“What?”

A lonely breeze drifted through the garden, carrying a golden-brown leaf along. Silence permeated the area following my exclamation.

The Wisp didn’t seem inclined to clarify and began floating away. I quickly regained my senses and hopped after it, calling out to the creature. It promptly ignored every attempt to get its attention and glided over the river. I came to a halt at the riverbank, glowering at the levitating form of the Wisp. It was hard to tell, but I was fairly certain it was doing this on purpose, knowing I couldn’t cross the water.

The Wisp stopped moving several meters from me and glowed brightly, almost like it was laughing. I fumed, batting down the urge to stretch my body into a tendril and lash the Wisp. Let’s see how well you’ll like it when you can’t move!

Out loud, I aimed for a negotiating tone. “We’re a party now, and part of that is trust. Tell me what you meant by ‘death approaches you?’” Never mind the foreboding nature of that sentence, it was also the most words the Wisp had strung together.

…Fragments. Too far.

I waited, but the Wisp didn’t speak again. I started to ask for more when the Wisp began drifting away, a clear indicator that it wasn’t interested. Sighing, I went to work analyzing what little gems of detail I’d been given.

“Fragments…fragments of what? The rock? The dungeon? I guess I destroyed a lot of things lately, is it talking about fragments of that?” I felt like there was a much simpler explanation that was right under my nose, but I was just barely missing. “Maybe it has something to do with slimes?”

After all, practically everything abnormal that occurred to me in the past day could be tracked down to me being resurrected inside a slime: being summoned by the apex monster, my existential crisis of whether I was Alex or not, my instinctual fear of water…it made perfect sense for this to be another case where my slime biology interferes with my life.

I tried my best to stop ruminating on what the Wisp said and merely let nature take over. Of course, the moment you decide to stop thinking is when your brain kicks into overdrive.

Just relax…just relax…don’t think about that tree, just relax…no, that’s not relaxing, I said just relax! I wondered how the priests in the Holy Church trained themselves to maintain a silent vigil for days on end, and not get driven mad by their own thoughts.

I’d gotten to where I was considering the plausibility of ripping my hair—uh, slime out when an image flashed through my mind. Forgetting everything else, I latched onto the image before it faded into the abyss, and forced it to grow more concrete. It was hazy at first, but over time, it grew crisper until I could make out faint outlines. The walls resembled every other cave I’d been in so far, but the coup de grâce of the picture was a small pile of shell fragments clustered together.

I zoomed in on the mound and nearly bowled over when I was hit with an intense surge of nostalgia. Even though I’d only gazed upon the patterns a couple of times, I instantly knew what it was.

“Of course it’s the egg I hatched from.” And wasn’t that a weird sentence to say? I found the Wisp. “Is it true? Does my ‘death’ have something to do with my shell?”

I was afraid the Wisp would pull its usual tricks, but for once, it didn’t beat around the bush and went right to the truth.

…Yes. Too young. Must consume. Stable.

I repeated the words in my head, piecing the bigger picture together from the small snippets of information. “Let’s see…too young…need to consume the fragments? To stable—no, to stabilize myself? Baby slimes need to eat their shells in order to stabilize themselves?”

The Wisp glow surged brightly once before returning to its normal dimness. I shuddered; I’d come so close to death and I hadn’t even noticed. If I didn't stumble across the Wisp, would I have simply collapsed dead in a cave?

I wiped the graphic imagery away. No use dwelling on ‘what if’s’ when there were so many other pressing concerns to deal with. “Do you know how to find my shell? An alternate route, preferably.”

…Yes.

At this point, I wasn’t even disturbed by the Wisp’s intimate knowledge about the circumstances around my birth. I’ll just chalk it up to a side effect of being in the same party. “Can you take me there?”

The Wisp didn’t respond, and every second that stretched into another felt like an eternity with my ‘heartbeat’ pounding in my ears. I struggled not to let my desperation shine through my exterior in case that interfered with the Wisp’s final decision.

“Are you sad to leave this place?” I prodded. Who knew how long the Wisp had remained here for? It didn’t give off the impression that it frequently traveled.

…No.

Reality around me warped and churned, spiraling into a singular point: the Wisp. A gasp was ripped from my throat as I became impossibly thin and stretched out an infinite length. Time and space became meaningless in the face of this quantum vortex, and I got sucked into the very center, compressed a million times in a fraction of a second. For one instant, I thought I gained a semblance of understanding of what it was like to be the Wisp.

The world unraveled into billions of yarn, each one containing an insurmountable amount of power; every living being and object was held within the individual strings. An invisible force turned back and re-spun each string into a unique formation, rewriting the code of reality and the placement of objects.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

It wasn’t an act of transporting mass from one place to another that the Wisp was employing. Instead, it was rearranging the world around us rather than us being the ones moving.

The distortion of the space-time continuum spat me out. The whole ordeal must have taken less than a second, but the effects of the trip left me ravaged. I could barely remain intact, much less register wherever the hell I was now.

Even now, I felt the components that made me stretch taut. Whatever the Wisp had activated, it was wrecking devastating damage upon my placement in this world. I had the suspicion this Skill was never meant to be used with another sentient being. Damn you, Wisp!

A warm summer breeze rolled through the area and brushed lightly against my surfaces. Unconsciously, I relaxed, the tension all but seeping out of my body. The warmth slipped through my outer layers and embraced my insides, getting to work on repairing the damage and reconnecting everything. In seconds, my body had been fully restored to the state it was before the abrupt teleportation.

Scouring my surroundings, it didn’t take me long to find the Will-O’-Wisp hovering a couple of feet away, looking as nonchalant as ever. As much as I desired vengeance, I acknowledged that it probably had been the one to patch me back up. Anyway, it was also responsible for fulfilling my request and returning me back to my birthplace. I paused in my ruminations and mentally retraced my thoughts, before gasping.

“That’s right!” My mind must have taken longer to be healed because only now did it all rush back to me: my impending doom, the possible salvation, and the impromptu journey. I scoured the cavern, taking notice of the familiar gouges and ledges sticking out. Yep, this is definitely where I was born. You didn’t forget the first cave you saw after breaking free from an egg. Which means my egg shell should be…..there.

My egg fragments were in the same position as in the image and it would require a mere couple of seconds to retrieve them. However, the triumph of the moment was dampened by the nearby presence of a monster, prowling around my egg fragments.

I didn’t know how the monster hadn’t zeroed in on our location the moment we teleported here, but it was a strike of luck it hadn’t, because the gods know I wouldn’t have been able to muster a defense. Regardless of whatever minuscule amounts of gratitude I may have felt, it was completely overshadowed by the pulsating panic coursing through my ‘veins’ at the thought of the monster eating my egg.

“I need that!” I roared, leaping forward. I threw aside my usual etiquette and strategies in battle, forgoing them in exchange for a more brutal and fast approach. Drawing attention to myself was pretty low on my To-Do list in a battle, but in this case, it was necessary. The monster was already too close to my shell fragments for comfort. I needed to prevent it from closing more distance.

The monster turned around and revealed the grotesque nature of its front half. With its full body in my line of sight, the first creature that popped to mind was a scorpion, a rare indigenous species that the desert merchants sold at the market. The monster bore a striking resemblance to that creature, essentially being an overgrown version of it.

8 legs were attached to the abdomen, granting it the edge in maneuverability. More pressing though was the glossy carapace protecting the head of the monster—the merchants had called it the cephalothorax. I doubted any weapon I conjured was able to penetrate the armor; regardless of how sharp I made the edges, I was cutting with malleable and soft slime.

The carapace shrouded the face in shadows, but I could still make out five beady eyes piercing from the darkness. Twin pincers clacked menacingly, appearing more suited for crushing boulders rather than fighting a Gelatinous Cube. The chief attraction was the long tail that arced up and ended in a bulbous tip, the needle-like point at the top glistening. It was probably my imagination, but I fancied I saw the bulb bulge with the venom inside.

A stab from that behemoth wouldn’t just incapacitate me; it would absolutely pulverize my body.

The monster let out a shrill scream and charged. I composed my nerves and followed suit, scooting along the ground as fast as possible. As the monster bore down on me, I reconsidered my options, but it was too late. The monster drew its pincers back at the same time as I dove to the side.

The ground behind me cracked while I skidded next to the monster’s legs. Using [Weapon Generation] and shaping an axe, I slashed as hard as possible against the appendages. Even with the momentum driving my strike forward, my axe splattered against the nearest leg.

Damn it, I can’t even cut a leg?! Tumbling out of the roll, I dashed for the tail before the monster could turn around. Creating another axe, I leapt up and swung at the base of the tail.

My axe made contact but reverberated off the exterior, sending ripples throughout my body. The axe lost its form, and I dropped to the ground. A shadow passed over me and I vaulted to the left a second before the tail slammed into the ground.

This ensued a game of Cat and Mouse, where I began fleeing from the monster, who quickly gave chase. At the very least, I’d achieved my goal of drawing it away from the egg; now all I needed to do was kill it.

Surveying my surroundings for my flippant ally, I located it hovering over my shell fragments. A surge of protectiveness coursed through me, startling me with the intensity it had hit with. I pushed the instinct aside as silly. On a logical level, I knew it was simply a pile of fragments in which I was born, but my slime physiology seemed to have a much higher view of it.

“Can you help me!?” I shouted, shooting daggers towards the Wisp.

…Good patterns.

“Great, that’s nice to hear,” I grumbled. I caught sight of the scorpion monster drawing its tail back and scrambled to the right. The tail sunk into the ground, upheaving a tonne of rock and debris. A stray rock smacked into me, the force behind the rock coupled with my light weight being enough to knock me into the air.

I landed harshly on the ground, kicking up a small cloud of dust. A dull ache permeated around the area where I’d hit the ground, but it was much easier to ignore than it would have been in a human body. More alarming was that even the side effects of one of the monster’s attacks was enough to deal damage to me.

A direct hit would probably kill me… I studied the scorpion. Its tail was halfway embedded into the wall and in the midst of its struggles to pry it out, it neglected to check where I was. I guess it doesn’t really need to…not much I can do to it at this point.

I wasn’t about to roll over and give up without a fight. Using [Weapon Generation] again, I created a pair of scythes and axes. With four weapons primed and ready, I dashed forward and slashed at the tail.

Like before, the slime composition of the weapons was too fragile to stand up against the heavily armored tail. The shape of the weapons wobbled and with a little concentration, I solidified it again. No matter what I did, though, the tip of the weapons would not penetrate more than an inch into the armor.

The tail shifted minutely. Warning bells blared in my mind and I pushed off the ground as hard as possible. The tail blurred out of view and the next thing I knew, I was on the other side of the cavern with half my body missing.

…eh?