I tried to move, but I couldn't feel my arms or legs. Hell, I couldn't feel anything at all. My body was just there. A weird, numb presence I knew existed but couldn't quite touch.
But that wasn't even the biggest question screaming in my head. What the hell actually happened?
I remembered getting bullied by those girls from class again. They were laughing and shoving me, and then everything went black. I didn't even see it coming. Did they hit me so hard that I ended up in some kind of vegetative state? No, that couldn't be right. There were too many people around. They wouldn't risk something that stupid.
And my eyes I was sure they were open. So why was everything still pitch dark? This wasn't the normal darkness of closed eyelids. This felt deeper and thicker. Like I'd been dropped somewhere else entirely.
Hmm. Maybe if I just tried moving again, something would happen.
The moment I focused on shifting, my whole body seemed to stretch outward, flattening like it had been pressed thin. 'What the...'
I kept pushing, and suddenly the sound of water rushed into my ears, cool and clear. Water? Was I underwater? Then how was I still breathing?
I moved a little more, and a faint blue glow started to bleed through the darkness in front of me. Yeah, definitely water. I had to get out of here, fast.
The light grew brighter the harder I pushed. It looked like I was rising toward some kind of surface. For a second I wondered if the ship had crashed and everyone had drowned in the ocean. But that didn't make sense. How was I even breathing right now? Don't tell me I was dead.
Panic surged through me. I kicked upward with everything I had, or at least tried to. Strangely, I didn't even know how to swim properly, but my body just floated up on its own.
I broke through the surface and sucked in a breath that didn't feel like a breath at all. Then I froze.
All around me stretched a massive underground cave, its jagged rock walls glittering with clusters of glowing stones that pulsed soft blue and green. Strange glowing grass sprouted from cracks in the stone, swaying gently even though there was no wind. The water itself shimmered with that same faint light, reflecting the cavern's eerie beauty at me.
Where the hell was this place? No way a ship could end up in a cave like this.
I paddled toward the nearest rocky ledge before I could sink again. The movement felt completely wrong. I wasn't using arms or legs. I wasn't even sure I had them.
'I'm not human anymore, am I?'
Heart pounding, I reached the edge and twisted around to look down at the water's surface, hoping for a reflection.
What stared back at me made my mind go blank.
A perfectly round, sky-blue slime body floated there, smooth and translucent, with no eyes, no mouth, no face at all. Just a simple glowing blob.
'What the hell! What kind of sick joke is this?'
My pretty face, the one I'd taken care of for seventeen years without even needing makeup is gone.
'Ahhh, no. This has to be a dream.' Even when I thought the words, my voice still sounded soft and girly inside my head. But I didn't even have a brain anymore, right? I was just a slime now.
This was crazy. Absolutely insane. How did this even happen? I'd only ever read about this stuff in webnovels. I never thought it would actually happen to me.
What should I do now? What could I even do? The questions spun in my head until my thoughts felt tangled and tight.
'Ahh, I'm so stressed.'
Maybe this really was just a dream. After all, I couldn't feel my body properly and I'd been breathing underwater like it was nothing. But that was exactly how slimes worked, wasn't it?
I let my body relax, and it instantly flattened out, slipping back into the cool water with a soft splash. The liquid closed around me again.
I didn't want to accept it, but the truth sat there anyway. I had died. And somehow I'd been reincarnated as a slime. That had to be it. What else made sense?
I was just a blob now, carrying the memories of Hatashima Reika as they belonged to someone else.
No, that felt even worse. But one thing was clear. I wasn't on Earth anymore. This had to be one of those fantasy worlds full of magic and monsters.
And right now, I was the monster. Damn it.
I had finally been ready to step out into real life, even daydreaming about getting a boyfriend someday. Now who would ever love a bottom-rank monster like me? The more I thought about it, the heavier my nonexistent chest felt, so I pushed the thoughts away before they could drag me down further.
I needed a plan. Something to focus on. Going back to my own world would be nice, if that were even possible. Wait what if this was still Earth, just somewhere humans hadn't reached yet?
'Hehe, yeah right.'
I shouldn't underestimate humans. Their curiosity could drag them into the strangest places.
I pushed forward and climbed out of the water, the surface rippling behind me. I moved straight toward the cave walls, searching for any crack or tunnel that might lead out. But there was nothing. Every direction was solid rock.
'Hmm.' The place was completely sealed off. No one had ever found this spot. Great. Could things get any lonelier?
It wasn't that I hated being alone. As an introvert, quiet spaces usually felt like home. But right now, the silence pressed in too hard. I really didn't want to be by myself.
If this really was another world like the webnovels I'd read, maybe I had some kind of cheat skill. It was worth a try. Who knows, it might actually work.
I stopped moving and pretended to take a deep breath, even though I didn't need one.
'Skill!'
'System!'
'Uhh... Stats?'
But nothing happened. So I really was just plain slime. How disappointing.
There was nothing I could do about it, so I kept moving. My body glided across the uneven stone floor until I stopped in front of one of the glowing stones. It pulsed with soft light, beautiful and strange. I had never seen anything like it before.
I reached out slowly, trying to touch it. My body passed straight through. The ore suddenly crumbled into tiny pieces that sank into me and dissolved.
'What!?'
Oh, right. Slimes could do that. But I didn't feel any different and I wasn't even hungry.
Before I could think much more, my entire body flared with a bright blue light. It burst outward, lighting up every corner of the cave in a sudden, dazzling flash. When the glow finally faded, I stayed frozen in place, completely stunned.
'What just happened to me?'