>>96597710
A unique take I saw for slimes was from the manga 'Saint Slime. Slimes are able to enter into a recently deceased host's body by mimicking their blood. They are then able to fully take over the body and it does not rot as there is now fresh "blood" circulating through it. Since their "blood" also circulates through the hosts brain they also have sparse memories from the original host. If cut they will drip out their true slime form. They are still detectable as monsters and are probably affected by anything that would only/greatly affect monsters. It is also shown that they can retain any magical properties of the host, though it can take time. For example, the main character took over the body of a saint that had divine powers. The slime did not have those powers right away, but through research and training regained those powers.

I just thought it would be cool to have a village of "humans" who seem a bit off and then later you find out that those people have the same faces of people reported as having died or gone missing.