He was much smaller than the others, by a wide gap he could not bridge. Whether it was due to lack of nutrition or poor genetics. What was clear is that he was everyone’s scapegoat. The horrible and mocking faces of his classmates were all around him, surrounding him with their cruel laughter, echoing into the hallway of the school.

He was grabbed by multiple arms, extra hands tearing and tucking at his new shirt, ripping the fabric apart. He was manhandled. He was lifted into the air and thrown like a ragdoll. Landing against the school dumpster. The metal banged as he collided with it. Filthy trash had fallen on him, making nasty stains, and undrunken liquids stuck itself in his frizzy hair.

How was he going to explain this one to his parents?

“Learn your fucking lesson, trash!” One of the stronger boys had shouted at him.

The entirety of the crowd, like a choir in sync, mocked him and made fun of him for being who he was and what he believed in. For not conforming to the standards, for not being normal. The insults didn’t bother him, just that no one seemed to care, the few that weren’t inherently black-hearted monsters, turned a blind to his pains, careful that they might become victims themselves.

He tried to hold back the sorrow he felt. But tears fell from his eyes. His body ached with pain, his shins and thighs throbbing with excruciating pain. The weight of being choked around his throat, he could still feel it. As he got up, he stumbled barely able to move forward. Tripping over his loosened shoelaces, he hardly had the strength to tie it together.

As he lay on dust-covered asphalt, he got up again. Standing upright, he limped onward and away. Someone shoved him, causing him to fall on the ground again. His nose was bloody and his knees weak. He struggled to get up again, he didn’t feel like it but did so anyway. He wiped away the tears and left.

They could thrash him all they wanted but they could never break him.

----------------------------------------

He had been having disjointed and incoherent dreams slash memories all night. His body ached with soreness, which was unusual in his slimelike state, only ever felt exhaustion and had never experienced limb soreness. And yet he felt like his limbs were squished together, crammed in a can, the type used to preserve old food. He felt like he was a packaged like Meal-ready-to-eat, waiting to be opened and consumed.

Ebon black darkness greeted Victor as he awoke from his deep slumber. He had tried moving around, shaking himself in an attempt to wiggle himself free. From this morning-day nightmare. As he moved around he could hear sounds of metal chains swinging around, and yet he was stuck in here. His body squished together. When exactly did he get so large anyway?

His thoughts trailed back to the day before. A lot had happened. The war with the Lich; His stroll around the village he still didn’t know the name of, the merchant who had scammed him out of his map, though no fault of his own. The boar hunt he and Faro had cooperated on. Feasting with the barracks boys, the strange soldier who had approached him, the rain, the images of the nymph, him feeling unwell, vomiting. Everything just fucking with his mind.

He remembered he had left the village right after he felt ill. Ravenous and wholly unholy hunger. Had taken ahold of his mind, he yearned for flesh. He wanted to devour, the monster inside of him had been unhappy and unsated. It wanted to absorb, absorb, and absorb even more.

But… least it was quiet now.

He couldn’t recall what exactly had happened. He had dug himself into some kind of crevice beneath a tree. The possibility that someone had caught himself sleeping in the woods was a high one. And yet he had taken great precautions to obscure himself.

But…that was enough mental bickering. He was supposed to evolve. Did he evolve?

Congratulations you have evolved two stages.

Your racial status has changed

Ooze(slimelike)>Ooze devourer> Jelkin(humanoid slime).

New status rebuffs

You have 15 unspent attributes.

New health parameters values: check status

It was all so much at once, he had evolved twice? Devourer what was that all about. A humanoid.

Now that he thought about it, he did feel very strange, unusually he had been able to compress his mass, to fit perfectly with obstacles that had held him back. Now it was retracted just so he could squeeze into the block. He had tried retracting his artificial limbs, into his body but it would not budge. He could move them around, gelatinous-like as they were, there was something eerily familiar about the weight and manner the mass had been distributed. Almost like his oozy bits were simulating imperfect muscles.

He needed to get out immediately.

“Status.” he said aloud with his mouth.”My mouth.”

His mouth! He could speak! He had some kind of throat, even a tongue. He could swallow like a normal human being again.

“What!” he heard in the room, he was placed somewhere and someone was watching him. He needed to get out. With his skin, he started feeling the material he was housed inside.

It had a metallic smell, an oxide, maybe Iron. Victor needed out immediately.

“Status.”

“I don’t get paid enough for this shit,” he heard the same voice call out.

"Boss the box is acting up again."

"What ya say?" the other voice replied.

This person was about to pay with an ass-whooping once he got out of this 'box'.

Status Information

(Additional status information hidden until necessary)

Race:

Jelkin(Slime)

Hp:

158/158 (+10% constitution hp buff, racial debuff) (plus 1 con equipment buff)

Mp:

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

10/10 ( base)

Name

Victor

Class

Undefined

Titles

Evolved monster +4 str/+4 Dex/ +4 cha, former human (retain human intelligence) +20 wis + 35 int

Level

13

Alignment

Chaotic good

Attributes

Strength 17 (Feeblefisted) (+1hat)

Dexterity 19 (roughly nimble)

Wisdom 20 ( Former fool)

Intelligence 35 (Human-like)

Constitution 22 (Moderately resilient) )(+1hat)

Charisma 6 (Uncharismatic monster )

Undistributed stats

15

“Oh fuck yeah!” he shouted from within the iron block. He was moving up in the world, slow as it was. One step closer to regaining his humanity.

“Stop! Stop the noise! Don’t move, stay absolutely fucking still.” the voice said, Victor could hear his footsteps as he left the room.

Was he 'talking' to Victor?

He tried to summon his gladius, which was missing for some reason. Did he leave it in the woods? That left the idea of cutting chains that held the iron block while he was stuck in the air. Screw his slime-gobbling limitations. If he couldn’t slither out of a small hole. He’d punch his way outside.

He dumped all of his unused stats into his str.

15 stats distributed

New strength value 15> 32.

Inventory space value increased to 7.

It was amazing what a long night of sleep could get you in this world.

He felt his new bipedal arms expand and contract. Moving the block had become easier. He could push it from the inside, sending it swinging around, like pinball on a desk.

Maybe with enough momentum he could…no. He needs to do something else.

He started punching the iron block, a dent immediately appearing in it, curving outwards. It was sure to be eventually cracked due to the pressure or as the penetrative power of his punches would get easier, with time."

“Coop thief, you making that noise. Quiet the fuck down.” Someone said, a different person. Not the man he heard earlier. This one was older.

“It ain’t me I swear. It’s that fucking slime you got in that cube, it’s going crazy.”

“Stop plucking your cock chicken thief, I saw you throw something earlier. ” The man declared.

Was he a prison guard? Who’s prison was he in? Was the chicken thief the same one he had encountered in that barn? What did Victor do to end up here? Was he in the village at all, What exactly happened last night

Well, it appeared it was too late for light conversations. With all his might Victor punched the iron hard, sending him and the iron block airborne, causing some of the chains to rattle and break. Simply due to the sheer force of his punches.

The metal lid of the iron block bent open. Victor’s head peaked out. It seems he really was in a prison cell. A magical barrier had surrounded his cell. There had been more than one, the thief who had tried to abduct him much earlier, stood staring at him in fear. A guard came running around the corner.

“Look, Cornelius! I told you! Look I told you to so.” A younger guard pointed at him making proper contact with his eyes.

They seemed to wear the uniform of the Village militia. Victor had clearly fucked up then if they had locked him up. What was he supposed to do now? Wreck havoc and escape.

No. he would be put down, as that would be a life or death matter for the villagers.

He climbed completely out of the box, his cramped body, slowly decompressing. Growing in volume and size. His stature grew to a height of an average-sized man. Easily 5’6.

The two guards stared in disbelief and immediately fled the jail. Running off, to tell who knows what and who.

“You didn’t have to do that, come back. Can we talk about this!"

The magical barrier told him that it may have been the work of Faelion. That meant he had returned, and shit was about to go down. If so he, would have to plead his case against him. Maybe he could silently exile him to another country or even sell him off to Nova Roma.

He sat on the ground with his new body. It was still icky and it was still gelatinous in material. But he was once step closer to becoming human and that was all that mattered.

As he awaited whatever ever verdict headed his way. He up-picked the compressed block of iron he had been in.

“Who’s sick fucking idea was this.”

“it… I….it…it …was the wizard.” the thief said out loud.

Victor was reluctant to believe him, why would Faelion put him in a cage? His memory was hazy, but he did remember a storm last night. Images of a river body falling on him. He hoped he didn’t sleep with a wrinkly old witch, or stole someone’s goat to eat. That would be a terrible way to start his new life. Hopefully, he didn't get drunk.

Victor moved in the direction of the cell. That house the livestock thief.

The thief started clutching the bars, shaking them erratically. His face had turned ghostly pale and a crazy expression on his face.

“Please don’t eat me! I’m not worth it!” he begs as Victor approaches, voice high-pitched.

Victor smirks, half-joking, “Maybe if I get hungry.” he joked. The thief started running to the back of the cell, climbing in his bedrolls, and covering his body.

“Please you have to understand, I was only trying to get by. We normal folk have to make do with what we have you know. Please, man just leave me alone.”

Victor shook his head. Neck stretches. It had felt good, he hadn’t felt it in a long time. His body was still stiff but slowly loosened up.

The guards came back inside running, a worried wizard behind them. Encouraging the wizard to come to stare at the spectacle. Their weapons were gripped, even Faelion had his staff on him.

“Look he done changed again. Standing on two legs now. You said to call you in an emergency, well if that isn’t an emergency I don’t know what is.” the older guard, Cornelius said.

Victor’s eyes met Faelion. Who had a shit-eating wide grin on his face?

“Well I'll be damned, I thought you had gone mad forever,” Faelion said happily.

“Mad....I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“You have no memory of what happened?” the wizard approached. “You can speak!?"

“I can speak?!” Victor said questioning whether it was a bizarre thing at all.

“You no longer sound like a telepathic vocoder.”

“What’s a vocoder?” the younger guard asked curiously.

“You wouldn’t get it," the wizard replied. "It's a if you know, then you know kinda thing."

Something strange was happening, Victor could sense the mana coming from the wizard and it was massive.

“Well come with me Victor we have much to talk about, a lich to kill.”

Faelion dropped the barrier with a wave of his hands. Victor was jealous, he noticed the increased amount of mp in his inventory. He wanted to use magic, but first, he needed to find out why he was chained in the first place.

“You’re letting him out!” the older guard was outraged. “He poked me with his tentacle, that's harassment, I want compensation dammit.”

“You’ll receive better pay for your efforts, now tend to the farm thief. Or perhaps no one needs to employ jail guards.

He dismissed them. The guard started non-stop moaning. It was a pretty empty prison in retrospect, did the village simply not have crime, or were all the other prisoners sent away to the gulag? Because there was only the thief stuck in here.

A question for later, honestly.

“Come along Victor. Time is of the essence.”