Blessings be Upon You*5
“Why did the slime… get so huge…?”
The words “why…” floated through my mind, but there was no answer.
The giant-ass slime just wobbled and jiggled around.
“Asuma-samaaa! The radishes are ripe!”
“I seeee—yeah, well, Mishisia-san, you adapt fast!”
“We’re forest folk!”
Do forest folk really adapt quickly to this kind of situation?
I feel like that’s definitely not right, but if Mishisia-san says so, maybe that’s how it is.
Hmm, no, I still don’t think so.
Well, I’m also pretty quick to adapt, so I gave up on the fact that the giant-ass slime is giant-ass.
Go ahead and get as big as you want, buddy.
Yep. They say “bigger is better,” after all…
“The radishes are ready for harvest. Umm, they’re a bit big though.”
“Not as big as the slime, but yeah, they grew a lot!”
I immediately climbed onto the very top of the giant-ass slime’s head and pulled one out, and what came out was a radish too big to call a twenty-day radish.
Oooh.
“Does the Saintess’s Blessing have the effect of making crops bigger…?”
“I think so? Big means there’s more to eat, which is great!”
Yeah, I mean, that’s true.
If you want to boost crop yield, the easiest method is just to make the crops themselves bigger.
Especially since this Blessing works on crops that haven’t even gone through proper selective breeding…
So it probably just boosts them to a ‘nice’ size overall. Yeah.
Conversely, if Blessings can grow even unbred crops to the size of modern Japanese produce, the reason selective breeding never advanced in this world is probably because of that.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Where there’s no need, invention doesn’t happen.
Exactly.
“Asuma-sama! This radish is delicious! It’s as good as the veggies from Panis Village!”
“I seeeee. Well, in that case, I guess the effect of the Blessing really is the real deal…”
Since Mishisia-san immediately tasted it, the flavor quality is also confirmed.
I see, I see.
I’d like to compare this with radishes grown not on slime. …I hope there are some left.
Alright. Enough observing the giant-ass slime… the problem is the fields.
“The other fields… look normal.”
“The seeds that sprouted are there, but yeah, mostly within normal range… I guess. Hmm, should’ve increased the sample size a bit.”
Right now, there isn’t a significant difference between the Blessed field and the un-Blessed field.
Well, it is only day 1 of the experiment…
I’m expecting the Blessing to boost germination rate, so that’s something I want to check properly later.
But that’ll be in… like, five days at the earliest.
“So, Asuma-sama… if the fields are normal, then that means the slime really is the abnormal one…?”
“Yeah, I think that’s definitely the case. It could be that planting crops on a slime lets it supply mana efficiently, or maybe the slime itself is doing something… lots of possibilities.”
As Lisas-san said, slime farming must be exceptionally unique.
Come to think of it, this is the first successful case of slime farming outside Panis Village.
Pretty valuable.
“Umm… yeah, I definitely want to solve the mystery behind slime farming.
If it can even handle the Saintess’s Blessing, then…
Hmm, maybe the fertilizer in Panis Village is basically the same as the Saintess’s Blessing…? I wonder…”
There are a lot of possibilities, but honestly, we still don’t even have enough information to form proper hypotheses.
We’ll just have to test things little by little…
“There was a time in Panis Village when the slimes got bigger too, right?”
“Yeah. Right after they repelled an intruder, I think.
After that, we figured out that it’s either slimes that got big from gobbling up tons of mana, or naturally occurring giant-ass slimes appearing in places with tons of mana, especially near water.”
There have been several giant-ass slime cases in Panis Village too.
The one I use for the “Lost Item Search Service” is also a giant-ass slime.
Even Generic-kun started as a normal giant slime before he became glowy.
Judging from all that… the reason this slime became giant-ass this time is probably “because it absorbed a ton of mana.”
I don’t even know exactly how slimes appear in Panis Village.
It’s not like anyone’s intentionally producing them like in a dungeon.
It just seems like slimes naturally form in watery places rich in mana…
So near dungeons—mana-dense hotspots—slimes naturally pop out near water.
That’s all.
But conversely, this means:
“If there is water and mana, slimes tend to be born.”
Put another way:
“A slime is basically a product made of water and mana.”
… Thus, it stands to reason that “if there is water and mana, a slime can become giant-ass.”
Well, normally “being born” and “getting big” are two separate issues, but slimes…
I mean, come on, they’re just jelly. No brains, no organs, just pure wobble…
So it’s reasonable to think slimes get big because there was a lot of mana.
The problem is what decides whether the mana goes into making the slime bigger, or into accelerating crop growth.
If we can control this, it’d be super useful…
But then why does the Blessing prioritize making the slime giant-ass instead of boosting crops…?
… Well, maybe more experiments will clarify that. Hopefully…
Anyway—ten days later.
We ended up not returning to Panis Village during that period.
Well yeah.
A slime turned into a giant-ass slime in just one day—that’s a ridiculous event.
If we left it alone, the slime might grow to the size of the royal castle…
But ignoring our worries, the slimes just wobble-wobble, behaving as inscrutably as always.
Radishes grew so well they could be harvested every day on the slime’s head, and by day ten, the fields had radishes sprouting properly too…
“Waaah! A huge slime!”
… And so, when Saintess Sati came to check on things, her expression brightened instantly, and she approached the giant-ass slime—
Then she paused, fidgeted, and looked our way.
“… May I poke it?”
“Go ahead! Go all-in with your whole body!”
I knew it!
Of course Saintess Sati would like the giant-ass slime!
Well, yeah. They say big is good! …Or do they!?
“If you bury yourself in it, it feels great! I’m already sinking into it! Sati-chan, come on!”
Before the shy, fidgety Saintess Sati moved, Mishisia-san charged in first.
She hugged the giant-ass slime without a speck of hesitation.
The giant-ass slime went unyoo, and didn’t resist in the slightest.
Gentle creature.
Or maybe it’s just not thinking at all.
“… Waaah.”
Saintess Sati, smiling brightly, followed after Mishisia-san and hugged the giant-ass slime.
The sensation of your whole body pressing into soft wobbling jelly—it’s not bad.
I know very well because I’ve already dived into slimes (giant-ass and normal) several times.
“Right!? This slime is great, right!?”
“Yeah… hehe.”
Saintess Sati smiled.
We smiled seeing her smile.
… Maybe slimes become giant-ass just to make children happy.
I have reached enlightenment.
Now then.
“So, Saintess Sati, I’d like to ask you to Bless these A2, B2, C2, and D2 fields…
Ah, and also this slime with nothing planted on it, and this giant slime with nothing planted, and the slime with seeds, and the giant-ass slime with seeds…”
“Yes! ‘May fortune bless this land!’ ‘May fortune bless this slime!’”
After she finished cuddling the slimes, the experiment resumed.
This brings the fields to eight variations depending on how and when they received the Blessing.
Three more variations based on soil differences, but that’s separate…
And this time we also asked her to Bless slimes with nothing planted, to observe what happens.
I want to solve the mystery of their giant-ass growth. Somehow.
Fortunately, Saintess Sati no longer finds anything strange about using the Blessing—normally used for fields—on slimes.
This kind of flexible thinking is what makes kids great…
… Thinking about it now, the people of Panis Village adapted incredibly fast to the idea of planting crops in slimes and harvesting from them.
Aren’t they extremely flexible…?
Maybe a village full of flexible people naturally produces lots of soft, bouncy slimes…?
No, no, there’s definitely no correlation…
I almost achieved enlightenment again, but let’s set that aside and review the current experimental results.
“Let’s see… First, Blessing after sowing seeds seems to work better.
Also, having her Bless the water and using it for irrigation shows some effect.
And in any case, any field touched by the Blessing grows significantly better than a field with no Blessing at all.”
… So that’s the initial conclusion.
It was obvious from the start, but… “Blessing” makes a huge difference.
The un-Blessed field is still barely producing true leaves, but Field A (Blessing after sowing) is already showing growth close to harvestable.
Between Field A (Blessing after sowing) and Field B (sowing after Blessing), A has better growth.
Why?
It seems reasonable to think the Blessing acted directly on the seeds…
Which means we should test “Blessing only the seeds, touching nothing else.”
Then there’s the pattern of Blessing the water first, and using it on an un-Blessed field.
Growth there is slightly worse than pattern B.
Maybe being indirect weakens the Blessing’s effect.
But even so, it’s still dramatically better than no Blessing, so the Blessing’s power is still huge.
As for soil differences…
The soil mixed with leaf mold from Panis Village performed extremely well.
Much better than the field using the capital’s fertilizer.
So within this experiment, that soil had the best growth.
… Next best was the soil mixed with crushed gemstones from the Panis Village Dungeon.
This also did better than the capital’s fertilizer field, so yeah—mana… mana just solves things in an inexplicable way…
… And the slimes.
Not fields, but slimes.
Slimes, needless to say, outperform everything.
Among “fields,” Field E with Panis leaf mold was the best.
But if we don’t limit ourselves to “fields,” then slimes are overwhelmingly superior.
Crop growth is insanely fast, and the produce is high quality.
Troubling.
Fields can’t compete!
What are these incomprehensible creatures called slimes!?
Is it even allowed for something alive to function more like farmland than actual farmland!?
Well, they already do, so I guess it’s too late!
So while we’ve reached the conclusion “slimes are incomprehensible,” we’ve also kind of started to see some patterns… maybe… sort of.
… Well, it’s probably best to apply the Blessing as directly as possible.
Future experiments will follow that hypothesis.
“As for double-Blessing, we’ll see results later, so we’ll look at that then.”
“Ahh, the field we Blessed again today, right? I’m excited, Asuma-sama!”
The experiments have only just begun.
If we can solve the mysteries of the Blessing, fantastic.
Even if not, at least we’ll contribute a tiny bit to the foundational research of this world…
We just have to keep trying.
But then—
“Waaah! The slime! The sliiime!”
Hearing Saintess Sati’s voice, I rushed over immediately.
And there—
… Stood a house-sized super-giant-ass slime.
Yeah… blessings be upon it.
What do you think about this chapter?
