“You know what? This is actually delicious,” Reysha said, while cutting herself another block out of the boss. The tiger girl was still nude and eagerly awaiting her chance to bath, but the taste that filled her mouth kept her from being too disgruntled with her situation. Not only did the meat have an intense, beef-like flavour, but it was also as soft as perfectly prepared goulash. Unappetizing as the boss looked (alive or dead), it was a tasty treat.

Apexus agreed so much, he skipped out on the answer. After days of dissolving through the salty layers of mucus to get to some medium quality meat, this abomination was a welcome change. Adding to the euphoric feeling of a giant and delicious meal was the tingling feeling in his core that he could acquire a new growth permanently.

He only went consider it after him and Reysha had devoured the entirety of the boss. It took them about an hour, but the hungry duo of semi-monstrous adventurers made the pile of meat disappear. Most of it was dissolved inside Apexus. Not being held back by a digestive system that needed emptying, as Reysha was, the slime just kept eating. Eventually, there was no sense to it aside from the deliciousness of his prey.

“You’ve got really fucking huge,” the tiger girl remarked.

In order to devour the boss as quickly as possible, Apexus had bloated to his maximum size. His membrane was as thin as the Skinwalker Hide allowed, stretching over a dark blue mass shaped like a resting drop of water and four metres wide and two high. Out of the top poked his torso, wings, head, arms and all the other things attached, allowing him to watch over the surroundings while his slime body cleaned up the last scraps.

“It’s bothersome,” Apexus responded and started to shrink down. “The only thing being this large gets me is weight. I’m slower, I can’t heat all of this, I can barely manoeuvre and I don’t fit in anywhere – both in the space and social sense.” His body seemed to deflated, as slime consolidated into a thicker, gel-like consistency. After ten minutes, he had become small enough that he could properly stretch his membrane over his bones again. After another five minutes, he had the usual humanoid shape again.

“I am curious, would you say that your ability to grow larger has lost its useless entirely?” Aclysia asked. She had seen Apexus expand quite a lot since their initial meeting. She also knew the basic rules. While everything Apexus could eat aided him in nourishing him, only new things that were devoured increases his maximum size. Nowadays, only dungeon monsters, particularly the bosses, seemed to fuel a noticeable increase in overall size and even that was slowing with time.

“No, probably not,” Apexus said, wiggling his fingers to get used to them again. “It could be helpful at some point. Not like all of the slime I don’t use for size disappears. The more I consolidate, the tougher this gets,” he pulled at his membrane. “Also more energy to replenish lost limbs in general.”

“It gets tougher?” Reysha raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t look harder to me.”

“It’s not hard its… sturdy yet flexible,” Apexus told her. “Like your leather armour. Except its my skin. The Skinwalker Hide evolves to become stronger as I become stronger. Like all my Permanent Growths.”

“Wonder if that’s stronger than what adventurer’s usually experience,” Reysha hummed.

All adventurers grew stronger, as represented through levels, as they succeeded in their endeavours. That growth was most pronounced in regularly used skills or attributes, but there was at least some all-around improvement. All level 100 adventurers could expect a basic iron weapon to break before their skin did. Only Classes manning the frontline, and particularly those that regularly took a punch, could be entitled to more. There were also magical ways to reinforce one’s skin with mana, but those were active measures.

“We are already aware that our darling also experiences the levelling phenomenon. It may be safe to assume that his Growths also evolve depending on the level of use they get?” Aclysia put the idea out there.

“Shit!” Reysha cussed, as if those were extremely bad news. “Quick, spread pheromones everywhere! I want that smell to evolve into something that instantly soaks my panties.”

“I think they evolve along with me in general,” Apexus put his own theory out there. “Specifically, because of the pheromones. I barely used them these past months, but the aphrodisiac property became stronger regardless.”

“I wished there was a way to properly measure these things,” Aclysia rubbed her chin. “Alas, this is not the time, nor the place.”

“It is the last time and place you get to laugh at this though,” Apexus said and pointed at the gargantuan sniffer still dominating his head. “It’s going to disappear soon.”

“No, wait!” Reysha cried out. “You can’t get rid of looking stupid while I’m still covered in this stuff.” Reaching into her clumped, red hair, she pulled out a bunch of hardened goo, which crumbled into flakes halfway through. “What am I going to do without the entertainment of your broad-nosed absurdity?!”

“Masturbate?” Aclysia suggested in a dry tone. “That seems to be your usual answer to boredom.”

“And I can’t do that while there is a risk I’ll push any of this disgusting manure into the temple that is my body!” the tiger girl bantered back swiftly. Putting her hands together in a motion that was equally praying and pleading, she bowed her head towards Apexus, “Please, darling, can you keep the nose until I get a bath? Do it for my entertainment?”

“No,” Apexus responded. Not that he was fundamentally averse to the idea, he just wanted to see what Reysha would give him if he pushed back a little bit.

The redhead gave him the best big eyes her wild and clumpy hair allowed. “Pretty please?” she repeated the question with a little pout.

“No.”

Clicking her tongue, Reysha crossed her arms and considered. ‘Man, if he was a normal guy, I could just promise a blowjob and get what I want. Too bad tentacle guy here mainly cares about stuffing my ‘breeding hole’ and we both know he’ll stuff that later either way…’ She directed her thoughts in a different direction before she could get horny. “Dangit, I got nothing,” she finally exclaimed. “I’d owe you one?”

“One what?”

“Proverbial one, metaphorical one, something, a solid, dunno,” Reysha babbled. “A favour to be called at a later date.”

“Hmm, fine,” Apexus agreed with an audible, triumphant and entirely deliberate huff of his massive nose.

Reysha giggled immensely. Aclysia also laughed, but the sound was tainted with some worry.

___________________________________________________________________________

There was an actual, if very minor, risk involved with keeping the nose around. Because the door they had entered the boss room through had shut and remained so even after the monster died, there was no way to go but out. If they ran into someone while Apexus had the sniffer on his face, that could have spurred the usual questions and suspicions. This was one Growth he could not hide underneath his mask.

Given that they were still in the middle of the desert, Apexus was willing to run that risk, Aclysia deemed it just low enough to not complain about it and Reysha kept laughing whenever the slime did as much as move the sides of his nostrils.

They emerged back on the surface courtesy of an elevator that revealed itself along with the boss loot. When it came to the items they were rewarded with, none were of practical use to them this time around. Whoever the group could sell them to, they would in the near future.

From the top of the Myrm’s Nest, there were two ways to get clean. One lead back into the dungeon and towards the first healing fountain inside it. That was likely quicker, but also came along with the guaranteed enemy encounters and the entire group was unwilling to engage anymore of those naked, slimy rodents. Instead, they chose to go where they had to anyway and backtrack the path they had taken to the dungeon.

Flying would have made the path towards the closest oasis more pleasant, but that was not an option. On the way to the dungeon, flying had carried with it the risk to miss the landmarks described from the earthbound perspective, laid out in the guide. Now on the way out, the muck sticking to Apexus’ feathers lessened his confidence in his aerodynamics. They had to walk over the scorching hot sand. Through will and on a full stomach, they still made it to the oasis hours before the sun set.

“Oh my gods, I love you Aclysia,” Reysha declared, when the metal fairy handed her the bar of soap. They only had the one scented bar and it had to be used in moderation. Less than a problem of price, it was one of availability. Soap wasn’t sold just everywhere.

“Your hair is beautiful, it deserves attention,” Aclysia said and then disrobed herself. She was incredibly clean compared to the tiger girl, due to all kinds of biological functions on Reysha’s part, but a bath was always appreciated. It was where the group calmed down. All of the dungeon visits had started to engrain in them the idea that a place where one could clean themselves was a safe place.

“Blood red is a nice colour,” Reysha agreed with a wide grin and extended two of her claws. Scratching some of the solid soap off, she rubbed it into her already wet hair until she could feel a little bit of foam building on the top of her head. “Wish I had eyes in the back of my head,” she complained, trying to find the parts she hadn’t reached yet. Soap was a rare enough treat to be thorough with it, disregarding the dried-up mucus.

“I can help,” offered Apexus, returning at that moment from a little hunt. His prey, a six-legged animal with an elongated body, was small enough that Apexus had been able to kill it with a bite to the neck. An herbivore that usually covered its presence up by using magic to make its light brown fur assume the texture of the trees it clung to, it and its kin had managed to evade the trio on the first time through. Now that Apexus had an extra sense to rely on, however, he had spotted one of them while gathering figs.

Knowing how much Reysha suffered when eating non-magical matter, he had swiftly hunted one down. It hadn’t been overly difficult. These animals had very few natural predators. The older ones got picked off by the occasional vulture and that was it.

“Good man, providing for me,” Reysha purred, waving the slime closer with her index finger. Apexus got out of his robe, placed it and the future meal on the ground, and joined his women in the water. The sun was still cutting through the dry air, making the water pleasingly rehydrating. The tiger girl’s purring grew from a mere matter of intonation to an actual sound from deep in her throat, when Apexus massaged her sculp. Soon it was free of all remaining bits of slime. “Can you spread pheromones with only your fingers?”

“Yes, why?” Apexus wondered.

“Why do you think? I want to smell like you,” Reysha answered with an adoring laugh. “That fine with you, Aclysia?”

“As long as the fragrance primarily sticks to you, there should be no issues,” the metal fairy responded after a moment’s consideration.

“I was asking if it was fine with you if I smelled like your darling, but alright.”

“Why would it not be alright if you smelled like our darling?” Aclysia cocked her head, unable to fully comprehend the question. “Certainly, you’re not insinuating I should feel jealousy at this point? That would be odd, given the triangular nature of our relationship.”

“Ya know what, you’re completely right, forget I said anything, bubble butt,” Reysha conceded the pointed and instead continued in her purring while Apexus fulfilled her wish. Marking her with his fragrance in such a fashion felt appropriate and satisfying to the core. There was a bit of him that wanted to rub her up and down until every bit of her was covered with his smell, letting any other males know that she was claimed. That kind of recklessly obvious behaviour was reserved for times less reliant on them staying undercover, however.

Aclysia soon joined the two of them, taking the soap and grooming Reysha by cleaning her body and tail. Once the tiger girl was clean head to toe, she returned the favour by helping the metal fairy clean all of the dirt out of Apexus’ feathers. That was also when Apexus finally pulled the trigger on the nose.

Visibly, nothing happened at first. Inside Apexus’ nucleus a series of signals, mana flowing across new channels unlocked by the overcoming of a new challenge, burned these circuits permanently into the core of his beings. Encoded into physical magic, the Growth was translated from something in the short-term memory into the genetic library of the supernatural slime. It was a significant and quick change, taking less time than a blink.

With the integration done, the active mind of the body, Apexus, was free to manipulate his newest acquisition with more leeway. Fusing it to the appropriate place in the skull and decreasing it size a whole lot, he recreated what felt like a human face.

Reysha laughed.

“Your face is still super broad,” she explained herself between giggles. “It looks like all the times Aclysia placed her giant fat ass on your face flattened it.”

“My ass is not fat…” Aclysia grumbled.

“It is, but only in the complimenting way,” the redhead insisted.

“Aclysia doesn’t have fat anywhere on her,” said Apexus, while taking the feedback he had been given and narrowing the width of his skull.

“The colour of your nose and skin don’t match,” Aclysia pointed out. The nose was swiftly integrated into the Skinwalker Hide to compensate.

“Wait a second here,” Reysha stopped in combing through his feathers to circle to the front of Apexus. “Clysia, do you realize what we get to do right now?”

“Continuously groom darling’s soft feather’s until they are as pristine as he deserves to be?” Aclysia presented her best guess and current goal in life. Serving the being, the man, she loved in such a basic and thorough fashion thoroughly satisfied her diligent personality.

“No, we get actually decide what our perfect man looks like!” Reysha pointed out. “I mean, at least when it comes to facial structure. You can adjust that however you like, right?”

“With time and energy,” Apexus nodded. They had a wealth of both at the moment. “If it makes you happier to be with me, adjusting my face is an easy task.”

“I don’t know if ‘happier’ is the right words, but you being as good looking as Aclysia is-“

“Is impossible,” Apexus interrupted with all of his conviction.

“We’ll see about that, mister ‘I can mould my face to the dreams of my tiny harem’,” Reysha responded and looked over to the metal fairy. “You going to help me pick a face for him or what? All of womankind will want what we have!”

Aclysia continued to groom her darling while she thought about those words. ‘Do I truly want him to be beautiful if that encourages other woman to want him?’ the selfish thought appeared in her head. ‘No, at the very least he should look inconspicuously average… Although, if I already get to choose what my darling looks like, why should he not be as beautiful on the outside as he is on the inside?’ With that rhetorical question floating around inside her, she sat down next to Reysha.

What followed was a whole hour of back and forth between the two girls. It started nice and easy. Ironing out the initial kinks of his appearance was something they agreed on. Making sure most of his features were symmetric, that his eyes and eyebrows properly aligned, even choosing the colour of his skin, all of that was chosen as swiftly as Apexus could amend the shape of his bones.

The devil was in the details, however, and even an angel could be possessed by a demon when it came to discussing the optimal shape the jaw of her lover was going to take. Reysha wanted it to be a bit rounder, Aclysia wanted it extremely masculine and square. Reysha suggested a beard, Aclysia rejected that outright. The possibility of a cleft chin was raised. The height of the cheekbones was changed at least five times before they found a compromise. The dimensions of his forehead, the placement of his hairline, and even the angle of his fox ears was brought up and argued at length.

Despite their differences in these minute details, the two girls always reached an agreement. Sometimes that went entirely to one side, the beard for example was discarded in its entirety, other times there was compromise, like with the shape of his chin.

When they finally had gone over every possible facet of his face, the sun was setting and Apexus inspected his new self in the reflection of the water. His skin was of a light brown, a shade above Reysha’s caramel, and flawless. The previously comedically large nose was now a properly integrate and sized. Its shape had been carefully optimized, from the swing of the bridge, to the width of the wings. Same could be said about his lips. They were a bit darker and noticeably pinker than the rest of his skin. The demon’s exterior he had acquired had conveniently come with the capability to take care of this.

Pale blue eyes sat under dense, sharply cut eyebrows. They sat deep enough to create a bit of a shadow around them, but not enough to make him look sleepy or unhealthy. His face was a bit on the longer side and his jaw had ended up more square than round, but with a lightly curving, rather than a pointy chin. Two human ears sat on either side. They were entirely useless constructions made of nothing but slime membrane. He had placed them there after Reysha said he looked a bit odd without. Given her own four-eared nature, that was understandable.

Apexus inspected himself from several angles. His black hair, now long enough to reach his upper back, moved with every motion. Aclysia had said it looked better on him, Reysha had agreed and Apexus knew he could eject his hair at the root should he ever get grabbed by it, so he hardly cared. Regardless, it would take some getting used to.

By every objective standard, he looked good – beautiful, even. All had been nudged into the right place. Personally, he couldn’t see how he was meant to compare to Aclysia or Reysha in terms of looks. Men just didn’t have any appeal to him, an instinct informed entirely by his lack of procreation abilities with them. As for the girls, shallow as they may have thought they were for it, they had never been happier to be with the slime than they were before. They still had all of his kind, odd and savage personality, with a pretty face on top. Only the fact that his body looked one step removed from starving put a damper on his new looks.

He pulled back his lips. The teeth, just a tad sharper and pointier than human teeth should be, glinted dangerously. Moving around some other facial features, the slime tried to get used to them. “I’ll have to learn to emote properly with this now,” he said, while accidentally raising one eyebrow diagonally.

“You learned everything else, you’ll manage, darling,” Aclysia said, while resuming her long-stopped work on his wings.

“And you better learn fast, it’d be a shame to hide that face under a mask for too long!” Reysha declared.