I worried back and forth across the cage after that announcement, both because of the prospect of additional tests tomorrow, and because of the implication that other Chimera Cores had died overnight. Perhaps quite frequently.

All the tension of the fighting seeped out of me as I allowed my body to puddle in the cage. Do they not have the scientific method here?! Why are they so cavalier about a known point of failure in the experiment? Hum, if I die like this, will I reincarnate for a second time?

At least, my resolve firmed easily: I didn’t want to die. Not now that I had developed these bonds.

My good cheer returned as Indigo and Green obliviously hopped around our new living space while flaunting their new body parts. If I had a mouth, and not just a viscous goo that accomplished every possible task, I would have smiled. These two might not be much, but these were my companions. Worries melted away as I watched them celebrate.

I examined the wire walls and front of our cage, but these were also electrified with Mana. An escape… would be difficult. Besides, only an hour or so after the humans had put us in the cage, I began to feel my mind growing foggy. Even my high Perception seemed to weaken.

Honestly, a good nap sounds great right now…

My instincts assured me there are no consequences to taking a leisurely break, for sleep.

I hesitated a bit more, especially because I saw Green and Indigo had already settled down into a dormant state. Not liking the feeling, I held the tiredness at bay. Because with a little bit of downtime, I needed to address the emotional knot forming in my chest.

If I didn’t do it now, it would only get more difficult later.

Sorry, Mimi. I wish-

I couldn’t decide how to end that thought. Or rather, there were so many answers, I didn’t know where to begin. I recalled that last dinner, when I had struggled to keep a grin from my face when explaining how well my story was going.

Mimi had laughed. “Is it fun? Do you love it?”

I had nodded. She beamed at me. “That’s so wonderful to hear. That’s the part that matters, Tallum, not whether other people like it. But that you do.”

I hadn’t understood exactly what she meant. I had been giddy with the high. But she highlighted the crux immediately. When I invested in the world, even strangers responded.

The time after Mimi’s death, when I grew so obsessed with the negative comments, would have gone very differently if I remembered her advice.

I just wish I had invested more time in the two of us. I had eyes but no tear ducts. So I just sat in a dark cage in a strange fantasy world and trembled. Rest in peace, Mimi. I swear… I swear I won’t make those mistakes again.

I’ll build a life in this world. One I won’t regret, at the end.

Besides, I realized I carried more of Mimi with me than I realized; through this whole experience, I had adopted her habit of ridiculous overreactions and humorous asides. When it was my older sister that was doing it, I had been mortified.

Now…

Just the smallest bit of my grief eased. And it might have been my imagination, but I had that strange sense of being watched again. And along with that sensation came a wave of satisfaction.

My mind immediately turned to more mundane concerns. I swept my two left eyes around, checking the cage for points of entry, but being trapped also had the added benefit of keeping other things out.

So I relaxed. Wasn’t half of my life going to be relaxation? So I let go. My consciousness began to drift.

…and when I woke up, I knew something was wrong. I felt weak, and getting weaker. And a slew of notifications waited for me.

A new dawn has arrived! A day has ended since you have integrated Left Eye of the Chubby Rat. To continue supporting the Eye, Anima is required. Spend 1 Anima to support?

Because no option was selected for five minutes, 1 Anima has been automatically deducted to support the Left Eye of the Chubby Rat

A day has ended since you have integrated Slightly Damaged Cochlea of the Chubby Rat. To continue supporting the Eye, Anima is required. Spend 2 Anima to support?

…

A day has ended since you have integrated Left Lung of the Lazy Rat. To continue supporting the Eye, Anima is required. Spend 4 Anima to support?

…

A day has ended since you have integrated Left Eye of the Chubby Rat. To continue supporting the Eye, Anima is required. Spend 5 Anima to support?

…

While I slept, the mortgage of the body parts I had absorbed came due. In a sudden, abrupt switch, the accumulated Anima I had managed to gather had been depleted to 3. In addition, my body had shrunk to the point that the mongoose’s paw looked comically large next to my meager lavender ooze. I was a baby with an ugly and deformed hammer.

Keh, its obvious why the Chimera Cores didn’t last through the night. I could only roll my quivering body to rouse myself. At least for now, the danger had passed.

Most of these silly blobs absorb rather randomly. It might just be 1 Anima per relatively weak body part, but that can add up quickly if you grab a bunch. And if you take a larger body part in addition-

Suddenly, that last implication struck me. I hopped up, looking around the small cage. To my relief, I saw Green lounging against the wall. Its body had become only a little bit larger than mine, but all the tails hadn’t sucked the Anima out of Green’s body. Actually, because all it chose was tails, Green probably had fewer body parts than me. But Indigo-

I hurried over to our other companion, or rather to the slumped head of the mongoose, lying on the ground. My left eyes bulged. That size-

Desperate, I picked up the head and tossed it to the side. Only after the head crashed and sizzled against the wall, did I relax somewhat; there Indigo was, half my size and lying beneath with its two rat heads. But as I watched, its body continued to shrink.

I felt a prickling in my gelatinous form. Fear and desperation swept through me. Had it gone past the point of no return? Is Indigo’s Anima at zero? I had a sudden, vicious vision of the last remnant of my companion evaporating, right in front of me.

The trembling began as I looked at the shrinking amount of Indigo ooze. I couldn’t allow that vision to come to pass.

In the back of my mind, those familiar gears began to turn. The pieces fit together without flaw, delicate but perfectly aimed at accomplishing my goals. My only priority was to help Indigo. The clockwork began to move.

My eye spun around, looking at the surrounding cages. Indigo’s body continued to fade. The wheels clicked as I chewed on the problem. I oozed to the front of the cage, looking for any flaw. But it seemed like the Mana here crackled evenly. If I tried to force my way out, I would just burn up my body.

I moved to the side of the cage, to the wall separating our cage from the trapped rats. They quivered, hiding far from us. To my energy sonar, this was an impassable barrier. Yet when I looked with my eye, the cage was made with strips of overlapping metal with space between them. The air around them crackled with energy, but there was also space.

The gears found a satisfying groove. I went to work.

First, I went to Indigo’s side and carefully plucked up the shrinking body. I had gone down to the size of a strawberry after paying the Anima, but Indigo barely had as much mass as a blueberry. And vanishing more every second. With my tentacles, I scooped it and its two heads over to the mesh wall. I wouldn’t put Indigo’s life in danger first, so I attempted to form a tentacle and slide in through the gap.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Your Skill (Temp) Detect Danger has grown to Level 6.

My body didn’t like the prospect, but I ignored those small worries. A human body would have trembled from fear, but these Chimera Cores were made of more solid (albeit wiggly) stuff. So I kept extending the tentacle until I could touch the ground on the far side, my tentacle twitching slightly from the dangerous Mana coursing around it. Satisfied my plan would work, I pulled the tentacle back.

Sorry for this, I thought, before carefully removing the two heads and shoving Indigo’s form through the gap in the metal. I tried not to worry about how easily its small mass could be moved through. Indigo plopped to the ground, completely unconscious.

Talk about the unhealthy reality of extreme dieting…

Trying to hurry, I then repeated the process. My tentacle stretched across. I oozed and oozed, stretching to the point it touched the ground. Then, I began the arduous process of transferring my mass along the extended tentacle and plopping it on the ground in the next cage.

Around this time, Green appeared to notice the disturbance and bounce around with worry. But I didn’t let its movements distract me. One by one, my stolen organs floated through the extended tentacle to the new side. In this case, the tiny organs I’d absorbed really became an advantage. My body half-pooled on the ground on both sides, so I resembled an arch.

Mass flowed slowly through. My eyeball pivoted to examine Indigo. A quiver ran through my jelly. Its shrinking size made me go a little less safely, hurrying across.

Your Skill Detect Danger has grown to Level 7.

Finally, I lifted the final tentacle on the original cage and prepared to pull it all the way through. However, there was one problem: the mongoose claw… no matter how I looked at it, it wouldn’t quite fit. The clockwork fixated on the problem, the gears turning once, twice-

I disengaged that heavy machine, disgusted with myself; its other weakness was that it could chew and chew on a difficult problem while looking for an elegant solution, never willing to let go. Never understanding there were bigger problems with bigger consequences looming.

Just as easily as I had activated the machine, I released it. It was a small step, but it felt like maturity.

Better do this fast. I steadied myself and then yanked the mongoose claw through the opening. One of the thumbs scraped and a split second later, the wash of agonizing Mana zapped through me.

Your Skill (Temp) Lesser Mana Detection has grown to Level 10 (+6).

Warning! Your limb damaged and corroded paw of the Vindictive Static Mongoose has been damaged! Please protect the integrated body parts or you will lose the bonuses.

I trembled at the five Health I lost crossing to the new cage, but my left lung had been active all night. While sleeping, my Recovery had pushed me to full Health. For now, losing five health was a small price to pay to save Indigo.

Well, five health and one of the claws on this hand. I examined the mongoose claw. It was a miserable and wizened appendage now that a finger had been seared away by the contact. It looked like it had once belonged to a stuffed animal that a sadistic child tossed in a fire. And then had been brought along to Chornobyl to vacation in a nuclear fallout zone. Tsk, definitely, my aesthetics are a bit rough. But for now, we need to be practical.

Still, another notification gave me a pleasurable jolt.

Due to unique actions, you have unlocked the (Earned) Skill Inferior Body Manipulation Lvl 1.

A Mundane achievement: For Earning your first Skill, +3 Max Health!

The benefit was a nice one, considering how easily the Mana barrier kept eating through my Health. I had taken advantage of that truth when I had grappled with Sapphire, but it still made me uneasy.

But this was a distraction, and I had a companion to save.

Somehow, I feel like rescuing them will become a habit… it’s a lot of responsibility to be the reincarnated human…

For now, I oozed over to the two rats cowering at the far side of the cage. They apparently realized what was about to happen, because both hissed and gnashed their teeth at me.

Yesterday, I might have balked at these two Level 4 Rats. But I had become Level 6 after facing down a Level 10 Static Mongoose. And my friend needed me. I was desperate and stubborn and my instincts were only too happy to help. My warped claw cracked open the skull of the first rat and slashed at the throat of the other.

The first blow went well, the second did not. After seeing me strike its companion, the other rat curled back, meaning my slash only caught a bit of its shoulder.

As the one rat reeled back with a severed throat, barely alive, the other pounced on me and knocked me over. Its teeth chomped down. I hurriedly moved my organs away from the strike, but my already tattered rat skin suffered.

Warning, your Tattered Skin of the Scared Rat has been damaged! Please protect the integrated body parts or you will lose the bonuses.

Warning! Your Tattered Skin of the Scared Rat has been severely damaged! Access to (Temp) Defense (+1) lost. Integrated body part has been destroyed.

Just like that, the skin that had protected me against Sapphire began to fray and disintegrate. Could rat-type monsters be weak against rat-type attacks? But while it had chomped without much effect on my ooze body, my claw slashed against and ripped open the rat’s chest.

For a Chimera Core, everything was a mouth. I touched blood and drank.

You have successfully Absorbed Anima! Anima +3.

You have successfully Absorbed Anima! Anima +1.

You have successfully Absorbed Anima! Anima +1.

You have successfully Absorbed Anima! Anima +2.

You have successfully Absorbed Anima! Anima +1.

Perhaps because of its low Level, the rat didn’t provide much Anima. But certainly, to the current me, I felt reinvigorated. I shoved the body off of me, looked over at the wounded other rat as it keened in stunned pain, and then went back to Indigo. Cradling my companion in two tentacles, I walked up to the dying rat and cut its throat further open with a claw. Its last breath hissed out of the opening and I placed the shrinking form of Indigo in the gaping crack of its fatal wound.

The blood quivered. The Indigo jelly stopped shrinking. As the quivering intensified, finally, the size of the Chimera Core began to grow once more.

I had made it in time.

I watched, almost fond, as Indigo returned to our starting size. I knew it had fully recovered when my gallant companion methodically began to cut off these two rat heads to absorb. Living without regrets is so stressful! Especially when the world keeps trying to kill us. I need a good week of just sitting here and enjoying the wiggle of this body in order to calm me down…

Unfortunately, we didn’t have much of a break. Almost as soon as the crisis of Indigo had passed, the lights in the laboratory flipped back on. I heard the approach of steps and saw the familiar form of human silhouettes.

For us Chimera Cores, the day had just begun. At least we started with a fortifying breakfast.

“Hum?” The leading figure was the confident voice. “What is this? Did you store some of the Chimera Cores overnight with rats?”

“No! Well… I…I-I’m sure that…” The nervous voice trailed off.

“Good work,” The confident voice said. “It did not follow experiment protocol, but all three of these Chimera Cores survived the night. Hum. Could it be that the energy gelatin experiences some leakage overnight…? I will not forget this, Greggich.”

“Of course, hehe.”

“What about the other two? Especially that special one,” The confident voice continued.

The gruff voice spoke. “The red Chimera Core has collapsed as with the previous iterations. The sapphire one… appears to be barely holding on. I will put a rat in its cage so it can feed.”

“Excellent. Excellent!” The confident voice sounded excited, while I could hear the distant rattling of cages further away from our position. “Our first successes, and four at once! Heheh let me see- wait, why is this one’s crustacean limb so damaged? Was the Static Mongoose truly that strong?”

“About that…” The whiny voice hesitated before lying through his teeth. If I had a jaw, it would have dropped at this bastard’s gall as he offered an explanation. “It seems that purple chimera core… possesses a great deal of bloodlust. While the sapphire fought against the static mongoose, it waited for its chance and then ambushed the special one. By the time we intervened, it had damaged the crab arm significantly.”

If there was one thing I hated, it was unjust accusations.

What the?! I was the quivering, molten core at the heart of a volcano, ready for an eruption. After all the suffering I have endured?! Suddenly I am bloodthirsty? I wouldn’t be surprised if Sapphire spent all night ramming its claw against the cage. Tsk, when I get the chance, I’ll stuff your precious crab leg down your enormous, human throat…

“The Chimera Core attacked one of its own? Heh, I had no idea their instincts would compel them to such violent lengths, just for sport…” One of the shadows leaned closer, looking directly at me. “Well, I suppose their core array is derived from necrotic principles. How fascinating.”

Eh? Necrotic? Core array? The contextless new information gave me pause, but it was a passing fancy, compared to the weight of that central figure’s gaze.

Your Skill (Temp) Detect Danger has grown to Level 8.

“Interesting. Well, beings like this are good too,” The confident voice said as he leaned away. I shivered.

If this is a fantasy world, humans probably have Stats and Skills too… how high are his specs…?

The man’s confident voice rang out. “So we begin the next phase. Can these monsters receive Species Skills from absorbing the parts of another? Unfortunately, they all are base creatures, without noticeable intellect. Communication would be quite illuminating. Well at the very least, let’s have them fight until they reach Level 10. If these experiments can persist past the first growth threshold-”

Interrupting the confident voice, all of the crackling Mana in the laboratory ceased. My energy sonar grew abruptly dark. The silence was deafening.

“It looks like we ran out of time,” The voice lost its confidence and sounded exasperated. “Greggic, communications-”

A flash of light almost blinded my energy sonar, coming from one of the other humans. Afterward, he spoke with a dark tone while I tried to gather my bearings from the ‘flashbang’ of Mana. “Blocked, sir.”

“...then there is no helping it. A shame. Especially when we had just succeeded… But it matters naught. If we can succeed once, we can do it again. You two, go below and release the security measures to buy us some time. I will need to go out and speak with those puritanical bastards. Their attitude toward necrotic energy is positively primitive. We cannot allow them to annihilate all of our research.”

Uh, wait, quick Q. I felt a headache brewing. I created a tentacle and pointed at myself. Communication is definitely possible. Reincarnated human here, from the Daily Panicked. Can we revisit this whole… necrotic energy array, thing?

Because when you say annihilate your ‘research’...