Monday mornings had always been cursed, especially with class starting at the god-awful hour of eight in the morning, but waking up as a pile of green goo? That was a little more cursed than normal.

Groggily stirring to consciousness, Hazel discovered something was very, very wrong. Her body didn’t feel right. She couldn’t feel her arms or legs. That was, of course, a scary realization to wake to.

Her surroundings made no sense either. Not just because of the stalactites and stalagmites—she was pretty sure she hadn’t gone to bed in a cave—but because of how distorted the image felt. Something about her eyesight was wrong. It took a long, baffled second, but she realized she was seeing three hundred and sixty degrees around her. What in the world?

Then she became aware of her body. Or, rather, the circular pile of green goo that had replaced it.

If she had a mouth, she would have screamed. Instead, slime jiggled in an excited panic, wobbling back and forth. Her vision shook along with her body. It was a very strange experience.

Two hyperventilating moments later, Hazel forced herself to calm. To think about whatever the heck was going on. A dream? That was the logical explanation, though she didn’t think it was the right one. Everything felt way too real. She would have been startled awake from sheer shock.

Her mind being invaded by a cheerful feminine voice, her briefly cobbled together composure broke again. Hazel screamed. Or, jiggled excitedly.

“Who was that? Hello?”

The words didn’t come out as speech. To her surprise, though, they did come out as noises. Ones that were rather unpleasant. Faint squelching and sucking sounds. As, she supposed, was expected from a large glob of green slime.

Seeing how the telepathic voice didn’t answer her, Hazel focused on what had actually been said.

User? Race? Class?

That was … uh, weird? The terms were strangely RPG-sounding.

Things were making less sense by the second. Though, when everything had started as making absolutely no freaking sense, maybe that wasn’t possible. But weirder, at least. Things were getting weirder.

Hazel calmed herself. Was she safe, at least? Her environment, beyond being a dark cavern, didn’t seem hostile. A pool of water sat to her … left? Forward? Right? Directions were hard when she could see in a complete dome around herself. She picked a direction for ‘forward’ to orient herself.

A pool of water sat to her left, the glassy surface broken intermittently by water dripping from a stalactite. Squat blue-and-white mushrooms crowded around the shore, glowing faintly. Moss covered the ground in patches. The floor of the cave was rough and jagged, sloping upward and leading to an opening at the far end—a tunnel out into the cave system. It seemed to be the only exit.

Okay. So, she was safe in the immediate sense. No cave bears or whatever. Though she doubted cave bears would want to snack down on piles of green goo, so maybe she didn’t have much to worry about, there.

Could she move?

That turned out to be less difficult than she feared. She rolled forward—and ‘rolled’ was the word that made most sense—as goo shifted around inside her body and provided locomotion. With a thought, she could change direction. The movement came intuitively. Her top speed seemed to be not much faster than a crawl, though.

The rough terrain didn’t seem to be a problem. She climbed the slope easily, and could even heft herself up over short ledges.

After exploring the small cavern, she came to a stop and refocused on her earlier revelations. The voice inside her head and the mentions of a race and class.

A slime.

She was a slime. The monster kind. Like, from an anime or visual novel or similar. She was well versed in the genre. She wouldn’t call herself a shut-in or anything like that, but she was definitely a girl with nerdier tastes—and less social tendencies, frankly—than most. That was why her mind had first gone to ‘RPG’ hearing terms like user, race, and class.

Had she been moved through worlds, somehow? Like so many of those plots in previously mentioned media?

Well, more likely she’d hit her head and been put into a coma, and her brain had grasped for a somewhat comforting delusion. But in the one in a trillion chance that this was real, she couldn’t afford to treat her circumstances like she were in a dream. Worst case scenario, she would wake up some time later and feel silly about taking the world’s weirdest dream at face value.

So, what?

She had a class. [Alterant]. What did that mean? Did she have skills? If she did, how would she find them?

There was a voice inside her head, so maybe all she had to do was ask?

Um. Voice person? What are my skills?

If Hazel had a mouth, she would be gaping at what had appeared. A light-blue see-through box had materialized in her vision, listing out the three abilities in a neat display. As much as the box’s sudden appearance, it was the confirmation that astounded her.

She really did have skills? This was an RPG-like world?

Seriously, what the heck?

Pushing away the incredulity, she paid attention to the words in front of her.

[Shapeshift]. That was the one she cared about. Obviously, she would like to return to a human form. Or at least a humanoid one. She doubted the ability allowed her to literally change herself at a fundamental level—just to modify the shape of her slime-body.

She assumed the skill would work by her thinking the ability’s name, or otherwise through natural instinct, so she got to testing straight away. The sooner she had a normal human shape again, the sooner the rising panic would calm. She wasn’t an irrational mess right now, but being turned into a slime and transported through worlds wasn’t something a person could just ‘take in stride’. Having hands, a mouth, and eyes would do wonders for her mental state.

She commanded the skill page to disappear, and it did. She tested the skill next, and it did, in fact, activate. All she had to do was think about using it. The bad news was that ‘Low Proficiency’ meant what it suggested. Her mind and body strained as she tried to morph herself. Slime jiggled and wobbled in exertion, and slowly she began to change. Pillars rose out of her body in varying directions, the beginnings to legs, arms, and a head.

She collapsed in exhaustion, reverting back to her previous circular state.

No, it wouldn’t be that simple. Such a drastic change would take practice.

Still, the promise that she would be able to regain a humanoid shape settled her mind. Not as much as if she could manage the change immediately, but still a salve to her worried thoughts.

She considered her other two abilities. Then, seeing the mention of ‘mana’, figured she ought to check on that.

What’s my mana? she asked the voice in her head. The system AI? She obviously didn’t know whether that was right, but the voice did have a nearly robotic feel to it, despite being cheerful and emotive.

Sure?

A blue bar appeared in her vision. Seeing how she could see in three-sixty degree, it didn’t sit in the ‘bottom left’, since she didn’t have a bottom left. The vision stuff was still messing with her head.

Can you do that for my health, too?

A red bar appeared above the blue one. As she’d suspected, she really did have health and mana. A world that worked on RPG mechanics. Craziness.

She focused on the blue bar, hoping to receive a ‘number value’, but none came. Her skills didn’t come with exact costs either, so she supposed that was fair. Health and mana were fuzzy concepts, something she’d have to experiment with and get a feel for. Or maybe finer inspection of her resource bars would come with time?

The bar itself had dipped about ten percent. She assumed that was from her attempts at shape shifting. She watched the bar for a while, but it didn’t tick upward and regenerate. Either it happened slowly, or mana had to be regained using potions. Or some other way. Maybe based on a stat?

Stats. Did she have those?

Another see-through blue box appeared, hovering in her vision.

H-Hey now. F minus in everything? That doesn’t seem fair.

It suggested ‘intelligence’ and ‘wisdom’ were for game-like mechanics and not actual indicators of her mental state, because she doubted she was a ‘F-‘ in intelligence, which she assumed was the lowest rating. That honestly relieved her. Being able to add points to those and somehow change her brain at a fundamental level would be weird, to put it lightly.

What did alignment mean? She was a ‘monster’? Did that have implications for the world at large? She could only assume it did. But what? Would she not be welcome in cities? Were monsters attacked by adventurers on sight? Something else?

She had no way to answer the questions, so she put them aside. Trapped underground in a cave system, she had far more immediate worries.

Seeing her stats was intriguing—and a bit insulting considering their uniform terribleness—but they meant nothing for helping her keep herself alive or finding a way out of the cave. Her two other skills would do that.

[Skill Edit] and [Attribute Siphon]. The former seemed promising. She could alter a target skill. Though, what did that mean? What were the limits? It seemed versatile to an unbelievable degree.

[Attribute Siphon] seemed more normal. Touch a target, steal some of their stats. Maybe not exactly what she’d expect a slime to receive as a starting skill, but one with clear combat utility. And Hazel got the feeling some fighting was in her future. Being just some random fourth-year college student without a lick of Tae Kwon Do or karate or any other training in self defense to back her up, she was obviously unprepared. But again, she doubted she had a choice. At least she had magic skills to help.

She considered [Skill Edit] again.

She had a major problem, right now—that she couldn’t transform into a humanoid because her [Shapeshift] skill was ‘Low Proficiency’. Well, could she alter a skill in that way? Change ‘low’ to ‘high’?

It was worth trying. Hazel focused her attention on [Skill Edit], then activated the ability, targeting it toward [Shapeshift] and urging ‘Low Proficiency’ to turn to ‘High Proficiency’.

On her skill page, the words ‘Low Proficiency’ started to fuzz, but her mind strained and groaned in much the same way as when she’d tried to shapeshift. Hazel could recognize what it meant. She was reaching too far with a ‘Low Proficiency’ ability. Mentally exhausted, the sensation similar to the aftermath of a brutal cram-session for an exam, she released the skill, and the headache dissipated. Her mana, at least, hadn’t drained, unlike with [Shapeshift].

She’d almost gotten it. She had reached too far, but she thought it could work. Just had to lower her goal. Instead of high, she tried ‘Medium Proficiency’.

The words next to [Shapeshift] fuzzed, and Hazel’s mind pulled in twelve directions as she willed [Skill Edit] to take hold. It wasn’t easy, and she could tell she was brushing up on the edge of what the skill would allow.

But in a snap, the words ‘Medium Proficiency’ replaced ‘Low Proficiency’.

It had worked.

Huh.

That seemed, uh. Strong? Broken? Overpowered? Wasn’t it a level one ability?

Either way, she’d take it.

So. With her recently improved proficiency, could she transform into a humanoid, now? Fascinating as the temporary alien shape had been, being a slime girl would be a big step up from a regular slime. She very much wanted her fingers back.