Grabbing the recently deceased pigs and stuffing them inside of myself to dissolve them, I realized that I should take stock of my surroundings. As another few bursts of mana registered within me, I noticed that the dungeon seemed to be an open meadow. Short, yellow grass covered the floor, and I could see a couple of ponds not too far away, probably the drinking source for the pigs. I assumed the yellow grass served as their feed. Adventurers probably balanced out the remainder of their diet. I looked up and saw that the ceiling, while not low, was not too high either. Maybe two stories, by my best guess. The wide, open space felt more like the area outside of the dungeon than the setting of my birth place, which was essentially a series of tunnels. Of course, the rock features were completely absent.

It made sense to keep the place free of obstructions for a mob type that depends on being mobile.

Paying more attention to the surroundings allowed me to see that there were quite a number of these ‘pig squads’ roaming around. Well, they were roaming around, as far as I could tell. Now, they are all running towards me.

Every single one of them.

I did not hesitate to confront them as they came. I met them head on, swinging my tentacle whips, tripping entire groups, sometimes even managing to lift one pig to throw at the others. I could not do it consistently, but the problem was not about weight, I simply lacked the control to pick them up instead of letting them sink into my appendages. Either way, it did not matter. One squad, two squads, three… No matter how many charged at me, I flailed around in a mess of slimey fury and struck down as many as I could. Sometimes I would lose track of a few of them and ended up taking a couple of direct hits. But it seemed that physical trauma, even empowered by skill boosted speed, did not have much effect on me. So, I let them throw themselves into me for easy kills.

Still, I minimized those occurrences as much as possible, for my own sake.

After countless minutes of fighting, the last pig fell. Many bodies could be seen floating inside of me as I had not taken the time to absorb them. I simply let them suffocate to death on their own. The rest were strewn about me in various stages of pulpy mess. I switched into dissolution mode and devoured all of them. As I worked, I realized that the violence and bloodshed did not bother me much. Yes, I objectively discovered that I was capable of a lot more destruction than I could have ever caused or even think about in my previous life, but that realisation had no actual impact on my actions. I was slowly coming to understand that as a slime, my previous ideals, thoughts, and disposition as a human just did not matter anymore. Perhaps that was part of why I could not feel emotions anymore, or even the whole reason why.

A sudden thump drew my attention away from the finally dissolved corpses. Off in the distance, close to what must be the very edge of the meadow, a large figure rose up. A squeal so deep that it was practically a roar tore out of its mouth. Almost a story tall, nearly half the height of the dungeon’s ceiling, rippling muscles, needle-like fur, and tusks that were practically a third of its body length, the massive boar steadily made its way towards me. A glint of madness shone in its blood red eyes.

Looks like I just met the boss of this dungeon. And it was not happy.

Suddenly, the enormous creature lowered its head and burst into an all out run. Due to its size and maturity, it was far, far faster than the weaklings I recently killed. I should have panicked, wanted to, but I still felt nothing. It was starting to bother me, mentally of course, but I had no time for that. I recklessly threw myself to the side at the last moment. The boar did not exactly stop. Instead, seeing that it missed, it bunched up its legs, made a short hop, and drifted in a sharp turn until it was facing me again. Without losing too much momentum it charged at me again. I had to admit...that was kinda cool.

Figuring that repeating my prior actions would only cause it to learn from my habits, I quickly changed strategy. Watching the impossibly fast thing coming at me, I once again rolled over to the side, but this time I whipped out a tentacle that I hardened as much as I currently could handle in an attempt to trip it. It almost worked.

The boar, caught off guard by the sudden obstacle, failed to react quickly enough and stumbled when its feet struck me. My tentacle burst in a shocking splatter, but I ignored it while I watched the boar lose its balance. Just as I thought the creature would face-plant directly into the ground, with the added benefit of its long tusks securing it in place for an easy win, the blasted thing gave me yet another surprise. It tucked in its shoulders, bunched up its core muscles, and rolled. Yes. The boar tripped and rolled and came out of it as if it was nothing.

Dungeon Bosses are no joke, it seems.

Still, its little maneuver gave me an opportunity, however small it was. I quickly wrapped a couple of tentacles around its back legs as soon as it was right side up, attempting to hold them in place. I was under no illusion that I could lift the beast when I could barely do so for its smaller brethren. No, instead I was aiming to hinder its ability to charge at me. If I could hold it up well enough, I would have a far better chance at handling the rest of the fight.

I never considered one thing though. In all of its running and tossing about, it never gave off the glow of the charging skill that all of the pigs seemed to possess. That should have been my first warning. The second would be the clearly longer and well developed tusks.

Once the boar got its bearings again, it tried to move forward, only to discover my attempts at binding it. The boar struggled against me for a bit, then, failing to break free of my grasp, turned its head to squint at me. Before I could think of my next move, it made its own. The boar used its free front legs to quickly shift around until it was facing me. In this way I was given a lovely view of it activating a skill...its tusks lit up with the light of mana, and the boar swept its head from side to side, brandishing those weapons against me. My tentacles were destroyed easily, though I still felt no pain. I did, however, feel the loss of connection from those parts of my body. What was wrapped around the hind legs collapsed into a puddle as I could no longer control them. Good to know.

Free from its constraints, the boar snorted before leaping backwards a good distance. It let out a low roar as it began to charge towards me again, the added room giving it the chance to build up more speed. I struggled to come up with ideas, throwing myself to the side once again like a desperate matador. This time, the boar was quick-witted, and nearly gouged me with its tusks in a sudden shift of its head. Thankfully I had thrown myself harder than before.

Before, I simply thought it was a bad idea to take a hit from something that big, moving that fast, head on. The little guys, sure. The boar the size of a house, not so much. But now, I was wary of not just the laws of physics, but also the tusks that displayed the laws of mana.

There had to be some way to take this beast down. And I fully intended to find it.