Suddenly, I Became a Slime

"...Huh."

Hwangbo Yul blinked as she stared at the scene on the screen, then rubbed her eyes with her sleeve. She wondered if she was hallucinating. But the scene before her eyes didn’t change. She had no choice but to accept what she was seeing.

7496-KR was pulling the corpses of agents from the water and collecting their identification tags.

Hwangbo Yul’s expression as she watched was complicated. These agents had gone to investigate the anomaly but had never returned. Because of the anomaly’s peculiar nature, even their bodies couldn’t be retrieved.

Hwangbo Yul had also wanted to recover their bodies, but she knew it would only result in more casualties, so she had ultimately given up. When those agents were declared missing, others had gone to search for them but never came back either.

...That’s why it felt strange to see the jelly girl doing what she couldn’t.

The jelly girl placed the corpses on tree roots to prevent further decay and collected the identification tags.

Hwangbo Yul, watching with a wistful gaze, turned to Kim Cheonsu, who stood next to her, his face clouded with pity.

“…Did you ever train her for situations like this?” Kim Cheonsu, flustered by the unexpected question, thought for a moment before shaking his head.

“…Then what’s this behavior?”

When Hwangbo Yul asked again, Kim Cheonsu had no answer. Truthfully, he was also amazed by the jelly girl’s actions.

Recovering the bodies was understandable. The jelly girl seemed to… like humans more than expected. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have fulfilled Han Seori’s request. Even if she had, she might have demanded an unreasonable price.

But the jelly girl hadn’t.

...Of course, she did want something this time, but considering what she accomplished, the price seemed almost laughably small.

The jelly girl liked humans, so recovering the mangled bodies from the water seemed natural. Perhaps she didn’t want to see the forms of the humans she liked becoming increasingly distorted.

...If not, wouldn’t she have stuffed those corpses into her stomach?

Kim Cheonsu recalled how the jelly girl had devoured massive chunks of meat whole, nodding to himself.

That voracious jelly girl not eating the bodies must mean… It was because of this.

Even so, collecting the identification tags was difficult to comprehend.

To collect them implied she understood what they meant.

Kim Cheonsu touched the cold tags around his neck and spoke.

“…Well, as noted in our reports, 7496-KR has considerable intelligence. Perhaps she understands what they signify.”

“…Huh.”

Hwangbo Yul sighed, finding it hard to believe.

Regardless of her mixed feelings, she was glad that at least the tags could be recovered. While the truth couldn’t be disclosed to the families, at least something tangible remained to remember the agents by.

...Even if it was merely a small consolation.

Setting aside her emotions.

Hwangbo Yul watched the screen, showing the jelly girl trudging through the swamp, retrieving bodies and identification tags.

...What kind of expression does she have right now?

Sadness? Or perhaps….

Hwangbo Yul wondered if the jelly girl, with her superior intelligence, might be mocking her and Kim Cheonsu.

Anomalies are… like that, after all.

She recalled her first encounter with the jelly girl.

The creature dangled limply by its antennae, staring at her with a sullen expression.

Then it scampered behind Kim Cheonsu, peeking out like a cautious cat.

…And finally, it marched confidently through the swamp as if to say, “Trust me.”

‘…What exactly are you?’

Hwangbo Yul pondered, unable to reach a conclusion.

But one thing seemed certain:

7496-KR, the jelly girl, was different from any anomaly she had encountered.

Although intelligent enough to deceive….

...She was helping with what Hwangbo Yul couldn’t do herself—

“…Wait, what is she doing now?”

“I-I don’t know either!”

Hwangbo Yul watched in alarm. The jelly girl, who had been retrieving bodies and tags, suddenly submerged into the muddy water.

Normally, Hwangbo Yul would have watched indifferently, but perhaps because the jelly girl had been collecting tags, she was visibly flustered.

She worried the jelly girl might do something strange.

And Kim Cheonsu was equally baffled, adding to the commotion as they stared at the screen.

...How long do I have to keep doing this?

Following the guidance of the Knowledge Pouch, I dove in.

But navigating through muddy water made it hard to see.

I could gauge my direction by feeling the Knowledge Pouch, so I wasn’t lost, but it felt overwhelming.

And unlike outside, something heavy seemed to press against me, as though wet, muddy blankets were piled on top of me.

Would deep-sea diving feel like this?

I could tell a normal person would’ve already perished.

Unlike the eerie swamp where nothing appeared…

The place I was in now exuded clear malice or hostility.

...This must be the thing responsible for the tags I put inside of me.

Thinking about it made my jelly boil with hostility towards the creature.

Maybe my true thoughts were surfacing because no one was watching me.

I don’t know.

But one thing was clear.

...I wanted to see the face of the thing that did this to them.

As for what I’d do… Well, who knows?

Come to think of it, Hwangbo Yul had only asked me to “resolve” this situation. She hadn’t specified how.

Did that mean I could decide what to do with the anomaly that caused this mess?

A jelly surprise, perhaps?

As I mused, squeezing through the tightening mud—

Squish.

My small face broke through the mud into damp air.

Splorp!

I wriggled out, shaking off the mud, but the view didn’t brighten much.

It seemed I wasn’t outside but inside some kind of chamber.

...Was the tunnel I passed through actually a creature’s gullet?

Thinking about it, the Knowledge Pouch always pointed to something but never told me what.

...So, my imagination might not be far off.

But if that were the case, wouldn’t it be better?

What happened to those who tried to eat me before?

Hmm, well, excluding that whale….

They all ended up being eaten by me instead.

If that were the case, I wouldn’t mind. I could devour it from the inside out.

But as my vision adjusted, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

The ceiling resembled a cave more than the interior of a creature.

So much for an easy meal.

Anyways.

I couldn’t just stick my neck out and stay still, so I tried to move further out.

Or at least, I was about to, until I heard something move.

Startled by the sudden noise, I froze.

The Knowledge Pouch began pointing somewhere, naturally drawing my gaze.

Squish, squish.

From the direction indicated by the Knowledge Pouch came the sound of something large approaching.

Squish, squish.

The sticky, familiar sound of footsteps.

Squish.

Finally, something massive and slimy revealed itself.

What appeared before me was….

...A toad, its skin stained a repulsive color. Its size was immense, and when it opened its mouth, it seemed to create a yawning black hole.

Had it ended there, I might’ve thought it was just a really big toad.

But… its skin was translucent. Or, to be precise, it was similar to mine. If I turned into a giant toad and changed my color to dung brown, I’d look just like that.

Inside its semi-transparent body floated the clothes of the bodies I had recovered outside.

This confirmed one thing:

This creature was responsible for harming the people outside.

Squish, squish.

While I stared at it, the toad had come within striking distance. Snapping out of it, I prepared to push myself free.

Splat!

Its massive mouth opened, and a blunt, elongated tongue shot toward me.

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