Blobby's Tale | A Monster Evolution Timeloop Story

I flew over the bush I had crawled through in my last life with ease, the new and improved shaping knowledge I had retained from my last life was a godsend, saving me many precious moments I really needed to get to the village before that monstrosity takes another life.

[Quest completed!]

[Level up!]

'Seems like that is still relevant, which means the other one is too…' I invested my five stat points into Dexterity this time around, hoping to get to my destination as quickly as possible. I convinced myself it was a good choice either way, but realistically I knew that this most likely wouldn't be the life where I "make it" so any inefficient stat point usage I am guilty of won't be permanent at least. 'I killed him once already, this time will be no different.' I assured myself of this, however, as I flew by corpse after corpse with each magnificent leap I took, I noticed something different.

'There were less of them.' Some people were still fighting now, even though on my last path through here pretty much every fighter had already succumbed to the horde, with only victims waiting for their slaughter remaining in certain corners of the village. 'I must have spent more time in that bush than I realized.' But this was good news, actually, incredible news. There even seemed to be less of those monsters then there were last time, which was even weirder, but I made it far enough to get a good view of the child I saved in my last life, who was moving to the exact place where I saw him almost get slaughtered the first time. 'Well he's still alive, and the news of his mother's death seemed to be greatly exaggerated as well by this point. Where is that big fella?' He didn't get to either of them yet, which was good, but I also didn't know where he was coming from. 'He can't just plop out of thin air after all, right? Left? Behind me somehow?'

Somehow, all of my assumptions turned out to be as wrong as they could have been, I also learned something new about this world, which was no doubt exciting! The bad news is connected to what I learned exactly, namely, monsters can and do appear out of thin air. Or well, this one did, right in front of them. Their surprised faces didn't tell me whether this was supposed to happen or whether he was just really special, or a special kind of ugly in my opinion. But my anxiety did tell me to hurry the fuck up unless little Timmy over there wanted to be orphaned twice over, which would no doubt be weird.

I made use of the same trick as before, increasing my speed and distance by flattening my body at just the right moment to increase my momentum as much as my body could take, flying by goblin and human alike with each being more distracted by the other to pay a weird jumping blob any attention without risking their life. The ogre seemed mildly disoriented at first after its initial appearance, but once it locked eyes on the mother and child pair it grinned so hideously and widely that I could make it out from a distance, even with only its right side being visible to me.

It began speaking in that weird, grotesque sounding language once again, but when I landed close enough it turned towards me again, and just as I did last time, I leapt for its sole eye with a murderous fury, taking a page out of my murderous past self and forming a spike as hard as I could forge at the forefront of my blobby self, prepared to blind this fool once again.

[Hardening unlocked!]

But things did not go that way. The ogre simply swung his overgrown mace towards me, splattering me in a hundred different directions as I viewed my own explosion from all angles in a painful but luckily brief moment before it all went dark once again. I had failed, somehow.

'Wait what~' Before I had immediately interrupted the leftover thoughts from my first incarnation, but this time I wasn't even sure whether that was what it was. I was genuinely confused, I had pretty much done the same thing as the last time, used the same trick that worked before and it was supposed to work. It should have worked, but it didn't. 'What was different between this time and last time?' I stayed in the spot that I began each life in for a bit then, pondering on what made the last life and the one before it different enough that the trick that worked once didn't the next time. After a few precious moments I felt anxious about wasting it hit me, 'The timing. I came way earlier than the first time, the mother was still alive and he wasn't as sure of his victory. He just appeared out of thin air after all, he must have been wary! But where did he come from~?'

"Aaaargh!!" A grotesque scream tore me from my mind, I was so distracted that I hadn't even noticed the goblin approaching me, nor was I able to avoid the rusty dagger already coming for my body, but not because of inability this time. I could have avoided it if that was my wish, but another, crucial realization occupied my mind with such an intensity that I did not care whether this life would be cut short; The ogre wasn't the only one appearing out of thin air after all. There was another being who did very much the same thing, in fact, I was incredibly familiar with that being, more so than with anyone else in this whole world I would bet.

'I am not the only one.' The dagger brought intense pain as it penetrated me outside and dug deep into my core, summoning a now familiar darkness as the idea that I wasn't the only special existence settled fully in my mind.

This time, the remnant of my first life did not follow me to this incarnation. From the moment I materialized I was fully me, the true me who had already died a much higher number of times then I would have liked. But instead of being panicked like I had been last time, I was much calmer and knew exactly what I would do. First, I shaped my familiar shovel nub, shaping it as detailed into the image of a miniature shovel as I could and investing a bit more mass into it then I would have before, that would be important for the next step of my plan, after all.

[Shaping level up!]

[Shaping level up!]

[Shaping level up!]

As I had learned in my previous life, so long as I have the applicable knowledge, leveling relevant skills is a piece of cake. 'Getting skills I had in previous life seems smart, but I don't know which evolutionary path may open the best doors if I don't experiment. I'll have to think about this some more when someone's life isn't on the line.' Next, I pressed from all sides, making the shovel more compact and harder as a result, this compromised the general shape a bit, but achieved the desired result.

[Shaping level up!]

[Hardening unlocked!]

I dismissed the appendage, absorbing it back into the rest of my body just as the goblin came into view and raised the corners of its mouth in its foolish assumption of finding an easy target to kill. Little did it know that the roles are now reversed. It rushed for me, overwhelmed by a desire to kill that I recall from my earlier Hunter incarnation, 'I wonder whether they have a similar innate trait?' The question was soon dismissed, however, as I flattened myself and launched my body towards its chest, forming a hardened spike of my very self to end its miserable life in one smooth motion. 'You were supposed to be the first, I am pretty sure.' This time, the ecstatic feeling of draining its blood did not come over me, however, a different surprise came into view.

[Quest completed!]

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

[Hidden reward unlocked! Random Skill Shard gained!]