Book 1
Chapter 13: The Slime Wars: A Humiliating Victory
The Adventurer's Guild had seen many things in its long, financially unstable history. Its grimy walls had absorbed the echoes of triumphs and tragedies. It had seen warriors return with dragon scales, mages accidentally turn themselves into teapots, and a rogue bard successfully seduce a tax auditor.
But it had never seen anything like the Great Sewer Slime Incident.
A catastrophe so bizarre that Brenda, the Guild's eternally apathetic receptionist, had actually looked up from her knitting for a full seven seconds. Her needles had stopped clicking. It was a terrifying moment of unprecedented engagement.
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The Mythical-Class Slime Overlord
The sewers had, indeed, become a warzone. What started as a routine extermination job had spiraled into an unprecedented slime mutation when Ken's "Eau de Infinite Wealth" cologne seeped into the sewer system, radiating an absurd amount of raw Mone.
The blobs hadn't just grown larger; they had merged, growing smarter, more aggressive, and most alarmingly, financially savvy.
The final abomination loomed before them now, blocking their path: the Mythical-Class Slime Overlord. It was a towering, gelatinous monstrosity, pulsing with the eerie, sickly green glow of unpaid Guild paperwork.
Its surface shimmered with embedded, half-digested coins and lost invoices. When it spoke, its voice was the chilling sound of a hundred thousand unpaid invoices rustling in unison.
"YOU… OWE… LATE FEES… OVERDUE ACCOUNTS… INTEREST IS ACUMULATING, MORTALS…" it gurgled, a gelatinous appendage pointing accusingly at Ken.
Narutama, whose entire body already tinged an unfortunate shade of bioluminescent neon green, raised his sword.
"Ken. For the love of all that is fiscally responsible. What did you do?"
Ken, who had been trying to casually flick a shiny gold coin into the slime's terrifying, gaping "mouth," blinked innocently.
"Me? I just existed near them! Maybe my cologne is too good for the ecosystem?"
The slime shuddered, as if to say: Correct.
A guttural, paperwork-shredding roar was torn loose, and the slime lunged forward. What happened next was less of a battle and more of a divine accounting error.
Ken felt a tickle in his nose. He sniffed once. Twice. Then, with a convulsion that shook the very foundations of the sewer, Ken sneezed.
It was a seismic event, a nasal explosion of such cosmic proportions that the very fabric of reality paused to say "bless you."
A shockwave of pure golden Mone erupted from him, washing over the Mythical-Class Slime and instantly vaporizing it. Not into goo, but into a perfectly stacked, shimmering pile of Quid bills. Each one crisply folded into intricate origami shapes.
A single, minuscule paper slime fluttered gently to the ground. It was an invoice, neatly folded. It read: "Paid in Full. Thank you for your prompt payment. Have a financially responsible day."
Narutama stared, his jaw hanging open, his neon green skin momentarily dimming in sheer disbelief.
"That's not how slimes work. That's not how anything works."
Ken wiped his nose with the back of his hand, looking thoughtful.
"Huh. I think I'm allergic to poverty. Or maybe… bad financial planning. My nose knows."
Narutama vowed never to stand downwind of Ken again, for the safety of the economy.
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The Aftermath: Narutama's Glowing Problem
While Ken marveled at his accidental windfall—a mountain of origami Quid—Narutama was undergoing his own, far less pleasant transformation. The highly concentrated, Mone-infused slime residue had begun to… react.
His skin didn't just pulse; it throbbed with a vibrant glow, turning him into a walking, talking, human glow stick.
His hair now stood perfectly on end, crackling with static electricity. Worst of all, his limbs kept involuntarily mimicking slime movements.
His arms wobbled uncontrollably, and his legs occasionally merged into a single ooze, making him shuffle like an awkward jellyfish.
"This is your fault, Ken!" Narutama boiled, attempting to point an accusation, only for his arm to wobble wildly and his finger to flop into his own glowing eye.
"I'm a samurai, you imbecile! Not a decoration!"
Ken poked Narutama's glowing cheek, delighted by the faint squishy sound it made. "You're like a human lantern! This is awesome! We can save so much on electricity!"
"I don't want to save on electricity! I want my dignity!" Narutama shouted.
When they returned to the Guild, moths followed Narutama in formation, spelling "FREE LAMP". Brenda took one long, withering look at Narutama's glowing, jello-limbed form and sighed.
"Hazard pay isn't in the budget. And stay away from the fire exits; you're attracting moths."
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The Guild's Grand Delusion
Word of Ken's "victory" spread faster than a rumor about free ale. By sundown, the Guildmasters, ignoring the lingering scent of melon-scented slime, had staged an emergency celebration.
It was a ceremony so over-the-top it bordered on performance art, a testament to the Guild's willingness to embrace any excuse for a party, especially one that resulted in a pile of Quid.
The Hall was decked in hastily painted banners that read "Hanzori the Slimebane: Fiscal Savior!" and "He Paid The Guild's Bills!" The orchestra played a heroic ballad that kept accidentally shifting into a surprisingly catchy accounting jingle.
The Reward: a glittering, oversized "Platinum Medal of Fiscal Responsibility," crafted from pure platinum (likely also accidentally generated by Ken), which Ken immediately tried to eat.
The Guildmaster boomed, his voice echoing with misplaced reverence:
"Today, we honor a true adventurer! A man who turned financial ruin into unfathomable profit! A prodigy! A paragon! A purveyor of prosperity! A—"
Ken, whispering to Narutama: "Are they talking about me? I just sneezed."
Narutama, his glow flickering in exasperation: "Unfortunately. Yes."
As the Guildmasters droned on, Ken's ATM card buzzed ominously in his pocket. The screen, briefly visible, flickered:
[LOAN INTEREST ACCRUED: 0.5% (DAILY)]
[CURRENT MONETARY DEBT: UNQUANTIFIABLE]
Ken frowned, tapping the card.
"Weird. Must be a glitch. My percentages are usually better."
He shrugged it off and went back to trying to see his reflection in his new, shiny medal.
---
The Guild's Hidden Ledger
That night, while the Guild still reveled in its unexpected windfall, Brenda sat alone in the Guild's dusty archives. The air here was even thicker with the scent of old paper and forgotten dreams.
Before her lay a forbidden ledger, bound in dark leather. Its pages were filled not with routine transactions, but with names crossed out in chilling red ink, denoting debts that could never be paid.
At the top of the list, written in shimmering, ethereal script: "HANZORI, K. – BALANCE: ∞ (PENDING DIVINE AUDIT & REPAYMENT SCHEDULE TBD)"
She sighed, a weary sound that denied her usual apathy. She took a heavy, ornate stamp and pressed it firmly onto the entry, leaving a stark, crimson imprint: "DELINQUENT – BY COSMIC DECREE."
Somewhere far above, an unseen quill added "good luck with that" in the margins.
Brenda leaned back, returning to her knitting. Some debts couldn't be paid with gold. Some debts transcended even the vast Mone-verse. And somehow, Ken Hanzori was at the center of it all.