I work as a sorcerer in the US, and my side hustle is building Gundams.

Lynn's heart sank.

These words were like a dull knife, cutting at his nerves again and again.

Perhaps that woman was squatting in some deserted corner by the lake, writing this name while shedding tears.

Perhaps the wind was strong that night and the lake was dark. She sat holding the child all night, but finally let go.

Perhaps she had already made a decision that night—not that she didn't love him, but that she couldn't afford to love him.

In a country where a woman at the bottom of society might collapse completely if she loses her job, and a single illness can plunge a family into utter despair, the "family safety net," already stretched to its limit, leaves her no room to breathe.

Ultimately, this woman chose to let her child drift with the currents of Green Lake to which shore, which riverbank, placing her daughter in the sight of a stranger…

Or perhaps, it lies in the hands of death.

These thoughts swirled in Lynn's mind, like a dull knife stabbing his heart.

"Listen to me,"

Jack wiped the water off his face and continued walking.

"I don't know how this child came to be, but I know this kind of thing happens every day in this city. Aren't homeless single mothers like this? They can't even support themselves, how can they raise children?"

"But this isn't an animal!"

Lynn's voice trembled slightly; he was also surprised that Jack could be so numb.

"This is a living, breathing person!"

The baby was curled up in Lynn's arms, like a newborn kitten.

Her lips had turned purple, and she would soon go into dehydration shock or starve to death.

"No, I have to take her back to camp, give her something to eat and some water... Jack, Jack? Stop, don't go any further. We can go see that scary thing you mentioned another time!"

But Jack walked quickly ahead, leading him into another, wider drainpipe.

Then, Lynn suddenly stopped.

It wasn't because there was any danger in the pipes—

It was because something he couldn't understand had appeared in the pipe.

The beam of the flashlight shone on the wall at the end of the pipe, and in that shadow was a huge, writhing object!

It is about two meters wide, and its dark brown, semi-transparent gelatinous appearance looks like a large bowl of solidified and melted jelly, or like an incongruous monster formed by some mysterious force gathering all the rotten waste and sludge in the sewer!

Its surface is covered with irregular particles and bubbles, and it emits a stench ten times stronger than sewage, like the putrid smell of countless rotting corpses with decaying tissues piled up and layered together.

From the middle of its body, layer upon layer of translucent mucus continuously gushed outwards. The mucus quickly scabs and hardens in the air, only to be covered again by layer upon layer of new mucus, as if an endless amount of putrefactive energy was being endlessly output outwards.

That is--

[You have discovered the Stratholme underworld, or rather, the wondrous creations that cover the entire eastern and western continents of Azeroth: the slimes.]

The system's text appeared before Lynn's eyes.

His mind went almost completely blank for a moment!

His body instinctively took a step back, only to find that his legs felt as heavy as lead.

The baby in his arms seemed to sense his fear and twitched slightly.

The "slime monster" did not approach the two of them. Instead, at the end of the pipe, it was like a dead body that had lost its host, slowly decomposing and devouring the concrete floor of the pipe and all the organic waste around the drain outlet, relying solely on its own decomposition instinct.

Lynn didn't know what to say; he didn't even know if he should be afraid!

But the monster stood in the middle of the pipe, like a rotten wall, blocking all way.

His rapid breathing echoed through the pipes, mingling with the foul-smelling air, making him feel as if his internal organs were churning.

"Ah... a slime..."

Just then, an old sigh came from behind Lynn.

He turned around and saw that it was Old John, who had followed him there at some point.

"Uncle John, do you recognize this thing?"

Lynn naturally had no idea; he could only call him "Slime Monster" as the system called him. But clearly, this was the real world, and it must have another name.

"Of course, I saw this thing decades ago. I never imagined that after all these years, it would still be found in the sewers..."

Old John, hunched over, supported himself with his hands on his waist as he looked at the soft, strange thing, his eyes filled with memories and helplessness.

"This pile of crystal-clear, dark-colored, jelly-like stuff... Look closely, can you still see some human skeletons?"

He pointed to the soft, fluffy thing that looked like a preserved egg or a jelly.

Sure enough, when Naruto looked closely, he saw that there were indeed many white bones inside.

Human bones.

"Seattle, no, the entire U.S. sewer system, is occasionally flooded with strong acid solutions to clear debris clogging the pipes."

"These acids are very strong; they will dissolve and decompose all living things or inanimate objects."

"And if there were any corpses here at this time, they would be corroded down to the bones, and in some cases, even the bones would decompose..."

Old John, a vagrant who lived to be over 60 and hadn't been killed yet, was truly a man of great experience and knowledge.

"In the city's sewage system, countless animal or human fats, cooking residues, car fuel, and other greases accumulate in various places due to reasons such as insufficient water flushing power."

He pointed to the unidentified jelly-like object.

"Then they undergo a long process of saponification, crystallization, and calcium accumulation, eventually solidifying into a hardened or not-so-hard deposit. The grease they use to clean the sewers is an alkaline solution, which, after coming into contact with these deposits and undergoing a degreasing reaction, turns into crystal-clear slime."

Lin Ren's gaze followed the flashlight's beam, fixed on the large lump of "jelly" that emitted a strange, foul odor yet was visually stunning. Old John's explanation instantly reminded him of the preserved egg he had eaten at Dongda University last time.

"vomit!"

Jack, standing to the side, was so disgusted by the descriptions and the various human skeletons inside that he started vomiting.

Lynn felt waves of acid reflux and churning in her stomach.

"No wonder we saw human bones inside those slimes in World of Warcraft! At first, I thought it was just Blizzard's incredibly imaginative art style, but now it seems there's actually a real-life counterpart!"

Lynn recalled the World of Warcraft Wetlands quest, "The Backpack of Theda".

Task details:

One of the slimes in the Tomb of Ironbeard has Zedar's backpack. Retrieve the backpack and return it to Zedar in Menethil Harbor.

Lynn encountered countless slimes in the upper-middle part of the map.

He kept killing and killing, killing for a long time, probably around 100, before finally getting the quest item.

At the time, I couldn't stop criticizing the strange monster's design.

"How come there are human bones inside? Skulls and upper limb bones... Could this slime monster be a human corpse eater, or even devour living people?"

I never imagined that after so many years, I would actually see a real slime monster in real life!

This is absolutely insane!