Benjamine.

  Slowly, the young noblewoman pushed open the door, her gaze yet fixated through the small window of iron bars as she entered into a chamber of mortar and stone, the same to match any room within her father’s castle.

  Unadorned walls were absent the leak of water and mildew, but also windows, decoration, or—evident maintenance…

  The room, strange as it was to say, almost looked like it had been abandoned to the centuries if only it weren't for the ck of pntlife and the flicker of lit sconces—and of course, the cage sitting in the chamber's center.

  Not quite dry, not quite musty, and yet the air still possessed that oh so familiar stink of cured mortar and dust that all such rooms seemed to possess.

  There were no ‘gasps’ of surprise nor outcry of terror for what would be, to those behind the bars, a rge and bipedal ‘nightmare’ that was pretending at a human existence.

  Instead, all she got were the mildly curious if not despairing gazes of condemned men and women who were all huddled together, naked and clearly afraid…

  Benjamine truly wasn't sure what to make of the sight.

  Sure, a little misery was nothing she was unused to; heck, she’d seen far worse while making her rounds through the family dungeons! And she’d usually made a point to visit all her favorite prisoners at least one or two times a week.

  “That said…” She muttered, giving the whole room another look…

  Truth be told, this looked like a trap.

  One entrance from which she’d arrived, one exit on the exact opposite end. One cage filled with people, centrally located, and filled with humans and elves by the look of it. Quite literally, nothing else save for walls, floor, ceiling, and bzing fmes could be said to possess even a modicum of interest…

  Ominous!

  Yet, when she returned her attention to those in captivity, she found herself questioning the reason for it all…

  Was this some test? A trick, just as she’d initially thought?

  Was it more simply, food being presented for her? Just a tasty ptter of people—hm, were ‘people’ food? Well, she supposed that for a monster, they were! But, were they food for Benjamine?

  That thought sat with her for several long moments as she continued to regard those in the cage, needing, not for the first time in her life, to remember a need for more basic human body nguage. Blinking, for one, was something she’d, at times, found difficulty with.

  Her head tilted slightly while chewing on that little dilemma, not due to any form of moral issue, but rather, because Benjamine knew what was on the inside of people. And more importantly, their fleshy, goopy, wet sacks of flesh…

  It wasn't pretty…

  That said, she’d already been eating bones…

  “Y-you think this one’s like the other’s?” A woman whispered, her eyes wide and desperation evident.

  “Shh! Didn't you hear the snake?”

  “The snake’s not here.”

  “The snake ate three of us!” A man hissed, gring at the girl who’d started the small conversation as though she were utterly insane.

  “Snake?” Benny found herself asking, walking up to the caged people with moderate interest.

  Annoyingly, she didn't have the (identify) skill anymore, which did make this a somewhat risky prospect… that being said, the cage didn't look terribly special, and as to if there were any with dangerous skills inside—hmph, she just hoped the bar’s were a good enough measure of their competence.

  Her father could have broken out of this prison with his bare hands. And while Benny wasn't sure how she’d fare with her strange body, so far as the raw numbers were concerned, she definitely had the oomph to bend the metal if she so chose.

  Assuming it wasn't enchanted, of course.

  “Y-you're not with the snake-woman?”

  “I—definitely don't know about anyone of—that description, why? Did it come from the same direction as I did?”

  “Stop talking with it! It’s a monster!”

  “What the fuck is a ‘slime girl?’ The system isn't giving me much information! B-but—oh fuck…”

  Narrowing her eyes, Benny stared at the man who was apparently ‘identifying’ her, a sort of frown spreading across her face as she did so. Right… she was level ‘two.’ And even though she had a threat ranking of a single star, that didn't at all mean she was immune to the spell.

  If anything, Benny was ‘low level’ so far as such things could be concerned. Level eleven, were she to convert things as she understood them from a human perspective.

  Which meant that these people were as strong, stronger, or near as strong as she was, comparatively speaking, when talking about raw levels.

  “S-s-she’s a boss!”

  “A boss?”

  “A—boss?” Benny asked, parroting one of the other girls who was now scrambling away from her in terror.

  “Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck! You just had to get her attention, didn't you?”

  “You think it wouldn't have noticed us?”

  “Both of you shut the fuck up!”

  Benny—ugh, Benny sighed, leaning away from the descent into a squabbling argument as the people within the cage turned on each other like rabid beasts.

  Wow… not very impressive when it came to survival instincts, were they? That said, Benjamine couldn't help but note how young they all looked, thus it wasn't as though this were any great revetion.

  They certainly weren't children, but ‘teens’ would absolutely fit so far as descriptors went… Not terribly younger than Benny herself, only a handful of years, truth be told. Still, the mystery of it all only became more convoluted by the moment.

  “Oh, would you all stop already!” She groaned, pnting her hands on her hips and gring at the gaggle of yapping children as though she were a dissatisfied tutor. “I’m not going to eat you, what do you think I am?”

  “You're a monster!”

  “And do monsters typically speak with those they intend to dine on?”

  “D-dragons might…” A man whimpered, though he got a kick from a girl at his side for the comment.

  All the same, another quickly added, “The snake did…”

  That caused all present to pause, as now there was evidently something of a pre-existing precedent. The slime could see it, the exact moment most of them realized that monsters did, apparently, have conversations with their food before dining upon a meal…

  A good thing she was a trained public speaker!

  “Look, I am—as confused as you all are. Trust me! I have no idea what is going on, and until yesterday, I looked like you all. I’m a human!”

  “Y-y-you look like a tall slime woman…”

  “I—do look like that…” Benny nodded, gncing down at herself, more for the pageantry of it, then she effected a long and drawn-out sigh. “Believe me, if you care to, it doesn't really matter. I’m not the one stuck in a cage…”

  “Then you’ll let us out?”

  “Ha! With what key?” Benjamine asked, looking around and, indeed, seeing a rather rge padlock that was in no way accompanied by the means to unlock it.

  Obviously, she had her own ideas toward the matter, but speaking ‘too much’ was in point of fact, both a known detriment to ones self, and something to be looked down upon within the royal court.

  Those who pyed the game were rarely less ruthless than she; it was only the manner in which they conducted themselves that truly shifted from person to person.

  For a time, there was silence. However, after the strange lull in all the noise, another man spoke up, this time, pushing his way front and center to grasp the bars with desperate hope!

  “The snake, she’s got it! I saw it around her neck!”

  “Her neck?”

  “S-she’s—well, not like you, obviously, but she’s a monster! B-but, her top half looks like an elf while the bottom—”

  “Snake…” The slime finished, not really needing a helping hand to make out the rest. “Okay, so then, do any of you have an idea where we are?”

  “The dungeon?” A girl whispered, staring at Benny as though she were simple. “W-were in the dungeon!”

  “What dungeon?” The noblewoman pressed, wanting to roll her eyes, but knowing the act might begin to disillusion the captivating aura of her startlingly high charisma. Minor gmmors, like that of which the stat so often provided, were tenuous things when it came down to the brass roots of it all.

  Benny might already be winning them all over with her unnatural charm, but unless she worked at it, the illusion of trust she was building could topple like a poorly constructed bridge.

  This sort of magic was, without a doubt, all about subtlety rather than brute force.

  “The—dungeon… the one in the city!”

  Her eyes lidding fractionally with exasperation, the monster regarded the youths for a span, truly fighting back against her baser urges.

  For god’s sake, her fathers town had a damned dungeon nearby! The things were like weeds! Nothing special about them…

  Always popping up willy-nilly, and never when you wanted them. Useless things, unless one could tame the beast…

  Thankfully, one of the prisoners seemed to understand the confusion and offered a sembnce of crity.

  “The Taeldrian Dungeon!” She expined, as though the words she offered were meant to mean a single damned thing to their new assosicate.

  “W-what continent are we on? Aris, o-or perhaps Ilos?”

  “Ilos? N-no, where on Pansu.”

  “Where is Aris?” Another questioned, the woman looked at a nearby companion who simply shrugged at her.

  Oh—joy… Benjamine was on another pnet, wasn't she?

  Shit…

  She tried to concentrate on her pnetary geography lessons, wondering if she’d heard of a ‘Pansu’ within the general nearby bundle of words that shared her own homend's proximity in the sky, sadly, she was coming up bnk…

  Granted, she herself hadn't ever visited another of the nearby worlds, but it wasn't like such a feat was—well, so bizarre…

  In fact, it was practically a common branch of education for young nobles in the kingdom, as very often trade, and less occasionally, raids, were not uncommon between such distant societies.

  Okay. So, if she had the right of it—

  Benny had been reincarnated.

  But not as a human and not on her world.

  Well—if anything, she supposed her ignorance towards her current species was somewhat mollified…

  Pnets weren't just carbon copies of each other, and there were many species that could supposedly be found from world to world.

  F-for example, she just so happened to know that ‘Julianus,’ the nearest pnet to her own homeworld, was inhabited primarily by beast-kin, rather than humans.

  At some point, conflict between the two peoples had ensued. And if history was to be believed, the practice of beastkin servitude could be traced back to a time when dragon-riders from her world had invaded distant pnets for their wealth.

  Benjamine’s own heritage could be traced back to a long line of such prestigious individuals, on her mother's side, of course. However, ‘dragons’ were a thing of history these days, slowly withering away from their majestic ancestors until ‘drakes’ were all that had remained.

  Captivity, domestication, and inbreeding had, among other theories, been the prevailing reason agreed on by most schors as to why the species had regressed so far as they had. However, even without dragons, interpnetary travel wasn't some absurd impossibility… Not with the introduction of Sky-barges.

  “If we're in a dungeon—” Benny eventually asked, shaking free of her introspection with a blink, “I take it we're not very far down, yes?”

  “First floor!”

  “Second floor.” A young man quickly corrected, gncing at the girl who’d first spoken before carrying on. “We got captured, and the next thing any of us knew, we were stripped and stuck in this cage!”

  “Captured?”

  “B-by a giant spider!”

  Oh—nope. No, thank you. Benny did not want any part of ‘giant spiders.’ The things were already grotesque enough without that particur modifier being attached to them.

  Anything with more than two legs and ‘skitery’ was something that was summarily squashed beneath her shoe as a point of principle.

  Y-yet, if they were caught by such a beast, then how did they wind up here?

  “It was another creature, like you…” A man offered, evidently seeing the direction her thoughts had moved in. “I saw her, just briefly before I was knocked out…”

  “N-not a spider made out of slime!” Another quickly added, “But, smart, t-talkative and not a normal monster!”

  “Huh…” That was all Benny could really say. That being said, what more—was there to say? Honestly, she sort of had a ‘general’ notion of what was going on… And, indeed, looking as she was, there was no way that Benny was leaving this profane byrinth…

  Ha! Such a thought was absurd! If she saw something like herself wander out of a cave, she’d hurl the entirety of her magic at it with as much prejudice as she could manage!

  “Okay… So, if we try to escape,” She began, taking a small step towards the group, smile falsely serene as her tone was soft and lyrical, “What can I expect of you by way of help?”

  For a moment, none seemed to speak, though after several tense gnces with those around themselves, a single woman raised her hand with hesitant hope. “I-Im level seven!”

  “That’s it?” Benny frowned, looking at the rest of those nearby who all appeared somewhat sheepish.

  “We're from the academy…” A boy muttered. “We heard there was a new floor, so we all teamed up to try and find it, together!”

  “But, you're so low level… Are you saying there’s only two floors to this dungeon?”

  “It's tame!”

  “Or supposed to be…” a boy who had yet to speak, grunted.

  Hmmm, Benjamine was starting to question if she should actually do as she’d been pnning…

  From the start, she’d intended to try and eat these people. After, of course, coaxing them into sharing some information. Yet, what she’d learned was—not very impressive, at least, not for her hopes of leaving.

  She was on another world, in a supposedly young and tame dungeon, presumably one that was inside a city, where there were lots and lots of people.

  And Benny… heh… she was a slime…

  Okay, ‘slime girl,’ but she really doubted the ‘peasants’ would focus on the second half of that moniker.

  But, maybe, if she helped these young men and women out, maybe she’d earn herself a few brownie points and be allowed to—

  Hmph!

  No, that was stupid… what an utterly silly thought… When had Benny ever known a ‘syer’ to show mercy to a ‘monster?’ Even when speaking of older and more neutral entities that were so often the target of the association's small crusades on humanity's behalf…

  She’d be signing her own death warrant in letting these people go. In fact, she wouldn't even be surprised if they’d try to betray her at the earliest opportunity.

  Allies were all well and good when they served a purpose, yet Benny had long since learned that the only true thing one could rely on was their own cunning and power.

  And right now, there was a whole lot of potential extra power just sitting there, all wrapped up in a tiny little box…

  With a beatific smile, Benny reached out with her magic and began collecting water, taking another small and dainty step forward.

  Without even realising it, her body was already reacting subconsciously, her posture shifting, chest pushing itself out as though to distract a mark at court whom she desired to be enthralled by her wiles.

  There was an art form to appearing to be the perfect mix of attractive, defenseless, and demurely assertive. And it was one she defaulted to, if for no greater reason than it's proven effectiveness.

  Even though she might wear the body of a monstrous slime, there was still an adequate degree of, ahem, ‘jiggles’ that had most all of them men staring at her, monster or otherwise.

  The purpose behind the act mattered less than the idea that it was merely second nature at this point. However, certain parts of her didn't quite get the memo…

  While parts of her outward appearance offered a sembnce of innocence, those within the cage with any wits seemed to grow somewhat unsettled by her obscenely stretching expression…

  Yet the fear didn't truly manifest until the first torch was abruptly doused, the hissing sigh of cooling embers causing no few startled jerks of concern.

  One by one, Benjamine snuffed the fmes, her predatory smile unbidden by the need for propriety, widened until it cracked across her ruby face, it's near sadistic glee forming the horrific and final sight most got of her as the room immediately descended into thick and impenetrable gloom save for what sparse light arrived through the door.

  It wasn't nearly enough…

  And as Benny colpsed herself to the shouts of panic and curses, minor light spells and even a bit of fire magic burning through the bars where she’d previously been, the slime felt ratified in her decision.

  These were not her friends…

  Her body crept through the bars as the garbled screams of terror filled the air, confusion and panic sending all those within into a tizzy of chaos!

  She swept across the nearest person she could find, immediately feeling their horrified struggles as her form stretched over as much of her meal as it could!

  She did not dissolve things in an instant, though the process was surprisingly fast, possibly something to do with her high stats.

  With every inch of body she consumed, Benjamine became rger! And by the time the screaming and kicking woman she’d swallowed was melting inside of her, Benny was already stretching over another!

  Hands punched at her getinous form, shouts and screams of pain resounded as her substance burned whatever it touched!

  A few spells hit her, some more fire that likely scorched those around the caster, and even some ice, but Benjamine was deceptively sturdy!

  The wails of misery and, what she could only presume to be cries for mercy, finally abated when she cornered the final young man in the cage. Benjamine simply spread herself wide and tall! Snapping over his quivering and begging form as he joined the remnant remains of his dissolving comrades…

  Benjamine—burped… or, she thought she did. The slight burble was either air escaping from her victims’ lungs, or Benny simply being a touch shameless after her feast.

  Either way, when next she formed herself, the slime discovered she was too damned tall! P-practically a giant, actually… And, she also felt just a little stupid for trying to form her human-esque body inside the cage.

  Her massive form oozed through the bars, pressing through it as she momentarily filled the space with solidifying goo—before she abandoned the silly mistake and—oh right… She had quite a bit of solid—ugh… ‘food’ inside of her…

  Hm, well, that was annoying!

  Idly, Benny wondered if she could melt iron. Deciding she’d give it a try, and submerging a good part of herself over a single wall.

  The metal did not taste sweet. Instead, it was unpleasantly bitter… Still, Benny decided that if she could taste it, then it was probably dissolving.

  As it happened, she ‘ate’ her way through the cage, though only after working at it for an unpleasant span of time.

  When the first of the bars got so thin that she could simply push them aside, the adventurers she’d devoured were already gone.

  Benny was—big…

  Two hundred kilograms big… give or take a dozen or so…

  Oh, this was a bit of an issue, wasn't it?

  On the flip side, Benny had gained quite a bit of experience! Not enough to level her, but quite a lot all the same.

  Apparently, her fellow slimes were quite strong, because she’d gotten a lot more for their deaths, which—hm… Oh, she’d probably dissolved their monster cores without even realizing… Yes, it was undoubtedly a pusible enough reason behind the absence of such a thing…

  Again, Benjamine formed herself back into her human body, all but towering over the cage as she rose and rose and rose until she was looking down at the room with a slight smirk.

  Yeah, this was a problem… But Benny was fucking huge! It was sort of—funny! And Benny imagined how much of a kick she’d get by stomping her way through all the rebels that had attacked her! Squishing them ft beneath her heels as she absorbed their bodies, devouring and crushing by equal measure!

  Oh, but a girl could dream, couldn't she?

  Still, this was a bit of a problem for her… Not in the sense that being rge was harmful, but more that being rge was cumbersome, especially when within an enclosed space.

  That being said, what exactly did she do about that?

  Admittedly, eating with the young men and women was an entirely positive experience! And though their mass didn't exactly equate to a one-to-one ratio, she had, as previously stated, gotten quite rge…

  Could she compress herself? Maybe condense her own person? N-no… she simply felt as though she were straining over the chamber-pot and entirely ridiculous besides…

  How in the void did slimes deal with getting too rge?

  “W-well…” Benjamine began, actually pausing to give that line of reasoning some genuine thought. “Slimes—don't deal with getting too rge? That is to say, they don't really care…”

  After a few moments, Benny defted, sitting on her naked and gooey rump while contempting just how badly she’d messed up.

  Yet, there was simply no way that she was supposed to be this, ceaselessly expanding giant of a creature, was there? While it sounded like a somewhat effective weapon of terror, perhaps something that could be employed while besieging a foreign fortress, for Benny herself, it wasn't exactly what she’d name as attractive…

  That was when a rather absurd thought formuted in her mind.

  Okay, it was true that rge slimes didn't exactly care how big they got, probably because they didn't really ‘think’ about much outside of consuming nutrients… However, there actually was a method that, theoretically, slimes did employ to reduce their size, even if the true purpose behind such an act had a lot less to do with her own dilemma…

  “Ugh… procreation…”

  The words practically burbled from her lips as she, somewhat disdainfully, unearthed the process she’d abruptly tched onto, one undesirable modicum at a time.

  Benny, well, Benny didn't precisely enthuse about the more sexual aspects of her own, or that was to say, her own prior existence.

  She wasn't a prude, and certainly understood that the act of self-indulgence absent a partner could and would help stimute her mind if she was feeling particurly inclined towards the act, assuming she’d forgotten or otherwise been unable to consume her fertility tea.

  Asexual didn't quite fit, she’d always known that with fair certainty, it was more than that, there always seemed so much more to do with greater importance than—well, dealing with the nightmare that was courtship.

  Oh, she knew she’d deal with all the associated issues that might revolve around having a husband and children, and she’d deal with them both as would be expected of her for no greater reason than duty and the understanding that it was a social requirement, among an effective means to acquire what she wanted.

  It was just that, in all honesty, Benny could say she got her ‘jollies’ in alternate ways that most people likely wouldn't understand.

  She was strange, but she accepted that part of herself as just one more facet of life and its infinite chaos. If nothing else, Benny was not often an emotional individual outside of a few select chemical imbances in which she was decidedly worse off than most others.

  Case in point, her temper.

  That being said, the knowledge that slimes could, if they so desired, ‘procreate’ through a rather intriguing process of self-replication was, well, if not fascinating, then at least somewhat novel, strictly from a learned line of reasoning.

  Benny didn't exactly want to be a mother, nor did she think she’d be particurly good at it outside of acting. However, a secondary concern arose in her mind as she considered the intelligence of trying to recreate a creature such as herself, and in a manner that would, essentially, boil down to something akin to a clone.

  It was often said by her adversaries that Benny was a viper nesting quite comfortably within a coop full of chickens, only she only took what was needed, and because her father ruled over the chickens, none of them did much to stop her.

  While many might have, perchance, heard a rumor as to her true self, she had, quite effectively, propagated a particur persona before the court at rge that was entirely the exact opposite of her true self.

  Her mistake had clearly been assuming that the peasants required no such effort on her behalf to pcate and deceive, a lesson learned to be sure, but dragons weren't known to look over their shoulders, nor pay attention to the insects beneath their cws…

  All of this to say that Benny certainly knew who she was, and it wasn't any sort of kind or honorable ideal that she would ascribe to herself. Thus, did she honestly think making a second version of herself was, in any way, a good idea?

  How likely would she be to cooperate with a clone?

  A question for the schors, no doubt… Yet, when she truly give it due consideration, Benny came to the understanding that, so long as her own goals never truly strayed, dealing with herself would, presumably, be quite the cordial experience—right up until the moment one of them tried to inevitably assassinate the other to eliminate her competitor for whatever gains stood to be realized through their cooperation.

  It was, in all honesty, a terrible idea…

  Benny wouldn't trust herself not to try to kill her other selves, especially as her mind was already thinking not of ways to mitigate such an eventuality, but of how to effectively sughter her would-be potential allies before they could do the same to her.

  She just wasn't the right fit for such open-faced trust…

  “That said—” She whispered softly, “If there’s nothing to gain outside of freedom, I wouldn't really have a reason to try anything…”

  It was true, she was using her own old life and social position as a baseline for her misgivings. Yet, if the goal was to simply escape, and in doing so, understand that any clones she brought into the world would all agree to go their separate ways, which was a perfectly reasonable and acceptable proposal—well, that didn't seem that bad, did it?

  With a small sigh, Benny knew she really didn't have too many alternatives here. It was either risk working with possible clones, simply deal with being a giant, or more bleakly, wait out the remainder of her days in this dark and miserable dungeon—or, until her jailors decided to come knocking, which, admittedly, was an okayish pn…

  Benny honestly didn't know if the ‘snake woman’ had any ill intentions toward her. That being said, Benjamine detested relying on the grace of others. It just wasn't who she was to sit idle with so many unknowns around her.

  So, with a slight but audible grumble, Benny decided she’d at least make an attempt towards escape. And, if she was going to do so, then she’d rather do it while in a position of power when compared to the ‘size’ of offspring she would undoubtedly be creating…