To answer the most asked question since the story began: No, Kolan isn’t stupid or dumb. He is just run down and basically in zombie-mode. Having your soul stripped from you bit by bit will tend to do that, regardless of how and why.

  Okay, so not really physically. But if anyone can understand the tedious grind of going to work day in and day out without any real desire to be there or any chance to advance then you know exactly what it feel’s like. That dead-end job phenomenon just seems to take on a life of its own and not even a really nice paycheck at the end of the month (or every two weeks, as the case may be) seems to make it worth it.

  Kolan is quite stuck, truth be told. The Minut Mart is close enough to walk or ride his bike to, and it is a full time job. Even the local fast food places wouldn’t even offer half the amount of hours, much less the benefits that come with it. Insurance, job security, yada yada. All requiring a singular lack of skills except for the usual ‘go there and do this’ subsect of abilities that mostly consist of chores.

  Chores that anyone could do, if they could put up with the crap that management tosses down or the often aggravating passive-aggressive resistance from customers. Putting up with the stress of having to do your best when it seems the store itself is against you should be considered a skill, or possibly an ability of some sort. Really, it should!

  At the moment however, none of that matters. Kolan is staring at those screens, which fade from his view within about thirty seconds. That is more than enough time for his brain to seem to kick back on, suddenly shifting his view of everything that has happened.

  “Oh shit… That’s kinda cool.”

  Okay, so maybe he isn’t to bright on the dangerous part, but his focus has definitely sharpened and he notices the wet ‘plop’ that comes from the uninvited guest that has already wiggled its way free of the stopped up urinal.

  The slime is a mottled brown-green blob that bounces and wiggles on the wet floor of the bathroom-turned-lair. It’s insides also contain floating mass of what seems to be toilet paper and a few other things best left unsaid. Still, he cannot smell it, given the stench of the men’s room, but just looking at it sends a shiver down his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck to rise.

  That’s because after only a moment of looking at the slime a red colored box had appeared over its head.

  < Sewage Slime (Variant) | Level 5 | 30 / 30 HP >

  The information is basic, but definitely helpful. The mass of bouncing jello-like crap is level five, but only has 30 health points. Okay. But the fact that it even lists itself as a variant is odd. Kolan isn’t sure what that means, and he is pretty sure he doesn’t really want to find out.

  That said, the red color of the box floating above the slimes head is an obvious indication of its intent. Like most monsters, this slime is definitely aggressive. It also soon notices the fact that it is under surveillance, and Kolan could all but feel its attention turn to focus on him. It is like a heavy weight that has come crashing down onto his shoulders.

  In a word, Kolan has come under the pressure of ‘killing intent’, which even his fogged up brain can understand. It is a real, palpable thing, like air pressure that is focused on and around him. While most would consider the killing intent of a slime, even one at level 5 to be laughable, for Kolan it is quite a serious thing. After all, who has ever really experienced it outside of those lucky enough to get into martial arts or the like?

  Killing intent in humans has all but been bred out of the collective consciousness of the masses. So it is definitely the first time he’d ever felt it, and it shakes him to the core.

  Of course, that’s when he remembers that last message that popped up at the end, warning him to run. Too bad he never gets the chance.

  The slime bounces right at him, and although it seems to be rather slow, its aggressive nature makes it pick up speed quickly. Kolan only has a moment to realize what the hell is happening before he ends up having to duck under the sudden high bounce the slime makes at him.

  He rolls to his left, into the clear area around in front of the urinal, where a short hallway connects to the bathroom stalls. He almost ends up slipping and sliding on the floor though, and has to catch himself on his already ruined shoes to gain enough traction not to end up on his face. It doesn’t stop him from breaking out in a sudden cold sweat when he turns and stares at the slime.

  Where the slime had hit the floor after its pounce, the tiles have cracked underneath the crappy water. Being hit by that would have been like being hit by an aluminum baseball bat!

  “Shit. What the hell is up with this slime?”

  He mutters to himself, but the gears in the back of his mind are already spinning. Now the slime is between him and the exit, with only the stalls behind him. That is not a good thing. Even if he could circle around his enemy, how the hell could he get away fast enough not to be clobbered on the way?

  That’s when he realizes that he isn’t totally defenseless. He has the scrubbing brush, which is plastic and probably wouldn’t work very well as a weapon… but he also has the bottle of Drain-O. It is rather flammable and heavy, and that thought gives him an idea.

  He drops the brush and goes for one of his pockets, happy to be wearing gloves as he realizes that he’s covered in crap and his clothing is sodden from having fallen on the floor then rolled across it. His breathing picks up when he finds what he is looking for, and pulls out his Bic lighter.

  Yes, he smokes cigarettes. It is a bad habit, but is one of the few things that keeps him from going nuclear and ending up on the news like those school kids who shoot up their classrooms.

  In this case, it gives him a great idea.

  Now all he has to do is survive long enough to actually give it a try.

  And not die afterwards, of course.

  Still, he knows from experience the drawback of what he is going to attempt. That would be range. While the Drain-O is pressurized, its short nozzle is more for being plugged into a thing then squirted. The viscous liquid inside is both heavier and denser than water, and it is supposed to settle on top of a blockage and force it out by adding additional mass to it, thus increasing the pressure.

  It isn’t an aerosol spray that can be ignited like a blowtorch. That leaves Kolan with little choice but to get in close, and probably take one just for the opportunity. But the chance to do anything, anything at all in order to survive this drives him to set his resolve and get it done.

  “Hah! Is that all you got, you slimy piece of shit? You came out of a urinal, not a toilet, ya know!”

  Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the best taunting remark that he could make, but he’d never been particularly good at coming up with remarks anyway. That and sarcasm usually just rolls right off of him. That is however what happens when a person decides that they’d rather be alone than otherwise.

  The taunt does have the desired effect, even if Kolan is utterly unsure if the creature in front of him is even able to understand what is being said.

  The slime seems to condense itself for a split second before giving a mighty pounce that shoots the mass of mottled brown and green into the air, almost touching the ceiling tiles as it creates a very nice arc heading straight for its target.

  Kolan though was tracking it with his eyes, trying to gauge exactly when he needs to move.

  Which is easier said and done, leaving him a little too late to finally throw himself down. The slime ends up slamming into his left shoulder as he ducks toward the right, and Kolan hits the floor while yelling out in pain.

  “FUCK! That hurt!”

  He grimaces and tries to blink the teardrops from the corners of his eyes. Being hit by the slime was definitely like taking a bat to that spot. It would no doubt bruise badly in a very short while. However, the pain only seemed to make his resolve more firm, and with a growl he turns and lunges himself up onto his knees and goes right after that slime.

  He doesn’t even notice that the splattered green-brown splotch on his shoulder had started to eat through his shirt as if it were acid, leaving a faint trail of white smoke.

  The slime however seems disconcerted by his sudden lung and freezes up just as he punches it with the fist that holds the can of cleaning agent. Slimes are very resistant to physical damage, even he knew that, but that wasn’t the point. As his fist makes contact with the gel-like substance that makes up the slime, he pulls the trigger of the can with his index finger.

  The sound of wushing liquid and air can be heard even as he starts to press the can deeper into the slimes body, making it jerk at the foreign feeling of being invaded by a substance that’s even more dense than it is.

  The Drain-O creates a pocket inside the slime, and follows his rubber-gloved clad arm back out until it starts to pool on the floor, sinking under the sludgy water already there.

  “Payback is a bitch, you know…”

  Kolan cannot help but grin as he holds up his other arm and flicks the lighter. He doesn’t even bother to stop and think about what he is about to do as the flame flickers into life. The slime however probably has more usable braincells, and starts to quiver and shuddering, trying to pull back form his arm.

  “Oh no you don’t.”

  As quick as a thought he puts the flame right up against the glove of his arm, and the Drain-O leaking down it ignites with a wuff! that spreads quickly up and down the rubber of his glove. Then it enters the slime and trails all the way to where the bottle is, and its pool of still spraying liquid.

  Kolan only has about three seconds to figure out what is about to happen as the cleaning liquid pooled inside the Slime ignites under the pressure, and for a moment his face pales before he jerks his arm back. Or rather tries to.

  The slime had already started to quiver and jerk, struggling against the heat and flame and thus had tightened up around his arm!

  “LET GO!”

  It is already too late, however. The pressure inside the Slime has jammed the trigger, and the flame has a ready source of more fuel as it blows back right into the can.

  BOOM!

  The can explodes like a gas tank, and for an instant Kolan’s entire world goes white as the slime basically incarnates from the inside out.

  The blast isn’t very big, but with his arm trapped there inside and being unable to retreat, the results are spectacular. Like setting off a firecracker inside of your closed fist. The damage is greatly enhanced. The Drain-O isn’t only flammable after all, it is also an oxidizer. There is plenty of fuel for fire and flame even when under pressure as the chemicals readily give up their oxygen molecules.

  Kolan’s world soon goes black as he feels himself being slammed hard against something on his back, before he finally passes into unconsciousness after falling flat on the muck covered floor.

  -|- -|- -|-

  Slowly the world filters back through the spectrum, first in sluggish grays and blacks then slowly into other colors, like browns and greens and sparkling whites. The harsh white lights from above only forces the issue to advance more quickly, as several of them are flickering and flashing, thus becoming harsh on the open, staring eyes.

  Eyes that blink and gain just a hint of recognition in them.

  For Kolan, everything was like a dream, hazy and discolored. Nothing he could see made any sort of sense to his confused mind, even though some things are so familiar that they are right on the verge of being recognizable.

  At least until the pain hits, which jerks him back into consciousness.

  His entire right arm hurts! It hurts far, far worse than even the hit on his shoulder that the slime had done. Hell, it works worse than when he had gallstones as a teenager! It was like his entire arm was burning and threatening to be ripped off all at the same time.

  Except when he turns his head to look and find out why, he sees something that once again makes absolutely no sense to his fuzzy, pain-riddled brain.

  His arm from just below the elbow is gone.

  The jagged flesh at the elbow joint clearly shows that it had been basically blasted apart, scorched and burned so badly that it bleeds only very little. Above that point however the sleeve all the way up to his shoulder had been burnt off, revealing horrible burns that are seeping with blood and puss.

  That is where most of the pain is coming from, although he could have sworn that he could still feel the entirety of his arm.

  “Oh fuck… Grrrrrrhmm!”

  He can barely speak, much less move as he stares in shock at what had happened to him. It was as if his brain had delayed him processing the signals of pain from the moment of the explosion until he’d finally wake up, and now he is getting it all at once. It was bad enough that he could even feel his bile rising.

  He wasn’t about to throw up though, and ruthlessly clamps down on the feeling. Tensing his muscles to do so probably wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had, cause it only served to tug on his shoulder and arm which causes him even more pain, making it harder to keep from being sick.

  His shock induced state didn’t do anything to stop the next thing to happen, however.

  *DING*

  Kolan is forced to read all of the messages even though he doesn’t want to do anything other than pass out or cry and scream from the pain. Still, actually giving him something to do seems to push the pain away for a time, so he carefully reads the messages. Then re-reads them, and reads them once again.

  Trying to actually understand what he was reading proved to be rather difficult for his rattled brain, but after a short time he realizes that most of what was said was similar to the various RPG’s he loves to play. The names were different, but they all represent the same thing. It was something he could easily understand, given that he’d grown up playing those games.

  Finally though the windows blink out, and having lost something to focus on the pain comes back seemingly with a vengeance. The reprieve however does help him push past it and slowly move his body, testing his other limbs before sitting up slowly.

  The rest of his body is sore and stiff, either from the explosion or the damage afterwards. Looking over his shoulder, he finds himself against the side wall, where the urinal once was. In its place is a crater, roughly shaped to his size. He’d been thrown into the urinal and busted it up only to smash into the wall.

  Well, at least that means the problem is fixed, right? Hahahahaha.

  Okay, so maybe laughing wasn’t a good idea as Kolan bends over and starts to cough and choke, which shoots another wild surge of pain through his body.

  “Gods… Just quit hurting already!”

  He ends up yelling out a curse, which is greeted only by a solemn silence and the sound of the lights flickering on the ceiling. Several of the ceiling tiles are missing when he glances up at them, revealing the steel rafters above along with blown out insulation and the ductwork.

  Still, he is a horrible mess right now, covered in water and filth and blood and other stuff best left unsaid. His right arm just below the elbow is gone, and he leaves it hanging limply at his side. His shirt is also torn and ripped to shreds, showing off most of his upper body and flabbiness.

  If anything, his fat only seems to increase the amount of surface area he hurts in.

  He also notices that his left shoulder had somehow been burned, but after only a moment of trying to remember he realizes that is from where the slime had hit him originally.

  “I didn’t even notice it was acidic… Then again, the rubber gloves kept my hand from touching it directly.”

  He mutters to himself as he works through the issue.

  Okay, so with the rest of his body finally taken into stock, he slowly rises to his feet. He ends up having to grind his teeth at the pain, but he does finally make it a little unsteady to his feet. Being without half an arm has messed up his balance, and the distant fuzziness of shock threatens to engulf him again.

  He pushes the feeling away though, and instead looks around the bathroom once more. Both the stall doors had been blown open by the explosion, and there’s charred marks on the floor and walls where the ceiling had been seemingly gutted above the blast zone. The floor is still a mess, but the urinal itself is gone, having broken into several pieces by his impact. The wall behind it is also holed, but a couple of the pipes are still there, except twisted up so badly that they aren’t even leaking.

  “I guess with the end of the world and all I don’t have to clean this mess up…”

  He says to himself, before stopping and blinking. For some reason he’d never thought about that until now. That means he’s free, doesn’t it? That he no longer has to work in this gods forsaken place any longer?! Oh hell yeah!!!

  He almost yells out in joy, but simply tipping his head back to do so causes him to shudder and sway as another sweep of pain rushes through his body.

  “Ohh…”

  He groans and clamps his mouth shut and straightens back up while he waits for it to pass.

  “Fuck… Just make it stop already!”

  Finally it seems the universe finally has an answer for Kolan’s angry outburst, as he hears that tell-tale sound of a new message that makes him open his eyes.

  *DING*

  Kolan is quick to read through everything, relieved to be alive and having survived the two hour period that could have just as easily had seen him dead. Or rather, he’d been unconscious through most of it, but that’s beside the point.

  Still, his eyes widen as he looks at his stats and then his skills, and he cannot help grinning to himself. But when he gets to his abilities that smile falls from his face and instead takes on the open-mouthed look of a gaping fish out of water.

  “WHAT THE HELL?!”

  Monster abilities? Consumed the slimes core? What the fuck is all of this about?! He doesn’t remember anything about any of that.

  Still, his confusion and astonishment only increases when the long list of his feats come up. Some of them he could understand, but tallying the fact that he’d lost his own arm?! REALLY?! Then the rewards are spit out, and once more he’s surprised and shocked.

  “What the fuck is up with these rewards? Totally OP….”

  But he suddenly stops when he leads the very last one. Lair Destroyer’s Curse.

  “I GOT CURSED!?!”

  +|+|+

  Here you go guys! Chapter 2 of World Seed. Hehehehehe.

  I hope you guys enjoy it!

  And yes, I imagine a lot of you are going all CHUUNI! after reading what I wrote. I always wanted to try it, so I went ahead and did it. Hahahaha. Don't worry though! I think you'll all enjoy what I have in mind to replace his arm with. *Grins*

  It'll be slimey, that's for sure though~

  Hahaha. I wonder if any of you guys realized what I had had in mind.

  Really though, I was always fascinated a bit about Re:Monster and the like, so I wanted to see what a human would do in that situation. Well, part-human now, anyway.

  Let me know what you guys think!

  Once again, thank you all!