Chapter 28.
The Tavern Crew would be home by this evening. Thank god, Candy, as my only company, had slowly and increasingly driven me up the wall. I wasn’t built for having another voice in my head, though at least she was far less anxious and paranoid than my usual one.
Regardless, it would be so nice to see my only friends in this world again.
There was just one problem. I was pregnant as fuck. Which really just consisted of a very enlarged stomach. I felt like a balloon, and considering I had grown this big in just a few days, it was a little alarming. Apparently, a side effect of Candy having permeated my whole meat suit was an increase in elasticity and malleability. So… great. It was, or else such a rapid growth would certainly be harmful to me, but it was also stupid. It was some porn logic bullshit that was for sure.
At the very least, I was still far smaller than if it were a human baby. And no other side effects, which made it more manageable. Though honestly, an increase in breast size wouldn’t have hurt, I could have forgiven it. I had always wanted to be able to suck my own nipples. But horny brain aside, a lack of side effects was somewhat necessary for this skill to be of use. And it made sense, I wasn’t growing a full human, just a few simple slimes, the whole point was they were easy to create.
Of course, that did leave me with one problem. My robes did not hide the belly bump, and there was no way in hell I was going to be able to conceal this from the Tavern Crew. Candy had assured me they were almost done; it was just a quick final race against the clock.
But gestating further slimes would still absolutely be a problem.
Well… I didn’t have to hide my skills from them. I didn’t have to, but given the uh… intimate nature, I wasn’t exactly keen to show anything off. And yet, I would have to adjust. I couldn’t let my own embarrassment get in the way of levelling up. I already had enough problems to solve.
I busied myself with tidying up the space a bit, both from the mess I had made but also from the general mess that I had arrived in. The Tavern Crew had given me room and board for free. It was the least I could do.
It was also immediately much more difficult with a single arm. Sweeping was awkward and inefficient, simply moving things was slow, and trying to get the cobwebs from the corners was nigh impossible without another hand to stabilize myself on a chair. Fuck.
I did my best.
I was getting better even though it was really hard to be positive. Already, I was more used to using my left hand, though I hadn’t even begun to tackle writing, and fine, finicky movements were still a pain. And even muscle memory wouldn’t be able to make up for everything. Some tasks simply required two hands.
“They are ready,” Candy informed me as I folded some of the laundry that had been hanging dry for… maybe ever.
Fuck.
“Okay,” I replied. “How do I um… get them out?”
“They will just wriggle out. I just wanted to warn you first,” she explained.
I ground my teeth. Okay, this was happening. I decided to crouch, my hand on the bedpost for balance as I gave Candy the go-ahead. I didn’t know what to expect, but I wasn’t scared. After everything, this seemed too stupid to be scary.
I felt them drop, then… it was difficult to describe, and yet I felt every moment of it.
It was something between penetration with a very soft toy reversed and passing the biggest clot I could ever get on my period. The first slime landed with a wet splat on the hardwood floor where it wobbled for a second, bright pink and… slimy. The next two slimes quickly followed.
I felt slimy and gross, and definitely needed to clean myself up, but… it had been fine. Weird, definitely weird, not really pleasurable but not painful, just… weird. I needed a better description and yet couldn’t come up with one. I stood with a grunt, my thighs sticky with slime. I brushed my hair out of my face, feeling… still weird. It was the only word I could come up with.
“Look how adorable they are!” Candy cooed.
Were they? They just looked like blobs of pink jello with little crystalline cores in the middle.
“Remember, we’re selling their cores,” I offered weakly. Though now staring at the little wobbly buggers, it seemed easier said than done. I had heavily underestimated Candy, and that had been my downfall. And I still didn’t have poison or parasite resistances.
“Oh, right,” Candy mumbled, clearly disappointed but thankfully not hysterical at the notion. Her ability to find them cute seemed like a stark contrast to how she described slime life. Clearly, having based herself on a human consciousness had its effects.
“What’s the best way to… kill them?” I asked, grimacing immediately.
One of the slimes took an experimental bounce. It was kinda cute. In an evil, parasitic, brightly coloured globule kind of way.
“Digest them so the slime isn’t wasted, the core won’t break down from it,” Candy offered.
Duh. If a slime’s core weren’t resistant to its own corrosiveness, then it wouldn’t live very long at all.
“Okay,” I muttered, crouching down to get close to the slimes. One rolled in my direction.
Jesus. Now I felt bad. They were just babies. Baby Hitlers, maybe, but still babies. It wasn’t their fault that they weren’t smart enough to have any sense of empathy. Human babies couldn’t even figure out that they are a distinct person from those around them until a few years old, and sociability was our species' whole thing.
I grabbed one of the slimes and used [Digest].
Violence was also a very human thing.
The slime shrivelled up and was gone within moments, leaving only the tinted crystal in my palm and, of course, that gritty residue. I digested the other two slimes.
“Poor little slimes, your sacrifices will not be in vain. You will be used for getting pastries and… other things,” Candy said.
I pursed my lips not to laugh. “Very wise,” I offered.
“I know lots of things,” Candy agreed pointedly.
Shaking my head, I set the cores on the table and started wiping myself down with a cloth. I felt… better than I had expected. Maybe I was still just trying to make sense of it, and I was, but… I had expected more.
Maybe I shouldn’t have. It was just a skill. One of many. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had used [Analysis].
I redressed myself, slow as always, and picketed the cores. Fortunately, the process was more or less mess-free. No blood and violence of a human birth, thank fuck.
Heading out, I took mental stock of the situation at hand. Three cores after five days. Each core was worth 15 pence. 45 pence every five days, so almost a shilling a day at that rate. 10 days for a gold crown.
Fuck, it wouldn’t be quite fast enough. Not that I wasn’t happy, simply being able to essentially produce a shilling a day was amazing. Well… it probably wasn’t remotely a good salary, from my estimates, you’d need at least double that to really be comfortable, but I doubted many people even had a salary in this world.
“Are three slimes the limit?” I grimaced. It had to be asked.
“More would slow the process down even more, and would make you… really big,” Candy offered. “For better slimes, I don’t think there’s room for more than one. Maybe a second basic slime if we push it. But I’m not so sure that will be okay for us.”
“Okay,” I mumbled. “Will more than three lesser slimes be safe?”
“Not sure, I’d have to squish some stuff around,” she considered. “But there’s already way less space with me being here. I don’t know, three seemed like it wouldn’t get in the way of anything?”
I shuddered. I wasn’t exactly willing to risk my health further. “Three it is then,” I sighed. We would need to be creative to increase our money-making plans.
Deep in thought, I headed for the magical shop.