The slime woke up, or at least an equivalent of it. Slimes don’t really go to sleep. They stay in a sort of half dormant state in which they can rest and rearrange themselves to further develop their body. And in case of a predator approaching, they can swiftly go somewhere else to stay alive. Though, in this part of the forest, there isn’t really much monsters around. So today, like it did yesterday, and the day before, it woke a bit before noon.

Like it did before, it would go in a nearby cave and go eat some shiny turquoise grass that emitted a weird mana wave. It would feel full and appeased every time it absorbed it. But today, some creatures looking like itself were near the entrance of the cave. It recognized them as one of the groups it tried to insert himself in before, as they looked exactly like him. But they all would rejected it.

Sometimes, those groups of look-alikes would only just make it feel unwelcome by emitting some mana waves in its direction, others would just ignore it. On rare cases however, it would be beaten until it would go away, and one of those groups was right in front of the entrance to that cave. Needless to say, it didn’t want to meet those creatures, so it just went in another direction. Luckily, there was another entrance in that cave. It was a bit far, so it would feel hungry pretty soon, but it was worth the wait.

A dozen of minutes later.

Midway in the direction to the other entrance, the slime smelled a calming and appetizing scent. It went in that direction and approached a cliff. There was also a weirdly familiar mana wave coming from the origin of the scent. Coming closer, it heard growling and a small voice, so it hid in a bush. Then, it heard a little scream. The slime was scared, nothing that made noise like that was in the forest before. But, being curious of the scent and the mana waves, it decided to go out of the bush and take a look at what made the voice, and a click was heard in its metaphorical head: it was a little human. By the looks of it, it was hurt. A piece of food was on their legs. It was something the humans called “bread”. It heard that a lot when going in the human’s village when the humans began to eat before the majority of them went to sleep. And it smelled delicious.

So, not caring about the strongly familiar mana waves, the slime slowly approached the little human when they began eating the bread and it touched their leg. It was strongly looking at it, it looked absolutely gorgeous. A dozen of seconds later, the little human gave it a piece of the bread. It went for it in under a second. And as it thought, it was delicious. And as if that wasn’t enough, the little human gave it one more. It was amazing.

Feeling a sense of gratefulness, which was never there before, it went away to some herbs that humans use as a healing ingredient. How did it know? The "healing potions" and "ointments" that those strong humans used had a similar mana wave than those herbs. So, it absorbed those herbs and decomposed it to the pure components. Then, using the mana waves of the healing potions as base, it made a sort of healing liquid. Then, it went back to the little human and healed its legs as thanks.

And, wanting their benefactor to go home sooner, it showed the way to the human village. At some point, the little human picked up the pace and the slime was struggling to keep up. Then, when it was outside the forest, it looked at the little human who looked to the village with bright eyes. Having done what it wanted to do, the slime went in the direction to the forest so it could eat the shiny grass, but the little human screamed. The mana waves emitted by the little human begged him to stay, so it turned around. The human said something, and pointed at the direction to a structure near the edge of the forest. Then, the little human said something and for a brief moment, the slime understood what the little human said. It wanted to reply, but didn’t know how, so it just did something that humans did for showing approval, as it observed before. The little human looked happy and they soon parted ways.

16 minutes later.

The slime arrived at the entrance of the cave. It went in and ate the grass. It felt great. It looks like its lookalikes didn’t enter the cave. Happy knowing its source of food didn’t get ravaged by some other creatures, it went back and found a hole in the trunk of a tree a couple of minutes to the edge of the forest. It then went on their way for more of that healing grass, maybe it will be useful later.

That night, the slime didn’t go in the village, it stayed in the same trunk it found earlier. And as it was going in its half dormant state, it thought of the little human and how strangely familiar their mana wave was. It didn’t know why, but it looked forward to their meeting tomorrow, while not realizing that several emotions developed in the slime from the moment it met that human.

Author's note:

Hello! The second and last part of the prologue is here! It's nearly midnight so I don't know if I will be able to reply to any of your comments in the next hours that this is published. But I'll try to stay awake so I can give feed back to any of your comments! See you soon!