Chapter 101: Bait

Chapter 101: Bait

"I can't believe she left without saying goodbye. I swear she's like a cat." Whitney complained.

"Ha! Perhaps we should put a bell on her then." Roderick chuckled.

"I tried that. Unfortunately, her new armor would probably stop us from hearing it," Whitney moaned, her voice tinged with disappointment.

"Perhaps she just doesn't like saying goodbye," Evan suggested. "And it's not like this is final. You'll see her again when she gets back."

"Yeah, think of poor Evan and me. We won't see her again until she decides to visit us in the capital." Dewi pointed out. "Hopefully, by then, I'll be a respected member of the Mage's Guild. I can put in a good word and officially recruit her myself, earning me some bonus points."

"Assuming there's a guild left after you join them. I'm predicting smoldering ruins in a month." Whitney joked.

"No, no. I'm pretty sure the building is reinforced against magic." Dewi replied, scratching his chin in thought.

"Maybe I shouldn't travel with you." Evan muttered, "Wouldn't want to risk being thrown into prison as an accomplice to arson."

I woke up the next morning feeling amazingly refreshed, which is hilarious, considering I was in a hole in the ground. Despite the minimal mental tax of holding a form, returning to slime for a good night's rest just couldn't be beat.

'Maybe I should buy myself a big, fancy bathtub, the ultimate slime bed.' I pondered the idea, 'Although I'll need to work more on getting my [Core Storage] to the next level. I can't believe I've run out of space...'

I peeked into my storage, almost entirely occupied by an ocean of slime. While debating what to do, I came to a realization.

'Wait. Is this even my maximum compression anymore? [Slime Density] was integrated into [Morph Slime] and gained an extra level or two...'

I started withdrawing portions of my slime and tried compressing it again. Some of it was already at the new maximum, clearly generated after the trait fusion, while a large amount was still at the old maximum. I had automated the process of dumping excess slime into storage so long ago that I had completely forgotten about needing to do any maintenance.

'Alright, let's set my [Sub-Cores] to sift through all the slime and recompress it. Goodluck!' I mentally cheered at being able to delegate the work. This had the added benefit of working towards my next [Core Storage] and [Morph Slime] level, as they would need to withdraw it to compress it further.

'It's too bad I can't interact with my internal inventory. That would be certainly handy, or maybe that's a feature at a higher level?'

I continued walking along the path toward my mental quest marker. It was extremely early in the morning, so I had the road to myself. I occasionally observed the progress my [Sub-Cores] made with the task, and I wondered if perhaps I had given them a potentially endless task - how would they differentiate between the slime confirmed at maximum density and not?

"In the worst case, I could try to use the bug wings and hope it's enough. Maybe if I just create like ten of them?"

I was busy thinking of contingency plans when it finally happened. I was contemplating if I could build a slime pillar towards the island when there was a sudden loud screech, snapping me back to reality. A large shape had swooped down and plucked Beta from the ground; the slime leash rapidly thinned out when it stretched to its maximum before snapping when I didn't think to expand it quickly enough.

"Beta!" I shouted in horror as I saw it falling from the sky like a lifeless blob and splattering on the ground in the distance.

Unbeknownst to the griffin, what it thought was a meal had lost its form as soon as it lost connection to me. I hoped Beta survived the fall; otherwise, I'd have to wait until tomorrow to regenerate it. The griffin was climbing high up into the air, preparing for another divebomb.

This time, I reinforced the tendril to Alpha and planned on being dragged up with them. Unlike before, I wasn't going to be caught by surprise as I waited for its inevitable attack.

As it appeared again, with a high-pitched screech, I saw it grabbing Alpha. When the griffin started ascending, I retracted the tendril leash and pulled myself towards it. The griffin seemed to notice something was amiss and tried releasing its grip on Alpha. This monster was intelligent enough to attempt to use gravity as its weapon, but I commanded Alpha to grab on.

In what I could only assume were panicked screeches as it realized its prey was a predator, Alpha inverted and burst out like a maw clamping shut over its clawed front legs. I had already swapped over to a different profile, deposited my armor, and discarded my disguise, all while the wind rushed past me. Now, as pure slime, I fired all my cores through the tendrils connected to Alpha and watched the slime mass rapidly follow after.

'It's been a long time since I used the slime grapple. I'm glad it still works.' I thought happily.

The griffin was not happy; it had stopped ascending and instead flapped in place while it tried to rip and tear with its razor-sharp beak. I had Alpha defend with [Acid Slime], and when its attempts to bite were countered by burning pain, it frantically stopped. It immediately did a nosedive and tried aerial maneuvers to shake me off. But with all my cores safe and sound close to its body, I had already begun the process of enveloping its entire body tightly with slime except for its wings.

In what must have been a panicked last-ditch effort of barrel rolls, it lost control of its flight and violently crashed to the ground. Its body and my slime scraped across the surface, causing a trail of blood, slime, and feathers. I had wrapped my cores in a pocket of dense slime and set the elasticity to the maximum, hoping it would protect them. Somewhere, through the violent, uncontrolled tumbling across the surface, I received a notification.

'I mean... It kind of killed itself, not that I'm complaining about free experience.'

I gathered my bearings and checked that all my [Sub-Cores] were accounted for. I had lost a lot of slime mass across the ground, but honestly, it felt like a drop in the bucket at this point. I looked at the mangled corpse of the griffin and sighed as [Dissection] berated me for ruining a large portion of its valuable parts. I was surprised that its feathers were considered valuable, but very few were intact after that terrible landing. I let [Dissection] salvage what it could and happily ate the rest.

I was excited to review the new profile, but I had a more pressing concern. I needed to check where Beta had fallen. I shifted into a wolf to run faster, and thankfully, [Mapping] made it easy to find my previous location. After a brief search, I saw a blue puddle and a slightly scuffed and cracked apple-green core. I immediately grabbed the core with a tentacle and plunged it into my slimy depths.

'That's a relief... Sorry about that, Beta.'

I could feel slime mass being used to repair the tiny fractures in the [Sub-Core], but I was just grateful it wasn't destroyed.

'Now let's have a look at what that griffin had to offer.'