The Man Picked Up By the Gods (Reboot)

Chapter 199: One End of Infinite Possibilities (1/3)

Next is… This one.” [Ryouma]

Three different types of fishes were neatly stored inside a large basket that needed two hands to carry.

The fishes resembled stonefish, pufferfish, and eel.

All of those are luxurious fishes as far as I’m concerned, but…

“I’ll ask again, but you guys really don’t eat these fishes?” [Ryouma]

“They all have poison. It would be really bad if we were to eat that.” [Niki]

“You could just take away the part with poison and eat the rest. There are similar fishes where I come from and we ate them all the same.” [Ryouma]

“Ah… Well, we do eat this one sometimes, but only when the weather is bad and we can’t go out fishing or if there’s not enough catch. In other words, we eat them when there’s nothing else to eat.” [Niki]

Niki-kun pointed at the eel-like fish. Most of the basket was occupied by the eels, so it’s likely that they’re easy to catch around here.

“But not only does this one have poison in its blood, it also stinks of mud and is full of bones. It’s really bad. It has parasites around this time of the year too. This one has venomous spikes on it and it’s also small, so there’s not much to eat. When we’re able to catch fish, there’s a lot of delicious ones to pick from, so there’s no reason anyone would go out of his way to eat this. Ah, and this puffed-up fish is deadly, so you definitely mustn’t eat it!” [Niki]

“I see…” [Ryouma]

I was hoping to make some dishes out of them, but there’s the parasite problem too, so let’s just put that off for another day.

“We don’t actually mean to catch these fishes, and dad himself says so, but there’s not much we can do about it since they just keep getting caught in the nets.” [Niki]

“Yeah. My slimes are happy, though.” [Ryouma]

The poison and medicine slimes are reacting. The bloody slime with a palette for parasites is also reacting.

I wonder if there’s a new branch of evolution here with the poison and the parasite…

“Hmm?” [Ryouma]

“What’s the matter?　Onii-chan?” [Niki]

“It’s just that this poison slime is…” [Ryouma]

Among the poison slimes was a poison slime that reacted only to the stonefish-like fish.

Moreover, it’s only eating the venomous needle of the scales!

“Venomous needles. Hmm… Oops. I better ponder on this later. Next is…” [Ryouma]

“Umm, there are shellfish here too. Poisonous and non-poisonous ones.” [Niki]

“Let’s start with the poisonous ones then.” [Ryouma]

…The poison and the medicine slimes recognized it as food. Unfortunately, it seems these things can only serve as normal food to the slimes here.

“Let’s take a look at the non-poisonous ones then.” [Ryouma]

“Onii-chan, sorry, but these shellfish don’t have any meat left in them. They’re just shells.” [Niki]

“Oh, well we did say trash was fine. And besides, there are still some slimes reacting to these.” [Ryouma]

“Huh?” [Niki]

Several acid slimes were already waiting beside Niki-kun’s feet as he carried the bucket of shellfish shells.

Niki-kun fed the shells to those slimes, and they happily digested it. Small bubbles rose up as they carefully digested the shells.

There’s a chance that the acid slime could evolve from the shells. One of those reacting to the shells is also the same slime that likes to eat everyday… Is this another branch of evolution?　Both seashells and egg shells have calcium carbonate as the common main ingredient, but… No. I can’t form a definite conclusion from just that. I need to observe more.

“And lastly, here comes the ‘crab’.” [Ryouma]

The sticky slime reacted to both the shell with meat in it and just the shell.

“On one hand is a shell and on the other hand is… This one needs more observation too.” [Ryouma]

“Next are the junk caught in the nets that’s not fish. Water plants and seaweed.” [Niki]

Looks like Niki has already gotten used to the flow of our work here, as he brought over the next junk right when I was thinking about it. Good job, Niki!

Seriously, he’s such a nice assistant… These are probably… Yeah. The weed slimes reacted.

I’ve already confirmed recently that they react to the water plants.

There also those reacting to the seaweed.

“Next one is this.” [Ryouma]

“A tattered net… I don’t know what’s going to happen with this, but let’s give it a try… Okay. That was unexpected.” [Ryouma]

“What’s the matter?” [Niki]

“Hmm~ The sticky slimes and the metal slimes are reacting.” [Ryouma]

The sticky slimes produces thread, so it’s still somewhat related, but the metal slime is unexpected.

Metal and net… A metal net?　I don’t know, but it’ll be interesting to see what it evolves into. This too needs further observation.

“Alright! These two are the last ones!” [Niki]

Niki lifted a bucket-like wooden vessel in each hand. One bucket was filled with sand while the other was filled with ceramic fragments.

“I see… The stone slime is reacting to both buckets. A poison slime is reacting to the sand too.” [Ryouma]

There is a poison slime reacting to the sand. And what’s more is that it’s the same specimen that also ate charcoal and is expected to evolve. Is there a common point between charcoal and sand? Or is this a different branch of evolution? For the mean time, all I can really do is wait for it to evolve and then observe.