“Yui, please have the financial quarterly reports printed and 12 copies made. Forward the emails to those attending and check with Ken to make sure he prepared the slide. We’ll need them by 11:45 for the conference. After you’re done, schedule my lunch meeting with All-Star’s CFO for 1:00.”

“Yes, Director.”

A woman in her 30s nodded seriously at an older gentleman who wore a fine, gray suit. His salt and pepper hair was slicked back and his glasses perfectly straight on his bushy brow.

The woman who'd responded had turned away, lightly bowing before heading towards her workstation to prepare the requested documents. Her stride was brisk, and her attire was as immaculate as her motions were fluid.

It was a bit unfortunate though. One would typically assume in such a quiet office environment most people would understand how sound is carried. Or perhaps they understood, but simply didn’t care. They’d made only a vague attempt at quiet. Yes, 'unfortunate'.

“So do you think she’s sleeping with the Director yet?”

A giggle, “No way. She still hasn’t gotten a promotion. Must be holding out for a better deal, yeah?”

“You think? Well, the Director is only twice her age now. Maybe she was waiting for the gap to narrow.”

There was a small chorus of laughs between two of the cubicles several stalls away.

The middle-aged woman turned toward her two juniors with a stern face and raised a well-defined eyebrow. She'd heard them obviously. Those two were clueless, truly.

“Sara, Jade. If you’ve time to gossip about people’s personal matters, I’m sure you have time to complete the morning calls that were assigned two hours ago, yes?”

The two gossipers’ faces turned ashen, their smiles instantly dropping as they stood at attention.

“Yes, ma’am.” “Right away.”

The duo returned towards their seats, one of them muttering an expletive towards the older woman.

The woman named Yui returned her mind towards work, sitting down at her desktop. With a quiet whine, her PC turned on. A tense breath escaped her lips, muffled completely by the ambient noise.

She tapped a pen impatiently, trying to finish pushing her frustrations from her mind. By the time her PC was booted, she'd be able to re-enter 'work mode'.

There was something strange, however. The normally calming monitor wallpaper did not appear. Instead, it was still a black screen. It almost looked fuzzy.

She rubbed her eyes, thinking they were just unfocused. Her brow furrowed. The fuzziness persisted, so she went to lightly touch the monitor when the screen changed. Text had formed instead of a loading screen.

“Y O U ‘ R E - D R E A M I N G . W A K E - U P !”

Spiders poured out of the monitor. Thousands of legs filled the office, and there was a shrill screaming noise when—

I awoke in a panic.

I quickly surveyed my surroundings, looking for the monitor.

No, no that’s not right. Or rather, I really was dreaming.

Ahh, how unpleasant.

There was no bed. No pillows or office workstation or coffee or, or … anything.

A cave. I was still here. Still in this cave.

What an acrid feeling. That dream again, but with spiders this time. Heh, and here I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Was that going to persist for future re-enactments? To think it annoyed me before. My therapist would get a kick out of that one.

Fuck.

I decided to check my Status.

Status Menu Name : n/a Race : Tiny Slime Level : 8 HP : 18/18 (32) (+1.1/hour) Stamina : 2/13 (24) MP : 7/7 (12) (+0.23/hour) Strength : 8 Vitality : 12 Intelligence : 6 Wisdom : 5 Dexterity : 7 Luck : 30 Status : Severe Weakness (Effective Status Reduced by 45%)

Damn it. I was so hungry.

I tried to move around, gauging my body’s condition. I still felt horrible, but it was more a dull and throbbing pain than a soul-rending one.

This was a marked improvement. What concerned me was my Stamina was very low despite resting.

I seem to have regained a little body mass. If I had something like caloric stores, I’m assuming my body ate through most of them to regenerate some of the mass I’d been forced to sever. I'd briefly worried I wouldn't be able to recover it at all, but it would appear I was wrong. What a relief.

There were no noises around me. I slowly peeked out from my appropriated crevice, through the spider web towards the corpse of my fallen adversary.

That damn spider was still there, and still very dead.

And a dead spider meant a meal for me.

A tendril shot out towards its corpse as I slowly dragged it back behind the web. I’d turned its home into a temporary shelter. I’d use every single thing and advantage I could to survive, even my enemy’s tools.

“Pffftth. Bllpp.”

Did you think you were smart, ambushing me like that? You almost killed me, you know. So I’m sure you have no problems with me eating you. Isn’t that right, my dear?

Mm. I've decided. I really, really hate spiders.

Devouring such a large spider took me several minutes. Its legs quickly melted down to goop, which turned back into whatever the hell I was now made of. I could feel my strength returning. The sense of wrongness was disappearing.

There was no nausea during this feast. If anything, the uneasiness of consuming a bunch of bugs was replaced by empowerment. I’d won.

Its abdomen and thorax took longer, but they too were finished off with a satisfying crunch!

Almost unsurprisingly, that familiar light popped up.

Skill unlocked! Skill increased!

Necrotic Venom Lvl.1 Acquired! Merging with Multi-Venom successful!

Devour Lvl.1 → Lvl.2

Multi-Venom Lvl.2 → Lvl.3

'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the Spider to the Slime.

Ah, I'm an idiot. Really. My way of thinking was too optimistic.

There were things I didn't know. Things that I wouldn't be able to know until it was perhaps too late. I'd run into a conundrum.

If I assumed everything was able to easily kill me, I'd hide and never be able to make progress. But if I didn't prepare thoroughly, I risked what had just happened. This time, it was largely due to the limited options I had available to me. In the future, I needed to do what the professionals dubbed as 'cover my ass' as much as possible. I wonder if this is how an investment banker feels at times?

At least there was an upside. I'd discovered a method to avoiding some potentially fatal attacks. Like a lizard discarding its tail to survive, I could split a piece of myself off to act as bait. Or in the case of an infection, cut it out.

I needed to work on this. I couldn't execute it during the fight as it took too much time and concentration. Plus it hurt like I'd stubbed my toe on the ninth layer of Hell.

No, this wouldn't do. I needed to get used to pain and this new body. A lapse in judgment would throw the most detailed of plans asunder. If I froze up during an attack I may be good as dead.

And then I'd just become someone's footnote.

There was still a notification from before I'd passed out in my 'backlog'. I'd ignored it at the time due to urgency. Now that I'd calmed down I brought my attention to it.

Skill unlocked!

Toxin Resistance Lvl.1 Acquired! Title Acquired! - Deathwarded

Given to those who have survived certain death through ingenuity and pure happenstance when all odds were against them. "Maybe next time!"

Wisdom +5, Luck +5 when chosen as primary Title.

... Maybe next time, indeed.

After some mental gymnastics and shouting phrases into nothingness, I finally managed to 'choose' this Deathwarded thing as my primary Title. I'd received a nice little bonus in some ever-convenient parentheses next to both Wisdom and Luck.

As much as I might grumble, after nearly losing my life I was starting to feel a little blessed. My earlier comments on my Luck stat could be considered rescinded.

Still, if there is a God responsible for me coming to this world I wish it had given me a bit more than a 'Good luck, have fun!'.

I snuck back to my base, snatching a few small bugs along the way and turning their protein into body mass. There was some moss on the walls I considered trying to dine on as well but figured I'd save that experiment for another time.

Whether luck or fate, I managed to make my way back without incident. The first thing I did upon returning was scan the entire room for any visitors who'd made their way back while I was unconscious. While I doubted anything threatening could squeeze into here, it would be foolish to ignore the possibility. In the future, it'd be wise to look for a way to seal off my base or set some sort of alarm for intruders.

My 'Status Reduction' had recovered to 23 percent and downgraded from 'Severe Weakness' to simply 'Weakness'. I estimated my size as 7 or 8 inches in diameter. It would seem the worst had passed. One thing I had noticed recently was my vision radius seemed to be enlarging. I've no idea what governs that, but I imagined it was either Intelligence or Wisdom? Hard to say how this bizarre reality operates.

I decided to relax in my pond, soaking up the enriched waters as much as I was able. The instant I touched them, a cooling sensation had poured into my squishy body. If nothing else, I was glad for this pool of water. As someone who highly valued cleanliness previously, not having the ability to wash or shower would surely wear on me.

Whether I needed to clean myself was beside the point. It was a psychological thing. At least I was aware of this personality quirk of mine.

Rather than rush back out and begin hunting again, I decided to wait longer and see if I could recover using these waters. The 'Weakness' effect was slowly dropping off and I could feel my physical condition improving. I decided to practice reshaping my body and the accuracy of my Slime Bullet Skill.

While it was dull, I was perfectly fine with such a way of passing time. The Weakness had disappeared after what I'd guessed was a day, but I spent roughly 2 days relaxing and reflecting on my situation. Whenever I'd run low on MP, I'd go into a Meditative state while working on my body control.

My 'numbers' may not have improved, but I felt more confident should I encounter any dangers. Between adapting physically and making mental preparations, I was sure my reactions would be much swifter and sounder in judgment.

After that, I'd made my way back out into the Cave, keeping my senses peeled for both things I could see and things I couldn't. That Small Cave Huntsman had taught me a lesson I wouldn't forget. While I was hoping there wouldn't be an abundance of those things lying in wait, I wouldn't be caught completely unaware a second time. I knew of the telltale 'void' it could leave behind.

Which was suspicious, because after it had croaked I could see the thing just fine. An ability? I mused.

I repeated my patrols for another two days, finding more than a few centipedes and another two spiders. I didn't dare go towards the bats yet, but had been slowly working on something should they swarm me.

—A deadly toxin based defense.

I'd tested it on the centipedes I'd encountered since they were most numerous. While the Paralytic based venom wasn't very effective on them, the Toxic strain was. They'd visibly slowed after I'd formed a makeshift set of fangs and injected it into them. If I waited long enough, they would even keel over.

What really surprised me was how effective the Necrotic strain was when used on them.

Violent spasms, quickly proceded by death within minutes. Even if I wasn't able to inject it into their body segments, simply splashing them with a drop caused gradual corrosion to their exoskeleton.

It was tiring and Stamina intensive, but should the need arise I could synthesize a thin layer of Necrotic based toxin on my 'skin'. It was akin to sweating out super-fine droplets of the stuff. It was a wonder that any toxin I made didn't poison myself, but I lacked the tools to hypothesize exactly why that was the case. As unsatisfying as it was, I wrote it off as 'magic' for now. Science could wait till another day.

Regardless, I hoped this would be a good deterrent should anything attempt to take a bite out of myself. I was also working on a 'spike' type of defense but found that I couldn't form my body sharply enough for it to do any real damage upon contact. There were improvements of course, but nothing usable at this time.

While hunting for 'prey' I'd devoured several Centipede and triggered a bonus from my Devour skill, along with another level up.

Attribute increase!

Dexterity - 7 → 8

Level up!

Tiny Slime Lvl.8 → Lvl.9

Vitality - 12 → 13

Intelligence - 6 → 7

Wisdom - 5 → 6 Status Menu Name : n/a , Deathwarded Race : Tiny Slime Level : 9 HP : 34/34 (+2.1/hour) Stamina : 26/26 MP : 14/14 (+0.48/hour) Strength : 8 Vitality : 13 Intelligence : 7 Wisdom : 6 (+5) Dexterity : 8 Luck : 30 (+5)

A sense of relaxation filled my body as the dull warmth from these acquisitions filled my being. I quickly chastised myself for letting my guard down. Complacency was perhaps an enemy more dangerous than even that Huntsman. Stay focused.

I was still leery of exiting this cave, as much as I wanted to get out of here. My little base provided me a sense of comfort that was hard to ignore. When compared to the unknown of this cave system, I was having doubts of leaving. I didn't feel prepared.

Something told me the further I wandered outwards, the higher risk I'd sustain. I continued my daily hunts. Passing time idly, this went on for a few more days.

It was remarkable how even in such a relatively small area there always seemed to be some form of life. I'd noticed the humidity in this cave before, but I was beginning to wonder if it were something more sorcerous in nature. The air itself almost seemed to be breathing life into the ecosystem.

Despite being anything but, currently, my human nature cried out for me to study some of the 'wildlife' here. I speculated they were growing at an abnormal rate, but it was hard for obvious reasons to simply capture a Cave Centipede and keep it as a pet while measuring its growth.

There was little to do besides that though. I would simply continue slaughtering every bug I'd encountered.

With my slowly improving senses, it was usually easier than not to get the jump on a bunch of arthropods. After blasting a small hole into another spider's head one day, a familiar notification popped up.

Skill unlocked! Skill increased!

Sneak Attack Lvl.1 → Lvl.2

I hadn't received any such notifications for two days, so this was most welcome. I was beginning to worry that I wouldn't see any improvements for a long time.

Truthfully, my days were incredibly boring. I'd kept on high alert the entire time, but it was significantly more mentally exhausting than physically.

These Centipedes and Spiders stood little chance against my current self, and I hadn't had the displeasure of finding another Huntsman. I was beginning to wonder if it was the anomaly in this cave. The 'alpha predator' so to speak. There was no way of knowing.

Whenever I took a reprieve back into my base, I'd reflect on my current situation.

I really wondered, just what the hell happened to me? I was obviously in a foreign place and not waking up anytime soon. Did I die? Was my body still laying blissfully unaware in my bed?

It was almost a bit vindicating to think that I'd passed away. How would my company react?

I suppose they'd train up a new hiree, but I'm certain the blow would be quite noticeable. The office would likely be chaotic for a week or so until measures were put in place. There'd be a few that would be glad the 'stuck up cunt' was gone. The more I stewed on the thoughts, the more I realized how bitter I was and how happy the idea they'd falter made me.

4 years without a promotion. 4 years spent silently repeating all the same duties to my utmost in hopes of 'something changing'. 4 years as I watched a few of my male peers climb up while I remained stationary.

While I didn't want to cry sexism, I knew the president's personality. He was ... old-fashioned.

Something about that made me want to prove him wrong. Break his pre-conceptions about a woman's ability in the workplace. Still, it wasn't easy considering their hiring process. Most of the women there were younger ones out of high-school, doing mundane tasks. The turnover was high for those jobs. They weren't putting a good light on my whole 'women are capable too' effort.

Though I couldn't blame the girls who worked there. Given the expectations and treatment, I understood why they left.

I should've just went to another company that was more progressive. My resume looked good enough for it and I'd even had some offers over the years. But I suppose my nature was a bit too stubborn. Running away would be losing. I wasn't hurting for income either, so I stayed. It was easy to make that choice.

Perhaps I was a fool. I'd wasted a lot of time. Certifications, getting my BBA, off-site training. It'd piled up over the years.

Still, it was a comforting thought that the normally unflustered president would be inconvenienced should I disappear. I wonder, would my death bring a frown upon your face, Sir? Hmhmhmm.

Yet it was also a bit sad that that was something I reveled in. There wasn't much I'd miss, other than modern day conveniences. Especially books and shows. And a few people, perhaps. ... Only a little, though. A shame I didn't have time to get my affairs in order. Or take a nice vacation.

Hnn, still. How depressing. I doubted I'd ever know the conclusion of my favorite shows and series. Ahh! Damn it, now that's going to bother me! God really is a twisted individual, able to inflict such an elegant and mundane torture. Hahaha.

Ah, well. That's how it is I suppose.

...

While I was idly soaking at the bottom of my little lake with all manner of thoughts rumbling through my head, something quite unexpected happened.

Level up!

Tiny Slime Lvl.9 → Lvl.10

Strength - 8 → 9

Vitality - 13 → 15

Intelligence - 7 → 8

Wisdom - 6 → 7

Dexterity - 8 → 9 Evolution Available!

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