The battle beside the Great Holy Spring had devolved into an absurdly brutal jelly brawl.
The giant purple Slime Hans was venting five days' worth of bottled-up rage.
His millstone-thick tentacles whipped around wildly, flinging acidic slime at everyone like rain.
As the culprit behind the past few days of water purification, Aqua naturally became Hans's top priority.
"Waaah! Stop chasing me! You disgusting lump of purple snot!"
Aqua clutched her soaked Goddess gown and sprinted through the rocks like a rabbit being chased by wild dogs.
Several tentacles slammed hard into her back with dull, meaty thuds. An ordinary Adventurer would have had their bones broken by now, but this idiot Goddess relied on her absurd physical ability to keep running, sobbing all the while and leaving afterimages behind her.
Meanwhile, Dust was dangling in midair, well on his way to becoming Slime-flavored sausage.
His leather armor had been corroded full of holes, and his whole body was wrapped in slime with only his head sticking out as he screamed desperately for help.
"Kōichi! Kazuma! What the hell are you two doing?! I feel like my ass is about to get digested!"
At the edge of the battlefield, behind a crooked tree a full fifty meters away from Hans, Kōichi and Kazuma displayed amazing teamwork as they hunched their necks and poked out half their heads in perfect sync to watch the fight.
"Hey, Kazuma." Kōichi smeared some acid-resistant oil he had gotten from who knew where onto his staff while giving Kazuma a sidelong look. "Don't you always brag about being Axel's most promising Thief? At a time like this, shouldn't you be activating [Lurk] and then using [Backstab] right into that guy's core? What are you doing hiding at the very back with a fragile caster like me?"
"Huh? What kind of nonsense are you talking about?" Kazuma shot back with complete confidence, even shrinking farther behind the tree. "This is called strategic flank support! And as the Party's brain, I have to stay in the rear and make sure you, our only commander, don't get swallowed by that purple jelly! I'm protecting you, got it? Protecting you!"
"Looks to me like you just want to use me as a shield!"
Kōichi rolled his eyes and casually knocked away a drop of slime that splashed toward him.
Not far away, Megumin stood on top of a tall rock, an ominous red light already gathering at the tip of her staff.
However, Hans was clearly extremely wary of this little member of the Crimson Demon Clan. Every time Megumin began chanting that long, cringey spell of hers, Hans precisely spat a thick glob of acidic phlegm at her, forcing Megumin to hug her staff and roll across the ground.
"Damn it! What's with that thing's dynamic vision?!" Megumin scrambled up from the dirt, covered in dust, her pointed hat sitting crooked on her head. "Kōichi! Create a three-second opening for me... no, five seconds! Give me just five seconds, and I'll return him to nothingness!"
Kōichi looked at Aqua, who was being smacked around by tentacles, and Darkness, who was already on the verge of entering Sage Mode. He knew they could not keep slacking off like this.
"Kazuma, stop playing dead. Use [Create Water] together with Aqua's Holy Water and make a Holy Water swamp around that thing. I'll go fish Dust out and mark its core while I'm at it."
"Tch, what a pain." Kazuma complained, but his eyes sharpened. "Just so we're clear, if I get swallowed, make sure Aqua uses Resurrection on me, and make sure all my panties are preserved!"
"Don't worry. If you die, you'll get to see Goddess Eris one more time than I will!"
The battlefield beside the Great Holy Spring had completely turned into a chaotic nightmare.
Thick purple liquid kept churning outward, and white fumes from the acid rose beneath the moonlight.
Darkness was already half-sunk into Hans's gelatinous body. What came out of her mouth was no longer a scream, but a strange moan that made people want to call the police.
Aqua, meanwhile, was like a punctured balloon, sprinting around the spring source while firing wildly inaccurate water magic and turning the whole area into a giant water park.
Kōichi crouched under the crooked tree behind Kazuma, narrowing his eyes as he tried to find Hans's core inside that massive translucent body.
Suddenly, his pupils shrank. Deep inside that constantly writhing mass of purple, he saw something completely out of place. It was an earth-yellow farmer's shirt covered in patches, and beside it floated half of a torn straw sandal.
"Hey, Kazuma, look at that!" Kōichi grabbed Kazuma by the collar and pointed at Hans's flank. "That's not Adventurer gear, is it? That's... that's clothing from one of the villagers nearby!"
Kazuma followed his finger, and the sarcastic look on his face instantly froze. "Tch. That bastard... He didn't just poison the springs. He ate some passing villager too?"
Wiz, who had been trembling behind the two of them, stiffened the moment she heard the word "villager."
Her amber eyes, usually full of timidity and gentleness, suddenly lit with cold blue fire.
She looked in the direction Kōichi was pointing, and when she saw the torn shirt clearly, the temperature around them plummeted. A thick layer of white frost instantly formed over the grass beneath her feet.
"Hans-san."
Wiz's voice no longer trembled. It had become as cold and piercing as an ancient glacier.
She slowly rose to her feet, then floated into the air. Her normally gentle long hair whipped wildly in the surge of magic.
"I once said that even after leaving the Demon King's Army, as long as you did not actively harm innocent ordinary people, I would remain absolutely neutral..."
Hans, who was busy chasing Aqua, let out a dismissive snort.
"Hah? Wiz, are you still spouting that naive nonsense? Before the great Demon King's Army, these lowly insects are nothing more than nutrients to replenish us! Are you really going to attack me for the sake of a few ants?"
"Adventurers fight for money and fame. They accept the risk of sacrifice, so I can stand aside and watch." Wiz extended her pale hand. Countless ice crystals rapidly gathered above her palm, forming a deep blue staff that radiated the aura of death. "But ordinary people who are simply trying their best to survive... they are absolutely not disposable goods for you to trample on as you please! Since you have broken our agreement, then... please disappear here completely!"
"Cursed Crystal Prison!!!"
With Wiz's furious shout, dozens of massive ice pillars burst from the ground, instantly piercing Hans's enormous body and pinning him in midair.
The once-arrogant Poison Slime let out a shrill scream. The acid strong enough to corrode steel was frozen directly into purple ice beneath Wiz's absurdly powerful ice magic.
"Waaah! Wiz is mad! She's so scary!" Aqua was so frightened that she immediately hid behind Kōichi. "Kōichi, Kōichi! That look in Wiz's eyes... She's not going to purify me while she's at it, is she?!"
Kōichi looked up at Wiz, who was radiating the overwhelming presence of the Ice Witch, swallowed hard, and turned to Kazuma.
"Kazuma, I take back what I said before. Wiz... is definitely the one person in this Party we absolutely cannot afford to piss off. Let's pay back everything we owe her first thing tomorrow morning. I'm worried we won't live long otherwise."
Kazuma nodded frantically, clutching half of Hans's stolen tentacle in his hand.
"Agreed! Completely agreed! But... since Wiz has frozen that guy, Megumin! Hurry! Now's your chance!"
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