Beep!
Beep!
Beep!
Beep!
When had I fallen asleep?
I switched off the alarm and sat up in bed.
“Haa…”
The first thing I did upon waking was sigh.
I glanced at the trousers I had hung up and saw that they were completely dry.
Yesterday, both my upper and lower halves had ended up soaked: tears on top and slime on the bottom.
Perhaps it was the effect of my newly awakened ability, but the one slime living in the dungeon had been particularly clingy and sticky.
It seemed to be expressing affection in its own way, though there was no way for me to know what a creature without speech or facial expressions was really thinking.
“But…”
At some point, a slime had approached me again.
Except there wasn’t just one this time.
“Can slimes divide themselves?
Why are there two of you?”
Two slimes were now wriggling around my bed, looking for affection as I lay there.
“I’m not in the mood.
Go play over there.”
Squirm!
It was fascinating to see them understand my words and immediately crawl away.
It was…
just fascinating, nothing more.
“Haa…”
Now I understood why people smoked.
I had never drunk alcohol or smoked cigarettes, but I was beginning to see why others used them to relieve stress.
“Still, the rumors were all true.
I was just unlucky.”
Dungeon transformations gave enormous rewards, and double awakening really existed.
Both were real, as I had personally experienced them at the same time.
Frankly, even if the second ability I had received was nothing more than Slime Lord, obtaining a second awakened ability was certainly an enormous reward in itself.
“Hup!
Lee Gyuseong!
Pull yourself together!”
Slap!
I slapped my own cheek and sprang to my feet.
I wasn’t exactly happy with my situation, but doing something was better than sitting around in despair.
Almost out of habit, I headed straight toward my vegetable patch.
I needed to clear my quest before I could make any further progress, so checking the field had become the first thing I did.
‘Oh, now that I think about it, did I get a new quest for my second awakened ability?’
The ability was pretty awful, but who knew?
Maybe completing quests would eventually evolve it into something unbelievably powerful.
[Awakening Quest: Hunt Monsters]
Use slimes to hunt monsters.
Goblins: 0/10
“Haha…
Are you kidding me right now?”
I looked at the two slimes fooling around nearby.
I wasn’t sure exactly what they were doing, but they kept wriggling and trying to climb on top of one another.
Squirm…
When one slid off, the other tried to climb onto its companion instead.
Squirm…
Naturally, that one promptly slid off too.
The whole spectacle was so pitiful it was almost impressive.
“Ha…
Hahaha.”
I was supposed to hunt goblins with those things?
If I had ten of them, maybe I could smother a goblin by having them all pile onto it.
That was assuming, of course, the goblin made absolutely no attempt to resist.
I could hunt the goblins myself, but judging by the quest wording, they would probably only count if the slimes did the killing.
Given how one tiny word had prevented me from completing the juice quest, I was certain of it.
“Haa.”
I was starting to wish I hadn’t checked at all.
As I stood there sighing, I happened to glance at the vegetable patch and noticed that the entire thing was damp.
I hadn’t watered it, which made the culprit immediately obvious.
“The slimes.”
They had certainly left their mark all over the place.
But was this going to be all right?
I knew slime secretions were harmless to humans, but I had no idea what they did to plants.
“Hey, you.
Come here.”
I beckoned to one of the slimes.
It came squirming toward me, taking more than ten seconds to cover the short distance.
“Can you understand what I’m saying?”
Squirm…
Whether it was an answer or not, its body wriggled.
“Just so you know, this is a field.
A field for growing plants.
Aren’t your secretions going to ruin it?”
Even I found the question absurd as soon as I asked it.
How would a slime know anything about that?
Yet the slime stayed still for a moment, almost as though thinking, before it started wriggling again.
Squirm, squirm.
“What are you trying to say?”
For someone calling himself the Slime Lord, it was rather pathetic that I couldn’t understand a slime’s language.
While I was once again lamenting the uselessness of my ability, the slime busily crawled all over the field.
“What?”
The soil began to grow damp.
Watching it, an idea occurred to me, and I gave the slime an order.
“If your secretions help the field, keep going.
If they don’t, stop.”
It continued moving despite my words, so I reversed the command.
“If they help, stop.
If they don’t, keep going.”
Freeze!
Oh!
This little guy was pretty smart.
It seemed to have understood my instructions perfectly.
In other words, its secretions really did help with farming.
‘But I’ve never heard anything like that before.’
None of the information I had gathered by asking around mentioned anything about slimes, so it had never even occurred to me to try using them.
I called the now-stationary creature back over.
“I should send some of your secretions to a research lab.”
Even if it cost me some money, I wanted to find out exactly what they contained.
As I thought that and picked up the slime, a window resembling my status window appeared.
[Slime LV.1]
“Oh?”
What was this?
Did it have something to do with my Slime Lord ability?
I couldn’t think of any other explanation.
I’d never heard of anyone being able to inspect a monster’s information without a special ability.
‘Oh, right.
I heard that Awakened with something called the Third Eye could do that.’
In other words, a separate ability was necessary.
If I could see a slime’s status, it had to be because of my own ability.
[Slime LV.1]
An ordinary slime.
‘Eligible for Liquid Synthesis’
“Huh?”
When I looked more carefully at the status window, I noticed a glowing line of text.
“Eligible…
for Liquid Synthesis?”
W-what was that supposed to mean?
Did that mean the slime counted as a liquid too?
Squirm?
The slime in my hand wriggled.
Meanwhile, the second slime, which had been playing by itself, had somehow come over to my side as well.
‘Come to think of it, I haven’t made today’s potion yet.’
Yesterday’s shock had been so great that I, who normally used my ability the moment its cooldown ended, had completely forgotten about it today.
Thanks to that, though, I could try using it on a slime instead.
‘What should I synthesize with the slime?
A potion?
Would that give me a slime that produces potions?’
The thought was outrageous.
But if something like that was possible, I could finally say goodbye to poverty and properly support my family.
I hurriedly fetched a potion and held it together with the slime.
“Liquid Synthesis!”
I shouted the ability’s name with all my might, even though there was absolutely no need to say it aloud.
And then…
[Slime LV.1 and Slime LV.1 are being synthesized.]
[The slimes being combined will share all their memories and experiences.]
Something incredible was happeni…
Wait a minute!
[Slime LV.2 has been created.]
[Cooldown: 23 hours, 49 minutes, 59 seconds]
The other slime at my feet was suddenly sucked upward with a slurping sound and merged with the one in my hand.
What appeared afterward was Slime Mark II, or rather, a Level 2 slime.
Squirm?
Its exterior hadn’t changed at all.
Its interior, however, was another matter.
“It’s got a core?”
Ordinary slimes had cores too, but they were so small that you could barely see them without peering carefully into their bodies.
The synthesized slime’s core, on the other hand, had grown large enough to spot at a glance.
“Aww, I wanted to synthesize it with the potion…”
Perhaps that simply wasn’t possible.
I would try again tomorrow, of course, but the fact that the ability had combined the slime in my hand with the one on the floor, rather than the potion right next to it, didn’t give me much hope.
“Now that I think about it, I haven’t used Slime Lord yet.”
Until now, I had thought there was no point in producing more slimes.
Things were different now, though.
I immediately created one.
[Slime LV.1 has been produced.]
[Cooldown: 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds]
A lump of white light appeared in the empty air.
When the glow faded, a lone slime had formed in its place.
“Back to two slimes again.”
But more importantly, I needed to check the synthesized one first.
I immediately opened the status window for Mark II, or rather, the Level 2 slime.
[Slime LV.2]
An ordi?nary slime.
‘Eligible for Liquid Synthesis’
Ability: Farming LV.1
“A slime that farms?”
Farming?
The farming I knew?
The thing farmers did?
Why on earth did you have an ability like that?
Squirm?
Mark II, or the Level 2 slime, wriggled as though asking what I was getting so worked up about.
* * *
Once my initial surprise had faded, the first thing that came to mind was the fact that the slime had gained an ability.
Did this count as an awakened ability?
It might not be anything quite so grand, but having an ability plainly displayed in its status window certainly didn’t seem ordinary.
[Farming LV.1]
Accelerates crop growth.
Increases crop yield.
The description was simple.
Still, who would have thought a slime could possess an ability like that?
“Mark Two.”
Squish?
That was its name from now on.
I needed something to distinguish it from the other slimes, after all.
“From now on, you’re in charge of that field.”
Squirm!
Mark Two wriggled happily and immediately moved toward the vegetable patch, where it began rolling around.
I wasn’t entirely sure how much faith to put in a slime, but perhaps it could do better than I had managed in three years of fruitless effort.
After all, it actually possessed an ability called Farming.
Whatever happened, it had to be better at the job than I was.
With the field entrusted to Mark Two, I started thinking about something that hadn’t occurred to me yesterday.
“There’s no doubt the dungeon transformed.
I awakened a second time, after all.
So what exactly changed?”
Was the appearance of a slime really the only difference?
That was possible, but there was no harm in being careful.
The dungeon was exceptionally tiny, only about two hundred pyeong, so searching every corner wouldn’t take long.
“Nothing’s changed…”
I explored the dungeon with the idle Slime One, but didn’t spot anything unusual.
Then again, perhaps there was something hidden that I simply couldn’t see.
“I have a mission for you too.”
Squirm?
“Search every nook and cranny of this dungeon, and report back to me if you find anything unusual.
Understood, soldier?”
Squish!
The slime quickly slithered off my hand and began crawling across the ground.
Since creatures made of liquid could squeeze through narrow gaps, it might find a crevice or secret room I’d overlooked.
“Hehe.”
Viewed separately, both of my abilities had seemed utterly worthless.
Put them together, though, and I could finally see a possible way forward.
I hadn’t accomplished anything yet, but it was as though a faint light had appeared in the distance.
Until now, it had felt like I was walking through pitch-black darkness.
I had endured only because of my responsibilities and my stubborn refusal to give up.
“Things are going to be different now.”
I finally had hope.
Even if I still couldn’t make out its shape clearly, that didn’t matter.
Sometimes, that much was enough to keep a person going.
“I’m going to need money.”
I looked at the synthesized potions I had carefully arranged to one side.
I had held on to them instead of selling them immediately, supposedly to help control the market price, but I would need to sell about half now.
If I kept using Liquid Synthesis exclusively on slimes, I wouldn’t be producing any more synthesized potions.
I needed to set aside some living expenses in advance.
While I was out, I could see my family, too, and look up more information about the Awakened and the dungeons.
“I’d better go right away.”
Time was money.
I collected the potions and immediately prepared to leave.
“I’m going out for a bit.
Look after the place, all right?
Oh!
That’s not an order.
I mean, keep doing the jobs I gave you earlier while I’m gone.”
Squish!
I left the dungeon, watching Mark Two and Slime One wobble in place in lieu of answering.