The slime continued its hunt without pause. For hours, it killed and devoured anything it encountered.
Now that Consume had reached Level 3, its body absorbed flesh and mana far faster, feeding its core with growing power.
The evolution gauge inside its being was still only partly filled.
The slime didn't fully understand what evolution meant, but it knew one thing clearly, filling that bar would make it stronger.
And so the slime hungered for it. Desperately.
Eventually, its unending consumption finally stirred the goblins.
One by one, they noticed their companions disappearing without a trace.
Panic spread among them, their shrill voices echoing through the tunnels.
But fortunately for the slime, goblins were terribly stupid.
They were frightened and confused, but not insightful enough to sense the true danger.
They only muttered among themselves, and were angry with uncertainty.
From a dark corner, the slime watched.
It could taste the fear in the mana around them, and so it remained still, hidden.
Attacking now would draw too much attention.
Then, a new sensation washed over it from above.
A faint stream of mana… Human mana.
Humans had entered the Dungeon.
A plan formed inside its undeveloped mind.
Even with its primitive intelligence, the slime could piece together a simple idea: Humans mean more and better food.
Its instinct whispered that humans were far better prey than goblins.
Driven by hunger, the slime slithered up toward the entrance of the goblin nest.
The goblins were too distracted by panic to notice the tiny creature slipping past them.
Quietly, it moved through the secret tunnel it had discovered days earlier.
The passage allowed it to bypass predators, traps, and territorial monsters.
It climbed from the bottom floor…
…to the third…
…to the second…
…until it finally reached the first floor.
Here, danger was minimal.
Only a handful of wandering goblins roamed; none realized their kin below were being killed in silence.
Following the trail of human mana, the slime crept forward until it reached a narrow crack in a cave wall.
Peeking through, it saw them.
Six humans.
Their mana was modest, not very strong. But one of them, the girl at the back, had the weakest mana of all.
That didn't matter. Even consuming one of them would grant it more power than eating dozens of goblins. Instinctively, the slime knows it.
Clinging to the ceiling, the slime shadowed them silently.
The humans spoke among themselves, but it didn't understand the words.
It only waited and followed.
Patiently hunting.
—
The three fighters slayed the weak monsters easily, stuffing the meager loot into their bags.
They began to complain about how little they'd earned so far.
Eventually, they arrived at a mining spot.
Not much mana ore here… but enough to be worth gathering.
The two miners immediately got to work.
The swordsman, axeman, and bowman spread out to stand guard.
Aria stood trembling near the back, clutching her staff.
Suddenly, the swordsman turned and stared at her with that familiar wicked glint in his eyes.
A slow grin stretched across his lips as he began walking toward her.
Aria swallowed hard, dread twisting in her chest as he approached.
The swordsman moved beside Aria again, far too close, his presence felt suffocating for her.
He then grabbed her butt again. Aria swallowed hard, forcing back the tears burning at the corners of her eyes.
She refused to let them fall in front of him now because it will be showing them weakness.
"Aria," he murmured, that same ugly grin twisting his face, "come with me to somewhere quieter."
She opened her mouth to refuse, but his grip clamped around her wrist before she could speak.
With a rough tug, he dragged her toward a small side chamber connected to the main cavern.
The axeman and the bowman glanced over, exchanging knowing smirks.
"Save some for us," one of them joked.
The swordsman only laughed as he hauled Aria away. The miners kept their eyes down and continued chipping at the ore, pretending not to see.
He pushed Aria into the empty cavern chamber, and she stumbled, falling to her knees with a gasp.
The swordsman tossed aside his sword belt and gear, taking slow, deliberate steps toward her, with an expression on his face that made her stomach twist in fear.
Aria squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself.
Suddenly, a wet thump dropped from the ceiling.
The swordsman froze. Something green and gelatinous splattered over his head and shoulders, enveloping him before he could react.
His shocked, muffled voice cut off as the slime sealed over his face.
He clawed at it desperately, but his hands sank uselessly into the thick surface.
His muffled struggles lasted only seconds before his knees buckled.
He collapsed to the stone floor with a dull, heavy thud that was barely audible over the rhythmic clink of pickaxes in the next chamber.
Aria's eyes flew open.
The swordsman lay motionless at her feet, his head swallowed entirely by the quivering mass of green slime.
A shiver ran down her spine.
She didn't scream. She just stared with a mixture of horror and grim satisfaction prickling in her chest.
Then the slime began to feed.
It dissolved flesh with terrifying speed, the man's head shrinking beneath it until bone appeared, then the skull vanished as well, melting away like sugar in hot water.
Aria could only stare.
A slime was supposed to be one of the weakest monsters in existence that was barely worth the effort of killing. Yet this one… this one looked very dangerous.
And it had just saved her life.
she stayed completely still, saying nothing. For now, all she could do was watch.
She watched as the slime devoured the cruel swordsman bit by bit, its gelatinous body rippling as it consumed him.
She felt no disgust.
If anything… she felt an undeniable satisfaction in the sight.
Every insult, every touch, and every humiliation she had endured this past week, her fear and her helplessness… they all knotted together inside her chest and turned into a sharp and dark feeling.
And as the swordsman's body disappeared into the slime, she couldn't look away.
Within minutes, there was nothing left of him.
The slime shuddered, as if reacting to some unseen surge. Its form trembling with a sudden rush of power, as though something inside it was evolving.
Meanwhile, the slime heard the voice telling it that its Evolution bar was rising fast.
Suddenly, footsteps pounded outside the chamber.
The axeman appeared at the entrance, eyes wide.
"What the hell is going on?!" he shouted, frozen in shock at the sight before him.
—