The lingering thoughts of the Swordmaster’s Ghost echo in my mind.
“Slimes are very low-level monsters. Tiny in size. When they die and dissolve, people use them industrially.”
“They’re not low-level.”
“They’re the weakest, killable even by an unarmed child crushing them. We used to make new recruits hunt them for leveling up.”
The thoughts of the Shield King Knight also chime in.
Even those who’ve ascended after death are cheering me on.
“Hey, you got anything to say?”
The King Slime doesn’t respond.
Looking at it, it doesn’t seem to have a mouth or brain.
I’m a bit stumped on how to kill it.
“Some slimes dissolve when crushed, but high-level ones split to absorb damage. Still, if you slice, slice, and slice again, they end up dead eventually.”
“For sticky ones, water makes it easier.”
“If it’s a high-level slime, it freely switches between sticky and slippery properties. Be cautious.”
Got it.
First, I threw a punch at the King Slime.
Boom!
The King Slime exploded like it was hit by a bomb.
“Pretty weak, huh.”
Excluding the White Dragon, it’s got the highest level and size among invaders, about as big as a dragon or a cat.
But since no level-up signal appeared, I stayed on guard.
As expected, the King Slime’s body quickly reassembled and floated in the air.
“Whoa, this thing.”
The reformed slime expanded to its maximum size.
Like pizza dough with yeast, stretched thin and wide.
But it wasn’t round—it looked like a slime version of a flasher opening their trench coat, lunging at me.
“Damn it.”
It’s probably going to wrap around me rather than cover me.
It can stretch its body that far, huh?
I threw another punch at the stretched King Slime.
A clean hit.
But.
The slime’s middle—its abdomen, I guess, though it doesn’t have one—caved in from my punch.
Then it pulled back, and the force I’d dealt came right back at me.
“Ugh.”
<Shield King trait focuses damage.>
<Shield King trait reduces physical damage.>
The slime, like a drawn bowstring, absorbed the force from my punch and shot it back.
Thanks to that, I got hit by my own shockwave attack, but with the pot lid equipped, Shield King activated, reducing damage to 10%.
Even so, it shaved off some HP.
Man, my damage output is strong. That hurt.
It can absorb my attack with its body and return the energy.
It’s high-level and not an easy opponent.
“If you encounter a large one, burning it might dissolve it.”
Fire can stop it, huh?
Time to use the power of F and a lighter.
Light the lighter and spray mosquito repellent—it creates flames.
Take this.
The ultimate firepower of a human household.
Fwoosh!
The King Slime’s bloated body, hit by the flames, spread out like dough slammed on the floor.
Its transparency increased.
It got bigger but thinner.
Its attack hesitated.
One hit doesn’t finish it.
I hit it with fire again, and the King Slime couldn’t hold up, shrinking and collapsing to the floor with a splat.
“This guy.”
The slime, spread like dough on the floor, became bouncy again.
Worried about noise complaints and smoke from the burning floor, I held off and pondered how to deal with it.
“Huh?”
Multiple legs sprouted from the King Slime’s round body, transforming it into something like a magnified coronavirus.
Then those legs stretched out, lifting the round body like a standing jellyfish.
I don’t know what it’s up to, but it’s suspicious, so I activated Intangible Sword first.
I sliced the slime’s leg-like parts.
I wasn’t sure if it’d cut, but it did.
But without its supporting legs, it should’ve crashed to the floor.
“Hey, what kind of combat style is this? How do I keep up?”
Even with the two ghosts’ memories giving me some slime-fighting knowledge, they’ve never fought a slime in a room, so it’s not much help.
It’s shooting tendrils to the ceiling and hanging there—how do I deal with that?
Are you Spider-Man?
I can’t figure out how to catch it, so this is turning into a long fight.
It’s the first monster to drag out a battle in my room.
Even that annoying red wizard went down in one hit with water, but this is a complicated enemy.
I cut the legs it shot to the ceiling, but…
Splat.
“Ugh?!”
The King Slime, with its sticky tendrils on the ceiling, swung like Tarzan and stuck to my face.
It was too fast.
Did the level gap make me lose out on speed?
“Urk, ugh?!”
I tried to speak, but the slime spread, blocking my nose and mouth.
“Guh, choke. Can’t… breathe…”
It happened in an instant.
I hadn’t paid any attention to my Speed stat, so I missed the movement of this high-level King Slime, which didn’t seem fast.
“Ugh, choke, cough. Guh.”
I tried ripping it off with my hands, but it stretched like gum and wouldn’t let go.
Man, this is insane.
I’d love to borrow CatMan’s paws, but I sent him to fetch.
Would he come back if I called?
“He… help…”
The slime blocking my airway wouldn’t budge, and even pulling with my hands only worked momentarily.
It slipped through my fingers, layering over my nose and mouth again.
“Ugh, uuuugh.”
I ran to the bathroom, thinking water might work.
“Guh, urk?!”
It’s transparent but distorts my vision, so I could barely see.
I tried washing it off at the sink, but it seemed to harden instead.
With my airway blocked, my consciousness started fading.
It sealed my mouth, so even trying to spit it out didn’t work—it clung and wouldn’t let go.
The part I spit at was slippery, but it cleverly avoided it and blocked my airway again.
“Urgh, guh, choke.”
My head was getting foggy, and I couldn’t think of strategies anymore.
I tried tearing at the gelatinous mass, but like being choked in pro wrestling, my hands went numb and fell limp.
My consciousness faded, and I thought this was the end.
Not a glorious end fighting a monster with cool gear, but suffocating to death by a giant konjac jelly shat out by the gate.
I never imagined this.
Gotta format my computer…
Oh…
“Hack, hack, hack, gasp, gasp.”
[Leader! Are you okay?]
Okay? Hell no.
Air is a wonderful thing.
Sometimes, you gotta be grateful for being able to breathe and live in this world.
“Damn it, gasp, gasp. Haa, haa.”
In short, I survived.
[What happened to that monster?]
RiceCookerMan, a spirit who can’t move, was just watching, not stomping but whipping his tail(?).
“I ate it.”
As my consciousness faded, I had a thought.
It was blocking my airway, like when you choke on food.
If I couldn’t pull it off from the outside, maybe I could swallow it down my esophagus instead.
Of course, eating a slime monster felt like a massive violation of human dignity.
Did I really have to go that far? The thought briefly crossed my mind.
But as my consciousness faded further, I stopped caring about dignity and acted on instinct.
I sucked it down my throat and chewed it up.
Konjac jelly texture. Konjac jelly.
I forced the dissolved konjac jelly down my throat, and the part of the King Slime blocking my airway moved away.
Gelatin. Gelatin. High-quality gelatin. The kind in Haribo, gelatin for Hindus, pig’s feet, yeah, chewy pig’s feet gelatin. Chewy, chewy gelatin.
It kinda felt like that texture.
[Kek, kek-kek!?]
The King Slime started screaming.
I didn’t understand it, but a silent monster shrieking meant I was onto something.
I chewed it up and savored it.
This guy… tastes like fragrant acacia, despite how it looks.
The more I chewed, the more it felt like it had a chewing texture.
There was a lot of it, but is this really gelatin?
“Haa, haa. These monsters, I won’t let them live.”
Almost dying pissed me off, but…
It’s kinda tasty, why?
The slime wasn’t fully processed as dead.
The parts I tore off and spat out while coughing were scattered around the room.
“Damn these guys.”
The slime remnants didn’t resist or change, but I kept picking them up and chewing them.
My skin’s precious, after all.
I didn’t leave a single piece of King Slime in the room.
There was so much, my stomach’s full and feeling queasy. Ugh. Urp!
My stomach…!
Burp.
Feels better.
Then a message popped up.
<Level increased to 256!>
It’s digested.
<Fragrance LV15>
Emits a floral scent.
Hides your presence with a floral aroma in foliage, allowing stealth.
Protects you from enemies without eyes or with blocked vision.
It was a monster that induced suffocation but loved flowers, and it left me this skill.
It also raised my level by 53.
RiceCookerMan spoke.
[As expected, eating rice regularly keeps your stomach at ease!]
Ugh.
“Disappointing, RiceCookerMan.”
[Huh?]
“You should’ve said, ‘You ate something weird instead of rice, so that’s why.’”
[I’ll… turn rebellious.]
What’s with this rice cooker hitting puberty?
It was just something I ate, but the tension from the fierce battle eased, and I collapsed onto the bed, exhausted.
“Haa, man, seriously. If I let even one slime like that live, humanity’s done for.”
Imagining that thing attacking people and suffocating them is chilling.
Maybe I’m really protecting humanity without anyone knowing.
Hm.
And I could’ve died.
I’ve got <Rebirth LV10>, so death guarantees a next life, and <Super Regeneration LV8>, so I’d regenerate even if 10% of my head was gone.
But I have zero intention of testing that by dying or losing my head or balls.
“I need a way to fight without getting hurt…”
The golem control skill can handle bipedal, limbed inanimate objects, it said.
“Magic…”
I turned my head.
Looks like the Sprout Fairy isn’t asleep.
Right, magic.
Right now, I can only do water freezing, summoning, storing, minor wound healing, level scanning, and inextinguishable flame with a lighter.
I want to use something cooler.
“Hey, maybe you could teach me something…”
With 53 stat points banked, I could dump 26 into Magic.
I peeked through the Sprout Fairy’s petals to see if she’d teach me anything.
“Don’t die…”
She saw my big face and got scared, wiping her eyes with her fern-like hands, sniffling.
“No, no, I’m not dying.”
The Sprout Fairy pulled out a water droplet the size of her hand and offered it.
She’s grown a lot, and so has her flower, so it looks like a droplet.
Isn’t this for HP recovery?
<Fairy’s Tear>
Temporarily doubles Magic growth rate.
“Oh. Uh.”
So this is what they meant by raising a fairy helping with Magic.
“Thanks for worrying, Princess.”
Feeling good from the double-stat event, I thanked her.
“Say you love me! Now!”
“…Uh, that’s, um.”
It’s getting awkward now.
It was nice pouring affection on a silent being, but now with feedback, my whole body’s cringing.
I’m the guy who wrote a debt collection notice for Lunar New Year’s money in my Mother’s Day letter to Mom.