Chapter 7—Elder Slime
Slime#47 pivoted and glanced at the small blob, which jolted him.
"You seem to have intellect," said a ten-centimeter tall slime in a deep, adult male voice.
'Damn, it's just another slime.' Slime#47 felt stupid for getting startled by a jelly blob.
A regular slime with a few small scars on its body was in his vision.
He asked dubiously, "You used the word intellect—aren't slimes intelligent? And by the way, who are you?"
The slime sighed, "The name humans gave me is Slime#1. You can call me Elder Slime."
"Elder—that means you have lived for quite some time," he asked, wanting to know how long a slime could survive under humans.
"How long have I been alive?" The old slime chucked bitterly and continued, "Not much—just three years."
'Three years? That's barely enough for the human kid to stop peeing the bed,' Slime#47 was utterly flabbergasted. 'And he calls himself an elder.'
He couldn't help but be surprised; after all, it took him four years to stop wetting the bed!
'If my four-year-old version were to hear that someone called himself elder at three years, then he would proclaim himself grand elder.' He mused with a silly smile.
"We slimes can live up to thousands of years, but once we were caught by humans and placed in fields like this, known as slimefarms, our life expectancy has fallen as low as five years." Elder Slime grieved over the fate of slimes.
"Are we so delicious that humans catch us?" Slime#47 asked, not believing they were the most tasty treat.
The Elder Slime replied, "We are ranked among the top tasty treats by humans, and most importantly, we are cheap and cost-effective to provide for."
"Cost-effective?" Slime#47 muttered, doubtful.
"Humans feed us filth," Elder Slime said with his eyes dropping, "then slice off more than half of our body, tell me, child—does this world ever lack trash?"
"Damn! That's an effective business, " Slime#47 muttered, " Pick garbage, feed it, and get gold in return by slicing the jelly blob." He facepalmed himself due to the peak cruel innovation of humans.
'Even if we escape from this, other humans might catch us, or other races might devour us.' He mused bitterly, wondering whether he should instead train like cultivation MC's for thousands of years in the loop and go out!
"Hold-on!....How are you talking so clearly for a....new-born?" Elder Slime probed as suspicion built in his tone, surprised by Slime#47's inquiries.
Young one replied with a smug wobble, "I might be the blessed one and chosen slime."
The elder slime—Thup!—knocked on his upper body, making his entire body wobble.
"Ouch," Slime#47 rubbed the struck area softly, 'So, I do feel pain like normal,' He'd felt that his pain sensitivity was reduced, as he didn't scream in agony when the woman sliced his body apart, but apparently not.
"Seems you have intelligence like an adult human. I can start your training," Slime#1 declared, pulling the younger slime to the north-east corner of the field.
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'…Wait, these are punch marks from…slimes?' Slime#47 exclaimed in his mind, noticing the small baby-sized fist marks on the wooden fence.
The older slime glanced at the younger slime, expecting him to bombard him with questions, but to his disappointment, Slime#47 just looked at him with stars in his eyes. "Come on, Old Slime—teach me. Impart that punching skill. I have to kick that brat's butt...ahem..Punch"
Elder Slime's body twitched, and he—Cough!—explained without question, "We, slimes are typically born without any intelligence. Until we are one year old, our intellect isn't developed, but once we do, it reaches an adult human's level."
'I really don't know about this. After all, the only slimes I knew were isekai'ed and all of them had human-level thinking capability,' he mused, feeling slimes were really the lesser race.
"Old man, stop wasting time. Tell me what's important," Slime#47 asked, looking at Elder Slime, who was watching the bouncing slimes with pity.
"Do you know, young one?" The old one's voice turned heavy, "Out of all these slimes, only you and I are the ones with intellect."
"What?" Slime#47 blurted, stunned. 'Nani? Seriously?'
He'd expected that most of the slimes in the field to have intellect.
"Before you were born, your mother—slime#2 was the only intellect beside me, but she was killed by that pathetic human brat." Older slime lamented, with bitterness in his eyes.
"Wait a minute. Most of them can't even think you say—then how the hell did many of them come into being?" Young one asked him, in disbelief.
"There isn't any fact that only after gaining the intellect, they will have children! It is…" As Elder Slime was about to explain—Slime#47 understood, 'Humans. Damn humans.'
He'd known humans were so exploitative, but even to creatures like cute slimes? He'd felt humans in this world fell to even such a low point—they might have touched hell.
"Old slimes die due to exhaustion. And once the number of slimes falls to 50, those two humans would dump massive amounts of filth and some kind of fluids on us." He whimpered, his voice low, "Unlike other races, we have no gender, so any slime can give birth to a child, and we can continue to do so as long as we have nutrients."
Elder Slime had pointed out the actual truth of how slimes' reproduce, and they didn't go extinct, due to their reproduction prowess, as they are the first targets to level-ups.
'If this is the case, even if I escape, humans might catch me and make me a biological factory,' Slime#47 felt a chill and pondered what to do.
He'd decided to train a self-destructive skill so that he would commit suicide if humans did turn him into a reproduction machine.
There was silence for a few minutes as the older Slime let the youngling ponder on the destiny of slimes.
"Elder, I want to ask—is there no one powerful in our race? Any slime capable enough to deter other races so that we wouldn't be exploited?" Slime#47 asked hopefully; after all, he'd read about a certain slime who could create the entire multiverse!
But he'd felt that there would be no one, since slimes are being exploited so much by humans.
"Yes," Elder slime said with awe, "once there was a Slime King 'Remora'—the seventeenth Demon King—who once shook the entire Divinara continent."
Older slime's whole body wobbled when he mentioned the king!
End of the chapter. ____________________________________________
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