21 The Rank-2 Room Slime

Alaric decided to sacrifice a named slime. He cared a great deal for these slimes, as they were the continuation of his family and friends, but right now he had no choice.

"Santiago, named after the village grandpa, who was probably gonna die within a year or two anyways... should be fine to sacrifice."

Alaric gathered the two unnamed slimes and Santiago, and carried on with his normal procedure of extracting their cores, 'I really need a more efficient way of doing this...'

It actually made Alaric feel a bit regretful, the sacrificing of slimes in order to evolve other slimes. He wanted a different way of going about it, but for now, there was no choice but to use the miserable method of slaughtering his subordinates.

'Santiago, you shall be remembered as a hero!' Alaric thought, a small tear in his eye.

Of course, Alaric found his own safety much more important than the safety of a slime who had simply eaten someone he knew. But, it still affected him deeply.

"I now have 7 cores collected... Wurst will definitely be a useful addition to my generals." Alaric said, at the same time commanding Wurst, the slime, to come to his side.

"Wurst, eat these cores. You will become stronger!"

Alaric noted, that while Wurst became stronger, the population of the named slimes had decreased by 1, directly lowering future military potential.

Wurst's eyes spun about his body, and he stretched his body over the 7 cores, eating them all at once.

'A gluttonous fellow. Well, I am curious to see if something new happens if they eat all of the cores at once. Maybe he'll explode...?'

Wurst began undergoing changes in a mere minute, his eyes began to restrict, sticking to his core. And his body seemed to become a bit... less transparent.

Within 4 minutes, Wurst's eyes had completely melded into his core, as if his core was a human head, and he had grown eye sockets.

At 5 minutes, Wurst began glowing.

'The change with his eyes is interesting... but his evolution doesn't seem to be anything crazy. He is just glowing, no big shape changes or size differences like with the others.'

Soon, it was done, and Alaric took in Wurst's appearance. His body had become much less transparent... more "whole," and his eyes had become a part of the sky-blue core within his body. Other than that... there were no changes.

"Such an odd change! What benefits are there? Your mana is nearly as strong as Sonic's! At the peak of rank-2 from the get-go!"

The top of the slime, where the eyed core was, tilted a bit, as if someone was shrugging their shoulders, but didn't have shoulders.

"Can you not use telepathy or anything of the sort?" Alaric asked.

The slime shook its head in a horizontal motion, indicating a "no." This slime seemed to have the ability to understand Alaric, like the other rank-2 slimes, but not the ability to communicate with him effectively.

Alaric sighed a bit, thinking, 'This'll be a pain...'

Thankfully, Alaric remember that, upon evolving, most magical beasts had an instinctive and comprehensive knowledge of their new abilities implanted into their souls.

"Wurst, show me your new abilities."

Wurst's core immediately swirled around his body and caught sight of one of the village's meal tables. Suddenly, Wurst's body stretched extremely long in the direction of that table, and grew in size, encasing the table within his body. It happened in an instant, showing speed even beyond that of Sonic's.

Astounded, Alaric began to ponder over this mobility skill, 'It seems to be short range, as opposed to Sonic who can continue to go fast over long distances. This movement relied on the stretching of his body, which he can obviously change the size of to a certain extent...'

Now, the table meant to fit 6 people, was completely submerged in the slime's body, and slime had turned into a large blob itself. Its core, and the eyes attached to it, seemed to move about the giant body of this slime with ease.

'It's as if he has control over his entire body, he can make it grow in size, and store things inside of it as if he transformed into a little world. The table seems to be disintegrating very quickly, his acidity increased too.'

The slime shot the half-eaten table out of its body, at high speeds, crashing into the ground.

"You can even control their momentum and push the objects within you outside of your body? How did you do that?"

The slime transformed back into its regular size, which was the exact same size as the other slimes, and shook its head.'

'I don't really get it, but it seems that it can't move much when it stretches its body to that extent. It seems like he became more solid looking because he is containing a much larger amount of slime within that body...'

Alaric looked at Wurst, examined it, and decided, "You can control anything within your territory. You change yourself to your liking and arrange the objects within you with high efficiency. You're like... a bedroom! This species of yours... I shall call it the 'Room Slime!' Follow me, Wurst, the day is over and I must sleep. Guard over me."

The sky was indeed turning darker, and the hour hand on Alaric's stopwatch had just surpassed the "8" mark.

'One should sleep a healthy 8 hours, lest they do something stupid in their not-so-awake state!'

Alaric was a bit on edge when it came to sleeping recently, scared that an attack would come his way at any moment. Thankfully, this slime was the perfect personal guard. Its movement method was able to keep up with his pace, and it could handle multiple enemies at once.

After Alaric arrived in his bedroom, he laid down and looked at the slime thinking, 'You're still protecting me even now. Tomorrow, I will become a protector of others as well. Thank you for your teachings, Wurst.'