One day, for unknown reasons, I find myself reincarnated in the body of a mimic.
Thud. Thud.
Blindly, literally, following the other mimics, I hop my body repeatedly to transport my step by step. Although I cannot see, I can still hear and smell. Even if he bumped into the wall or the other, it did not physically hurt so much.
As I wander around, I discover that I actually have a tongue. It is long and slender, stretching quite a distance from my mouth, and I can move it freely as well.
For that reason, I am able to determine that I have rows of sharp teeth and a fleshy interior, which I think is this monster's weak spot. I also noticed that the floor and walls are quite hot when my tongue touches them. But it is not enough to burn.
Since mimics are solitary monsters in fiction, they are going everywhere, and I do not know where to go. Tracking a random path, I begin my exploration to the unknown.
After what seems to be minutes of aimlessly hopping and wandering, a strong scent of death suddenly slaps my nonexistent nose. It is not something pungent or rotten, but something burning.
(! What's that smell? And it's strong. Maybe mimics have stronger senses to compensate for the blindness? Also, why is it...so appetizing?)
Curious where the smell comes from, I follow it and end up bumping into something fleshy. Based on the intensity of the smell, I can tell that this is the source of the smell. I poke it with my tongue and get a lick of it.
(Burn flesh. No, it's more like toasted, but by what?. This doesn't feel like a human, so it seems it's a dead monster.)
Crunch. Chomp.
As I am examining the corpse, the sounds of somebody chewing flesh reach my ears. My brethren are in the middle of feasting on this dead monster.
Grrr...
Swayed by the munching sounds and the smell, my stomach let out a growl. I am obviously starving. Probably because of my sudden change, I am having second thoughts about whether I should consider the dead monster the first meal of my new body. I do not even know what kind of creature it is.
Pulling all the courage I have, I slowly open my mouth. Since I cannot morph his body to extend my mouth, I lean forward to intentionally lose my balance, and my teeth successfully burrow into the flesh. I close my mouth with force, and I get a bite of the corpse.
Munch.
(Bleh. Although the flesh is slightly cooked, the inside is still raw. Other than that, the metallic taste of blood still overwhelms the unbutchered meat. I don't know if it's because I am a monster now, but it doesn't taste that bad.)
The meat may not be good for human consumption, but I am not one currently, and it doesn't seem to be a problem at all. Given that this is all I have right now, he can't exactly complain. I am not desperate; I am just acting based on my current body's natural instincts. After my first bite, I proceed to bite another after another.
Munch. Chomp.
Together with my fellow mimics, we slowly consume the corpse. The loud and sloppy sounds of our dining is breaking the silence of this place. My brethren and I continue to scavenge the oasis of a monster. We are like the opportunistic marine creatures around a dead whale on the ocean floor.
I constantly move around to eat the other parts of this monster. Other than the meat, I also take a bite of the internal organs. I even force myself to break a bone, which breaks after exerting enough biting force.
When I get to the part I think to be the head of the monster, I take a bite of it and rip the dead monster's face from the skull. As soon as I swallow it, suddenly...
(Hm?)
I notice that the surroundings I am seeing change. It is supposed to be pitch black, and then it gradually becomes brighter and brighter as if light is being poured into the void. From the looks of it, I excitedly think that I am regaining my vision.
(Can I see now?)
The darkness eventually fades in my vision and it is slowly getting replaced by blurry lights. After a few seconds, my vision is completely restored, and the first thing I see is the faceless head of the monster I just ate.
(What the— that startles me.)
Before me is the head of a dead monster, faceless, and blood gushes out from it. For some reason, the blood boils after being exposed to the air for some time. I deduce that the air around me is actually hot enough to boil water, explaining the cooked skin of the carcass.
Aside from the face, I notice that one of its eyes is missing. I think I remember swallowing something spherical just now. I conclude that I have eaten the eye. That gives me an idea of what just happened.
(In games, mimics are known to copy inanimate objects such as a treasure chest. In other works of fiction, a mimic could even shapeshift to. If I am the latter, I must have gained vision or eyes after eating this monster's eyes.)
To think deeply, I turn my body around and find myself in front of a massive and impossibly wide hallway. Along the walls, I find the massive opening where my fellow mimics and me come from. However, I can feel that something is not right. I realize I cannot pinpoint where the source of light that gives me a somewhat clear vision of my surroundings is.
(This place is supposed to be pitch black without a light source, but I can see that the blood is red and the walls are black. It is as if I am wearing a highly advanced night-vision device that greatly enhances ambient visible light or converts infrared light to visible light. Perhaps that monster had night vision, and I happened to take it besides the vision.
Speaking of the monster, I turn around and look at the entirety of the monster, which is still being eaten by my kind. After stepping back a few, I get a good view of the monster.
It is huge and massive. I do not have something to use as a reference for length right now, so I cannot say how big it is. The monster has dark pink hairy skin and is completely naked, so I know it's a male. Even though its face has been ripped off, its prominent features, like its pig-like ears, are still there.
Given the clues I have gathered, there is one monster I can think of.
(An orc, huh?) Another fantasy staple.
After identifying the monster, I continue studying my body. Using my tongue, I find that he has two relatively small eyes in the middle of my upper part, which the lid of the mimic, just about my mouth. I also discovered that I can relocate my eyes to any part of my body, but I stick them to the front for more comfortable binocular vision.
Aside from my physical body, I need to know what my body is capable of. On the record, one of my abilities is to replicate the things I have eaten, like the eyes of the orc. I try to change my exterior to that of an orc's skin, but it looks quite grotesque and makes me vulnerable to attacks.
It seems like I can obtain others' abilities if I have consumed them, such as the night vision. When I eat the orc's ears, I notice that my hearing significantly becomes more sensitive and sharper. The more I eat, the stronger my abilities get, I excitedly think.
Looking at my brethren, I cannot say if they all have that ability as they are always the same. Perhaps this ability is exclusively unique to me like special abilities of Isekai protagonists.
(Maybe reincarnated is real after all and this is my unique skill.)
Since I do not know how dangerous this new world can be, I will devour everything to get stronger in order to survive and thrive. Determined for my survival, I go back to the orc's body and continue eating it.
As I am eating its gut, my mouth suddenly bites something small and hard. I know it is definitely not a bone. I pick it up with his tongue and take a look at it.
(What is this?)