Suddenly, I Became a Slime

Chapter 52: I can eat this can

I.

Descended.

As I stuck my slime on the ground, it felt familiar… no, I had some doubts about calling it familiar.

Looking at where my slime touched, it seemed I had indeed arrived at that cramped space where I saw the can.

However.

Unlike then, I could see chunks of meat scattered here and there. It wasn’t half water and half meat, but 80% meat with the remaining 19% water. 1% was left for the can.

The chunks of meat that defied gravity and gushed upwards… were probably not rising of their own accord, but there may have been some kind of device.

If not that… they may have been cut off while exiting.

Fortunately, the severed chunks don’t wriggle.

…Of course, I still had to push the chunks of meat to get out.

But in the field of chunks of meat buried in darkness, there was no need to worry about how to find the can.

It was very easy to find what moved among unmoving things.

*twitch twitch*

Since the knowledge pouch was pointing somewhere, I wasn’t particularly worried about finding it.

…However, I’m still not sure if it detects what Han Seori and Kim Cheonsu call an “Anomaly.”

Since there was no other reason for the knowledge pouch to twitch, I think I’m probably right.

As I walked in the direction the knowledge pouch pointed, as I expected,

Amidst the silent chunks of meat, I saw one making gurgling noises all by itself.

[Bothersome@4a]

Along with the word presumed to be “bothersome” that had been heard for a while, chunks of meat that continue to proliferate and gush upwards are seen.

The chunks of meat stretching out with gurgling sounds don’t seem to intend to stop whether I came or not.

After watching it for a while, I hardened my hands and feet like when I subdued the horned wolf and cleaned up around the gurgling ascending chunks of meat.

I’m not flattening them like a pork cutlet hammer… just gently pushing them aside.

I want something big and hard.

Anyway.

After tidying up the surroundings using even my tentacles, the familiar thing revealed itself.

Seeing endless chunks of meat spewing from a small can… indeed, I could see why they called it an Anomaly.

Would there be anyone who understands chunks of meat spewing from that can?

…There isn’t, so they sent me.

Thinking that, I newly realized that from their perspective, I, too, had become an incomprehensible existence.

A… lifeform (although I take the form of a girl, so it’s strange to say that) with the ego of the human “Han Hosu.”

I understand why Han Seori tried to cut off my arm and figure something out not long ago.

…I probably would have done the same, right?

Well, they probably don’t know that I’m inside it.

Then, thinking it was more convenient to hide it in many ways, I approached the can.

Grabbing the can endlessly spewing red chunks of meat, the can trembles intensely as if resisting capture.

Perhaps it’s trembling due to the force of the spewing meat chunks.

*Clang!*

Lifting the grabbed can, I thought about how it was even stuck to the ground in the first place.

Han Seori told me to eat this up.

Looking at it trembling in my hand, I recalled the things I had eaten so far.

…Excluding food, since that would be too many.

Mice, wild dogs, metal, horned wolf, strange guardian totem (it was probably an Anomaly), the beautiful statue (this too)…

Hmm.

I could also see why they asked me to eat it up.

Even I think I seem likely to eat up anything well.

However…

Recalling the chunks of meat that swarmed me as if to trample me when I first came here, I hesitated a little.

But.

I didn’t really have the option of not eating it.

Even if it wasn’t Han Seori’s request, if I eventually can’t stop these proliferating chunks of meat… the place for me to live will disappear.

…I mean, I couldn’t really feel it when they said things like a black hole or whatever, but it was clear that something big would happen.

The world has to be peaceful for me to eat delicious things like chicken.

When this is over… they’ll let me feast on all sorts of delicacies, right?

Saving the earth is a humble thing that deserves at least that much.

…Like a steak or something.

Or… what was it… something expensive… like foie gras or caviar, would be nice too.

Thinking of the delicacies I hadn’t been able to eat, I stabbed the can, spewing chunks of meat into my body.

*Shink.*

Along with the sensation of something hard entering my body, an indescribable bizarre taste was felt all over.

And.

Until now, when I ate something, I have heard *gurgle*… *gurgle* sounds.

But now.

*glorp glorp glorp glorp.*

A loud sound, like boiling water, was heard.

[Bothersome@4a]

A voice of indeterminate gender is heard from inside my body.

*glorp glorp glorp.*

Does tasting it mean I can digest this?

…I don’t know.

Even if I try to look closely at what’s inside my stomach, it looks hazy due to the boiling slime.

*Clang!*

Then, I was pushed by the force of the spewing chunks of meat and fell to the ground.

*glorp glorp, squish squish!*

Along with the sound of slime boiling, the gushing chunks of meat envelop my body.

From a distance, it would seem as if chunks of meat were erupting out of me.

Due to the piled-up chunks of meat, the already dark space became even darker.

The only thing that could be called light now… was the arrow from my choker.

*glorp glorp glorp.*

The bizarre taste is felt along with the taste of chunks of meat.

Meanwhile, I could feel the chunks of meat piling on top of me, getting heavier and heavier.

They went up well before, but why are they weighing me down now?

And so I lay there with the can stuck in my belly, hoping it would be digested.

More than anything else,

…this indescribably awful taste was the most agonizing.

“We’re severely short on personnel.”

“Stop saying things everyone knows and move quickly.”

“…Phew.”

Maybe I should just scarf down an MRE, too.

The man who swallowed a sigh at the sudden heavy workload shook his head, looking at the person being dragged by the one who spoke to him.

He saw a person limply being dragged as if intoxicated by drugs, hanging their limbs helplessly.

‘…Well, I don’t want to end up like that.’

The man, sighing, headed to his assigned location and looked around.

“I don’t want to work….”

“Is it because it’s Monday… It’s harder than usual.”

Here and there, people complaining of mild ‘symptoms’ caught his eye.

‘They said to leave the mild cases alone?’

Recalling that he was told to leave them be as interfering would only make it worse, the man took another step.

Whether he was lucky or not, no situations requiring his intervention occurred in his assigned area.

Nevertheless, the man looked around, feeling a strange ominousness.

As if the man’s thoughts had planted a seed,

“Kyaaa!?”

“Wh, What are you doing!?”

Noisy sounds began coming from the corner of the convenience store.

‘Ah, shit.’

The man, who inwardly sighed, ran to the place where the commotion was heard.

Entering the convenience store where the screams were heard, he saw a person rampaging and knocking over the store shelves.

The person who collapsed against the shelves, knocking them over, roughly tore open the ‘MRE’ that was displayed there and shoved it into their mouth.

“Th, That person must be crazy….”

“Um, um, excuse me, customer? You should at least pay before eating….”

Seeing that crazed behavior, the clerk and others just stared at the person with pale faces.

Seeing that, the man sighed inwardly, took out his ID from his pocket, and shouted.

“You are under arrest as a criminal caught in the act.”

What he took out was a police ID.

With the appearance of the perfect person for the situation, people’s faces brightened, though they still thought ‘is that all?’.

‘So… what did I have to say next?’

The man who roughly notified them thought it was meaningless and handcuffed the person, still hurriedly eating the MRE.

Their obsession with MREs was strong, but subduing them wasn’t very difficult as they were no different from a normal person.

The man heard murmurs from people around him and took the subdued person out.

Behind him, he heard the clerk’s voice asking “what do we do about all this?”, but the man couldn’t answer that as he wasn’t instructed to.

As the clerk was flustered, the man who left the convenience store put the rampaging person into the prepared vehicle and swallowed a sigh.

The one fortunate thing was that as the rampaging person moved away from the MREs, their movements weakened as if they had calmed down.

Then, just as the man was about to go back out,

“Huh? Where the hell is this…? Ha, handcuffs?!”

A relatively lucid-sounding voice was heard.

The one most startled by that voice was the man who had brought the voice’s owner there.

‘What? There was nothing about them regaining their senses?’

The man, breaking out in a cold sweat, turned around and smiled awkwardly.

Erasing memories was beyond what he could do.

…For now, he thought he should reassure the restrained person with some plausible words.

“Have you lost your memory?”

“What? Wh, who are you?”

The man thought the situation from a little while ago was actually better.

He desperately racked his brain.