“The line between bravery and stupidity is a thin one. More than once, I have heard that promising recruits overestimated themselves or underestimated the cunning of a wild monster. I shiver when I think about their fates, and what Valkas as a whole has lost with their deaths. Do not add yourselves to this list.

This is an order!”

-Sergeant Dalen, training scouts.

Arthur pov

I can do this, I can do this, I can do this!Arthur kept repeating himself. Being in complete control of his mass did wonders to fake out body language, but his metaphorical heart was stuck in his equally metaphorical throat. He prayed that those witches or Hags had left the kidnapped people behind and ran away.

Unfortunately, as a slime, the tactic of strategically positioning oneself to wait out prey was intimately familiar to him. Is an ambush likely? Or am I just paranoid?

Now at the doors of the city, Arthur sent sneaky glances at his fellow explorers. They called themselves Scouts, but he didn’t see the difference. They were all out to explore stuff, right?

“Have you gotten your maps?” A Paladin asked.

Arthur made the delicate paper emerge from his left arm. Space, as Mother had put it, was ‘very cool’ and even more so if it was infused in your body.

The map itself highlighted a seemingly not-too-distant cavern. Arthur didn’t know how to read yet, but this was clear enough even to his untrained eyes.

The other four people glanced at him, before taking out theirs.

“Good. For our new helper, that cavern is called ‘Luminous Delight’. It’s a place where herbs and fungi have been carefully bred for decades to produce a Light-attuned version of themselves." His eye twitched. "The fact that witches are using it… Anyway, they won't for much longer. The main entrance is guarded by a bunch of monsters, so we need to find other entrances."

Everyone nodded at that.

Arthur tilted his head, moving his face to make a frown. "But why avoid the fight?”

The Paladin shook his head. “They’ll disperse once their masters die. We don’t need to fight them and waste our resources.”

But Mother said that fighting is good for you…?Arthur glanced at his resources. [Explorer of the Empress] boosted his regenerations and stats depending on how far he was from Mother, and [Omni-slime kin] granted him bonuses for each monster slain or eaten… among other things that Dan had made him promise to not use in front of others. Do they not have something like this? He thought, ultimately deciding to keep his mouth shut. The group had stressed a lot the importance of secrecy, both for their safety and Mother’s.

“Should we separate, then?” Another asked. “We’ll cover much more ground.”

Most of the scouts nodded, with only one frowning. “Won’t we be easy picks? We don’t know if we’re dealing with Hags.”

“But we’ll waste days running around! Think about the kidnapped people!”

That pretty much killed the objection, much to Arthur’s confusion. Isn’t wise to think of every possible option before making a move?

They discussed various possible routes. Arthur, not understanding one bit, silently slid away, unnoticed.

He had already decided his path, after all, and it was true that time was not on his side.

The slimy Explorer swiftly dashed through the grassy plains of Valkas. Dan had told him that grass was supposed to be short and green, but the one surrounding him tended to be more yellowy and long with a few lonely trees just starting to sprout some greenish leaves.

And, of course, monsters assaulted him from every angle.

A formless Arthur nimbly teleported around, defeating his enemies with a single stab in their heads. Mother’s treasure had multiplied his offensive power by tenfold or so.

[Explorer’s zippiness] was pretty strong for a Tier 1 skill, allowing Arthur to teleport a few times in a row. It wasn’t cheap, but paired with Arthur’s bonuses to regenerations? The cost was almost negligible as long as he had targets to slay.

And eat.

Once the last creature fell down, Arthur returned in a humanoid form. His control was pretty good, but the young slime used a moment or two longer than necessary to count the number of his fingers and adjust the position of his eyes. He had been a formless blob for 341 years, after all, or so the system said.

The last remnants of blood sizzled away, reminding him about the acidity he had given up when he had evolved. I wonder if I can re-buy some acid things… I should be able to, right? He pondered, frowning at his sheet. Almost no points…

He shook his head. “No time to waste! It’s time to give glory to Mother’s name!” He shouted bravely, dashing ahead. Arthur could barely make out the start of a woodland from where he was standing, but sure as… Dan said that sunrise was a sure thing, he would prevail on Her enemies!

Arthur entered the woods. He hadn’t noticed other Paladins so far. Are they still discussing it? Mother's and her team's plans are easy and quick…

Monsters hadn’t attacked him in a while, and they had yet to use the impressive cover granted by these strange-looking living rocks called trees to ambush him. He felt their hungry gazes on his mass, but, for some reason, they were not attacking first.

His new mates had told him to never start an offensive unless violence was inevitable.

Luminous plants and mushrooms filled Arthur’s sphere of perception with wonder, their splendor magnified by the woods’ permanent gloom. Some of those were living creatures, tempting him with sweet or acrid smells. Others had beautiful petals hiding sharp and pointy thorns. Very few of them emanated an aura of purity, letting the surrounding vegetation grow taller and healthier with just their presence.

Arthur checked his map, thinking that the large gaping hole in the ground was indeed looking like the target. A few sharp rocks decorated the entrance, but he grew slightly more apprehensive at the large pack of elemental wolves that were growling and snarling at him.

He calmly made his rapier sprout from his right arm. I already leveled a bunch today. I wonder when I’ll reach Tier 2…

The pack parted in two sides, letting open a path for him to take.

“Come in, child…” A raspy voice said from the cavern.

Arthur shivered. Yet, an Explorer’s duty was filled with danger, and so he walked the path. Idly, he noticed how much the cavern’s entrance resembled the jaws of a monster. Weird.

As the scout had said, the inside of the cavern was filled with even more luminescent vegetation than the outside. Some of the fungi were bigger than the giant bears that Arthur had slain just outside of the city.

Rapier in hand, Arthur kept his senses sharp. While his sensory sphere was nearly perfect, its radius was less than twenty meters in all directions, so he had to resort to his natural senses all the same.

Even his subpar hearing let him hear the whimpers echoing around him, hidden between the water dripping from the ceiling.

Human whimpers.

Arthur clenched his rapier, rapidly compressing and decompressing his mass to ready himself for the fight. He decided to imitate Mother, letting his enemies have a single chance to surrender. And if they refused…

Arthur arrived in an ample cavern illuminated by the aquamarine lights of the fungi. Chained at the wall thank to thick vines, six people cried. Despite his lacking of humanoid anatomy, Arthur easily noticed how thin they were and that a normal human wasn't supposed to look like that.

A smirking figure stirred various cauldrons filled with liquid of every color. Another painted a sickly green symbol upon a human.

A pulse filled with magic later, the man screamed at the top of his lungs as fur rapidly grew on his skin. A bunch of horrible cracks reached Arthur’s horrified self, then the prisoner fell to the ground.

He had transformed into a wolf covered in fur-like bark. The wolf stared at the woman, who petted him. “This one has turned out great!” She cackled.

“I told you that I needed those points! AH!” The stirring one replied with a sound mixed between a snarl and a snort.

The cloaked women were two-meter-tall each, their spines curved like a broken tree. Large ears decorated their heads, and their legs were those of a canine instead of a mortal. One of them had a black-furred tail, while the other sported a deformed clawed hand.

The former glanced at him, yellow eyes glittering under her hood. “Lyla’s gift has arrived, Bertha.” She said in a singsong voice.

The other Hag snickered, the sound resembling more of a growl. She briefly turned on him, exposing her wolven jaw with teeth bared in a grin. “How delightful, Ana!”

Wait, isn’t Lyla… he shook his head. She definitely didn’t look like these two. It must’ve been an identical name.

Arthur put up the best threatening face, mustering all the anger rising within him. “Give those people back and go away, and I won’t raise my hand against you!” He shouted. His voice boomed in the room, having the more… feral Hag wincing for a moment.

*Torment/Wood/Flow-Hag Alchemist Lvl 149 (Coven)

Torment/Passion/Blood-Hag savage Lvl 187 (Coven)

Wood/Curse-Horror hunter Lvl 49 *

Will they listen? His gut didn’t think so.

The two women cackled madly.

Arthur sighed. Dorel had told him that this was the usual reply, but Mother insisted that it was always worth a try.

“Come here, child, rest near the fire…” The tailed Hag suggested him in a soothing voice.

Arthur was hit by a wave of power, but nothing happened.

“Tch, he’s no child at all!”

The brutal Hag looked outraged. “What?! Deception!” Her deformed hand enlarged twofold. “I shall rip you to shreds, deceiver!” She snarled, bouncing against Arthur.

The Explorer, slightly confused, teleported left and the Hag harmlessly crashed against the cavern’s walls. This is ‘No more talking time’, right? He pondered. When the feral Hag extracted herself from the wall, he decided that, yes, this was the ‘No more talking time’ alright.

Arthur loosed his control over his features, freeing up some thinking space for fighting. He slipped through the space, reappearing right behind the Hag called Bertha

With a fluid motion, he skewered her head until the rapier's tip came out of her forehead.

Still, the Hag didn’t stop. She turned to face him, roaring and pouncing on Arthur.

The young Explored, taken by surprise, let his grip falter. Just before the half-monster took a piece from him, he teleported yet again and retrieved his weapon. Black blood sprouted like a fountain.

The Savage Hag kept up her relentless assault, the Horror hunter providing her flanking.

Arthur’s sphere noticed the sneak attack, so he sent a spear-like tentacle made of his mass directly in between the animal’s head. After it died, the tentacle dragged the corpse inside Arthur for consumption.

He worriedly glanced at his mana, deciding to try and dodge the mundane way. This was one of the few fights where he couldn't just replenish his reserves with ease.

His first try resulted in him getting slashed just above his stomach. Drops of gelatinous slime splattered everywhere, and he watched in horror as the feral Hag licked her fingers.

She spat out a moment later. “Disgusting!”

No blood for you! Arthur thought with a smirk.

A smirk soon wiped out a moment later, when a glowing rune started glowing from below him.

“Got you!” Shouted Ana with a loud cackle.

Arthur quickly teleported away from the anticipating claws of the feral Hag and the conjured spikes of wood, feeling the air move a hair’s breadth from his front.

He tried to take a moment to concoct a strategy, but the duo was unrelenting.

The spellcaster had drank from the cauldron, and wooden spikes emerged from the ground in rapid succession trying to skewer him. At the same time, runes kept lighting up most of the time that he stopped to deal a decisive strike.

The slime assessed the situation, finding his chances to make it lowering every moment. Dan had told him to survive, and he had no intention to disappoint.

Arthur waited for Bertha to pounce on him, then teleported to the entrance, starting to dash away with a remorseful glance toward the people chained on the wall.

Just as the Hags’ cackles reached his perception, Arthur was pounced on by a few Shadow-wolves.

Surprised, yet quicker than mere low-level beasts, he answered their charge by losing his humanoid form. The formless slime bloated, welcoming the monsters in its embrace. Once the wolves had been trapped, Arthur crushed them with [Slime body] pushed to its very limits and aided by [Spacial manipulation].

The monsters’ corpses were quickly sent to its internal storage for consumption. As they rapidly decayed, relief washed over Arthur and his resources rapidly ticked upwards.

Perhaps I can stay? He wondered. Mother didn’t reach her power by remaining safe. Arthur nodded to himself. I can do this!

The Explorer blinked in the room yet again, slamming his tentacle-shaped mass against the feral Hag’s face.

She recoiled, then returned the favor by swiping with both her hands, claws drawing five pairs of xs in the air.

Arthur condensed his mass in the middle of the attack, avoiding the deadly hit, then he propelled the rapier into her stomach. He teleported twice, jumping in the spellcaster’s face.

He bounced back, repelled by an invisible barrier that flickered green for a moment. Annoyed, Arthur crawled onto the floor. Trying to teleport inside the spell yielded no effects.

His distraction cost him dearly.

The feral Hag stomped on him, splattering his mass everywhere. With a cruel smirk, she kicked the center of his mass, making him fly and crash against the barrier.

Numb in most of his remaining mass, Arthur teleported in rapid succession. The corpses inside him had already been depleted, while his Explorer’s skills did their best to keep him alive and thriving.

He drunkenly slammed against a wall, finding himself close to some fungi. Better than nothing. Arthur wrapped himself around the magical thing, quickly consuming it to nothing.

Slimes preferred a meat-based diet, and he was no exception, but fortunately for him, the meal was magical and able to restore a small part of his lost mass.

He teleported again to the next largest fungus, consuming it all the same. He did it again and again, the process taking barely more than a second each. While Arthur’s mana was constantly dipping down, the little slime shivered at the number that his health had shown him after that kick.

He had been in over his head. Twice.

An excited howl echoed in the cavern, so potent that pebbles dropped from the ceiling.

From the other side, a multitude of howls answered and many more steps followed. Judging by the vibrations, there had to be dozens of wolves or more.

Arthur cursed, loudly.

He threw himself ahead, meeting the first wolf of the pack, a horse-sized Ice-wolf that froze the ground it walked upon. Arthur shot the rapier like a javelin, instantly piercing the animal’s left eye.

And then he burrowed into the hole he created, devouring the corpse from inside out.

The larger slime manipulated his body to grow in size, then repeated the process on the next Earth wolf, the next, and the next…

Stuffing himself full and beyond, Arthur reacquired his original mass, then [Slime kin]’s bonuses started to pile up. For every corpse, he grew larger and stronger, up until he became a formless purple blob that occupied the entirety of the tunnel, whose tentacles grabbed terrified and powerless bests to be consumed.

Drunk from the feast, Arthur’s perception detected the feral Hag rapidly approaching behind him way too late for him to react. Shit! I forgot about her! Forgetting about the enemy… unforgivable!

Arthur tried to reduce his size, but Bertha was already upon him. She tore into him, excavating a tunnel across his whole length. “Vomit my little ones back, you abomination!” She shouted while going back in the middle.

Of course, there was already nothing to find except empty space.

He gurgled a scream, then formed a forest of tentacles inside the ‘tunnel’, assaulting the Hag from every angle.

She growled, ignoring some of the hits to hack with brutal yet quick strikes.

Arthur abandoned all the [Overmass], then teleported away after commanding it to crush the Hag.

He ignored the muffled complaints of the woman, making his way through the rest of the pack and snatching the weakest ones to recover.

He found himself outside of the cavern and teleported on the ceiling to rest atop the entrance. Arthur condensed his mass as much as possible, then stood perfectly still as only breathless creatures could.

Tensing up, he heard the heavy steps of the Hag making the stone tremble. The moment that she entered his sphere of perception, he stiffened even more.

He saw her stopping, sniffing the air. She grunted, then advanced in long jumps ahead. The few surviving members of the pack followed her, howling their rage and bloodlust.

Arthur melted in relief. That was way too close! He thought, finishing consuming his prey. He invested his newly gained stat points into vitality, resilience, and dexterity. While the changes flowed inside him, Arthur also considered his next moves.

I can’t go that way. He mused, looking at where the Hag left a trail of demolished trees and broken ground. He moved his perception to the cave inside. She’s alone… can I take her? She was the lower level between the two, by a good margin too, and he had been fast enough to avoid her spells.

Still…

Mother and Dan had ordered him to not die, and this was a Stupid risk. And he had been lucky twice already.

Arthur became a snake-like creature, then slithered away.

He had a long way back home.

Or at least that was the plan.

Halfway down the road, a thunderous howl flattened the luminous grass around Arthur, forcing him to increase his mass to avoid getting blown away.

“LYLA!!!” The Hag screamed. “Go, my children, let’s hunt the murderers!!!” Howls replied the Hag’s fury. “Ana, move your ass!!!”

Well, Dan did it. Crap. Arthur shivered. I must do something about this… but what?

He wasn’t powerful enough to take down the Hags by himself, nor quicker than those wolves…

Perhaps an ambush…?

Arthur waited and waited as he did for all the years that he patiently waited for Mother to show up.

Bertha, the feral Hag, had abandoned all pretenses to act like a thinking being. She had gone on all fours, dashing in the direction of the city at the head of her pack.

Arthur’s patience was well rewarded when he made out the hurried figure of the other Hag, the spellcaster. She was alone, only that her items were flying with her at the same pace. She also wore a grieving but furious expression, with tears glittering in the sparse rays of sunlight. “Poor Lyla, who did this to you…”

Arthur didn’t feel particularly merciful.

He had kept reducing his mass more and more, becoming pretty much denser than a slab of steel and earning quite a few levels in his Manipulations and [Slime body].

So, when his target was lined up, he shot like a spring, rapier held like the tip of a spear.

So powerful was his leap, that the tree behind him splintered in a thousand shards.

The same barrier flickered to life. It cracked like glass, letting Arthur’s strike go unimpeded. It’s weaker! The Coven must have been broken!

The Hag widened her eyes in surprise, before throwing herself out of the way.

Still, the Rapier’s tip skewered her right arm, ripping it out of its socket.

Arthur slammed against a tree, splattering everywhere. Almost no damage taken, he reformed during the Hag’s pained and angered shouts.

“That animal didn’t even finish you off?! That… is that my arm?!” She screamed a few strange words, unfamiliar to Arthur’s ear while he consumed the arm filled with essence to the brim.

He didn’t bother to let [Explorer’s senses] traduce them. Arthur, more full than ever, formed four tentacles. They were the densest that he could currently produce, each holding roughly four times his size as mass.

With a fifth arm, he still held Mother’s latest gift.

And with that, he charged.

Ana murmured a few words, and the cauldron appeared at her side. The ladle flew out, feeding the woman a strange liquid. The area around the duo started to wither, and her stump slowly regrew.

Arthur felt his health getting drained, but didn’t stop his assault. Two left tentacles smacked the reformed barrier, forcing the Hag to slide directly into the other waiting two. The Explorer slammed both on the other side, finishing his attack with his rapier.

The Hag heaved for breath, then the same large roots from before sprouted from the ground.

Arthur teleported and dodged, sparing no resources. He had to finish this quickly, so he purposely let himself get grazed a few times to get in stronger hits.

His tentacles rapidly cracked up the barrier, enabling his rapier to bite flash. After the successful stab, Arthur stepped backward, avoiding the retaliatory flurry of angry roots. They’re also slower… I might be able to dodge them normally.

He knew that he had much less mana than a dedicated spellcaster, but the feast that he had consumed just a few minutes before was still fueling his resources.

The ladle magically fed the Hag another sip, and the hole in her chest started to knit back together.

That’s annoying! Arthur resumed his attack, letting the Hag no reprieve. His tentacles clashed against the roots, then the barrier. The moment that a magical symbol’s light faded, so did the magical construct.

The Hag paled.

Arthur teleported close, violently head-butting the Hag. Dorel had told him that no one expected to be punched like that during a fight.

Ana’s head shot backward, her canine nose exploding. She blindly shot an arcane projectile that hit Arthur’s chest, but the slime wasn’t nearly done.

He kept up his assault, cracking tentacle after tentacle-like whips onto the Hag. One of his strikes sent the monster flying against a tree, where she stood, unmoving.

Arthur relaxed slightly, his stamina low. He didn’t want to be forced to sleep like Mother had to.

“Bertha, you idiotic bitch…” Ana murmured, sipping another time from her ladle. The last, judging by the broken cauldron next to her.

Arthur’s tentacles whipped one last time, and a bell echoed in his head.

He quickly launched on the corpse and the objects around it, consuming everything without leaving a single trace behind save for the withered ground.

That done, he dashed to where another pained howl echoed.

Upon his arrival, Arthur saw that the same scouts were engaging the frothing Hag. A bunch of wolven corpses laid around, unmoving, their wounds seared and still smoking.

Arthur also noticed that all of the scouts had been caught up in a stalemate, where they couldn’t kill the relentless Hag without dying, and she couldn’t ignore too many of their blows to avoid the same end. Still, strength was in numbers and Arthur betted that the Valkanians had way more stamina and healing than a now lonely monster.

He felt almost unnecessary, but then the Hag’s gaze fell upon him.

Her now red eyes flared brightly. She snarled a word, then propelled herself against him. The Hag ignored the strikes received during her leap, her focus locked only upon Arthur.

He shivered, the killing intent weighing way too much over him. Paralyzed, he felt the monster's claws ripping into his gummy body, shaving off a great part of his mass.

The pain was what jolted him awake. He teleported away, behind the maddened Hag, but she instantly turned to face him. Judging by her gaze, she didn’t care about anything else than to end him.

Bertha leaped against him. The tip of her bloodied claws shone in the sunlight, promising a swift and violent end.

Arthur teleported, retaliating with his tentacles. They all bit to the Hag's bones, but she used her momentum to deliver a powerful kick to Arthur.

He winced, but this time he was barely lifted off the ground. Arthur used more mass to make two more tentacles, weaker than the rest, but useful still.

When his next flurry hit the Hag, she parried the strikes with her arms. They creaked dangerously. But then, someone swooped in, wrapped in Lightning and furious winds. The four figures each stabbed the monster with daggers made of solid light.

The light flared, and Bertha's eyes became as empty as glass. She fell to the ground with a thud.

Dan reabsorbed his copies, glaring at the corpse.

“Oh, hello Dan.” Arthur said, reabsorbing his improvised weapons.

He turned toward him. After a moment, he sighed. “Good Gods, Arthur, where the fuck did you go? They told me that you went missing!”

The round blob winced. He started to wiggle in place. “They were taking too long to plan… so I went ahead.”

Dan facepalmed. “Oh, if only I didn’t feel you this much…” He kneeled beside him. “Listen, Arth, when you are part of a group, you have to warn the others about your intentions. You can’t just vanish under everyone’s noses like that.”

Arthur deflated. “Yes, Dan, I’ll remember it.”

He patted his mass. “Good. How did your expedition go?”

“I found them in the cave. It was littered with runes, so I escaped. Then this one howled and said that Lyla was dead. When she dashed away, I ambushed the other. Then… I got here.”

“Yeah, I got her. Good work, Arthur!”

Arthur wiggled in joy.

“And you’ll personally tell Nashariel about the start!”

Arthur wiggled in worry.

“Now, let’s go rescue some people!” Dan declared while walking forward. The other scouts imitated him.

Arthur noticed that they had all bandaged each other. His stomach growled. “Dan, can I eat first?”

“Uh? Oh, sure, here… you…” Dan froze.

Arthur stopped while engulfing the Hag’s corpse. “Something wrong?”

“N-no. I’ll go ahead.”

His friend's pace rapidly increased.

Arthur mentally shrugged, starting to scoop out all the food in here. He wondered why exactly Dan's skin had tinted slightly green. He should see a doctor. Oh, well.

He dutifully cleaned up the place from all the remains. His body automatically rejected all the blood belonging to humanoids, as Mother had programmed it to do even before his spawn.

But the rest of the waste went directly into his reserves, as it was ought to be.