We are currently in our way to the old mansion, I’m walking at the front of the group, trying to remember all the turns I’ve taken since I left it to orient myself. Let me tell you, that’s a lot of turns. Because I’ve just lived for about a month, it’s very easy to remember simple details like that, or so I think it’s the reason.
I think I left quite an impression on them. After I shook hands with that girl the expression on their faces were surprised to say the least. I have to say that I did it intentionally, since there seemed to be some doubts in the air about my intelligence. The surprise on their faces tells me that I at least stablished that I’m not a normal slime.
But, right now, there’s another problem. I think the mage is mad at me. I'm not sure what could be the reason, the only thing I did was show her the mental image of a spider, with numerous creepy legs, filled with hairs, many blood thirsty, red eyes in various places, and a mouth filled with creepy teeth dripping something disgusting and probably poisonous. That’s certainly not something she would be mad at, right? Jokes aside, I can’t actually apologize to her, unless she uses that spell again. And I can’t ask for help to the rest of the group. I tried, but all attempts at communication ended in utter failure. I guess I’ll have to wait until we take a rest or something.
On our path we’ve come across various wild animals, almost all of them were inflicted with this maddening disease. The few that were not were heavily injured, most likely by the rest of them. The mage healed them and afterwards we released them in the opposite direction. The rest of them we’ve had to fight, and when I say we I mean they. It’s not like I didn’t want to help, and definitely not because I lacked skill or anything like that, but with my limited means of communication and my none existing teamwork, I’d probably be a burden, get me or someone else killed and have a bad time.
So, I just stayed away from the battles and watch it unfold. Just like before, they had no troubles taking care of the animals that appeared. They barely got to struggle with a group of three that were fighting themselves, and that’s because they were trying to stop them from killing each other. That’s another reason for why I didn’t help them fight, they were fine without my intervention.
Their teamwork was fantastic. While the burly dude entertained whatever they were fighting against, the other two warriors would attack from the sides and back and quickly retreat, then he would get its attention back. They’d always leave the back of the animal clear so that the archer would have a clear shot. The mage didn’t have that much involvement in the battles, but would always heal them when they got hit, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she were using protection magic or something similar.
That reminds me, I didn’t ask for their names, not that I had the chance. I think the mage’s name was Bri, that’s probably short for something, or it’s just a short name. I’ll ask her if I manage to get her to talk to me.
Later in the day, around six or seven hours after I joined them, the sky started to turn dark. If we were out in the open we’d probably keep going for an hour or two, but the canopy of the forest made it hard to see already at this hour, so we decided to look for a place to camp. We found a good place, it had enough space and some trees and rocks helped to make a natural wall. They immediately separated and started doing various things. The big guy was preparing food, like before. I guess he’s the best of the group. The rest were setting up the tents and doing other stuff. The mage was lighting the campfire with her magic, and afterwards went over and started setting up her tent.
This was my chance, I needed to get the mage to talk to me or I won’t be able to apologize and things will just grow worse. But now that she is setting her she can’t run away from me and I just realize how bad that sounds. Anyway, as she was setting her tent I approached her.
-hmm?
She made that questioning sound as she turned her head to look at me. I stared at her, not having a way to tell her to talk to me, I just hoped she got the message quickly. Didn’t took her more than a few seconds to grab her wand and cast the spell. That was easier than I thought.
-What do you want?
Sorry, for scaring you like that. I shouldn’t have done it.
-Ah that, don’t worry about it.
Wait, what? You act like you don’t care.
-Yeah, I don’t care anymore, it was just a joke after all, right? Everyone thought it was funny, and after thinking about it, it really was a clever joke.
Well after thinking about how the spell worked I suddenly had the idea. I promise I won’t do it again.
-Well, if you promise it, I guess I’ll take your word for it.
That’s a weight off my slimy shoulders. I’m glad everything is okay. Well then, I’ll go to a bush or something. See you tomorrow.
-Do slimes eat plants?
Well, I think I can eat anything, I’m not sure about something poisonous, but I don’t want to go hunt something now.
-Don’t you want to eat with us?
No thanks, I can’t taste, so it’d be a waste.
-Mmh, well if you say so.
She cut the spell and went to finish setting up her tent. I did as I said and went over to a bush and started eating. Having so much free time, I started thinking about various things. Some of them were thoughts about the things that happened recently, but mainly I began thinking about the future, what would I do after we reach the mansion and take care of this problem.
Whether I keep traveling with them or no, one thing is for sure, I should learn the language. If I keep traveling with them then I certainly want to know what they talk about, else the whole point of company becomes kind of irrelevant. If I were to go on my own I’d still want to know the language, next time I doubt I’ll be lucky enough to find someone capable of using that telepathy magic. Thinking about it, maybe I could ask her to teach me that magic. That would solve all my problems, but it’s probably not going to be that easy, maybe I can’t use magic, maybe I can but my mana is not enough to use the spell for more than a minute per day or something like that.
All those thoughts ran through my head as I was trying to decide on the best plan. Before I realized, the bush I was eating was gone, not even the branches were left, all that was left was a little stump on the ground. I didn’t know I could also eat wood, that makes me wonder what else I can add to my diet. I’ll resist the urge to eat everything I see though.
I turned to leave, and go find a place to sleep, but suddenly I heard in the distance a very familiar sound. I spent a whole day trying to avoid that sound, so I was certain on it. I went to the camp with the group, I was going to warn them, but it seemed they were already preparing for that.
The sound was getting louder, one could easily hear the rustling of bushes, the breaking of twigs and the steps. There were also growls and roars of pain every so often, I’d say it was injured, not that it would be surprising given the circumstances, but that wasn’t the case exactly. When it finally appeared, it wasn’t an it, there were two. One of them resembled a bear, with arms reaching to the ground, and the other one was one of those spiky armadillos, it was a very big one, it could probably reach the waist of a regular person.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As one could expect, the injured one was the long armed bear. It was bleeding from various places, cuts in the arms, punctures in the belly and chest. If I had to guess, I say that most of those were the result of the bear attacking the armadillo, and getting hurt in the process.
While I was thinking about that, the group was already moving. I’m guessing they were planning to help the two animals. The burly dude went ahead and… I completely forgot to ask the mage for their names… How could I forget? I have, literally, one month of memories… I’ll ask latter, I guess.
As I was saying the burly dude went ahead and tried to get the attention of the armadillo. To do so, he tried making noise knocking his shield with the pommel of the sword. Sadly, the armadillo was to focused on the bear to care about its surroundings. Seeing this he must’ve decided to be more forceful, since he charged at the armadillo and bashed his shield on its side, almost toppling over and pushing it a meter or so.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group focused on catching the attention of the bear like creature. Its injuries probably made it a very difficult job, since they had to be careful with it. Its movements were noticeably sluggish, but it was still thrashing around with its arms. They were mostly waiting for it to tire itself out so that the mage could use her magic.
I, like always, just stood somewhere that wouldn’t get in the way. I don’t like just standing here and letting them fight, but there’s little I can do. I watched as the battle unfolded… well calling it a battle isn’t that accurate. On one hand, we have the burly guy entertaining the armadillo so that it doesn’t kill the bear, and on the other we have the rest of the group, tiring out the creature, and since it’s so injured, they can only dodge its attacks, while they keep taunting it.
It didn’t take long for things to take a bad turn. While the bear kept attacking furiously, the burly guy had to keep the armadillo in check, and, after blocking its attacks for a while, he was getting tired. It wasn’t a surprise, taking in count that they’ve been fighting throughout the whole day, anyone would be very tired. But contrary to him, the armadillo was not giving in at all. Seeing as how his team mates where taking some time, he decided to take the offensive, however the thick shell of the animal didn’t yield hat easily. Eventually, all the factors, the weariness, the low lights that made it hard to see, and the constant assault of the creature, lead to the inevitable, a mistake.
When he blocked the next tackle, he was thrown out of balance for a moment. This alone wouldn’t have led to anything if it wasn’t for the small rock behind his feet. Thanks to the low light, he didn’t saw the it, thanks to the fatigue he wasn’t alert, and thanks to the armadillo pressing on him, he wasn’t focused on it. So, he couldn’t avoid to stagger for a second after losing his balance. It may have been just a second but once the beast saw the opening, it started charging at him mercilessly.
But, even if he didn’t saw the rock, I did, and because of that I was already on my way. If you were to ask me why I moved, why I stepped in the line for a strange man I met a few hours ago, I could only answer, “I'm not sure”. Sometimes we just do things by instinct. Some of those instincts told me that maybe I wouldn’t be affected by the attack, much. But still, is a strange man who I'm trying to help regardless of the danger. Even if the consequences that could come from him being injured or dead, could be bad, those definitely where not part of my thoughts. However, I still moved to help him, and I’m still not sure why. If would’ve think calmly, I’d probably realized that just one hit from that creature, as enraged as it was, wouldn’t have been that dangerous.
But, at the moment I didn’t thought about that. I didn’t think at all, I just acted on impulse. It wasn’t after getting in between the two that I started thinking again. I stretched my body to cover how the area that the armadillo was going to hit and then I compressed my body to take the hit. When the beast connected with us, my body softened the impact with the big guy. I think he might, also, have been surprised by my sudden appearance. The spikes on the armadillo, pierced into my body, however the only thing I felt was the contact.
I think this may have been the first time that I was thankful for this body, I didn’t realize it until now but, I feel no pain. It’s not like I have no sense of touch, but it doesn’t go beyond that. After the attack, the big guy was thrown back a meter, landing with his back on the ground. I was still grabbing onto the creature’s face, when it suddenly started flailing its head around, probably trying to get me off. That gave me a good idea, If I stay on top of its head I can blind it… well, maybe good isn’t exactly the best word to describe it.
Staying on top wasn’t that hard, until it began charging recklessly in random directions. I tried my best to not fall off, but the sudden turns and stops, and the occasional thrashing were making it very hard. I had to constantly shift my weight around to compensate for the movement. It all came to an end when, after running around blindly for a minute it took a bad turn. The armadillo was headed directly for a tree. It took me a second to realize that after repositioning myself, and had barely enough time to bail out before it crashed against the hard trunk, head first. It didn’t even had enough time to react once it recovered its vision.
The poor creature crashed into the tree with a loud thump, making some leaves fall off of it as it collapsed to the ground. Both me and the big guy, waited there for a few seconds. We had to make sure it was unconscious, and sure enough it didn’t even flinch. We relaxed a little after that, the burly dude went over to its body and examined it. He mumbled something and got up, leaving the body behind, glad expression on his face. I assumed that meant it was unconscious. Then he shifted his gaze, I followed it and found that the others seemed to have finished as well, the bear was sprawled on the ground, it was very bloodied, most likely thanks to the armadillo.
We approached them, but then I noticed something was off. They didn’t look that pleased, but maybe it was just because they were tired? As we reached them the burly dude started talking, through their faces and body language I could kind of see how the conversation was going.
First the big guy spoke normally. Then the dark-haired girl, who was seated on the ground, responded rather gloomily, followed by a sigh, then she continues talking, her tone seemed slightly negative. The burly dude’s expression changed to somewhat disappointed and somewhat sad. Next, the orange haired dude spoke a short sentence directed to the burly dude and followed by that everyone turn their heads to the big guy. I’d say by that, that it was a question, since it looked like they wanted to hear the answer. This time the big guy had a faint smile, as he answered whatever he was asked, following that he picked me up for some reason...
Wait, what? Why is he picking me up? I quickly turned to look at him, and then at the others, they had curious and questioning stares. Then, after a long comment they started snorting and laughing. I wasn’t sure the reason for that, but my interpretation would be that the big guy explained how I rode the armadillo to a tree. After picturing It, I see how comical that was. However, I wasn’t sure what was the gloomy mood from before, though I did have an idea. After that the mage went to the sleeping armadillo and cured it from the weird sickness. After she was finished I approached her, I wanted to clear my doubts and had no other way to do so.
-Good job here, its unconscious.
Well, it run straight for the tree on its own. I was just trying not to fall off. So, what happened with that other one?
-It died. Probably from blood loss.
So, it was that. You couldn’t heal it?
-Not while it was in that state. If it sees me as an enemy, then I can course my mana through it. That's why we have them unconscious first.
Ah, I see. Tomorrow we should be reaching the mansion, but just before it, the concentration is significantly larger. This is probably going to happen more often. I'm not sure if you’ll have time to heal them.
-I’ll keep that in mind.
What are you going to do with the body?
-We’ll probably have to bury it, if we let it be, it’s most likely going to attract more animals.
Do you mind if I eat it?
-Well… wait, eat it? Can you eat something that big? Wait, you can eat meat?
I told you I could eat anything, remember?
-Yeah, but I thought you meant any plant. Anyway, I think there won’t be a problem if you want to eat it. Ehm, suit yourself then.
Good night, then.
-Good night.
She cut the spell and I went over to the body. Meanwhile she went to the camp where the rest were, and as they were coming this way with shovels and tired faces, she must’ve explained to them, because they looked this way with curiosity and walked back to the camp.
The reason why I wanted to eat the body was because I suddenly got an idea that would surely help tomorrow. Before I was cautious about eating these animals, but I did eat that boar and that rabbit before, and nothing happened. And if I can eat it all and digest it by tomorrow it would be a great help.
I stretched my body over the large bear, to try and cover as much as possible and started eating. Hmm, I wonder if I can eat while sleeping…