Chapter 71: What In The Banana!?
The valley went silent. No slurping and bouncing. Just wind moving through broken terrain. Then the King Slime’s massive body finally collapsed inward.
FWOOOOSH.
Its rainbow-colored mass flickered violently. Cracks of light spread across its core.
BOOOOOM!
A final pulse of energy burst outward. And then everything dissolved into floating particles.
Nobody landed on the ground a few seconds later.
THUD.
His crowbars reverted back to normal form. For a moment, he just stood there. "...Did we win?"
Julias was the first to respond. "We won."
Ethius sat down on a broken rock. "Finally."
Mayra exhaled deeply. "I thought that thing was never going to die."
A notification appeared in the air.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[LEVEL UP DETECTED x3]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody stared at the screen. "...Three levels." He looked at his hands. Then back at the system. "That thing was worth my sanity?"
The system replied instantly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[YES]
(ᗜ⩊ᗜ)
But They Bounced really good
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"...Shut it dumbas*!! Kids are watching too." Nobody shouted.
Julias stood up and stretched. "Well, that’s one hell of a training session."
Ethius smirked. "Understatement of the century."
Mayra walked toward the center of the battlefield where the King Slime had fallen. A glowing object remained there. She bent down. "A crystal core!" Still pulsing faintly with rainbow energy. "...This is what’s left of it?"
Nobody walked over. "Don’t touch it randomly."
Mayra paused. "...Right."
Ethius approached. "That core feels dangerous."
Julias nodded. "High-grade mana crystal. Could be worth a fortune."
Nobody tilted his head. "So basically... loot."
The system responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[King Slime Core]
Rarity: Legendary
Effect: Unknown (sealed)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody immediately grabbed it.
Mayra blinked. "...You didn’t hesitate at all."
Nobody held it up. "It’s glowing. Glowing things are usually important."
Ethius sighed. "Ever heard,’ All glowing things are not gold’ ?"
The moment Nobody touched it the core pulsed.
FWOOOM.
A wave of energy spread through his body.
Nobody froze. "...Oh....That feels weird."
Julias stepped forward. "Bad weird or good weird?"
Nobody paused. "Both?"
The system appeared again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[CORE SYNC DETECTED]
Warning: Unknown Integration Starting
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mayra stepped back.
"Wait...What is happening with your body?"
Ethius immediately grabbed his daggers. "That’s not normal!"
The core began dissolving into light particles. They flowed into Nobody’s chest like absorption.
Nobody stared down. "...Am I supposed to be doing this?"
The system didn’t answer.
Julias muttered. "Who are you asking?"
Nobody," It’s nothing."
FWOOOOSH.
The last of the core vanished.
Then..Nothing happened.
Nobody blinked. "...So?"
The system paused.
Then finally responded.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[New Trait Acquired]
"Slime Resistance"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody tilted his head.
"...That’s it?"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[YES]
But In Future User Might Get New Skills from It
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mayra sighed in relief. "Oh thank goodness."
Ethius lowered his weapons.
Julias crossed his arms. "...I was expecting something worse."
Nobody nodded. "Same."
Then the ground beneath them trembled slightly.
BOOM.
Far away in the distance...another energy pulse echoed.
Mayra slowly turned her head. "...That’s not from the King Slime."
Ethius narrowed his eyes. "Something else is happening."
Julias looked toward the horizon.
Where the sky was slightly darker. "...This stage isn’t over."
Nobody stared at the direction of the pulse. Then cracked his neck. "Of course it isn’t."
The system appeared one last time.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[WARNING] ⚠︎⚠︎
Next Objective Unlocking...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[STAGE TRANSITION INITIATED]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The ground began glowing beneath their feet.
Ethius stepped back. "Uh... guys?"
Mayra looked down. "I don’t think we’re staying here."
Julias exhaled. "Brace yourselves."
Nobody raised his crowbars. "Here we go again."
And the light swallowed them whole. The light faded out like a closing door.
Then...
THUD.
All four of them dropped onto soft ground covered in thick green leaves. A humid breeze hit instantly. Warm and alive.
Nobody slowly pushed himself up. "...Guys." He looked around. Tall trees stretched endlessly upward, their trunks wrapped in vines thick enough to hang from. The canopy above blocked most of the sky, leaving scattered beams of sunlight that cut through the jungle like glowing blades. "Where is this?"
Ethius stood up, brushing dirt off his clothes. "...Seems like a jungle."
The system immediately appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[AREA ENTRY CONFIRMED]
Location:
Banana Jungle
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Nobody blinked. "...What in the jungle!"
Julias tilted his head up. "That name sounds... suspiciously normal."
Mayra slowly pointed upward. "...Guys."
Everyone followed her gaze. The trees were full of fruit.
But not just any fruit. It was Bananas. Hundreds of them. Some small. Some oversized. Some glowing faintly yellow like they were infused with mana.
Julias walked closer to one tree and tapped it with his sword.
BOINK.
A banana dropped into his hand. He stared at it. "...It’s just a banana."
Ethius narrowed his eyes. "Nothing here is ’just’ anything."
Mayra immediately raised a hand. "Be careful. Don’t eat them recklessly. We don’t know what effects they might have."
Nobody already reached for one.
Mayra slapped his hand instantly. "NO."
Nobody paused. "...Worth a try. It’s ALWAYS worth a try."
"No..It’s NOT." Mayra said.
Ethius suddenly froze. His head turned slightly. "...Guys." His voice lowered. "I sense something watching us."
Everyone looked up. At first they saw nothing.
Then..
SHADOWS. Dozens of figures moved between the branches. They weren’t fully visible. But their silhouettes were clear enough. Slim bodies and long tails. Eyes reflecting faint green light.
Julias immediately raised his sword. "...We’re not alone."
Mayra stepped back. "What are those things?"
Nobody squinted. "...Monkey-shaped problems."
Ethius corrected him immediately. "That’s not helpful."
A sudden sound echoed through the trees.
"KEE-KA!"
Then another.
"KEE-KA-KA!"
The shadows moved faster. Branches shook violently as the creatures leapt from tree to tree.
WHOOSH!
One of them dropped down in front of the group. It landed lightly. Then straightened up. It stared at them.
Nobody stared back. "...Why is it holding fruit like a weapon?"
Ethius slowly pulled out a dagger. "I don’t think that’s a fruit presentation."
The creature suddenly pointed the banana forward. Then screamed. "KEE-KA!!"
From the trees more shadows appeared.
Ten.
Twenty.
Fifty.
The canopy filled with glowing eyes.
Mayra whispered. "...We triggered something."
Julias tightened his grip. "Obviously."
Nobody stepped forward slightly. "So what are they? Banana guards?"
Ethius sighed. "I don’t think we’re going to get a peaceful answer."
The first monkey-like creature suddenly bent its knees.
Then...vanished.
WHOOSH!
It reappeared behind Julias instantly. Julias reacted immediately.
CLANG!
His sword blocked a strike from its tail.
BOOM!
The impact sent dust flying.
Mayra shouted. "Speed type!"
Ethius moved instantly.
"Multiple targets incoming!"
