NOVEL NEXT Ch. 1
The damp and chilly underground cavern was shrouded in darkness.
Droplets of water seeped from the stone walls, gathering slowly along the stalactites on the ceiling before dripping onto the pale, delicate face of a young girl, making faint sounds.
The girl barely managed to open her eyes.
She lowered her head for a glance and saw her once-flat, soft belly heaving and squirming like malleable clay, as though something inside was constantly rolling about, making strange gurgling noises.
Her eyes rolled back, and she fainted again.
After a short while—
A translucent, light-blue, jelly-like smooth tentacle wriggled out from the corner of her mouth.
At its tip was a round eyeball, its pupil fixed in the center of the white, staring in confusion at the once-again unconscious girl.
"Why’d she pass out again? I thought I’d barely managed to fix her up?"
Russell was puzzled.
When he had first found the girl, he thought she was already a corpse.
But after crawling into her body, he discovered her heart still had a faint beat. That had thrilled him immensely.
It had taken him immense effort, but he’d finally patched her shattered organs and broken bones together—only for her to wake for a brief moment before fainting again.
"That shouldn’t have happened."
Russell wriggled his way out of the girl’s mouth.
But in the next instant, her complexion turned paper-white and her breathing grew frail, as if she could die at any moment.
With no choice, Russell slipped back inside again. He was still relying on this girl to escape this cursed place—she couldn’t die yet.
As for how he ended up trapped in this damned dungeon...
Well, that was a long story.
Five years ago—
Russell had been nothing more than an ordinary office worker on Earth.
Every day he was crushed under the insane burden of CPU996 by his boss, without even time to date. In what little free time he had, he lay in bed scrolling on his phone, watching videos, living a monotonous life between work and home.
One day, he realized he couldn’t go on like this. He needed to live a more fulfilling life.
So, he quit his dead-end job, sold his worthless coffin-sized apartment, and decided to set out on a spontaneous journey to seek the true meaning of life.
And then he was instantly flattened by a fully-loaded dump truck right outside his front door.
When he opened his eyes again, he had become… a slime, squirming in the shadows of a damp and decaying underground labyrinth.
Russell had been devastated.
Of all things he could’ve become, why a slime? Even a stray dog on the street would’ve been better!
He had just mustered the courage to start a new life, only for it to end so abruptly—and now he was stuck in a dungeon no one ever visited.
Fate really did enjoy a cruel joke.
Still, no matter how grim his situation was, his resolve to wrestle against life remained unchanged.
Even as a slime, even trapped in a dungeon, Russell swore he would one day leave this place.
And then…
Be! Come! Hu! Man!
It had taken him five years to clear out the dungeon. Then he discovered both good news and bad news.
The good news: nothing in this place could threaten him anymore. The bad news: there was no way out.
The rule of this world seemed ironclad—monsters born in the labyrinth could not leave it. Not even Russell, as a transmigrator with a cheat-like advantage, could break this law.
But he did think of one solution.
While monsters born in the labyrinth couldn’t leave on their own, adventurers could take monsters outside as trophies! Meaning, if he could somehow establish a connection with a human, he might bypass that rule.
Russell’s answer was… parasitism!
If he could parasitize a human, maybe he could use them to trick the labyrinth’s rule.
He had no idea what the success rate would be, but at least in theory, it was possible.
The problem was, this place was so remote that he hadn’t seen a single human in years.
Until today—
When a girl fell from the sky and landed right on top of him.
Seizing his chance to escape, Russell immediately set about “treating” her. Though “treating” was a generous word—for a slime, it simply meant patching her broken organs and bones temporarily with his body. At the very least, it would keep her alive long enough. If she had to die, it would only be after he’d made it out of this place.
After all, at the end of the day, he was just a slime.
And slimes didn’t know healing magic…
Anyway—
Russell felt he had already patched everything up. Judging from her complexion, there shouldn’t be any serious problems.
Then why wouldn’t she wake up?
Oh well. It didn’t matter. In fact, her being unconscious made things easier—no resistance.
In short: as long as she could be used, that was enough.
Russell wriggled back into her body through her slightly parted lips. Perhaps sensing something sliding down her throat, the girl’s fine brows twitched in discomfort.
[Parasitism Lv. 5]
Compared to Russell’s other skills, this one wasn’t particularly high-level.
Slimes normally didn’t have this skill at all, but Russell had devoured every monster in the labyrinth that did. In the end, Lv. 5 was the best he could achieve.
Still, it should be enough.
“Just a mere girl—how could she possibly resist my invincible tentacles?!”
As the skill activated, Russell sensed his body splitting into tiny tendrils, creeping along the girl’s veins, meridians, and spinal cord, carefully reshaping her into his form—without damaging her original structure.
At Lv. 5, Parasitism couldn’t fully dominate the host.
But since the girl was unconscious, that hardly mattered.
Russell tried controlling her arm. The movement was stiff, but not difficult.
He pinched her (technically his own) cheek and discovered… there was no pain.
As expected, the sense of touch didn’t transfer.
"What a pity. In the end, parasitism is just parasitism. I can’t control her like a true human body."
Russell sighed.
What he wanted was to truly become human again, not this fake imitation.
Forget it. First he had to get out of this hellhole.
He stood her body up and took two steps forward—
Thud!
…only to walk straight into a wall.
It didn’t hurt, but judging from the force, the girl’s forehead was probably swollen.
"Damn it, so Lv. 5 Parasitism can’t sync vision either?"
Russell was fuming.
The dungeon had few monster varieties, meaning skill diversity was limited. Even though some of his skills were very high-level, when it came to areas outside his specialty—he was helpless.
Still, raging wouldn’t solve anything.
He thought for a moment, then tilted the girl’s head back and opened her cherry lips toward the ceiling.
A tentacle tipped with an eyeball slid out from her mouth.
The eyeball rolled twice—perfect field of vision.
“Heh… Don’t they say Heaven never shuts all doors?”
“As long as I want to walk forward—then a road will exist beneath my feet!”
"A brave new world, here I come!"
Russell marched the girl’s body boldly toward the labyrinth’s exit. Perhaps because freedom was finally within reach, even controlling this body felt easier.
At this point, there was nothing left to fear—
Rumble—!
Out of nowhere, a bolt of violet lightning burst from the void.
In the blink of an eye, it struck directly onto the girl’s head.
“Gwoooaaaooooooooorrrrrrrrooooorrrrrrghhhhhh——!”