Chapter 1: Playeater Slime

Mini was a common ailment thanks to the ever present curses of dark magic. Wandering stray monsters possessed the ability to cast this ghastly curse. Beginner magicians could learn this spell after some training and practice. Even dungeon traps could be engraved with a magic circle to ensnare thieves. For some length of time, anybody inflicted by this ailment would become tiny. Only the lucky few whose magic resistance was high or those who were prepared enough to bring along a panacea were able to avoid being inflicted by this ever-presence curse. 

Even so, that luck could only carry an adventurer so far. Magic resistance could reduce the duration and intensity of the curse but it could not nullify it entirely, and panaceas for magical ailments such as Mini were costly and difficult to come by. Adventurers and travelers alike were at risk whenever they were cursed with Mini, but unlike poison and petrification, it was at least one that could wear off. Due to this property of the curse, it wasn’t uncommon to see someone afflicted with Mini waiting for it to subside. Whether or not their sudden loss of physical ability allowed that was another question entirely.

Luck was not one of Alain’s strong points unfortunately. It never was. That day, the powerful drifter and his mount were the unlucky duo to fall victim to the bad status of Mini in the woods on the outskirts of Medari.

“Blasted! To think we’d run into a Playeater Slime. This was not a good start to our day, Gale,” the Dragon Rider groaned as he and the green scaled dragon he rode on evaded a translucent, blue tentacle. The pair looped around a large rock to escape the numerous viscous appendages aimed at them. They narrowly escaped as a thick tentacle descending on them.

“Fu~... Fu~!”

A loud noise that resembled chuckling sounded from above. Alain glared upwards as he and Gale zig zagged through tall grass many times their height. He could see a feminine face and body gazing down at them with amusement.

Playeater Slimes were, as their name indicated, playful eaters. They enjoyed toying with their prey by cursing them with status ailments. Mid-level monsters, they normally weren’t a threat to a highly experienced Dragon Rider like Alain, but being ambushed and cursed had affected their performance.

“Gale, hard left!” he warned his mount as he pulled her reins and directed her to turn as quickly as possible to evade the titanic slime’s hand slamming down in front of them. At their current height of six elven centimeters, her hand hitting the ground felt stronger than a Black Mage’s Last Meteor spell. Even though they had avoided being crushed by the heavy, adhesive pillar of slime, the wind force caused by the impact blew the flying dragon rider and his mount off course. They rolled through the air, launched and battered by the blast.

“Ewooo!” Gale wailed as she tumbled through tall grass stalk after tall grass stalk. 

“Grk! Come on! Come on! Come on!” Alain hung on for dear life. He struggled to pull the reins and correct the two of them. It was only just before they were about to hit the ground that Gale was able to free her wings. “Got it!”

Immediately after uprighting themselves, the duo maintained momentum and attempted to speed away from the threat that loomed over them. They snaked through the tall grass and kept low, evading stones larger than castles and broken branches thicker than fallen trees.

The perilous flight at the Emerald Dragon’s top speed meant nothing to the Playeater Slime, however. The female oozy creature looked down upon them without needing to move the gelatinous base her torso protruded out of. Merely by leaning forward with her hands on the ground, she blocked off their upwards escape route. Her entire body covered ground beneath her in shadow and her breasts, large from mimicking a rather impressive human Dancer, pushed aside the grass.

The Dragon Rider they were not getting anywhere. He could tell that the sky that was the Playeater Slime’s body was not getting further away. Gale’s top speed had been reduced in scale along with her size, and the earlier battering from the wind had injured her shoulder. Escape was impossible from the human-sized slime when they were nothing more than bite-sized morsels to her. He supposed that was to be expected from a creature known as a Playeater Slime. She wanted to fool around with them before eating them.

“Well, at least I can’t complain about such a beautiful sight behind us,” Alain reached behind his back for his sword which was still within its sheathe. If there wasn’t any chance to escape until the curse wore off, they were going to have to deal with the giant monster. “Gale, can I count on you to hold on? This is going to hurt both of us.”

“Ewoowoo!” the Emerald Dragon breathed an equally green fire in reply.

“Then let’s do this,” the Dragon Rider concentrated his energy. Lightning arced from his hands. Magic power flowed through him and into his mount.  With an electrical force, he charged the two of them up. If they were going to attack, they would need every advantage they could muster. “As fast as crimson lightning! Haste!”

To make up for their decreased speed, magic was necessary. As soon as Alain’s spell took effect,  Alain and Gale changed their path. They spun around and shot directly upwards, evading a droplets of slime as large as their two bodies combined as they ascended up towards the female monster.

“Fu?!” the slime girl had blinked and missed the pair’s sudden burst of speed. One moment, they were frantically and helplessly trying to move an insignificant distance from her. The next, they were mere centimeters away from her face.

“Didn’t think we were fast enough, did you?” Alain boasted in front of the slime’s nose. Though he was aware he had weak magic resistance, he was proud of his proficiency with spells. Speed was all Dragons Riders were about and his affinity with Haste proved that but multiplying his and Gale’s agility twenty-fold.

The slime girl attempted to swat them away with her viscid hand, but like any speedy insect, Alain and Gale darted away from the monolithic palm before it could hit them. They rapidly descended and darted past the Playeater Slime’s head. Their target was simple: the red orb of a core that they could clearly see inside her bosom. 

“Alright, Gale. Let’s drill straight through!” the rider declared with his sword drawn. He charged his magic into his weapon until red lightning sparked from its tip. He and his dragon began to spin rapidly. The man thrust his blade forward while the Emerald Dragon began to breathe her flames. Their burning and shocking drill shot upwards towards the slime’s chest.

Victory was assured. They navigated their way between the slime girl’s monolithic mammaries without being pressed between them or stuck to her slime body. Their twin attack was set to pierce through.

“Fuaaa~hn!”

However, their attack never hit. Slimes were fluid creatures. Even with their increased speed, the Playeater Slime could twist and shift her body however she pleased in an instant. It didn’t help that, being she was as many times faster as she was larger. Before they could even touch the slime’s ‘skin’, she had retreated her body back to her main base and then reemerged. Instead of her core, they were now shooting straight towards her open mouth.

“Blasted Sli-!” Alain realized too late as the slime girl’s mouth closed, immediately flooding the two of them in her viscous blue fluid.

The Playeater Slime had an advantage the entire time she was toying with them. Try as they might, this particular Playeater Slime enjoyed using Mini to catch her prey. Though they were far less filling while small, her natural tendencies as a Playeater Slime prioritized the fun of taunting her prey before she ate them. She had been well aware of the speed difference between herself and the Dragon Rider which was why she had used her strongest curse in the ambush to render all of that useless.

Gulp!

And now with his final attack a failure, the slime girl had chosen to finally partake in her meal. She relished snuffing out the hope of her prey at the last possible moment. She could feel him flail helplessly along with his dragon as she forcibly pushed them down her throat. Unable to move in her gelatinous body that now completely surrounded and overwhelmed them, they would soon run out of air.

Satisfied with her success, the slime straightened up and turned so she could head deeper into the woods in search of other prey. The Mini’d Dragon Rider and his mount would not return to normal size if they perished.

Bzzt!

“Fuu...fu?” the slime felt a tingle through her body.

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!

“Fuu fu fu?!” the tingle grew even stronger. It felt painful to the viscous creature.

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!

“F-Fuuuuuuu!” the slime screamed as red lightning surged through her body and, more importantly, her core. Her ability to mimic the human form weakened immediately. Her mostly solid slime body dripped and dripped and dripped down to the ground.

Down below, where the stomach of her humanoid form was, the little Dragon Rider was holding his sword and enveloping it with lightning magic. The electric current easily surged through the slime’s liquid body, charging and shocking every bit of her. Despite being small, his magic power still greatly affected her due to the sensitive of her core from the inside.

Thud!

“Fu…...” the slime girl fell to the ground and splattered onto the forest floor. Her body was unable to lift itself up. This was of great help to the shrunken rider and dragon as her falling roughly had launched them out of her translucent body. Though the sticky traces of slime plastered them to the truck of a tree, they had escaped the belly of the Playeater Slime.

“Checkmate, you blasted slime,” Alain declared while exhausted. He spat out as much slime as he could from his mouth and struggled to catch his breath. His mount did the same.

This had been the Dragon Rider’s plan all around. Though he was aware that the lightning would hurt both him and Gale, it was the best solution that came to his mind in defeating the Playeater Slime. He had hoped Gale would endure it, and indeed she did.

“Ewoo! Ewooo!” the shrunken dragon used her flame to dry off and burn away the slime that covered her. When she was freed, she started to do the same to her master as well.

It pained Alain to know he wasn’t able to finish the slime. He could only immobilize it temporarily with their combined efforts. This was just how weakened they were thanks to the high-tier Mini curse the Playeater Slime had put on them.

“We’re going to have to let the local adventurer’s guild know that these Slimes are getting stronger than they should,” Alain frowned as he climbed onto Gale. With Haste still active, the two of them flew over the body fairly quickly, but it still gave the Playeater Slime enough time to look up and see their insect-sized bodies flee from her. She struggled to form a hand to catch them, but they moved out of the way.

It would still be some time before Mini would wear off, so the dragon and rider combo were still in danger. They were going to have to push themselves to get far enough away from the Playeater Slime before it could reform. They would then have to conceal themselves in safety until the curse faded away.

“Bear with it, girl,” Alain sympathized with his partner whose wings were noticeably exhausted as their flight level fell down beneath the grass. They passed a mushroom that towered over Alain’s 6 elven centimeter body and fought to not breathe the spores as they fled.

For a powerful monster like an Emerald Dragon and her master to nearly be beaten by a mere slime, Mini was a dangerous affliction. And this was simply just an ordinary morning on their travels across the land. After living with his poor luck for so long, the Dragon Rider had grown strong not through battles against great warriors but from ordinary encounters made intense thanks to the bad status effect.

And it would only continue.