‘Protect the Lishia leaves!’

‘Kill them all!’

The slimes cried as they surrounded the Greedy Boar.

Their eyes burned with hatred over the ravaged fields.

The Greedy Boar was large, as might be imagined for something that could eat so many crops.

I was pretty sure they were supposed to be C-Rank.

And now that the slimes faced this monster…

‘Yuji! Kill it!’

They called my name.

No matter how hot their rage burned, the slimes could not attack anything.

I had to unleash attack magic through Magic Transfer.

The slimes were very much aware of this.

‘Magic Transfer-Fire Ball!’

I answered their request and unleashed attack magic towards the Greedy Boar.

And then a Fireball shot out and burned the monster.

There was now a roasted boar in front of them.

‘Onto the next one!’

‘We’ll find them all!’

The slimes did not seem any less enthusiastic.

They were thirsty for blood, and so they spread out again to find their next prey.

‘There’s one!’

‘Over here as well!’

As they spread out further, more and more slimes asked for me to attack.

I answered them all and sent Fireball after Fireball.

And then…when about 50 Greedy Boars had been killed.

A slime made a report that was not about an enemy monster.

‘…There’s a strange ball here!’

‘There’s something strange in the forest!’

‘It looks like a magic stone!’

…Apparently, the slimes had found some kind of ball.

As I looked at it through ‘Shared Senses’…I saw that there was indeed a blue, glowing ball there.

It was 30 cm in diameter.

‘…Is it a cursed magic stone?’

‘Cursed magic stone.’

The item that had been brought to the Dryad’s forest. It unleashed cursed energy and was the cause of a monster outbreak.

It had been brought in by the members of a crime organization known as the Blue Moon of Salvation… But this one looked different than that cursed stone.

And the trees around it weren’t dead.

There hadn’t even been a blade of grass around it.

So this was likely something different entirely… But it still felt eerie.

My gut feeling was that it was not good.

I could have the slimes bring it back so I could study it…?

No, I couldn’t make the slimes touch something I wasn’t sure about.

It would probably be best for me to go directly.

Thanks to the amount of magic energy I had, even the real cursed stone did not work on me.

‘Proud Wolf. I need you to take me to the place where this stone is.”

‘Understood!’

I sent the order as I left the town.

After a while, the Proud Wolf came running towards me.

‘There’s another one here!’

‘Isn’t that the same one?’

While I was riding on the Proud Wolf’s back, other slimes told me that they had found stones too.

So there was more than one.

I wasn’t sure if they naturally occurred in nature or if they were manmade…but they probably weren’t natural if the slimes were so suspicious of them.

I thought about it until we arrived.

There were about 10 slimes surrounding the stone.

I couldn’t sense anything like danger from the blue magic stones.

There was a thin layer of snow covering it.

If this was a cursed magic stone, then the snow would have melted.

This meant it was probably safe to touch.

And so I stretched out my hand.

But…something unexpected happened as I was about to touch it.

The surface of the magic stone turned a little darker.

And it was just in the spot I was about to touch.