Arthur's awareness returned gradually, pulling him up from depths he couldn't name. He found himself standing in a dark room, complete blackness surrounding him except for a single light source ahead. He reached toward it instinctively but his hand passed through empty air, the light remaining distant no matter how he moved. Strange. This wasn't the cave.
He stopped and looked around properly. The moment he did, the surrounding darkness shifted and transformed. Like a viewing screen activating, the space around him became something else entirely. Walls materialized, furniture took shape, details filling in until Arthur stood in what appeared to be a bedroom. Not his bedroom. The architecture felt wrong, the style unfamiliar.
Voices drifted from somewhere distant, muffled but definitely human. Arthur's mind caught up with what was happening. A flashback. He was experiencing someone else's memory, watching events that had occurred long before his birth. The surroundings confirmed it, everything foreign and disconnected from where he should be.
A knock sounded outside the bedroom door. Arthur turned toward the sound and watched as a figure rose from the bed. The person moved to answer the knock, opening the door to reveal someone standing in the hallway. Their mouth moved, clearly speaking, but no sound reached Arthur's ears. Just actions playing out in complete silence. Frustrating. Whatever conversation was happening remained inaccessible to him.
The person whose memory Arthur inhabited left the bedroom and descended stairs to a lower floor. A family waited there, seated around a table laden with breakfast. Parents and siblings arranged in comfortable familiarity, greeting the person with smiles and gestures that spoke of routine and warmth.
Arthur's chest tightened watching the scene. He had no family to return to anymore. His own father had tried to execute him, had called him demon spawn in front of assembled soldiers. His mother had stood silent while it happened. Whatever warmth he'd once known had been cut away as cleanly as his arm. At least this person, whoever they were, had experienced family that cared. At least they'd known that much before whatever came next.
The figure sat and ate breakfast with their family, the meal passing in continued silence. When finished, they stood and returned upstairs to the bedroom. Arthur followed, observer without agency, watching as the person lay back on the bed.
Then the shaking started.
The figure's body convulsed violently, limbs jerking with spasms they couldn't control. Their mouth opened and blood poured out, thick and dark, staining the bedsheets. The convulsions continued for several agonizing minutes before the body went still. Dead. Just like that.
Text appeared in Arthur's vision, hanging in the air like something written by an invisible hand.
This is how the first owner's family killed the first Slime God talent owner before he could do anything, due to them considering it a trash talent which might hamper their family reputation.
Food poisoning. Murder disguised as illness. Arthur's hands curled into fists, anger rising hot in his throat. The family's smiles had been false, their warmth a performance while they fed their own child poison. All because they considered his talent worthless, something that would bring shame rather than glory. The cruelty of it burned.
Darkness swallowed the scene completely. Arthur stood alone again in that formless void, waiting to see what came next.
Another memory began playing, the surroundings shifting into new shapes. This time Arthur found himself looking at a shack, ramshackle and barely standing. The owner of this memory lived in poverty, that much was immediately clear. Arthur wondered if this one had died from starvation or disease, common enough fates for those without resources.
But when the figure moved into view, Arthur's assumption shattered. The second owner was built like a fortress, muscles spread evenly across a frame that suggested tremendous physical power. They moved with dangerous grace, every motion controlled and purposeful. Demon-like in their physicality.
Morning arrived in the memory and the figure approached a cracked mirror hanging on the wall. Arthur saw the reflection clearly. A demon. Actual demonic features, horns and red skin and eyes that glowed with internal fire. Not human at all.
So other races could possess the Slime God talent. Arthur filed that information away, recalibrating his understanding of what this power actually was. Not limited to humans, not bound by species. Something more fundamental.
The demon left the shack and entered a dungeon, descending through stone corridors lit by phosphorescent moss. Deeper and deeper they went, navigating passages with confidence that suggested familiarity. Eventually they reached a chamber where a black slime waited, pulsing with darkness that seemed to absorb surrounding light.
The demon approached cautiously and reached out toward the slime, clearly attempting to form a bond. The slime lashed out instantly. Tendrils shot forward, wrapping around the demon's arm and pulling them closer. The demon struggled but the slime was faster, stronger, consuming them with horrifying efficiency. Arthur watched the demon dissolve, their body breaking down into component parts that the slime absorbed for sustenance and growth.
Text appeared again.
The second Slime God owner died due to lack of perception and timing when attempting to bond with a demonic slime.
The darkness returned, swallowing the dungeon chamber. Arthur waited in that formless space, processing what he'd witnessed. Two deaths now. Two owners cut down before they could properly utilize their talent. One murdered by family, one killed by their own mistake.
Light bloomed again and a third memory began. Arthur found himself looking at a forest path where sunlight filtered through green canopy. A female elf walked along the trail, moving with natural grace that made the journey look effortless. Arthur caught sight of her face and felt his breath catch. She was beautiful in ways that transcended simple physical appearance, carrying herself with dignity and strength.
How had someone like this died? What could possibly have brought down someone who radiated such capability?
The elf continued down the hillside path until a voice reached her from nearby bushes. She paused, head tilting to listen, then moved toward the sound to investigate. Arthur wanted to shout a warning but he was just an observer, powerless to change events already written into history.
She pushed through the bushes and froze. Several male elves stood in a small clearing, surrounding a human woman they'd tied to a tree. The woman's clothes were torn, her face bloodied, and the males were taking turns violating her while she screamed and struggled against her bonds.
The female elf's face hardened. She stepped into the clearing and raised her voice, demanding they stop immediately. Then she attacked, moving to defend the human woman despite being outnumbered five to one. Foolish odds but she didn't hesitate. Arthur felt respect kindle in his chest.
One of the males caught her with a backhanded slap that sent her stumbling. Another drove a fist into her stomach, doubling her over. She fell and they descended on her, beating her unconscious with brutal efficiency. When she stopped moving they tied her up beside the human woman.
What followed made Arthur want to look away but the memory held him fixed, forcing him to witness every violation. The males took turns with both women for hours. At some point the human woman stopped moving, stopped breathing. Dead from the trauma or from giving up, Arthur couldn't tell which.
One of the males noticed a slime nearby, translucent and unremarkable. He grabbed it and brought it to the elf's unconscious body, using it to clean away the evidence of what they'd done. Preparing her for more.
The moment the slime made contact with her skin, light flared. The elf's eyes snapped open and the slime pulsed with sudden power. It had bonded. She'd gained her talent.
Too late to prevent what had already happened, but not too late for revenge.
The slime absorbed the life fluids coating the elf's body and evolved rapidly, growing larger and more aggressive. It lashed out at the nearest male, dissolving him in seconds. The others tried to run but the slime was faster, hunting them down one by one and consuming them completely. Their screams echoed through the clearing until silence fell.
The elf freed herself from the bonds and moved to the human woman's body. She checked for signs of life and found none. Tears streamed down her face as she closed the woman's eyes gently. Then she removed clothing from one of the dissolved males and dressed herself.
Arthur watched her walk away from the clearing, heading toward what appeared to be her home. She entered through the front door, moved to the bedroom, and picked up a knife from the bedside table. Without hesitation she drew the blade across her throat. Blood sprayed and she collapsed, dying within seconds from the severed artery.
The memory froze on her empty eyes staring at nothing.
The third Slime God owner took her own life out of shame and hopelessness after gaining her talent too late to prevent her violation.
The darkness returned and held. No fourth memory played. Because the fourth owner was him. Arthur understood that with complete clarity. He was living what would someday be the fourth memory, the fourth cautionary tale of a Slime God who'd gained power and lost everything.
Unless he chose differently. Unless he survived where the others had failed.
Arthur jolted upright, gasping for air like someone who'd been drowning. His hands pressed against rough stone and he recognized the cave around him. The slimes had gathered nearby, watching with concern that needed no faces to convey.
"Are you alright, Master Arthur?"
Green's voice carried worry that felt genuine. Arthur forced his breathing to steady before responding. "I'm fine. More importantly, I now know how the previous Slime God talent owners died."
The purple slime pulsed and spoke in that cranky old man voice. "How did they die, Master Arthur? Did you see their memories?"
Arthur explained everything he'd witnessed. The poisoning, the demonic slime attack, the rape and suicide. Each death catalogued with the kind of clinical detail that kept emotion at bay. When he finished, silence filled the cave for several long moments.
Green spoke first. "The last one was a horrific suicidal death indeed. But do you know what you'll do next?"
"Of course I know. Avoid dying like them so early by making mistakes." Arthur pushed himself to his feet, testing his balance. Solid. Whatever had caused him to faint had passed.
"Master, have you tried summoning slimes?"
Arthur blinked. "Summon? Isn't my talent to bond with slimes?"
"No, Master. You can summon our kind also. I thought you'd know that but it seems you didn't. It's great that it's cleared up now."
Summoning. Another capability he hadn't known existed, another tool available if he learned to use it properly. Arthur filed the information alongside everything else he'd learned. "Thanks, Green."
He looked around the cave at the slimes who'd taken him in, at these creatures who represented his only allies in a world that had turned hostile overnight. The memories still burned in his mind. Three owners dead before they could accomplish anything meaningful. Three cautionary tales of what happened when you gained power too late or trusted the wrong people or made critical mistakes.
He wouldn't be the fourth victim.
"I now have a goal," Arthur said, voice steady with conviction. "To live a life others will look up to. And for that, I'm willing to do anything needed."
The slimes pulsed in what might have been approval. Arthur felt something settle in his chest, purpose crystallizing out of pain and loss and anger. He'd survived his father's betrayal, survived the forest, survived learning exactly how dangerous his path would be.
Now came the harder part. Actually becoming strong enough to make it matter.