Reincarnated as a Land Shark???

Chapter 34: A Village of Slimes

The note was going to be about seeing if I could post 4 chapters in a row without the universe plotting against me, then it plotted against me.

Has anyone gone through an airport on crutches before or tried to deplane with those steep stairs with said crutches? Let me tell you that ordeal was a workout. I'm still sore and exhausted from it and I have to do it all over again tomorrow. So yeah, this chapter is finally getting written. It might take a day or two for the next one while I recover from having to do airport stuff again.

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After the fishing incident yesterday, I've made the decision to try avoiding the spider's section of woods for now. Clearly it now has it out for me, and if I go back there I'm going to get bit and poisoned and probably die considering how nasty spider bites are, especially when untreated. I have medicine, but none will do anything if it causes necrosis and my skin rots away from the poison. I have found absolutely nothing that will be of any use against poison, and I do not want to risk poisoning myself to try and gain a resistance to it. That seems like a very stupid and deadly idea especially since I don't know anything about what the poisons in this world will do to me.

So I'm just going to play it safe and avoid the spider for now.

Though I'm probably going to go try and hunt whatever was rampaging around near that Dryus Tree, there's also a little stop I'd like to make before then to confirm a few things.

I swim up towards the border between the rocky areas and the trees. Distantly, the bleating of a goat echoes. Are there just no predators hunting them in the rocky area, or are they just too good at navigating rocky terrain for the predators to catch them? Normally a wild animal wouldn't be calling so much if there were predators in the area, so either those are some really confident goats or they just have no hunters in the first place.

Putting the matter of the goats aside once again, I reach the shallow section of water and head my way towards the little offering table to see if anything happened to it since the last time I was there.

The table itself is still clean, which is surprising considering it's been left outside. I can't really tell that much, but it looks like there are fresher slime trails too. The offerings on the table are what catch my eye.

Instead of slightly wilted Jumanga Herbs and dried-out berries like I had half expected, the webs, berries, and herbs have disappeared completely, replaced with several new offerings. One is a long string of wooden beads seemingly strung together with spider silk that's large enough to fit on my neck, there's a wreath of leaves that seems to be more of a hat than a wall decoration or necklace, and there's a bouquet of miscellaneous herbs, some of which are Jumanga. The beads are polished and new, the leaves on the wreath-hat are fresh and green, and the herbs are all fresh-cut, letting a very floral, herbal scent permeate the air near them.

They were probably left here earlier this morning.

So they saw I didn't take their previous offerings and changed them up?

Honestly, I can tell a lot of though work went into these things, and clearly the slimes are actually trying to give me presents... I think. I'm not sure why they are, or what they hope to accomplish by giving me random stuff, but I don't really just want to leave it here. It seems kind of ungrateful, like I'm turning my nose up at their craftsmanship.

Hmm... the beads would be a hazard to wear. They're long enough to get stuck on branches and roots by dragging on the ground, and if an enemy got a hold of it in a fight it could really deal some damage to me. The wreath-hat, on the other hand, could be used as a touch of camouflage if I wore it. The herb bouquet would be useful too, and there might even be something to deal with poisons in it. Then again, a lot of things that cure poisons are poisonous themselves, so I don't want to test them out lightly.