Syl

Chapter 2: Gooey Harvest

Strangely, I did not die or even feel pain as the boy's knife pierced into me. I kept waiting and waiting to see the void again and hear grandpa again, but it did not happen.

The boy used his non-dominant hand to lift me while his other sliced away parts of my blue slime, which fell into the bucket below. There was no pain, but it was a bizarre feeling to watch my slime be disconnected from my 'body' like the child was peeling a potato.

'I'm thankful this isn't killing me, but this feels very violating... Being manhandled by a small child.'

When the slime disconnected from me, it would suddenly lose its semifluid consistency and immediately plummet to the bottom of the bucket, which explained why the boy was lifting me to stop me from reabsorbing the slime below.

After a few minutes, the boy lifted me from the bucket, placed me on the ground, and even petted my 'head'. I've easily lost over half my size and mass from the pruning.

"Xxx xxxx xxxx'x xx xxx, xxxxxx xxxxx." He again said something I could not understand and gave me a toothy smile.

He reached into his pocket, producing a moldy bread loaf, and dropped it on me. I wanted to screech in disgust as it entered me and then slowly began to dissolve.

'Thank goodness I don't have taste buds... Although it feels weirdly pleasant to absorb things like this.'

I sat unmoving as the hard bread dissolved, watching my fellow slimes also be cut away and stored into jars or buckets.

While observing the slime harvest I unfortunately got the answer to my question, as an older child was busy cutting away when his blade struck against the pale red core of the slime. There was a cracking sound, and immediately the entire slime lost form and all of the liquid plummeted into the bucket. The core hit the bottom of the bucket with a dull clank sound, and I felt my entire being shudder in horror.

'I have to protect my crimson core at all costs.'

An adult runs over to the kid and smacks him over the head, shouting something at him. The kid rubs his head in pain while bowing frantically to the adult. They converse for a moment, and the man points towards the city with a scowl. The boy starts frantically running back towards the city while holding his bucket carefully.

'I guess it was an accident, and they aren't intentionally killing us slimes? But to be able to lose my life at the mistake of a child is a terrifying conclusion.'

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Each human sticks around until their containers reach capacity, and then they start heading back towards the city. As the last of the humans disperse, the slimes start heading towards any nearby foliage to eat again. I notice that the bread is now fully dissolved, and I have regained some of my previous mass.

'Eat, regenerate slime, get harvested, and repeat... Sounds like an awful existence, no thank you. I should try to recover my size and get out of here.'

I head towards a nearby flower and engulf it as it slowly dissolves. I can feel my mass slowly recovering, but it feels vastly inferior to that moldy bread.

I notice the slimes all congregating towards a location, and I cautiously follow them to find a woman wearing a bloody apron and holding two large sacks has arrived. She reaches into the sack to pull out its contents and then tosses chunks of meat and bone towards us. The slimes frantically head towards the meals, and I even manage to get a piece of fuzzy meat for myself, which I frantically engulf.

Once her first sack is empty, she lifts her other bag and turns it inside out, dumping a large amount of rotten garbage. She coughs and scrunches her face, clearly upset with the smell, and walks off. Much to my dismay, I watch the smaller slimes who didn't manage to snag some meat start eating the garbage.

'Our blue slime is valuable enough for them to keep us fed. Or perhaps we are garbage disposal, and they trim us down so we don't grow too big and become a threat?'

One of the slimes who didn't get a piece of meat starts heading towards a smaller slime who did. I figure they will fight over the food, but it becomes even more horrific as I watch the slime engulf the smaller one, meat and all!

The smaller slime tries to struggle, but I watch it shrink inside the larger slime. There's a quiver in the centre, and eventually, the core of the smaller slime itself suddenly dissolves!

'My human brother poisoned me, and now I just watched my slime brethren eat each other... I wonder if my soul peaked before my last reincarnation because this feels truly cursed.'

While I was focusing on the battle, another slime snuck up on me and started to try to engulf me.

'No! Let me live! You can have the stupid piece of meat!' I scream mentally and try to back away from the slime. There's a weird suction between us, and I feel it stealing my slime mass from me.

My frantic struggle gets nowhere, so I try to think of a solution.

'If only I could get to its core before it reaches my own then maybe I could absorb or break it, but I don't think I could engulf it, and I can't think of a way to grab it directly.'

Something appears in my mind that feels very similar to my Status Menu.

'What? If it will help me, then yes!'

I feel a rush of knowledge enter my core, and I feel a greater control over my slime. I picture a tentacle bursting forward into the enemy slime and grabbing its core. My slime jiggles in anticipation and seems to harden to create this fake limb, which jets out to pierce the slime and envelop its' rose-red core.

Crunch.

'Huh...'