Ultimate Spin System: Ero Spin?-Chapter 123 - Lonely time, Lonely Slime

Lucas deadpanned. "Oh, wonderful. Very specific."

The slime giggled again, a strange, liquid ripple running through its translucent form. Then, without warning, it bounced toward him, pressing lightly against his leg once more. This time, the sensation wasn’t just soft—it was oddly warm.

Lucas tensed. "What are you—?"

"Come." The slime’s voice lowered to a whisper, almost as if it carried a strange allure. "Before something else finds you."

Lucas hesitated. Everything about this situation was bizarre. First, a talking slime. Now, it was giving him cryptic warnings like some kind of eldritch guide. But as much as he wanted to question it, he knew one thing for certain—he wasn’t in a position to be picky.

With a reluctant sigh, he gestured vaguely. "Fine. Lead the way, blob."

The slime jiggled in what might have been excitement before bouncing forward, undulating across the rocky terrain. Lucas followed, his boots crunching against the gravelly ground.

The landscape was desolate—jagged rock formations, eerie cliffs, and an endless expanse of storm-choked sky. There was no sun, no stars, just a cold, unnatural grayness stretching as far as he could see.

As they moved, Lucas couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching him. The air was thick with an oppressive stillness, like a predator was lurking just out of sight, waiting for him to slip.

After what felt like an eternity of cautious steps, the slime suddenly stopped in front of what looked like a narrow crevice between two towering boulders.

Lucas frowned. "This is your idea of a safe place?"

The slime jiggled again. "Mmm. Inside."

Lucas exhaled sharply and squeezed through the tight gap, emerging into a small cavern tucked beneath the rock formation. Inside, the air was damp but significantly warmer. A faint glow pulsed from the walls, illuminating the space in a soft, bluish hue.

Lucas turned back to the slime. "Alright, we’re here. Now what?"

The slime didn’t respond.

Instead, its entire form shivered.

Lucas took a wary step back as the gelatinous mass began to shift, stretching upward. Its surface rippled like liquid silk, reshaping, reforming. The glow from the cave walls reflected off its shifting body, and then—

A figure emerged.

A woman.

Her body retained a semi-transparent, slime-like texture, but her form was unmistakably humanoid. Long, fluid-like hair cascaded down her back, her curves accentuated by the natural elasticity of her being. Her eyes, liquid pools of shimmering blue, fixed on Lucas with an intensity that sent an involuntary chill down his spine.

Lucas stiffened. "You’re..."

The slime woman tilted her head, placing a delicate, gelatinous hand against her chest. "This is the form I once absorbed."

Lucas’s stomach twisted. Absorbed? He narrowed his eyes. "You mean... you ate someone?"

The slime woman flinched at the accusation, her expression tightening. Then, slowly, she shook her head. "No," she murmured, her voice quieter now. "I didn’t kill her."

Lucas folded his arms. "Then how the hell did you ’absorb’ her?"

The slime woman hesitated. Her fingers curled against her chest as if trying to grasp something intangible. "She... fell from the sky."

Lucas blinked. "What?"

The slime woman lowered her gaze. "I found her here... in this place. She was hurt. Dying. Her eyes were filled with sadness. She..." A single tear-like droplet slid down her cheek, disappearing into her shifting form. "She smiled at me. And then... she hugged me."

Lucas felt his pulse quicken. "And then?"

The slime woman closed her eyes, her body trembling. "Then I... absorbed her."

Lucas’s breath caught.

He stared at her, searching for any hint of deception, but all he saw was something akin to sorrow.

"You mean... you didn’t mean to do it?" he asked cautiously.

She nodded slowly. "I wasn’t even... hungry. It just happened."

A strange silence filled the cavern. Lucas didn’t know what to say. The idea of a sentient slime accidentally absorbing a person, especially someone who willingly embraced it, was almost too surreal to process.

But something in her voice—her posture—made it hard to outright condemn her.

Still, the implications were chilling.

Lucas exhaled, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "So... what, you just became her?"

The slime woman shook her head. "No. I changed." She placed a hand over her chest again, as if feeling something that wasn’t quite there. "After absorbing her, I started thinking differently. Before, I was just... instinct. Hunger. But now? I understand things. Feel things."

Lucas narrowed his eyes. "Feel what, exactly?"

She met his gaze, her liquid-blue eyes filled with something eerily human. "Loneliness."

Lucas’s breath hitched.

The cavern seemed to shrink around them, the silence between them heavier than before.

The slime woman took a step closer. "You... feel it too, don’t you?"

Lucas didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

The way her words settled in his chest, the way they echoed something he’d been trying to ignore—it was enough.

The slime woman hesitated, then, almost hesitantly, she lifted her arms.

Before Lucas could react, she embraced him.

Her body was warm—not in the way a human’s would be, but in a soft, encompassing way, like sinking into a gentle current.

Lucas stiffened.

He didn’t know what to do. He barely understood what he should feel in this moment.

But for some reason, despite everything—the insanity of this situation, the uncertainty of where he was—he didn’t push her away.

Instead, he let himself breathe.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, the weight of solitude didn’t feel so unbearable.

Lucas remained still, feeling the odd warmth of the slime woman’s embrace. Her body, though gelatinous and fluid, molded around him like a gentle tide, yet there was no suffocating pressure—just a soft, lingering presence.

Then, she spoke again.

"I tried before," she murmured against him.

Lucas frowned. "Tried what?"

"To hug," she said, her voice laced with an almost childlike wistfulness. "I hugged rocks. Cold. Hard. They didn’t hug back."

Lucas blinked. "Uh... yeah, I wouldn’t expect them to."

The slime woman continued as if he hadn’t spoken. "I hugged trees. They were... rough. They didn’t move. Still lonely."

Lucas exhaled, not quite sure how to respond to that. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Then, I tried hugging animals," she said, pulling back slightly. "But they always ran away."

Lucas stared at her. The way she said it—like a confused child who didn’t understand why the world wouldn’t respond to her gestures—it made something twist uncomfortably in his chest.

"You mean, you’ve been looking for something to hug all this time?" he asked slowly.

She nodded. "Yes. But nothing felt... right." Her liquid-blue eyes shimmered as she looked at him. "But you... you feel different."

Lucas sighed. "Well, yeah. I’m a person."

She tilted her head. "Person...? Is that why?"

Lucas hesitated. There was something unsettling about all of this, but at the same time, he couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t being malicious. She wasn’t trying to manipulate him—she simply didn’t understand.

A sentient slime with the mind of a child. One that had absorbed a human, yet still seemed to lack human awareness.

Lucas crossed his arms. "Alright, then. How long have you been alive?"

The slime woman blinked. "Long."

Lucas frowned. "How long is ’long’?"

She seemed to ponder that for a moment, then nodded as if coming to a conclusion. "Very."

Lucas pinched the bridge of his nose. "That... doesn’t help."

The slime woman shifted slightly, as if struggling to find words. "Time is... strange here," she admitted. "I don’t count days. I just... exist."

Lucas’s stomach twisted again. How long has she been like this?

"Okay," he tried again, speaking slowly. "How long has it been since you absorbed that woman?"

The slime woman blinked, then responded in the same tone. "Long."

Lucas groaned. "Seriously?"

She nodded. "Very."

Lucas ran a hand through his hair, trying to wrap his head around this. It was like talking to a child with no sense of time—she clearly knew she had been here for a long while, but the concept of measuring it seemed utterly foreign to her.

"Do you even remember what she looked like?" Lucas asked.

The slime woman was silent for a moment, then slowly lifted a hand to her chest. "I remember... warmth." Her expression grew hazy, as if she were searching through distant, fragmented memories. "A soft voice. A sad smile. And tears."

Lucas felt something tighten in his chest.

Tears?

The woman had been crying before she died?

"And then she hugged me," the slime woman continued, her fingers curling slightly. "I... I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t hungry. But she... disappeared. And I... became this."

Lucas exhaled, his mind working through the implications.

This slime had been alone for an unfathomable amount of time. It had no grasp of its own age. It barely understood the concept of human emotions. And now, after unknowingly absorbing someone, it had started to feel.

Lucas wasn’t sure whether to be unnerved or... sympathetic.

Because, in a way, wasn’t that what had happened to him?

Thrown into an unfamiliar world, stripped of his old life, forced to adapt to something new.

Maybe, in some twisted way, they weren’t so different.

Lucas shook his head, pushing the thought aside. "You really have no idea how long it’s been, huh?"

The slime woman looked at him, then tilted her head in that same, innocent way.

"Long," she repeated.

Lucas sighed. "Right. Of course."

One thing was certain—this was going to be a long conversation.