Chapter 70: Bring A Friend
It had taken me another hour of walking to arrive at the jungle, and I hated every moment of it.
"Why did the jungle have to be so far away?! I wanted to be home today and get some rest!"
{The world is much larger than you think it is.}
"I know that but I can't help but want it to be easier to travel."
{Than make it yourself. Rail systems used to be popular back in the day, so why not try to make your own?}
I stayed silent for a minute, contemplating the words of the gods, and I found my answer.
"That's going to be tedious to do."
{When is anything not?}
I pushed off the thought of making a railway around the island for a later time, refocusing on the main goal of my visit to the jungle.
"So where are these bees?"
{Everywhere. Just jump down the first hole you see and you'll be there soon enough.}
I listened to the advice of the Gods and walked into the jungle, trying my best to avoid the occasional slime and bat.
It took me a few minutes to reach a hole, and I did not hesitate in my next actions.
I jumped right into the hole and fell at an alarming pace. Not that it made me worried at all since I had repeated this stunt several times.
I looked towards the quickly approaching ground and launched my hook to the side, never looking away from the ground.
As soon as my hook attached to the wall of the hole I pulled out my slimy saddle and threw it towards the wall, positioned to face away from me. The slime mount appeared and I slammed into its gelatinous body, negating any force the collision would generate otherwise.
And so I began to quickly descend the last blocks of the wall, easily reaching the mossy ground of the underground jungle.
And that was when I saw what the place had become.
There were bees everywhere, with no other living creature in sight.
'Jeez, Shiitake was right when he said they'd attack anything with a pulse. He also forgot to mention that they were the size of my hand.'
I decided to use one of the abilities I hadn't used in a while and analyzed one of the bees.
[Giant Bee
hp 20/20]
'These things are pretty weak, but I guess the sheer number of them makes up for it.'
I decided that fighting them was not worth being in a ball of buzzing, so I pulled out a weapon I had neglected for far too long: The slime staff.
I waved the staff and the baby slime appeared in a familiar flash of color, acting the same way it always does.
It immediately rushed up to me and jumped in excitement, obviously quite happy to be summoned again.
'I almost forgot how cute this thing was...'
I began to whisper quietly, somehow not alerting the bees to my presence.
"I want you to get rid of those bees, okay?"
The baby slime only nodded and had its face become a smiling emoticon.
'I did not know that they could do that... Still cute anyway.'
And so the slime flew into the fray of the bees, alerting the horde.
I watched as the bees all flew into the slime, trying their best to sting the small gelatinous blob with little success.
It was mildly entertaining to see all the bees gather around a creature nigh-invulnerable to their attacks.
And then the baby slime retaliated, expanding its body in order to swallow the bees.
I watched as the slime swallowed over a hundred bees in a single gulp, all of them disappearing into the enlarged body of the slime.
The baby slime stayed enlarged, but it was slowly shrinking back to its normal size, the change barely visible.
The bees were not phased by the mass death in the slightest, still trying their best to kill the baby slime.
It was starting to get annoying hearing all the buzzing, so I decided to step in while wielding my Mycoroot.
It was time to join the battle.
I immediately dashed in, killing several of the densely packed bees with several mushroom daggers.
I had expected retaliation from the bees, but they stayed focused on the baby slime, not even sparing a moment to fight back.
'This is going to be easier than I thought...'
And so I continued to throw daggers into the dense swarm of bees without the worry of retaliation from them.
The 'battle' quickly progressed from there, as the local bee population quickly declined until it hit zero.
'That was... Cathartic.'
{Bees are very good for stress relief in many ways.}
I grimaced at the words of the gods.
'Thanks for putting that image into my head.'
{What? No. Get your mind out of the gutter.}
'Do you know how hard it is to unsee something you thought of yourself?'
{Okay, you're just going to end up with a weird fetish if you don't try your best to forget this here and now.}
'Let's just pretend this never happened.'
{Agreed. But thanks for the ideas.}
I flinched at the thought of whatever the Gods thought of creating.
'I'm going to forget that you said that.'
While I was talking with the Gods, the baby slime was still digesting its food, getting very close to its original size once more.
It took about a minute and a half for the slime to go back to its original size, and with it size came an inverse amount of enthusiasm.
The small blob bounded over to me quickly, nearly tackling me in the process.
It was a good thing I had good reflexes.
I looked at the small summon and noted that its eyes were sparkling in excitement. Literally.
'What can't their body do at this point?' I wondered.
{A lot.} The Gods informed, amusement clear in their weird voice.
I sighed at the vagueness of the answer.
'You tend to avoid straight answers, don't you?'
{Where's the fun in giving away something we had to work for?}
I scoffed.
'You? Work? Don't tell such a bad joke.'
The gods yelled an indignant {Hey!} into my head, obviously taking offense to my joke.
'Let's just move on. We have a hive to exterminate after all.'
The slime simply bounded into my arms, and the Gods responded with a simple {Indeed.}.
And so the 'bee extermination quest' continues.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Cold_Housefire
Cold_Housefire Sorry about the late chapter. I got a bit preoccupied.
I hope you enjoyed today's chapter!
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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