Chapter 19: Slimes are Icky
The first glob of acid hissed past Levâs cheek and ate a smoking hole in the moss beside him.
He didnât think. His body dropped behind the low log heâd picked as cover, shield up and angled the way Caleb had drilled into his musclesâtilted, never square, so the blow would glance rather than land. A second spit struck the rim and sizzled, pitting the old metal with a burst of sour steam.
âZelemâleft!â Lev hissed.
The skeleton was already moving. Heâd launched when the first slime surged, a blur of pale bone and shadow across the leaf-strewn ground. Three slimes rolled toward them in a loose crescent, their bodies pulsing with sickly green light. They didnât roar. They didnât threaten. They just flowedâcold, unfeeling, inevitable.
The nearest swelled and snapped a rope of acid at Levâs face. His shield caught it with a hard thunk. The impact numbed his forearm.
Zelem vanished into the dark under the fallen trunk. Shadow Step. He rose from the gloom at the first slimeâs flank and cut. The blade slid through gelatin with a shiver and burst of pressure; the creature convulsed, membrane collapsing as its inner matrix lost cohesion. The smell hit an instant laterâvinegar and rot and something like bile.
The second slime spat. Lev ducked and scrambled, boots slipping on damp leaves as white smoke curled from the pitted shield face. He couldnât win a contest of endurance. His jobâRavâs words and Calebâs drills pounding through his ribsâwas simple. Donât die. Hold. Make space for the partner who could actually kill things.
âEyes open,â he muttered to himself, forcing his breath steady. âAngle it. Donât meet it flat.â
The third slime changed tactics. It surged, rolling fast enough to leave a faint track of burned leaves behind. It meant to engulf. Lev backed away, heart hammering, until his heel struck a root and he went down hard. Acid flashed in the airâ
Zelem appeared between Lev and the rolling mass like a shadow drawn upright, sword already mid-arc. Death Cut pulsed along the blade in a thin, dark sheenâthe kind of power that made Levâs magical senses prickle despite his very low talent. The skeleton struck once, clean across the bulging edge. The slimeâs forward half slumped, its backward momentum tearing the rest of it apart as if it had tripped over its own body.
The second slime spat again. Zelem twisted; the shot clipped his pauldron and spattered the ground. The leather on Levâs shield smoked and popped. Lev lunged up and shoved the shield into place as another glob came. The angle deflected it away.
âNow!â Lev barked.
Zelemâs dark eyes flared. He stepped into the shadow of Levâs shield and vanished, reappearing beneath the slime where the ground dipped. Three quick jabs upward. The slime collapsed and stilled. All three puddled into steaming jelly and shrank until only three small glowing cores remained.
Lev stood in the fading hiss and realized he was shaking. He eased his fingers off the straps and flexed life back into his hand. His forearm burned from the blows. The shield rim was chewed, the face pocked and blistered.
âWeâre okay,â he told himself, then Zelem, who always went still after a fight. âWeâre okay.â
He crouched and teased the cores free with a stick. Warm, marble-sized lights glowed in his palm.
He let out a long breath that steamed a moment in the cooler air beneath the trees. âAll right,â he said. âHarder than I thought.â He tried on optimism like a cloak that didnât fit yet. âBut better now that we know how they move.â
Zelem half-turned toward him, dark flames steady, and if a skull could look proud, his did. Levâs mouth quirked despite the acid stink.
âYou were good,â Lev said. âVery good.â He hesitated, then lifted power to his eyes again to check on his partner rather than the dead.
Skeleton Swordsman "Zelem"
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Rank: Uncommon
Race: Undead Warrior (Undead)
Attributes: Death, Shadow
Level: 8
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An ancient skeletal warrior in masterwork armor, gripping a sword with perfect form. Azure magical fire burns in its eye sockets, and shadows seem to writhe around its form even in the static image. Despite its unsettling appearance, this creature possesses extraordinary potential for growth and adaptation.
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Stats:
Strength: 15 + 1 = 16 Defense: 28 + 2 = 30
Agility: 57 + 2 = 59
Intelligence: 43 + 1 = 44 Wisdom: 20 + 0 = 20 Mana: 29 + 6 = 35
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Abilities:
Swordplay â Skill Rank S, Proficiency B: Master-level combat techniques with enhanced precision
Learning â Skill Rank S, Proficiency S: Can acquire new skills at unprecedented rates
Shadow Step â Skill Rank A, Proficiency B: Teleportation through shadows with improved range and fluidity
Death Cut â Skill Rank B, Proficiency B: Necrotic energy-infused blade attacks with enhanced potency, can project ranged crescent attacks
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Summon Potential: S
Legendary potential for development, showing remarkable growth through combat experience.
Skeleton Swordsman [https://files.catbox.moe/n4gvre.png]
Zelemâs agility had ticked up again, and his strikes were cleaner nowâless wasted movement, more intent.
âAll right,â Lev repeated, pocketing the three cores. âDifferent approach.â
He wiped the worst of the slime from his shield with a damp cloth and grimaced at the new scarring. His cloakâs edge had crisped to lace where a stray splash had landed; he tore the fringe free before it could tatter more and bound a loose strap back into place.
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They needed bait.
They circled back to the small clearing where Zelem had slain the fanged rabbit that morning. Carcasses drew slimes; they had learned that in the most unpleasant way possible. The squirrel that had fallen into the spiderâs web earlier had given Lev an ideaâgruesome, but effective. Zelem ranged ahead and returned with a freshly killed squirrel and a smaller groundbird, both gathered cleanly, no acid or spider silk involved this time. Lev swallowed, remembering the smell of green slimes on meat and set the corpses down in a shallow depression at the clearingâs edge.
Then they hid.
They crouched in a tangle of brush beneath a low tree, the resinous scent almost strong enough to suppress the forestâs sweeter rot. Lev adjusted his shield to cover the worst gaps in the branches in front of him and forced his breathing slow. The Whispering Woods lived up to its nameâsoft murmurings in the canopy, voices that sounded like caution and like lullabies and like nothing he could quite understand. Zelem knelt motionless beside him, sword low, whole body intent.
Time stretched. A moth passed Levâs nose and he nearly sneezed from the dust of its wings. Twice he lifted power to his eyes for the briefest check on passing movement, and twice he let it go before the ache behind his eyes sharpened; the last thing he needed was a Summonerâs Eye headache.
Waiting also helped. Zelem recovered mana best when motionless in shadow, as if the dark itself were a slow breath. Lev had asked him to be stingy with power todayâShadow Step for position, Death Cut only to finish.
An hour into the watch, the leaves across the clearing stirred. Not windâmotion. Five rounded shapes rolled from the shadows, two smaller, three the size of large dogs, all pulsing faintly with inner green. They flowed toward the bait in an unhurried line, frilling around twigs and stones and leaving faint pale burns behind.
Lev drew mana to his eyes and tasted copper at the back of his throat. The pane blossomed.
First slime: Acid Spit, Regeneration. No. Second: Acid Spit, Burrowâuncommon variant, interesting, but no. Third: Acid Spit, Flow Harmonizationâ
Lev nearly said it out loud. He caught himself and squeezed Zelemâs wrist instead, then pointedâtwo fingers short and low. Zelemâs eyes brightened in understanding.
âFinally,â Lev breathed so quietly he couldnât hear himself. âDonât lose it.â
They waited while the five converged, bodies folding over the offerings with obscene efficiency. There was no dignity in the way they ate, no savagery eitherâjust dissolution. The squirrel vanished first. The bird went more slowly; hollow bones left delicate white crescents that the slimes worried and chewed. Lev felt his stomach flip and set his teeth until it passed.
Slimes werenât pack creatures. Heâd read that, and the outline of it had shown itself earlier in the forestâthey gathered where food gathered, but their lives didnât braid past that. As soon as the bird bones went, the group frayed. Two split immediately, rolling opposite directions. One lingered to polish the damp earth. The targetâthe Flow Harmonization oneâpulsed twice and slid downslope along a faint game trail.
Lev tapped Zelemâs knuckles. They moved.
Zelem took point, darting from patch of shadow to patch of shadow. Lev followed at a distanceâout of spit range but close enough to help if needed. The slime rolled faster than he liked, but not fast enough to outrun an S-rank learner and a boy who now knew how to place his feet.
At a bend in the trail, the slope cut a shallow shelf under an oakâs roots. The slime rolled along the overhangâs shadow and slowed to test the soil with a probing pseudopod.
Lev made a chopping gesture. Now.
Zelem stepped through the oakâs shadow and appeared at the slimeâs far flank, blade already mid-swing. The first strike took the membrane low and clean, drawing the creatureâs mass away from the overhang. Lev came in three steps later, shield up to catch any reflex spit. The slime convulsed and shot, but the angle was hurried; the acid skittered over the shield face and chewed the ground to his right.
Zelem adjusted immediately. Two short jabs, a slip into root-shadow, a reappearance behind the slime to open its back. The creature slumped, glowed, and fell still, collapsing like the others. He kept to steel whenever he could. Death Cut was not necessary and too mana hungry.
Levâs breath came out in a rush. He waited three long seconds, then used his stick to flip the thin membrane aside. The core rolled into view.
He didnât move. Would a skill card show right away in the wild?
He swallowed and lifted mana to his eyes one last time.
No card.
Just the core. The Flow Harmonization heâd read in the living slimeâs pattern had died with it. Bad luck. Or maybe just the reality of this work.
Lev let himself sink back on his heels and laugh onceâno humor at all, just a tiny release of pressure that fogged the air in front of his lips. âOf course,â he said to nobody and to the forest and to the merchant who had called him greedy through a window. âOf course.â
He gathered the core and wiped it clean. Zelem stood nearby, outwardly patient, inner flame steady as a candle in a windless room.
âWe can do this,â Lev said, and found he did mean it. He could taste defeat when it was hopeless; this wasnât that. This was arithmetic. Effort over time. âItâs going to be long. I just hope it doesnât take too much.â
They paced themselves. Short fights, short rests in shade for Zelem to refill. If a group looked wrong, they let it pass.
They hunted until the light went gold and then thin. Twice more they drew slimes with small scraps. Twice more he found no cards. Twice more Zelem made it look almost easy now that they understood the angles and the distances and how to make the acid hiss against useless ground instead of flesh.
By evening, Levâs cloak smelled of smoke and vinegar. His shield straps were loose where the leather had softened, and his sleeves showed tiny crisp freckles where droplets had kissed them. He kept telling himself those were cheap lessons.
Night settled. The whispers changedâmore distant, like a crowd behind a door.
He chose a low hollow off the game trail and set to work. The motions soothed: scrape a shallow pit, ring it with stone, shave dry wood into curls, catch a spark, breathe until flame. The fire was smallâjust enough to dry his sleeves and push back the chill.
He ate by the glow: a heel of bread soaked in water, a slice of smoked meat, a handful of dried apple. Not Ravâs stew, but enough.
He cleaned Zelemâs armor with a damp cloth, rubbing away faint acid fog from a greave. The skeleton lowered an arm or turned a wrist at his touchâresponsive, patient. When the fire sank low, Zelem stood half-in, half-out of the shadows at the edge of camp and didnât move for ten full minutes. Lev had learned to leave him then; that was how the skeleton drew himself even againâstillness, shadow, and time.
Lev wasnât drained like a spellcaster would be. Most of his mana had gone into bringing Zelem out; keeping the bond and giving commands cost nothing. Summonerâs Eye tugged at him in a different wayâmore strain behind the eyes than true mana loss.
âIâm going to sleep,â Lev said when the fire had burned to a bed of coals. âYou watch?â It was a question only out of courtesy; they both knew the answer. Zelem dipped his chin in a warriorâs nod.
Lev unrolled his light sleeping bag and spread it on drier ground. He wedged his shield as a windbreak and set his boots within reach. Habit.
He lay on his back for a long time, watching sparks lift and die and listening to the forest breathe. The Whispering Woods did not fall silent; it settled. Somewhere far off, something screeched once with a note that raised all the hairs on his arms, then stopped. Closer, small paws patted leaf to leaf. The low current of voices threaded through it all, like water moving under ice.
His mind circled the dayâacid and angles, cores and absence, the flare in Zelemâs eyes when a command made sense. He thought of the merchantâs window words and Ravâs blessing and Calebâs flat, hard voice explaining that survival came first. He thought of the boy in the noble quarter heâd beaten in a ring and the rare construct he hadnât. He thought of Flow Harmonization as a simple little line of text and a sick boyâs fever and the hope on a womanâs face when sheâd pressed a fresh roll into his hands after his awakening and said his parents would be proud.
Fifty slimes, he told himself, and almost smiled. Surely not. But if it didâ
He breathed out, let the last ember glow dull red, and drew the sleeping bag up to his chin. Zelem stood at the edge of the circle of dim light, sword point resting on the ground, a silent sentinel with stars caught in the azure of his eyes.
Zelem didnât move. The woods whispered around them. The night held.