Published: August 15, 2025
“Next up... is this.”
It was three types of fish gathered in a large basket big enough to hold with both hands.
Their appearances resembled stonefish, pufferfish, and eel. To me, they all looked like high-grade fish, but...
“Just to confirm, you don’t eat these around here, right?”
“Well, they’re all poisonous fish, you know? Eating poison is dangerous.”
“They remove the poisonous parts and eat them. In my hometown, we had similar fish that we ate.”
“Ah... when the weather is bad and they can’t go fishing, or when there are no fish to catch, they eat these if there’s no other food.”
Niki-kun pointed to the eel-like fish. Judging from how it made up most of the basket, they were abundant and could be caught regardless of the situation.
“But these don’t just have poisonous blood; they also smell really muddy, are full of bones, and taste awful. There are parasites this season too... The ones with poisonous spines on their fins are small and barely edible. Since there are tastier fish when fishing is possible, nobody eats these. Oh, and the ones that puff up have deadly poison, so never eat those!”
“I see...”
I wanted to try cooking them, but because of the parasites, I decided to hold off this time.
“We separate those caught in the net like this because we have no choice, but ideally, we shouldn’t catch fish we don’t eat. Dad and the others don’t want to catch them either.”
“Got it. Our slime are happy, though.”
The ones reacting were Poison, Medicine, and one of the Bloodslimes that had reacted to parasites earlier.
I wondered if there would be new evolutions related to poison and parasites… when suddenly,
“Hm?”
“What’s wrong, big brother?”
“It's this Poison slime.”
One Poison slime was only reacting to the stonefish-like fish among the poisonous ones.
Upon closer observation, it turned out to be eating just the fin’s poisonous spines!
“Poisonous spines... well, I’ll think about that later. What’s next?”
“Uh, we have some shells—both poisonous and non-poisonous.”
“Let’s start with the poisonous shells.”
The Poison and Medicine slimes recognized them as food, but that was it. Unfortunately, these seemed to be just mere food.
“Now for the edible ones.”
“Sorry, big brother, but these are empty... they’re just empty shells after eating.”
“Oh well, I said garbage was fine. And hey, some are already reacting.”
“Eh?”
At Niki-kun’s feet, holding the bucket of shells, several Acid slimes were already waiting.
When Niki-kun gave the shells to them, they happily absorbed them, slowly dissolving the shells inside while forming small bubbles...
There’s a chance Acid slimes might evolve from shells. Among those reacting, one even wanted to eat eggs daily... Is that a different case? Eggshells and shells share calcium carbonate as a main component... Needs further observation.
“And finally, here come the crabs.”
There were two types: live crabs and just the shells. Both triggered reactions from Sticky slimes.
“One is the shell, and the other... also needs watching.”
“Next is trash other than fish caught in the net. Like aquatic plants and algae.”
By now, I was probably getting used to the repetitive work. As I was about to move onto the next basket, Niki-kun brought it at just the right time!
What a relief... and as expected, Weed slimes reacted.
It was confirmed recently that some of them react to aquatic plants.
Also, some seemed to react to algae, separate from the aquatic plants.
“Alright, next is this.”
“A torn-up net... I wonder what will happen... Hmm, an unexpected result.”
“What is it?”
“Hmm... the ones reacting are Sticky and Metal.”
Sticky can spit threads, so maybe there’s some relation, but Metal reacting too?
Metal and net... a metal net? I don’t know, but it could be interesting to see after evolution. This also needs observation.
“These are the last two!”
Niki-kun held up one bucket in each hand. One was packed tightly with sand, the other filled with broken pottery shards.