The slime had thought it without meaning to, and then the thought itself gave him a shock.
Dojin, kill me? That’s ridiculous!
Swinging his body back and forth, the slime threw himself into work.
Sitting still felt worse than using the gap while Dojin was out to tidy the cave and sort the food stores. If the place was filthy and messy, his mood might get even worse. Maybe if everything around him is clean, he’ll feel a little better.
With Dojin still gone, the slime put on his apron and cleaned the inside as hard as he could. He dampened the apron a little to wipe down the table, then it looked like the clothes he’d gone to the trouble of wearing were getting dirty, so he wet his own head instead and wiped with his body. It came out clean, which was satisfying.
And every so often he calmly measured the light in the cave. It would still be a while before Dojin came back.
Where else should I clean?
Water trickling off his head, the slime looked around. There was nobody here, and yet he felt oddly rushed.
Is this enough?
He’d given the place a rough once-over and was making a lap of the interior when, from far off, slow and heavy footsteps echoed in. Dojin!
The slime immediately shoved his own rolled-up leaf blanket open with his body. Then he hauled over the bandage blanket Dojin had made for him, pulled it on, and lay down. Pretending to sleep.
Step. Step.
The steady, unhurried footsteps came closer and closer.
The slime lay there without breathing, without moving a hair. If it hadn’t been for the little blanket covering half of him, he thought, the shivering might have been plain to see.
The footsteps stopped. But the slime knew. He knew Dojin was standing over his head, looking down at him.
If he’d been human, it was the kind of atmosphere that would have made him swallow. He clamped down on the urge to move and held out, and after a moment, a sound burst out from above him.
“Are you asleep?”
It was a question that sounded half like a sigh. The slime’s body went even stiffer.
“...”
After a brief silence, the footsteps moved away. Then came a clinking, rattling noise of something being handled. Before sleeping, Dojin always took out his sharp things and looked them over closely. Experience told the slime exactly what he was doing right now.
He wanted to shift around, but he couldn’t even do that in case it drew attention. The slime forced down his quivering body and kept up the act. A moment later, he heard footsteps coming back this way.
Mustn’t move. Mustn’t move...
He was busy casting the spell over himself, holding perfectly still, when all at once he felt a huge presence. In the blink of an eye a hard arm and a hard chest had gathered him in tight.
“You’re all stiff. You really asleep?”
Hup.
The slime stopped breathing. At that, Dojin muttered in a low voice.
“I’m worn out today too... don’t even have the strength to lay out my blanket.”
Oh no. Dojin isn’t spreading his own blanket, he’s sharing mine!
The slime despaired. They always laid their blankets out side by side and slept separately. On top of that, the slime’s blanket had been custom-made for him by Dojin, so it was very small. Dojin might as well have been sleeping right on the ground.
The slime wanted to get up right then and tell Dojin to go fetch his own blanket and lay it out, that he mustn’t sleep on the ground, but he couldn’t. Because then it would come out that he hadn’t been sleeping at all.
What do I do, what do I do.
Repeating his new favorite phrase over and over inside his head, the slime still couldn’t move a bit. Dojin held that slime against his chest, pressed his forehead to him, and closed his eyes. The slime couldn’t sleep a wink that night.
Koongkoong.
“Not eating.”
Myu...
“I said I’m not eating.”
The next day, the slime, who in the end had barely slept at all, got up and set about preparing the meal first. For Dojin, who hardly ate these days, he even got a drink ready in advance and swapped in a fresh leaf bowl. But the result was the same as yesterday.
Looking at Dojin’s broad back, the slime let out a long sigh.
He didn’t eat this time either. Even though I gave him more than me...
Unable to hide his disappointment, the slime put Dojin’s portion back into the food basket. And then it struck him that there was very little food left.
I need to go gather food. Dojin might eat as soon as tomorrow.
A peek. When he glanced over, Dojin was still lying with his back turned. It was a posture that radiated refusal. Watching it, the slime seemed to make up his mind and bbyok-bbyoked his way across the floor. Then he folded his body around the food basket in front of him and got a firm grip on it.
Right. This time I’ll just go by myself!
Hadn’t Dojin gone off to gather food alone last time? The gathering spot was a fair distance from here, and once you loaded the basket with fruit it got heavy, which made it hard. Dojin had worked at it so hard with one arm, so all he had to do was work just as hard with this round body of his.
Full of spirit, the slime headed for the entrance of their dwelling.
Shhk. Shhhk.
The food basket scraped along behind him. It amounted to a round little ball dragging an enormous net, but he didn’t mind.
Moong...
Before stepping out of the entrance, he turned to say he’d be back, but Dojin hadn’t moved at all, asleep maybe.
The slime took that sight in once, then went outside.
Kkuung.
Trying to travel with a huge food basket in tow was no small struggle. Dojin was doing this every single day? He’s really amazing...
The slime, who had no grasp of the fact that their strength and size were nothing alike to begin with, marveled in all sincerity.
Thinking of Dojin like that, pattering along without a single break, he found himself standing in front of the food cave before he knew it.
When he went inside, the trees he always picked fruit from stood in thin, patchy rows. Feels like a few trees are missing. Am I imagining it? The slime tilted his body, then planted himself under a tree and started jumping.
Toong, toong!
The fruit his squishy head slammed into came loose and dropped to the ground, todok, todok. All that hard training with Dojin really paid off! Back in the old days he’d never have reached that high. His jumping had gotten better, and this much was easy now.
Praising himself up and down, the slime went over to the fallen fruit. Then he gave it a little bump with his body to roll it toward the food basket. Except.
Sssss...
The fruit vanished without a trace.
Huh?
The slime stopped short. He stood there blankly for a moment, then immediately gave the fruit beside it a bump as well.
Ssss...
Exactly the same thing happened. The fruit that touched his body melted and disappeared.
The slime figured it out from the tart, tangy taste spreading through his own body.
I ate the fruit!
It made no sense. Eating fruit had only ever worked when he actually meant to eat it. So why’s this happening?
He tried it over and over after that, but the result never changed. The slime looked down at his stuffed, bulging belly and started to fret.
At this rate I’m gonna eat up every last bit of the fruit.
The slime got moving in a hurry.
This is no good. I gotta stop eating and go ask Dojin for help.
Frantically he folded his body over and picked up the food basket. Except.
Sssss...
“...!”
Starting from the spot where it touched him, the food basket was melting away.
The slime flung himself off the basket and put distance between them. One look at the gaping hole in the bottom and the panic hit.
Oh no! The food basket’s wrecked!
He dithered back and forth with no idea what to do, then tested himself with a branch lying nearby. He touched the branch all over his body and rubbed it around, and the result was this: anywhere from the middle of his torso, where he always absorbed the fruit, down to the bottom, the branch melted on contact. Which meant the upper part was still safe.
Once he realized that, the slime hurriedly tipped the food basket upside down and pulled it over the top half of himself. He looked like a slime caught in a net, but there was nothing for it. This was the only way. Dressed like that, he headed out of the food cave as fast as he could.
Huff, huff. What, huff, on earth, haaah, is happening to my body?
With the heavy food basket bearing down on his head, his body kept sagging, and it was so hard he could barely move at all. But he had to let Dojin know about this, and fast.
The more time passed, the worse Dojin would get, and then he’d stop eating altogether. That much was certain.
I’m the only one who can take care of Dojin.
First things first, I’ll get Dojin to fix the food basket. And then I’ll find a way to put my body back to normal and bring back heaps and heaps of food.
The slime pushed on, heavy with his sense of duty. That little body dragged itself pitifully across the filthy dirt floor.
“...You did this?”
“...”
The slime hunched in on himself, cowed, and gave one small hop to say yes. Dojin stared down at the food basket he’d brought. The bottom was punched clean through; it had come back broken, no good as a basket anymore.
He summed up the situation in short order.
Erosion ability.
A slime was a monster too, which meant it had abilities. The textbook one was erosion — the property of dissolving anything that touched its body. That was the very trait he’d been using to absorb the fruit all this time, so something had clearly gone wrong with it.
Dojin looked for a while at the creature shrunk down into a tight little ball, then got to his feet. He fetched the stalks and leaves he’d collected and stockpiled nearby for making household necessities. Then, without so much as glancing at the cowering slime, he spoke.
“It’s fine. I’ll just make another one.”
Koong...
The slime squirmed and twisted, like he had no idea what to do with himself. Dojin ignored him and took hold of a stalk.
