That Time I Saved a Slime Princess: Sword & Slime Adventures, #1

By Jonathan Evan Hudson

The one of a kind hedge knight Zarvee Tempest loves a good adventure. A good challenge even more. For few monsters stop him for very long.

But not all monsters deserve death. So when he runs into a certain slime princess—a damsel in distress no less—sparks fly fast and furious. Beginning a challenge to his very core.

And far more than Zarvee knows depends on the outcome.

An epic fantasy unlike any other on the market! Join Zarvee Tempest riding to the rescue in this sexy, action-packed first book of Sword & Slime Adventures. If you love epics of awesome power and stunning blends of magic and monsters, then you'll absolutely love That Time I Saved a Slime Princess!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Fang Press
• Release date: Dec 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215675908

Jonathan Evan Hudson

Widely traveled, Jonathan Evan Hudson spends as much time studying life as he does writing gripping tales of fantastic adventures. From the giant redwoods of California to the deserts of Israel, his thrilling stories all draw on first-hand experiences and expand them with the fantastic and his acclaimed creativity.

Book preview

Part One

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Chapter 1

Zarvee Tempest

The gray murk grumbled as loud as my stomach, but I had a job to do and little time left to do it.

Confirmed by how the fog was already so muggy you didn’t need to walk down an alley to get mugged. The fog would mug you for free. No bleeding. No missing wallet. Win-win all around.

And I loved myself a win-win.

Even if the fog was so thick, it was as thick and creamy as the white sauce I loved to drown my delicious lunch of angel hair pasta in. Even at the solid age of thirty-four, I let my dear sweet mother spoil me with a bowl of what’s best called cream of white sauce with that perfect pasta in it, softer than a gorgeous girl’s touch and just as thrilling.

Since after losing a daughter and husband to the monster menace, even if by now it was a decade ago, she needed someone to live for, or else she might end up joining them sooner rather than later, and I had more than enough losses for a lifetime.

Losses I now worked diligently as a hedge knight to save others from suffering.

Seeing a couple paces ahead was the best I could manage for now, in the crack ass of morning. Challenges made life worth living, and hunting another savage monster that had somehow slipped through the city’s defenses and slaughtered so many stray critters … leaving only piles of small bleached bones behind. Piles glued together, glued to the granite ground, by black goo so corrosive the piles vanished quickly, within a few hours at most, leaving only a steaming hot tang in the air.

And a smell so sharp and hot it gnawed the breath out of a guy like a hungry dog gnawed the marrow out of a bone.

Only a matter of time before someone more precious vanished. A pet. Or worse, a little child.

Yet only then would the city guard get involved—maybe. They were busy, and only the more important folk near my level and above got any of the better kind of attention. Down here, the lower levels, sigh, trouble had many forms and names. Not all monsters were obvious. And not all monsters were monstrous.

So I kept my pace a steady but cautious march forward.

But even that, with this terribly limited visibility, it was far from safe here in Castleside City. The city itself was carved like a series of giant steps into the side of a thousand-pace-high mountain ridge. Each of the many rectangular homes were carved right out of the granite slope so that the rooftops of the lower level was always the floor for the next higher level.

Yet even on a treacherous morning like today, the city was already starting to bustle with people going forth on their daily business. On all levels, whether the well-off higher levels or the less fortunate lower levels, the loudest always were the hawkers. They started to cry out their latest deals like songbirds out to snag whatever songbirds sought. Plenty of hawkers were already haggling with equally crafty housewives over precious coin.

Not on this level. This level was empty. Abandoned for the moment except for vagrants and worse. Just like my buddy Lodo Hibbs warned me. Don’t linger too long here. Trouble’s been lurking here for years and years and no one’s figured out what that trouble is. Trouble that meant more than just a few disappearances. The kind the city guard, had they tended these levels, would have investigated more thoroughly long ago.

Only the stray one-wheeled barrel still squealed louder here and there, despite the law demanding such things be only done at the dead of night.

But the squeal a good dozen or so paces ahead of me was no barrel. Too much like a terrified flute. A long single note. Scream.

And it was coming toward me.

Closer.

And closer.

So one of my hands gripped my buckler of scarlet lamia scale—scale gifted to me by a certain lovely lamia minstrel so I could deflect both blade and magic so, in a sense, she could save my life like I had saved hers, but many times over.

My other hand fingered my saber of spiraled alicorn—an ancient family heirloom. One that could slice through armor or magic.

Usually.

But despite my hackles screaming sharp and skyward, I was still within a city, a live and inhabited city, so the saber stayed fully sheathed and strapped to my waist.

For now.

Less than a dozen paces left and the source of the scream was coming quicker.

And quicker.

So I better rely on my brigandine armor—steel plates held together by studded black leather. This sleeveless chest armor didn’t reduce my mobility, at all, just like my pauldrons and braces of the same make. The black gambeson underneath my brigandine wasn’t half-bad protection either, but no helm.

Not allowed.

It would hid my identity, even if I was counted among the few Tall, Dark, and Handsomes in the city (at least according to that lamia minstrel and a number of her lovely girlfriends.)

I just counted myself lucky the city guard permitted me, as a lone knight-errand, to both carry and draw my blade within the city limits. The little wood sculpture of a blue knight tied to my belt was the license to prove it.

Not everyone was given that luxury.

And why this hunt was also a favor for a friend in the city guard. A favor that let my heart now race faster and faster.

As I crouched readier and readier.

Just as a someone dashed out of the fog. A blur of lavender-pink girl—no.

A blur of beauty. A stunner. Stunningly gorgeous. Curved slim in the right places, and obese in the chest places.

Her bright sparkling eyes hit mine shocked and awed.

Then she tripped. Only a pace away.

Her yelp. So cute and girlish.

As she fell to her knees. Thump. Slim arms between lush thighs.

Especially when she looked up to me. That beautiful heart of a baby face framed by locks of lavender-pink ... slime?

Wait … a lavender-pink slime girl? No.

A slime princess—a higher ranked monster of sorts. A notorious seduce-and-slay lustfully-stupid boys sort of monster. Least outside the city, and I still had a scar or two over my chest to prove my own foolish encounters with their sort.

Some bits of bone even floated within her flat cute tummy still. Bones so corroded they could have come from anything, and yet …

But her bright beautiful eyes staring up at me. Terrified. Full of despair.

The very same eyes I’d need to destroy to end her.

A simple quick slice would do.

But that breeze of sweet gentle bubblegum hit me like the loss of my own dear little sister Annaire. How she so loved that rarest of candy, that rare scent mother once loved just as much too. How poor little Annaire would always yank her little pigtails for more and more—even when I could only afford a few pieces, and only because I had helped the alchemists gather the needed ingredients from distant dangerous places.

So when the cries of pursuit came from behind the slime princess …

Mercenaries no doubt out for the usual monster bounty, of course, and a slime princess, a nice rare bounty. Her lavender-pink slime gleamed so bright and crisp, it could no doubt give a nice but temporary boost of strength and magic for a few techniques—if drunk fresh and gooey. Get enough of that slime fresh and gooey to right alchemist and that boost, loads stronger and loads longer, and longer lasting, in more ways than one.

Too valuable for lesser men to pass up.

Like those men who popped out of the fog moments later. All three big, hairy, and armed better then me. Steel-plate armor better. Bastard swords out and gleaming ready. Sparkles of blood red magic showered down from their blades. Definitely hedge knights of a sort, but no emblems on their armor, so probably mercenary knights.

So I did what any lustfully-stupid boy would do.

I whipped out my own sword. Pointed it at the biggest. The big brute in the middle. Out in front.

Leave my girl alone.

The gasps of everyone involved—even the slime princess—I didn’t smirk. My face—just thin disgust.

Like I was gazing at three piles of manure come alive and raving idiotic.

The biggest mercenary growled and grimaced, but his eyes stayed shocked wide.

Too wide. His hesitation—just what I needed.

Your girl?! the biggest mercenary said, "This thing … aincha smart enough to know better?"

That’s between me and her.

Until she eats ya, stupid idiot.

My life, her choice.

The slime princess giggled up at me? And what a choice!

Her voice—like sweet, sweet candy for the ears. Just like how she smiled up at me.

And said: I choice I’d never regret—even if I must die here … just to see you one more time.

Changing my foolish heart forever.

Chapter 2

Zarvee Tempest

Those words of the slime princess shocked everyone here even more. Even me. Especially me. Even if those words were all an act.

Not if.

Were.

A lonely heart could easily be melted. All too easily. Like chocolate in a hot oven.

Just like the hardest of ice could always be melted by a hot-enough flame.

My heart raced stupider and stupider. I hadn’t even dated a girl in too many years. Too busy for some. Too close to my mother for others. And I wasn’t the whoring type either. Never was. Never will be.

Even after my first and greatest love ran off and vanished for a couple decades.

Yet it wasn’t the fog mugging me senseless here, now. Even as it swirled thicker and thicker around all five of us. Trapping the bubblegum scent of this slime princess in with us. Giving it a boost. As if its crisp loving nips to each and every breath of mine powered me up more and more.

Just like the joyful puppy Annaire always wanted but didn’t live to see.

No.

I had to be as hard as the granite road beneath my feet. As steady as this mountain ridge against the unending storms and savage ocean bashing its other side. The road itself was several paces wide here. More than wide enough for the biggest mercenary’s companions to circle around me and the slime princess, who was still currently sitting on her knees, arms between those lush bare thighs, still looking so delightfully happy up at me now. Even as a puddle of lavender-pink slime formed underneath her.

That heart of a baby face was so beautiful and heart-achingly sweet, with that smile …

A smile that gleamed as brightly as the rest of her lavender slime self …

No.

Brighter.

No wonder so many boys were seduced and doomed by such slime princesses. It was a wonder the hawkers screaming out their best deal of the day didn’t hire more monster girls like this one.

Especially down here where the city guard rarely patrolled.

Imagine the sales from boys that, well, as long as the monsters didn’t eat the customers, which … okay, all too likely, especially if the haggling got too heated.

Just the thought, my heart beat slower, by a touch. Calmer, by a bigger touch. Like father taught me a few decades ago—be calm like a cookie before a kid, not like the kid before a cookie.

And just the thought, I almost cracked a smile back at the slime princess.

Almost.

Father’s warning about monster girls too … like how he lost his left hand to a sweet-seeming slime princess … yeah, and even with a bright-pink-stained stub of a wrist that ached horribly more often than not, he always claimed he got off easy, unlike his older bother—an uncle I never knew—all because a lovely and beautifully deceptive lamia lass killed him long before my time.

Good to remember now.

This slime princess wasn’t actually my girl, and probably never could be, but she wasn’t my target either. Live and let live, as my father often said, whether human or monster.

Good words to live by, and why I had a few good buddies down on this level too. Not all of them human either.

So I kept my saber of spiraled alicorn out and pointed at the biggest mercenary knight. He was only paces behind the slime princess now. Recovered from the shock.

And edging closer.

And closer.

That big mercenary glared at me like his eyes were darts and I was the bullseye. His grip on his bastard sword tightened. Held up and straight, the blade gleamed blood red, just like its sparkles.

Sparkles that showered down more, sizzling louder and louder, like bacon on a hot frying pan, especially when they hit the granite street and got snuffed out.

His two companions did the same. With similar blood red blades. Similar sizzling sparkles.

More like her life, the big mercenary said, and yours.

Uh huh.

You have a license to carry those swords? I said, Or draw them?

All three chuckled sinister.

Good. Them without a license meant they’d be treated as cutthroats, while I’d get the benefit of the doubt—once the city guard got involved.

Well, if they become involved.

Big if.

The biggest mercenary smirked. All too certain of himself.

The Brotherhood of the Wolf Below owns this place, lock, treasure and chest. Mess with us and—

I sliced. A blur. Through the butt of his blade.

Ping!

His blade fell. Severed. Sparkles vanishing forever. Sizzling out. Along with that blood red gleam.

Clang!

The blade smacked the ground. Bounced a bit. Ending a few mere inches behind the slime princess and her puddle of lavender-pink slime.

The face of the biggest mercenary flared red.

"You!!! Name. NOW."

I smirked this time.

Loser first.

He snarled.

"You’ll regret this! Men! Kill—"

I swooped my blade up. Tip to his throat.

Live and let live, I said, Or should I say, catch and release?

Trembling with fury and fear the biggest mercenary hissed out of clenched yellow teeth.

Release.

Then you know what to do.

The biggest mercenary dropped his broken blade. Raised his big hairy palms.

"Back off boys. We’ll get him later. You hear me?! Later."

His two companions still hesitated. For a moment.

Until I smirked even more wicked at them both.

Scowling at me the two both sheathed their blades.

But it was the biggest mercenary that still spoke for them all.

"Later you’ll pay for this or else my name’s not Drit Pitch! Watch your back boy, and your front. Watch it good. Not all wolves need sheep’s clothing. No matter how high you crawl you’ll never be high enough to escape the Wolf Below. Never!"

Not that I ever heard of this Wolf Below nonsense, but no doubt it was just another crew of