“Whether I can get along with the murder plant or not, depends on how much it needs this.”

I wrapped my body around the yellow sphere to keep it from getting pushed away by the strong winds. Being this close to it I could feel the liveliness of the nature essence residing within, it’s as if I was holding a cold beating heart. It’s not a nice feeling.

“This is also the core of a slime after all,” I said. “Though I wish I knew this beforehand, system.”

“Well, in the end, it’s a good thing I didn’t.”

Slime core. That’s what I decided to call the yellow sphere, or rather nature core that I got from the slime, since the system doesn’t differentiate this core from others in the list of skills.

Although similar in their appearance and purpose, the slime core was completely different in terms of production and final use. For instance, the core of a slime wasn’t formed after birth, instead, the ‘body,’ if I could even call it that, is created by the core itself.

However, this slime core has very little chance of making a body.

“With the density of nature essence in it, I can tell that it’s another ‘high-quality’ core.”

And that’s the second difference from other creature’s cores, the slime core can, apparently, be refined by its parent into an extremely dense source of essence. At the cost of it becoming incapable of developing a mind of its own.

“I need a place to keep this hidden until I figure out what to do.”

Taking a look around, I couldn’t find anywhere that would serve as a shelter during this windy weather. The flower field wasn’t an option because of the thorns those flowers have at the bottom of their stalk, which explains why only the slime resided there.

Nowhere on the path I took to get here, from the murder plant’s area, did I see any sort of ground nest or dwellings, aside from a few trees with holes in the middle of their trunk. Obviously, I still cannot climb trees to reach those.

“...There is that place,” I whispered.

With a single use of the system I confirmed that my idea was feasible, albeit not very pleasant.

“Haah,” I sighed. “What’s with me and other’s insides, that I’m going through guts for the most part of this life?”

I kept on complaining while I picked up the slime core with my mouth and approached the frootare’s corpse. According to the system it still had a few stats, which were going down quite fast, and no core of its own, so I figured it’d be a good hiding spot from the wind for tonight.

The mouth of the body was just the right size for me to slither through, and the pierced stomach wasn’t in as much of a mess as it could’ve been. As long as I covered the holes with my body, there’d be no issues, I think.

“It's gonna be fine, it’s already dead so it cannot absorb this,” I reassured myself.

While I was thinking about that, I found a good position that allowed me to cover up the large hole below its stomach, and the smaller one on its back. Though, I’m sure that any small shake would surely crumble the position that I got into.

Now that everything was in place, I finally allowed the fatigue that I’ve been holding in, since the afternoon, to be set free.

“Gee, today was... tough...”

I barely managed to keep my muscles in place once the heaviness of being tired hit me, a strong urge to sleep took over me, one worse than any before.

Thankfully I didn’t have to fight it anymore...

The next day, before I, myself, woke up, several animals sprung from their nests and dwellings as the smell of fresh meat was carried by the breeze, along with the sweet scent of flowers that attracted all sorts of small birds and insects to the field.

However I only became aware of such a situation when it was already too late for me to claim the frootare’s corpse as my property. The reason being...

“They are... taking me away?” I whispered. “Isn’t it common sense to check the insides before picking up someone else’s prey?!”

Much to my surprise, even my muffled shouts didn’t impede the ‘kidnapper’ from pausing on their tracks. To begin with it’s already weird enough that some animal would pick up this bunny-like body and take it somewhere else, instead of eating it on the spot.

“Did a human pick it up?” I wondered for a moment, then shook my head. “No, it can’t be that.”

One look through the large hole at the bottom was enough to fund my assumption. The ground was too close for an adult’s arm to reach without a bag, and if I was in a bag I wouldn’t be able to see the ground at all.

And with the same argument in mind, I figured this had to be the work of another unknown species, maybe one that prioritizes bringing their meal back home.

“How would they react if I ate all the insides and jumped off?”

It’s not like I wasn’t planning to eat it anyway, so pissing off this unknown thief would be just a funny bonus.

[Host has devoured sufficient raw meat. Strength +0.02, Endurance +0.01, Dexterity +0.01.]

[Host has consumed enough...]

[Host has digested...]

“Fuaaa,” I let out a breath of relief.

The previously full of jumbled organs, and unattached meat, inside of the frootare was now emptied of its blood and remains to a terrifyingly clean degree, by this baby snake that is me.

“I’m full, even though this just counts as breakfast.”

I did wish I could bite down the walls of flesh that stood behind the muscles of this creature for an even more extensive meal, but I haven’t grown any teeth just yet so I will have to let the kidnapper have the rest for itself.

“Uop,” I picked up the slime core with my mouth, “het’s ko!”

Without any further ado, I slid my way through the throat of the frootare and jumped out of its mouth, though, this time, its big front teeth did prove itself to be an issue when it scraped my back.

“—!”

Which distracted me from focusing on landing properly on the rough terrain that awaited me outside.

A loud thud reached my ears after my body crashed against the dirt. I couldn’t immediately react to the pain since, following the fall, my body continued to roll down a hill. And, until I reached the bottom, all my energy was focused on keeping the core in my mouth, without swallowing it by accident.

“Puha!”

Once the world stopped rotating like a washing machine I spat the core and dropped my head on the ground, dizziness took over my senses and I couldn’t tell what was up and down. It was surprising that even in this state I still didn’t puke what I had just eaten.

“...Where?”

To avoid shaking my head too much I moved slower than usual as I took in my surroundings.

“My kidnapper was... faster than I expected.”

It did take me a few inspections to realize that, one, there were no traces that could help me identify what sort of creature stole my meat. Two, while I was eating, they, somehow, brought me over to a very strange part of the forest. And three, every way I could go looks the same for me.

“Hmm, did I... become a snake with no way home?” I jokingly said.

“Now how to go ba— huh?”

While I was thinking, from the corner of my eyes, I noticed a small glimmer in the distance. It disappeared almost immediately, but, as the wind blew, the sunlight reflected on it again and again.

“Hmm, I can’t get distracted now,” I murmured. “And I need to bring this to the murder plant as fast as possible...”

It is sad, however, that my rationale couldn’t overcome my curiosity. My body ‘reluctantly’ slithered towards the blinking light with the core in my mouth, half-preoccupied and half-excited.

So, I ventured into the depths of the forest, on an extremely short quest to find the source of this shimmer.