Dojin let out a short breath and walked over to the edge of the pool. Behind him came the sound of the slime pattering along after him.
He bent at the waist and reached both arms toward the water, then stopped short. He’d reached out with two arms, and only one of them came forward. The moment that registered, his body tipped sideways. Before he could catch his balance, the slime shoved itself straight in between Dojin’s arm and the ground.
Kiing.
Something gave out a squashed little sound. Dojin hauled himself up fast and looked down at the small, flattened thing.
“You okay?”
Koong...
He set the slime upright again, since it had flopped onto its side and was rolling about, and then looked at his own arm.
Everything feels wrong.
One arm was gone, that was all, and yet his whole body refused to settle; keeping himself level took effort.
“...”
Forcing down the despair rising in him, he scooped up the rest of the water and drank. With his hand still wet, he pushed back his wrecked bangs and lifted his head slowly. The sharp line of his jaw and the straight ridge of his nose came clear into view.
He felt a stare boring into him from the side, and when he turned, the slime was watching him with what looked an awful lot like a dazed expression. Dojin looked back at it and grinned.
“Guess that makes you my lifesaver.”
“...!”
“So I’ll let it go. You get a special pass, I won’t kill you. There’ll be some other way.”
The smile was a bright, breezy thing, but the words inside it weren’t much different from a villain’s lines. Even so, the slime jumped high, as if that was plenty good enough.
Life with a monster went smoothly.
The slime was quiet for the most part, and now and then it bounced. And it followed Dojin around all day long. Whatever he was doing, wherever he was, it trailed right behind him like a duckling imprinted on its mother.
“I could really go for a cold drink.”
The moment he muttered it, the slime made a curious little Koong? sound. Dojin explained, briefly.
“Sweet water, I guess you’d call it... Hey, by the way, how old are you?”
Dojin twirled a vine round and round with one hand as he asked. The slime, which had folded its body slightly lengthwise and was twisting a vine of its own, looked up at him.
“You don’t know things like age?”
Dojin took the vine off the slime’s body and knotted it with his mouth and his hand. They were in the middle of making a basket to keep food in.
“Age is the unit humans use to count the days they’ve lived. The lower it is, the more of a kid you are. The higher, the more grown-up.”
“...”
“Way I see it, you’re... what, maybe one year old?”
Dojin’s long eyes ran over the teeny-tiny slime. The slime immediately bounced twice, boing, boing, but Dojin was reaching for his item bag and missed it.
“Right about the age you eat like crazy, then.”
With a rustle, a bag of gummies tumbled out of the bag and into his hand. Dojin tore the packet open with his teeth and shook the gummies out onto his big palm.
“Try one.”
When he thrust his hand out without warning, the slime leaned its body this way and that. It seemed to hesitate, then came creeping closer with little squeaking sounds.
It studied the brightly colored gummies hard, even dipping down as though to smell them. Being cautious, huh. Dojin brought his hand up to his mouth, caught a gummy between his lips and chewed.
“You don’t want ’em, I’ll eat the lot.”
The slime stared at him chewing, and at last, apparently having worked up its courage, climbed onto Dojin’s knee.
When he held his hand out again, the slime rubbed its body against it. The gummy bear slowly started to melt, then turned to liquid and got sucked right into the slime. This was the slime’s predation ability.
“...!”
The slime shuddered all over and whipped its head up at Dojin, looking thoroughly astonished. Dojin laughed lightly.
“Good, right?”
Pyok.
“There aren’t many gummies left. Let’s go find something to eat.”
Myung!
“Can I eat this one?”
Boing, boing!
“Why? Is it poisonous or something?”
Boing.
“Huh. So I nearly croaked, then?”
Dojin flung the blue fruit away and rubbed the tip of his chin against the slime tucked in his arms. A reward for a job well appraised.
Nuzzle, nuzzle.
Cradled in the broad span of Dojin’s arms, the slime wriggled and bobbed. It looked extremely pleased with itself.
Dojin settled the slime onto his shoulder and picked up the food basket with his one hand. Blue veins stood out along his forearm.
“Hold on tight so you don’t fall.”
Jjop.
The slime rubbed itself against Dojin’s skin, making a sticky little squeak. The gelatinous body pressed to his neck was cool and squishy, and the feeling wasn’t half bad.
Stomach’s full. Guess it’s time to rest a bit.
Back at the nest, the two of them finished a meal together and then stretched out on the ground.
The slime came rolling over to Dojin’s side. Maybe because it was still clumsy at absorbing things, its round body was smeared all over with fruit juice it hadn’t managed to finish off. That made Dojin look down at himself, too. His white tee was filthy with dirt and dried blood.
Come to think of it, how long has it been since I washed?
He couldn’t even remember when he’d last been clean.
Dojin checked his wound. Thanks to how well the herbs the slime had packed into it worked, it had healed over a great deal.
The slime was off playing by itself, tipping its stuffed, swollen belly from side to side like a little putt-putt boat. Dojin called over to it.
“Is there another pool around here?”
Boing.
“Let’s go there. Grab some of those herbs we can wash up with, too.”
Long-strided footsteps and the soft sound of a small ball bouncing echoed down the dim, deserted cave corridor.
Dojin, with the wooden basket tucked under his arm, and the slime, with a few medicinal leaves balanced on its head, came to a stop in front of a cave mouth.
This it?
The place the slime had guided him to held an enormous pool. Far bigger than the one back at the nest. Dojin studied the water, faint ripples rolling across its surface, and let out a short laugh.
“There isn’t actually something living in here, is there?”
“...”
“Nah, no chance of that.”
If there were anything out here, there was no way the two of them would be able to crash around the dungeon making this much noise.
Dojin caught the hem of his T-shirt and yanked it off over his head. His black hair tumbled out of place, baring broad shoulders and a muscled stomach.
The slime twitched, then, as if trying to help, grabbed the cuff of his combat trousers and tugged.
“Hang on. Gotta undo this first.”
He got the belt open, then, with the slime’s help, worked his way out of his trousers and underwear until he was stark naked. Every inch of him was on display, muscle large and small layered on in all the right places by years of real fighting.
The slime stared up at him, blank, like the soul had gone out of it. About a third of the way up its body a small round dent had sunk in, for all the world like a mouth hanging open.
Oblivious to that smoldering stare, Dojin walked to the water’s edge. He kneaded one stiff shoulder with his hand and tested the temperature.
“Ugh, that’s fucking freezing.”
Face screwed up, he scooped water over himself here and there, and once he decided that was enough, he shoved his head straight under.
Koong!
He heard the slime’s startled little cry, but he paid it no mind, soaking his scalp until it tingled before he lifted his head. Water flew off his black hair and sprayed the slime beside him all over.
Koo!
The slime flinched and shrank back. It looked so exactly like someone squeezing their eyes shut that Dojin burst out laughing.
“Haha. Did I get you? Sorry.”
At the sight of Dojin laughing with his eyes crinkled up, the slime made that small circle again and went blank.
Dojin climbed all the way into the pool and sank in. The water was cold enough to chill him to the bone, but once he got used to it, it felt good, refreshing. The slime, which had been watching him quietly from the stone rim, suddenly started bouncing in place.
“What. You want in too?”
Koo.
“It’s gonna be cold.”
Koo koo.
The slime cried out boldly, like it could handle anything. Well, nothing to be done about it. Dojin sat the slime on top of the item bag he’d brought just in case and floated the whole thing on the water.
“Play over there.”
The item bag was buoyant and waterproof, so water like this didn’t faze it. The thing did seem to be water-attribute, but it was still a kid. It might go right under.
Dojin took one of the big leaves he’d brought along, twisted it roughly into a bathhouse-style head wrap, and set it on the slime. The slime tilted its body this way and that, like it couldn’t get comfortable, then promptly started splashing away in delight.
Once he’d confirmed it was happily entertaining itself, Dojin finally let himself relax and start washing. He poured the medicinal-herb water he’d prepared over his body and hair and got his hand moving, but before long his face twisted.
This is a damn pain.
With only one arm, things were definitely not what they used to be. Washing his hair was less efficient, and his back was worse. He was scowling, unable to reach, when the slime came paddling over hard and stuck itself to his solid thigh with a wet slap. Then it began climbing, popping its way up.
“What are you doing?”
Pop, pop.
The slime climbed all the way up his body and finally stopped at the very top of his head. Then it used that squishy body of its own to roll and rub circles into Dojin’s scalp.
A slime scalp brush.
...Not bad, actually?
From then on, Dojin let himself go and handed his body over to the slime entirely. It moved down from his scalp to his back, helping with the scrubbing. The soft sensation felt wonderful.
Before he knew it, the slime’s scrubbing had worked its way to his chest and stomach, and Dojin was enjoying every second of it, until a strange sensation around his navel made him drop his gaze. And there he found it. A small, plump little backside, right on the verge of entering the thick undergrowth.
1. “Tongtongbae” is a small putt-putt fishing boat; the word echoes “tongtong,” the bouncing sound the slime makes.
2. A “sheep head” (yangmeori) is the classic Korean bathhouse towel wrap, folded so two ends stick up like a sheep’s ears.
