[Evolution : 10 / 2,000]
The voice came to the slime again. By now, the slime understood that this voice existed to inform it of everything happening within itself, and the slime appreciated it.
Something was guiding it and helping it grow, even if it didn't fully understand how or why.
But there was something far more important than that voice at this moment.
Aria's voice… It was shaking with despair, fear, guilt, and exhaustion.
The slime felt every piece of it. These emotions were new to its freshly awakened mind and it felt strange and heavy, yet fascinating. The more it felt them, the more something inside it stirred.
The slime also knew that the more it resonated with her emotions, the faster its Evolution progressed.
Slowly, with its weakened body trembling, the slime slid closer to her.
"Aria," the slime said, speaking her name for the first time.
Aria flinched. She lifted her head from her hands, tears streaking down her cheeks, and stared at the slime with wide stunned eyes.
Once again, it had surprised her. The slime always surprised her. But now she thought that she was slowly getting used to it.
Hearing the slime call her name in her own gentle voice made her chest clench painfully.
The guilt deepened.
She had almost captured this creature. This creature that had saved her again and again just to escape her own circumstances.
"I… I'm so sorry," Aria whispered shakily. She wiped her tears and snot roughly with the back of her hand. "Now what do you want to do?"
The slime understood her words. It stored the meaning, and the emotions behind them, carefully within its memory.
Then it turned toward the swirling white mist that marked the Dungeon's exit. With great effort, still aching and injured, the slime jumped once.
Aria blinked, surprised once more. "You… want to go outside?" she asked softly. "Can you? Most monsters can't leave the Dungeon. They weaken once they're separated from the Dungeon Core."
The slime jumped again, insisting. "Outside. Outside. Outside."
Aria's lips trembled but this time, she smiled.
"Alright," she whispered. "We'll go out."
She stood up, brushed the dust from her clothes, and walked toward the swirling mist.
Then she bent down, gently scooped up the small green slime, and held it close against her chest.
Without looking back, Aria stepped out of the Dungeon carrying the creature that had saved her life.
—
Deep inside this Dungeon named Endless Gloom Cavern, far beneath the lowest bottom floor, buried in a place no adventurer had ever reached, something pulsed.
A colossal sphere of crystallized mana hovered in a cavern of pure darkness. It had no face, limbs, and true form, only a smooth translucent core swirling with endless layers of blue, violet, and black light. But it was sentient and intelligent.
Every pulse it released sent waves of mana rippling through the cavern walls like a heartbeat.
Around it lay a landscape of jagged stone, cracked earth, and rivers of glowing mana threading through the ground.
The air glowing with dense pressure that could crush a weak human or monster in an instant.
Several high-tier monsters that were far stronger than anything found on the upper floors rested in the shadows around the core.
There was a massive six-horned Goliath Beast sleeping curled around a stalagmite.
A mana-drained Wraith Serpent floated lazily through the air, its translucent body trailing wisps of blue fire.
Yet none of them dared approach the sphere at the center.
The Dungeon Core was absolute, like a sovereign of this place.
The Core's light pulsed slow and steady.
Then it pulsed again. But this time it was harder and brighter.
Information surged through it like a shockwave, and the monsters around it stirred uneasily.
A connection had been severed.
A creature that was one of its own had left the Dungeon without its permission.
The Core plunged through every thread of mana linked to its monsters until it found the broken tether. The signature was faint but still recognizable. It has not been far.
The green slime.
It was just a weak, insignificant creature by normal standards. But something about it was wrong.
It has consciousness and strength that is evolving.
The Dungeon Core flared with violent light, sending waves of pressure exploding through the cavern. The high-tier monsters around it instinctively backed away and lowered their heads.
The Core had marked the slime not just as a mere runaway. But as a rogue creature, an anomaly that had slipped out of its domain and severed the Dungeon's control.
The Dungeon Core then sent out a hunt order.
The slime needs to be found and captured. Alive.
—
Aria and the slime stepped out into the wilderness. Fresh wind brushed against Aria's face, and she finally released a long breath.
She was outside and alive. Breathing real air again.
She began walking. She didn't know what would happen to her life from this moment on, but she didn't want to think about any of it yet.
The slime remained nestled in her arms, pressed gently against her chest.
Its body, though still soft, felt a little firmer now. Its shape was subtly more defined.
It was excited to be outside the Dungeon for the first time.
"Since you've left the Dungeon," Aria said quietly, "I think… I should start explaining a lot of things to you."
She shifted the slime slightly in her arms as she walked.
"I live in a small town called Greyside Hollow. It's a terrible place. Most people there are poor, barely surviving day to day. And the mayor…" Aria grimaced. "He's corrupt and a tyrant who accepts bribes from criminal organizations. Because of that, criminals roam freely there. They run their operations openly without fear. And that means more criminals from outside the town come in, knowing it's basically lawless."
The slime absorbed every bit of information, storing the concepts inside its forming consciousness.
There were many things it didn't understand, and she knew it was a monster. But she knew that the slime was learning.
So Aria patiently explained.
She told it what a town was. What a criminal meant. What a mayor was supposed to be, and what law meant.
She didn't know much herself, but she shared everything she could with simple explanations.
Then, mid-sentence, Aria suddenly went quiet.
She remembered the debt collectors.
When she returned to Greyside Hollow, they would be waiting for her, demanding payment.
A helpless sigh escaped her lips.
She didn't want to face that now. Not so soon after almost dying.
So she made a decision.
"I don't want to go straight back to town," Aria muttered, tightening her arms around the slime just slightly. "There's a place nearby. A good place. Let's go there first."
"Yes," the slime replied softly.
But along with its agreement, it also felt the pain hidden behind Aria's words.
—