The light of evolution shines when a monster evolves. The instant it shines, the monster's body changes into the form it is evolving into.

'Amazing!'

Still enveloped in light, the slime cried out its impressions in its mind.

Its body was changing. How else could it describe that sensation but amazing?

Once the light faded, the slime immediately wanted to inspect its body, which now felt different.

'I want to see!'

It checked its body through the third-person view in the stream window.

'...?'

Looking at its image, the slime tilted its body in puzzlement. Almost nothing had changed!

If it had to pick something, its pale-green body had become more elastic and seemed shinier.

The viewers felt that nothing had changed, too.

▶Did it evolve?

▶Nothing's different?

▶Nah, it looks a tiny bit firmer.

▶Firmer?

▶Like your belly?

The Slime Queen questioned the seemingly unchanged slime.

[Squishy Queen]▶My kin! What did you choose? Tell us!

▷Bounce Slime! I picked it!

[Slam First Ask Later]▶Hahaha! You chose slamming after all, Squishy! It must be because you liked my lessons!

[Madam Cat's Cradle]▶It's a shame you didn't pick poison, but~ you're still so~ very, very cute, Squishy!

[Free Spirit]▶Squishy! Why'd you choose Bounce Slime?

Relieved that the slime had chosen Bounce Slime, the Smartass asked about its motivation so he could use that information for its next evolution as well.

▷I wanted to hop fast! I wanted to hop lots!

▷I'll hop fast and catch deer!

▶Lmaoooo

▶Still holding onto losing that race to a deer lol

[Noblesse Fire]▶Hey, now that you've evolved, try hopping. Let's see how much faster you are.

The fire dragon had no particular interest in its motivation. He urged it on because he wanted to see what had changed.

His request happened to match what the slime had been thinking. It had checked its appearance, but there was no notable difference. Yet it could clearly feel that it had changed.

All that remained was to move and see the difference for itself!

First, the slime tried bouncing in place as usual.

BOING! BOING!

'Wow!'

The moment it moved, the slime truly felt its evolution. It bounced noticeably higher, and the force behind each hop had grown stronger as well.

As a result, the head of the deer beneath it was driven even deeper into the ground.

[Gothic Luxury Bone]▶Squishy? You've been driving that deer's head into the ground for a while now?

The bone dragon pointed out something none of the other monsters had paid any attention to.

'Deer?'

Only after that chat message pointed it out did the slime look down.

'Deer!'

The deer's head was buried in the dirt, with only its antlers still visible.

+++

'Hehehe! Now I'll have even more to teach it!'

With the slime's evolution into a Bounce Slime, Fenrir felt as though he had claimed victory.

Lately, no one at home seemed to listen to him properly. Not only his children but even his wife had, for some reason, begun looking at him as though he were pathetic.

Those noncommittal looks, neither disliking him nor taking pride in him! They cut all the deeper into Fenrir's heart.

Fortunately, watching Squishy allowed Fenrir to forget that heartache.

'What should I teach it next? Now that it's faster, it could dart every which way and leave its opponent completely bewildered... Or it could finish an opponent off with a single swift strike!'

"Heh, heheh, hehehehe!"

Reflected in Fenrir's eyes was the slime, busily absorbing the deer.

'That's right! Eat plenty and keep growing! Then I'll teach you even more about hunting, Squishy!'

As Fenrir laughed, planning lessons tailored to Squishy, his children watched him from behind.

"Dad's laughing all creepy by himself again..."

"Go talk to him. Ask what he's watching."

"No, I can't be bothered. If you're curious, you ask him. You're the older brother."

"I don't want to either. If I talk to him, he'll ask if I want to go hunting with him again."

"Then go."

"When Dad goes hunting, he doesn't stop until evening. I've got streams I want to watch, too!"

"What are you children doing? Didn't I tell you not to whisper behind your father's back?"

Fenrir's wife appeared and scattered the children with a scolding. Then she looked at Fenrir, so absorbed in the stream that he hadn't even reacted to her raised voice, and let out a quiet sigh.

"Oh dear."

Unbeknownst to Fenrir, his standing as the head of the family was falling even further.

+++

After evolving, the slime excitedly bounced all over the place, occasionally making mistakes because it misjudged its strength. Small mishaps kept occurring: it repeatedly crashed into trees as it hopped around, or sprang in the wrong direction while going after prey because it hadn't controlled its strength properly.

Naturally, those antics gave the viewers a good laugh.

▶Lmao missed again.

▶I've done that after evolving too lol

▶Sameeee

▶Me threeeee

▶Takes a while to get used to that lol

▶Ah! Adaptation s*x!

Many viewers related to its struggle to adjust after evolving, reminiscing about their own experiences.

[Madam Cat's Cradle]▶Keep at it, Squishy!

[Squishy Queen]▶You can do it! You'll adjust in no time, my kin!

[Gothic Luxury Bone]▶You're gradually improving, at least.

[Slam First Ask Later]▶Don't forget your failures! Put them to use next time!

Others cheered the slime on.

A week after becoming a Bounce Slime, and after plenty of trial and error...

BOING! BOING!

The slime had learned to handle its evolved body with ease. That brought a change to its hunting, too.

Upon spotting a deer, the slime charged straight at it without hiding. Of course, the deer fled immediately, but the increased speed from evolving into a Bounce Slime now allowed it to keep up comfortably.

And on top of that...

'Slam!'

BOI-OING!

The slime called it a slam, but strictly speaking, it was a Body Slam enhanced by its greater elasticity. Using Bounce Tackle, it smashed into the deer's torso.

THUD!

Hit squarely by Bounce Tackle, the deer lifted slightly off the ground before falling onto its side. A tackle using that powerful elasticity could bring a deer down in a single hit.

Slimes were the weakest of all monsters. But after a single evolution, they became so strong that ordinary herbivores were no match for them.

'Deer!'

The slime thought as it absorbed its catch. Deer had more nutrients than rabbits, and eating them filled its body with strength. In slime language, that meant they were tastier.

Even so, the slime felt something was missing.

'Jerky...'

The reason was the flavor of the seasonings. To the slime, the seasonings used in jerky had tasted wonderfully strange and stimulating.

But there was something that bothered it even more than the taste of jerky.

'It's the same!'

The forest housing the elf village was vast. Even after traveling for a week, the slime had seen nothing but the same forest scenery: trees it already knew, animals it already knew, and plants it already knew growing all around.

'I want to see something different!'

Just as it had wanted to leave the cave, the slime was starting to want to leave the forest and see different scenery.

What had led the slime to think this way?

If the forest had been all it knew, it would never have grown so dissatisfied. But the slime had seen it—scenery other than a forest.

It had happened three days earlier.

+++

As it happened, few viewers were watching the slime's stream at the time. With nothing but footage of it wandering through the vast forest, most had gone off to watch other streams. Without any notable events or dangers, it was simply boring.

Fenrir seized that opportunity.

'Perfect! The others have all left, too! Now I can give it a proper lesson!'

▶[Slam First Ask Later has donated 10 coins.]

▶[Message: Hey! Squishy! I'm going to give you some special training!]

▷Special training?

[Slam First Ask Later]▶Training that'll make you faster and stronger!

▷Wow!

Though it didn't quite understand, the slime was delighted at the chance to learn something new.

An hour passed.

Fenrir was deeply dissatisfied.

This new lesson was preliminary training for a slamming technique that involved darting every which way to leave an opponent utterly bewildered. The slime was doing as Fenrir instructed, but to his eyes, something was still lacking.

Yet explaining further through chat was impossible. There was only so much he could convey that way.

'Yes! That'll do it!'

An idea flashed through Fenrir's mind like a sudden burst of inspiration.

[Slam First Ask Later]▶Hey! Squishy! Watch my stream!

▷Stream?

[Slam First Ask Later]▶I'll start streaming now! Open the stream list and enter the room titled Slam Special Training! Got it?

With that, Fenrir left the chat.

'Stream list?'

The slime tilted its body. Of course, it knew about the stream list because the system had implanted that knowledge in it. But more than ten days had passed since then.

Aside from showing first- and third-person views simultaneously, reading chat, and composing chat messages in its mind, the slime had never used any other streaming features. It couldn't immediately recall how to use the stream list.

'Stream list! I want to see!'

[Displaying the stream list.]

When it cried out its wish, the system responded. A translucent window unfolded before the slime, listing the available streams.

'Wow!'

Understanding that what it saw was the stream list, the slime recalled the words Fenrir had left it with.

'Slam Special Training?'

[Searching for streams titled Slam Special Training.]

[Search complete.]

Once the system ran its search, only a single room appeared on the stream list.

'This one!'

When the slime focused on the Slam Special Training room, the system asked for confirmation.

[Would you like to watch the Slam Special Training stream?]

'I want to watch!'

[Connecting to the selected streaming room.]

'Wooooow!'

The moment it entered the streaming room, the slime exclaimed in wonder. Everything on the screen was something it had never seen before.

A pure-white landscape, unlike the lush green forest. Ground covered in snow that crunched underfoot, and white snow falling from the sky.

In the center of the screen stood a huge wolf, holding himself erect in a majestic pose. He had silver fur, green eyes, and a strange marking on his forehead.

Slam First Ask Later.

It was Fenrir.

[Squishy]▶Amazing! White! White! I've never seen it before!

The slime immediately expressed its feelings in chat.

"Hahahaha! You're here, Squishy!"

Fenrir, who had waited in the same pose until the slime arrived, responded to its message. What came out was a long howl, but the slime could understand the meaning Fenrir conveyed within it.

[Squishy]▶Slam First Ask Later?

"Yes! That's me! What do you think? This is your first time seeing me!"

At his expectant question, the slime said exactly what it felt.

[Squishy]▶Amazing! Amazing! Silver? White! Green! Amazing!

Its vocabulary might have been limited, but its pure delight and wonder came through clearly.

"Hahahaha! That's right! I'm amazing!"

'Ah, that reaction, filled with such innocent wonder and respect! This is exactly what I wanted!'

Fenrir sincerely felt that coming out had been worth it, even though he'd brushed off his wife's question about where he was suddenly going.

"All right! Watch closely, Squishy! I'll demonstrate the movements myself so you can understand them easily!"