Chapter 10: The Pond

Chapter 10: The Pond

A feeling of excitement bubbled up inside me as I stared at the pond, wondering what creatures I might find nearby. The slime instincts the strange [Experiment] emblem sometimes fed me were tickling the corners of my mind, causing me to gaze longingly at the water. Blue slimes must enjoy being near water, for whatever reason, as I remembered my brethren hanging around the stream when I first woke up.

My only concern was that I would be leaving the safety of the treetops to approach the pond, but thinking back to how easily I killed multiple boars, I felt strangely confident. With a wet splat, I hit the ground and did a few hops and a slime crawl - both felt terribly slow after I had gotten used to moving around with my pseudopod.

My previous confidence sputtered with worry, and I decided to see if I could adapt my tendril grappling movement to a ground-based option. I flung a tendril forward, which did not travel far since the ground wasn't flat or clear enough. I then threw another tendril out, but at an upward arch, it flew a much better distance. When the tip of my tendril hit the ground, I raced into action and flung my core while also spreading the exit point of my tendril out to cushion my landing. As my core moved, the slime rapidly followed afterward, and soon I found myself at the destination tendril, the entire process making me look and move like a strange slimy slinky.

I practiced a few times until I could do it speedily enough and even tried throwing out a secondary tendril ahead while in mid-flight to chain together these movements.

'Looks like the days of auto-compression training and complex slime manipulation have finally paid off.' I thought with a happy jiggle.

Satisfied, I traversed to the pond edge, taking in my surroundings as I approached. A few wildlife were drinking from the opposite end of the pond, and I noticed dog-sized flying bugs darting back and forth along the water's surface. The pond was relatively clean, only having a few patches of algae. When I reached the water's edge, I leaned my slime mass and raised my core to peak into the depths. The pond wasn't that deep except in the center, where I could not see the murky depths, and I could see plenty of fish-like creatures swimming.

I produced a tendril and poked the water, finding it hard to break the surface unless I used a compressed tendril. I tried an uncompressed and limp tendril and found it floated on the surface.

'As stupid as it sounds, I guess blue slimes having an affinity with water makes sense.' My thoughts are interrupted as a few fish come to see if my floating tendril is food.

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The tongue fails to penetrate too deeply into my slime, and I sigh with relief until I realize the tongue is latched onto my slime and is actually trying to pull me into its maw. In a panic, I construct a rapier and stab at the tongue - it bounces off. I create two claws and try to claw and tear away at the tongue - the frog merely gives a hearty croak as if mocking me.

I'm trying to think of some shape or weapon I could use to cut this tongue, and I can feel it trying to pull me towards it, but I'm gripping the ground tightly with my large surface area. The frog, to my horror, decides if it can't win this tug-of-war, then it will simply approach me.

My mind goes frantic as the monster frog trundles forward, and the only solution I can think of is to sacrifice the slime mass and flee. Mentally, I partition off the slime around the tongue and drop control of it; the frog's tongue snaps back into its mouth, and I see it happily ingest my slime. It even licks its lips!

I've thrown out a tendril to run away, but I'm not fast enough, and the frog tongue has already latched on me again. I quickly partition off the slime, which rips off without negatively affecting my escape momentum. Its tongue rapidly retracts, and I watch it smugly eating more of my slime.

I keep repeating my slinky movement over and over again until I can reach the forest edge. In my escape, I managed to dodge the tongue twice, possibly just by fluke, as it managed to steal a third portion of slime from me before I was finally out of its range.

Considering the density of the slime stolen, I had lost more than I gained during my fishing trip. I felt humiliated as I tried to find weaker prey to stock up on slime mass before I went home.

All my harvesting paid off, but I'm not in the mood to celebrate. I throw the pelt on the branch, head into my tree hole and spit out the tusks.

I need to get stronger.