Heads Up!

Yes

Jake chuckled. They’d summoned a fifty-foot long interdimensional corridor in his bathroom, of course it was real.

But half a grand in cold hard cash for running a quest in a video game? That wasn’t the kind of money he’d get from a day of flipping burgers or throwing people’s things into landfills.

He hadn’t exactly chosen junk hauler as a career for the pay, but if half a thousand was going to roll into his pockets every time he completed a quest, he’d have to quit it.

“Alright,” Jake said, starting to feel pumped. “Let’s go.”

“Woah!” He took one step forward into the remains of the slime and almost tripped. The basket full of bug spray slipped from his arm and fell over into the slime’s leftover gel. Carefully, Jake tried to reach down for it and—

He slipped. Falling to his knee, one of his hands and a pant leg were now covered in what he would consider calling the slime’s funeral gel.

Jake sighed, holding back his anger. The spilled slime reminded him how much he hated leaving messes behind, but the feeling of a droplet hitting his helmet distracted him.

When a second drop hit his head, he looked up. The slime he slayed had left a damp spot on the ceiling and some of its gel was still raining down from it. There were a few more spots like that scattered over the rest of the ceiling.

It was a good thing this wasn’t his real bathroom, otherwise he’d have to actually do something about that.

Jake got up from the floor—carefully—then picked up his basket of bug spray along with his bat. Stepping out of the slip-n-slide zone that the slime’s funeral gel had created, he made his way towards the door. Before he had walked halfway down the aisle, however, the door made a sharp creaking sound and shut on its own.

Great, Jake thought, The sink’s haunted.

Heads Up!

The Gel Slime King has become aware of your presence!

He has sent his assassins after your head!

Assassins? “What kind of assassins…” Jake trailed as he muttered words. ‘The King’ was probably a giant ball of sentient hand sanitizer. What kind of assassins could it possibly have?

He turned around and took a quick look around the room. He didn’t find anything suspicious.

Well, if they’re already here, they’re pretty good at hiding, he thought.

A second later, he heard a thump. Something fell from the roof on the other side of the room. A slime?

Jake couldn’t really see it past the shelves, but it landed close to the wall across from the entrance.

Two more landings echoed in Jake’s ears. A slime had landed near the wall towards the left of the entrance and another had landed near the wall towards the right.

He checked the ceiling. He didn’t spot any more slimes coming through, but their residue was still up there.

Jake took a couple cans of the stream type bug spray from his basket. “Kind of hard to assassinate me from the other side of the room,” he told the slimes. He was pretty sure the slime king could probably understand him. He wasn’t so sure about grunts like these.

The slimes paid his words no mind. They all began to leap over to their target positions making splattering sounds along the way.

Having played a fair number of video games, Jake thought the slimes might just be following a programmed routine. Walk down the corridor next to the wall and then turn around. He thought wrong.

The light in the room distorted as the slime next to the wall across from him swallowed one of the three generated work lights. It made a sucking sound before launching the light towards the ceiling. The light ricocheted off the sink’s drain pipe and shattered. The room became significantly darker.

The light to Jake’s left became distorted as another one of the slime’s swallowed its source.

Crap, Jake thought. He slipped one of the cans he was holding back into the basket, picked the basket up, and started gunning towards the light the third slime hadn’t gotten to yet.

The second slime launched the second light. Jake heard the glass shatter and saw the room go dark behind him.

He turned the corner into the last light’s corridor fast. The first spider had taught him a lesson about letting his enemies catch him in the dark. He wasn’t going to let some slimes get him in that sort of situation so easily.

The third slime was already sucking the light into itself, but it looked like he’d make it just in time. He picked up speed before he spotted a puddle of slime coming up in front of him. He’d only spotted it because a droplet had rained down into it from the ceiling. It was like the saliva dripping from a monster lurking above.

A chill ran down Jake’s spine. He’d taken one too many steps to stop, but he could swerve. He threw himself against the wall while looking up in the same moment. “Woah!” he shouted. A fourth assassin slime slammed down beside his feet, barely missing him.

He jumped over the slime before it could grab his work boots. With his bug spray raised, he turned around, but something slammed into the back of his head. It was the last of the room’s three lights. The third slime had launched it at his head.

The work light bounced off his hard hat and came clattering to the ground. Its glass cracked and its light dimmed, but lucky Jake, it stayed on.

Jake stumbled from the assault, but he didn’t trip. “Oh, you want some too?” he asked as he steadied his feet and started spraying the slime in front of him. The poison kept it still and it let out a squeal like a deflating balloon.

Jake dropped his basket and snatched another can of bug spray for the slime behind him. From the aisle over, there was a sound like an old man gasping. As Jake turned to split his aim between the slimes, the nearest shelf slammed into him.

“Oof!” He dropped one of his cans and stumbled back into the wall. The fallen shelf pinned him against it. “What the heck?” he said. It only took him a moment to spot a slime sliding through the gaps between the shelves.

What kind of slimes are these? he thought. They were far more coordinated than he expected for brainless blobs of goo.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

He tried kicking the shelf back, but it barely budged. It was stuck to him. Correction: the slime with the gorilla grip on the shelf was stuck to him. It had caught his hand when it knocked the shelf over onto him.

The can that had been in his hand was caught too, but it was now just his fingertips. He tried to press his fingers through the gel, but the slime resisted. They were moving so slow it looked like slow motion.

Jake put his back against the wall and pushed the shelf with both his legs. “Get off of me,” he practically grunted. The words slipped through the gaps between his clenched teeth.

The shelf didn’t budge. In fact, it got closer. The slime was pulling itself up his forearm and the shelf was coming with it.

This is bad.

Whatever part of him this thing swallowed, he wouldn’t have the strength to pull himself out. And if that wasn’t bad enough there were at least three more of them that could put him in the same dilemma in this very room.

Two of them were even in the same corridor with them. The one to his left was shaking off the stun he’d given it with the poison spray while the other one was plopping over.

He lowered his legs, reached down for another can of bug spray, and gave up on the shelf. The shelf clunked against his head as the slime pulled itself further up his arm.

There was another sound like an old man gasping. No, there were two of them.

Jake dropped to the ground and let the shelf and the slime attached to it collapse on top of him. The two other slimes came flying overhead and overshot them. That bought him a few seconds.

The bug sprays and their basket were out of Jake’s reach. He’d knocked them over on the way down. The only one he had left was stuck in slime with half his arm. He pushed his fingers towards it with all his might.

The slime attached to the shelf pulled itself further up his arm. The shelf pressed tighter against him. It was a bad move. The motion had brought the can just within reach of Jake’s fingers.

Poison rushed out of the can’s nozzle as Jake pressed his finger against it. A concentrated stream tore through the slime’s innards in a straight line. He could feel the slime’s grip loosen around him, but the stream wasn’t aimed at its core. He turned his wrist to aim the stream towards it, but the process was slow.

The room went dark. One of the other slimes had taken out the last light. Jake couldn’t even see the slime on top of him anymore, let alone its core.

Jake could hear the other two slimes begin to plop down the corridor towards him. There was no way he’d managed to kill the one on top of him before the others pounced.

He pulled out his hunting knife. The slime could survive a stream of poison cutting through it. He doubted it could handle the full can all at once.

He jammed the knife through its mass. The stabbing weapon pierced both slime and can alike. The can’s poison coated the knife and made the slime helpless to stop Jake from pulling the knife out. He stabbed the can again and its poison erupted out from it.

You melted a Gel Slime from the inside!

Enemy: Level 2

The slime collapsed into a puddle of funeral gel on top of him. His hand and the can dropped to the side, finally freed from their prison.

Disposition Acknowledged

You have an Improviser’s Disposition!

One down, Jake thought, three to go.

One of the slimes made that gasping sound that they did before they pounced. Jake threw up the shelf he was under. The lunging slime slammed into it, sending it crashing back down into his face.

“Ow…” he muttered. He didn’t really feel the pain, but he lost a couple health points.

He threw the shelf back off him. The slime went along with it, it hadn’t caught onto him. He stood up and took out his phone, before hearing another gasp come from behind him.

He threw up his arm to guard his head. Just as expected, the slime came crashing into it. They weren’t doing any damage fast from him just being inside of them. Which meant that the only way they could beat him was restraining and suffocating him.

The slime’s weight pulled his arm down. It fell to the ground and brought him with it. Jake turned his phone’s flashlight on so he could see again, then dropped it down. He reached for a knocked over can of bug spray. Like a hammer, he swung it down, stuffing it into the slime.

Again, he heard the sound of a slime getting ready to pounce. Apparently, the fourth assassin had finished crossing the room.

Jake threw his arm and the slime stuck to it between him and the latecomer's flight path. The slimes collided, becoming stuck together in the aftermath. The new one lost its momentum only half a hand’s width away from his face. He pulled out another can of the bug spray with his freehand and tore through to the top slime’s core with its poison.

You dug a poisoned tunnel to the core of a Gel Slime!

Enemy: Level 2

Level Up!

The system has granted you five stat points to freely allocate as you see fit. The maximum size of an area you can gamify has also increased.

The slime collapsed into a puddle. Its core bounced off the lower slime’s surface and rolled off somewhere further into the dark room.

With barely a seconds delay, Jake started spraying the remaining slime assassin stuck to his arm. He could feel it shake as his poison assault stunned it.

One last time, there was a gasp. The slime he’d thrown back with the shelf was ready for another round. Jake threw the stunned slime on his arm between him and the other slime as it lunged.

You lined up a Gel Slime for a smashing!

Enemy: Level 2

He hadn’t accounted for the poison making the slime on his arm unstable. Like a water balloon exploding, the gel slime’s innards splattered everywhere as its comrade crushed it and slammed into Jake’s legs.

Jake spit out the funeral gel that splattered over his mouth and jammed his can into the last slime assassin.

One thrust of his hunting knife was enough. He tore the can open within the slime’s belly.

You unleashed a poison bomb within a Gel Slime!

Enemy: Level 2

Jake dropped his knife and sighed in relief. He heard a creak before a light suddenly started to flood the room. The room’s door had been unlocked.

The slime king withdraws his forces for the time being, but his enmity still remains…

Yeah, that and the corpses of his soldiers, Jake added in his thoughts. He’d gotten rid of the slimes’ touch advantage on him with his can trick and now the only thing the slimes had on him was numbers… Well, that and a ton of funeral gel from their corpses.

Jake got up from where he was laid out on the floor and pulled up his stats.

Level 2

Mana Capacity: 10

Strength: 10

Agility: 10

Vitality: 10

Unallocated Stat Points: 5

According to the tutorial he couldn’t put points into his resistances unless he had a skill that let him do so. He’d been given short descriptions of what each stat did—not that he needed it with the titles being obvious for anyone who’s played an RPG before—so he knew what he'd be getting from each one.

If he was being honest, he was feeling tempted to see what he’d feel like or be able to do after dumping points into his stats, but he decided against it. This was only the start of the “game” and he didn’t know enough to be sure what kind of build would work best for him. According to the tutorial, leveling was an instant thing, so he could assign them whenever needed them, in case he got in trouble.

Jake closed his stats. He was covered in slime, but he was feeling pumped with his performance.

With just a bit of a smirk on his face, he moved to pick up his basket of bug spray off the floor. Right as he was about to pick it up, he slipped in the slimes’ funeral gel.

The annoyance he had felt earlier before the fight returned with a vengeance. He looks around him at the mess the slimes had made. There was no way he was going to waste his time cleaning this all up.

He wasn’t a neat freak, but he hated leaving a mess. All the more so when it was a mess in his grandparents’ home. It felt like he was adding on to the massive problem that was already there and it felt like he was failing his grandmother.

Jake sighed. He was fully aware that cleaning was more moving things around than destroying them. Instead of destruction, he wished that he could just move things away to somewhere else. He just wished he could make it all…

Disappear.

As soon as the word entered his head, he felt a change. There’d been a resonance.

He looked back at the knocked over basket of bug spray as he sensed something around it. Whether it be light or space, one of the two distorted around the basket and the sprays, sucking them into a small point and making them…

Disappear.

Affinity Acknowledged

Skill Unlocked!