Chapter 18: No Way to Refuse

Ambrose stared at Isabel, deadpan. The question she'd just asked was so ridiculous he couldn't even be bothered to respond. "Are you so tired that your brain's gone soft? Go get some rest. Shoo."

With that blunt dismissal, he turned on his heel and left the workshop.

Humans really were too fragile. Just a few extra nights of work and they'd suddenly start to hallucinate.

Isabel stood watching his retreating back, completely baffled by his sudden irritation.

"I must've touched a nerve... Of course. To someone like him, being reminded he's a ghost must be painful. A young genius alchemist, now trapped as a wandering spirit in this old castle... What a tragic story. I'm such an idiot for asking that."

She clasped her hands together, her expression softening. "Still... even though he was angry, he still continued to worry about me. How gentle...

Her heart warmed. There really were kind undead in this world. She silently swore never to bring up anything related to the undead again.

That night, Ambrose left the castle under the cover of darkness.

Finding slimes turned out to be far harder than expected. They were one of the weakest magical creatures in existence, and their sheer weakness made them particularly difficult to locate.

In this world, slimes weren't your usual cute, jelly-like blobs. They looked more like piles of half-rotten sludge that lurked in damp, dark corners.

Too much light or heat would kill them. They thrived in places that were cool, wet, and quiet, the kind of environment that kept their bodies from evaporating and gave them plenty of shadows to hide in.

Slimes frequently remained immobile and waited for prey to come to them. Their fluid, gelatinous bodies allowed them to glide silently across floorboards, drip down from walls or ceilings, or squeeze into cracks. While hidden, they were very difficult to find.

Once prey wandered close by, slimes would pounce on them. Their bodies, filled with corrosive acid, could melt through skin and bone in seconds. Most prey ended up as dinner, though in truth, many slimes usually fed on grime, fungus, or whatever garbage they could absorb.

Ambrose hadn't studied slimes before, so he had no clue where to start. Catching one or two would be easy enough, but he needed hundreds for his experiments. It was time to call in the professionals.

When in doubt, issue a bounty and get adventurers working on the problem. It worked nine times out of ten.

That was why Ambrose flew toward Alkhemia in the middle of the night. He landed in the bustling South Cross Street.

......

Winter was creeping in, and taverns were doing excellent business.

The Iron Slag was one of the city's cheaper establishments, cheap enough that even destitute mercenaries could afford a drink.

Though they watered down the ale until it was nearly transparent, ten copper a cup was enough to draw a crowd.

Broke adventurers filled the tavern, cursing, slamming tables, and occasionally groping the waitresses who weaved through the throng. On a good night, they'd get slapped rather than stabbed.

Naturally, this was exactly the kind of place Ambrose needed.

The blast of heat and sweat that hit him when he stepped inside made him grimace. Liches and humidity did not get along. Warm air made his very bones feel sticky.

In the corner, a dwarf was mangling a song. To Ambrose, it sounded as if two rocks were being smashed together. "Would it kill them to hire a human bard? Or an elf? Dwarves and music should be a prohibited combination..."

He shook his head, pushed through the crowd and made his way to the counter.

The orc bartender, polishing a mug that would never be clean, grinned. "Young magician, huh? Don't think I've seen you before. First time here? First drink's on the house."

He slid over half a mug of beer, a cloudy yellow mess that Ambrose was sure smelled sour even without a nose. Through the faint flicker of his soulfire, Ambrose could sense the rancid tang of watered-down swill.

He took one polite sip, then set a few copper coins on the counter.

"I'm looking for information."

That was the rule—pay first, ask later.

The orc pressed a thick finger down on the coins. His massive digit covered five at once, which he deftly scraped into his pocket.

"Ah, a generous customer! What do you want to know?"

Ambrose: "..."

Ambrose sighed inwardly. He should've spread the coins out more.

Orc fingers were like sausages. Just one tap, and five coins would vanish. Human fingers would only have covered two coins at most.

Still, no use crying over spilled copper. "I'm looking for a large nest of slimes."

The orc bartender nodded thoughtfully. "Then you should go to the sewers under Alkhemia. Personally, though, I wouldn't go down there. There've been dangerous things creeping around lately—mutant slimes, apparently."

"Mutant?" Ambrose leaned forward. "What caused that?"

The orc gave him a sly look. "Another drink? Ten copper gets you the story."

Ambrose slid over the coins with a warning. "It'd better be worth it."

The orc pocketed the coins without missing a beat. "You know how expensive it is to dispose of alchemical waste, right? The city's been broke lately. Instead of paying for proper containment, they've been dumping the stuff into the sewers."

That told Ambrose everything he needed to know. Industrial pollution, but magical in nature. No wonder the slimes were mutating. And if they'd been dumping all their waste down there, slimes wouldn't be the only ones affected.

He rubbed his temples. "Wonderful. Probably just a matter of time before something truly horrible crawls up from below."

Ambrose knew quite a bit about alchemy. He quickly made a list of common alchemical byproducts in his mind's eye. If they were combined in bulk deep in the sewers...

Still, this was no time to back off. If he wanted samples, he had to move now, before the real monsters showed up.

"I need someone who knows the sewers inside out," Ambrose said. "Put up a job request for me."

Originally, he'd planned to just buy the slimes from adventurers, but the danger—and therefore the prices—had skyrocketed. Better to hire a local guide and catch them himself.

Even a watered-down legend like him could handle a few slimes.

The orc's eyes lit up. "Ha! You're in luck. There's a team heading into the sewers tonight, and they're short one mage. If you join them, they'll pay you a significant fee instead!"

Ambrose froze. He gritted his teeth. "You shouldn't have said that."

The orc blinked. "Said what? I didn't say anything rude, did I?"

Ambrose's voice became husky. "You shouldn't have said 'pay', 'significant', or 'fee'."

The orc tilted his head, bewildered. "What's wrong with those words?"

Ambrose let out a weary sigh. "Because now... I can't refuse."