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But I’d been reborn. As a slime.
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Munch, munch.
Munch, munch, munch, munch.
I just snacked on some grass.
Why did I do that? Well, why not?
Not like I had anything else to do!
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It had been a few days or so since I was pretty much forced to accept the fact that I was now a slime. How many, I wasn’t exactly clear on. The passage of time is tough to pick up on when all you can see is total darkness.
One discovery I had stumbled upon over the past few days was that a slime’s body could be way more useful than at first sniff. I never got hungry, for one, nor did I get tired. Food and sleep, for me, were wholly unnecessary. And I had divined something else, too. I couldn’t be completely sure, but there didn’t seem to be anything else living around here. In terms of danger, I wasn’t sure there was any to speak of. My days were blissfully free of worry.
Or anything else, really.
The whole time, I never heard that voice again. By this point, I wouldn’t have minded a little companionship. But no. It was just me, the grass, and me eating it for lack of much else to do. It was simply a way to kill time. And by this point, I could sense the entire process—my body absorbing the blades, dismantling them internally, sorting through all the components, and storing them away.
What it all meant, I couldn’t say. It was starting to frighten me a bit. I needed to do something, or I’d lose my mind. So I kept going through the cycle—absorb, break down, store up. But there was something odd about the process. Elimination never factored into it, somehow. Not even once. Maybe slimes didn’t need to do that. Hell, not like I’d know either way. But where was all this stuff I was ingesting going, then? My senses told me that my form hadn’t changed in any appreciable manner from when I first arrived.
So what the hell?
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Received. It is being stored in the stomach of the unique skill “Predator.” Current physical space usage is less than one percent.
What? Whoa! It speaks!
But since when was I using any skills? I thought I answered no back there.
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Received. The unique skill “Predator” is not being used. The matter being ingested into your body is set to automatically be stored in your stomach. This can be changed as needed.
Oh? Well, nice to see we’re having a real back-and-forth, finally. But back to business. If I use this skill, what happens then?
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Received. The unique skill “Predator” chiefly comprises the following five effects:
Um… What?
For the first time in a while, I was thrown. That sounded like kind of an incredible ability. Not exactly the kind of thing slimes were known for. At least not the ones I knew.
And…hang on. Who was this voice answering my questions, anyway? Was someone there?
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Received. This is the effect of the unique skill “Great Sage.” The skill has taken effect, making it more immediately available.
A sage, huh…? And here I thought that voice was just screwing with me. Now it was the best partner I had. Hope that keeps up.
Hell, anything would have been fine at that point. As long as it helped smooth out the endless solitude I was preparing myself for. For all I knew, this “voice” was something my mind had crafted to keep my marbles intact. It was fine by me. For the first time in ages, I could feel a burden lifting from my heart.
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By my count, it had been ninety days since I was reincarnated as a slime.
To be more precise, ninety days, seven hours, thirty-four minutes, and fifty-two seconds. How was I so sure about this? Turned out that was one of the many side effects of evoking that “Great Sage” skill.
Holy cats, was that thing helpful. Talk about your best friend in a pinch. Any question that popped to mind, it instantly provided the answer.
According to this Sage, it took ninety days for the skill to fully fuse itself with my soul. Normally, it would be unable to provide responses in the form of conversation, but in order to answer my questions, it apparently revamped itself, diverting part of its “World Language” powers to assist me. That’s how it was explained to me, at least.
This useful ability—relaying words into my mind—isn’t normally possible. As it explained to me, this “World Language” was heard only when there were great changes to the world or when you either earned or upgraded a skill—something that normally didn’t happen all that often. These skills were obtained only rarely, when the world recognized that you had grown in one way or another.
Evolution, meanwhile, was something most people never got to experience in their lives. It was all Greek to me, but if that was how it was, I was willing to accept it.
So the Great Sage was answering my questions at the moment, but otherwise it was this totally passive thing. No real sentience or anything. Unless I spoke up, it would never talk to me of its own volition. That was the only real drawback, but tossing words around with someone again was a wonderful feeling, even if it was a one-way street.
Although, back in my home world, having a conversation with my own skill might have been considered strange…
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So there I was, still locked in darkness, asking a barrage of questions.
One thing the replies confirmed was that yes, I was a slime now. I also found out why I never got hungry or sleepy. The slimes in this world, it turned out, never had to eat if they could keep absorbing the magic particles, or “magicules,” in the air. In less magically abundant regions, I would be obliged to fill up by absorbing monsters or small creatures.
Most slimes shied away from areas with low magic presences, but the ones that didn’t were apparently both quite strong and madly vicious. Usually it was the other way around, where a wealth of local magic meant especially strong monsters.
In other words, the area I took up residence in was so laden with magic that I didn’t even have to eat.
As for the sleep question: