The front door clicked shut. The sound was final, like the closing of a coffin lid.
Victor Corvinus stood alone in the ruin of his kitchen. Well, "stood" was a generous term. He was leaning heavily against the counter, his knuckles white as he gripped the marble edge.
Silence rushed back into the house. Without the heavy, rhythmic panting of the giant wolf, the Manor felt vast. Empty. Hostile.
Drip~
A drop of blood from his nose hit the floor.
Victor looked down. The Hunter's Mark - the black iron coin - sat at the end of a jagged gouge in the linoleum, a dark scar that ran halfway across the kitchen floor. It looked innocent enough. Just a piece of metal. But he knew if he tried to pick it up, it would anchor him to the bedrock.
"Okay," he whispered. "Okay. Fenrir is gone. The door is locked. I just have to wait."
He checked his watch. 9:15 AM.
"Twenty minutes," he muttered. "He's a fast dog. Twenty minutes to buy ham. I can survive twenty minutes."
Squelch...
The sound didn't come from the front door. It came from the back door—the one leading to the overgrown garden where the previous tenant had buried... things.
Victor froze. He held his breath, listening.
Squelch... Slurp... Squelch...
It sounded like wet laundry being dragged across the floor. Or like someone walking in galoshes full of mayonnaise.
"Yggdrasil?" Victor called out. "If that's you leaking ectoplasm again, I'm docking your pay."
No answer. Just the wet, heavy sound getting closer.
Victor turned his head slowly.
The gap under the back door was small. Maybe half an inch. Not enough for a person. Definitely not enough for a threat.
Then he saw it.
Grey sludge was oozing through the gap. It bubbled and hissed as it touched the wood, smelling of old receipts, stagnant water, and bureaucratic despair. It flowed into the kitchen, pooling on the floor, defying gravity as it began to pile up on itself.
It wasn't a leak. It was an entry.
The pile of sludge grew. It rose, trembling, until it formed a rough, humanoid shape. It had no face, just a smooth, wet surface that reflected the kitchen lights. But it had a mouth—a slit that ripped open with a sound like duct tape tearing.
"Payment..." the thing gurgled. Its voice was wet, thick with phlegm. "Payment... due..."
Victor backed away, his hip bumping into the kitchen island. He grabbed the only weapon available: a wooden spatula.
"I don't owe you anything!" Victor yelled, brandishing the spatula. "I paid the electricity bill yesterday! I have the receipt!"
The Slime tilted its head. "Interest..." it hissed. "Processing... fees..."
It took a step forward. A footprint of grey slime remained on the floor, sizzling slightly.
"Who sent you?" Victor demanded. "The Bank? The Guild? The Water Company?"
"The Collection..." The Slime lunged.
It was fast. Surprisingly fast for a pile of sentient waste. A tentacle of sludge whipped out, striking the counter inches from Victor's hand. The wood hissed and turned black.
Acid. Great. It wasn't just a debt collector; it was a toxic debt collector.
Victor scrambled back, limping heavily. His legs felt like lead—the vitality drain from the coin was making his muscles twitch. He circled the kitchen island, keeping the marble slab between him and the monster.
"Listen!" Victor shouted, his voice cracking. "We can work this out! I have assets! I have... ham coming! In twenty minutes!"
"Ham... insufficient..." The Slime flowed around the corner. "Liquid... assets... required..."
Victor realized with a jolt of horror what it meant. It didn't want money. It wanted blood. Liquid assets.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Victor wheezed. He stumbled, his foot slipping on a drop of the creature's slime. He caught himself on the edge of the sink, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He was cornered.
The Slime blocked the exit to the hallway. It spread out, widening its mass to cut off any escape route. It was herding him.
Victor looked around frantically. Spatula? Useless. Coffee pot? Empty. The fridge? Too heavy to throw.
His eyes fell on the floor.
On the crater.
On the black iron coin.
It sat there, immovable. A black hole in the center of the kitchen.
A desperate, insane idea formed in Victor's mind.
"Wait!" Victor screamed. He held up his hands in surrender. "Wait! You want payment? I have it!"
The Slime paused, its body rippling. "Show..."
Victor pointed a shaking finger at the coin. "There! On the floor! Do you see it?"
The Slime turned its eyeless head. It sensed the metal.
"Gold..." it gurgled.
"Not just gold," Victor lied, his voice trembling with feigned terror. "It's a... a Royal Minting. A Hunter's Mark. It's worth fifty thousand Hell Gold. Take it! Just take it and leave!"
The Slime hesitated. It seemed to be calculating the exchange rate. Greed, universal and blinding, rippled through its gelatinous form.
"Gold..." it whispered. "Accepted."
It flowed toward the coin.
Victor held his breath. He pressed his back against the sink, praying to whatever dark gods ran this house that the laws of physics held true for monsters too.
The Slime reached the crater. It didn't have hands, so it simply flowed over the object, aiming to absorb it into its mass.
"Yes," Victor hissed. "Pick it up. Put it in your pocket. Or your... whatever you have."
The Slime enveloped the coin.
For a second, nothing happened. The grey sludge covered the black iron.
Then, the Slime tried to move.
It tried to lift its bulk to flow away with the prize.
SPLAT~
The sound was wet and violent, like a watermelon dropped from a skyscraper.
The moment the Slime "claimed" the coin, the weight applied. The Curse of the Hunter's Mark didn't care about biology. It cared about ownership. And the Slime had just accepted the transfer.
The creature's center of mass slammed into the floor. The rest of its body, tethered to that immovable point, was dragged down with it. The humanoid shape collapsed instantly.
"ERROR!" the Slime shrieked, its voice bubbling. "WEIGHT... ERROR... GRAVITY... VIOLATION..."
It thrashed. It tried to pull away. But the coin was inside it now. It was anchored to the center of the earth.
The Slime flattened. It spread out like pancake batter on a hot griddle, stretching thinner and thinner as the gravity crushed it against the tiles.
"Help..." it gurgled. "Too... heavy..."
Victor let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding since Tuesday. He slid down the cabinet door until he was sitting on the floor, clutching his chest.
"Physics," Victor wheezed, wiping the blood from his nose. "It's a bitch, isn't it?"
The Slime struggled for five minutes. Then it stopped. It didn't die—elementals were hard to kill—but it gave up. It became a dormant, grey puddle, rippling slightly every few seconds like a disturbed pond.
Victor made himself a fresh cup of coffee. He sat on the counter, swinging his legs, watching the puddle.
Ding-dong.
The front door opened.
"Woof!"
Fenrisulfr trotted into the kitchen. He looked majestic, in a trashy sort of way. The yellow 'Have a Nice Day' bag was bulging with groceries. A baguette stuck out of the top like a sword.
Fenrir stopped. He looked at the grey puddle covering the center of the kitchen floor. He looked at Victor.
"Master," Fenrir said, his voice muffled by the paper bag. "You bought a rug."
"It's not a rug," Victor said, taking a sip of coffee. "It's the tax collector."
Fenrir tilted his head. He walked over to the puddle. He sniffed it.
The puddle trembled in terror.
"It smells like fear," Fenrir said. "And receipts."
"Don't eat it," Victor warned. "It's high in cholesterol. And it has my coin inside it."
"The heavy coin?" Fenrir asked.
"The heavy coin."
Fenrir wagged his tail. He stepped onto the slime, using it as a mat. The Slime let out a high-pitched squeak - Eeep! - as the giant wolf's paw pressed down on it.
"It is squishy," Fenrir decided. "I like it."
He dropped the yellow bag on the counter. "I have returned. I have the ham. I have the milk. I did not eat the Kevin."
"Good boy," Victor said. He reached into the bag and pulled out the package of cheap ham. It was slimy, pink, and beautiful.
He peeled open the plastic. He handed a slice to the wolf.
Fenrir took it gently. He swallowed it whole, without chewing.
"Victory," Fenrir whispered.
Victor looked at the flattened monster on his floor. He looked at the blood on his own shirt. He looked at the ham.
"Yeah," Victor said. "Victory."
He took a bite of the raw ham. It tasted like salt and preservatives.
It tasted like survival.
A sharp pain spiked behind Victor's eyes.
Threat Neutralized.
Method: Brute Physics.
Reward: You get to live.
Victor rubbed his temples. The nosebleed had finally stopped, leaving a crusty red trail on his lip. Fenrir was already eyeing the second slice of ham. The floor was a disaster zone of cracked tiles and grey slime.
But they were home. And for now, the rent was paid.