35. Too Late

We rocketed down the side of the hill, my pulse slamming in my ears. I squeezed my fists tightly, hoping to make it in time. Everything was just going too wrong and too fast. The healer rushed forwards, desperately trying to get to his downed party member. The rest of the team was in the way, though, frantically fending off slimes that were rushing in from every direction. Three of them stood, their backs to each other, standing over their downed friend and trying their best to weather the onslaught. They clumsily swung swords, sticks and boards that passed for shields as slimes converged from all sides, leaping over each other in a frenzy. The healer tried darting under a shield, but he was jostled aside by the same party member he was trying to slip under, who threw herself over him and in front of a trio of airborne slimes, trying to protect him the best she could, her shield raised defensively. They slammed into her like a sledgehammer, shoving her back a step, her feet tangling with the healer’s. They crashed in a heap atop the downed blond woman.

I carved a path through slimes as I sped towards the struggling party. Not fast enough. The oncoming horde was getting larger instead of smaller, slimes seemingly rushing in without being hit or near their dying brethren. Something was wrong. Maybe the blond woman’s rainbow beam skill had a lingering effect that was aggroing more slimes? The healer scrambled to his feet, painfully dragging the blond woman onto the stone circling the portal while golden light streamed from his body. He ignored the attacking slimes as he yelled for a retreat. Slimes crashed into him, rocking him in every direction, but he just kept moving, trying to heal both his own injuries and those of the limp form that he was barely succeeding in dragging.

Just as I was approaching, one of the two remaining upright guards, the one that was furthest from the portal, lost his footing and tumbled into the corrosive swarm. I surged forwards, but I knew I was too slow to save him. Instead, I made Slimey widen out as much as possible and circled the portal clockwise, decimating the wave of onrushing monsters and almost instantly relieving the pressure on the haggard party. I kept circling the portal, retracting Slimey bit by bit, making sure not to let any slimes through but also hoping they didn’t notice that my summon was eating their friend’s corpse, clothes and weapons.

Once Slimey had taken care of all of the oncoming slimes, I made him retract, assuming his golem form once again. I suppressed a smile as I towered over the four remaining humans. Two of them cowered in fear behind their weapons, one lay still, and the fourth (the healer), stared at me defiantly, golden light still blazing from his body.

“I don’t think you need to keep doing that,” I said sadly, suddenly not feeling the urge to smile as much. I gestured to what was clearly a body in the man’s arms. Arms tensed and swords pointed towards me a little steadier as my golem arm swung slightly towards the woman whose once blond hair was dyed red with her own blood.

“No,” the healer said, a desperate shrillness to his voice. “She’s going to be fine, she only hit her head. Right, Faith? You’re fine. You’re fine.” Golden light blazed brighter, but it wasn’t closing any of the deep puncture wounds riddling her body.

“Why isn’t it working? No. It always works. My skill always works. I just need to…” The golden light winked out. The brown haired healer slumped forwards, screaming until his voice grew ragged.

I awkwardly looked over to the man and the woman still pointing their swords at me. “Uh… Sorry about your friend…” I offered lamely.

“Leave us alone, you fucking weirdo!” The only surviving woman shouted. She was the unclassed who had thrown herself in front of the slimes to save the healer.

“Hey,” I protested. “It’s a skill. Look, I’m sorry that I didn’t get here in time, but-”

“It’s probably all your fault anyway, you creep!” The woman shouted, tears streaming down her pale face. She stood straighter and took a step forward. Then another. When she was within striking distance, she looked up at me through her strawberry-red hair, defiance in her green eyes. Her hands shook as she sweatily gripped her sword. Behind her, the group’s healer wailed, clutching onto the corpse in his arms. The only other living party member looked to the side ashamedly, neither helping his aggressive counterpart, nor offering assistance to the healer, small droplets dripping from the hem of his pants and onto the dark stone.

“You… You probably caused all of this!” My aggressor said, waving her sword threateningly at me. “If it weren’t for you, Gerald would be… He’d…”

I looked past her to where the woman’s body lay cradled in the healer’s arms. I thought… Oh, right. The man whose body I had already slurped up. Lost in my musings, I didn’t catch the moment when the woman in front of me stumbled forwards with a surprised squawk.

“Slimey, back!” I yelled after I heard the squelch of the woman’s face sinking into my summon’s dark green body. My slime surged backwards, caustic acid sizzling violently as he deposited the woman onto the ground. She screamed and gagged as she writhed on the ground, her hair having been instantly vaporized and her skin sloughing off in a bleeding mess. She writhed on the ground, throwing up blood, Slimey’s goo having entered her open mouth and melted the flesh inside.

“Hey! Help her!” I yelled to the healer. He looked up in an uncomprehending daze.

“Tanner, we have to go! He just attacked Nora and now he wants to bait you closer,” the only other remaining man said frantically.

“I can-”

“No, you can’t, Tanner. You’re out of mana. We need to get back to the compound NOW!” That said, the coward threw his sword and shield to the ground and started dragging the healer towards the portal. Tanner resisted.

“No, we need to bring Faith back. I can’t leave her here.”

“You know we can’t, Tanner. If she goes missing, that’s one thing. If we bring her back dead, it’s over for us. She’s the one who made the rules. We’re following them.” With that, the man wrestled Tanner towards the portal, lifting and dragging him foot by foot.

“I didn’t do it,” I called weakly as the woman in front of me grew quiet, barely struggling against the pain anymore. The two disagreeing figures just ignored me, still arguing heatedly. Three flashes of light later, they were gone. I looked between the two bodies in front of me, both disgusted at what I was going to do and resolved to do it anyway. It’s not like they’d be better off rotting here. I closed my eyes as Slimey slowly rolled over both bodies, sending them to what I hoped was a better place. If only I had approached earlier… If only I would have been faster. Stronger. Braver. If only…

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A prompt bloomed in my vision. It was like a punch to my gut. The final cherry on top of a shitstorm of a sundae. I sourly reviewed my options.

[https://i.imgur.com/V6NNGeZ.png]

Devourer slime has reached a threshold: 800% soul strength. How do you wish to proceed?

Option 1: And so, its great mass fragmented, yielding countless tiny pieces that spread across the world. (Cookie crumb of knowledge: a division of mass is also a division of strength).

Option 2: And as it grew, the slime learned to hold more than just memories within its being. (Cookie crumb of knowledge: this is a spatial utility upgrade).

As I looked over my options, the knot of guilt in my stomach loosened a bit, but I was still shaken by the strangeness of the situation that had unfolded. The first option seemed like a great choice if I were to stay on Floor 1. If it weren’t for the ‘cookie crumb of knowledge,’ I probably would have instalocked the ability to split Slimey. Dividing Slimey in two, three or more pieces sounded amazing. He could swarm about the floors, each piece gaining in size and merging back again when I needed his bulk. It would probably also help in smaller spaces, where he had a harder time navigating. He could just break off a small piece (if that’s actually how the upgrade worked) and send it in to do what we needed.

Unfortunately (well, maybe fortunately that I knew in advance), splitting Slimey would split his stats. That was a major problem. Farming in two locations didn’t really seem worth it if the pieces moved at half speed, or digested half as quickly. Actually, the reduced resistances would probably end up in a net decrease in soul strength gain, as the digested slimes would have more time to fight back.

There was also my necklace to consider, as well. The Slime King’s Servant’s Nephew’s Neighbour’s Necklace had proven to be pretty useful. I had crossed a distance that would probably have taken me around twenty minutes on foot in a mere two minutes. If I split Slimey into pieces, it would reduce both my mobility and my defense, as well as my offensive capabilities. It might not matter on Floor 1, but moving slower, hitting less hard and being able to take fewer hits wasn’t necessarily my idea of a good upgrade, even if splitting up Slimey’s mass would have some advantages. Once we moved onto Floor 2, I would need every ounce of stats as possible. The goblins were armed, vicious and coordinated.

Option 2, while much less flashy, solved problems without any disadvantages. Well, the only disadvantage being that I wasn’t picking the first option. Being able to hold onto items would be a major boon. I had started ignoring how many loot orbs Slimey ate, since there wasn’t much I could do about it. With this, though… My summon might not be impressed, but I was salivating at the thought of how much loot we had been missing out on. I greedily locked in the second option and brought up my Bestiary, also changing my stat priority.

[https://i.imgur.com/lOtTQcK.png]

Bestiary entry: Devourer slime of hoarding selected.

Soul strength: 800%. Collect more essence to increase soul strength.

Stats : Physical resistance prioritized.

Size: D+

Magic power: E+

Magic resistance: E

Physical resistance: F+

Speed: E-

Shrinkage: F-

I changed the stat priority to physical resistance, since I had a feeling my future held lots of pointy knives and spears. It wouldn’t matter how large Slimey was if he was just a squishy target. Then, I tiredly directed Slimey to go back to base, warning him to keep an eye out for loot orbs.

When the first bobbing green orb manifested, I yelled for Slimey to stop. We screeched to a halt above the green orb and I held my breath as it bobbed in place inside of my monster’s dark goo. A wicked smile bloomed on my face.

“Slimey… Store?” Instantly, the orb winked out of existence. It wasn’t eaten, I don’t think. It was just… Gone. “Ok, Slimey. Store every loot orb for the rest of time, ever, unless otherwise specified. Prioritize rarer orbs if you run out of space.” Slimey burbled grumpily, but complied. We raced off back to base, orbs appearing and disappearing all the way. When we reached the stone towers that marked our base, I paused, looking for a way back in. I could probably make Slimey surf a wave of slimes and stretch up to overtake the defenses, but he would most likely be impaled the entire time by the knives placed to prevent such a thing. I spotted two familiar figures perched atop a tower and zoomed towards them.

“Oy! Jean! Let your favorite cousin up.”

“Favourite cousin? Da sacrée marde, favourite cousin. Hold on…” He conjured an energy barrier against the wall. I made Slimey parkour over slimes, intentionally killing the least amount of them as possible and avoiding the defensive spikes. With Jean’s help, we made it safely (although not necessarily easily) on top of the tower. I was greeted by Jean and Burt, who both looked at me strangely.

“New upgrade!” I announced proudly.

“Upgrade?” Burt asked skeptically, suddenly finding the scenery on the other side of the railing quite intriguing.

Jean burst out into laughter. “Upgrade? If it’s an upgrade, I have pitché on your younger you. HAHA! Now, go get some clothes on. Your hooded lantern is looking at me funny.” With that, he turned and walked down the stairs, laughing uproariously at his joke the entire time.

I furrowed my brow, stepping out of Slimey and removing the Slime King’s Servant’s Nephew’s Neighbour’s Necklace. As I looked down at the pendant, however, I noticed something that I had overlooked while inside of Slimey. A gentle wind rustled my jimmies as it blew across Floor 1. The Slime King’s Servant’s Nephew’s Neighbour’s Necklace protected me from Slimey’s acid. It did not, however, protect my clothes.