Slime!

With his nose still covered to block out this thing’s repugnant stench, John wasted no further time to cast Observe and get a better idea of what he now had to deal with.

Troll-Slime
Lvl: 5
HP: 500/500
MP: 20/20
Relationship Score: 0
As the rare hybrid of a troll and a slime, this creature has inherited the high speed healing of its parents and even exceeds them at it. In terms of intelligence, it has also inherited the dumbness of trolls, still making it smarter than the average slime. After taking a significant amount of damage, it may temporarily split itself into two parts or more.

Once John read through the pop-up, he dismissed it and considered his options. Clearly, chances were that he would have a difficult time if he tried to hack this thing apart with his scythe. Observe hadn't told him how high its health regeneration actually was in terms of numbers, but it likely wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume that it exceeded his current damage output. He carefully took a few steps back and watched to see if the Troll-Slime would do anything, or if it would just continue to sit there.

A minute passed like this, but the slime did nothing to show that it would react to, or even acknowledge, John’s existence. It simply continued to slowly but surely spread through the hallway. At this point, the gap between it and the walls was small. Still big enough that maybe John would be able to squeeze past it, but he doubted it. In any case, it wasn’t like this was the only way to Wentworth’s classroom, and he already knew that there wouldn’t be any more slimes to get in his way.

But… why do I have the funny feeling that Miss Wentworth wouldn’t let it be that easy? There has to be some kind of trick here to prevent me from just walking away and going around it, John thought to himself. But perhaps this was actually a test. One made to see if he was wise enough to know to avoid a pointless fight.

John made his decision. He glanced back over his shoulder, then began to walk backwards away from the slime so that he could face it in case it were to suddenly attack him now. But it did not do so, and was soon enough out of John’s sight. 

He continued to walk down the hall, but he now had to take a longer route to Wentworth’s class. He kept his scythe gripped tightly within his right hand as he waited for something else to happen. The farther away he got from the slime, the more mute its stench became. At this point John was able to safely breathe without his nose needing to be covered.

However, as he had feared, it would turn out to not be so easy.

When John turned the next corner, he noticed that the almost completely gone odor now began to get stronger. In fact… this hallway seemed to look just a bit too familiar. He quickened his pace, and lo and behold, after he turned yet another corner, there it was. It was still in the same place. But in the short time that had passed, it seemed to have grown a bit bigger. The gap that John could have squeezed past earlier was now gone.

Well, shit. Don’t tell me… he thought to himself as he took a step back, and then dashed back the way he just came. A couple minutes later, he once again ended up in front of the slime, although this time it was from the opposite direction. 

That confirmed it. He didn’t know what it was called, but this was the kind of scenario you often see on TV, in video games, or in books. Where someone was essentially trapped in some kind of spatial loop and they would always end up back in the same place. Although it was the sort of thing that should reasonably only exist in fiction, the last two days of being in a world of magic told John otherwise. And considering that that he was in a Barrier created by someone who was in the top one percent power-wise, it was almost reasonable to assume that Wentworth was able to pull this much off.

Maybe I could try climbing the stairs and travel through the next floor, or getting in the ceiling and getting past it that way? No… the first probably won’t work. Getting into the ceiling, that might work. John considered each of his options. That’s when an idea hit him. Although slimes were known for their ability to dissolve things, the tiled floors and plastic lockers that were covered by the slime seemed fine.

Hmm, let’s try this out first. From his inventory he took out a notebook. Not the one he used for Wentworth, but one for one of his classes instead. He tore out a few of its pages, and with them in his other hand, he slowly and carefully approached the slime. Once he was only a few feet from the edge of its amorphous mass, he tossed the papers onto it.

The sheets fluttered through the air before they landed on the slime’s surface. As they softly sunk into its body, they provoked a reaction from the slime. Kinda like a chameleon, its color began to change, its original red turned brown, green, and then yellow. At the same time, a sizzle could be heard as the papers began to dissolve. 

Did this mean that the Troll-Slime only dissolved and consumed organic matter? Or was it that only things that actually went inside were destroyed? For John, it didn’t really matter either way, since it still meant that touching it was a bad idea. But to satiate his curiosity anyway, he next pulled out a plastic pen and dropped it in alongside a few more sheets of paper.

The result was interesting. The paper dissolved like before, but even after a minute of waiting, the pen still seemed in perfect condition. As John thought about this, he heard the sound of gurgling come from the slime. And if he could call himself an expert of slime gurgles, it seemed to have sounded… happy? Satisfied? To see whether Observe would tell him any more this time, he cast it again.

It was the same thing as before, with exception to one difference. The Relationship Score had gone up from 0 to now 5! That must have meant that, like a normal animal, the slime had rubbed up to him since John had essentially fed it. Maybe he could still get past it without having to fight it after all…