Wave after wave, the frenzied cave slimes rushed towards Miri and Anne with their relentless fury. Wave after wave, the two women tried to fend them off to the best of their ability. The pair worked in tandem with each other, showing a remarkable display of teamwork—Miri would attack and teleport while Anne would defend and heal. However, even with their best efforts, the number of slimes around them were simply too much to handle, causing them to tire out more and more with each passing second.

  While all this was happening, Caleb was safely sitting inside his multicolored crystal barrier as he watched the battle occur in front of him. Occasionally, some of the frenzied slimes would attack his barrier out of instinct. The slimes’ attacks did negligible damage to the virtually impenetrable barrier. That was what the druid was counting on. He figured that the slimes would finish off his two opponents in front of him way before they could even make a dent on the barrier itself. He simply had to wait it out for that to eventually happen.

  After dishing out spell after spell, Miri had nearly exhausted all of her mana, prompting her to drink a mana potion. However, as she took a moment to drink that potion, it’d left her briefly vulnerable for one of the slimes to lunge at her, latching onto her elbow.

  Slimes technically do not have mouths or teeth—instead, they simply absorbed whatever food they consumed into their gelatinous bodies, the insides of which were filled with digestive acids to break down the food for them. As soon as the slime latched onto Miri’s elbow, that brief moment of contact where her elbow was embedded into the slime’s body had allowed the digestive acids to touch her skin, causing a mild acid burn at that region.

  “Oww! Shit!” Miri yelped, quickly brushing off the slime from her elbow with her staff before casting a Crescent Arc to push it away. At the elbow region where the slime had briefly made contact, the cloth of the sleeve had been partially dissolved and the skin had been slightly burned, turning into a light-reddish color.

  “Miri, are you alright?!” Anne asked with urgent concern as she quickly tried to tend to her injuries. However, as soon as she turned away, she left herself wide-open for another slime to flank her, latching onto her shoulder and causing her to shriek with fright. In response, Miri quickly swung her staff to brush the slime away from Anne before pushing it away with another Crescent Arc.

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  The battle became more and more frustrating to fight as it went on. At this point, it’s basically a battle of attrition, one where the slimes were slowly gaining the higher ground.

  “We can’t keep on fighting like this,” Anne said, feeling almost out of breath. “What shall we do?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m still thinking,” Miri said with gritted teeth. “There’s gotta be a way out of this.”

  “You can always just surrender and hand over the rune,” Caleb suggested flatly. “As soon as you agree to do so, I’ll use the antidote to the frenzy gas and make the slimes docile again. I’ll even promise not to immediately faux-kill you afterwards. You two might still have a chance to pass this first trial by finding star runes elsewhere.”

  “Screw that! There’s no way we’re gonna give you our rune!” Miri snapped. “Why don’t you go find a star rune elsewhere instead?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? You two are part of a duo while I’m all by myself,” Caleb reasoned. “Contestants who are part of teams are much more likely to get runes than contestants who go about it alone. Besides, riddle runes are basically designed to be found by solo contestants due how they are being placed in isolated locations. If I don’t get this rune, I’ll have more to lose than you two as I’ll have a more difficult time finding star runes elsewhere than you two.”

  “Well, too fucking bad! We got to this rune first, so it is rightfully ours!” Miri argued. Suddenly, another slime managed to latch itself onto her knee, causing her to fall over. In response, Miri brushed the slime away from her and used yet another Crescent Arc to push it away. “Oww! Goddamn it!”

  “Miri, are you alright?!” Anne asked as she quickly tried to heal the slime’s acid burns on her knee.

  “Yeah, I’ll survive,” Miri responded.

  But she might not be for long. In fact, if they couldn’t come up with a solution to their predicament quickly, they might soon get faux-killed and be eliminated. But what could they possibly do to get out of this?

  Then, as Miri was lying on the ground, her knee injured from the last slime attack, she could hear a strange sound coming up from beneath the ground—the sound of running water, almost like a hidden aquifer. It was at that moment when Miri suddenly thought of a brilliant idea.