Published: August 2, 2025
Today, five chapters posted simultaneously.
This is the third chapter in the series.
The next day
Early in the morning, I stopped by the shop to check that everything was fine before heading to the abandoned mine shaft.
I started making waterproof fabric again today, but once more found myself at a loss for what to do next. I had fallen asleep while thinking about what to do yesterday... and now, nothing came to mind. In my previous life, I could have killed time playing light novels or games, but...
The fabric I received was the same as yesterday—45 bolts. The work was already finished, and perhaps due to familiarity, I completed it faster than yesterday. ...What should I do now... I've also trained the slimes...
After thinking for a while, I decided to gather scavenger slimes and combine them into a king scavenger slime to have a one-on-one battle.
The current skills of the king scavenger slime are as follows:
Skills: disease resistance lv7, poison resistance lv7, malnutrition lv8, sanitation lv8, deodorization lv8, deodorant spray lv6, foul odor emission lv8, nutrient reduction lv7, physical attack resistance level 5, hypertrophy lv5, miniaturization lv6, jump lv3, binge eating lv4, body technique lv2.
Perhaps due to the scavenger slime gaining physical attack resistance, the king scavenger's physical attack resistance level has also increased by one. Its body technique is also level 2, while the scavenger slime's is level 1.
Compared to a single scavenger slime, the overall skill levels have risen. Though I have no certainty, perhaps the experience of each individual slime merges somehow during fusion?
By the way, in a hand-to-hand fight with the king scavenger, its high physical attack resistance made it quite difficult to land effective hits. Its whole body has become more elastic, better at deflecting attacks and absorbing impact. Though its technique is still immature, its defense is quite excellent.
For example, even when I hit it somewhat seriously, the king scavenger can endure it. Of course, for safety, I did not aim at the core, but it still took effort to break through.
However, the downside is its low attack power. When enlarged by hypertrophy, its mass increases, making it good for pinning opponents down, but the slime’s muscle strength? Not that great. If I get serious, I can easily shake it off, and its strikes lack power.
Since there’s no way around this, I came up with several techniques using its body like a whip by extending it into tentacle shapes for striking, using those tentacles to entangle and hold tight, and a kind of shoulder throw that uses the opponent’s momentum, the body’s elasticity, and hypertrophy to toss them.
The basic strategy I taught is to deflect the opponent’s attacks and protect itself, use throws that capitalize on the opponent’s strength in battle, and when the opponent falls, pin them down by hypertrophy.
I spent a fair amount of time on this, but the fabric still wasn’t quite dry. ...Just a bit more. Maybe if I go for a walk with the slimes, it will dry.
Just as I thought that and gathered the slimes to head outside, suddenly one of the contracted slimes started acting strangely. Thanks to the familiar contract, I could sense its condition to some extent, but I couldn’t tell what was happening.
What’s going on?
I hurried over to where the problematic slime was. It was the slime I had caught for evolution experiments into metal slime. Its body was trembling continuously, but it didn’t seem unwell. So then...
“Could it be evolving!?”
I had thought it was still too early, but nothing else came to mind.
As I quietly observed, the slime’s movement stopped, and I sensed a faint mana presence.
It seemed the slime was releasing mana. But it wasn’t magic... Is it absorbing? Was it reabsorbing the mana it had released? For what purpose? Is it necessary for evolution? Or is it unconscious?
After repeating this release and absorption of mana dozens of times, the slime’s body color gradually changed. Eventually, it turned a silvery-white slime. Had it successfully evolved? Its condition was... normal, no abnormalities. But if it were a metal slime, it should be dull colored, yet this slime had a glossy silver color.