Milo was struggling. His entire body hurt. His pack was doing its best to drag him to the ground. There was a weird popping thing going on with his left hip, and there was a deep ache in his lower back. He definitely had grains of sand underneath his eyelids. His severed wrist—actually felt pretty okay.

Life was unfair in weird ways sometimes.

All that notwithstanding, he and his new pal Backlebutt had made steady progress. They had traversed about twenty minutes’ worth of tunnel without seeing anything but rock and torches. No goblins or evil molepeople or skeletons or…Milo yawned…anything like that. The only thing he’d fought so far was the urge to collapse into a heap on the floor.

He had stopped marking sconces after some annoyed ranting from Backlebutt; Milo had been riding on the success of his tree-marking without considering that there wasn’t really a point to marking a trail in a tunnel, which was literally just a big enclosed trail. He really needed some sleep.

The only exception he made was when their path branched, which it had a couple of times. They’d taken the rightmost path each time, but Milo made sure to create obvious markers of unnaturally stacked stones whenever that occurred nevertheless, which Backlebutt seemed to tolerate better. He was kind of a touchy guy.

Blinking his eyes rapidly, Milo tried to reestablish some semblance of alertness and attention to his surroundings.

When they’d set out, the tunnel had been fairly regular, almost as if it were in the initial stages of an underground subway construction. It was unpaved and undeveloped, but a consistent size and shape. As they progressed, however, the tunnel rapidly changed, bulging or narrowing at times, growing more natural in appearance, and piles of loose stones made the footing treacherous. The sconces were occasionally spaced far apart, leaving wide stretches of nerve-wracking near-blackness where anything might lurk. The tunnel also, subtly, was leading downward.

Why, though? I mean, it’s not the craziest thing ever for a cave to lead down but...it called this place one of “the Shallows” and sent me here because of my low level, which implies that deeper is harder. It can’t be 100% true that it gets harder the deeper you go, though. That level 13-14 swamp place was the first dungeon area underneath the black barrier thing. Is it just random, and the system teleports you around to where you belong?

He was jostled out of his thoughts as he ran into something big and solid—Backlebutt, who had stopped walking. Milo’s commitment to remaining alert hadn’t lasted very long.

“Sorry,” said Milo tiredly.

“Shht!” Backlebutt replied sharply.

Milo looked up, realizing that Backlebutt had paused for a reason. They were fairly close to a torch, so Milo could see the man was holding very still, head turned to the side. He’s heard something, Milo realized. His own ears perked up, straining for any sound in the dimly lit tunnel.

For several long seconds, there was nothing. There was so little noise, in fact, that Milo could faintly hear his own heart beating. Then—a quiet scuffing noise, followed a second or two later by a somewhat louder clack. It sounded far away, beyond the next bend in the tunnel some thirty meters distant—but something was definitely there.

Milo and Backlebutt shared a look. Backlebutt looked resolute, or perhaps resigned. Milo was willing to bet he himself looked more like a deer caught in the headlights. It felt as though his heart rate had doubled in an instant.

Nevertheless—unlike his experience with the puma raptor—Milo did not freeze. Instead, he dropped his bags to the ground as quietly as he could and began to prepare. First, he removed every stone he’d collected for his cohort and set them aside where Backlebutt could reach them. Then, he made sure he had his hammer ready and thought about how he wanted to use his skills as he waited for whatever it was to approach.

He had spent some time thinking about it while hiking through the tunnels, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to use Pause for Thought mid-combat; in his small amount of practice so far, things hadn’t gone particularly well. Controlling his body in dilated time felt foreign and awkward, especially the transitions between one speed and the other. Perhaps in time he’d get it figured it out, but for now it might be more of a detriment than anything. Instead, he would use it beforehand to give himself time to get a read on his enemy and prepare.

Additionally, he’d realized that he hadn’t thus far seen any explicit restrictions on using skills simultaneously. Milo had high hopes of being able to identify weak points on monsters by using Skim, and he thought there was a good chance he’d be able to use Skim while Pausing for Thought in order to milk more time out of the former. Overall it was perhaps slightly less efficient mana-wise; if he activated Skim and then Pause for Thought, he would have probably a bit more than ten seconds of slowed Skim followed by fourteen seconds of normal speed Skim. That would cost a total of two mana, which would be the same as if he’d just activated Skim twice. However, by combining the skills, Milo would have plenty of time to study his enemy and get as much information as he could even if it was rushing him.

Backlebutt hadn’t been idle while Milo was doing his thing. He, too, had dropped his pack, then immediately began combing the area for suitable stones to throw at their enemies. He’d gathered only a few so far.

Milo, lacking further preparations of his own until they actually laid eyes on whatever approached, tried to help. However, he quickly noticed that Backlebutt was rejecting most of his contributions (including, to his dismay, all of the stones he’d lugged around for the last twenty minutes).

It was immediately obvious, when he stopped to wonder why, that anything over a certain size was right out, and Backlebutt also didn’t want anything that was too irregular. The man was very exacting in his ammo specs. He could have told me I was carrying subpar rocks.

The hunt for stones became significantly harder, until Milo realized he was being an idiot. He grabbed his gym bag and emptied it onto the tunnel floor. Then, concentrating on the idea of rocks that fell within the average parameters set by the small collection of stones Backlebutt had deemed worthy, he spent a single mana to activate Skim. Instantly, dozens of spots lit up in his vision. Nice!

Milo hustled over to where the glow was most dense and began loading his bag as quickly as he could. He got around a dozen before the skill’s duration ran out, then grabbed several more he was sure had been lit up.

Clack. Milo froze, ears straining. A faint scraping noise. Then, a hair louder—clack.

The hairs on Milo’s neck stood up. It was the sound from before, only much nearer. Louder. He could swear it was just around the tunnel’s bend. Sweating, Milo hurried back to the pile of stones Backlebutt had accrued and deposited his haul, more than doubling their number. Backlebutt, having just returned with his latest find, briefly inspected them before giving Milo an appraising look. A slight nod indicated his approval.

It sounded like there was just one of whatever was coming for them, which meant they had plenty of ammo for Backlebutt. If twenty-plus stones thrown at bone-breaking speeds wouldn’t cut it, they were probably screwed no matter what. There wasn’t really anything to do now but wait.

It didn’t take long. One moment, they were staring intently into an empty tunnel, and the next—clack—something had landed in view. The lighting was dim, and at first Milo thought he was looking at some sort of skeletal raptor. But then it crouched and leaped, and the pieces clicked in Milo’s brain.

He was in the Tunnels Down Under.

It was a kangaroo. A freaking kangaroo.

Well, a skeleton kangaroo. With fangs. But still. What’s a kangaroo skeleton doing in a dungeon on some random planet? What is going on with my life?

It seemed oblivious to them as it bounded forward in great, staccato leaps. It didn’t hop smoothly like the videos Milo had seen of kangaroos, which efficiently stored the energy from hop to hop to maintain a brisk, loping pace. Instead, in a startling display of power, it crouched low and sprang forward in a massive jump, easily covering more than five meters.

Milo and Backlebutt watched in silence as the kangaroo skeleton slowly crouched and leapt once more, putting it less than twenty meters away. Milo, growing increasingly nervous, decided now was as good a time as any and activated Skim for the second time in the last two minutes. He immediately activated Pause for Thought as well and, wonder of wonders, it worked exactly as he’d hoped.

Sort of.

At the very least, the two abilities could operate at the same time; he could feel them both active with a kind of sixth sense, not to mention Pause for Thought’s obvious effects. However, nothing was highlighted in his vision. He’d chosen “best spots to hit kangaroo skeleton” as his focus for Skim, but apparently that wasn’t a workable prompt.

Thinking quickly, he switched to “how to kill kangaroo skeleton.” Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw Backlebutt and his stones light up, along with Milo’s hammer.

Well, I guess we have a decent plan at least.

Undeterred, he tried once more, this time with “kangaroo skeleton’s critical weak points.” Still, nothing.

Okay, what’s going on here? The skill worked when I asked it to show me how to get a mage class option, so it can know things that I don’t. Although, I guess I technically haven’t verified that it actually gave me the information I wanted in that instance. Hm. Ignoring that thought for now. Does this thing just not have any weak points? That seems pretty unlikely. It can be killed, since I had things light up when I asked about killing it. Maybe an arbitrary rule that monsters won’t light up from Skim?

Milo tested it, and the whole monster lit up immediately.

Nope, that’s not it. Maybe...the entire creature can light up, but not individual parts of it?

He checked, but that wasn’t the case either, its tail lighting up at Milo’s will. He was stumped, and Pause for Thought had run out of time. Skim still had nine more seconds, but he was too busy anticipating the creature’s approach to bother with any more prompts for the skill.

It appeared to have noticed them by now. The skeleton kangaroo leaped again, eating up the distance between them, but before it could land, Backlebutt's arm whipped out and loosed, hard. The stone flew unerringly toward the creature and caught it in the ribs at the peak of its jump, upsetting its trajectory. That guy has a ridiculous throwing arm.

Surprising Milo, the roo let out a coughing, growling cry as it careened toward the ground before landing awkwardly on its side in a clatter of bones.

Backlebutt wasn’t done, however. Not giving the creature any respite, he threw stone after stone at the thing as it scrambled to regain its footing. Milo could only watch, unwilling to enter the line of fire in order to get into melee range with his hammer.

On the fourth throw, one of the rocks completely tore off one of the skeleton’s slight forelimbs, and several throws later a satisfying crack rang out when another one broke its right knee. At that point, it was over; the creature had no more hope of getting back on its feet. Backlebutt ceased his barrage and gestured for Milo to go over and finish it off.

Holding his weapon in a sweaty grip, Milo cautiously approached. The creature tried to snap and slash at him, but it didn’t really have a chance. Being careful not to rush and screw it up, Milo positioned himself where he could get a good, clean swing at it with minimal risk.

Doing his best to ignore the sudden queasy feeling that rose within at the prospect of killing a helpless being in cold blood, Milo struck. The undead kangaroo let out one more grunting cry before the head of Milo’s hammer took its skull clean off, causing it to deanimate and collapse into a disjointed jumble of bones.

-

Congratulations! Your party has slain a Level 2 Fleshhungry Skeleroo. You have earned half of 18 experience.

-

And with that, the boost of adrenaline that was propping Milo up abruptly faded. He sat down, rather harder than he’d intended, flopped back, and closed his eyes.

That hadn't been so bad, honestly, but it had still taken something out of him. I wonder if Backlebutt would mind standing watch for an hour or two while I take a nap?

Clack. Clackclackclack. Clackclack. Clackclackclackclack.

Milo shot back up, paling.

The fight must have been too loud, he realized.

They were about to have a lot more company.