Brandon would rub his eyes in disbelief if he could move his arms. While calling out to Joe, he had wondered if the bastard had died under the shower of rubble as he remained motionless and unresponsive. Yet, after his party members had abandoned him, a dark purple and black slime emerged from Joe's helmet and was now rolling along the floor.

  It paused, and despite its lack of eyes, he could tell it was looking at him.

  Brandon was speechless. What was happening? Had he gone mad from the pain as the necrotic mana rotted his body from the inside?

  The slime stayed there for a moment before turning to 'look' at the suit of armor that was half-buried under rocks. A tendril, almost like a long tongue, emerged from the slime and snaked its way into the helmet. It then began to pulse as if the slime was drinking whatever remained inside the suit, and he could see it expand in size ever so slightly.

  "Are you... Joe?" Brandon asked, second-guessing himself for talking to a slime.

  The slime 'looked' at him briefly and went back to ignoring him.

  Brandon narrowed his eyes, which were blurry from the tears streaming down his face. "Please. I know you can talk."

  The slime kept ignoring him.

  "Just talk to me," he begged.

  "Do you usually talk to monsters expecting a response, Brandon?"

  His eyes widened, and he stared at the slime. The voice had definitely come from the slime's direction, but it had no mouth from which to speak.

  "Was that you?" he questioned.

  "Who else would it have been?" the slime somehow replied.

  Brandon gulped. "A slime that can talk."

  "Why do you sound so surprised? You're the one who called out to me?" The slime sagged slightly, as if it were sighing. "Humans truly are foolish creatures. Don't call out to me and then act surprised when you get a response."

  Brandon blinked. This slime was oddly smart—wait, if this was the 'Joe' they had been talking to moments ago, why was he treating it differently now that he saw its true form? It had been smart enough to lead them down here and strong enough to kill multiple Hunters.

  Yet as a blob of slime, it looked so weak and defenseless.

  The slime, oblivious to his thoughts, retracted its slime appendage and then began to hiss like boiling water. A dense, foul-smelling steam wafted off the slime, and then the most horrifying thing Brandon had seen in his entire life occurred.

  A half?formed human arm thrust out of the vapor. Withering strands of muscle wrapped loosely around a lengthening bone. Cords of tendon flexed as raw pink tissue crawled to fill the gaps. Strands of skin followed, lacing together and tugging closed like stitches pulled tight. The arm's stump continued growing as five fingers unfurled one by one, tiny nail buds pushing through at their ends.

  The freshly formed hand flexed and gripped the stone as a vaguely humanoid shadow sat up within the mist. Brandon stayed deathly quiet for the next few minutes until the vapor finally subsided, exposing a naked man where the slime had once been. He slowly turned his head and stared at him with totally black eyes, like an animal.

  That's what Sarah meant by 'soulless eyes.' Brandon thought.

  "Hello, Brandon," the monster said.

  Everything about the monster's speech was uncanny. The voice was human, but Joe's lips lagged behind the words, his gaze slid past him instead of locking on, and the smile he supported was stiff and unnatural.

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  It was a monster's pale imitation of a human.

  Joe stood up, and that's when Brandon noticed that more things were wrong. First of all, Joe's manhood was nonexistent. Like some genderless alien, in the area it should have been, there was nothing. Just smooth skin. Furthermore, on one of his feet, there was an extra toe. The monster grinned, and Brandon thought he saw a second row of teeth for a moment.

  "How do I look?" Joe asked, tilting his head.

  "Like a monster," Brandon answered honestly.

  "What gave me away?" Joe asked.

  Brandon just stared at him, unsure if that was a serious question.

  "I thought you wanted to talk?" Joe said, tapping his chin contemplatively in an oddly human manner. "Yet, now you're silent?"

  Brandon tightened his jaw. "I have nothing to say to a monster playing human."

  Joe walked closer and crouched a cautious few steps away. They stared at each other for a drawn-out moment until Joe broke the silence.

  "Why did you leave Gerald to die?"

  Brandon opened his mouth to answer. He wanted to blame the monster before him for that incident. But he couldn't bring himself to. Oddly, now that he knew it had been a monster posing as a human leading other monsters to attack him, the excuse felt weak. When he had believed the naked man leading the wolves was from a rival guild, he had felt justified in leaving Gerald to die. It had been an edge case, out of his control and the scope of the mission entrusted to him. But now learning it had been the work of a monster, he felt bested and guilty.

  "Because..." he trailed off and sighed despite the pain creeping its way into the deepest crevices of his body. "Gerald was dead weight, and I feared for my life. Happy, you monster? You got both of us killed."

  Joe shook his head. "Why would I be happy? I actually quite liked Gerald, and I had no desire to kill you, until you came after me."

  Brandon didn't understand what he was hearing. "You, a monster, liked Gerald?"

  "He taught me many things until he got caught by a spell and died. It was a shame I had to eat him, but I did promise to take care of his cat in his stead."

  "His... cat?" Brandon muttered, looking into the eyes of the monster wearing a skin suit. "How could a monster look after a cat? Wouldn't you eat the poor thing?"

  Joe looked at him strangely. "Why would I eat it? Does cat taste good?"

  "No—actually, I don't know? That's beside the point. You're a monster—"

  "So what?" Joe said, cutting him off. "Does that mean I have to eat everything I see?"

  Brandon paused, unsure how to reply to that. Monsters killed and ate anything they could get their claws on. That's what he had seen and confirmed with his own two eyes.

  "What makes us so different?" Joe said. "We both want to survive, and to do that, we have to kill one another. You suggest I want to eat everything, but I saw that pile of wolf corpses your group had collected."

  Joe stood up and stared down at him with those soulless eyes. "You and I are more similar than you would like to admit. I will enter the human world and take care of that cat. That much I can promise you."

  Brandon scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. You look, speak, and act like a monster. There's no way you can walk among the humans—" he paused as Joe placed his hand on his face, forcefully clamping his jaw shut.

  "Did you know I was a monster when I was wearing a suit of armor to hide my physical appearance?"

  Brandon froze. No, I had no idea. He thought but didn't dare to admit it out loud.

  Joe smiled wildly. "It seems you now understand. I'm going to be needing that suit of armor of yours... and your memories."

  "Memories?!" Brandon said as his eyes widened.

  "If I devour enough of you humans, who knows? Maybe one day I'll be able to act like one," Joe said, and Brandon felt the fingers gripping his face wetting. Fear gripped his soul as he realized Joe's hand had turned into a mass of tendrils. "Just know, I don't take joy in this," Joe continued, as the tendrils caressed his face, "but I'm not one to turn down a free meal."

  Brandon shuddered—the word 'meal' racing through his mind. Never in his life had he thought he would be referred to as one and know that he was about to be eaten. The pain of the tendrils thrusting into his eyes, making them pop, somehow overshadowed the pain he was already dealing with, and if not for being paralyzed, he would have jolted and screamed.

  "This is for Gerald," he barely heard Joe say as his vision darkened and his life drew to a close.

  ***

  You have killed an opponent 7 levels above your own. Bonus experience awarded.

  Experience split between [Necrovore Slime] and [Human] form.

  [Necrovore Slime] has leveled up: 12 -> 14.

  [Human] has leveled up: 4 -> 7.

  Xen retracted his tendrils into his hand as the empty suit of armor clattered to his feet.

  [Devour Complete]

  You gained biomass.

  You absorbed 9% of the human's memories.

  You acquired the following skills:

  [Indomitable Defense(C)]

  Xen shoved the new memories into the locked-away memory soup festering in his mind and took a calming breath. The whole time, he had been worried that the Living Armor might detonate the sigil, killing them both. Thankfully, it had refrained.

  He glanced at it, unsure what to make of its actions. Had it deliberately helped him? Was it even intelligent enough to do that? It simply stared back at him with ghostly flames for eyes through the helmet slit.

  "Thank you," Xen said genuinely, not expecting a response.

  "You're welcome," the Living Armor replied.