1 01. Man dropped from slime




 Durin!
 There was a light, joyful sound effect.

 It sounded like an effect from some game, he thought to himself as his mind rapidly cleared.
 My head was getting clearer, but I didn't want to open my eyes.
 It's like that feeling you get when you fall asleep twice and don't want to get out of bed.

 Pecking, munimni.

 Someone pecked me on the cheek.
 A tiny, soft fingertip, like a child's or a woman's finger.

'You're a human ......? But it's a drop and ...... I know, it's a human-shaped meat, I'll try to process it a bit.
Wait a minute!

 I heard some kind of boisterous line, so I got up in a hurry.
 There was a girl in front of me, all puffed up.

 She was squatting in front of me, a little girl.
 She was about six feet tall, with slender arms and legs, and her weight was probably light enough that I could pick her up with one hand.
 And yet there's a huge hammer-like weapon next to her. The length of this one clearly exceeds my height, with a couple of meters to spare.

 The expression on his face is childish, but there's something mature about it, and the imbalance is fascinating.

'I'm surprised, were you really human?'
For all intents and purposes, it's a human being!
How did a human drop out of slime?
What? Slime? Drop?

 What the hell, I thought.
 The little girl in front of me said the game language as if it were obvious.
 And the subject of the game was me.

 She used the game-like expression that I had dropped from the slime.
 Could that be it? Are you the kind of person who can't tell the difference between video games and real life?

 That's a real thing, and realism is a shitty game in a way, and practically a death game, but it's still real.

'That's right, you were dropped from the slime. Oh, it's not quite the same thing. You were dropped from a rare slime broth.
...... Are you sure you're crazy?
Why do you look at the poor guy like that?
That's because ...... people say things like slime and drops in real life.

...... You really don't know?
...... What does that mean?

 He stared straight at me and asked me if I was afraid of him.
 Huh? What, does that mean I'm the one who's wrong and the poor guy is me?
 Haha, that's ridiculous--

 --No, right?

What's really going on?
'Well ......, oh, I just came to the right place. I'm just looking.

 The girl hefted the two-meter hammer with a flourish.
 I wondered if the hammer was actually too taut and light, but I soon realized that I was wrong.

 This was the first time I had ever looked at the place I was in and confirmed it.
 It was a dimly lit space with bricks all around it, and the walls glowed faintly in some places.

 At a glance, it looks like an underpass somewhere.

 A round object emerged from the corner of the passage.
 It was about the size of a seat cushion and was greenish transparent.

 It moved in the shape of the object, changing its shape in the course of its journey.

...... slime?

 They are round, irregularly shaped, translucent and jelly-like, and move like a living thing by themselves.

 It's just like the slime you often see in video games.
 Why the slime? Is this a haunted house in some leisure land?

 Just as I was thinking about that, the slime suddenly flew.
 Like a super ball, it bounced around the floor, walls, and ceiling, jumping on the girls.

'Look out!'

 She screamed, but the girl didn't move.
 The slime hit the girl from the side, the girl staggered.
 It was quite a shock from the side, the picture and impact of a soccer ball hitting a schoolgirl as hard as it could.

 The girl staggered, but stopped.

'That's a weapon, isn't it! You're not going to fight back!
I'll be fine.

 The slime flew around even more, this time plunging headfirst into the girl.

'--nothing, sir!

 As if waiting for it, the girl swung the hammer down.

 Boom!
 I slammed the hammer down with such force that the ground shook - and just met the slime.

 Lifting the hammer, the slime was crushed and became as sad as a pudding dropped on the ground.
 After being crushed, the slime gradually faded and disappeared.
 And after it disappeared completely.

 The bean sprouts appeared!

'Why sprouts!'
'The slime drop on the first basement floor of Tellurium is sprouts. It's common sense, you know?
No, that's not common sense!

 What do you mean? What the hell is this all about?
 When the slime was defeated in the underpass, the sprouts were dropped.

 I was confused.
 I was so confused that I wanted to write on Twitter or something to say, "I feel like a porpoise, man.

     ☆

Are you settling in?
'Oh, oh, thank you ......, the sprout soup is good.'

 I thanked her for making a fire on the spot and serving the dropped pinch of sprouts as soup.

'Um, ...... what's your name?'
My name is Emily Brown.
My name is Ryota Sato. Nice to meet you for now.
Hello ...... Yoda?
'It's not that kind of toll-free name! Satou, sa-t-u-li-u-ta!

 I slow down my pronunciation and say my name again.

'I'm sorry, it's the first time I've heard the type of name: ......'
...... Hey, aren't you in Japan?
"Japan?
Earth, right?
"Earthquakes?

 .......
 Something's wrong, there's an alarm going off in my head.
 The story is not engaging, fatally not engaging.

 Combined with the drop of sprouts from the slime, it's starting to feel fatally bad.

''Was this ...... sprout that was born ...... drop from that slime?''
That's right.
Is this how sprouts are made?
Can I be squeamish? ...... All of them?
All of them?
Everything in this world will be dropped from the monsters in the dungeon. ......

 You don't know that, do you? Emily is troubled by this.


'All kinds of things?'
Yes, sir.
How far is "every"?
Every is every: ......

 Emily looks even more troubled.
 That's that one, the reaction you get when you're asked too many basic questions about common sense and you don't know where to start explaining it.
 I'm often like this when I'm explaining to a client - a client that I know nothing about.

 I've decided to help them out, because if I don't, I'll just get them in trouble.

"Not just sprouts, but vegetables too?
Yes, sir.
Meat? Cows and pigs and sheep.
Yes, sir.
The metal? And jewelry.
'It seems that the rare monsters on the bottom floor of the Tellurium sometimes drop pearls. It's strange that this is a vegetable dungeon.
............ You don't have any air or water, do you?
Isn't it?

 Emily tilts her head back in the air.

 Then the slime appears again.
 Emily stood up with her hammer and confronted the slime.
 She withstood the same blow as before and then crushed the slime with a bang.

 This time there were no sprouts. Instead, the slime's corpse disappeared with a sizzling sound.
 She came back to me with a look of accomplishment on her face.

'It's like this,'
This is what it looks like: ......
'Once upon a time, it was assumed that there were outliers in the drop, but recent research has shown that even the outliers can be air or water. So ...... eh.

 Emily chose her words, but said it like it was obvious.

''Everything in this world gets dropped in dungeons, right?

     ★

 I stick around behind Emily for a while.
 In the meantime, I sort out my confused head.

 My name is Sato Ryota, and I'm pretty sure I was unemployed from today.
 The reason I say starting today is because I came to work for the first time after being discharged from the hospital after collapsing from overwork and was suddenly told I was fired, but that's not important right now.

 What's important is that this is a place where my common sense doesn't apply at all.
 A place, I mean, the ...... world?

 From the information I pulled out of Emily, it seems that this world has dungeons here and there, and everything is obtained by killing the monsters that inhabit the dungeons and dropping them.

 Then what about farming and fishing and stuff like that? I asked.

That's farming, isn't it?

 I was told with an obvious look on my face.
 So, killing slime and dropping sprouts--producing them is what agriculture in this world is all about.

 Really ...... what does that mean?
 I can't even think about it, it's as if my head is starting to hurt.

 I don't know, so I stop thinking about it for now.
 Suddenly, I realize something.

'Emily seems to be killing only slimes earlier, but not the others?
Tellurium's basement floor is nothing but slime.
'If you're talking about the basement floor, that means there's a second floor. You're not going down there? That hammer could take out another monster.
I'm weak.

 Emily smiled flatly.

'It doesn't look like much.'
He's a lumpy one. If the enemy is even the slightest bit tougher, his attack doesn't work and he's going to get killed.
Oh, so you're saying you have power but not speed.

 Emily nodded.
 'So that's the type, that's sad.

'But the sprouts are delicious and they make me hungry. Sometimes, if it's a good drop day, I can sell the excess and make some money income from it.'
Can't you just be strong?
If I can just get to level 2, I might be able to get to the second basement.
Levels. You have levels too?
Yes. Oh, I just found it. Here it is.

 Emily stopped and turned to the side.
 There was what looked like a billboard on the wall of the underpass.

'What's that?'
It's called the Now Board. Thus: ......

 When I put my hand on it, a large number of words appeared there, which looked like a billboard.

---1/2---
Level: 3/40
HP B
MP F
Power C
Strength E
Intelligence F
Spirit F
Speed F
Dexterous F
Luck E
--------- ...

What's this?
It's my status.
It really is like a game: ......

 I looked at it while tweeting.
 'Sounds like a typical power-type character, Emily.

'This is how you can check your status. Tellurium is pretty important as a dungeon, so they put this kind of thing on me in the dungeon and I can check it at any time. Isn't this amazing? If we did it in the city, it would cost a hundred pyrro each.
It's kind of a free public service.

 I noticed the '1/2' at the top of my status.

'Does this mean the first page? Is there a second page?
Yes, sir.

 Emily took control of the bulletin board - the one we call the Now Board.
 The page switches.

---2/2---
Plants E
Animals F
Minerals F
Magic F
Characteristic F
--------- ...

'This is my drop status.
'Drop status ...... what happens when this is high?'
'The higher it is, the easier it is to drop and the more it is, the more it increases in quantity. I'm in this tellurian all the time because the plants are the highest.
I see.

 Emily said the plants are expensive, but they're not expensive by any means.
 Out of five, one is an E and all the others are an F.
 It just looks like it's better than the others.

'Would you like to try it, Yoda?'
It's Ryota. Do you want me to touch you?
Yes, sir.

 After Emily's hand retracted, I touched the Now board in the same way.
 Then the same status came up.

---1/2---
Level: 1/1
HP F
MP F
Power F
Strength F
Intelligence F
Spirit F
Speed F
Dexterous F
Luck F
--------- ...

 ...... Hey!
 What the hell is this, what the hell is this!

Mr. Yoda, I'm not very competent: ......
'That's a hopelessly low level. And does this mean the level is ...... maximum is 1 and not up?
That's what it comes down to.
Hey, hey, hey. ......

 Isn't that awful?

"I don't know if it's that bad after all, I was so stupid to expect this.
The drop is sad, too.

 Sighing, Emily reached out from beside me and manipulated the Now board.
 Oh, right, and the drop is low, too.
 ...... haha.

 Not a good thing at all, me.
 It doesn't level up, and its ability is low, so there's nothing good about it.

''Let's see... ......ABCDEF......

 Emily, who breaks her fingers and counts, is that low.

'To ......Q, to R, to S......, right here. Very low.'
What?

 My brain put a "wait" on it.
 What's wrong with the story?

 He looked up from his depressed face and looked at the now board.

---2/2---
Plants S
Animals S
Minerals S
Magic S
Characteristic S
--------- ...

 The second page was outrageous in a different way.