Chapter 20: Do Slimes Dream of Hamburgers?

Chapter 20: Do Slimes Dream of Hamburgers?

I am pleased to present this bonus chapter, which has been made possible thanks to the wonderful review written by tripad.

Please enjoy this bonus chapter as a small token of my appreciation for tripad’s contribution to my translation work.

I once again find myself captured by a woman whose name I don’t even know, returning to the same white, claustrophobic room as before.

It feels quite strange, as it resembles the place where the MREs were made.

By the way, that means the place with the MREs was originally doing something similar to what they do here, right?

It seems pretty messed up... Was there some kind of accident?

I don’t know.

I’m not particularly eager to find out. Just thinking of that place brings back the last voice I heard, leaving me feeling uneasy.

The feeling of an incomprehensible voice suddenly becoming understandable... It feels so uncomfortable that it’s hard to describe.

I understand a bit about going crazy just by reading the text.

...Perhaps it ends with me vaguely understanding due to the kind of person I am.

I don’t want to remember, but once a thought sticks in my head, it doesn’t seem to want to leave anytime soon.

That thought about the MRE torments my mind.

Why on earth am I suddenly able to understand it? As I ponder the thought, I can easily guess the reason. It isn’t certain, but almost definite.

‘It’s probably because I ate that weird lump of meat.’

There is no other reason.

When I tried to focus on the canned food before, it still sounded as incomprehensible as ever.

The moment when it all started to make sense to me was the moment after digesting all that meat.

What the heck does this mean?

Hold on a second.

The fact that I tasted MRE means that it was distributed outside.

Is this... okay?

I give up thinking while staring at my jelly bubbling.

I’m entering a deep philosophical moment because that seems like the only thing I can do.

As I ponder, I realize I’m just a tiny slime betrayed and captured.

Although the concept of betrayal is purely subjective, by my standards, humans are naturally selfish creatures, right?

I may not be considered human at the moment, but because I was a human, it feels quite natural.

Should I be grateful for being released from the box, though?

How long has it been since I nestled in the corner with my insides bubbling?

I sit there staring into space, not even feeling the passage of time in this silent place.

The tightly closed door suddenly opens, and this time a new man walks in.

The man, looking very uneasy, is holding a tray, and a very familiar aroma fills the room.

My jelly bubbles following that scent, but I feign disinterest and sit there feeling numb.

As the man seems very cautious and unenthusiastic, I can be a bit rebellious.

Well, if you’re going to leave it, then just put it down and go, right?

As if he’s hearing that, the man puts down the tray and quickly leaves the room.

I wonder what I did to scare him like that.

More than that, he is someone I met for the first time today, yet he somehow feels oddly familiar.

After racking my brain, unable to recall the man’s face, I shift my attention away from the man who fled the room.

<!-- slime -->

Fortunately, what mattered was that she was able to safely bring the slime girl back to the research facility.

And as a special surveillance specimen that the director couldn’t casually meddle with.

Han Seori felt proud, realizing that all the hardships she had gone through weren’t in vain.

Being able to designate the slime girl as a special surveillance specimen was a rare occurrence. It was not only because of her intelligence.

It was because of the strange changes that had occurred in the slime girl.

Han Seori gazed at the slime girl behind the glass. More specifically, at the tiny blobs of jelly trailing behind her.

It looked like something out of a game, resembling a ‘slime’.

After isolating her again and consistently feeding her for a few days, suddenly tiny blobs started appearing behind the slime girl.

Initially, it seemed like the blobs were excreted slime, but upon observation, there were movements detected in the tiny blobs.

What was amusing was that even the slime girl seemed surprised as she looked at the moving blobs with a startle.

‘...Maybe.’

Could it be a new ability she didn’t have before? Otherwise, why would the slime girl be so surprised?

Among all the things the slime girl had consumed, the only suspicious thing was the ‘endlessly multiplying meat blobs’.

Han Seori succeeded in emphasizing this point and placing the slime girl under special surveillance.

The director came with a deeply furrowed face, but since this was a familiar occurrence to her, she couldn’t help but laugh.

Instead, what happened was...

Now, things had gotten bigger than just the slime girl being taken away by the director.

The fact that the slime girl consumed the ‘endlessly multiplying meat blobs’ and gained an ability even she didn’t know was...

...it led to the decision not to produce MREs anymore, as they concluded that undiscovered effects might be present in the chunks of meat.

Since that method was originally meant to handle the multiplying meat chunks, they couldn’t stop the factory operation.

The finance team frowned upon the increasing stock of meat, but wasn’t that a case of putting the cart before the horse?

Han Seori wanted to object but couldn’t find the right words.

She also knew that some of the research funding was coming from there.

Since it was she herself who brought the slime girl here in the first place, she was the one suffering losses by delving too deep.

During the subsequent meeting, when the opinion that the ability to ‘multiply’ the chunks of meat had been absorbed, distribution seemed likely to be quickly restored.

Han Seori felt it was a bit reckless and dangerous, but she didn’t push her opinion strongly enough to dismiss the majority.

She didn’t want all the attention on her, but it seemed like her ideas wouldn’t be accepted anyway.

She thought it would be better to focus on researching the slime girl than wasting energy elsewhere.

Thus, she was satisfied with assigning the slime girl to herself as originally planned.

Lost in thought, Han Seori gazed once again at the slime girl beyond the glass.

And then, she saw the slime girl holding in her hands a round, jelly-like substance that followed behind her.

The sight of her holding round chunks with both hands was quite adorable.

It gave Han Seori the feeling of a little one looking after her younger sibling, perhaps?

In the midst of it all...

...She saw the slime girl putting the squirming, jelly-like substance into herself.

Seeing that, Han Seori blinked her eyes.

And canceled her previous impressions.

Indeed, anomalies are... anomalies, she thought.

Han Seori took a deep breath, regained her composure, and began preparing to transfer the slime girl to the research lab.