Kelemen's eyes slowly opened as they adjusted to the blinding light coming from above. Startled, he sat to attention and found himself surrounded by a forest of trees.
"This…"
Abruptly, Kelemen's old memories came flooding back to him. That's right, he was only a college student before the lightning of fate struck him down. "I was going to get a bag of snacks and despite the clear weather I got zapped by lightning…?" Kelemen's mouth twitched as he didn't know whether to cry or laugh at the thought of how ridiculous this situation was.
As he pondered his surroundings a green blob slid its way across the grass to approach Kelemen. Catching sight of the little thing, the cogs in his mind began to turn. "That's a slime and I died like a generic two-bit isekai hero. There's no doubt about it, I'm destined to be a winner in this life!" Like a maniac, Kelemen stood there and began laughing. "HAHA, I WILL BECOME THE UNSTOPPABLE PROTAGONIST OF THIS WORLD. ROCKET LEVELING HERE I COME!" In a flash, Kelemen stood up and made his way to cross hands with this foul creature that dared disturb the future overlord of this new world.
Sparks flew between the two as Kelemen eyed his slimy foe. Crouched and ready to pounce, he looked for an opening. In return, the slime remained still as if waiting for the human to make its move. Kelemen rushed forward ready to decimate the slime and to his surprise, the slime stood still as if waiting patiently for a good beating.
Laughing at the stupidity of his foe Kelemen unleashed a flurry of punches, slaps, grabs, and chops to erase this hated foe from this world. As Kelen saw the slime begin to deform he laughed and shouted embarrassing words like "FURY OF THE NINE HEAVENS, ONE SLAP, DESCENT OF THE HEAVENLY DRAGON". To his horror, the slime only slightly caved inwards before rebounding to its original form and tilting slightly as if to question what he was doing. "Eh, a tough little bugger huh?" Kelemen's face was slightly red from the exhaustion as he started a new round of attacks. "I'll show you who's your daddy now!"
After a short while, Kelemen collapsed onto the ground huffing and puffing as he begrudgingly declared "Th-thi this… round is a draw." As if sensing the human was done, the slime shimmied its way over to Kelemen and nudged itself into his knee.
Suddenly, in his head, Kelemen heard a voice that was neither too quiet nor too loud.
"Congratulations to the host [Kelemen] for activating the manual [Idiot's Guide to Slimes]!"
A rush of knowledge flooded Kelemen's head as he learned about his new green friend. As if he had known this for all his life, he could suddenly tell more about the slime from its age to the fact that it was a she, to the fact that the slime had somehow become his tamed pet.
Slowly Kelemen tilted his head forward at a 33-degree angle and stared profoundly into the distance as he slowly said the word, "System."
The slime silently stared at its new owner questioningly and then turning towards where he was looking only to find nothing. Quietly the slime went back to its rest state. A gleam shone in Kelemen's eyes, however, as he became infinitely happy and a feeling of excitement pulsed throughout his veins. Like a child, he began experimenting.
"STATUS!"
Instantly nothing appeared. Frowning Kelemen tried harder. If he couldn't do it once. He would just have to try again!
"PROFILE!, OPEN!, APPEAR!..."
After a few minutes of constant shouting, Kelemen could only take a moment to think of another way. Exhausted, Kelemen decided to first see how his new slimy friend was doing.
He gently put his hand atop the slime and began petting it as he gently smiled. Despite all his nonsense he rarely had such a moment of peace in his life. In his past life, Kelemen was surrounded by a lot of people who knew him but none that were really friends. His parents were always working and barely had time for him. The way he got through most of his life was with the internet and countless distractions. On some of the harder nights, he would look up 1-800-273-8255 in order to feel less lonely.
As these old memories passed through, a new voice message appeared in his mind.
"Congratulations to the host [Kelemen] for being sufficiently pitiful and activating the special event [Boring Tragic Backstory]! Giving the host x1 Mysterious Stick!"
Upon hearing the message Kelemen cursed the system for the roundabout insult and then expectantly took a look at the mysterious stick that had suddenly appeared in his hands.
The so-called mysterious stick was no different from a regular stick, at least on the outside. Unconvinced Kelemen tried poking his slime with it, and suddenly the slime began to change. At first, the slime slowly expanded but over time it quickened until eventually, the slime turned into a little girl.
"Unbelievable the slime actually evolved into a Greater Slime."
According to the Idiot's Guide to Slimes what was in front of him is what the world referred to as a greater slime. A greater slime had a myriad of abilities from creating valuable potions and elixirs to being a formidable familiar that even knights and mages wouldn't carelessly attack. However, the frightening thing was that according to the guide, greater slimes were supposed to be incredible creatures that only grew near the worlds most mana rich substances. In order for a lesser slime to evolve into a greater slime, a frightening amount of resources should have been required. Instead, however, Kelemen only poked the slime with a stick! If the tamers of the world were to learn of this they would surely be spitting blood.
"HAHA, one poke, and I will rule them all!"
Upon awakening, the greater slime really resembled a lovable little girl. Her sparkling eyes glimmered in curiosity as she looked around but upon sighting Kelemen her eyes lit up. She ran over to hug him and although she only reached his stomach, Kelemen was caught off guard by the sudden show of affection and froze as he awkwardly pushed her away.
The young slime girl's eyes started sniffling and tearing up at Kelemen's sudden rejection which made him freeze once again. Cursing himself Kelemen quickly apologized. In the span of a breath the girl quickly turned bright and cheery once more as she hugged him again before saying "name?"
Kelemen was clearly flustered as he cursed his lack of eloquence. He always sucked at titles and names but for this loveable girl he resolved to at least make an effort and said, "how about Greeny?" For the first time, the young slime froze as Kelemen could see small drops of what looked suspiciously like sweat. The girl froze as if unable to move and her face began to twitch. Although the slime was just recently evolved it would be a mistake to think she had low IQ. In fact, if they had to be compared the young slime probably had a higher IQ then Kelemen even before she evolved!
Although she acted cutely, it had truly backfired on her this time. Just thinking about how she might one day appear in a fierce battle for her life when Kelemen shouted "Go GREENY!" made her despair.
"Master, am I not the greatest cutest kid in the world? How could you give me such a @*$# name? Please think before you act!" That last line ended with a smile but to Kelemen, it was quite a scary smile. He gave a dry laugh as he found it a little unnerving that the young-looking slime could spew such profanities within such a short time. Secretly he was feeling a little bad, but he couldn't be faulted as his naming sense was also really just that bad!
Nevertheless, he took her advice and sincerely asked "What would you like your name to be?" Seeing how serious her master was taking this, the young slime gave a satisfied face before giggling and revealing she already had a name which was Mire. She had apparently only asked Kelemen as a way to tease him but secretly she reminded herself to take over the role of naming as she wiped the cold sweat from her mind.
"Although it's only been a short time, I'm glad that we can be friends Mire." Kelemen's face gave off a warm smile as he extended his hand for Mire to grab. In this world where creatures could only blame their death on themselves, Mires was inwardly touched that Kelemen would be so sincere. Although she didn't let it show on her face, Mire had the ability to see the sincerity of others through a mutation she obtained when evolving called "Heart of Truth" and could see that Kelemen had an unbelievable amount of sincerity poured into that sentence. In this world where sincerity couldn't be found even between friends, she grabbed Kelemen's hand, and together they walked forward.
Although they didn't know where the future would yet take them, this was the beginning of a legend that would reshape the history of time, the so-called crossroads of fate.