"Simp!"
It was a word that Matty hated ever since he heard it back in Leaf Village.
Despite his multiple attempts to vehemently deny it over and over again, the naughty baby slime would call him with this word over and over again.
When he left Leaf Village alongside his friends, he even felt thankful, thinking that he would never hear this word ever again.
But now, the word that was meant to tease him, sounded like it was the best thing ever.
The irony made Matty laugh.
He laughed as tears streamed down his bruised cheeks. Their Big Brother had come to save them from the people who bullied them.
"Poor thing," the leader of the dwarves said as she looked at the dwarf boy who was laughing crazily. "He broke."
"Well, that is only expected, Leader," one of the robed-dwarves said. "It seems that he had accepted his situation and had fallen in despair."
The leader nodded before pointing at the baby slime that was looking with an amused expression at the laughing dwarf that was pinned on the ground.
"Kill that slime," the leader nodded. "I hate weak monsters."
"Yes!" one of her subordinates replied and fired a Stone Bullet at the baby slime who was giggling, while looking at the laughing dwarf in front of her.
Just as the Stone Bullet was about to hit its target, the baby slime jumped to the side, dodging the attack completely.
The subordinate frowned and fired another Stone Bullet at the baby slime, which the latter evaded by casually dodging to the side.
Seeing this, the leader of the group became irritated and ordered one of the Lycans to step on the slime to crush it completely.
The Lycan growled as it stomped on the blue slime that had made its master angry. However, his attack missed because the baby slime disappeared on the ground. It then later appeared on top of the Lycan's head, giggling, as if finding the situation quite amusing.
When the baby slime blinked on top of the Lycan's head, the leader of the dwarves' looked at it with a shocked expression on her face. She had never seen a slime use a blink skill before, and her impression of it changed completely.
"Capture that slime," the leader of the dwarves ordered. "It might be a new species that has never been seen before. It might be a specimen worth studying."
Three of her subordinates rushed towards the baby slime with the intention to catch it. Just like their leader, they were very curious about the blue slime upon seeing that it was acting differently from the slimes they were familiar with.
When the three robed-dwarves came within striking range, Eiko unleashed her Moonblast Skill, which sent the three dwarves flying.
If in the past, the leader was just interested in the baby slime, now, she was determined to catch it no matter what. A slime as powerful as the one in front of her was rare within the surrounding territories. She would be a fool to not bring it back to their base to research.
"If you want something done, you have to do it yourself," the leader said as she conjured a magical rope meant for capturing monsters. "You're mine!"
The rope flew towards Eiko as if it was a living creature, which made the baby slime's smile disappear from her face. She could tell that she would have a hard time breaking free from the magical rope if it managed to catch her, so she decided to take this fight seriously.
The first thing Eiko did was to slide down from the Lycan's head, and hid herself behind it. Without seeing her target, the leader was forced to make the rope bind the Lycan, in the hope that it would also bind the slime alongside it.
However, when the rope wrapped itself around the Lycan, the baby slime was nowhere to be found.
"It must have escaped," the leader said with a frown. "Don't mind. We'll just look for it later after we get these brats back to the base. We can't stay here for long or else we might get discovered by passersby."
Her subordinates nodded their heads in agreement, but just before they were about to carry the dwarves away, they heard a teasing voice right above their heads.
"When you say passersby, are you referring to me?"
The leader of the dwarves looked up and saw a red-headed teenager standing on a tree branch and looking down on them with a smile on his face.
"An elf?" the leader stared at the teenager with a serious expression on her face. "No. A Half-Elf. So, you must be that boy who messed up our plan in the Territory of Norria. Perfect timing. Our boss has long wanted to catch you, but the border guards had increased after the incident. Tough luck, boy. You shouldn't have made us your enemy."
After hearing their leader's words, the dwarves all took out their weapons with the intention to beat the Half-Elf until he was Half-Dead.
Their Boss wanted him alive, even placing a bounty on Lux's head for the members of their organization. Since the rewards were grand, everyone was raring to go and capture him for themselves.
"Wrong," Lux replied as his body was covered with a Dark-Green armor that released a gust of wind. "You shouldn't have hurt my friends and made me your enemy."
After registering in Barbatos Academy for the tournament, Lux returned to Wildgarde Stronghold with his grandma Vera. He intended to come back to Elysium and stay for a few weeks to reunite with his friends, who had gone to a town outside the territory of Norria.
He had promised to look for them after leaving Leaf Village. When he arrived in Oakwood Town, he found out that Colette's group had left for a mission from the Adventurer's Guild.
Although Lux had been away from the Kingdom of Gweliven for some time, the King of the Dwarves had notified all the branches of the Adventurer's Guild in his kingdom about his accomplishments.
Because of this, the Guild Masters of the various branches of the Adventurer's Guild had instructed their staff to give the Half-Elf the VIP treatment. Thanks to this, he was able to find the exact mission that his friends were handling and left Oakwood Town to give them a surprise.
Lux didn't expect that instead of a happy reunion, he would find his friends under the mercy of the same organization that had planned to lay waste to the Territory of Norria through the abomination that they had hatched inside the Figaro Gardens.
The red-headed teenager then pointed at the Alpha Monster that was stepping over Matty's body with a glare.
"Take that filthy foot off my friend!" Lux ordered.
Immediately, a rocky fist jutted from the ground and smashed on the Alpha Monster's chest, sending it skidding a few meters away.
A moment later, several pained howls followed, as the Lycans holding Colette, Helen, Andy, and Axel, were attacked by a group of skeletons that materialized out of nowhere.
Since they were holding the dwarf children in their hands, they were unable to fend themselves from the surprise attack, which allowed Diablo, Ishtar, and Pazuzu to retrieve the children safely.
After his friends were safely rescued, several skeletons carried them towards Lux, while his Named Creatures faced the Alpha Monster, as well as the group of dwarves fearlessly.
Through the shared connection they had with Lux, they all knew how angry Lux was because of what happened to his friends.
"Don't let any of them escape," Lux ordered as he crouched down to help Matty drink a Health Potion. "I want them all. Dead or Alive."
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