Of all the possible first-encounter monsters, it just had to be the most cliche one of all. Especially these slimes, which seem to be a copy of the slimes from a game I used to play back in my first life...One of the few things I remember from so long ago. It was kind of nostalgic, really. But nostalgia is inaction, and inaction will get me killed. And as tempting as it is to find out if that would be my final death, I would rather not risk suicide in any fashion...not after the first, and last, time.

More distractions, need to focus.

First thing I need to do is figure out what type of slimes these are. I have encountered a variety of them over the years (I’m sticking with years since it is the easiest to talk about, every other unit of time just feels...weird), and have boiled them down to basically two types: slimes that have no core and slimes that do.

Core-less slimes are essentially bubbles of gooey terror that have high mobility and a selective diet. By that I mean that the magical membrane that holds the slime in shape permeates at will to allow food to enter and be dissolved. When the membranes are non permeable, they retain a balloon like surface tension, giving the creature the ability to bounce off of the ground or other surfaces. The best way to take this sort of slime down is to use magic to damage the membrane enough that it cannot regenerate, allowing the insides to dissipate as they make contact with the air. Physical weapons can work, in the right circumstances, but you are highly likely to be eaten before you can finish those preparations. Particularly since those bouncy membranes make a slime unpredictably fast.

Slimes with cores, on the other hand, have their own share of troubles. These have a core of varying material that float around inside their bodies. The cores generally stay close to center mass, since that is the most efficient way for its magical influence to spread across the whole body, allowing it to retain its shape. Core slimes have no membrane, and pretty much dissolve anything that gets caught up inside of it for too long. Organic matter gets broken down especially fast, but non-organic stuff can be eaten too, over time. Once again, magic is the most effective way of dealing with this kind of slime, but in a different way. Rather than bursting a membrane, you need to blast away as much of the slime as possible to expose the core, or use a pinpoint attack to knock the core directly out of the body (which is much harder to accomplish).

Sadly, core slimes have their own break down as well, as either mucous-producers or mucous-binders. Producers are the cores that magically create their own mucous bodies over time, so, if left alone, a core removed from such a slime will just naturally re-create its own body. That means the core itself needs to be destroyed for the slime to die. Binders are cores that simply hold magical influence over a body of mucous, so simply removing them from the body will be enough to ‘kill’ the slime.

Now, how to tell which one is which? The difference between a core slime and core-less slime is fairly easy to spot; mucous-binders and mucous-providers are far more difficult to differentiate. General rule of thumb, if you see a core, just smash it. No need to figure out which is which.

Another general rule, if the body jumps and bounces, then it’s a coreless slime. If it never leaves the ground, then it has a core.

Well, there are the rare core slimes that have bouncy membranes, which are exceptionally difficult to deal with if you don’t know what you’re doing, but the chances that I would run into those at this point are so abysmal that…

….

OH YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!

These bouncing, jiggling, bright blue balls of death (no pun intended, you pervert) are core-membrane slimes! Okay, I’m pretty sure that’s not what they are officially called in this world, but I’m using my own naming system until I learn otherwise!

How can I tell? For one, I just saw one of them bounce off of an earthen wall similar to what I was surrounded by, and for another, it conveniently happened to be not currently digesting anything, which let me clearly see the black spot in its center.

It seemed like this slime was the only one not to find a meal, by the way, which is why I focussed on it so intently. Not just to determine what exactly I’m dealing with, but also to avoid staring at the dozens of humanoid figures being slowly dissolved in the rest of the horde.

Yeah, I’m not fighting these things any time soon.

No, not because I am scared, I’ve been through and seen far too much to be frightened by these creatures. It’s just that, no matter how accustomed you get to death, seeing someone’s body getting slowly stripped away, skin dissolving, meaty insides exposed, what’s left of their faces showing abject terror...well, I prefer not to look too closely at that if I can help it. Besides, it’s an absolute pain to fight a slime while it is eating someone. Burst that membrane, pop that core, and all of a sudden you get mucous and human remains flooding all over you. Truly unpleasant. Even if they remain mostly stationary during digestion, making them very easy marks, I always prefer to fight them while they are ‘empty’.

Which makes the solitary slime I am observing a perfect target.

As I said before, this type of slime is extra tricky to deal with. Not only will I have to somehow disrupt the core, I have to find a way to even reach it in the first place through that selective membrane. Right now, I have no magic skills, and I don’t expect to suddenly learn one and become proficient fast enough to be combat ready before the rest of the slimes finish their meals. With magic not an option, I have no choice but to rely on physical weapons and my own strength...which has yet to be determined by the system. Crap.

Plus, there is a larger issue that I have yet to address…

As annoying as slimes are, in terms of fighting them, they are relatively easy to defeat if you are prepared. I mean, maybe they are super strong in this world, but typically they are only dangerous when they either gain intelligence or have the element of surprise on their side. Seeing that there are dozens of...former villagers here, and some of them - okay, I had to take a closer look to determine this, ugh - appear to have been healthy adults, I could only conclude that this village was taken entirely by surprise. Hence the screaming I heard earlier, as the shock and trauma of being eaten alive would cause mostly anyone to panic.

Therefore, one of two things must be the case. Either these slimes are an intelligent group that planned out an assault on this seemingly out of the way residence...or, more likely, another entity has directed the horde here or is currently actively controlling it. In which case, they would be looking to make sure there are no survivors.

Basically, I just woke up in a new body and already I will have to fight for my life against a horde of difficult to kill slime monsters that may or may not be controlled by an intelligent entity that would not welcome my escape, with no current weapons or skills.

...Great.