Before I could leave, however, the dwarf asked me, "Do you think you could rid: the district of the south city gate, the forge of the Zanz family, and the old distillery of the slimes? Those sites were overrun just like the mine was."
Since I needed to build a reputation as a hero, I had to agree, whether I wanted to or not. But wait, overrun? That word meant one location had an overflow of the slimes, causing the spill of the slimes to creep into the district of the south city gate, the forge of the Zanz family, and the old distillery. "Where did they come from?"
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"That would be the ruins," the dwarf explained. "The slimes have lived there ever since before the dwarven kingdom. That is their nest and breeding grounds. And it is the most dangerous place in all the dwarven kingdom."
"What are the ruins of if they are older than the dwarven kingdom?" was a natural and very good question to ask. However,
The dwarf shook his head, "I nor any other dwarf knows."
"I can answer you that," Xanda spoke up. "The ruins belong to the prime humans and they are of one of their many fallen cities. Destroyed by the first true maou."
"Then, I'll start from there." It was always best to address the core problem and not its effects. You know how the saying goes: 'treat the cause, not the symptom' or 'nip it in the bud'.
"Don't be rash!" the dwarf cautioned me. "Going alone is suicide!"
"I cleared out the slimes in the cave by myself," I reminded him.
"And that is good and all, but this is different! Completely different!"
"I am going and you can't change my mind!" I said calmly.
The dwarf sighed. "I should know better than to argue with a woman… Let's go, I will take you to the entrance…"
"Will we be going through the city?" I asked because I had to learn how to become a paladin.
"No, why? Do you have some business in the city?"
"It can wait; let's just go to the ruins."
The dwarf nodded and guided me there. There were many players around, several groups of them, their levels exceeding mine, but not one was above twenty-four; the leaders of each were shouting,
"Looking for a tank! Be at least level twelve!"
"Looking for three healers and two damage dealers! Have an item level of ten and be level fourteen!"
And such.
"Why don't you join them?" the dwarf asked me.
Even if I wanted to, I couldn't, as I was only level nine. "Where's the entrance?"
"This way…"
As I walked by the other players, I overheard them talking about me, which made me stop in my tracks.
"Is she going in alone?"
"She may be hot but she's retarded!"
"I agree! That's a raid and not some dungeon that can be soloed if one is overleveled and overgeared!"
"Maybe she doesn't know that?"
"Then she's even dumber than a retard!"
Two blessings activated simultaneously—wrath and pride; however, Xanda suppressed them both. "Ignore them—for now."
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There was no option other than to abandon both quests, as with them completed, my job's rank would drop from SSS to S. And I couldn't have that.
"A moment," I said to the dwarf, adding all those players to my ignore list, which will also double as my kill-on-sight list. I couldn't hear them anymore. "We can go now."
I overheard a few other players, which I haven't ignored,
"Does her name look familiar to you, guys?"
"Valeif? That's?!!"
"The player with the SSS-rank job!!!"
"Quickly invite her before she goes in!"
"Losers!" I said while declining their invites and putting them on my ignore list as well.
So this was a raid; I could tell, as the scale of it all was nothing like that of the two dungeons I had cleared: the den of wolves and the fallen mine. There were a hundred non-player characters right at the entrance alone.
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I unsheathed Weapon, he was still in the form of the versatile sword of the goblin king, which was good.
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I received so many experience points because they were at level fourteen while I was level nine, and I was also alone, not in a group of twenty. If I had been, I would have received slightly over one hundred twenty experience points, which was nothing.
"You are strong!" the dwarf was flabbergasted, and for the first time in a very long time, I heard Fenrir bark. He was in agreement with the dwarf.
I had completely forgotten about Fenrir since he was so silent and all.
"I will wait for you here, hero." I was the maou though.
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"I'll try to be quick," I began, killing weak slimes. All of them, amounting to two hundred seventy-one of them, which yielded me a little over six hundred thousand experience points and leveled me up all the way to level thirteen.
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