Uchronia turned around wondering what all the hubbub was about. When she finally laid eyes on Gus, her mouth went slack-jawed. Alwin was already gawking, his jaw dropped as low as physically possible as they observed what was happening.

Gus sat atop the human's body, encircled by a tempest of crackling lightning. Bolts of electricity danced through the air, zigging, zagging, zapping, and everything in between. He didn't look to be in any visible pain, but they had no way to verify any of that.

The duo didn't know what to do. Should they push him off the human? That might end up causing more problems than solving them. What was going to happen to Gus? They really should have done something, anything, but neither Alwin nor Uchronia knew how to react to this situation, so they sat there, frozen by uncertainty.

Lightning raged all around Gus, each bolt dancing and frolicking with a friend, or maybe a lover— it was hard to tell. Then, nothing. The lightning was gone, and so was that glow that enshrouded him. He opened his eyes, opened his jaw as wide as he could, almost as if he was mimicking them, and let out a huge belch that reverberated through the forest. A couple of birds in the vicinity were scared off by the sheer power of the burp, taking to the skies, wings flapping to escape the terrifying sound.

"A-are you okay?" asked Alwin.

"Yea. Why?" replied Gus. He was apparently oblivious to the lightning show he had put on display earlier.

"What about the lightning?" asked Uchronia.

"Wait, how do you know?"

"Because we saw it. There was lightning going zip zap zop all around you," said Alwin.

"Wait, really? I didn't know that."

"Then what lightning are you talking about?" replied Uchronia exasperated.

"I was talking about the new skill I got."

"When? How?"

"Just now. From that man, we just fought."

"How?"

"I don't know. His spirit thingy tried running away, then I absorbed him, then next thing I knew I got a new skill. Wanna see?"

"YES!" Uchronia shouted, unable to control herself anymore, blowing a gasket.

"Okay."

Gus closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to steady himself. Sparks of electricity started crackling on the lower half of his fur, leaving the top half as bushy as ever.

Gus's eyes flew open. "Lightning Legs!" he shouted, and before Uchronia and Alwin could react, he was off. Lightning trailing behind in as he ran laps around the pair. It was like Haste, but on steroids, with an extra jolt of energy running through them. Uchronia and Alwin stood in stunned silence, watching Gus’s electrifying performance.

"Whoa! Look at me go, I'm so fast," he laughed.

Uchronia and Alwin looked at each other, metaphorical eyebrows raised as far as they would go.

"Isn't that—" started Alwin.

"That's the skill that human was using!" yelled Uchronia. "How?"

"I just absorbed his essence then there was an alert that I had learnt a new skill then I used it."

"But, how?"

"Do you think it's because of his Core Skill?" asked Alwin.

"That's the only logical explanation," replied Uchronia. "Either that or Gus found a way to siphon skills from the human's essences. So did you, Gus?"

Gus was busy running laps around the two. Too engrossed in how fast he was moving to pay attention to the conversation.

"GUS!"

"What?" he blurted, turning to look at Uchronia. Distracted, he didn’t see the gnarled root sticking out of the ground. His body caught, sending him sprawling forward. He rolled uncontrollably, leaves and dirt flying, until a solid tree trunk brought his chaotic momentum to an abrupt halt.

"We're trying to figure out how you managed to learn that new skill, so can you please pay attention."

"But I already told you what happened," Gus said, upside down with his back against the tree he had just slammed into. Grass and bits of dirt clung to his fur.

"Never mind," Uchronia groaned. "We'll just ask Mr. Milvus when we get back."

"Speaking about getting back, do you think those humans went back to the village," said Alwin.

"It's likely."

"I say we go back to the village."

"Since when do you have so much initiative? Aren't you a slacker?" Uchronia asked.

"Hey, I'm not a slacker. I'm just a guy who likes to work smarter and not harder."

"Right... So why do you want to go back to the village? I half expected you to suggest we just leave the village alone," said Uchronia, judging every single syllable that Alwin dared mutter.

"Well..." Alwin trailed off. He shuffled around awkwardly. "After I saw Gus absorb that skill I thought of a really good idea on how to sneak around those humans."

"Go on." She still sounded skeptical but was slightly more curious.

"I was thinking that, you know, I'm a slime so I'm squishy. I could probably squish inside his armor and pretend to be a human then we could sneak in and try to find out what they're doing in the village and who they're trying to track down."

Uchronia stared at Alwin, her jaw hanging low. She blinked. Once, twice. "What? That's the stupidest plan I've ever heard."

"But if it works, is it really that stupid?"

"That 'if' is working overtime and not even the paid kind."

"I still think it's worth a shot. Do you have a better idea, Ms. Squad Leader?" Alwin gave her a cheeky grin.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"Give me some time and I'll come up with something better," she muttered, grinding her teeth. Her eyes wandered across the clearing, scanning the horizon for inspiration.

Alwin traced her gaze, coming to rest on the corpse of the human that they had just defeated. His armor was broken, his spear was busted, and his spirit was obliterated. It shifted to Gus, who was still upside down. The lightning that surrounded his lower half had dissipated, the only thing that remained was the clumps of dirt and grass clinging to his fur, plus some crumbs. Even while upside down Gus was munching on a muffin as if everything in the world was right side up. Alwin had given up wondering where he stored those seemingly infinite supply of muffins. It finally rested back on Alwin.

"Well?" he asked. "The longer you take the more time you're giving for the humans to find Maple and her mother."

"Shut up. You know what? Fine. We'll go along with that stupid plan of yours, but when it does fail, and I guarantee that it will, you don't get to say a peep for a whole day."

"Works for me, because I know it'll work."

Alwin bounced towards the corpse, humming a cheerful tune. The plan was so ridiculously absurd that it had shattered the stupidity scale and looped back around to being considered genius.

With the help of Spirit Hands, Alwin removed the armor from the dead guy within. The skin was clammy and pale, but he tried not to focus on that too much. The worst part, though, was the smell. It hit him like a punch to the gut, making him gag and second-guess his plan. Upon his death, the man had soiled himself. Uchronia had taken notice and had a wide grin on her face.

"So, how's your plan coming along?" she asked. "Still think it's a good plan?"

"Of course!" Alwin said, looking everywhere but at the man's brown leggings that had an extra helping of brown no thanks to him.

"You sure? Because you seem to be struggling a bit with removing the armor," Uchronia said.

"Just trying to be careful."

Uchronia smirked at Alwin's obvious discomfort, he could feel that mouth of hers even though he was doing his best to ignore her. Gus on the other hand was licking up the crumbs that he had dropped on the floor, looking as blissful as he always was.

Alwin held his breath as he willed the Spirit Hands to work on removing the breastplate, and then the shoulder guards. He continued the tedious task of disassembling the armor piece by piece, but when the time came to remove his pants, there was a struggle. Despite all of his control over his Spirit Hands, they were hesitant to move. It wasn't because he was hesitant, the hands themselves were hesitant.

Ever since his mastery over Spirit Hands had increased it felt like they were becoming smarter. They still followed Alwin's orders, but sometimes they took matters into their own hands, literally, and made choices on how to approach certain tasks. Sometimes they chose to make things difficult, mostly when they weren't particularly fond of a certain task he had given them, other times they would surprise him with ingenious approaches to problems, but rarely.

The hands looked at Alwin almost begging him not to make them do the dirty work of stripping the human's soiled leggings, but Alwin wouldn't budge. Then they looked at each other and began arguing among themselves. There was a lot of pointing at each and at the half-naked human, there was even a bit of sign language. After a minute of supposed arguing, they shook on whatever agreement they had come to.

Next thing Alwin knew, they were playing 'Rock Paper Scissors'. Alwin stared slack-jawed as he watched the battle unfold. He didn't know whether he was amused, horrified, or both. Then it was over. One of the hands had emerged victorious and had floated a victory lap around the fallen human, dancing the best a disembodied hand could dance. The loser had a hangdog expression, slowly floating towards the corpse, clearly unwilling to perform its duty.

It looked back at Alwin and the winning Spirit Hand, hoping, begging to not make it do it. The winner gave it a thumbs up to encourage the losing hand, and it turned back towards the human. If it was capable of sighing it would've let out a long deep heavy sigh to let everyone know how it truly felt about the situation.

It grabbed hold of the waistband and then tugged on the leggings. It then carefully reached down and lifted the hem of the legging up to reveal the soiled undergarments. With a look that could melt a hole through the very earth, it pointed accusingly at Alwin and the winner.

Alwin gulped, unsure of how to handle the situation. The losing hand tossed the soiled undergarments aside, a bunch of brown sludge plopping onto the ground. At that point, Alwin couldn't hold it in anymore and started gagging. His breakfast threatening to come back up.

"Having fun?" Uchronia laughed.

"Shut up," Alwin mumbled weakly, trying to fight back the queasy feeling.

Once the loser hand was done stripping the human of his leggings, the winning hand came over to help. They were fitting the armor on Alwin now, squeezing and shoving his unsurprisingly malleable jelly-like body in the various pieces of armor. There was a major flaw in his plan which should've been obvious. Alwin could only be squished into the chest plate, he wasn't big enough to use the leggings at all no matter how much he tried to stretch out his body.

"Having trouble with your plan?" Uchronia laughed again, watching Alwin wriggling around within the human's chest plate.

"I'm working on it."

"Great! While you work on that, I'll work on an actual plan."

That was exactly what he was going to do. The gall of Uchronia to be so mean. Why couldn't she just be supportive and let him do his own thing? What's wrong with his idea anyway? It's a great idea.

Alwin sighed, eyeing the armor with a mix of frustration and determination. The chest plate, gauntlets, and boots were sorted, thanks to his Spirit Hands and Spirit Feet fitting perfectly. But the helmet, leggings, and rest of the connecting pieces? That was a puzzle. The Spirit Hands scratched his head, muttering to himself as he tried to figure out how to make it all work together.

If only he had a Spirit Upper Arm or a Spirit Thigh or even a Spirit Head, those would surely make his life way easier. That was it! He just had to do exactly that. Learn all the necessary skills!

The Spirit Hands looked at him as if they could read Alwin's mind which they probably could all things considered—mental connection and all that. They looked at each other then looked back at Alwin, one of them wagging its finger telling him no. Alwin was confused. They floated to the ground and began drawing in the dirt.

As the drawing began to take form, Alwin understood what they were trying to tell him. He didn't actually need to learn a whole bunch of skills just to wear the leather armor, the Spirit Hands could act as a replacement for them. Alwin issued a mental order to the two Spirit Hands, thanking them for the idea. They both gave a thumbs up and flew into the gauntlets, waiting for Alwin's next command.

Alwin summoned four pairs of hands, five pairs were the maximum that he could handle at once and ordered them to take up space within the armor. They all rushed to claim the best spot possible, the upper arm. They pushed and shoved at each other, and Alwin should've told them all to play nice and not fight, but it was kind of entertaining.

When the upper arms had been claimed, the remaining pairs of hands scrambled for the helmet, fighting like cats and dogs. All that was left were the spots in the leggings. The remaining pairs of hands definitely didn't want to the areas near the thighs, where there were still some brown bits dripping down.

The last two pairs dashed towards the calve part of the leggings, pushing, shoving, and punching each other as they made their way there. Both pairs arrived at the same time. There was a stand-off, neither hand wanting to make the first move. Their fingers flexed and curled—like cowboys—waiting for someone to make a move first.

Alwin couldn’t help but shout out, “Draw!”

The hands rushed to the ground, carving out the dirt with their fingers. That was unexpected. Alwin thought they would rush to the lower part of the leggings, but looks like that command got lost in translation. After a minute both sides had completed their drawing. They looked at Alwin, the decider of their fates.

The first pair had drawn—they tried to—a portrait of Alwin. It was an oval on the ground with two dots and a crooked smile. The second pair drew a portrait of that blasted wooden training dummy that Alwin could never beat. It was so life-like, save for the part where it was dirt-covered. Alwin had no choice, he had to give the spot to the second pair. Their drawing was simply too marvelous. They celebrated, high-fiving each other, before seeking refuge in their rightfully earned spot, the lower leggings.

The remaining pair flew to Alwin, palms pressed together, begging, praying even, that they wouldn't have to go anywhere near that area.

"Sorry," he said, knowing it was unavoidable. "But you're gonna have to do it."

Their fingers went limps and they floated over to the leggings, taking as much time as possible to get there. When they were inches away from the leggings they turned back to him, one last desperate plea etched in their fingers. Alwin shook his head and let out a sigh. It had to be done.

Alwin dove back into the chest plate, ordering his hands to combine. It was like a scene from ancient human cartoons where robots would join together to form an even larger robot, except that this was far more disgusting, courtesy of the leggings.

First, his upper arms locked into place, followed by the gauntlets. The leggings came next, sliding into position with a squelch. There was a pause as the helmet hovered, waiting for the boots to join.

Alwin suddenly realized he’d forgotten to summon his Spirit Feet. They appeared, rushing over and hopping into the boots before zipping into place beneath the leggings. The helmet then zoomed in, attaching itself. With his bag slung across his chest, the setup was complete.