[Slimy Slime] Chapter 35: Some Casual Battling

Alright, it’s time to stop fucking around. All the training in the world doesn’t matter if I don’t have experience. Nine hands at the ready, I rode on the tenth out into the forest. I was boxed in a thirty mile radius from where I’d ‘spawned’ but that meant there should be plenty of wolves around. I also kept my metaphorical slimy ears peeled for any baby cries or voices. That wolf was still out there, somewhere. It hadn’t even been that far away from me last time. Michael and Sandra had been lucky Krrrgg had found them first. Otherwise they might have died.

Well, judging by their apparently destroyed village, they were running away from it in the first place.

I rode forth, not finding anything, before I decided to go up. I hadn’t tested any kind of height limits. Up and up and I went. I broke past the leaves and went higher still. My slimy self quivered a little. I wasn’t exactly afraid of heights but… I might die if I fell off my hand. After all, I am just made of slime! I doubt I’d take too hard of a blunt impact very well.

Higher and higher I went, only now realizing just how tall some of these trees were, having grown impressively without the hands of man to knock them down. Finally, I burst out of the forest and gasped.

Forest as far as the eye could see. Seeming to go on infinitely. I turned around in a 360, noticing a looming mountain far off in the distance. That was interesting. I continued to turn and my eyes widened by what I saw. A kingdom. Well, I assumed. Past the greenery, far, far away, I could see an end to it. And near the edge of the horizon looked to be… stuff. My eyes were good but not that good! Maybe I should work on telescope vision next… Either way, I could see what I thought might be plains.

Interesting. I now had a direction from where humans might come from. Well, [Human]’s. Damn system shenanigans. Why on earth are humans still called humans if everyone with a system is called [Human]’s? Made no sense to me, but whatever. I don’t make the rules.

Turning back around… I could feel… something. Wait. No, that wasn’t coming from the forest. That was… Danger Sense? I focused. It was suppose to warn me five minutes in advance of Danger but the last time it had only done so a split second beforehand. Past that, it was ‘there’ but had felt… subtle. Ignorable. I blinked in realization. That damn wolf had some kind of ambushing skill on top of everything else. Gah! Aren’t you creepy enough?! You already have defense like a turtle, super speed, and look unnerving as hell. Damn ambush predators.

I focused on my Danger Sense this time though. It was telling me it was coming from… up?

Up?

I looked up and I saw them. Flying in the distance was… birds? I tried to judge their size but right now they were just specks, even if they seemed to be coming closer. Interesting! I didn’t think I’d get into an aerial battle today but life is just full of surprises. I needed combat experience and it was coming right towards me.

I focused my eyes, starting a new mantra already. “I can see far away when I want. I can see far away when I want.” It was a bit harder. I had to truly, really, believe myself. It had taken months and a fight where I only realized I could see in the dark after the fact for me, to, well, see in the dark. But that was a permeant thing. If my vision became all telescopy all the time, that would suck. So I needed it to only be when I focused on it.

I had already broken one barrier, so I knew it was possible, but still. It wasn’t something I could do in an instant. The birds got closer and closer and soon… I realized they weren’t birds at all. At least no kind I ever knew about.

They looked like dark purple feathered vultures, except their beaks were wide, large, and full of razor sharp teeth made of all points. I was vaguely reminded of a T-rex’s mouth while looking at them. Well… it seems I’d found myself some flying monsters.

I dub thee… sharp mouths! Wait, no, hmm… Sharp Beaks? Beaky sharps. Ehh, I’ll decide on it later.

For now, they were finally in range. I didn’t know where they had been flying too before, but now a dozen razor mouthed vultures were bearing down on me. Creepy neck and all. I wonder if they all use to be normal Vultures before they evolved? Questions for later.

They got closer and-

Fwoom!

They suddenly dive bombed me! I moved at the last second but that was only the beginning. There were a dozen of them and suddenly I felt like I was inside and fighting a storm. My nine hands shot out, aiming for birds that were much more nimble than I’d have ever gave them credit for. I moved, my hand carrying me up, and down, and side to side, constantly dodging while I tried to keep track of all of my other nine hands. Their shrieks were deafening. This was already helping me immensely.

If I lost sight of my hands, even for a moment, they were wrecked the next. I had to heal them but surprisingly, not reform them, even as they got shredded. The durability had noticeably gone up. I nearly got stabbed in the back but my danger sense luckily warned me. Damn it! It’s not like… I had eyes… in the back of my head…

Alright, scrap telescope vision, I need 360 degree vision! No, wait, I think I have an even better idea! It would probably take a long time to succeed… but it would be even better than 360 vision!

Gah!

[HP 270/287]

I nearly fell to my death! That vulture managed to bite me!

Alright, no more playing around. I’d managed to land a few hits on some of them, and those birds… had practically exploded. A solid fist into their chest had made at least four of them fall down, severely wounded. Probably dead. I don’t think your intestines should ever… come out your mouth. Ughhh.

Suddenly, I enjoyed the fact that I was only made of slime.

Speaking of… that vulture that ate a part of me was screaming. Who told you to eat acid, huh?! Blame yourselves for attacking me! Still, I made sure to send three fists at it, practically crushing the poor thing. No one deserved to die by acid, I was well aware of that. The least I can do is make it quick.

Half the vultures, more or less, had died but to my amazement they hadn’t stopped attacking me. That was insane to me. Did these birds… have no sense of self preservation? I focused on my hands, raining down punches. It was hard fighting with my fists. Even a man with two fists doesn’t inherently know how to fight and I had to learn, not with two, but many. One day, a hundred. Another day, a thousand. In a million years, who knew? That made any kind of ‘technique’ a bit… difficult to learn or make.

But what absolutely can’t fail? Rain of punches! The birds stood no chance, as they got pummeled over and over again. I was using up mana and my brain, as I would punch, unsummon that hand, summon another farther away at the same time, and send it flying forth. A literal rain of never ending punches.

The birds died. For sure. They were 100% dead before they hit the ground. Alone, I stood in the air. And sighed.

I was going to have to go down there and eat them up…

But, on the bright side, I could feel myself becoming stronger. I hadn’t even used my magic, astra, acid abilities… well, not on purpose. It’s your fault for eating a part of me! That didn’t feel good you know?! Stupid bird.

I clenched my fist in front of me. Well, one of them. I was going to keep getting stronger. It was… addicting, pleasurable, to become more. It appealed to that gamer part of my brain that would spend hours and hours playing idle games, just watching those numbers go up. I may hate stats… but who doesn’t love big numbers and getting stronger? Becoming more.

But even more than that… this world… it made me feel out of place. It made me feel unreal, constantly. I’d probably believe it if someone told me I was in a simulation at this point and the gods were created by some super alien race or higher dimensional being. I was just that far out of my depth at this point.

Still… all I could do is accept and move forward. Dissociation gnawed at my heels. I needed to keep myself grounded. Besides… I had less than a year before I had to deal with the [Omen of Lust]. Nothing better to ground someone than a person coming to bang the shit out of you against your will.

Still… I looked ‘down’ at my slime body. Who on earth found this attractive?

****

“Tina!” A loud guttural growl of a voice rang out.

“Yes sir!” Tina shouted, snapping to Elysium’s knightly salute.

“You call that running?! What are you, a knight or a worm? Move move move! If I see you slacking again I’ll knock some sense into you and then throw you out on your ass! I said MOVE!”

Jeremy shook his head, feeling complicated. Tina had been giving it her all already. The Commander must’ve been impressed to give her his ‘special’ attention like that. Jeremy didn’t know whether to be jealous or relieved.

“Oh? I see we’ve got two slackers here! You all think you can disrespect me this much?! I was defending this kingdom while you were all still in your Daddy’s hairy ballsack! Ten more laps for everyone and Slacker, you better give me twenty!”

With tears of grief, Jeremy realized he was the one being talked about. The stories really were true. Never envy someone else’s misfortune!

He caught up to Tina, only to see her smiling!

This monster!