Volume 3 Chapter 120: The Perspective of the Slums (2/2)
At first, I was told ‘the slum people are looking for jobs’, so I was looking at the problem from an income perspective. But it seems the reason they want money is so they can buy a house and allow themselves to continue making a living.
“Yeah. Having to rent a house means straining their already strained financial resources, and when they’re chased out once for failing to pay their rent, it becomes that much harder to find another place to stay at. Word gets around quickly between people of the same trade in the same town, so there’s no escaping it. Even if they do manage to find a place to stay at, if they can’t pay up, they’ll wind up back in the streets.” [Revel]
…The trust issue with the administration is entangled with a lot of other issues, but if the housing problem could be solved, the situation should calm down temporarily. But even with the problem narrowed down, there is still a lot to think about.
“The people looking for work proactively are still alright since they at least want to graduate from being homeless, but the people that don’t have such ambitions may not change even if you give them the whole set: money, work, and a house. There are plenty of cases where things go fine at the start, but they end up homeless again anyway. …In other words, everyone has their own circumstance.” [Revel]
“It’s really a difficult problem…” [Ryouma]
…What would I do if I ended up in their situation?
…If I have land, I could either build or rebuild my house. If I don’t have land, then I can leave town.
…Hmm. Using myself as a reference doesn’t seem to do any good.
I continued talking to Revel-san after that, but in the end, I came to the conclusion that all I could do was watch things patiently while doing what I could do.
“I’m happy that you’re thinking about us, but you don’t have to worry about it so much. This is our problem. Just providing a safe job for us is plenty.” [Revel]
Revel-san told me that before I left, then I bowed to him and went back to my house.
Continuing this quarrel with the government office won’t profit anyone. I’m sure everyone understands that, but…
Oh, I’m home already.
“Dimension Home.” [Ryouma]
I released my monsters.
“PIRORORORO”
The first ones to fly out were the rimel birds. After six birds lined up and flew high up into the sky, they approached the countless tunnels and evaluated them. Are there still monsters nesting here? Should I blow up the entrance? But the monsters that nest themselves here can also serve as feed for the rimel birds. They can even feed the slimes when there’s a lot of them.
While I was thinking that, a light pop resounded.
Did the rimel birds find a prey? I have to go and check up on them… ?
“…Something moved just now.” [Ryouma]
There’s something camouflaged right next to my house. I have a strange feeling about the entrance to my charcoal-maker.
When I approached, I spotted traces of something crawling through the ashes.
“…Ah!” [Ryouma]
When I cautiously took a peek at the kiln of the charcoal-maker, I saw a slime desperately trying to get under the ashes.
I immediately captured it and formed a contract with it.
“Did it just get lost?” [Ryouma]
I don’t know. I don’t know how long it’s been here too. But it seems this slime was eating the ashes, as there’s a lot less ash here than I last recall. To test it out, I gave it some ashes, and it happily ate.
Is this a candidate for another slime evolution?
“There’s also the fluff slime from this last job… I think I’ll go and make a list of everything.” [Ryouma]
I moved to a room inside the tunnels and wrote down the different slime variants.
The slimes I’m currently raising are…
Poison Slime
Acid Slime
Sticky Slime
Cleaner Slime
Deodorant Slime
Scavenger Slime
Metal Slime
Iron Slime
Bloody Slime
Medicine Slime
Heal Slime
Earth Slime
Wind Slime
Dark Slime
Light Slime
If you add the fluff slime and the drunk slime from the other day,
that totals to 17 variants.
On top of that, I have this slime I just caught that is likely to evolve into a new variant. Actually, this isn’t the only slime that’s likely to evolve into something new. I’ve also recently found individuals among the acid, cleaner, and sticky slimes that have a unique preference.
I’ll use this opportunity to summarize everything.
The eccentric from the acid slimes like to eat caustic soda, which I used to make soap, as well as the resulting alkali solution of the entire process. It would be dangerous to just throw these chemicals away, so I had the acid slimes neutralize them. But after they were neutralized, I saw an acid slime drinking the neutralized chemical.
Since then I have been feeding the neutralized chemical to that slime, but I’m still waiting for its eventual evolution.
The soap-making is also the reason why I found an eccentric among the cleaner slimes. But this one had no interest in the caustic soda, and only wanted to eat the completed soap. I’m waiting for this one to evolve too.
As for the eccentric from the sticky slime, it’s eating the stem of the dante flower that I raise to make dandelion coffee. I discovered it during the preparation for the Founding Festival. I don’t know why it insists on eating the stem when it can eat the roots and the seeds… I can somehow guess what the other two slimes would turn into, but this one, I’m completely clueless.
With the ash-eating slime on top of these three, I eagerly await the day of their evolution.