I took a moment to calmly assess the situation.
There were six of them, and they were a rather odd group, one that totally contradicted my conventional wisdom of the ogre race. They were fully clothed, and dressed well, if simply. I was expecting tiger-skin loincloths and little else, but I was wrong. They were big, as I’d pictured, and each one was well-built, but their full wardrobe was a surprise.
If they were this well-dressed (and wielded magic to boot), they had to be highly intelligent. Perhaps more dangerous than an equivalent party of human adventurers, even.
If you took two races of equal physical strength, the presence or lack of intelligence could make a huge difference in danger level. That went double for such a high-level race. These monsters were B rank or higher as it was; if they were further armed and working together, they could’ve even hunted down Ranga.
The ogres’ weapons made me curious, too. That they had weapons wasn’t unusual—if even goblins could buy them from dwarves, pretty much anything with a pulse could. But there was a difference between simple clubs and full-on swords. Eastern-style ones, too, very different from the dwarven Western types that worked more like bludgeons.
The elderly ogre who felled Gobta wielded a sword that could only be described as a Japanese-style katana. And judging by how he handled it, he was a seasoned swordsman. That, combined with his ogre strength and magic, made this group potentially lethal.
That magic was apparently provided by the pink-haired ogress off to the side, dressed in a remarkably elaborate outfit. She had a sweet but extremely resolute face, and the way she carried herself suggested she was a noble among her race, perhaps some sort of demon princess.
The most dangerous of all, though, was undoubtedly the red-haired ogre.
“What sort of evil monster is this?!” the pink-haired one shouted as I gauged them all. “Stay on your guard, everyone!”
Her expression appeared to be honest fear now, and with her eyes fixed on mine, she must have been referring to me…
“Whoa, wait a sec. You think I’m evil?”
“Oh, attempting to play dumb, is it?” the pink-haired ogress countered. “No good-hearted human would ever have control over such a heinous horde of monsters. You appear to be hiding your magical aura from us, but you are fooling no one! Did you think you could deceive us?”
“You cannot pull the wool over our princess’s eyes! Reveal your true self, now!” the black-haired ogre bellowed.
“How nice for the mastermind to appear before us at such an early stage!” continued the elderly one. “With their sparse numbers, we have every hope of victory!”
They didn’t sound too interested in listening to me, then. I did my best to plead my case, claiming this was all a misunderstanding, but to no avail. They insisted I was a sinister presence, and that was that.
And so…
“Enough of this,” the red-haired ogre snarled. “If you insist on making such flimsy excuses, we have ways of making you reveal the truth. We know you are with the evil pigs who dared attack our allies!”
This made no sense. But a battle now seemed unavoidable. I could have easily fled, but there were still sleeping hobgoblins and tempest wolves all around me. I wasn’t heartless enough to leave them vulnerable.
“Sir Rimuru,” Ranga asked, “what will we do?”
Even a freshly healed Rigur and Gobta wouldn’t help us much. Ranga and I were the only really useful fighters. So I decided to point him at the magician.
“I want you to take on the pink-haired ogress over there. I think there’s something else going on here, so I want to get through to them. Meaning: Don’t kill anyone, all right? I don’t want any more magic tossed around, so just run a little interference for me. I can defeat the rest.”
“But, Sir Rimuru, you against five ogres…?”
“Don’t sweat it. Like, I couldn’t possibly lose.”
The ogres within earshot stirred angrily. I didn’t care.
“…Yes, my lord!”
Following my orders, Ranga zoomed into action. The ogres immediately fanned out in formation.
I took a moment to figure out how I was going to handle this. I wasn’t lying before—I really didn’t think I could lose. Based on my experimentation over the past two days, I knew I had gotten more than a fair bit stronger. Ifrit was well past A rank, apparently, and since he was part of me now, I had to be A level.
Rigurd said ogres were around B to B-plus, meanwhile, and considering the stately dress of the ones before me, we might be dealing with A-minuses, even—but stronger than Ifrit? Yeah, right.
It’d be easy to kill them, I thought, but our inability to talk this out was concerning. If they clearly wanted to murder us, that would be one thing, but they had killed none of my allies. And while they weren’t willing to listen to me, I was sure they would if we could all just chill for a second.
So I took action, making a beeline for the dark-haired ogre. My body felt light as it obeyed my thoughts. I had been human for a relatively short while, but already it seemed to fit me like a glove. The difference in height from my slime form didn’t bother me, either, since Magic Sense gave me a 360-degree insight into my surroundings.
Rearing back in surprise at my sudden advance, the dark-hair steadied himself, eyes wide open. He was still too late.
“Take a rest!” I shouted, bringing my left palm toward him. A small vent opened up, and within a moment, it was spitting out a black mist toward the flabbergasted ogre—the Paralyzing Breath I’d taken from the cave centipedes.
I’d figured I could belch it out now that I was in control of this body, and I was right. Mimicking only the monster skills I needed wasn’t exactly a finesse move, but it worked.
✦ ✦ ✦
Report. Mimicry of the unique skill Predator, combined with the synthesis and separation skills of the unique skill Deviant, has earned you the extra skill Universal Shapeshift.
✦ ✦ ✦
Not only did it work, it bore unexpected fruit.
I had wondered, with my Deviant skill’s synthesis and separation traits, could I just recreate whatever unique aspect of a monster’s abilities I happened to need at the time and nothing else? Despite testing it out on the field for the first time, it went pretty darn well, I think.
Now I could transform smoothly, without a lot of effort on my part, and I could even select the part of the monster I wanted—for that matter, busting out traits from multiple monsters at once. Using a direwolf or a black snake as a base would make me look like some weirdo chimera, but I was free to use my human form instead, apparently.
The most notable trait of this skill: I could control all my abilities at once without much limit. In other words, I had even more freedom with my attacks than before.