Marsh Slime Attack

The Marsh Slime Attack is the sudden night assault that interrupts Broccoli Bunch and Amaryllis Albatross’s camp in the marshes. Beginning with thunder and a shouted order to wake, the event moves from sleepy confusion to an overwhelming swarm, then to a desperate escape in which Broccoli Bunch saves Amaryllis with Cleaning magic and discovers that the skill has become a genuine ranged weapon. By dawn, the attack has changed both the immediate tactical situation and Broccoli Bunch’s understanding of what the Cinnamon Bun class can do.

Causes and Setting

The attack begins while Broccoli Bunch is asleep after Amaryllis has taken over the watch. The camp is still in complete darkness when thunder breaks the rest, the ground seems to skip beneath Broccoli Bunch, and Amaryllis orders the party to gather its gear and leave the tent because Marsh Slimes are approaching. Their presence is difficult to detect against the marshy ground; apart from the gurgling noise made as they move, the creatures blend into the puddled landscape until they have already surrounded the sleepers.

The first clearly identified attacker is an unemotional Marsh Slime at level 8, described as large, bulbous, wobbly, and coated in mud and twigs. Electric shocks race over its body when Amaryllis attacks, making it wilt, but the effect does not end the danger. More slimes roll out of the woods, and Broccoli Bunch soon sees dozens surrounding the camp. Amaryllis immediately judges that there are too many to kill and changes the objective from defeating the attackers to escaping them.

The encounter also clarifies what the Marsh Slimes are. Broccoli Bunch worries that they might be sapient or have homes and families, but Amaryllis explains that they are formed from concentrations of ambient mana. They require a particular kind of mana and then roll around, attaching themselves to magical things, including people. Their menace is therefore not a social enemy with negotiable intentions but a magical nuisance whose attraction to magic makes travelers and equipment vulnerable.

The Ambush and Escape

Broccoli Bunch reacts by grabbing the backpack, Orange, the hat, and the spear, then switching on the rune-light at the front of the helmet. Amaryllis uses lightning to strike the slimes while the pair runs along the road. The escape turns dangerous when a large gooey tentacle reaches from a nearby tree and wraps around Amaryllis’s face and neck, pulling her down. Her electrified hand struggles against it, but the slime holds fast.

Broccoli Bunch first tries to pull Amaryllis free and fails. The next response is physical contact with the slime: the surface feels like a pot of hot water, prickling the skin and producing a faint burning odor. Broccoli Bunch then fires the quickest available Cleaning spell, causing the tentacle to burst into motes of light and allowing Amaryllis to stumble free, gasping on her knees. Broccoli Bunch immediately gives her a trifecta potion, making the rescue an act of protection rather than simply an attempt to clear a path.

The attack becomes a turning point when Mister Menu announces that Cleaning has reached Rank C at 100 percent. The new ability allows Broccoli Bunch to use mana to clean things that can be seen, not only things being touched. Broccoli Bunch aims at a pursuing slime and forms the spell into a tight ball of interwoven magic before launching it forward. The projectile strikes the creature and makes it explode, while the remaining slime on Broccoli Bunch fades away.

The system rewards the result with bonus experience because a level 9 Marsh Slime has been washed despite being above Broccoli Bunch’s level. The language of washing makes the attack sound domestic and almost harmless, but the consequence is lethal destruction. Cleaning has crossed the boundary between tidying and combat: it removes contamination from the body, breaks a constricting monster apart, and produces the same progression rewards as a conventional attack.

Combat Partnership

The attack reveals a complementary division of labor between Broccoli Bunch and Amaryllis. Amaryllis provides immediate electrical force, striking slimes with shocks and crackling whips, while Broccoli Bunch uses Cleaning as a more specialized answer to the creatures’ contact and magical residue. Neither character handles the encounter alone: Amaryllis’s lightning weakens and drives back the swarm, while Broccoli Bunch’s spell frees her from the tentacle and destroys at least one higher-level pursuer.

Their cooperation continues after the most dangerous moment has passed. They jog at first, then slow to a steady walk because the puddle-covered, uneven road causes them to stumble too often. Broccoli Bunch practices the improved spell during the retreat, learning through use that Cleaning can be shaped either as a ball-like projectile or as a larger cone. The cone consumes much more mana, but Broccoli Bunch compares its action to a flame thrower devoted to cleanliness. Smaller slimes that leap toward them become targets for repeated bursts, while Amaryllis joins in by knocking them from the air with carefully aimed electrical attacks.

Amaryllis’s response to the new combat ability is restrained. When Broccoli Bunch asks whether the spell was adequate, she calls it adequate, which nevertheless leaves Broccoli Bunch beaming. Her approval matters because the attack has tested Broccoli Bunch not only as a newly empowered Cinnamon Bun but also as a teammate responsible for another person’s survival. The encounter therefore converts a class description centered on being a pure support and friend into demonstrated battlefield usefulness.

Dawn and Consequences

The fight and retreat last through the remaining night. As the sky lightens to pale blue, the marshes change with it: birds begin to sing, other animals wake, and the slimes recede into the swampy waters. Broccoli Bunch and Amaryllis finally stop after making it out of immediate danger. The movement from thunder and darkness to birdsong and dawn gives the event a clear reversal, but the escape is not presented as a clean victory. The pair has survived by running, improvising, and using a newly expanded skill rather than by eliminating the entire swarm.

The event also leaves physical and emotional traces. Amaryllis is caught by surprise and briefly immobilized, while Broccoli Bunch spends mana freely to destroy the slime and uses a trifecta potion to aid her. The marsh remains a place where sleep, terrain, visibility, and ambient magic all work against travelers. Even after the slimes withdraw, the journey continues through mud and concealment, with Broccoli Bunch later sinking into the marsh until the mud nearly reaches the lips while Amaryllis warns against being found. The attack thus belongs to a broader sequence of bodily exposure, dirt, and evasion rather than standing as an isolated monster fight.

Narrative Significance

The Marsh Slime Attack gives concrete form to the Cinnamon Bun class’s unusual moral and mechanical identity. Broccoli Bunch is told that the class is too pure for the world and exists to cleanse its impurities in the name of love and justice. The attack complicates that ideal without discarding it. Cleaning protects a friend, removes a harmful substance from the body, and saves the party, yet it also annihilates creatures that Broccoli Bunch initially wonders might possess families or communities. Amaryllis’s explanation replaces sentimental uncertainty with a functional classification: the slimes are mana concentrations and nuisances.

That classification is echoed by the system’s rewards. A spell named Cleaning becomes more effective as a person practices it, advances from touch-based use to visible targets, and ultimately destroys a level 9 monster for bonus experience. The event makes the world’s progression system visible as a structure that translates moral language, domestic labor, and magical violence into one measurable ability. Broccoli Bunch’s combat role later remains defined in similar terms: limited conventional fighting ability, makeshift weapon proficiency, substantial Cleaning magic, and a preference for ranged damage.

Most importantly, the attack changes the relationship between innocence and competence. Broccoli Bunch’s instinct is to ask whether the slimes are nice, but that softness does not prevent decisive action when Amaryllis is endangered. The same character who hesitates over the possibility of slime families can fire a concentrated Cleaning projectile, destroy a monster above level, and keep moving through the night. The event’s decisive achievement is therefore not merely survival. It proves that gentleness, when given a system-supported form, can become forceful enough to protect someone in the mud, darkness, and magical contamination of the marsh.