Silence is the first thing you notice.
It's not peaceful. It's not comforting. It's the kind of silence that makes you realize something fundamental has changed—the kind that presses down on you with weight and presence, as if the world itself is watching at you .
You try to breathe there is no air an nothing happens.
The panic should hit immediately. Your mind knows what this means—no air, can't breathe, dying—but the terror arrives muted, distant. You wait for your chest to tighten, for your lungs to burn with that familiar, desperate ache.
It never comes.
You're not suffocating. You're not drowning. You're simply... existing, in a way that makes no sense.
What's happening?
You try to move, to lift your hand, to do anything that feels normal. There's no hand to lift. No arm to extend. No body that responds to your commands. Instead, your awareness shifts—sliding through space like oil across water, smooth and al...
Sensation trickles back in pieces. Energy humming faintly in the air around you. The solid coolness of stone beneath... whatever you are. A strange fluidity to your own form, as if you're not quite solid, not quite liquid.
Stone. I'm on the ground.
The thought catches, and with it comes memory—fragmented, sluggish, but undeniably real.
A hospital room. White walls. White ceiling. The monotonous beep of machines that had become the soundtrack to your life. A book resting on your chest, pages worn soft from constant rereading.
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.
You'd smiled at the title, near the end. Thought about how absurd it would be if stories like that were actually true. If there really was something waiting after the long, slow fade of terminal illness.
I was dying.
The memory solidifies. Ryomen Akatsura. Nineteen years old. Alone in that hospital room, the way you'd been alone for years. No parents. No siblings. Just nurses with pitying eyes and doctors who'd long since run out of options.
You'd made peace with it. Or told yourself you had.
And then... darkness.
And then... this.
Your awareness expands instinctively, reaching outward, and suddenly you understand—not through words or logic, but through pure, inexplicable knowing.
You're small. Formless.
Gelatinous.
The realization slams into you like a physical blow.
I'm a slime.
If you had a heart, it would be racing. If you had breath, it would be coming in gasps. The absurdity of it crashes over you in waves—this can't be real, this is impossible, things like this don't happen—but reality doesn't care about your disbelief.
You feel it now. The way your body moves, yielding and reforming with each slight shift. The way sensations reach you directly, unfiltered by skin or nerves. Everything is sharper somehow, clearer, as if you'd been experiencing the world through frosted glass your entire life and only now can see it properly.
The world had always hurt before. Your body had always been a cage of pain and limitation.
This... doesn't hurt.
The realization leaves you reeling.
A tremor runs through you—your new body responding to emotion in ways you're still learning. You force yourself to focus, to take in your surroundings instead of spiraling into panic.
The ground beneath you is scorched. Fractured. As if something massive and terrible had torn through this place recently. The air itself feels thick, saturated with an energy that prickles against your awareness.
Magicules.
The word surfaces naturally, as if it's always been part of your vocabulary. You don't question it. In this moment, you're willing to accept any knowledge that might help you survive.
Because that's what matters now, isn't it? Survival.
You'd spent nineteen years dying slowly. Now, impossibly, you have a second chance—and the thought of losing it, of dying again in this strange new world, terrifies you more than your first death ever did.
I have to figure out what's happening. Where I am. What I need to do.
You move cautiously across the broken ground, and as you do, a voice speaks directly into your mind.
"Unique Skill: Archivist of the Still World — successfully instantiated."
You freeze.
The voice is utterly neutral—neither warm nor cold, male nor female. It simply is, echoing through your consciousness with absolute clarity.
A voice. Inside my head. A skill?
"What—" you try to speak, but there's no mouth to form words, no throat to push sound through. The attempt feels ridiculous.
The voice continues as if you hadn't tried to interrupt.
"Designated functions: analysis, optimization, and information synthesis.""Current state: minimal data acquired. Beginning environmental assessment."
Understanding flows into you alongside the words. This isn't madness. It's not some dying hallucination. This is real—as real as the ground beneath you, as real as the energy humming through the air.
You have a Unique Skill.
The implications of that should probably mean more to you, but right now, you're simply grateful to have something. Anything that might give you an edge in a world where you're weak, small, and utterly lost.
"Archivist," you think, testing the name. "Where am I?"
"Insufficient data to determine precise location.""Environmental analysis indicates: high-density magicule zone. Recent large-scale magical disturbance detected. Estimated occurrence: less than twelve hours prior."
Twelve hours. Something massive happened here half a day ago.
You curl in on yourself instinctively, making your body as small as possible. The forest around you isn't silent—leaves rustle in the distance, and somewhere far off, something howls. The sound is low and resonant and decidedly inhuman.
There are monsters here. Predators. Things that would eat me without a second thought.
Fear sharpens into focus. You remember the light novel, the creatures that inhabited the Forest of Jura. Most of them wouldn't hesitate to prey on a newborn slime.
"I need to survive," you think, the words becoming a mantra. "I need to stay alive long enough to understand what's happening."
You move again, slower now, more careful. The Archivist provides subtle guidance—how to distribute your mass more efficiently, how to move without wasting energy. You follow its instructions, trusting it because you have nothing else to trust.
Time becomes meaningless. You slide through shadows and broken earth, absorbing ambient magicules without meaning to, feeling them settle into your core like warmth on a cold day.
And as you move, memory surfaces.
Not just your death, but the story you'd read over and over in that hospital bed. The story of a man who became a slime. Who found friends and family in the most unexpected places. Who built something meaningful from nothing.
Rimuru Tempest.
Your movement stutters.
Even thinking the name causes something to twist in your core—something warm and painful and desperately hopeful. You'd envied him while reading. Envied the bonds he formed, the people who cared about him, the family he built.
You'd been so alone.
Am I in that world? Is this really...?
You shake off the thought. Even if this is that world, there's no guarantee the story you read is accurate. No guarantee Rimuru exists, or that he'd care about some random slime even if he did.
Hope is dangerous when you're this vulnerable.
The ground slopes downward, opening into a wider clearing. The magicules are denser here, swirling like invisible mist. The energy feels... different. Calmer. More stable.
Safer, somehow.
You hesitate at the clearing's edge, every instinct screaming caution.
And then you feel it.
A presence.
It's vast—incomprehensibly vast—but not hostile. There's a gentleness to it, a warmth that reminds you of sunlight through hospital windows. Ancient and powerful, yes, but not threatening.
Your awareness reaches out tentatively, brushing against it.
For the first time since waking in this impossible body, the constant fear quiets. The crushing loneliness recedes. Something in you recognizes this presence, though you don't understand how or why.
You don't know who this is.
You don't know what will happen next.
But you know, with a certainty that bypasses logic entirely, that your life is about to change.