Chapter 7—Elder Sli
Sli#47 pivoted and glanced at the small blob, which jolted him.
"You seem to have intellect," said a ten-centiter tall sli in a deep, adult male voice.
’Damn, it’s just another sli.’ Sli#47 felt stupid for getting startled by a jelly blob.
A regular sli with a few small scars on its body was in his vision.
He asked dubiously, "You used the word intellect—aren’t slis intelligent? And by the way, who are you?"
The sli sighed, "The na humans gave is Sli#1. You can call Elder Sli."
"Elder—that ans you have lived for quite so ti," he asked, wanting to know how long a sli could survive under humans.
"How long have I been alive?" The old sli chucked bitterly and continued, "Not much—just three years."
’Three years? That’s barely enough for the human kid to stop peeing the bed,’ Sli#47 was utterly flabbergasted. ’And he calls himself an elder.’
He couldn’t help but be surprised; after all, it took him four years to stop wetting the bed!
’If my four-year-old version were to hear that soone called himself elder at three years, then he would proclaim himself grand elder.’ He mused with a silly smile.
"We slis can live up to thousands of years, but once we were caught by humans and placed in fields like this, known as slifarms, our life expectancy has fallen as low as five years." Elder Sli grieved over the fate of slis.
"Are we so delicious that humans catch us?" Sli#47 asked, not believing they were the most tasty treat.
The Elder Sli replied, "We are ranked among the top tasty treats by humans, and most importantly, we are cheap and cost-effective to provide for."
"Cost-effective?" Sli#47 muttered, doubtful.
"Humans feed us filth," Elder Sli said with his eyes dropping, "then slice off more than half of our body, tell , child—does this world ever lack trash?"
"Damn! That’s an effective business, " Sli#47 muttered, " Pick garbage, feed it, and get gold in return by slicing the jelly blob." He facepald himself due to the peak cruel innovation of humans.
’Even if we escape from this, other humans might catch us, or other races might devour us.’ He mused bitterly, wondering whether he should instead train like cultivation MC’s for thousands of years in the loop and go out!
"Hold-on!....How are you talking so clearly for a....new-born?" Elder Sli probed as suspicion built in his tone, surprised by Sli#47’s inquiries.
Young one replied with a smug wobble, "I might be the blessed one and chosen sli."
The elder sli—Thup!—knocked on his upper body, making his entire body wobble.
"Ouch," Sli#47 rubbed the struck area softly, ’So, I do feel pain like normal,’ He’d felt that his pain sensitivity was reduced, as he didn’t scream in agony when the woman sliced his body apart, but apparently not.
"Seems you have intelligence like an adult human. I can start your training," Sli#1 declared, pulling the younger sli to the north-east corner of the field.
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’...Wait, these are punch marks from...slis?’ Sli#47 exclaid in his mind, noticing the small baby-sized fist marks on the wooden fence.
The older sli glanced at the younger sli, expecting him to bombard him with questions, but to his disappointnt, Sli#47 just looked at him with stars in his eyes. "Co on, Old Sli—teach . Impart that punching skill. I have to kick that brat’s butt...ahem..Punch"
Elder Sli’s body twitched, and he—Cough!—explained without question, "We, slis are typically born without any intelligence. Until we are one year old, our intellect isn’t developed, but once we do, it reaches an adult human’s level."
’I really don’t know about this. After all, the only slis I knew were isekai’ed and all of them had human-level thinking capability,’ he mused, feeling slis were really the lesser race.
"Old sli, stop wasting ti. Tell what’s important," Sli#47 asked, looking at Elder Sli, who was watching the bouncing slis with pity.
"Do you know, young one?" The old one’s voice turned heavy, "Out of all these slis, only you and I are the ones with intellect."
"What?" Sli#47 blurted, stunned. ’Nani? Seriously?’
He’d expected that most of the slis in the field to have intellect.
"Before you were born, your mother—sli#2 was the only intellect beside , but she was killed by that pathetic human brat." Older sli lanted, with bitterness in his eyes.
"Wait a minute. Most of them can’t even think you say—then how the hell did many of them co into being?" Young one asked him, in disbelief.
"There isn’t any fact that only after gaining the intellect, they will have children! It is..." As Elder Sli was about to explain—Sli#47 understood, ’Humans. Damn humans.’
He’d known humans were so exploitative, but even to creatures like cute slis? He’d felt humans in this world fell to even such a low point—they might have touched hell.
"Old slis die due to exhaustion. And once the number of slis falls to 50, those two humans would dump massive amounts of filth and so kind of fluids on us." He whimpered, his voice low, "Unlike other races, we have no gender, so any sli can give birth to a child, and we can continue to do so as long as we have nutrients."
Elder Sli had pointed out the actual truth of how slis’ reproduce, and they didn’t go extinct, due to their reproduction prowess, as they are the first targets to level-ups.
’If this is the case, even if I escape, humans might catch and make a biological factory,’ Sli#47 felt a chill and pondered what to do.
He’d decided to train a self-destructive skill so that he would commit suicide if humans did turn him into a reproduction machine.
There was silence for a few minutes as the older Sli let the youngling ponder on the destiny of slis.
"Elder, I want to ask—is there no one powerful in our race? Any sli capable enough to deter other races so that we wouldn’t be exploited?" Sli#47 asked hopefully; after all, he’d read about a certain sli who could create the entire multiverse!
But he’d felt that there would be no one, since slis are being exploited so much by humans.
"Yes," Elder sli said with awe, "once there was a Sli King ’Remora’—the seventeenth Demon King—who once shook the entire Divinara continent."
Older sli’s whole body wobbled when he ntioned the king!
End of the Chapter. ____________________________________________
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