Slime Keeper: A Juicy Slice-of-Life LitRPG, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by Leon West
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Book Cover by Inorai
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Things From Places
About the Author
Other Books
Chapter 1
My eyes snapped open to witness a ceiling of emerald leaves filtering sunlight into a kaleidoscope of green. The scent of damp earth and unfamiliar flora filled my nostrils as I lay there, back pressed against a bed of moss.
Slowly, my senses began to register the nature of my surroundings. I sat up, struggling to adjust to the phosphorescent brightness of the forest. The trees towered overhead, their bizarre trunks stretching upward like spires of jade stone. They had a skeletal quality to them, stark and foreboding, but their bark was not brown or gray, but a shimmering, effervescent silver.
Five seconds ago I’d been in the middle of a city, facing screeching tires and blaring horns as a steel grill advanced at impossible speeds. My last full thought had been: “Well, this is how I die.”
By definition, any thought after that was a flat thought.
And yet, this couldn’t be death. Or if it was, it was too close to life to be worth fussing over.
My hands dug into the soft ground as I pushed myself up, my senses heightened in a way that was almost electric. I wasn’t on Earth anymore; that much was clear. The trees were too tall, the sky too vivid, and gravity seemed to flirt with the rules, allowing leaves to dance longer in the air before settling. Strange fern-like plants hugged the forest floor, their fronds a brilliant, almost neon pink that pulsed with an internal light. Nearby bushes were a blend of cobalt and teal, and they sprouted what appeared to be berries of gold and sapphire—bright little bulbs that glittered in the sun. The moss under my body was a dull purple that, when disturbed, smelled of strawberries and fresh cut grass.
A chuckle escaped my lips.
Panic should’ve been my default, but excitement surged through me like a live wire. I was somewhere new, somewhere impossible, and every cell in my body tingled with anticipation.
Brushing off my clothes, I took stock of myself. These were the same old jeans and t-shirt I woke up in after last night’s… situation. Or was it centuries ago? Time felt like an unreliable narrator here.
Everything seemed to be the same, at least on the baseline physical level. I bet I still had the same eyes and hair and attributes. A quick check of my skin showed no signs of injury and nothing hurt.
My muscles felt different, though—tighter, more responsive. I wasn’t sure why… but I was also pretty sure I was supposed to be dead, so I wasn’t about to look this particular gift horse in the mouth.
The forest air tasted untainted, raw, and it filled my lungs with a sense of vitality that was both alien and exhilarating. I could distinctly tell the differences between various scents on the air and their locations, and my eyesight seemed sharper than it had in years.
It was disorienting and, at the same time, invigorating.
A grin spread across my face as I hopped onto my feet with a grace I certainly didn’t possess before.
I began to walk, my feet sinking slightly into the mossy ground as I moved toward those gem-like berries. As I passed the towering trees, tiny silver insects humming with luminescent wings flitted from branch to branch, their light casting intricate patterns on the iridescent bark. Up in the vivid sky, I saw winged creatures larger than any bird I’d ever seen, their prismatic scales reflecting the blinding sun, causing them to become rainbows in flight.
Birds—or things that played their role here—sang in pitches and rhythms that were off-kilter yet oddly melodic.
The sights and sounds around me were mesmerizing, but a rumble from my stomach urged me to continue forward.
Reaching for the gold and sapphire berries, I noticed that they were warm to the touch, their skin pliant and glossy under my fingers. With a slight twist, I had one in hand. I sniffed it cautiously—it smelled sweet, like honey with a hint of something tropical.
I’d been a Boy Scout once. Instinct told me I shouldn’t eat something in the woods, especially something so brightly colored. That was the sign of poison, venom, or just outright death.
But… there was something inside me, a voice that laughed in the face of that danger. Perhaps it was the version of me who’d stood strong and faced that oncoming truck after rescuing the kitten. The one who saw the look of terror on the faces of every bystander who just stood there and would have let the innocent die in front of the screaming child and judged them for their inability to do something. A version of me who dared death to try again.
Decision made, I took a chance and popped the berry into my mouth. It was like an explosion of flavor on my tongue—tart and sweet and juicy all at once, an orchestra of sensations foreign yet enchanting. Juice dribbled down my chin as I savored the experience, the taste so delicious that I had to stop myself from greedily plucking down the entire bush.
But no immediate discomfort or bitter aftertaste.
If I died later because of my choices just now, at least I got to taste something so wonderful and succulent before it happened.
Again.
With a satisfied sigh, I wiped the juice from my chin and pocketed several more berries. As long as I didn’t keel over from eating them, it would be good to have some sort of sustenance.
Water and shelter would be the next things on my list… but usually they went hand in hand out in the middle of the wilderness. I’d secure water and shelter pretty simultaneously.
Content for now, I continued my exploration.
“Okay,” I said aloud, taking a moment to get my bearings. I wasn’t the type to talk to myself—not normally—but it did feel nice hearing a voice. It drowned out the lingering sound of screeching tires. “I need to find people. Or figure out there aren’t people and start punching trees.”
I paused and looked at my hand for a moment.
Hmm… I’d been making a dumb joke, but… Could I punch trees down? My body felt so much stronger. But how strong was ‘strong enough’ in this sort of situation? And would my skin and bones survive the hit?
I held off testing that until I started to get desperate enough to risk breaking a hand or scraping my knuckles and getting some horrible infection. Instead, I got ready to head off and hoped randomly choosing a direction would work out well.
I took one step, and something shifted in the underbrush ahead. Instincts flared like warning lights on a dashboard—I wasn’t alone.
The rustling turned into a thrashing as a thing burst from its cover. It looked like a venus flytrap on steroids, mobile and hungry for more than just insects. Green and red clashed across its body, swirling in places like it was colored clay extruded out into a flower-nightmare shape. The creature’s maw gaped wide, revealing rows of serrated teeth dripping with some viscous fluid. I was certain that the combination spelled certain doom.
Adrenaline was my faithful companion as I sidestepped its lunge with a speed that I never could have managed before. Back on Earth, my time with Uncle Sam had gotten me in shape, but since I’d left the service, I’d gone to the gym three days a week to stay in shape… and that’d been it.
But my sidestep had taken me a full five feet further than it should have.
My heart raced, but not from fear. This was exhilaration, pure and undiluted.
“Well then,” I said, as if the creature could understand me. I eyed its thick stem, coated with coarse silvery bark. It seemed like a potential weak point, if it was armored up. “Are you ready to catch these hands?”
It snapped at the air at me, frustration evident in its thrashing vines. The creature reared back for another strike. It was fast for a plant. Or an animal.
But apparently, not as fast as Blake Thomson, recent trucking accident victim.
The lightning-fast strike was something I could easily dodge again. I kicked off the ground into a reflexive leap that left the plant monster snapping at where my shins
I twisted midair, landing behind the creature with the kind of impact that kicked up dirt.
There had to be something else I could do. I couldn’t just dodge forever. Maybe I was stronger by a lot here, but I didn’t want to test if my skin was bite-proof. Or… whatever-that-viscous-liquid-was proof.
So I curled my hand into a fist and the next time it lunged in for a bite, I swung. My fist caught the outside of the creature’s mouth perfectly. The potency of my punch snapped the plant thing’s head back with enough force that the wood of its stem creaked and groaned.
It screeched—an awful sound like nails on a chalkboard, amplified through a mouth three times the size of my head—and started to sprout slimy tentacles at its base. Almost like it was trying to create little legs for itself. Thankfully its movements were sluggish from injury and surprise.
“Yeah, sorry buddy. Not gonna find out what those tentacles do.”
With another powerful swing, I connected with its stem, and the creature snapped in half as its head flopped back onto the forest floor
Panting slightly more from excitement than exertion, I surveyed my opponent. It lay still among the ferns and fallen leaves.
Something beneath it caught my eye—a hand or something hand-like protruding from beneath the monster’s tentacles.
Carefully nudging it aside with my foot revealed the rest of an arm; likely belonging to an unfortunate prior victim of this forest predator.
The arm wore armor now dulled by scratches and dents; beside it lay a satchel partially buried in leaf litter. Curious, I reached for the satchel and pulled free what looked to be an aged map.
As soon as my fingers brushed against it, the parchment dissolved into motes of light that swirled up and disappeared into me like smoke drawn to a flue.
Startled but not entirely displeased—I mean, who wouldn’t want magic map powers—I blinked as text materialized before me, bound in a translucent notification window. It at first appeared as a series of glyphs I couldn’t hope to comprehend, but then solidified:
[Skill Unlocked: Translation.]
[Quest Received: Claim your Ranch.]
[Profession Unlocked: Adventurer.]
I grinned and blinked at the text. Maybe I’d snapped and was hallucinating. Maybe I had actually died, and this was my personal afterlife, full of quests and monsters and adventures.
If so, I guess I’d earned my place in paradise.
When I focused on the quest, an arrow shimmered into existence at the edge of my vision—a gentle pointer urging me forward through this foreign wilderness toward my unseen goal.
With nothing to lose and everything to gain—I’d already survived death by truck and death by monster plant, after all—I set off toward what promised to be an interesting future at least.
Each step squished softly on mossy ground or crunched over fallen twigs while thoughts of this secretive ranch raised endless curiosity. Did it mean a literal ranch? Like cows and chickens? Or was it something else entirely?
Considering all the weird stuff I’d seen so far, I wasn’t going to be surprised if it was a literal theme park. Or a bowl of ranch dressing.
It wasn’t much longer before I saw the next layer of weirdness from this world. I could hear a sound in the distance, something that sounded a bit like a spring going sproing but wetter… and yes, that is the best way I can explain the sound. If a splat could somehow also be a bounce, that’s… what I was hearing.
I had to check it out.
Instincts thrown to the wayside, I rushed ahead, somewhat drunk on my new power. I could punch plant monsters in half and I could leap over heads. I was basically a superhuman—and if quests were involved, I’d read enough Light Novels to suspect that meant classes and levels… maybe even guilds and world-ending threats.
That last one got me to curl my lips in disdain. Hopefully I could avoid that. While I was living here, if I had to punch some Dark Lord to death or dropkick a lich, I would. It sounded awesome. But those stories always involved endless stress and high stakes.
I didn’t want that.
Instead, I wanted the rest of it—some small, fun adventures.
Clear a dungeon or save a cute girl, not a planet.
Maybe I could start that kind of life on this ranch.
If anyone had been around to ask me if I was going to miss my life on Earth, the honest answer was no. I didn’t have a bad life. Just had a boring one. Most of my excitement came from video games, and honestly? It was going to be way more fun to live through a game. And maybe I could—
Whatever I’d been contemplating vanished when I saw the source of the sound.
A group of things in the clearing bounced by, their round forms an odd blend of comical and endearing. They were all blue spheres with a slimy texture, and had super simplified faces with black dots for eyes with little white spots for pupils, and thick black lines for a mouth.
All of them were smiling right now.
One looked at me with its face and stuck out what could be interpreted as a tongue. Another followed behind, its light blue color soothing in comparison, leaving a faint trail of sparkling dust. A third, a bit darker than the others, joined in.
One by one, all the slimes stuck their tongues out at me.
Not sure what to do, I returned the gesture.
“Tzzzaaaa!” one cried.
“Tzzzaaaa!” another said, almost like it was agreeing with the first.
“Prrrrrrrrrk!” said a third.
Soon they were all making those sounds as their faces went from teasing, tongue-sticking-out faces to overly exaggerated smiles.
Like full on :D and everything.
“Oh my god you are ridiculous little things. I want to adopt a thousand of you.”
They seemed to giggle in their own squishy way before bouncing off toward a patch of what looked like purple grass. The creatures settled on the grass and started to absorb it, and now I was certain—these were some kind of fantasy slimes.
I wanted to stay and watch the creatures for hours, but the realistic part of my brain that wanted to talk about shelter and safety and survival warned me it was getting late. The sun—which was oranger than I was used to and also had a strange shape, almost more of a figure eight than an orb, or a cell undergoing mitosis—cast long shadows ahead. I needed to get moving if I wanted to hit this ranch before sundown.
With a nonsense sound, I gave the slimes a wave—getting myself another wave of high-pitched happy sounds in response—and then set off. My boots crunched on the strange gravel beneath me, and every so often I’d have to sidestep some odd plant that seemed to watch me with curiosity.
Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably much less—I still hadn’t figured out how time worked here—I crested a small rise and laid eyes on what could only be the previously mentioned ranch.
My heart did a little jump-start as I took it all in. The fence was battered and would need mending, and the barn’s roof sagged like it had one too many stories to tell… but it was perfect. It was potential—my potential.
A translucent text box popped into my vision as if cued by my thoughts:
[Claim this ranch as your home? Y/N]
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” Saying it out loud felt more official somehow.
[Quest Completed: Claim your Ranch.]
[Profession Unlocked: Rancher.]
[Profession Automatically Changed to Rancher.]
[Note: Ranch claimed. Unnamed Ranch set to Home. Please use your Ranch Ownership License to set the name for the Ranch.]
[Error: Ranch Ownership License not found. Temporary ranch name: Unnamed Ranch assigned. Ownership assigned to Blake Thomson. Touching a Ranch Ownership License will confirm ownership.]
[Ability Unlocked: Basic Ranch Alarm. You will receive notifications for any new individual organism entering your ranch for the first time every day.]
[Ability Unlocked: Defender of the Homestead. You gain a 50% bonus to your Strength, Speed, Agility, and Resilience. Stacks with the Earthborn Human ability.]
A pulse of light shot from the soles of my feet into the ground, spreading outwards until it enveloped the entire property. The air hummed with power as an invisible weight settled onto my shoulders—the weight of ownership.
