"So… they're hostile?" Lys asked, already half-hiding behind Cael as a translucent blue blob wobbled toward them with all the menace of a mildly annoyed gelatin.
"Yes, it's oozing with aggression," Cael replied, eyes darting left and right as if more slimes might sneak up on them from behind. "That jiggle was definitely a battle jiggle. Defensive formation!"
"We don't have a formation," Renna said, holding her dagger like she was about to butter toast with it. "Also, are we sure this isn't just dessert?"
The slime launched itself at her like a bouncy beach ball, only for Alaric to panic and swing his sword at it with the grace of a man trying to swat a wasp with a pool noodle.
Fwump!
The sword sliced right through the slime. And did… absolutely nothing. The slime bounced back together like it was made of pure plot armor.
Alaric stared. "Okay. So that didn't work."
"Try stabbing instead of flailing like a possessed spaghetti noodle!" Thorne barked, whirling his lance like a pro, slashing a slime clean in two—and this time, for some reason, it stayed in two.
"Hah! Perfect form!" he declared, planting his foot on the vanquished goo as if it were a fallen dragon. "This world bends to my superior reflexes!"
"Stop flexing on the jelly and help us!" Renna shouted, leaping back as her slime jiggled at her like it had beef.
"Guys," Cael hissed, looking around at the dozen other slimes closing in, "I have exactly four escape plans and one of them involves hiding under a tree stump and screaming."
"You have a plan for hiding under a stump?" Lys asked, ducking as a slime missed her and bounced into a tree with a wet plop.
"I have plans for everything!" Cael said, eyes twitching. "Plan E is to fake my own death and hope slimes can't smell fear!"
Alaric attempted another swing, nearly hitting Cael in the shoulder.
"AH!" Cael shrieked, ducking. "You're worse than the slimes!"
"I said sorry!"
"Never swing a glowing death-stick around someone who's 90% anxiety!"
Renna managed to get a lucky jab in, and her dagger flared brightly, evaporating her slime with a dramatic whoosh.
"Okay, that was awesome. Also—finally—some feedback from this knife. I thought it was just here to ruin my gender."
Thorne laughed as he spun his spear again, catching a slime mid-bounce. "Meanwhile, I'm basically a level 20 dragoon now. Do they have tournaments in this world? Because I'm about to be rich and feared."
"Great," Cael muttered, backing up slowly as three slimes surrounded him. "Meanwhile, I've got a glowing sigil that floats around doing nothing but judge me. I don't even know how to summon it properly. And now I'm outnumbered. This is exactly how they get you. Slimes are the foot soldiers. The goo is watching."
"Is this how you always are?" Lys asked, blinking as another slime bounced off a tree and knocked itself out.
"Yes," Cael said. "And I'm still alive, so you're welcome."
By the end of the encounter, the battlefield was scattered with goo puddles, slightly smoking grass, and one very smug Thorne standing atop a rock like a warlord of squish.
"Victory is mine!" he announced.
Cael peered out from behind a bush. "We didn't die. That's victory enough for me."
Cael dusted goo off his coat like a man who had just barely survived an assassination attempt from a sentient soup. He looked at the others—some panting, some proud, and one poking a dead slime with the tip of his sword like it might resurrect and ask for round two.
"I'm going to the church's library," Cael said, tone firm, serious, and full of that classic Cael-brand paranoia. "We know nothing about this world. Not its laws. Not its history. Not even its slime taxonomy. For all we know, we just committed a war crime against the local gelatinous ambassador."
There was a beat.
"…I'm sorry, what?" Renna blinked.
Cael didn't blink. "What if slimes are a protected species? What if they're the ancient spirits of the forest and now we're on some cosmic hit list? What if—"
"Okay, okay," Lys said quickly, holding up her hands. "No need to spiral. We'll go with you. You're right. We… don't even know if we need a license to kill slimes."
"Do you need a license for anything here?" Alaric asked, eyes wide. "I've been swinging a death sword around like a baseball bat. Is there a sword-swinging permit?!"
Thorne scoffed, flipping his hair back dramatically. "Bah! Knowledge is for the weak."
Renna raised a brow. "Didn't you literally get hit in the head by a slime?"
"It was a strategic hit. I let it bounce off me to learn its combat pattern."
"…Right."
"Anyway," Cael continued, ignoring the conversation like a true man on a mission, "the church is our only reliable source of information right now. I'll find out everything: laws, monsters, taboos, acceptable shoe color—"
"I'm coming too," Lys cut in. "If this world has any logic, I need to find it. Something has to make sense."
"I wanna see if they have magic books!" Alaric said, raising his hand like a student in class. "Maybe I'll find one that talks!"
Renna sighed. "I'm going so I don't wake up one morning turned into a cat or something. At this point, anything's possible."
Everyone looked at Thorne.
He crossed his arms. "Fine. But only because if you all get cursed by some ancient tome, someone has to heroically drag your lifeless bodies out."
"Or push them in deeper," Renna muttered.
Thus, the chaotic chosen ones of Overmorrowland—covered in slime, confusion, and poor decision-making—set off toward the church.
To learn.
To investigate.
And, most importantly…
To prevent Cael from having a total mental breakdown in a world where the books might also be sentient.
The grand library of the Church of L'solia was an impressive sight—rows upon rows of towering bookshelves stretched so high they seemed to scrape the heavens themselves. Shafts of light filtered through stained-glass windows, casting colorful patterns across the marble floor. Dust motes danced lazily in the air, as if even the dust was too dignified to settle in such a scholarly place.
Cael entered with the reverence of a man stepping into a vault of forbidden secrets.
Lys followed right behind him, eyes scanning the shelves with focused curiosity.
The rest of the group?
Chaos incarnate.
"Ooooh! This one's got a dragon on the cover!" Alaric shouted from halfway up a ladder, holding up a massive tome titled Flame-Breathing Beasts and How to Politely Avoid Them.
"Alaric, get down from there!" Cael hissed, already flipping through a book titled The Ethical Treatment of Slimes: Myths and Mucus.
Renna, meanwhile, was standing in front of a mirror that was definitely not supposed to be interactive. "Guys, this mirror just winked at me. I swear it winked—wait, did it just offer me a makeover?!"
"It says you look tragic," the mirror replied in a posh accent.
Renna screamed and kicked it.
Thorne was dueling a statue. A completely immobile, harmless statue of a robed scholar holding a scroll.
"For the honor of the Champion's Path!" Thorne yelled, spinning his lance like a baton. "Face me, you smug stone nerd!"
The statue, of course, remained unmoved in every sense of the word.
Back at the reading table, Cael pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "I have learned nothing. I am surrounded by buffoons."
Lys, seated beside him, was calmly reading Coe and the Duality of Existence. "I'm honestly impressed by how quickly they all lost focus. I thought Renna would at least make it five minutes."
"Statistically, one of them is going to set something on fire," Cael muttered, flipping the page. "Probably Alaric."
"You think this Coe god is actually watching us right now?" Lys asked, raising a brow.
"If he is," Cael replied without missing a beat, "he's probably very disappointed."
At that moment, a loud crash echoed through the library, followed by Alaric yelling, "I found the secret ladder escape route!"
"That's a bookshelf, Alaric!" Cael shouted.
Renna ran by with the mirror floating behind her, scolding her fashion choices in real time.
Thorne could be heard shouting, "You may be mute, statue, but I hear your challenge!"
Lys calmly turned the page. "Chapter 2: How Coe judges you quietly."
Cael closed his book. "We're all going to die."
And so, the heroes spent their first hour in the sacred library of Overmorrowland:
Two scholars…
Three disasters…
Zero progress.
A sudden blast of cold air swept through the library like a judgmental sigh from an ancient mountain. The chaos screeched to a halt when a voice colder than a winter's debt rang out:
"Silence."
The group turned—some mid-shenanigan, some mid-denial—to see a figure float down from the upper levels of the library. A stern woman in layered robes of glacial blue descended gracefully, her silver braid swinging like a metronome of doom. She didn't walk—she glided—and the temperature dropped with every step.
She raised one elegant hand, fingers sparkling with frost.
"You three."
A giant icicle formed above her finger, dramatically pointing toward Alaric who was still halfway up a shelf, Renna who was now in a dramatic fashion duel with the mirror, and Thorne who had actually started lecturing the statue about combat form.
Alaric blinked. "Oh wow, is this part of a side quest or—"
Fwshhhh! A jet of ice formed under his feet and flung him like a slippery penguin down the central aisle, arms flailing.
"WHOOOAAA—OHMYGODIT'SAMAGICSLIDE!"
Renna shrieked as another blast of ice whisked her up mid-sprint and sent her sliding on her butt right behind Alaric. "MY PANTS ARE FROSTBITTEN!"
Thorne tried to charge forward. "I refuse to be dismissed like some low-level—"
SLAM. The floor beneath him iced over in an instant, launching him backward like an air hockey puck.
As the three of them slid unceremoniously out the front doors, the librarian waved her fingers. The great double doors slammed shut behind them with a mighty boom.
Silence returned.
The librarian turned to Lys and Cael, adjusting her frosty spectacles. "Only those with respect for knowledge may remain."
Cael, already halfway through his third book, nodded solemnly. "We are the remaining hope of intellectual decency."
Lys gave a casual thumbs-up without looking up from her tome.
The librarian vanished as silently as she came, and peace returned to the ancient library.
Outside, Thorne's muffled voice echoed: "I DEMAND A REMATCH!"
Inside, Cael whispered, "Bless her frigid wrath."
Lys flipped another page. "This is the best day I've had since we got isekai'd."