#1. Perhaps a Slime in a Novel?
#1. Perhaps a Slime in a Novel?
The Simmons bed was supposed to be rock-steady, but it was shaking unusually hard. No — it felt like someone was shaking me. The only people with a spare key were my parents. Had they come by for the first time in a while?
'Come on, just five more minutes.'
The grumble wouldn't leave my throat. Figured my voice was hoarse. I tried again. Nothing. I tried to sit up, startled — but I couldn't get up, couldn't even open my eyes. And why wouldn't my mouth open?
That was when it hit me.
No arms. No legs. No mouth, no eyes, no nose. Nothing.
'The hell? What is this?'
What, was I in one of those sleep-paralysis ghost-chopper things?
It would've been a fun premise in a movie, but realizing it was actually happening to me sent me straight into panic.
The only thing that snapped me out of it was that I was still being shaken. But I quickly realized no one was shaking me — I was sloshing around on my own. My whole body felt like liquid. When I tried to move somehow, something squirmed under the effort, and I felt it touch something.
And then that something slid right inside my body. Wait — a parasite?
[Ingesting Amur Maackia leaf via food vacuole... 19%]
'Food vacuole? Amur Maackia?'
I vaguely remembered those terms from biology class. A food vacuole was the organelle single-celled organisms like amoebas used to engulf and digest food.
For a moment I thought I'd been reincarnated as some kind of amoeba, but that didn't feel right. Amoebas were microscopic — you couldn't even see them with the naked eye. But I was swallowing a leaf. So what was I, some kind of mutant?
'Not like I'm a biologist...'
There was no point agonizing over an unanswerable question. I was still trying to figure out a way out of this situation when the voice spoke again.
[Amur Maackia leaf ingestion complete. Satiety increases.]
A voice announcing that my satiety had increased. Now that I thought about it, it felt like a game. Had I died and been pulled into a game world? Game. Game... Game?
'Game?!'
That was when the picture started forming. I was probably a slime.
A large single-celled organism that could swallow a leaf — nothing else came to mind but a slime. Did that mean I'd been reincarnated as a slime? Or was someone running some kind of experiment on me?
A slime. The kind of creature that only existed in fantasy. Curiosity began to push the fear aside, bit by bit.
Above all, I hadn't known slimes could feel hunger, but I was hungrier than I'd ever imagined possible. If I didn't eat something, I genuinely felt like I'd die.
This was the kind of gnawing, two-day-empty-stomach hunger you couldn't just tough out.
......
[Asian Twinleaf ingested. Satiety increases.]
If I'd had eyes, they would've been bloodshot. I threw myself into devouring everything I could touch before I even had time to feel any revulsion about eating flowers and grass.
[Siberian Ginseng berry ingested. Recovery increases.]
[Amur Maackia leaf ingested. Satiety increases.]
...
[Satiety at maximum.]
[Predation (F) Lv.1 skill converts satiety into Experience Points.]
And just like that, the hunger came roaring back.
The strength drained out of me in a wave of hollow loss, like the entire contents of my stomach had been stolen in one go.
But the fact that my Experience Points had gone up was encouraging.
I had no idea how much EXP I needed, but if I kept eating, I'd level up eventually.
Maybe I could even evolve. Not just into another creature — maybe into a human. If there was no way back, that was my only way out.
Which meant I had to keep eating.
Touch was the only sense I had left, so I couldn't gauge how much time had passed. I was just starting to feel bored when a welcome voice sounded.
[Satiety at maximum.]
[Predation (F) Lv.1 skill converts satiety into Experience Points.]
[Experience Points at maximum. Lv.1 → Lv.2]
[Predation (F) Lv.1 skill proficiency at maximum. Predation (F) Lv.1 → Predation (F) Lv.2]
What came with the empty stomach was joy. As my level rose, my amorphous body stretched further. The slime loosened and spread, oozing outward like liquid, then gradually drew back together. I had never experienced anything like it in my entire life — a sensation nothing else could compare to.
If I'd had eyes, I could've seen what I looked like. It was maddening not even being able to see my own form. There had to be a status window — there were levels and skills — but it wouldn't appear.
'Status window. Status. My info. Skill window. Item window...'
It was a useless struggle.
I kept trying, but nothing happened. I gave up and resigned myself to groping for something to eat, feeling around for leaves, when a notification chimed.
[Tentacle (F) Lv.1 skill acquired.]
'Tentacles? Wait, for real?'
I let out a hollow laugh. Apparently, groping around while imagining an arm had accidentally produced a tentacle. Was my brain getting slime-fried? Because the word "tentacle" only conjured one kind of image, and it wasn't a good one...
[Korean Fir leaf ingested. Satiety increases.]
[Korean Bush Clover ingested. Satiety increases.]
[Predation (F) Lv.2 skill converts satiety into Experience Points.]
It was probably because I had nothing else to focus on, but this was actually kind of entertaining.
The initial fear had completely vanished, replaced by swelling curiosity. I sluggishly picked up an Amur Maackia leaf with a tentacle. I was toying with a leaf that had lived its whole sheltered life like a greenhouse flower under the tree's care...? How could I resist?
I slowly traced its lewdly splayed veins and guided the thing into my food vacuole.
And just like that, the greedy vacuole swallowed the innocent Amur Maackia leaf whole.
An abyss from which there was no escape... For a leaf that had fallen to corruption, only one path remained. The Amur Maackia leaf put up a decent struggle, but in the end, its will was broken.
[Amur Maackia leaf ingested. Satiety increases.]
'.......'
The obligatory wave of post-nut clarity hit me, and the self-loathing was unbearable.
I wasn't some plant-fetish degenerate. No matter how bored I was, I still had to act like a human being.
'...This is weird.'
Touch was definitely the only sense I had left, but the notifications kept coming, and every time I heard one, it felt strange. Driven by addiction and a hint of desperation, I kept wolfing down plants.
[Experience Points at maximum. Lv.2 → Lv.3]
[Tentacle (F) Lv.1 skill proficiency at maximum. Tentacle (F) Lv.1 → Tentacle (F) Lv.2]
How much did I eat? I ate and ate and ate some more, and finally, I reached Level 3.
Given the variety of plants, I was probably in a mountain or forest. I could only perceive things through raw sensation, but my body had grown with Level 3 — I felt nearly half again as large as when I first became a slime. A single leaf was maybe about 5 cm, so if I estimated from that, my body length was close to 20 cm.
[1 Skill Point acquired.]
A truly game-like notification. I sat there dumbly because I had no idea how to use a Skill Point, and the System seemed to notice, sending a prompt.
[View acquirable skill list?]
'Sure.'
[Acquirable Skill List]
1. Tentacle (F)
2. Sensitivity (F)
3. Presence Detection (F)
4. Heat Sense (F)
5. Weak Regeneration (F)
Strangely, it wasn't sound or sight. It was like a picture had been drawn directly into my head.
Weirdness aside, I had my doubts about how useful any of these actually were. Tentacle was even a skill I already had. What was the point of putting a skill I already owned on the list? As if it had read my mind, an answer came back: [Skill proficiency may be increased.]
If it was going to be this helpful with answers, couldn't it also tell me why I was here in the first place? That answer, of course, did not come.
Thinking back, the author had probably done this out of spite and turned me into a slime.
The voice — the System — was a little different from the novel, but it was similar in some ways. [Thank you. I'm in your hands.] And after I said that, he makes me a slime? I swear, if I ever make it back, he's dead.
'So that would mean I'm inside the novel...'
Honestly, was that any less plausible than a mad scientist's experiment or a "surprise, you were a slime all along" twist?
'...I'm screwed.'
If it'd been a happy ending, I wouldn't have cursed it out in the first place.
A bleak world setting where the ending was the world meeting its End — a sudden apocalypse world. If I was right, it meant I'd been hurled alone into a doomed world as a slime with not a second to waste. The only word that came to mind was screwed.
If the author had any conscience, he would've reincarnated me as a human... A sigh was all I could manage.
[Current remaining Skill Points: 2]
Yeah, whatever.
The System ignored me entirely and just did its job. I'd only acquired 1 Skill Point, but my remaining balance was 2.
If I gained one per level, I should've gotten one at Level 2 as well. But I didn't remember hearing it then.
[Current remaining Skill Points: 2]
'...That's crossing the line.'
The only thing I had was a System that kept shirking its duties. My future was looking pitch-black already.
I looked over the list the System had shown me and agonized over how to spend my Skill Points, then decided to go for a detection-type skill.
In nearly every medium, the slime was the weakest monster. It was no different in the novel I'd been reading — in fact, it was even worse here. I wasn't sure I could beat a cat. Honestly, calling it a monster at all was embarrassing.
'I need to get bigger.'
And for stable leveling, I needed a detection skill. The most urgent priority was survival.
I debated between Presence Detection and Heat Sense, but Presence Detection seemed like it would only work on animals, while Heat Sense felt like it would have far broader utility.
And so,
[Heat Sense (F) Lv.1 acquired.]
After acquiring the skill, I could sense heat with my whole body.
It wasn't what I'd vaguely imagined, though. I'd been picturing something like night-vision goggles or an infrared sensor.
I'd hoped it might open up my field of vision, but no dramatic change like that happened. I could just feel the temperature differences in things around me.
I was probably picking up the body heat of objects and living things.
Hot heat meant an animal. Animals produced more body heat than plants, after all, with higher activity levels and heat output.
So what was this thing underneath me?
[Korean Red-breasted Ant ingested. Satiety and Experience Points increase.]
An ant with a name I'd never heard in my life. Strangely, because it was an animal, my Experience Points went up along with satiety — unlike with leaves.
Before I had Heat Sense, it had been hard to tell ants apart from dirt. Now I could even pick off insects.
[Fire Ant ingested. Satiety and Experience Points increase.]
[Jirisan Leafhopper ingested. Satiety and Experience Points increase.]
[Predation (F) Lv.2 skill proficiency at maximum. Predation (F) Lv.2 → Predation (F) Lv.3]
Eating bugs and insects was repulsive in theory, but without sight, hearing, or taste, it was bearable.
'Jirisan Leafhopper...?'
Was I on Jirisan Mountain? I couldn't be sure. Plenty of bugs had place names attached to them but lived elsewhere. Unless there was some kind of barrier in place...
Then I suddenly sensed a source of intense heat. Hotter than the ants I'd been eating. Something this hot — a mouse or a rabbit? Whatever it was, it was coming right at me.
Should I flee or wait?
The question turned out to be moot. It didn't give me time to decide, closing the distance in an instant — and bit me.
'......!'
It didn't hurt. I didn't even seem to have pain receptors. But I could vividly feel the fact of being bitten, and I struck back, lashing out blindly with my tentacles. Even at Lv.2, they did nothing but feel their way over the creature. Zero damage.
The best I could manage was basically stroking it. Then something — probably its front teeth — pierced through me, and my heart started pounding with urgency.
This was the moment I truly felt how pathetically weak I was. A tiny mouse, and I was in a life-or-death struggle. Calling myself a monster was an insult to the word.
I mustered every ounce of strength and dragged my squelching body upward, throwing myself over it. The mouse tried to flee in alarm, but I grabbed its snout, which was firmly lodged in my body, and refused to let go, twisting myself around so it couldn't pull free, swallowing it whole.
'Can't shove it into the food vacuole yet. I'll burst.'
I could digest plants without issue, but the mouse was thrashing inside me, fighting to escape. Every time it struggled and gnawed, I could feel my body surface shrinking.
A sense of mortal danger drove me to grasp for anything — and I opened the acquirable skill list.
[Weak Regeneration (F) Lv.1 skill acquired.]
The mouse's escape was delayed slightly. But at this rate, it would chew its way out soon enough. I rolled up my slime-mucus body and began tumbling with everything I had.
Thump-thump-thump— The motion must have made it nauseous, because its attempts to escape gradually slowed.
When its teeth jutted out past my body, I frantically pulled in every scrap of myself I could to reinforce that spot, and the creature let out a pained squeak. I couldn't give it an opening. This was the only thing I could do.
I kept thrashing, praying for it to die.
After a desperate, life-or-death struggle, the mouse finally stopped moving. I kept rolling for a long while just to be sure it wasn't faking, and only when it stayed still did I feel certain it was dead.
I had never fought this hard in my life. A truly heart-swelling battle... but I didn't have a second to appreciate it before I shoved the thing into my food vacuole.
[Wild Field Mouse ingested. Satiety and Experience Points increase.]
[Experience Points at maximum. Lv.3 → Lv.4]
I was Level 3 with human intelligence, and it was still this hard. An ordinary slime couldn't even dream of beating a mouse.
Truly, the terrifying plague-spreading animal — the mouse — was not to be underestimated. The moment I devoured it and hit Level 4, I felt my diminished body surface restore itself and grow even larger.
'At least it regenerates.'
I now understood how much size mattered in combat, and I felt the pressing need to level up. The only reason I'd survived was that it had been a mouse. If it'd been a rabbit, I wouldn't have had a prayer.
[Current remaining Skill Points: 1]
A Skill Point earned from the level-up. When I checked the acquirable skills again, the list had grown.
[Acquirable Skill List]
...
6. Weak Hardening (F)
7. Weak Stealth (F)
The names alone made it easy to guess what they did. Given how things stood, Stealth was the more urgent pick.
Hardening might make me a tiny bit tougher right now, but I still wouldn't be able to beat a rabbit. Better to just hide altogether.
[Weak Stealth (F) Lv.1 skill acquired.]
When I used it, my body felt a little lighter. Limp and sagging, like a balloon slowly deflating.
The next level was 5. In RPGs and novels alike, multiples of 5 or 10 usually brought something special. At the very least, it'd probably give me a shot at more useful skills.
It had been hard, but now I knew I could at least take on a mouse.
Reaching Level 4 had increased my body surface, which meant hunting would be easier from here on out...
For better or worse, my slime life had officially begun.