I kept a watchful eye to ensure there were no other adventurers around. Confident in my solitude, I finally traversed the distance and found myself gazing up-close at the entrance to what I assume is the pig dungeon. The image looked like a pig to me, at any rate. Pushing my mild musings to the side, I mustered my determination and carefully entered.
The moment that my slime body slipped into the entryway, I felt a distinct change. It was almost like I breached a barrier of sorts. Although there was not much resistance, I did feel as if something was at least trying to deny my entry. Even the miniscule flow of mana that I had been steadily absorbing on the outside was immediately cut off. The mana surrounding me in this dungeon felt...alien, foreign. Hostile. I suppose it made a bit of sense. I was intruding, after all.
Implications of what I just experienced caused numerous hypotheses and conclusions to form in my mind, but as usual, I shrugged them off to deal with later. I was officially in enemy territory. This was no place to spend time lost in my thoughts. Instead, I pushed forward, putting myself on high alert.
My first opponents soon revealed themselves. A pack of pigs with very small tusks growing out of their faces were running at me with full speed, five of them altogether. I chose not to call them boars since they were pink and hairless, and truly resembled pigs more than anything else, but those tusks indicated to me that this dungeon might be exploring an evolutionary line. They were about the same size as pigs I had seen on Earth, maybe a bit larger on average. The only thing I could not tell, was if their aggression was natural or dungeon-ordered. Either way, it did not matter to me.
Just as I prepared to whip some tentacles at them, aiming for their legs to trip them up and use their momentum against them, I noticed each of them suddenly giving off a very slight glow. Their speed jumped up a stage, and the distance between us and them shrank in an instant. It must have been a sort of charging skill, a stampede rush maybe? Whatever it was, the change threw me off momentarily, and that was all they needed to finally slam themselves into my body.
Five loud splats sounded out in quick succession as they impacted me as a group. I was briefly stunned, not as a result of a skill effect as far as I could tell, but by my own unpreparedness. Was there any damage? I...could not say, actually. Their attacks felt a bit stronger than what the elemental slimes threw at me, but I still felt no sense of pain, only mild tremors. I suppose I did not know what constituted as damage for a slime. I would need to figure that out, and soon.
The tusked pigs struggled around, their front halves buried inside of me. Only two of them had all four limbs planted on the ground, giving them enough purchase to pull their heads out. The others tried their best, but with just two feet free and the gripping resistance my body provided, they did not stand much of a chance. The two pigs that freed themselves shook a little, then ran around me in a circle, building up momentum to ram me again. This time they did not give off the same glow from before as they slammed into me. I chose not to react to their second round of attacks just to test something, and I learned two things.
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One, these creatures are not exactly smart or adaptable, using a tactic that clearly did not work the first go around. Two, the charging skill, presumably activated with mana, could not be used repeatedly. It appears there might be an element of cool downs in this world.
With all five pigs firmly stuck in my body, a few helping tentacles ensuring that they were all pushed completely in, I wondered what to do next. Obviously, they would die from suffocation - or is it drowning? - even if I took no further action. Yet, a sudden urge rose up within me. Consciously giving myself over to my new base instincts, I felt as if a switch was flipped. The pigs began to dissolve at a rapid pace. I watched, morbidly fascinated, as they transitioned from bodies of flesh and blood into skeletons, and then nothing at all. Five bursts of mana filling me up finished the process. It was...interesting.
Squeals in the distance broke me out of my thoughts. I had another sudden urge, to lie in wait and let the incoming prey collide into me as they did before. However, I strongly resisted that idea this time. While my new body’s instincts might be great for teaching me how to use its natural gifts, I had no desire to act like a common slime, or even a common boss monster. Who knew when I would need to fight opponents that could attack me from a safe distance? Or when I would have to act more like a human than a monster in other situations? No, I refuse to allow myself to simply act on instinct for the rest of my new life. I would take control!
Determined to test myself and learn new ways of combat, I surged forward to greet the next squad of tusked pigs. They tried the same tactic that the last squad did, simply running up to me and using their charge skill at the last moment for a surprise boost. Wise to their movements now, I easily adjusted my timing and created tentacle whips, lashing out horizontally and low to the ground. I tried to focus on my appendages being firm instead of absorbent, and it seemed to somewhat work as all five of the new pigs were sent careening into the ground in front of me, their legs swept out from beneath them. Not giving them the chance to recover, I tried to strike each of them in the head with as much force as I could muster, hoping to kill them all in one blow.
I had not considered that the slimes I slaughtered before were a bit of a special case. I must have had a much easier time dealing with them due to the fact that our bodies were similar, I was just a higher tier. Actual animals, however, were much sturdier, and so my attacks were not as effective. That is not to say that I did no damage, but it took me several, concentrated slaps before the first head was turned into mush. Thankfully, the pigs were stunned long enough that I could finish them all off before the last one could get to its feet and start running. It helped that partway through, I changed my approach from using one tentacle per head to using all five tentacles on one head at a time. That was my limit at the moment. I will need to work on increasing that later.