Syl

Chapter 88: Anger

"There! I can't believe I agreed to this. He should have just become slime food and expedited the next evolution," a disgruntled elderly voice complained.

"The others would have complained if your subject had ended not one but two others in such a short time, even if it was unguided." A motherly voice replied.

"They left their starting regions; don't blame my slime for their actions," the elderly voice retorted, the disagreement clear in his tone.

"Yes, that's why I've allowed you to compensate it. It's a stroke of luck that it's registered in the adventurer system. Otherwise, we would not have been able to communicate with it without major interference."

"Yes. Masquerading as an adventurer has definitely been an unforeseen boon."

"Besides. I'm curious if this will positively affect the orc subject's growth now that he will be forced out of hiding behind his brethren. If it does, I'm sure you could use the fact to gain a favor or boon."

"Yes, yes. I know. I also know he's one of the very few remaining monstrous humanoid subjects, so his data is valuable. That is the real reason I listened to your request. Certainly not to keep the drunk from throwing another tantrum."

"It is strange that most of them died." She said, trying to change the topic of conversation, "The goblin subject, for example, did much worse than an ordinary goblin spawn. The wild goblins your slime lived with were much more impressive in terms of accomplishments."

"Perhaps it's our fault for not cleaning them enough?" He postulated, "Most of those deaths could have been avoided if they weren't so deadset on trying to reintegrate with humanity."

"Too much, and they might as well be wild spawns. Too little, and they get themselves killed by stupidly approaching humans or become mentally unstable with their situation and fail to adapt to their new body. It's a good thing we tried differing amounts amongst the subjects."

"Indeed. Funny how I'd say the salamander was cleaned too much while the orc was cleaned too little."

"I'd be most interested in seeing what parameters you set on your slime subject."

"Perhaps after the experiment is completed, we can share notes." The elderly voice responded, the tiniest sliver of worry in his voice, "More importantly, I have a new trait I've been working on that I'd love to show you."

"Y-you killed them all!" Odark shouted, frantically looking around in the burning circle.

"I'm sure they've done much worse, what with their claims." I spat.

Odark was taken aback at that response, staring at the ground in denial, "That may be true... But they didn't deserve this!"

I felt anger building up inside of me that I struggled to suppress. The orcs believed in being strong, and enough strength justified any action. Odark obviously holds some fairytale morals from his previous life, where the strong can resolve problems without any loss of life. I couldn't even call it hypocritical; it was plain stupid. Moments ago, he had decided to kill me to satisfy the orcs so he wouldn't be exiled. Why was my life less than theirs? Less than his? What about the human captives? If I had died, they would have died or worse.

"Didn't deserve this? I can only imagine how many humans the orcs had killed or captured before this, especially to have an unlimited extermination quest against them. I didn't see or hear any captives since my arrival, so I can only imagine why they didn't survive."

"I know that! But still! They were like my family!" He protested.

For some reason, that just angered me more, "So your brother is a murderer, and you let him get away with it because he's family."

Odark was trying to make some responses and excuses, but I wasn't hearing any of it. Blue flames roared inside me; my mana roiled angrily, fueling the still-formed organs.

Reward: Skill revelation (useful).>

"Yes! I know!"I screamed at the forced notification, causing Odark to flinch and surround himself with a wall of blood.

I blasted at his floating blood pool rather than him directly; he immediately reacted by shielding himself, thinking it was aimed at him. When the blue flames ran out, I dismissed the organs as it was too tempting to tap into them and turn him into nothing but a scorch mark.

I formed slime bullets armed with Bloodrot and started to fire them rapidly at him. He shifted his diminished blood shield to block them, and what happened was fascinating. I saw the blood mana corrupted with blackened coloring, similar to how freezing corrupted my water mana. As the segments of his blood shield blackened, they would droop and fall to the ground, no longer in his control.

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"What?" He tried to question and then started trying to counterattack.

He already knew his blood lances were ineffective and stuck only to blades and scythes of blood, trying to dismember me. It was frustrating that despite all my efforts to raise my defense, some things could still get through, so I had my [Sub Cores] handle dodging and maneuvering themselves and my own core out of any attack's trajectory. At least I knew with each swing of his blood blades, they would be partially eaten away by the acid as they passed through.

When I finally landed some shots into his arm, he quickly noticed the spreading infection, severed his own arm, and threw it at me before casting a spell that exploded the arm into a shower of blood. He now seemed extra cautious in ensuring I didn't land any shots on him.

When his blood pool was sufficiently diminished, I thought he'd give up, but instead, a spire of rock erupted from the ground, attempting to pierce through my torso. [Mana Conception] thankfully gave me enough early warning for the gathering earth mana, and I managed to dodge out of the way.

'That makes sense... He did say he started as a shaman, and this tunnel system was his idea.'

Despite his impressive earth magic, it was a significant downgrade in power from the blood. He was in for a rude awakening if he hoped to go into a battle of attrition against me. When he raised walls of rock to block my shots, I maneuvered tentacles along the ground, camouflaged as rock, and fired at him from impossible angles, but as soon as he noticed the Bloodrot, he would rip the contaminated flesh from his body. I tried briefly to use paralysis or sleep poison on him, but with [Affliction Tracker], I saw the percentage of infection rapidly tick down before my very eyes.

'His regeneration is insane. If he refuses to give up, I need to overtax it with continual damage so he will either run out of mana or succumb to poison.'

I swapped to a mixture of Bloodrot and Paralysis, hoping it would counteract his regeneration. With hidden tendrils spread out across the field, I started rapidly firing at him from any direction. Unable to protect himself entirely with walls of earth, he chose to cover himself in a dome of earth, but that only trapped him in a confined space, and with a tendril invading inside by drilling through with acid, I could release my poison inside with [Vaporize Slime].

When the dome exploded violently, and I saw him in a coughing fit, I could only smile, especially since the paralysis was no longer rapidly ticking down. When his mana started to dim, for the first time ever, he didn't immediately replenish it. His face was twisted, the horror of his mistake dwelling on him.

He no longer tried to launch rocks at me, trying purely to deflect my hidden poisonous attacks from seemingly nowhere. He was frantically looking around, trying to find the source, but the tendrils were far too well-hidden thanks to a combination of [Vanish], [Morph Slime], and [Chroma Shift]. When one of his arms took a series of shots, he ripped it off again as per usual when the infection was too much, only this time - the arm was far too slowly regenerating. Seeing his situation, he collapsed to his knees.

"Stop toying with me... Just kill me already!" He demanded.

"Part of me really wants to. But Gramps, or maybe one of the others, has asked me to spare you."

"Why?"

"How should I know? Evolve again and ask your one. It's probably all part of this experiment."

"What am I supposed to do now?" He asked.

"How should I know? But if you continue attacking and capturing humans, expect adventurers to show up and exterminate you."

"I di-"

"Yes, you did! Maybe not directly, but you could have led these orcs, tried to change them, or at least not cooperated with them. You made this entire underground network for them to raid and pillage from. Don't act like your hands are clean."

"...I just wanted them to be safe."

"And they used this safety to attack civilians. You run into an adventurer who tries to kill you? Defend yourself. I don't care. But attacking noncombatants is another whole story."

"I won't attack civilians..." He muttered.

"Good. I suggest heading north and away from civilization. The adventurers will continue searching for orcs, and I will tell them about this underground network, just in case stragglers return."

"I under..." He started and then collapsed. His eyes were wide in confusion as his body refused to move.

"It looks like the paralysis finally took hold. I finally overcame your regeneration," I said, walking over to him. I could feel the fear in his unblinking eyes.

"Stop panicking. I already said I wasn't going to kill you, but I got civilians to get out of here. I will put you to sleep, and when you wake up, I'll be gone. I suggest you immediately leave before the adventurers come. Nothing will stop me if I see you or any orcs here again." I warned.

He tried grunting, but other than his erratic breathing, it was like he was dead. I closed his eyes and covered his mouth and nose with a slime mask emitting the sleep gas. There was evident reluctance from him trying to hold his breath, but he was helpless, and eventually, he was forced to breathe it in. I watched as it overcame his resistance, and eventually, he was unconscious. I covered him in some light dirt and walked away.

"Right... I'll look at that later... Along with all the other notifications I've been ignoring." I muttered to myself.

I looked at my state and sighed, equipping my leather outfit. I needed to, at some point, just buy a bunch of clothes to devour for backup outfits. I approached [Bubble] and, momentarily grateful that it held, dismissed it with a light pop. The humans inside were shocked at the sudden dismissal and stared at me with shock. The woman who got struck was still unconscious, but the other was holding the three children tightly. I withdrew one of the health potions I still had and handed it over to the lady.

"It's over. You're safe now..." I said, trying to sound reassuring.

The woman broke down into tears as she accepted the potion; she took a small sip herself before portioning it out to the children and then giving the remainder to the unconscious woman.

The two girls looked terrified, but the boy seemed to have overcome his fear and now had a spark of life in his eyes.

"The Dragon Knight has saved us!" He shouted proudly, smiling through his previously tear-stained face.

'Dragon, what now?'