The Rise Of A Porter

[What are going to do now?]

"I'll have to kill it obviously. Leaving it alive would just mean inviting more trouble over." Arnold mumbled before taking out an empty flask from his inventory, "But first, I'll take a sample so that I can have Devon and Talos study it later, as it is the first time I have seen such a unique slime. If only we can find a way to tame it, the slime could literally save hundreds of thousands of lives. As unlike using human soldiers the slime could provide an endless supply of soldiers till there were enough corpses around."

There was a problem though. It was a well-known fact that touching a slime would cause corrosive damage to any surface that comes in contact with it. Which meant if he was to touch the slime with his bare hands, the slime might end up causing irreversible damage to his hand and he wouldn't feel a thing before it was too late. Moreover, if he used his bionic arm for the same, it would still affect him pretty bad. Also, Arnold wasn't in the mood for losing his arm before he had tested all of its abilities so he decided to look for alternatives.

He could use the cryo grenades to freeze the slime and then break a piece off of it as a sample. But he knew it wouldn't work because the corrosive acid the slime secreted would easily melt the acid away and before he knew it there would be more skeletal zombies chasing him as freezing the slime didn't mean killing it. 

Also, as fun, as it was to freeze the skeletons, Arnold only had a limited supply of grenades as he hadn't manufactured any of those things in a long time. And most of what he had remaining was taken away by Talos when he was preparing to defend Zone 4 during the brigadier's attack. 

He had to think of something quickly. He didn't know when the slime would give birth to more of its disgusting skeletal babies. It could happen any second and Arnold wasn't in the mood to handle them anymore.

Thankfully, he did not have to look far for an answer. In fact, the answer he was looking for was right beneath his feet. The remain of the skeletal warriors. Since the slime couldn't digest bones, they were the perfect material for Arnold to use in order to collect a sample of the slime.

So he grabbed a thick piece of bone and shoved it right inside the slimes butt before pulling out a big part of it. There was jizzy liquid all over the place but the slime was still busy feasting on the corpses it had in front of itself. It didn't look like the slime had even noticed that half of it was gone forever.

[I must say, the way you shoved that bone inside the slime, made it look like you have a lot of experience in doing that. Though I don't know whether I should be proud or disgusted about it...]

"You know what you should do? Shut your B grade disgusting mind and talk to yourself!" Arnold yelled dismissively as he put the slime in the jar before sealing it shut.

[You know there was a time you would have laughed at that joke.]

"Well, there was a time when I was an idiot."

[You still are an Idiot. I already told you no living thing can be stored in the inventory, Mr 2000+ intelligence points. So where are you going to store the slime?]

"... Couldn't you have reminded me of that before I wasted my time?"

[Where's the fun in that? But let's keep that aside. First, tell me what are you gonna do now genius?]

"Guess I'll hold onto the flask and take it away with me once I've cleared the dungeon. oh..."

[What happened now?]

"Nothing. I was just reminded of my portering days. I always used to carry a secondary backpack within the first one back then. Just in case one of the bags got full or something." Arnold smiled while reminiscing in his memories, "It was a crappy job. But at least my bag didn't discriminate between living and non-living things. I could store whatever I wanted in it. You and your inventory have ruined my planning skills."

[Just remember to kill the slime before it spawns more skeletons.]

Arnold nodded and stepped back before bombarding the slime with half a dozen incendiary grenades. He wanted to make sure that the slime would not survive the attack and it didn't. By the time the flames died down, not a trace of the slime was left behind. But it did leave something else behind.

In the middle of the charred ground, a little golden key was shining. Arnold place the flask aside and grabbed the key and as soon as he did that, a notification popped up in front of him.

___

You have discovered the key to the hidden dungeon, which is located deeper inside this dungeon.

Find the trapdoor and use the key to face and kill the true final boss of the dungeon to clear it.

___

"Sure... throw another boss into this crazy mix. That always works right?" Arnold shrugged his shoulders, "I just wanted to quickly enter a dungeon and clear it by using my new Arm. But no, has anything ever been so easy?"

[Quit sulking and look for that trapdoor.]

"I already found it. It's right here." Arnold pointed at the charred door that seemed to have been hidden underneath the slime.

It took a while for Arnold to find the keyhole of the darned door as everything had turned entirely black. But he found it soon enough and jumped inside after opening it unknown to what was waiting for him down below.

***

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