Volume 3 Chapter 178: Bad Timing (1/3)

The next day.

“…Wow! My birthday sure came early!” [Ryouma]

The morning had just begun, and yet I was already shaking in joy!

Why? That’s because, as soon as I woke up, one of the sticky slimes evolved!

The results of Identify are as follows:

Latex Slime

Skills:

• Produce Viscous Liquid Lv6
• Solidify Lv1
• Physical Attack Resist Lv2
• Jump Lv1, Digest Lv4
• Absorb Lv4
• Split Lv3

…What is this?

The variant of the silme is known as ‘Latex Slime’.

When I think of ‘latex’ the first thing that comes to mind is the raw material for natural rubber.

That white viscous liquid that comes out when you wound a rubber tree.

It looks exactly as described too, a thick white liquid.

The feed I gave to this slime is the ‘Stem of the Dante Flower’… The raw material for rubber is generally procured from rubber tree, but latex itself is secreted by other plants and vegetations. One famous example is the dandelion flower, a flower with which the dante flower shares many similarities. There’s no way to tell for sure without some experiments, but the odds that this is the latex I’m thinking about is high. If things go well, I might be able to make rubber using the liquids secreted by this slime.

Unfortunately, the slime’s abilities have actually fallen.

“The physical attack resist, digest, and absorb skills are all one level higher compared to when it was a sticky slime. But the jump skill went down 2 levels. And the sticky liquid, hardening liquid, string shot, staff mastery, planting skills have all been forgotten…” [Ryouma]

This is a first.

Could it be that it’s actually normal for monsters to change their skills when they evolve, and what I’ve been seeing until now is actually what’s unusual?

Or is a monster’s change in skills upon evolution the unusual one?

But then again the latex slime evolved from the sticky slime when it was in its jelly form.

It went from a jelly form into a liquid form, so maybe because the water content increased… No, that’s reaching too far out right now.

The only one that evolved into a latex slime is this one, so there’s not enough data.

Well, alright then! In that case, I’m just gonna have to get more slimes to evolve to procure more data for my research.

If so, then maybe I should increase the number of sticky slimes. But, hmm… It’s already been some time since I found out that some of the slimes like to eat the stem part of the dante flower. Perhaps it’s because there’s not a lot of latex in the stem that they weren’t able to eat their fill and that caused them to take so long to evolve.

“Good morning, Takebayashi-sama.” [Rurunez]

Hmm!?　Someone’s here? It’s that time already?

“Takebayashi-Sama?” [Rurunez]

“Ah, good morning!　Please enter.” [Ryouma]

When I called out to the person outside the door, Rurunez-san quietly entered.

“Good morning. Breakfast is ready… Is something the matter?” [Rurunez]

“Oh, no, it’s nothing. My slime evolved, so I was just examining it. I ended up forgetting the time because of that, but I’ll get ready right away.” [Ryouma]

It’s really unfortunate, but the slime observation will have to wait until after breakfast.

After readying myself, I left the room to eat breakfast.

“Well, someone’s in a good mood today.” [Reinhart]

“Did something good happen?” [Elize]

“It’s Ryouma we’re talking about, so it’s probably slime business.” [Pioro]

“Did one of your slimes evolve?” [Serge]

After greeting each other, the adults noted my cheerful mood and immediately deduced the reason behind it.

Am I really that easy to understand?

“As you’ve guessed, my sticky slime has evolved into a latex slime.” [Ryouma]

“Latex Slime… Is that a new variant?” [Reinhart]

“At the very least, it’s not one of the more commonly seen advanced variants.” [Elize]

“What can that slime do?” [Reinhart]

“For now it can just secrete some viscous liquid. If this viscous liquid is the same as the one I know, then it should prove useful in making various ingredients.” [Ryouma]

…Come to think of it, does this world have rubber?

Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a product made out of rubber here.

The grell frog skin armor feels somewhat like rubber, but…

I decided to ask the adults about it, and Serge-san thought that I might have been talking about another product he knew.

“Perhaps what you’re talking about is the ‘gwam’?” [Serge]

According to Serge-san, way down south from this country, all the way to the edge of the continent, there’s a port city. Beyond that port is a series of islands, which the ships rely on to resupply themselves for a long voyage of about one to two months, upon which they are then able to reach another continent. Unlike the countries here, the countries in that part of the world are always hot and humid. They have an unpredictable weather that would at one point be perfectly fine, and then in the next moment, break into a downpour. Their culture is also very different.

So, basically like a tropical country?　The sudden downpours are probably squalls. A hot and humid place also fits the bill to grow rubber trees.

“Just as you’ve been saying earlier, the gwam is made from hardened tree liquid. A liquid that only comes from certain trees. Trees that can be found in abundance in that continent.

However, the export of said trees and tree liquids are prohibited by the laws of their continent, so there’s rarely an opportunity for them to be brought out here.” [Serge]