I couldn’t believe it! I was a Wisp. You know, those things in that appear in the woods? Just little balls of lights. No head, no body, no eyes.

Wait, I don’t have eyes! How am I seeing things then?

I was understandably confused. I looked around in a panic. I felt like there would be something that might help me. But to no avail. It was just a dark, empty tunnel. Suddenly I noticed the puddle got bigger. While I was looking at it I noticed small drops falling into it.

I looked up. I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was a blob. Anyone who had played basically any RPG would know about them. It was a SLIME! I didn’t know if this was a common slime, or a slime that appeared in DIVE, but I wasn’t going to chance the latter.

After all, I didn’t have any water mana manipulation ability. … or did i?

I tried sensing the mana around me, if there was any. I felt foolish. Of course nothing happened, even after an hour. I had no idea what mana felt like, nor how to ‘sense’ things. So the whole idea was probably impossible from the start.

The slime was dripping into the puddle. The puddle just got bigger, it didn’t distort, so it was probably made from the same material.

EWWW. I was staring into slime juice? That’s so gross. I ‘shuddered’. My non-existent body had no way to actually do the motion, but pretending wasn’t bad.

I got bored after looking at the slime for a few minutes. I did figure out that the slime was splitting though. The new slime jiggled off into the distance when it grew to a big enough size. The slime on the ceiling, much larger than the other slime, kept spewing more slimy liquid.

Honestly I was too exasperated by the whole ordeal to do anything. I tried to wake myself up in case it was a dream. I couldn’t figure out how though. I ran into a wall, hoping the shock would wake me, but I didn’t feel anything.

In fact I just passed through it like it wasn’t even there. Everything went dark when I did though. I quickly backpedaled, and found myself back in the cave tunnel. Hmmm, does that mean I can pass through solid objects? This dream keeps getting weirder and weirder. Although I’m more rational than usual. Maybe this is the DIVE pod dream?

It was too much guessing so I gave up. Then I got bored. The slime was interesting, in a gross way, but it kept doing the same thing without end. The repetition was boring after a while. One of the reasons I never did well in anything that took creativity was that I hated the repeated tasks one needed to do to build a foundation enough to be accepted as ‘creative’.

I decided to test my limits a bit. I could pass through walls, that much I was sure of. Other than that I had no idea what I could do. I mean God just sent me here, shouldn’t I have a cheat ability or something? At least something to help me survive!

Whenever I passed through the walls, it instantly grew dark. I’ve always had some fear of the dark. I don’t know why. I knew nothing was in it, but fears are generally irrational. There was no way I could control it.

I passed through the goop growing on the floor a few times. It felt weird, like gum stuck to my shoe or something, but that was it. When the slimes came to life, and left I decided to follow one.

It was fast! The fastest I could go was about half of that speed, and that was only for a few seconds. After that I quickly tired. Although I didn’t seem to need food or water. I didn’t get hungry or thirsty. That was a blessing. The only other thing than me I had seen was the slime.

While the slime seemed to ignore me I doubted I could beat it in a battle. Even if I did, how did I know it would taste good, or even be edible. What if slimes were poisonous to Wisps? I had to many questions and no answer.

Suddenly another slime zipped past me. I followed it until I couldn’t see it anymore. The tunnel was long, and only had one direction to follow.

Some days later

I can’t even remember how long I’ve been down here. Time doesn’t really matter. Days and nights blend together in the blackness of the tunnel. I don’t get physically tired, how could I, but I do get mentally exhausted.

Every once in a while a slime comes and zips past me. I try to catch up, but it never works. I’m just too slow. Although I did find out that if I stay in a certain part of the tunnel, the slimes will pass through me 100% of the time.

It feels weird though, so I don’t like it. I really wish I still had my body. At least I could walk on my own feet instead of just floating around like this.

Some days later

I eventually came across something interesting. It was a small brown rat. When I looked at it I felt some sort of longing. A few minutes passed as I watched it. It seemed to only sniff the air. Until a slime passed.

The rat instantly raised up on its haunches. The rat tried to slash as the slime, but the slime didn’t seem damaged by it. The slime rolled its body over the rat, and it slowly started to dissolve. After a few moments nothing was left of it.

The slime continued on its way, far faster than before. Ah, perhaps I should clarify. The slimes had been slowing down for a while now. The last few dozens, I didn’t keep count, have been moving slower. I didn’t know if it was because something went wrong with the original slime, or if they slowed down when they went past a certain point.

This slime answered that question. They were hungry! That’s why they slowed down! It was obvious once I thought about it. The slimes, though gross, were still technically animals. Maybe anyway. I had no way of knowing.

The poor rat had been used a fuel for the slime. My anger rose at seeing the first thing I recognized being eaten in front of me. Of course I couldn’t do anything about it. No body remember.

A few seconds after the slime left, another rat popped out of a hole in the wall. It was waiting, sniffing the air like the one before it. I didn’t want to see a second one die. Not while I could do something. The problem was I couldn’t actually do anything about it.

I tried to push the rat back into it hole, or at least move it down the hallway a bit. As soon as I touched it, I felt like I was trapped by fly paper. I couldn’t move away from it. The more I struggled, the more I got stuck.

If it is anything like quicksand, I should just relax. Thinking like that I calmed my body. I felt my body get thrown into the rat.

You have successfully possessed the creature: Dungeon Rat.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I jumped at the notification. I hadn’t expected it, so it caught me by surprise. I was excited though! That meant I really was in DIVE! Thank GOD! I was so scared!

I felt the hot tears roll down my cheeks. Huh? I jumped, startled. I had tears? Wait, I could jump? I looked down. Instead of the all-encircling light, I could barely make anything out. I noticed one thing though. I was in the body of the rat! Wait hold on, how did this happen? I had no idea.

I suddenly heard something coming my way. It was a slime! They looked the same as when I was a Wisp. Without getting any time to think about it, I was attacked. When the slime moved towards me, I instinctively tried moving away.

It worked! I could move the rat’s body! I didn’t know how, but the rat seemed to still be conscious. Don’t ask me how I knew this. I had no idea. All I knew was that I needed to get away. So I ran. The slime didn’t chase me. It just stayed there. It must be waiting for a new rodent! I can’t just let the rats die like that.

I ran back to the hole, and jumped in before the slime could attack me. The slime seemed to almost give up hope at that point. It was kind of pitiful. But I wanted to save the rats! They were the first animal I saw.

I crawled into the hole, a few seconds after running through the hole, another rat appeared. It seemed to try to go past me, but was confused why I was running the other way. For a reason unknown to me it followed me. Well It tried to. What actually happened was that it tried to turn around, but couldn’t.

The tunnel was too small. The rat I had possessed suddenly seemed angry. It bit into the other rat. Even though I tried to calm it, a fight broke out. I don’t know what happened, but I passed out. When I woke up the rat I had possessed had killed the other, and was cannibalizing its body. I almost vomited, but the control I had over the rat seemed weak at the moment.

That’s when I noticed something. The rat’s fur was silver now. The corpse it was eating wasn’t the first either. There were two other disembodied rats laying beside it. I wasn’t inside the rat anymore, either. I was off to the side, with the familiar light surrounding me. The rat didn’t seem to notice.

I tried to tell it to stop eating. I felt something when I did. It stopped eating instantly.

You have failed to possess the creature: Elite Dungeon Rat.

Possessing more powerful or sentient creatures is only possible if they are weakened, or are weaker than the monster you currently possess.

Is this like Pocket Minion now!?

The absurdity of the situation didn’t escape me. Wait I felt pain! When the rat attacked the other rat, I felt the pain! It wasn’t diluted like DIVE was supposed to be! Is this really another world!? I didn’t know. Honestly I didn’t care anymore. I just broke down into sobs, or tired to anyway.

While I was fake crying another rat came. The battle between the two was intense. The silver rat was more powerful, but seemed to lose some speed. The little rat was killed, but the silver rat had one of its legs almost chewed off completely.

The box earlier said that I could wait until the monster was weaker. I tried to touch it, to implant my will. I was sucked into it again.

You have successfully possessed the creature: Elite Dungeon Rat.

I didn’t know anything about what situation I was in, but this whole thing was too weird. I met God, was summoned to another world, got thrown away, followed a long tunnel for days without tiring, possessed something, seemingly got thrown out, possessed it again, and now I had to figure out what the hell was happening to me.

Let’s make a list of all of things I know for a fact.

I knew I could somehow possess this specific rat. I knew I hadn’t possessed a slime yet. I did get a bit of the same feeling though. I knew I had been removed from the rat. I knew I possessed it after it got hurt.

So, that guy could have really been God, or I could just be playing DIVE right now. But seriously, DIVE has never actually hurt while playing. The highest setting of pain is only 25%. Something is definitely wrong.

I tried calling up my status screen. I was a level 134 Orc Warrior. I had a sword that dealt constant fire damage. It was from a rare ancient elven rune I bought. Those runes let the enchantments become permanent. Now I was a rat. No less than a rat. I was something trying to use the body of a rat. 134 might not be high versus the top tier players, but it was plenty high versus the average player.

I concentrated on going back up the tunnel. While I had been thinking the rat decided to eat the flesh of the other rats. It regained its lost limb as it ate. The leg was actually coming back! Just from eating! I had never heard of that happening in DIVE.

After the rat was done eating, I enforced the order to continue. The rat continued to fight when it encountered new rats, although I didn’t get kicked out of the body since that first time. I was grateful for that at least. The rat was slower than the other rats, but it was much quicker than I was.

After an hour of traveling, the silver rat finally came to a stop. We were in a giant room. It was so large the rat couldn’t even see the ceiling. It must have been at least twenty feet. There was one thing that did get the attention of the rat.

In a large clearing, a fat rat, easily ten times as large as silver, was laying eggs. One egg was laid every minute. The egg hatched after one minute, and went running down the tunnel. I had Silver stay to the side to watch. I started to get a grasp on the place I was in.

It was like a forced ecosystem. The rats gave birth (?) to other rats. Those rats ran and were eaten by slimes. The entire purpose of the rats was just food! I didn’t know what the slimes were used for, but the mass slaughter of innocent rats was not ok in my books. Not now that I bonded with one anyway.

I decided the only way to end the cycle of death was to try to find a way to end the cycle birth.