The slime suddenly hopped on Aria's knees, its green body trembling.
Aria snapped out of her spiraling thoughts and looked down at it.
"People," the slime said in her voice. "Coming here."
Aria blinked, struggling to process the words through the haze of panic.
Then, as understanding hit, she pushed herself to her feet.
"Hide," she whispered.
Without hesitation, the slime leapt away, rolling into the shadowed corner beneath a collapsed shelf just as the warped front door creaked, then was shoved open with a rough kick.
Two men stepped inside.
Both looked like typical thugs of Greyside Hollow. They wore thick boots caked with mud, mismatched leather armor, and faces hardened by too many beatings and too much cheap drink.
One of them had a crooked nose, the other one had a jagged scar running down his neck.
When they spotted Aria, both men broke into wild, mocking grins.
"Well, look who we have here," the one on the right said.
"So you're still alive," the left one added with a sneer. "Too bad your parents don't care about you. They ran out of town the moment we came to collect earlier this afternoon."
Aria froze in her place.
A cold shock slammed through her chest. She felt a sharp and suffocating feeling, making it impossible to breathe around.
Her eyes widened, her throat tightening as if the words had physically hit her.
Her fingers curled against her palms, trembling. For a moment she couldn't think, couldn't even move.
Her parents… ran? Left her? Just like that? After what she had done, worked her ass off, to repay their debts???
The world felt suddenly smaller, colder, and far more terrifying as the two men stepped closer.
The two men exchanged a brief glance.
"I almost feel bad for you, Aria," the left thug said, his voice dripping with fake sympathy. "You're stuck paying a debt that isn't even yours… and then they just abandon you like that."
His smile turned colder.
"But business is business. We can't go back to our boss empty-handed, can we?"
Aria still couldn't process any of it. Her mind was blank and numb. Her body wouldn't move. She just stood there, staring, as though her thoughts had frozen completely.
Meanwhile, the slime had already realized something was about to go very wrong.
But it wasn't in good condition to fight again yet. And inside this cramped house, there was no angle, no position, and no shadows deep enough to launch a clean sneak attack.
If it crawled out of the dark corner now, the two men would spot it instantly.
But the slime knew and felt one truth with painful clarity: If it didn't act, something terrible would happen to Aria.
The two men stepped closer.
Aria shakily reached into her pocket and pulled out the bronze and copper coins. Her hands trembled so hard the coins almost slipped from her fingers.
"Th-this… this week's payment," Aria whispered, voice breaking with desperate hope. "Take it. Please… just go. I'll pay the rest, I swear."
The right thug laughed loudly, snatching the coins from her hand and stuffing them into his own pocket.
But he didn't stop. He kept walking.
"This won't be enough. You know that, don't you?" he said, his grin stretching wider.
His friend only smiled wickedly, as if he already knew exactly what the other man intended to do.
Aria stepped back instinctively, fear crawling up her spine like cold fingers.
The man lunged, grabbing her shoulder hard and forcing her backward, slamming her onto the floor.
At that exact moment, the slime launched itself out of the shadows.
It moved with sudden, explosive speed.
[Predator's Leap]
Its tiny body shot across the room like a green blade of light, striking the man's head and engulfing it instantly.
The thug barely had time to scream.
The slime began dissolving his skull in seconds, its body tightening around his head.
The other thug's eyes widened with horror flooding his face as he stumbled back, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.
The slime tightened its grip around the thug's skull, its body pulsing as its acidic membrane dug deeper through bone and flesh.
The man thrashed violently at first. He was kicking, clawing, and smashing his fists against the walls and floor. But the slime held firm.
His cries gurgled, then turned into wet, choking sounds.
Cracks began to echo faintly from within the slime's body.
Bone giving way and skull collapsing.
Then…
Crunch…
The slime's surface shuddered, and the thrashing stopped abruptly.
In less than ten seconds, the thug's head was entirely gone, dissolved into nothing.
The slime released him with a wet, sickening pop and jumped back, landing lightly on the dusty floor.
The man's body remained kneeling for a heartbeat, then toppled sideways with a heavy thud.
A spray of dark blood spurted from the open stump of his neck, pooling rapidly across the wooden boards.
The other thug stumbled back, nearly tripping over his own feet.
"Wh–what… what the hell—" he choked. His face had drained of color. "Impossible… no way… a slime— a slime can't… can't do that—"
He stared at the headless corpse, then at the small green creature inching toward him.
"This monster… it's… it's—"
The slime slid forward another inch, body spreading wide and low like a predator ready to spring.
That was all it took.
The remaining thug turned and bolted out of the house, screaming incoherently as he fled down the street.
His boots slammed against the mud, the sound fading fast into the distance.
The slime watched him go, its core dimly flickering with exhausted relief.
It didn't want another fight and thankfully it didn't need one because the thug was a coward.
The blankness in Aria's face faded, replaced by the harsh reality closing in.
Her body that was frozen in shock jolted back to life.
She had no time to break. No time to crumble.
"This is bad," Aria muttered under her breath, worry tightening her voice. "He's going to report about you…"
She looked at the slime with wide, fearful eyes.
"Their leader will immediately know that a slime capable of killing a man isn't normal. They'll come here to hunt you," Aria said, her panic rising. "We have to hide."
She scrambled toward the thug's headless corpse, quickly rummaging through his pockets for the coins he had and her own coins he had taken earlier, then hurried into her room.
"You can eat him, slime," Aria said while rapidly stuffing her clothes into a small sack.
The slime didn't waste a second. It slid toward the corpse and began Consuming him.
—