I Became an Ancient All-Host Lifeform - Chapter 20

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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020 Living Right

Hell, this wretched sewer fate follows me even into another world. At this point it’s almost impressive.
But I can’t just sit here lamenting my circumstances. A true professional makes the best of what they’re given.
First, let me check the specs of this new body.

【Sewage Slime lv 9】
【Traits】
「Fluid Body」, 「Toxin Immunity」
【Skills】
「Regeneration」, 「Division」, 「Digestion」

Just as expected—the typical slime skill set.
The trait 「Fluid Body」 likely means my liquid form renders all physical attacks useless,
and beyond mere toxin resistance comes 「Toxin Immunity」,
plus 「Regeneration」 and 「Division」 for survival.
As far as durability goes, even cockroaches would bow to me.
Then a new notification appeared in my status window.

[An accidental Reverse Horizontal Gene Transfer has occurred. You have acquired the 「Regeneration」 skill.]

Wait—horizontal gene transfer? I think that showed up when Gyusik evolved before. This time it says “reverse” though.
Back then, I influenced Gyusik’s evolution path because of it.
Now it’s reversed—the host slime influenced my genes instead. That’s why it says reverse.
The word “accidental” suggests these occur randomly, like mutations.

I’m grateful it was 「Regeneration」 and not some other skill. It’s a recovery ability with plenty of uses.
If it had been 「Fluid Body」 or 「Division」 instead, I’d be in trouble. The thought of my body becoming gelatinous or splitting into multiples is absolutely out of the question.

Either way, I’ve got a host that can move above ground. Time to return to the surface.
I could control it directly, but that would drain my mental energy. Let me try commanding it instead.
I called out to the slime.

‘Hey, slime. Can you hear me?’
….

Nothing? Is it even listening?
I called out to the slime several more times after that.
But it remained stubbornly silent.
Don’t tell me this thing has no consciousness.

‘Hey, answer me!’
….

Or maybe the parasitism went wrong somehow?
The neural connections seemed properly linked though.
Then, finally, it responded.

…Glub.

Bubbles rose from the bottom of its body with a soft burble.
Could that be its answer?

…Glub.

Ah… well… quite the taciturn fellow.

‘Let’s head outside. Back to the surface.’
Gluuurp.

He didn’t answer explicitly, but fortunately he seemed to understand the gist of what she meant.
The slime silently climbed the sewage system wall and emerged through the manhole opening in the ceiling.

Slowly, slowly….
Squelch…. Squelch….
Plop.

As he slipped out through the manhole, cool evening air embraced his entire body. When had it gotten this late?
Looking around, he found himself surrounded by dense forest on all sides.
It must be quite far from the breeding grounds.
But where to go from here?
Right—first priority is to find a new host.
Why? This slime is too quiet and boring!
Of course, in this body there’s no fear of death, but just because one isn’t dead doesn’t mean one is truly ‘alive,’ does it?
The lack of speech or reaction is a problem, but the sluggish movement itself—so frustratingly slow—is what really kills the spirit.

Ah, I’m already missing Gyusik’s dopey “peep?” sounds and that old codger’s arrogant bluster.
I suppose it’s true that distance teaches us to value what we have.
I decided to scout the area first to find a new host.

[Activating Skill “Vibration Detection Level 1”.]

Subtle vibrations traveled through the ground.
Then, not far off, I sensed something lying on the ground, writhing back and forth.
About the size of a child, perhaps?

‘What? Could it be a goblin?’

A goblin! The quintessential common mob of fantasy worlds!
But for me right now, it was the perfect host.
Well, if I’m being honest, maybe not ‘perfect,’ but it would certainly be a hundred times more useful than this sluggish blob of jelly.
Quick movements, agility, and two free hands—it could use weapons and tools!
I gave the slime an order.

‘All right, let’s head that way!’

Squelch, squelch….
The slime then began crawling at full speed toward the goblin.

Squelch… squelch….
Though of course, the absolute speed was painfully sluggish.

‘Ugh… this infuriating pace.’

Very slowly, slowly….
Squelch…. Squelch….

* * *

Cornelius frowned deeply as he read the report on his desk.
The contents were utterly absurd.
A Mage Tower sorcerer had died pathetically at the hands of a rat.
Even if he was merely a foot soldier of the Borderlands Guard, he was a properly commissioned wizard of the Mage Tower—meaning he had achieved at least Fourth Circle mastery and was an experienced practitioner.

The world was full of those who reached Fifth Circle yet failed the rigorous examination and never received official standing in the Mage Tower.
That was how exalted the rank of “Mage Tower sorcerer” was—a position that required excellence in both practical and theoretical domains.
And yet a “Mage Tower sorcerer” had fallen to a mere beast—a ‘rat,’ no less?
This was something that should never happen, could never happen.
There had to be another truth beneath the surface.
He scanned through the common accounts given by the survivors recorded in the investigation documents.

– When the rat creature spat on us, the mage suddenly burst apart!

Cornelius’s eyes narrowed.

“Is this… Reversion magic?”

Reversion magic was an advanced spell that reversed the flow of mana within a ritual formula and detonated it.
It was absolutely not magic that just anyone could perform.
Only high-ranking mages of at least the sixth Circle, those possessed of an extreme understanding of magical theory and the nature of mana itself, could accomplish such a feat.
Even then, if one attempted it without properly grasping the opponent’s ritual formula, the caster’s own mana would backfire instead.
There was no way a mere monster could imitate such difficult advanced magic. The survivors, gripped by panic, must have thoroughly misunderstood what happened.
He clicked his tongue and moved his gaze to the next statement.

– The rat creature summoned mushrooms right before our eyes. So we fought those things and then….
“Summoning magic? Preposterous….”

This account was equally absurd.
Summoning magic was also a rather difficult art that ordinary mages rarely dared to attempt.
Among monsters, perhaps high-ranking undead like liches might manage it?

“How could a rat creature possibly have such an ability…. Hmm?”

Cornelius’s murmur came to an abrupt halt at the next passage.

– The creature was commanding hundreds of mushroom monsters inside the cave. So we took a defensive stance at the cave entrance and….
“…It summoned hundreds of mushroom monsters, you say?”

It was one thing to command even a single summoned creature, but hundreds of them?
Commanding hundreds of summoned creatures was a power that even he, a Grand Mage, would find difficult to claim he could accomplish.
Even the elite summoners of the Mage Tower could manage barely a dozen or so.
Yet this creature had summoned hundreds of mushroom monsters!
And a mere ‘rat creature’ at that!
Cornelius’s alarmed gaze turned urgently to the next statement.
It was the testimony of one of the surviving guards who had suffered such severe psychological shock that he still could not collect his senses.

– It was a demon! A creature that tempts and corrupts people…. A demon that spews fire from its mouth!
“A demon, you say?”

Cornelius’s weathered hand trembled slightly.
Could a high-ranking demon have somehow attached itself to that lowly rat creature’s body?
In that moment, countless contents from the old tomes sleeping in the Mage Tower’s archives flickered through his mind.
Malevolent beings that commanded vast numbers of monsters as extensions of themselves, that seduced and corrupted the minds of men, bringing the world to ruin.

‘Could the Divine Oracle from the Sacred Palace have foretold the emergence of such a wicked entity?’

Hummmmm—
Just then, a red light ignited on the crystal sphere atop his desk.
Cornelius raised his hand to respond.

“What is the matter?”
“Master of the Mage Tower. The investigation team from the Sacred Palace has just reached the Mage Tower’s lands. They should arrive at the Tower itself within a day or two.”
“Understood.”

Cornelius ended the communication curtly and sank deep into his chair, consumed by troubled thought.
The corruption of an Ancient Dragon Egg, into which he had poured astronomical sums of funding.
A Divine Oracle that had descended upon the Sacred Palace seemingly out of nowhere, after long silence.
And the sudden emergence of a ‘fire-breathing demon’ in the Borderlands on top of it all.
None of these events could possibly have occurred by mere chance.
Behind this incident, some kind of conspiracy was clearly unfolding.
A vast and sinister one at that!
Cornelius’s anguish deepened.

* * *

Slowly, so slowly….
Squelch~ squelch~

…Thanks to the slime creeping diligently across the ground, I finally reached the source of that presence.
But then.

‘What?’

The presence I’d felt wasn’t a goblin.
Lying before me was a small child with golden hair.
Couldn’t have been more than eighteen or so.
Caked in dirt from head to toe, the child had a gaping hole through their belly and was gasping for breath, whimpering in agony.
It looked like they’d been properly stabbed through the abdomen by some weapon—left like this, they’d bleed out and die without a doubt.
That’s when the moment came back to me, when the wizard’s self-destruction sent me flying toward the Sewage System.

‘Ah, I really thought I was going to hell back then. From now on, I should probably live a little more righteously.’

Now that I thought about it, I had just acquired the Regeneration skill through Reverse Horizontal Gene Transfer.
If I parasitized this child and used that skill, I might be able to save them.
But did I really have any reason to save a dying child?
I didn’t know them, and there didn’t seem to be anything to gain….
I hesitated for a moment.
But I decided to save the child first.
If I could save them and chose not to—if I just let a child die for no real reason—I’d think about it every night before sleep.
I immediately tried to slip out of the slime’s body to save the small one.

‘Wait, hold on. I can’t do this as is.’

If I parasitized the child to treat them, what if this thoughtless blob of jelly swallowed them whole?
So I made sure to tell the slime clearly.

‘Hey, slime. You absolutely cannot eat this child! If you try, you’ll really regret it, understand?’
….

The slime still gave no response. I wasn’t even sure if it understood me properly.
But there was no time. At this rate, the child really would breathe their last!
I immediately dissolved the parasitism and burrowed into the child’s blood-soaked mouth.

[Applying the skill Parasitism to the target.]
[Successfully parasitizing Jimmy lv1.]

So the child’s name was Jimmy.
The moment parasitism succeeded, I cast the Regeneration skill I’d just acquired from the slime.

Whirrrrr….

Magical power flowed steadily, and the hole in Jimmy’s belly began to close gradually.
But the speed was terribly slow.

‘Ugh, why is regeneration taking this long? In games it takes at most ten seconds. Is it because it’s a slime skill? Either way, everything’s moving at a snail’s pace.’

Fortunately, the slime-induced feeding catastrophe I’d worried about didn’t happen.

Squelch squelch….

The slime simply loitered near Jimmy, placid and unremarkable.
Blasted creature won’t answer a thing, yet somehow understands every word I say.
A quiet one, that’s for sure.

Jimmy’s wounds will take a while to mend, so I might as well explore this newly unlocked feature while I wait.
I pulled up my status window and navigated to Genetic Manipulation – Unique Species Creation.
But the only species I could generate right now was mushroom.
It seemed that Unique Species Creation was only possible for organisms whose Species Essence I’d already collected.
Well, there’s nothing for it. I settled on mushroom and pressed the creation button.

A wealth of genetic options materialized before me.
Appearance, traits, skills—everything under the sun.
Within the genetic pool I’d accumulated so far, I could freely mix and match mushroom characteristics however I pleased.
This is brilliant—the potential applications are limitless.
Though it’s a pity mushroom is all I have to work with as a base for now.

Let me try creating something experimental.
I’ll start with the hallucinogenic effect that served me so well in the Mushroom Cave,
then add the Regeneration ability that this slime is using to mend Jimmy’s wounds,
and naturally, a healing effect would be useful—I could even use it as a medicinal ingredient.
And while I’m at it, if it tastes good when eaten, that’s a bonus. So I threw in umami and edibility options as well.
For appearance, I’ll go with a green base dotted with white spots—the Super Mario “1-UP Mushroom” design!
The reason I chose the 1-UP mushroom specifically is because it embodies my yearning for explosive level growth. I want this to flourish and eventually contribute to my rapid advancement.

Perfect. That should do it. Now comes the final step: naming the mushroom.
Hmm… given the healing and regenerative effects, I’ll call it the Regeneration Mushroom straightforwardly.
Regeneration Mushroom—I like it! Almost sounds like a church name.
I pressed the [Confirm] button, and a loading bar spun for a while.
About five minutes later, a notification appeared in my status window.

[A new Unique Species, the “Regeneration Mushroom,” has been born!]

Excellent! My first creation—the Regeneration Mushroom—is complete.
…But how do I check it? I don’t even have an inventory.
So I dug through the status window interface and found “Regeneration Mushroom Spores” added to the options menu of the Spore Dispersal skill.
Ah, I see—I can use Spore Dispersal to scatter it into the surroundings.

‘So I can test it right now?’

But to do that, I first need to leave this boy’s body.
I examined Jimmy’s condition carefully.
His belly wound had already closed almost completely, yet the kid showed no sign of waking.
Well, he’s been through a brush with death at such a young age—that’s understandable.
I waited patiently for Jimmy to come around.

….

Damn it. I’m itching to test out the Regeneration Mushroom, but Jimmy won’t even stir.
Honestly, I’ve already done my part—I saved a dying man’s life.
The kid will wake up eventually and find his way home. He’s a grown man; he can figure out directions.
I slipped out of the boy’s body without hesitation.
And I released my spores freely into the air.

[Skill “Spore Dispersal: Regeneration Mushroom” activated.]
Hisss—! Hisss—!

The moment the spores from my body touched the ground, mushrooms with green caps and white spots sprouted up in profusion, pop-pop-pop.
In an instant, the area around Jimmy had transformed into a Regeneration Mushroom field.
Well, so that’s what it looks like. Utterly useless, really.
Well, who knows? It might come in handy later.

“Mm… mmm….”

Just then, the small figure sprawled on the floor began to stir, letting out soft groans.

‘Ah, time to make my exit, I think. If the kid wakes up and spots me, things could get messy. Better slip away clean.’

I leaped at once into the viscous, sticky membrane of the slime waiting beside me.
Then I crept away before the child’s eyes could open.

Slow… ever so slow….
Slither… slither…

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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