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"An undead-devouring black hole?

" Octer asked,

"What'd you mean?

" He asked, and Foster slowly turned toward him with a smile on his face,

"Isn't it obvious? This 'Holy Aura' thing, it does damage to undead, right?

"

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"...It does, but again, it's pretty much useless at my current level.

" Kyla explained. Foster crossed his arms as he shook his head,

"It's really not. Just cast it on me.

"

nLynol, Octer and Kyla looked back at Foster for a few moments in contemplation, while Foster looked back confused,

"What, what's the issue? Wait, does this holy magic stuff have a similar feedback to necromancy?

"

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"No, no, it doesn't... it's not magic directly, really... It's a whole different thing... But do you really think that's going to work? It means you're going to have a whole lot of undead slimes crawling all over you.

" Kyla pointed out, but Foster really didn't care too much. He simply shrugged.

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"I'm aware. I mean, I'm invincible to it, I already saw it inside. It's really not an issue. They're going to crawl over my body anyway, if I can do some damage to them like that, I'll be fine.

" Foster suggested. Kyla held her hand in front of her mouth as she started to think about this idea.

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"You know what... This... this actually might work...

"

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"But that tactic would still be really dangerous. They must have other ways to deal damage, right?

" Lynol stood up and paced around somewhat nervously, but Foster immediately shook his head,

"Not as far as I noticed. They sometimes tried to scratch me a little bit, but it's like... scratching your own nails over your arm, it's not even painful at all.

"

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"Then I guess it's settled. We already did a good bit of planning beforehand, so should we try our luck right now?

" Octer suggested, picking up his large tower shield with a smile.

n---

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"Stop.

" Foster said as he took a step forward, his skin radiating a light glow that just so slightly illuminated part of the path in front of him. Octer immediately stopped a few steps behind him as well, trying to block as much of the path ahead of them with his tower shield. And then, Foster simply kicked down onto the small group of 'Death Slimes' that came rushing at him.

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"I think this is as far as we should go together... I'll head off and destroy the first of those... erm, monster sources, was it?

" Foster rubbed his foot over the ground to get rid of the sludge that was sticking to his soles. Kyla quickly replied,

"Yeah, that's the word. But again, be careful, we don't know what might happen when you destroy it.

"

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"The worst it can do is throw a whole bunch of necromancy at me, right? That won't do much.

" Foster grinned as he stepped forward, while Aster nervously peaked out of his hair and waved at Octer, in case this was the last time they were going to see each other.

nAs Foster made his way through this part of the tunnel, he was able to hear a whispering song being sung by Kyla, as she gently played on her harp. She was currently casting a 'miracle' that would somewhat help damage and weaken the death slimes as they were trying to approach. Since Lynol's swordplay was incredibly precise despite the size of the sword, he would be able to pierce the center of any of the slimes' bodies, those extra bubbles that Foster had found, and Octer was able to use some martial skills that would help fending off the attacks of the slimes as well. It wasn't the best solution for now, but it was better than nothing.

nAnd since the first monster source wasn't too far away, Foster figured that he would be back pretty soon anyway. The others were currently waiting in a spot with relatively little death slimes anyway, so it should be fine.

nOnce more, another group of slimes approached Foster, just that it was a bit bigger this time. He wasn't fully able to squash all of them under his feet, and some started climbing up his body. But while they were just sticking to him, the outermost layer of the slime simply shriveled up and hardened. It didn't do much, but the slimes quickly fell down, and Foster was able to crush them more easily.

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"Hm... something is weird though...

" He muttered in thought. The slimes were moving around a bit weirdly. They were basically sticking as far as possible to one of the walls,

"It's always the one opposite to where the torches are..?

" Once he figured that out, Foster slowly stopped moving and figured he should just try it out.

nHe picked up one of the torches, that Aster had lit up while they were walking through here just earlier, and when the next group of slimes came, he tried to poke one of them with the lit-up part. Obviously it wasn't that happy about it, as Foster expected, but what he didn't expect was that it simply stopped and steered around the torch immediately, even nearly breaking up its body in the process.

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"You guys really don't like fire, huh?

" Foster muttered, although a grin was just forming on his face,

"Hey there, buddy... let's try something out, shall we?

"

nFoster squatted down and picked up one of the slimes, properly cupping the central bubble in his hand so that the slime wouldn't be able to escape him too easily. He crushed all of the others, before he grabbed Aster out of his hair, holding him on his other palm.

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"Come on, Aster. Use 'spark'.

" He said, and Aster seemed to look at Foster for a few moments before tilting his head to the side.

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"Right, this isn't pokemon...

" Foster sighed,

"Aster, could you use your spark spell on this slime?

" He asked instead, and Aster slowly nodded his head. A small funnel appeared on his mask as Foster opened his palm, and small flames shot out of Aster's mask.

nThe moment that they actually hit the slime's shriveled-up outer layer, that somewhat leathery skin simply lit up like a torch. Of course, Foster immediately threw it down onto the ground, where the slime just turned into a puddle on the ground. The only thing that had somewhat kept its shape was that bubble, although even it was laying there like a pancake.

nWith a grin on his face, Foster shook his hand around to get rid of the rest of the slime that was stuck on his gauntlet,

"Knowing this, even Lynol shouldn't be able to get pissed about this. Although, having another couple molotovs would really come in useful... Or even just having Rob around, he had great aim. He would've been able to shoot up these bubbles with ease.

" He sighed slightly. For the most part, Foster had been so distracted that he had barely any chances to think back onto the people that he had left behind on earth, but in moments like these, his friends just forced their way to the front, and he wasn't able to do anything about it.

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"Do they even have guns here? Or maybe archers, then? Would definitely be good to have one of those around, Octer did say we needed a 'ranger'...

" Foster pointed out, as if speaking to Aster. But of course, the nature spirit didn't really seem to know what the hell he was talking about, and simply nodded his head along with his contractor, as the two entered the room they were heading toward.

nAnd on the ceiling hung that corpse with the cracked crystal orb in its mouth.

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"Time to get rid of this thing, huh?

"

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