In the end, the authorities concluded that the incident had been a hallucination brought on by the researcher’s own derangement. To hold him accountable, he was slated for confinement in a solitary cell. He had been screaming, "No! I don't want to die! I won't run away, so if you're going to lock me up, do it outside this facility!" but it seemed he was destined for a cell within the research institute regardless.
Well, he was the primary culprit behind the slime's escape, so I suppose it was only fair.
What? You're telling me I shouldn't be the one to say that after forcing my way out? Look, I was just doing what I had to for Miti-chan's survival.
Anyway, I decided to proceed with the plan I'd just come up with: letting them kill a split dummy so I could ride this out. Since they likely assumed I’d grown quite large after raiding the food storage, I would need to shed a significant amount of mass for the ruse to work.
Should I head back through the hole to the first room? I felt like leaving the dummy there would be the most natural setup.
...Ah, but that meant passing through the warehouse again. That was going to be a tough sell.
"He's not here?! He's nowhere to be found!"
"Where did that slime bastard go?!"
The soldiers at the warehouse had already realized I was gone.
Yikes. What now? Oh, right.
Come to think of it, the current mission was "Attack the Researcher!" That meant the game had likely flagged a scripted event where the slime attacked that Baldy who had been hauled away.
If that was the case, I needed a slime to do the job. And that didn't necessarily have to be Miti-chan's main body—in other words, me.
In fact, it was better if it wasn't me. I could craft a narrative where the "escaped slime" took its revenge on the researcher.
I could complete the mission and lower their guard at the same time. It was a perfect idea.
I wondered if Miti-chan would still get experience points even if a split dummy did the killing?
Whatever. Off to the solitary cell.
I wiggled and rolled my way through the crawlspace. I could almost feel my throat getting scratchy from all the dust I was sucking in as I reached the cell where the Baldy was being held.
"Locked up" was a relative term for a human. Between the observation window and the various pipes for ventilation and plumbing, there were plenty of gaps for a slime to slip through.
As for what the Baldy was doing inside the cell... he was pacing around restlessly.
Every so often, he would clutch his head or tremble. "I’m certain I disposed of that slime. The fact that the room was empty was undoubtedly the work of an intruder... All the research materials were gone, too. Who did it, and how...?" he muttered to himself.
He seemed terrified of some invisible assassin. If anything, he wasn't even that wary of the slime anymore.
Now then. How should I kill him?
Truth be told, even with the level ups, Miti-chan had almost no offensive capabilities. I couldn't spit fireballs or fire blades of wind.
All I could do was stick to things, move, or slowly nibble on them. And then there was the Miniaturization skill.
I could have used SP to buy more skills, but I wanted to save up for a Home.
"Alright. I've decided."
It was a total reversal of perspective. The Miniaturization skill—what if I just deactivated it? Exactly. I’d get huge.
Which was bigger, this solitary cell or Miti-chan? I was going to crush him with pure mass!
I slithered my tentacles along the ceiling of the cell. Since he was pacing, it created easy blind spots for me to sneak in. Once I was in position... I deactivated "Miniaturization" and dropped from the ceiling!
"Huh? H-agh...!! ——!! ————!!!"
His head was completely swallowed by the slime body. Not just his head—his entire frame. This was the power of overwhelming mass!
The solitary cell had been transformed into a deadly slime pool.
I watched him flail and struggle. It was useless; he was just stirring the inside of my body.
Oh, was he trying to use magic? He tried to focus... but no luck! Every time I rippled my body, his limbs were forced to move, breaking his concentration.
Now, I didn't exactly enjoy this part, but I began flowing slime into his nostrils and mouth. Time to say goodbye to Mr. Oxygen. Farewell, until we meet again.
Eventually, his struggling slowed until he stopped moving altogether.
People die when they drown in slime. I learned something new today.
A notification popped up—the mission was clear, and I leveled up at the same time.
Now... "Split." I didn't want to reabsorb the parts I'd shoved up the guy's nose, so I was perfectly fine with leaving that part behind as a decoy to be destroyed. See ya.
I detached a significant portion of my body and slipped back into the crawlspace.
Later on, the man who had drowned in the slime was discovered. The decoy was exterminated while it was still in the middle of digesting him, and the alarm finally subsided.
The investigation into the cause began. After some looking around, the authorities speculated that since the split dummy's core was so small, it must have escaped through the plumbing. They were spot on.
And so, the slime escape incident was officially resolved—
—Or so it seemed. That's usually how the narration goes, right? Because I was still lurking right there.
That said, this felt like a good stopping point. It was already getting late.
I set the Auto Mode to "Wait without being discovered. Flee if you sense danger."
I thought about making her do slime squats, but if she made too much noise exercising, she might get caught.
"See you later, Miti-chan."
I logged out of the game. I leaned back into my chair, staring at the text on the Kite a Lise exit screen: "Adjusting data. Please do not turn off the power."
"...Phew. Ah, the human body."
Finally, a human body. It felt like I hadn't been a person in forever.
I reached for a shelf while still sitting, but of course, my hand didn't make it. My arms didn't stretch anymore. It was bizarre how that felt like a minor inconvenience.
"...Yeah, this game is seriously insane."
The body structures were completely different, yet I could move exactly as I intended. It was as easy as dragging a mouse to move the character.
If this technology were applied to medicine—like for rehabilitation—it would be revolutionary. Maybe they were already doing that.
"Still, it's such a pain that I can't use Tria-chan or Friend Chat until I clear this second character's scenario."
I wouldn't be able to see Tria-chan until Miti-chan's story reached a conclusion. If Penpen hadn't warned me about that beforehand, I probably would have sent a bug report email full of complaints.
I'd spent so much time eating gross stuff like sand that I really wanted to wash the taste out with Penpen's Special Steak...
Well, nothing to be done. I guess I'll eat a packaged meal. ...Sigh. It’s so slimy. Squish, squish.