At some point I get too into eating, and fall into a kind of trance. When I finally snap out of it, I find myself chewing my way through the corpse of the girl. I quickly stop myself, and scootch away from her body.

I sit there for a while. Somewhat unsettled by what I’ve done. Eating some of the girl, I mean, the guys I feel no guilt for. They killed her after all. I look over at her again, wincing when I see her now missing legs. I’m a pretty messy eater now, huh? I look around the campsite, which is still lit by the fire. The bloodstained clearing looks like it was the set of a slasher movie. Well… I guess it kinda was, minus the movie part. It was also more of a drilling than slashing.

Anyways, what do I do with the girl? I guess I could bury her… Actually, no, I can’t. Even if I somehow pulled myself into a shape that could bury her, it's another thing to dig a grave and then cover her back up. So… I guess I have to eat her. It has nothing to do with how she tasted like pumpkin pie. That would be immoral.

After finishing my third me— respectfully disposing of the woman’s corpse, I decide to sleep here. The fire is nice and warm, and there’s no reason not to, now that no one is using it. I try to get comfortable, trying to spread out at first. When that doesn’t feel comfy try curling up into a ball instead. …That’s a little better, but still not quite right. Eventually I figure out that becoming a loaf-like shape is the most comfortable. Once I get keeping that shape down, I quickly drift off to sleep.

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Thud!

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Thud!

My eyes crack open, revealing the face of my tormentor. A lanky teenage boy, no older than seventeen, is shakily holding a war-hammer much too large for him. The weapon is poised in the air, ready to strike me again.

I look him over, noticing that he has very little muscle or fat on him. Actually he looks really thin, like he hasn’t eaten in weeks. No reason to eat him then…

Thud!

He swings the stupid thing again, slamming the metal head into a few of my eyes. Before he can pull his weapon back I wrap strands of myself around it, binding it in place. After getting it nice and secure, I open up a large mouth below it, and shove it in. My mouth shuts around the weapon’s shaft, like it’s a massive lollipop. I feel my teeth grind against the metal, chipping apart as they try and dismantle the hammer.

So my teeth can’t break metal… to be expected I suppose. Two thicker tendrils whip out of my body, wrapping around one of the boy’s legs each. The kid was about to run, and I can’t have him doing that. Not till I’m done with him at least.

Now, the weapon. For some reason I’m stuck on trying to eat this stupid thing. My gaze drifts to the pile of bloody weapons by the burnt out fire. I didn’t try with those, so why this one? …Whatever.

Wasn’t there some guy who’d eat planes or something? So maybe stomach acid would dissolve the iron? …Do I even have a stomach? I guess I could just make one.

I focus on what having a stomach feels like, the rumbly pit where all the pizzas I’ve devoured ended up. It doesn’t take long for my new body to respond and start to shift. A pocket opens up under my mouth, as I feel it quickly fill with liquid.

Treating the weapon even more like a lollipop, I suck on it. The metal head drops down into my new pool of acid, and I hear it start to sizzle. Within seconds I can feel the weapon start to shrink. I’m pretty sure that stomach acid isn’t that strong.

As soon as the metal is completely consumed, I slurp the wooden shaft like a noodle. The reinforced wood is nothing to my rotating teeth, and all that lands into my stomach is wood chips. Once there’s nothing left of the weapon, I let out a loud belch. For effect.

A small rush of adrenaline hits me out of nowhere, soon followed by a small popup.

You’ve consumed an enchanted weapon! +1sp!

Oh… cool? What’s sp? Soup prison? Sassy penguins? Sexy Pirates? It’s probably just soul points. I wonder if that means I can ope— My train of thought is interrupted by a sickly body slamming a somewhat sharp rock against my tendrils. ...How rude.

The boy notices my angry glare, and drops the stone. Better… Now, can I talk? I have a mouth, so maybe I can… Wait… language. That could be a problem. New world, new words, and I don’t have the time, or patience, to learn them.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll speak English. Or I’ll have some magic that translates for me. Going by all the errors in my menus, even if I’m supposed to have that, I have a feeling I don’t… Guess it doesn’t hurt to try.

I quickly form myself a tongue, which I had forgotten I needed. And squished my mouth into a vaguely human shape. After a few minutes of rearranging things, and starting the vagrant child into behaving several more times, I manage to get a decent facsimile of what I had on Earth.

“Erlo. Iii aless. Uurds?” Nailed it!

The guy looks at me, his head slowly tilting to the left. Eventually he puts together that I’m trying to talk, and answers.

“Iraam, Limbpa mackir?” he asks.

Fuck. Maybe there’s something in the mind menu? I quickly flip it open and mentally type into the search bar. My first try lands me what I need.

Universal Language Gland: A small gland added into the brain that allows the user to understand any language, and to use them as well.

Perfect! Got it in one. Unlock that!

ERR: Cannot unlock Universal Language Gland, unlock cost is 250mp, your current balance is 212mp.

Dammit. That means I either have to find something else to communicate, or kill something. I eye the kid again, who squirms under my gaze. He looks like he wouldn’t even be ten points, let alone thirty eight. I’m better off finding something else to kill… But I don’t want to lose my only link to civilization. So he has to come with me.

I smile at the boy, which makes him turn pale for some reason. I know how I can kill something and bring him with me…

Holding him in place with my tendrils, I unleash a third. The new limb shoots towards the kid’s head, which makes him hold his hands up defensively. My arm bends around his hands, hitting him in the back of the neck instead. As soon as it makes contact, I split the end in two, and have them meet in the front.

Makeshift collar with included kid leash! With him secured by the throat, I release the limbs holding his ankles, and reel them in. He watches, with relief in his eyes, as they withdraw into my main body. He reaches down and grabs my remaining arm, giving it a light tug. Seeing that it’s secure, he sighs, defeated.

With my new pet in tow, I head into the woods!

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

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My new bud needs a few sharp tugs on the leash to get him to follow me. For some reason he’s absolutely petrified of the woods, glancing around like something is about to eat him. …Well actually, that makes sense. Whatever, I’m not gonna let him get eaten. So with a couple more yanks, I drag the kid into the thick forest.

It doesn’t take long for something to show up. I’m not sure if it could smell us, or hear the boy’s sobbing, but it’s obviously headed towards us. A tall creature, like a human that had been stretched in a photo editor, with similarly long claws is pushing its way through the trees. Its oblong black eyes are locked directly onto us.

Annoyingly, my pet starts sobbing even louder. Ignoring his tears, I lengthen his leash, giving him plenty of slack, and then launch myself at my opponent.

Faster than I can keep track of, the thing jabs at me with its claws. The talons sink deep into me, cutting straight through to the other side. Using the same trick as earlier with the hammer, I wrap small tendrils around the creature’s wrist. And like the hammer, its hand is now trapped.

Unlike the hammer, it’s strong, and just pulls me backwards with its limb. The speed of its movements make my vision blur, but I’m still able to see the shadow of its other arm raising. Without hesitating, I jump.

My rash action is immediately validated, as its free limb moves faster than I can even hope to see. The creature wails as its hand is cleanly cut into sections by its own attack. My body softly plops onto its chest, as it’s too busy bitching over its hand to stop me. Not wanting to give it time to regroup, I immediately start chewing into it.

By the time it registers what’s happening, it’s far too late. I make it halfway through its torso when my teeth hit something hard. Not hard like bones either, but like a stone. I shrug, and continue my feast. Blueberry pie, by the way. Like everything else inside the creature, the stone shatters.

The moment the small thing breaks, the entire monster shudders violently, and then goes limp. Its corpse drops to the ground as a rush of energy fills my body. I guess that rock was important? Whatever, I’m too hungry to care right now.

After… probably an hour, I come out of my food fog. Thankfully I didn’t eat anything I didn’t mean to this time, as the kid is hiding behind a large rock. His eyes are fixed on me, and his skinny body is shaking like a leaf. What’s his problem? I glance around, to see if there’s another monster or something, and notice the black fluid that completely covers everything around me.

Ah, he must’ve watched me eat. I feel like watching a stranger eat is impolite, but I can’t really say much. I’ve eaten most of the strangers I’ve met so far.

I move towards the frightened guy, reeling the leash in so he can’t run off. His eyes are full of pure fear as the rope-like limb pulls him closer and closer towards me. At a certain point he closes his eyes, and seems to prepare for death.

What a drama queen, I just ate an entire monster, like I want to eat his scrawny ass. Speaking of, shouldn’t I have gotten a notification?

You’ve killed a FMV1_231991, your monster score has increased. 212 > 267 You are the first to slay FMV1_231991, would you like to name it?

Well, I guess that explains the weird name. Is it like a default file name or something? …Thinking about how things have worked so far, and how I’m an error, the answer is probably yes. Anyway, yes I’ll name the ugly thing. I name it… Tall Fella.

Thank you for naming the Tall Fella.

Heeheehee. What a dumb name. Well with that out of the way… Unlock the Universal Language Gland!

Unlocked, now growing part.

A sharp pain blooms in my… head? I try to ignore the ice pick cracking away at my consciousness, but it’s a bit much. Just as I feel like I’m going to black out, my head shudders, and the pain stops. Well, I guess I have to try then… I form my mouth into a human shape again, and give it another shot.

“Erllo?” My voice sounds croaky, like a frog’s, but it should be understandable.

It seems that it is, as the boy’s eyes go wide.

“You can speak?!”

────────────

Well… now what? My plan was to talk to him, but now that I’ve accomplished it, I have no idea what to say.

“Yesh…” I go with a simple answer.

He narrows his eyes in concentration. “Your pronunciation is awful.”

I scowl for a second before smiling at him. “Neww Mouth.” I make sure to show as many teeth as I can.

He seems to get the message as his face balks. “A-are y-you gonna eat me?” He stutters out. Seems I went a bit overboard.

“No.” Another simple answer.

“T-then why…?” He pulls against his leash gently.

Hmm… how do I explain that without using more than six words. “No run.” Maybe that is enough?

He slowly nods, clearly not understanding but too afraid to ask me to clarify.

I give a yank on the pink rope, making him stumble out from behind the rock he snuck back to while I was growing my new organ. Once he catches his balance I start to talk.

“Need go town.” Speaking is getting a bit easier already. “You take me.”

He stares down at me, in shock. “A-are you gonna eat everyone there?” He asks in a panic.

I just stare at the kid. Are humans all weak enough that I could kill a whole town? For some reason I doubt it. “No.”

Relief spreads across his face, but is quickly replaced by worry. “I-I can’t. Bring you that is. You’re way too bright, you’d be noticed right away!” He starts to hyperventilate.

I leave the boy to his panicking and mull things over. He has a point, I am quite large, and bright pink. I can shrink myself, but I can’t change my color… Wait, can I? I think back over the last two days, and realize I haven’t even tried. Geeze, I guess bubblegum pink didn’t bother me as much as I thought.

A new limb breaks through my skin and quickly raises above me. Once it’s a good distance into the air, I open a new eye on its tip like before. In an instant I’m in the air, looking down at my amorphous body.

Alright, time to unpinken myself. First, let’s try a dark color. How about green? I look at myself, and imagine it exactly the same except with a color swap. At first nothing happens, but eventually I feel a tug in my gut and a small patch of skin starts to get darker. I keep my focus, imagining green. Forest, grass, mold, shrek. Soon my entire body is a verdant green.

I crack a smile. Well, I’ve got color down.

As I experiment with manipulating my body, the kid just stares, enraptured. Bro, I’m just changing colors, relax. I turn my focus back to shapeshifting, ignoring the intense gaze of the boy. If I want to blend in, what’s the best way to do that… Probably a human form, but I don’t have the time or patience to get that working. So, the next best way? My gaze shifts to meet the stares of the skinny kid.

He jumps as he realizes I’m looking back at him. He’s wearing a pair of shorts that are holding together with hope alone. His shirt isn’t in a much better state either… That could work.

My skin needs to look like cloth, not great quality cloth, just cloth. I spend about ten minutes working on it before I get the hang of it. Once I pick up the technique I change the feel of my skin from human to fabric. Once that’s out of the way, I launch myself at the boy.

He doesn’t even get a chance to scream before I’m on him. My flesh wraps around his upper body, wriggling around his lanky frame. The guy tastes like carrots, but like sickly baby carrots. I ignore the urge to start chewing him and instead focus on forming myself to his body. After getting wrapped around his upper half, I release his head. Immediately he starts squealing, so I stuff a tendril in his mouth to shut him up.

With him silenced, I focus on shaping my body into a shirt. The experience feels really weird, not to mention surreal. But after a minute or two, I prevail! To the naked eye, I look like a shitty shirt that any random vagabond would be wearing. Deciding the kid suffered enough, I absorb the tendril in his mouth back into my body.

He gasps like he couldn’t breath, which he could… I think. “W-what… w-why are you… on me?” He looks down at himself, holding his arms out, afraid to touch me.

I quickly throw together a small mouth on the back of the shirt, where a tag would be on modern clothes. “Disguise.” I feel a strange mixture of pride and embarrassment as I speak. Pride at being able to say such a complex word, embarrassment at how my voice comes out high pitched and squeaky.

The boy nods, but still can’t help but let out an uncomfortable whimper. He’s still trying desperately not to touch me, which as much as I appreciate it, isn’t practical. Plus it looks weird as hell when he holds his arms out like that.

“You can… touch. Won’t hurt you.” I try to reassure him. But even with my not squeaky voice, I don’t think it would’ve helped.

The kid doesn’t calm down, but he does start letting himself hold himself normally. His arms brushing against me, like someone poking me. Luckily this body isn’t ticklish, or this could’ve been a problem.

I shift a little, scaring the bajezus out of the kid. Something about how I’m sitting on him is making me… uncomfortable. And not because I’m touching a man all over. After thinking about it some more, I realize what it is. His old shirt is still there! The feeling of fabric against me is… unpleasant.

Very carefully, I grow teeth on the inside of me, and delicately start shredding the shirt with them. The kid immediately notices and starts squirming, like he can somehow escape his own clothes. I stop what I’m doing, not wanting to hurt my ride. Once he calms down, I start shredding again. Eventually I get the task done, and spit the shreds of cloth out.

The guy frowns as he watches the tatters of his former shirt float to the ground. If he’s annoyed with me, he doesn’t say it. Good thing too, since I worked real hard not to cut him. My teeth retract into me, turning back into undifferentiated flesh.

Now that I think about it, that’s kinda weird right? Like I’m not a slime, I’m made of human meat, but I’m still able to make bones and teeth out of it. Am I a blob of like… super stem cells? …Whatever, I can just blame magic. Or the system. Or god…

The kid is still just standing in place, unsure of what to do.

“Go home.” I tell him. He gives a curt nod before moving.

And so we begin the trip out of the woods!