The night sky was beautiful, with the moons shining all over the world and the air was cold, yet it felt great running through one's body.
Within this moment, Nine and Marie are walking beside each other in a silent street, not looking at each other.
At this moment, the only thing Nine was making was this: "...."
"So—"
"Shut up!" Marie cut off. Not letting Nine start anything. Because of what happened earlier, Marie couldn't help but feel embarrassed.
"Yeah, I'll be embarrassed too if I were to cry into a man's arms who's half my age....." Nine muttered, raising his pace of speed.
"You asshole!" Marie yelled out, chasing after him, waving the lunchbox in her hand at Nine.
Dodging the swing of hers, Nine followed up with: "So... Did it feel great?"
"What!?"
"I mean, crying your eyes out. Felt great right? Having someone acknowledge your hard work, you have been ignoring all this time. And finally letting out that emotion you have been keeping all this time in you."
Marie thought hard for a bit, hearing his words, thinking about it, she answered: "Yes! It felt great..... So stop attacking those guys, will you!"
"What are you talking about?" Nine played dumb on her words, while fully understanding her.
"I mean it's kinda obvious. But each time those old customers of mine try to mess with me, you'll attack them the very same night. Each time you do this, none of them will come back harassing me and my business ever again."
Hearing her, Nine acted oblivious to what she was saying, acting like he didn't know what she was talking about.
Marie seeing him act like this, smiled at Nine and said: "So, thanks!"
"I have no idea what you are talking about." Nine said, stopping his dodging, resulting in him being hit by the lunchbox.
Helping him stand up, Marie looked at Nine and check the window before her.
[ Personal trait: God's Eye
Name: Nine.
Age: 18. Existence: 13.
World: Earth. Year: 2486.
Power system: Bloodline ***inaccessible***
Former occupation: Assassin.
Title: True Otherworlder. Rejected by the world. The 11th. ]
'Nine, the world you were in before was also supernatural. And in that world, you were an assassin.' Marie thought, looking at the details.
For a while now, Marie wanted to understand Nine more and what he was hiding, so she decided to check his with her personal trait.
Through her personal trait, it told her this, but seeing Nine not wanting to talked about it, she decided to not to asked him anything about it.
"I'm too tired for this. So I'm going home now." Nine said, leading the walk on them, Marie quietly followed him.
Looking closer at the details before her, she wondered:
'Why is the power system in his inaccessible? Shouldn't he be able to use his world power system like those Murim warriors?'
Although this was in her mind, she knew asking about it, which he didn't want to talk about, would be wrong.
In the end, she decided to keep this to herself till someone could answer her.
*****
Three weeks into the fall season.
Within one of the many taverns of the town, a conversation was set. "Hey!" A man called out to his drinking buddy.
"What?" His buddy, replied.
"So you know how slimes are common now, since it's the fall season perfect for them to exist?"
"Yes. What about it? Thanks to those creatures, even we can earn money now without much struggle." His buddy, replied.
Slimes are blob-like creatures known for being rare due to their needing the perfect temperature to exist.
For these creatures to exist they need to be in a place where it's cold enough that they can form a blob-like structure, while at the same time hot enough that they won't freeze.
Typically, one can find them inside the dungeons, a natural home for them, as these places provide enough mana for them to exist.
Other places to find them are in the mountains, near the sea, in the forest, and anywhere where both temperatures are perfect.
One of the many reasons for their popularity among people is that they have great physical resistance due to their nature.
To kill one of these creatures, one needs Magic that can one-shot, melt, or freeze them entirely in one go.
In this world, these creatures are a gold mine, since all the guilds and governments are willing to pay a great amount of money to make sure they don't overpopulate.
And the other reason for their popularity is that these creatures only exist in the fall and spring seasons, though they can be found in the other two seasons too, but it rarely happens.
"I see, it seems like you haven't heard the rumor spreading out in the town."
"What rumor?"
"There's a rumor going around that a person can one-shot to take these slimes in one go—"
"So? Many mages can do that, what makes this person special?" The drinking buddy asked, cutting the man's words.
"That's the thing. This person was not a mage; instead, the people who saw this person in action said the same thing: He splashed the slime with salt, and they melted in seconds."
"Salt? I know they are in the same category of slugs, but salt isn't enough to kill them, though? I even tried that when I was a kid."
"I know, but if we can just find out how this person did that, we could earn more money than we are earning right now. God, I wish I knew, what the secret of his."
Watching his friend go silent thinking about it, the drinking buddy said: "You're still paying for this one."
"Fuck! Here, I thought you would forget about that!" In the end, the man's plan failed.
The reason for him starting this story was to make his buddy forget he was the one responsible for paying today's bills.
'Still, using salt to kill slimes? I kinda want his secret too then.' the buddy thought, taking a big bite out of a drumstick.
*****
Location: library. Time: 9:49 a.m
"Nine! What are you doing here again!!!" Marie, yelled to Nine is his favorite seat in the library.
"Why are you here again! Stopped bothering me, I thought we were already done with your story!" Nine, revolted, not willing to lose the screaming competition.
As the two were having a yelling contest on the second floor, the brown haired librarian lady on the first floor looked in the direction where they were, with a dumbfounded expression.
"Those two are at it again." She muttered.
After that night when Nine confronted Marie's point of view in herself, the two relationships had changed into this.
Unlike back then, where the two relationships were like a romantic one without being one, the two current relationships are now a mother and child.
Where the mother is scolding his son for not doing his homework or did something horrible for her to scream like this.
"Sigh, I really miss my chance to make a relationship with him....." Sandra has been watching Nine all this time, since he had been going to this place.
Back then, when Nine first appeared in here, she thought for sure he was the same as those noisy adventurers who were simply here to meet up with a woman they wanted to be with.
And not even read the book they pick up and even ruin them only.
But when Nine continued to come here without a stopped, and actually doing work to improve his situation. Sandra couldn't help but cheer him on in her mind.
When the takers of his quest came, her opinion on her shifted and she wanted him gone completely. But even after all those takers tried to scam him, Nine still continued studying here.
At some point, when Nine kept coming back here after all those horrible takers of his quest, her opinion started to go back to before, and she started cheering for him again.
The day when Rhea was the one who took the quest of Nine, Sandra found out that he even went out of his way to buy her a weapon for her to start her real adventurer life.
That night, when she was in her bed, she realized that all those times when Nine was coming to the library, not once did she ever greet him back to his greetings.
So she decided at that very moment that she would start a conversation with him and even help him with his studies.... But that very morning, Marie was already there, helping him with his studies.
As a result, she wasn't able to start a conversation with him till a few days ago.
"..... Oh well, I may not have been there to help him with his study, but thanks to that, I'm now having these great snacks!" She said, feeding herself with a slice of flan.
After Marie started making sweets from Nine instructions, she would bring one of them to the library and give it to her. With this, each time Marie came here she would receive something from her.
"Tasty!" She exclaimed, tasting the flan cake. "Haha, I bet Nine doesn't know, I know he's not from this world, and he's from earth."
Sandra, who's been watching on the side all this time, learns that Nine was originally from another world, but this information wasn't gonna do anything to her, so she decided not to talk about it.
***
"She finally left." Nine muttered, as he went down the stairs in the library. Looking around on the first floor, he spotted Sandra having fun eating the flan cake at her table.
Seeing this, he decided to leave quietly so as not to disturb her. Getting closer to the door, Sandra called out to him, making him answer: "Yes?"
"Nine, you're that rumor slime salt killer, right?" She said, pointing her fork at him.
"What? I don't know what you are about..." Nine replied, avoiding the truth.
"Hmmm. Why are you doing this? Don't you know, I know most of your secrets since I can hear all the things you say in this library. So, be honest, how did you kill those slimes with salt?"
Seeing the confidence in her words, Nine moved closer to her table and whispered: "Mana and healing potions."
"What?" She whispered back.
"So, you know how we obtained salt by filtering salt water." Sandra nodded, knowing the process.
"Well, I've been mixing salt, mana, healing potion, and rune of shock together, giving me those salt killing slime of mine."
"How does that work?" Sandra asked, not understanding how this logic works.
"Slimes are in the same category as slugs, and salt is lethal to them. Since I can use the Rune spell, I would make a shock rune on paper and melt it down with the salt water I have. The damage that salt will have is the amount of HP recovery a healing potion can give, so the more healing potions I put into that pot of mine, the more damage it can give, and using the mana potions to give energy within the melted rune I put into that salt water."
"Now, since I'm the one who made the rune within that salt mix with potion, I can then activate the rune at will. So each time I splashed those slimes in the plains, I would send out the command on the runes, activating them."
"The salt weakens their resistance, healing potions are the total amount of damage the rune makes, while mana potions act as the battery for it."
Hearing his explanation, Sandra answered: "... That's possible, with your explanation. But this is only something you and those who know the Rune spell can make use of then."
She looked at Nine. Questioning whether he knows this or not, but the expression on his face told her what she wanted to know.
Nine fully knows this is something he can fully utilize on his own, and even if other people can use the Rune spell, the chance of them finding this will be slim.
Unless, someone gave them pointers on how to do it. In this case, the only people who know about this are: Nine, Marie, and Sandra herself.
Saying goodbye to Sandra, Nine left the building, with a promise of giving her a flan and two when he comes again. Recalling his explanation, Sandra said:
"The moment the salt touches the slime, Nine would activate the rune in them, sending a shock within the slime's entire body, killing it..."
"From the rumors, he only needed a pinch of it to kill even those 5-meter-tall slimes." Once again, she couldn't help but admire his creativity.
"Using that, he doesn't need to hit the core of the slime, ensuring a higher price for them."
*****
End of chapter 15.
Original chapters 19 and 20.