The other tunnel, as it turns out, was even rougher shod than the one from earlier. The walls were completely uneven, and the floor was covered in stray rocks. This had likely been the new tunnel the miners had been working on before the infestation.

As Nero crept along, warry of displacing rocks, he struggled with a decision. He had been putting it off for a while now, but he believed it was time to use the unallocated stat points he had from leveling up. If he were going to fight a ratman, a creature of a higher level than him, he would need all the help he could get.

The question on his mind was what stat to invest in. He couldn't add points to Knowledge or Endurance, so that left spirit, strength, and dexterity. He still intended to learn magic at some point, the novelty alone would be worth it, but that was far off and investing in spirit now would not help with a fight. That left him strength and dexterity.

Nero had done some investigations into stats in general, and he felt he understood them to a degree. First of all, strength was a bit misleading. When a person hears the word 'strength,' they think of muscles, of power, being able to lift heavy objects and hit hard. That wasn't the case in Gods' Nature. Nero felt that it had been misnamed a bit. Rather than strength, it should have been called 'body.'

Studies conducted by players and NPC's alike came to the conclusion that when raising the STR. stat it was the entire body that improved. Of course, your physical damage improved, but so did your speed. The total HP of the person also increased, along with taking slightly reduced damage. The Endurance stat, on the other hand, allowed players to endure longer and feel less pain, but the damage remained the same.

Dexterity was also a bit of a misnomer. Instead, Nero would call it 'control.' It did not directly increase hand-eye coordination as some might assume but rather increased what Nero could only describe as 'feeling of control' one had over their own body. Dexterity did not make somebody great at sports or arts and crafts, it merely deepened the control somebody felt over their body. It was little things that most people do not notice, like their balance or the position of their shoulders that were mostly subconscious that were most affected.

Dexterity was less direct in its benefit than strength. It did not increase damage, HP or anything like that. But from what Nero had read online, it was advised that every player, no matter their playstyle, take at least a tenth if not more of their points into dexterity. The reasons were many, but it was merely practical. A mage casting a spell needs perfect control, lest it backfires or misses. An archer needs to be acutely aware of themselves and their surroundings to be effective. Close combat types needed it even more because how much a fight relied on balance and positioning.

The crux of his problem was this; does he take the more direct benefit of strength and deal more damage or does he invest more in dexterity and deal less damage but (hopefully) control the fight more easily?

Faced with this quandary, Nero did what many would in his place.

He copped out.

He split his twenty points evenly between strength and dexterity, raising them to 29 and 25 respectively. His HP went from 209 to 309, an almost 50% increase was pretty decent as far as he was concerned. Dexterity wasn't nearly as noticeable, but Nero did notice that he was stepping on a pebble he hadn't felt before that was causing his foot to slightly tilt. That could be the increase of dexterity helping with his sense of balance, or he could be delusional.

Either way, the points had been used, and there was no getting them back. Nero comforted himself with the idea that either way he would have to invest in dexterity at some point anyway.

As he and Jorry crept along, Nero kept a hand ready to cover his later at the slightest noise and, though his companion would be the first to notice, an ear out for any unusual sound.

They had been creeping down this tunnel for a while now, and it was getting noticeably thinner. Where before three people could walk side by side, not two people would barely be able to pass each other as the walls were less than a foot from his shoulders on either side. Kaesar was glad he didn't have claustrophobia, or things could have really gone downhill fast.

"I smell one." Nero stopped as Jorry once more whispered in his ear.

"One? Or more?" He whispered back to which Jorry shook his head.

"I can't tell, the air flow is different here. We need to get closer."

Now alerted, the two proceeded with even more caution. Nero's heart was starting to hammer as tension once more rose in his chest.

"It's only one this time," Jorry suddenly said. "I'm sure of it."

Nero stopped and took a deep breath. This was it, his first real fight. Against the rats, he had a size advantage and could just pick them up and strangle them to death. When the mice had killed him, he had been unprepared and couldn't catch them. Practice fights in Ground Sheer were fewer fights than him getting him but handed to him repeatedly as he slowly tried to improve. This was different than all those, he was about to face a humanoid monster stronger than him who could very well end his life.

Nero noticed his hands were shaking. Strangely he didn't feel fear, uncertainty yes but the clammy feeling of terror was not present like it had been when he had evesdropped on the other ratmen. So why was Kaesar shaking? Nero put it down to nerves as he desperately tried to calm his breathing.

He had to be careful, even with the new stats he could easily die to this foe who had twice his level easily. He needed to think of some way to raise the odds of victory.

What did he know about ratmen? They were recently evolved, so their coordination wasn't at its best. They were pretty dumb, so trickery could work. They were shorter than he was by two feet so he would have to aim at their heads for the most part but kicking them could prove useful if he could do it without losing his balance. They had claws and sharp teeth which they would probably use in a fight. If they were anything like regular rats, then their senses would be more developed except for its eyes.

All together it was giving him the beginnings of a plan, but he needed to investigate something first. Nero took a few minutes to look some information up online before deciding what to do. He told Jorry his plan, and they slowly crept forward.

It did not take long for Nero to hear shuffling up ahead. A rat's sense of hearing was much more accurate than a human's, so it had likely heard him as well, not being distracted by a conversation like the two from the other tunnel. He still didn't uncover his lantern though, he still had a use for the darkness at the moment.

"Food? Blood? Food!" He heard it say, detecting him. It was time to try his plan.

"RUN!" He suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs as he stood up and charged towards the ratman still a distance away. "Mice are here! The ratmen are dead. The Venerable One killed them. Argh!"

The first part of his plan was relatively simple and was designed to make the enemy hesitate enough for Nero to get close and take control of the fight on his terms. If it worked, then he could get a few good hits in and set up the next part so that he would have a good chance of winning.

It took four things for the plan to work. The first was Nero's beast tongue giving the enemy the idea that he was another of their kind. Usually, the ratman's sense of smell would immediately disprove that but the second thing he had at his disposal was the fact that he was covered in the scent of ratman blood. He had spent all morning and afternoon disassembling them, enough that the ratmen recognized the smell of blood before the smell of a human.

The third factor was, of course, his mention of mice and the 'Venerable One.' This would lead credence to the idea that Nero was an ally and the smell of blood combined with his words would help plant a feeling of fear in the enemy's heart. The fourth and most important factor to the first part of his plan was a ratman's stupidity.

Nero could shout all he wanted and bathe in blood for days, but anybody with a bit of common sense would know it was bull if they thought about it for a second. But this tactic was designed to not give the enemy a moment to think, to make them panicked as they were left unsure and indecisive.

"Mice!?" It shouted in alarm and fear. Nero could barely make a form out in the darkness as it stopped in place. The ratman was hesitating to attack and was probably confused and thinking about running away. Unfortunately for it, that moment of hesitation was what Nero had been aiming for.

He had rushed towards the ratman delivered a punch directly on its cranium which probably rattled its brain on impact. Disoriented and confused about the sudden turn of events its hands raised to clutch its head in agony.

Nero took this moment to start the second phase of his plan. It was even more straightforward than the first. He dropped Jorry on the thing's head. The snake immediately wrapped itself not around the neck but instead around its mouth, efficiently constricting it closed. Then Jorry started doing his job, he began to pull at the thing's whiskers.

The second part of the plan was to get Jorry to keep the ratman disoriented enough for Nero to whale on it. The snake was not long enough yet to be able to constrict a ratman's stocky neck. So, Nero, had him keep the thing's mouth closed, taking away one of its weapons.

Rats, and ratmen, actually had rather lousy vision compared to humans. Every other sense was enhanced to an insane degree, but their eyesight was rather sad. They had enough to distinguish light in the dark, thus why Nero had kept his lantern hidden until this point, but they were unable to identify objects up close. Instead, they used the sense of touch through their whiskers to make sense of the world around them. Those same whiskers were being rather savagely mauled at the moment.

Nero now uncovered his lantern, giving him some much-needed light. He saw the ratman desperately trying to shake or scratch Jorry off itself. This was hampered by its rather short and stocky arms, but it was doing some damage, so Nero went on the offensive once more.

-21

-19

-23

Nero was doing much more damage against it than he had against the rats, likely because of his new stats. Unfortunately, because it was panicking due to Jorry, the ratman's flailings sometimes scored hits on Nero despite his best effort to dodge. One particular tail swipe and claw combo had managed to do more than a hundred points of damage. It made sense, he wasn't wearing any armor, and he had no defensive skills so something higher level like the ratman should be able to wipe the floor with him.

As it was, the opposite was happening. For all its power, the ratman was a recently evolved beast. It panicked quickly and thus was not able to fight properly. It was almost blind due to Jorry. The fact was that Jorry was probably causing more pain, but Nero was dealing more damage. This caused the ratman to switch between them often. If it was less panicked, it should have focused on one of them until they were dead and then turn its attention to the other.

In the end, the fight dragged on for a bit, the monster grew weaker due to pain, but it still had way more health than Nero, so it took a while for him to kill it. But it fell eventually, leaving Nero panting for breath.

That fight had been much closer than it should have been. Nero only had 63 HP left, one or two more hits would have killed him. Looking back on it he saw many instances when he should have been able to dodge when he should have gotten it in a hold rather than keep punching it. It was a sloppy fight, probably more in line with a bar fight than a match between experienced fighters.

So then, why was he smiling so much?

He calmed his breathing as he approached Jorry.

"You alright?" He asked the little snake which was a bit bloody, a few claw marks were running down his back.

"I'm hurt, but I'll live." The snake said, wincing a little. He suddenly laughed. "But we killed the bastard."

"We did." They should have lost that fight. It was only because of trickery and working together that they had won and it had been a close thing. "Come on, we'll head back now."

Picking up Jorry and placing him on his shoulder, Nero grabbed the ratman by its tail and started to drag it towards the entrance.

****

"When you catch a glimpse of your potential, that's when passion is born."

Zig Ziglar