Investing in My Crippled Wife: Every Return Makes Me Stronger

When Soren’s vision cleared, he found himself standing in a forest.

The trees were spaced far apart, their trunks pale and thin, their branches bare despite the faint greenish light filtering from above. The ground was covered in moss and scattered stones. The air smelled damp and earthy.

Soren took a deep breath, adjusting his grip on the spear.

He took a few careful steps forward, scanning his surroundings.

Whistle.

’!’ Soren’s instinct screamed, and he decisively threw himself sideways.

A small rock spike shot past where his head had been a second ago, slamming into a tree trunk with a sharp crack.

’What the—’

He spun around.

A brown slime sat on a moss-covered rock about ten meters away.

Roughly the size of a large melon, gelatinous and semi-transparent. Its body pulsed rhythmically. Small stones floated inside its mass, rotating slowly.

’Shoot. An elemental one right from the start?’

Soren cursed inwardly.

The slime quivered. Another stone inside its body began to glow.

Soren moved.

He sprinted toward it, closing the distance fast.

The slime launched another spike.

Soren ducked, feeling the projectile whiz over his head, and kept running.

Three meters. Two meters. He swung the spear.

The slime jumped, launching itself sideways with surprising speed. But Soren anticipated it. He took a big step forward, cutting off its trajectory, and swung down hard.

The steel spear slammed into the slime with a wet thud, driving it into the ground.

The gelatinous body flattened under the impact, quivering violently.

Soren pressed down harder, twisting the spear tip.

The slime convulsed once, then went still.

Its body began to dissolve, the brown mass liquefying and seeping into the moss.

A small, glowing sphere remained.

Soren pulled the spear free, breathing hard, his heart pounding wildly, and his hands trembling slightly from adrenaline.

He crouched down and picked up the core. It was warm to the touch, and about the size of a marble, glowing faintly with brown light.

He stored it away in his inventory with a mental command.

’One down. Another one to go.’

He adjusted his grip on the spear and continued deeper into the forest.

______ ___ _

Time passed.

Soren moved through the forest methodically, hunting one slime after another.

The second was a regular blue slime, slower and easier to dispatch. The third was water-type, spraying pressurized jets that cut through moss like blades. He barely dodged in time, rolling behind a tree before closing in for the kill.

The fourth and fifth came together. Fire-types that launched small exploding fireballs. Soren got singed trying to fight them head-on and quickly learned to separate them first, luring one away before engaging.

By the tenth slime, he’d figured out the patterns.

Regular slimes were straightforward. Elemental types required patience and timing. Groups were the real challenge.

When three wind-type slimes attacked simultaneously from different angles, launching razor-sharp air blades, he had almost panicked and gotten injured. His first attempt ended with a shallow cut across his shoulder.

But he adjusted quickly, using the trees as cover to separate them before picking them off one by one.

By the two-hour mark, Soren had cleared almost the entire forest.

He collected fifty-four regular cores and twenty-three elemental cores. Sixty-seven in total.

And now, the final obstacle waited.

He peeked through his hidden position.

The boss was a massive slime.

Roughly one meter tall and two and a half meters wide, its gelatinous body pulsing slowly while shifting between colors—brown, blue, red, green—rotating in a steady cycle.

He circled slowly, studying the creature carefully.

It hadn’t moved yet, just sat there pulsing as if waiting for him to approach.

He recalled the info about it.

The slime boss could use all four elements and their signature skills: Earth spikes, water jets, fireballs, and wind blades.

And it was bigger, tougher, harder to kill.

’This one’s going to be tricky.’

Soren exhaled slowly and stepped forward.

The boss reacted instantly.

The ground beneath Soren rumbled.

Earth spikes erupted from the moss, shooting upward like deadly spears aimed directly at him.

Soren launched himself into the air, barely clearing the spikes as they whistled past his legs.

But the boss had anticipated it.

A barrage of wind blades shot toward him mid-air, razor-sharp crescents slicing through the space.

’Damn it!’

Soren twisted his body, bringing the spear up defensively.

The first blade struck the steel shaft with a sharp clang, the impact jarring his arms. The second grazed his shoulder, tearing fabric and drawing blood. The third slammed into his side, throwing him backward.

His body hurtled toward a tree.

Soren twisted mid-air, planting his feet against the trunk and using it as a springboard to launch himself forward.

He shot toward the boss, spear extended.

Clash!

A rock wall erupted from the ground directly in front of the slime, blocking his thrust.

The spear tip struck stone with a metallic screech.

And then spikes shot outward from the wall itself.

Soren threw himself sideways, rolling across the moss as stone projectiles embedded themselves where he’d been standing a second ago.

He came up in a crouch, breathing hard.

The wall crumbled, and the boss sat there, pulsing calmly, colors still rotating through its massive body.

’Of course it’s not that easy.’

Soren smiled bitterly before charging again.

The boss responded with a torrent of water, a high-pressure jet that carved through the ground. Soren dodged left, circling around, closing the distance.

A fireball exploded near his feet. He jumped over the flames and thrust forward.

Another rock wall. Another barrage of wind blades. Another retreat.

The pattern repeated.

Again and again.

Soren couldn’t get close. Every time he tried, the boss countered with perfect timing. Earth walls. Water jets. Fire explosions. Wind slashes.

It used all four elements masterfully, barraging him relentlessly.

The few successful strikes he managed to land barely left a dent. The gelatinous body absorbed the impacts and reformed instantly.

His arms ached. His legs burned. Blood dripped from shallow cuts across his shoulder and side.

But he didn’t panic. He watched. Learned. Adapted.

The boss had a pattern. Each transition took a split second. That was his opening.

Soren circled again, feinting left.

The boss launched a fireball.

Soren dodged, closed the gap, and thrust.

A water wall erupted between them, a swirling barrier of pressurized liquid that would shred his spear if he forced through.

Soren let go of the spear, which clattered against the water barrier. And he activated Quick Step. Mana surged through his legs. The world blurred. In an instant, Soren appeared on the other side of the water wall, directly beside the boss.

His hand was already moving, palm forward, channeling everything he had into the technique.

Frost Palm Strike!

Ice Mana erupted from his palm.

The moment his hand touched the slime’s gelatinous surface, cold exploded outward.

Frost spread across the boss’s body, white and crystalline, covering nearly half its mass in ice.

But it didn’t freeze completely.

The slime convulsed violently, its colors flashing erratically as it fought against the spreading cold.

And Soren screamed.

”Agh!”

His palm burned with freezing pain. The ice Mana, uncontrolled and raw, had backfired. Frost crept up his hand, crystallizing his skin, biting deep into flesh.

He yanked his hand back, but the damage was done.

His entire palm was frozen, fingers stiff and white.

The boss recovered.

Half of its body was still encased in ice, but the other half pulsed with red light.

A fireball began forming.

’No!’

Soren’s frozen hand was useless. He couldn’t grip anything.

But his spear lay on the ground nearby. He dove for it, grabbing the shaft with his good hand, and rolled as the fireball exploded where he’d been standing.

The boss quivered, trying to launch another attack.

Soren charged.

The boss managed to raise another earth wall, but it was weakened due to its injury.

Soren slammed through it with his shoulder, stone fragments scattering, and thrust the spear forward with all his remaining strength.

The steel tip pierced deep into the frozen section of the slime’s body.

Crack.

The ice shattered from the impact, spreading fractures through the entire frozen mass.

Soren twisted the spear, driving it deeper.

The boss convulsed once, twice, and finally went still.

”Huff... Huff...”

Soren watched breathlessly as its body began to dissolve, the gelatinous mass liquefying and seeping into the ground. Only a large, glowing sphere remained.

The boss core.

Soren staggered back, continuing to gasp for air, clutching his frozen hand against his chest.

’Damn, it really hurts!’

The frost was already starting to melt from his body heat, but his palm was raw, the skin cracked and bleeding in places.

It was obvious that using the technique without complete mastery was dangerous. He’d need to practice more before relying on it in combat again.

But despite the pain, Soren couldn’t help but smile.

He was alive.

And the boss was dead.

After a moment, he forced himself to stand and picked up the boss’s core with his good hand.

Twice the size of a regular core, pulsing with multicolored light.

He stored it in his inventory.

’Sixty-eight cores total. One boss core.’

But more importantly...

’My first gate... is cleared.’