Chapter 17 –– Hubal

I sat under a tree to contemplate about my life. All this time, I’d been trying to find meaning in my dull life. When I first received my calling, I was told that it was an honour for me and I should take great pride in it. Everyone in the village said so. They said that doing your calling was the greatest contribution one could do for the village. Every child hoped to receive their calling as early as possible, myself included. I really thought it was something that I could find meaningful as a Lapinus tribesman.

The first few years doing it, I was so proud. It made me feel good knowing that I was passed down a task so important that it took more than 8 generations for it to be completed. It felt like I was part of something bigger.

However, after doing it for more than a decade, it started to feel repetitive and endless. It felt like there was no point in doing it aside from keeping the tradition alive. I knew that it could harm the village if there wasn’t anyone doing this calling–– despite no supporting claims to back that up, however–– but as someone who actually got assigned with it, it felt like I was wasting my life for it. Well, it was not like I could complain. Everyone in the village also felt like that with their calling, so I was not the only one who was feeling this way.

What frustrated me was the fact that I didn’t want to keep doing this calling for the rest of my life. There was one single thing that I wanted do and that was to find my fated mate. Ever since old man Hubal told me about the red thread of fate, it felt like I found the purpose of my life, which was to find that boy. Yet, with the calling that I received, it felt like I was destined to stay here and never meet him again.

I took a look at the gnoxichalc ore that I found yesterday. No matter what time of the day, it was always shining so brightly. When I held it in my paw, it felt warm and soothing. The ore was also beating rhythmically, emitting some low frequency vibrations. It felt hypnotising.

“That ore is a precious lost object. Long ago, your ancestors used it to forge matching collars for mated couples. By neutralising one’s gnox energy, it blocks pheromone receptors so that only one’s own mate could smell each other’s pheromones. This ore symbolises an unbreakable bond between two mated Werebeasts. There are not many of those left, so treasure it.”

Old man Hubal suddenly appeared next to me, under the tree. He saw me examining the ore and explained to me briefly what it was, as he promised yesterday.

I took a moment to process what he said in consideration with my own feelings. I didn’t know this ore was so important. I guess I was lucky enough to stumble upon it by chance.

“You should continue your experiment so that you can leave the village and have a blacksmith forge you a pair of matching collars for you and your soulmate.”

E–eh? Did I hear him right?

I turned my head towards him to look at him in the eyes.

“I have not considered how you feel about your calling. I apologise.”

I couldn’t believe he just said that. Not only he approved of my experiment, but he also apologized for how he hurt me. This was the first time this ever happened.

“I also have to apologize. Sorry for yelling at you earlier.”

If I could hug him, I definitely would right now. However, that was impossible considering his intangible body.

“Come on, you still have work to do.”

He was right. I needed to get back to work so that I could finish my calling as soon as possible. I got back up and immediately returned to the Sacred Giant Mushroom to continue my calling.

A few weeks later, I saw some significant progress on the project. The slime had digested about 3/5 of all the Sacred Giant Mushroom. They kept multiplying and digesting the mushrooms efficiently to the point that I didn’t have to pluck anything anymore. All I did every day was to check on the progress and spray some of the ore dust to dissolve the slime and that was it. I spent the rest of my day foraging for some ingredients in the woods for dinner. This method had completely taken over my calling, which I was super excited for.

However, I noticed a strange phenomenon happening after the slime had taken over my calling. I noticed that there was some slime slithering in the woods, yet with a different colour. It was black coloured slime as opposed to blue one that I owned. I was pretty sure that they weren’t there before since I went to the woods every single day, so this was something new for me. I didn’t know whether I should be worried or not, but regardless, I decided to examine the slime that appeared for precaution.

The black slime was for the most part harmless, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they might cause some harm in the future. I tried to spray some dust on the black slime, but it didn’t dissolve like the blue slime I had. It only drove them away. It might just be a temporary solution but this would make do for now. I decided to spray some dust on the black slime whenever I saw one getting near the Sacred Giant Mushroom to drive them off to deeper parts of the woods, far from the Sacred Giant Mushroom. Since then, more and more black slime kept appearing in the woods and I kept driving them off as best as I could.

Two months later, there was only a quarter of the Sacred Giant Mushroom left. The blue slime that I put on it had worked incredibly well beyond my expectation. Day by day, I was getting more and more excited to dream of the day that I could finally complete my calling.

“You finally came this far, child.”

Old man Hubal appeared next to me, watching the Sacred Giant Mushroom slowly crippled into a stump. If I were to compare with the first time I came here to pluck the mushrooms, I didn’t think my past self could believe how far I had come.

“Yeah.”

I turned my head to see old man Hubal, the one person who had been with since day 0. He had become a mentor figure to me, someone whom I respect and admire a lot. I didn’t know why, but the moment I saw his face, his facial expression looked like he was sad. He seemed proud of how far I’d come, but deep down I could sense sadness behind his face.

Suddenly, I saw his legs looking less translucent and more transparent. It looked like his body was blending with the groundsphere and becoming transparent. It made me concerned.

“What happened to your legs?” I asked him.

He looked down and just noticed himself that his legs were disappearing. It seemed like he didn’t notice it either until I told him. He then decided to brush it off.

“It’s probably the lighting from the daystones.”

Hmmm.....I guess that made sense. Sometimes his body did look different depending on the lighting of the illumination stones. However, I never saw him looking like this before.

Suddenly, I heard voices of people shrieking from the village. The villagers screamed in panic because of something. I had a bad feeling about this. I immediately returned to the village to see what was going on.

“Where are you going, child?”

“To the village. I have a bad feeling about this.”

I immediately ran using both of my hare legs, trying to get to the village as fast as I could.

I arrived at the village and saw people running in my direction. They were running away from where I was going towards. From afar, I saw a crowd trying to herd some kind of giant creature so that it wouldn’t escape. I immediately ran towards them to see what was going on.

“What’s going on!?” I asked one of the villagers who was there.

“A giant monster suddenly came to our village and wrecked havoc! It destroyed our houses and ate our crops!”

I turned my head to see the monster people were running away from. That’s.....

It was a gigantic black slime. The black slime had grown so huge that it became uncontrollable. How did I not notice this?

People tried to fend it off by using farming tools to fight against it. However, instead of being weakened, the slime absorbed those tools instead, rendering them useless.

Oh no....This is bad. If my analysis was correct....that black slime was the accumulation of all the slime I’d driven away in the woods. They must have gathered into one giant slime and attacked the villagers. This was all my fault. I had to take responsibility for this.

While the villagers were fending off the slime, I went to my lab to fetch some things to fight against the slime. I was not sure if they would work against it, but I had no reason not to try.

After I took some things out of my lab, I returned to the place where the giant black slime was. Right when I arrived there, the slime was long gone.

“Where is the monster!?” I asked in panic.

“It went to the woods! Some people are chasing after it!” one of them answered.

Oh no....the Sacred Giant Mushroom!

I immediately ran towards the woods to search for the slime.

The moment I arrived at the woods, I saw the black slime getting closer to the Giant Sacred Mushroom with people chasing after it from behind. I drew a slingshot out of my bag along with several pellets as bullets and started shooting one at the slime.

“Take this!”

I shot an explosive pellet at the black slime to stop it from moving. The slime was not damaged by it, but it did stop its movement and focused its attention to me. Great. I needed to distract it while coming up with a solution to destroy it.

“People, back off!”

I shouted at the villagers who chased the slime to the woods to let me take care of it. I caused this to happen, so at least I wanted to take some accountability for it. They did as I told them to and started cheering for me on the side while taking refuge.

The slime started going towards me and attacking me. I could barely dodge its attacks due to its slow movements. I shot another pellet at it, trying to damage it as best as I could.

Along with my blue slime project, I also made some other experiments on the side. One of them was these pellet bullets. These spherical pellets contain chemical composites that could be used for combat. As of now, I had explosive, corrosive, smokescreen, rubber, seed, oil, smell, poison, and steel pellets. I hadn’t been able to develop more since I didn’t have time, but these would make do for now.

I shot some steel and rubber pellets at the slime. As expected, it just absorbed it without taking any damage. I used my poison pellet this time. It didn’t damage it, but it slowed its movement. I also shot a smell pellet at it, made from rotten chili and onion, but it did nothing to it. Most of the pellets I shot at it did nothing except slowed it down for a little bit.

The slime started to slither very rapidly all of a sudden. I was so startled that I didn’t have time to react. I shot a smokescreen pellet on the ground out of reflex, trying to escape from it while I thought of another strategy.

The slime lost track of me due to the smoke. While it was searching for me, I hid behind a bush and watched over it from afar. I checked my bag to see if there was still any pellet that could work against it. Unfortunately, I found nothing. Sadly for me, I used up all of my pellets and now I had nothing to fight with.

After giving up on looking for me, the giant slime started continuing its initial goal: to the Sacred Giant Mushroom. Oh no! If it absorbed the mushrooms, it would get stronger, or worse, impossible to defeat. This was really bad.

Suddenly, old man Hubal appeared next to me who was hiding behind the bushes. His appearance looked worse than how I saw him this morning.

“You’re....disintegrating....”

His body was slowly vanishing. His lower body got even more transparent than before, and this time, I was certain that it was not because of the lighting of the daystones. He was seriously disintegrating.

“Listen, child. There is something I have to tell you.”

He sounded unusually serious. That was very unlikely of him. With so many things going on, I couldn’t think straight.

“But, the slime––”

“I don’t have much time. Listen!” he yelled at me.

He silenced me and I was forced to listen to him.

“The truth is, I am.....

The spirit of the Sacred Giant Mushroom.”