It’s been two days since the End of Fishing Season Festival.

I finished my shopping needs yesterday, so my goal for today is to catch the mud slimes. Sereriputa said that I could find them if I used mud magic, but to be honest, I’ve never used it.

But I have seen it before, and I know that it’s just a fusion of water magic and earth magic, I’ve used fusion spells before too, so I should be able to make it work if I give it a try.

“Onii-chan! Over here!” Nikki

Early in the morning, Nikki and I entered the forest and went to a place where the ground was especially muddy.

“Alright. Let’s get to it then.” Ryouma

Mud magic… Mud is basically a combination of water and earth.

Water magic uses water-type mana, while earth magic uses earth-type mana.

I mix the two types of mana and let it soak into the mud.

For the spell I’m using, I imagine waves forming on the mud just like with the water spell ‘Wave’.

If I were to give a name to this spell, it would be…

“‘Mud Wave’!” Ryouma

The moment I casted the spell, a small ripple formed on the surface of the mud that then turned into a wave of mud.

THe mud wave pushed into the surrounding trees and engulfed them. It was then that they appeared.

“Uwaah!?” Onii-chan, they’re here!” Nikki

“Yeah… I didn’t expect there to be so many.” Ryouma

Just as I thought that the choppy mud was moving strange, one mud dumpling after another started appearing. With just a cursory glance, I’d say there’s about 30 of them. They looked like they were about to fall apart due to too much water, but they still hurriedly wriggled away from us.

“Let’s catch them. Do it just like we planned.” Ryouma

“Alright!” Nikki

On land, the mud slimes were as slow as the other slimes— On second thought, they’re even slower than them.

Niki-kun scooped them up one after and threw them into the jars I took out from my Item Box.

There were a lot more of them than expected, so some were able to assimilate the mud again, but we still managed to catch 27. Using Monster Identify—

‘Mud Slime’

Skills:

Scatter Lv3

Clump Lv3

Moisturize Lv5

Digest Lv1

Absorb Lv2

Split Lv2

Assimilate (Mud) Lv5

“Wow…” Ryouma

“Onii-chan, did you learn anything?” Nikki

“Yeah, its skill set is similar to the Ash Slime’s.” Ryouma

Scatter and Clump haven’t changed, but it has Moisturize in place of Dry. Of special note is the Assimilate (Mud). It’s my first time seeing a skill with parentheses. These are probably meant to indicate that it can only assimilate mud.

Anyhow, with this I’ve managed to acquire another slime. And since I was able to catch nearly 30 in just one go, we might be able to catch enough to form a big or huge mud slime.

I want to gather some more. I told Niki-kun that, and—

“In that case, let’s keep looking!” Nikki

—He happily agreed.

And so we ran around the forest for a few hours…

It was easy finding the mud slimes with mud magic. They pretty much bit at every cast, although we weren’t exactly fishing. We took a break from time to time, but while I was only intending to change locations and catch as many as we could without pushing ourselves too much, we were able to catch over 600 slimes and successfully form a contract with them.

Regardless where I casted the spell, at least 4 to 5 mud slimes would come out every time. There were so many of them it made me wonder if most of the mud around here were just mud slimes.

“Ah.” Nikki

“What’s the matter?” Ryouma

“Look, over there.” Nikki

“Ah, it’s your secret base tree.” Ryouma

I turned to the direction Niki-kun pointed at, and there I saw the tree he hid in when he ran away from home.

“Wait here for a bit! I’ll be right back!” Nikki

Nikki-kun entered the roots of the tree where his secret base was.

Meanwhile, I sat on the thick roots while wondering to myself what he was doing.

2 minutes later, Nikki-kun came out with something in his arms.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Onii-chan, I’ll give these to you.” Nikki

“These are?” Ryouma

From a glance, they looked like a handful of different sized rocks.

“These are Humid Light Stones. They can be found inside mud, but if you wet them, they’ll glow in dark places. These are some super rare stones, you know!” Nikki

“Wow!” Ryouma

Come to think of it, during that incident, there was a light source inside his secret base. I wasn’t looking carefully back then, but it seems the light back then was due to these. But why would he give these to me?

“Onii-chan, you’re going back today, right? You taught me all sorts of stuff, so I’m giving these to you to celebrate. Besides, I don’t need them anymore.” Nikki

“You don’t need them anymore?” Ryouma

To be honest, these stones really give me that ‘fantasy stone’ feeling, so I’m very interested in them, and having them would indeed make me happy, but why does he not need them anymore? Doesn’t he need them to light his secret base?

“Children are still allowed in this part of the forest, but it’s still a considerable distance away from the village, right?” Nikki

“That’s true.” Ryouma

“It would be dangerous if something like before were to happen again. My parents talked to me, and while I’m reluctant since I went through all the effort to build my secret base here, I decided to rebuild it somewhere closer to the village. I’ll make it more visible too to keep my mom and dad from worrying. I’ve already decided on the location, so I don’t need these stones anymore.” Nikki

“You’re amazing, Nikki-kun.” Ryouma

“Heh heh. I’ve grown big enough to help with the adults now after all! Nikki the prankster is no more! I’ve graduated from that already!” Nikki