A river does not ask the way it must go.
It merely flows toward lower ground and meets the sea at its end.
The wind does not break the forest, but passes around it.
Instead of snapping the sturdy branches, it merely slips flexibly between them as if dancing.
Sometimes, surrendering yourself to the flow of fate is not a bad choice.
Perhaps the strange bond unfolding before me now.
Could it also be part of a delightful journey toward that distant sea?
Now then, shall I become today's wave surging toward tomorrow?
***
The cloud of light faded.
The feeling had become quite familiar. Before I knew it, I had entered the mental realm and once again reached the center of this mysterious sanctuary.
An endless, deep cosmos spread beneath my feet. Far in the distance, countless star fragments circled through the air, tracing faint paths.
The sight made my chest swell.
I shivered my soft jelly and looked around.
Not far away, an antique marble altar stood at the center where the starlight gathered.
Boing, boing―!
I lightly kicked off the ground and approached the altar.
FWOOM.
Blue flames blazed atop the altar.
Three translucent cards rose from the flames and spun through the air.
My heart pounded.
What astonishing abilities had been prepared this time?
I had to choose carefully for the sake of survival.
I stretched my round jelly long and examined the words engraved on the cards.
[Slash (Lv.1)]
[Swallow (Lv.1)]
[Dive (Lv.1)]
'Hmm, what should I do......?'
I carefully examined the choices floating in the air.
'It's a little disappointing that Smash Level 2 didn't appear, but......'
First, there was Slash.
A sharp slash was essential for a martial artist.
But through applications of the Smash Skill, I had already mastered the method of sharpening my jelly's edge.
I had no problem with basic combat.
There was no reason to deliberately choose a Skill with an overlapping attribute.
Then there was the third option, Dive.
I rejected that one without even needing to consider it.
At this point, there was no chance I would have to swim in a cavern where there was not a drop of water to be found.
That naturally left one option.
The card in the center was unquestionably the one that drew my interest.
[ Skill ] Swallow (Lv.1)
▸Effect: A subspace inventory will be connected to your core. You can swallow and store objects.
'Oh-ho.'
My core spun rapidly.
Back when I was a Hunter.
Spatial expansion Artifacts capable of storing dozens of kilograms of cargo in thin air sold for whatever price the owner demanded.
Bloody struggles between guilds often erupted over a single tiny ring.
After all, weight in a dungeon was a matter directly tied to survival.
Countless comrades had failed to evade a monster's claws because they were crushed beneath heavy food and loot.
And now, with a single Skill selection, I had gained that miraculous authority.
Until now, I had been blindly smashing rocks and absorbing mana.
Looking back, it had not been especially efficient.
This squishy jelly was, after all, the body of a Slime, the lowest-level monster.
That meant the total amount of mana my core could accept at once was strictly limited.
When a vessel was small, overflowing water simply scattered away.
Once I reached the limit of fullness, I could no longer absorb even the finest elixir rolling before my eyes.
'But what if I can use Swallow to separately store highly efficient Mana Stones?'
When I was full, I could select only the purest Mana Stones and store them in subspace.
Then, when I needed mana.
I could connect the high-purity Mana Stones stockpiled in subspace directly to my core and absorb them.
That was the greatest efficiency and the perfect strategy for accelerating my growth dramatically.
Besides, there could not have been a better Skill for furnishing the nest.
I had opened up the path nicely with Smash.
But the shattered debris still lay strewn hideously across the floor.
Thinking of Airi lying elegantly amid a pit of dust even gave me a strange sense of guilt.
Every piece fell neatly into place as though completing a puzzle.
In that case, there was no reason to hesitate.
I had decided.
Without hesitation, I extended my round body toward the Swallow card.
FLASH—!
The moment I chose it, the card broke into tiny pieces and scattered as golden dust.
A brilliant cloud of light surged freely toward my core.
Another glittering constellation was engraved beside the small, shining constellation at the heart of my mental realm.
A cozy, warm energy.
As I gazed at it with satisfaction for a moment, my vision gradually grew distant.
***
Cold air brushed my cheek.
Once again, I was in Airi's nest, where Mana Stones lay scattered about.
'Then shall I give it a try?'
I rolled toward the sandstone fragments piled like a mountain on the floor.
I vibrated my core and drew out the power of the newly engraved constellation.
It felt like throwing open an invisible door connected to my core.
HAAAP—! WHOOOOOSH—!
A strange fullness, and incredible suction like switching on an enormous vacuum cleaner.
A round opening formed in my transparent jelly and sucked in every fragment nearby.
A vortex poured inward like a black hole.
It was a peculiar sensation without even the slightest sense of weight.
The subspace connected to my core swallowed an enormous amount of clutter in a single gulp.
The space before me cleared in an instant.
The unsightly piles of rock scattered around me had been completely tidied away!
'Oh-ho, this is rather nice?'
While I was at it, I began roaming every corner of the nest.
I was clearing the piles of rocks without difficulty.
A huge mass of stone stood squarely in the way of one of the nest's main mana passages.
It was a vicious residue of magical energy formed by impurities that had clumped together over centuries.
Sharp spikes protruded from it like a hedgehog's quills.
With an ordinary strike, dangerous fragments would fly in every direction.
It was a troublesome obstacle that might even damage the nest's other structures if I was careless.
But I now had a reliable method of overcoming it.
I immediately soared into the air and condensed mana within my core.
My jelly hardened like a hammer.
Adding the acceleration of my fall, I pounded mercilessly into the exact center of the rock.
BOOM—! KABOOM—!
The solid rock shattered with a crisp rupture.
The instant its sharp fragments burst outward like a bomb.
I immediately opened my jelly wide and threw open the door to subspace.
WHOOOOOSH—!
A scraping sound that twisted space-time.
Before the weapons scattering through the air could even touch the ground.
A black-hole-like vortex swallowed every fragment in midair.
It was a spotless demolition that left not a single trace. An unfamiliar satisfaction, an electrifying sense of achievement, and the refreshing relief of a long-standing weight washing away swept through my entire body.
Smash, then swallow.
Destruction and storage interlocked in perfect time, creating an exhilarating rhythm.
It was the moment I was reborn from a mindless destroyer into a capable cleaner.
My round, star-shaped eyes rippled with joy.
"Yes! Even I think that was perfect work!"
I bounced in place and excitedly shook my round body.
Stretching my transparent jelly high into the air, I showed off a boisterous yet adorable victory dance.
Far from feeling the fatigue of labor, my entire body brimmed with vitality ready to burst.
That was when it happened.
An alien scraping sound came from a quiet corner of the nest.
Scritch, scritch-scritch.
An unpleasant, skin-crawling noise like something gnawing on solid mineral.
I stopped my dance dead and flattened my jelly.
Erasing my presence, I carefully approached the source of the noise.
It came from a dark, secluded blind spot behind a massive stalactite.
A pack of bipedal rats with bristling gray fur entered my view.
They were Mana-Detecting Rats, a species that mainly inhabited the lower floors of the Black Tower.
The unwelcome guests had taken advantage of the centuries of neglect to crawl into this sanctuary.
They were greedily gnawing on the Supreme-Grade Mana Stones piled inside Airi's nest.
'You dare mess with my livelihood?'
Cold bloodlust surged from deep within my core.
This was the noble domain entrusted entirely to my management.
I had no mercy to spare for rat bastards that had wandered in from outside.
I raised my jelly's viscosity as high as possible and kicked hard off the floor.
FWOOSH—!
A sharp sound ripped through the air. My airborne jelly surged forward fiercely.
"Squeak?!"
The Mana-Detecting Rats belatedly sensed my bloodlust and bared their sharp teeth.
They closed their encirclement from every direction and charged toward my transparent body.
Their eyes, filled with mana, were bloodshot red, and claws as sharp as iron bars gleamed.
But I neither dodged nor retreated.
Instead, as though welcoming their fierce assault, I drove my core's rotation to its limit.
SWISH—!
I twisted direction in midair and struck the crown of the first rat's head.
THUD—!
A dull rupture.
It crashed to the floor without so much as a death cry.
At the same time, I used my jelly's elasticity to rebound upward and target the next one.
I concentrated my core's mana sharply along my edge.
The tip of my jelly sharpened to the point of a spear.
Overwhelming pressure, and a perfect trajectory. A blue flash crossed through the pack of rats.
SLASH—!
The torsos of the ones in front were severed cleanly, and they tumbled to the floor.
"Squeeak, skreeee!"
The terrified survivors scrambled to find an escape route.
I did not miss that momentary opening.
FWOOSH—!
[You have defeated a low-level demonic beast that intruded into the nest.]
[The intruder's mana will be absorbed through the authority of the Nest Manager.]
[Your proficiency with the Swallow Skill has increased slightly.]
The system's cheerful alarm rang pleasantly through the air.
I landed lightly on the floor and gently vibrated my core.
I had dealt with the trespassers in a single stroke.
I had flawlessly completed my first defensive duty as Nest Manager.
The faint mana the creatures had carried seeped from my subspace into my core.
A sweet fullness filled my belly satisfyingly.
It had been a rather fine battle. And a perfect conclusion for a Nest Manager.
I happily resumed bouncing and returned to my original demolition work.
The process of sorting Mana Stones and ordinary rocks inside my subspace was interesting.
I neatly stacked the yellow, lemon-flavored Mana Stones in the left section and the red, cherry-flavored ones in the right section.
I roughly shoved the useless gray fragments to the edge of my subspace.
Whenever I found an especially large, shining Mana Stone, I leisurely rolled it around in my mouth like a sweet snack.
Formerly South Korea's strongest God of War.
Currently a Dragon's personal Nest Manager.
Compensation: an unlimited buffet of Supreme-Grade Mana Stones.
"Heehee, wouldn't you call this a rather successful career change?"
I tossed out the silly joke and rolled my round body with a springy bounce.
Compared with those hellish days when I had joined a party with traitors and risked my life.
This moment, humming as I cleared away piles of rock, was nothing short of heaven.
The pleasure of opening up the blocked energy points of the long-neglected nest.
As the large and small obstacles blocking the way disappeared layer by layer.
The nest's original, elegant contours finally began to emerge slowly beyond the cloud of dust.
But then.
A small question suddenly arose inside my jelly.
My transparent core contracted with a strange tension.
The floor revealed beneath the fragments was not the shabby dirt floor of a cave.
Luxurious tiles laid with smoothly worked, high-purity obsidian.
Intricate golden geometric patterns radiating sacred energy had been embroidered across the walls.
Airi's nest must once have been as immaculate and splendid as the traces left here.
'What in the world happened to her?'
But no matter how much I racked my brain now, there was no immediate way to find out.
I cleared away my idle thoughts and silently forged a path onward.
As I rolled forward through the nest's passage, a jade gate intricately carved with geometric patterns blocked my way.
'This is......'
The gate was firmly shut.
Yet it somehow seemed engraved with wistful longing.
The dense afterscent of mana leaking through the tightly sealed gap circled the tip of my nose.
Then, swish―.
With the faint sound of space slipping out of alignment.
"Wait a moment."
Airi had silently appeared before me.