back! (1)
The situation was so dire that Gates didn’t have time to react to the state of the women in his alliance party, besides he wasn’t faring that much better. Still he was happy to see them, between the six of them… maybe they could do something!
Now the main problem would be orders during combat, with a group of people who had never adventured together it would be nearly impossible to effectively command teamwork. Luckily Gates knew a little about each of his party members, through questions along the way he realized that his firepower lied in both Katrin and Agni while he and Sypha would normally act in support roles.
“What the hell is that you’re bringing back with you!?” Ariadna shouted as she jerked her cloak closed around the edges. Suddenly she was feeling even more exposed.
“S-slimes react poorly to light magic! It causes them to aggro and fuse together!” It was all Gates could say as he hurried towards the ladies.
“Get ready for battle! Agni, Katrin -- keep your distance and fire off spells. Sypha, focus on healing and support for everyone! The rest of us will engage, we need to bring this thing down quickly!” Gates shouted as he spun on his heels and called forth a gnarled wooden staff. It reminded Agni of something a wizard from an old ‘Last Fiction’ game would use.
Agni and Katrin were quick to adjust, preparing for the battle. Agni felt at home in her magical armor while Katrin donned nothing but a cloak, witch’s hat and the heel high boots she’d been wearing. Her Grimoire floated by her side the second she made up her mind to fight, it’s pages flipping constantly as a light blue glow surrounded it.
[Gunge Slime Level 45
Affinity : None
Vulnerability : Elemental Magic 200%
Resistance : Physical Weapons. Light Magic 200% Darkness Magic 50%]
One or more slimes which bonded together. It’s attacks are extremely unpredictable and erratic.]
“Level 45? What happened to cause something like this to appear?” Agni shouted as she prepared a fireball hastily and launched it. Her spell hit the mark without needing to influence its trajectory -- but it simply impacted the large mass of gel and dissipated. The surface of the creature’s body quivered, as if it had taken on the qualities of a still lake being disturbed, but that was it. The creature continued moving, but rather than the strange way of wiggling it now began to tack itself onto the ground for more traction, the bottom of its “body” looked like dough being pulled and stuck to the ground in dozens of points as it began to move even more quickly.
The eye less creature seemed to have no trouble sensing the group of adventures as both Agni and Katrin had begun to move. The other four remained somewhat clustered together, Agni assumed this was due to the battle commands Gates issued just moments before but her assumption would be wrong.
*F-fight? In this state!? It’s one thing to bare my body before other women but..* Merri’s thoughts were racing. Truthfully she found her new, muscular body and minotaur features to be off putting. Her body phobias were running at an all time high considering that she was armed with little more than an ill fitting cloak, remnants of her Guardian shield and her will to do battle (which was now shaky at best). Still, when pressed by the enemy before her Merri couldn’t help but act. True to its description the creature rolled towards them, stopping three meters away as it prepared to strike.
The only ones who seemed alarmed were Gates and Sypha, in fact Gates was wildly cutting the air to summon forth spirits he deemed appropriate for the situation. Beneath his robes Gates was fit, with a slender build that bulged slightly of muscles. Agni couldn’t help but notice, her mind was drawn to details and features now like this. A different sensation came over her this time as she struggled to focus.
*T-this might be harder than I thought.* Agni thought inwardly, though for a different reason. She had little experience with men since arriving in the world of Adventia. In fact, today was the first time she’d even been within the proximity of the opposite sex. Thus she was having conflicting emotions. Her body reacted like any person’s might upon seeing someone relatively attractive of the opposite sex. The familiar sensation of heat building between her thighs caused Agni to gently bite at her lips. But…
*But..he’s a guy! Am I bi-sexual? What the fuck!* Her mind was racing in overdrive, despite the situation at hand. She would have so many things to sort out later, but for now she chose to focus on the battle at hand. Thus she pushed the sensation of gentle heat to the edges of her mind as she prepared two more fireballs.
Upon seeing the effects of Agni’s fireball, Katrin grimaced. She expected the creature to be tough considering their level difference but seeing hardly any reaction made her nervous. She couldn’t help but think back to her First Death experience. Even though she could always come back given enough time-- death still hurt! Both physically and mentally, it left a wound that was difficult to describe. With this in mind her resolve to win became a great motivator and a large spike of earth shot upwards from beneath her target, piercing through it entirely.
For a moment it looked as if the creature had been slain, all movement stopped as the large earth spire skewered it. But then, second later it’s body rippled ominously -- both Katrin and Agni , who had their fair share of battle experience, felt something was off. Everyone else was completely oblivious until the attack came.
As the surface of the Gunge Slime came to a stillness several dozen projectiles issued forth, almost like a wall of slime bullets. Unlike the normally soft and squishy body of the slime, these felt like rocks and each was about the size of a strawberry.
Agni took up her place in front of Katrin on instinct, it was her role to prevent Katrin from taking as much damage as possible in their party so her reaction was automatic. She lowered her stance and crossed her arms into an X shape, tensing her abdomen as half a dozen of the slime pellets struck her.
*What the fuck! These things hurt!* Upon being struck Agni realized that the slime pieces were more like crystal shards instead of balls and just as hard.
[-9]
[-15]
[-10]
The hits kept rolling in though she kept her eyes firmly on the foe before her. Behind her Agni knew that Katrin was casting even more spells so she stood her ground for a few seconds longer, even after the assault of slime pellets subsided.
Her party members didn’t fare as well as she and Katrin. Sypha was forced to his knees as the majority of projectiles seemed aimed at Gates, who had somehow managed to gain the creature’s enmity. Using his abilities as a Light Weaver Sypha created a construct of magic which resembled a large, translucent plate. It was roughly 1 meter in height and width and easily 5 centimeters in thickness (3 ft by 3 feet, 5 inches thick).
Unfortunately the shield was not enough and he barely managed to maintain it after the fourth pellet. It required sheer willpower and half of his mana to keep the shield from shattering completely. Several of the pellets broke through, cracking the light construct and striking Gates on the face and waist. Sypha didn’t escape unscathed either as he took several of the slime shards to the chest, one of which was now embedded in his upper right shoulder.
Due to the position of the men, most of the ladies behind them remained uninjured. This wasn’t due to a sense of misplaced chivalry, but rather out of respect for their bodies. Even in this situation Gates wanted to be as respectful as possible, thus he turned his back to them immediately and faced the enemy. He was now regretting that situation. He could feel a cold sweat coming over him as a warm sensation of blood trickled down the side of his face.
*Dammit.* He thought inwardly as he breathed in several deep breaths. Gates was only level fifteen. As party leader he had intimate knowledge that most adventurers wouldn’t. For example, the level of his party members. He could even take a look at their stats and he’d done just that. By far, the strongest of them were the Scribe and Succubus. With their levels in the twenties Gates thought that they would have a fighting chance. Each time the slime absorbed another it grew stronger, not necessarily in the physical sense but its health grew as did its “intelligence”. This was why he and Sypha had problems to begin with, they underestimated the fact that a mass of combined slimes would grow more cunning.
The original plan had been to meet up with the women and bombard the creature with as much magic as possible. Gates was now regretting the fact that they didn’t just escape. He cast a glance towards the ladies at his back in the short reprieve allotted to him during battle, for luckily the salvo of slime shards was short.
Merri seemed panicked, but she had her corroded shield in hand. Realistically she might be good for defense if Gates used some magic to infuse her. Ariadna on the other hand seemed less useful, from what he knew of her Trickster class, she specialized in deception and close range combat for the most part. Gates doubted that using subterfuge against a slime would be all that effective, partially due to the state of her clothing. She was almost completely nude, only a scrap or two of her original outfit remained around her neck.
Agni and Katrin reacted quickly and appropriately, thus reaffirming to Gates that their battle experience was real. If anything, he now held even more respect for them. Katrin’s choice to skewer the flan-like monster wasn’t wrong -- there was just an unforeseen consequence to doing so. Gates could never have predicted that the monster would counter in such a way. One third of his health was gone, though he had little to begin with.
*But what the hell is that Succubus made of? She freaking tanked six of those bullets and isn’t even bleeding!* Gates couldn’t help but smile at the thought, for it was reassuring that his original assessment wasn’t that far off the mark.
“Agni. Katrin. Slight change of plans. We’ll distract it. You will be our main attackers!” Gate said suddenly after a few seconds of careful thought. Besides, a few seconds was all the time they had. The Gunge Slime’s body began to shrink inwardly, compacting in upon itself as it shattered and grinded the large earth spire Katrin used to pierce it.
Good fight, just a couple of things
When it says
'. In fact, today was the first time she'd even been within the proximity of the opposite sex.'
She has defiantly seen men before
When she went to the shop and wasn't assertive.
People having s*x at the golden lotus.
When she was attacked.
Generally about town there must have been a mix of townsfolk.
Maybe this is just the first time she has thought of them in a physical way?
Also the shield wall 1M X 1M x 5Cm is more like 3 ft X 3 ft X 2 inches
Just a couple of nitpicks that you might want to know about.
Thanks. I'll make those changes.
Chapter 76 lists gates stats as: "[Bell Gates Rank 1 Spirit Mage Allegiance: Mystic Tower{Temp}]", in other words level 100+ since rank 0 is 0-99. Yet this chapter says he is just level 15, so he suddenly lost 100+ levels?
Yes, creampied Agni coming up hopefully.
Ugh... I really hope this sudden attraction to guys isn't a prelude to the downright offensive "Attracted to men/women because I'm now in a woman/man's body" trope. That f*cking trope should just die. It's basically like saying sexuality is entirely dependent on biology, which is the same as saying all gay men, lesbian women, and straight trans people are liars or delusional.
At least make her have a realization of some sort, something like "I guess I just never considered it before, but now that I'm constantly horny..."
Yes you are right. It makes sense in a short po*n story where you want to get to the ‘action’ but in a longer form novel/series there needs to be more development as people in real life take years to decide on their personal sexuality, and may never come to a conclusion or act on it.
That is not what that’s saying at all. Cause biology says that gay, lesbian and trans people are perfectly natural and show up in nature all the time. Isn’t this the message of that community? That sexual attraction and gender are NOT choices and instead you’re born with it? It makes sense that a different body would have different biology and be attracted to whatever it’s genes say. I think you’re projecting a false narrative on what’s happening here because Agni is clearly attracted to women AND men.
That being said certain novels HAVE gone that route but it’s not automatically that way.
@TheMangaGod I apologize if I offended in any way. I am... an extremely blunt person, and tend to say exactly what I mean, without realizing that others may infer some subtext that I never intended. By saying "I hope" I mean that literally, that I hope that my fears are unfounded, not that I think they are already happening.
To clarify further, it wasn't intended as a criticism, or a complaint... think of it more like an idle comment combined with grumbling about the general state of how sexual preference and gender bending are handled in fiction, maybe? Like somebody wondering about the future weather, while complaining about the current weather.
Now, regarding the relationship between biology and sexuality, the simple fact of the matter is we don't know. Is it a 1:1 relationship? The existence of homosexuality could imply that it isn't, and that sexual preference comes from something other than pure biology. Or it could be that it implies that it is 100% biology, and there's something other than physical s*x that determines sexual preference. The human body and mind are so monstrously complicated that it could be one or the other, or both, or neither, and we'd have no idea without decades more research. Medical science simply isn't advanced enough to make a determination yet -- hell, going to a doctor was more likely to kill you than help you not even 200 years ago! I used "biology" as a stand-in for the classical misconception that all women are attracted to men, and all men are attracted to women, and anything outside of those parameters is deviant/freakish/morally wrong/evil. It's just easier, and doesn't require me to spend 10-15 minutes just trying to figure out how to word it.
And yes, Agni is clearly attracted to both, however she is also clearly resistant to the idea of being attracted to men for some reason. I would like to see the context of this expanded on in the future, as it would be a nice bit of character development! Far more often than not, such a thing gets handwaved with a stupid/offensive "well I have the opposite genitalia to what I used to have, therefore what I used to have is inherently attractive to me now!" trope in my experience. It's bad enough that I've gotten to the point where my default behavior when I start reading a gender bender story is to jump ahead to try to find out if the bent character ends up in a "straight" relationship, at which point I almost always drop the story like it's on fire because I don't want to put up with that sh*t again, for the billionth time...
Also I prefer reading yuri over all else, but that's neither here nor there. I've read all kinds, quality is my ultimate criteria... it just has different thresholds.
@MaskedCritic I apologize as well. I was projecting as I’ve seen many comments like yours used as reasons for dropping a novel (specifically mine) and the logic always seemed flawed to me. I do agree that we don’t know at this stage where exactly sexuality and gender come from exactly but I am of the opinion that everything is biology. That being said even if the current body IS attracted to both men and women the mind could get confused because such a thing is new since their previous body was not. It’s all in how the story handles that idea. Like my own has my character slowly realizing that she does in fact like how both genders look now. She is more aware of her attraction to women but so far she has started noticing she gets flustered around a certain person frequently. I plan on it being a very slow process for her to come to terms with it and in the meantime she will have more interaction of the female variety. I don’t agree with the idea that all gender bent protagonists will automatically go yuri as they have an entirely new biology and the idea of saying, “oh it’s cause they were a man previously.” seems... counterintuitive to what the LGBT community has always tried to assert. They’re basically asserting that a former straight male in a completely new body will automatically only like females by virtue of their previous experiences. This seems... not okay, like it’s invalidating their entire “not a choice” argument. That being said having them automatically like guys because “muh biology teach said women can only like men” is even worse and it does appear in certain stories. None that I can recall the name of because I dropped them immediately but it does exist. And that has been my Ted Talk. Lol sorry about that here’s a cookie
@TheMangaGod Meanwhile I am of the impression that it's a mental or spiritual (if souls truly do exist) thing. I mean, humans give off pheromones, like any other animal, but humans cannot actually detect human pheromones... homosexuality is rarely seen outside of primates (though there is a species of lizard that is female only (New Mexico Whiptail))... homosexuality does not appear to be inheritable... there's a few things that make me think this way.
I've never thought of it that way, though! Having it not be a choice by forcing it on the protagonist, thereby confirming that it's not a choice in reality... interesting take on it!
At the same time, due to my belief that sexuality is mostly a mental (or spiritual) thing, forcing such a change on a character always feels... squicky to me. Like a violation of the character's mind (or soul). And when it's something the character is vehemently against, it always just makes me sad. Like, if it's forced on them but they're completely okay with it, that's different -- hell, I'd love to see one where it's forced on them and they're ecstatic about it because they always wanted to be able to return somebody's love or something.
This has been an entertaining discussion!
Cookies are always nice!
@Keith_randomnumber She's already had years to mature. She had a whole lifetime in fact.
As for character development, it seems I can't please anyone. lol
Some people think she should be a bad ass succubus from the start. Others believe she should slowly come into her sexuality.
I think, for the most part people decide based on their own personal preference.
Judging something as "tired" just because you personally may not enjoy it is just that -- preference.
What you like won't necessarily be relevant to others.
@DreamOfRen by the way I love how you answer comments. No BS, if they don't like your story oh well. It's a great way of dealing with the internet.
@TheMangaGod No use worrying about things you can't control i.m.o. I think there's a trend where people who sell entertainment develop for the masses. I already know my work is niche, because I'm not necessarily trying to appeal to the most people possible.
I think good fiction engages you and makes you feel some things. In that respect, at least people are discussing so I can't be too bent out of shape.
Just between you and I-- Agni is bi-sexual though.
@DreamOfRen I agree with that sentiment, mostly because I only started writing originally because I wanted to do so for myself and people just happened to like it. If everyone left and stopped reading I would still continue to write cause I wanna see how it ends. I always laugh to myself when someone leaves a comment how "this chapter was the final straw" and they're no longer gonna read my novel. I'm always like okay bye I guess? Have fun?
And btdubs I absolutely love Agni's character so keep it up!
Oh and just between you and I-- my character Rose is also bi-sexual. Lol