Goodie was…comfortable.

Silk sheets were not a comfort he had ever had the privilege of sleeping on before, its smooth touch against what little of his skin was exposed was absolutely divine…

Was he still wearing his armour?

…and after the hardships, he had been through its effect upon him more than doubled in intensity.

Something was off about it, though, or so some part of his mind kept insisting that he get up, that he open his eyes and get back to work and that sleeping was somehow wrong, but for the life of him, he could not think of a reason as to why that would be so.

It was a deeply negative thought that niggled incessantly at the back of his mind, constantly trying to rouse him from his pleasant slumber. He kept pushing the thought aside, figuring it was probably nothing more than the extreme negativity that was generally his base standard operating procedure.

He was a deeply unhappy individual. He knew it, people who knew him knew it, people who had never ever met him before knew it.

Yes, he had reason to be. But since he had come to this world, he had been getting more and more reason not to be. But still, he was negative. It was not just because a lifetime of

Those small bits of happiness always turned against him or had been taken away by people who were normal.

But all that was changing…had changed

[UNIMAGINABLE SURVIVOR]

‘Unimaginable’ was the highest grade possible within the [SYSTEM]. The whole reason behind his refusing to level in all the time he had been here was so that he could choose the best possible titles at level up. Over a year of waiting and closest he had ever gotten was that suspicious [GOD OF SNAKES] one from before he was kicked out of the city.

But he had it now, the rarest in grades if not titles, at least.

The survivor title, specifically, was one of the generic types of titles that were far easier to earn than the ones associated to more unique or exotic instances. Survivor, runner, fighter, things people could earn just by living their life.

Each more powerful than the tier beneath it obviously, though the highest he had ever heard of anyone getting survivor title was ‘Remarkable’.

He had even earned a [COMMON SURVIVOR] once from just walking around the sewers for a week, though that grade only offered him a 1% increase to his HP.

But none of that was important.

Regeneration. That was important. It was what he got.

And it was everything he wanted, everything that he could have asked for. The Title gave him some other bonuses, but that was all he saw at the time, the desperation of the then dire circumstances narrowing his vision somewhat.

But regeneration was more than enough for him.

Well, he could have done without the third kneecap, but he was not going to complain too loudly about that.

The last thing he wanted was for his recent good fortune to be taken away because he was not appreciative.

But, as Jeremy had told him, everything had a price.

The Old Man had warned the first day he had arrived in this world. Or the first time he had woken up in that hospital bed, rather. It was largely why he avoided that god title, and why he had always approached anything to do with the [SYSTEM] with extreme caution.

And while he had been more than willing to pay any price at the time for the chance of avoiding death, that price had been fat.

His fat.

All of it.

He had always been overweight. Not obese, just fat. And despite walking everywhere, watching what he ate, and frequent if lacklustre attempts at exercise, he always seemed to stay at the same size.

He had lost some of it since coming here. To this world, his time wandering around the sewers not only helping to burn some calories but also serving to greatly diminish his appetite with its unforgettable stench.

Even then, his weight had never dipped below the excessively chubby classification.

But now it was all gone.

After selecting to level up, he had blacked out shortly after. He still was not sure if it was due to the [SYSTEM] needing time to affect some sort of change within him or if his ravaged body had simply given up by that point. Either way, he had awoken much later, having nearly frozen to death from the chill of the dark and silent cavern while he slept.

The first sensation that he felt after some life returned to him was of an almost maddening hunger, an overwhelming craving to devour.

He begged Her Majesty to bring him something, anything to eat. And with all haste, she headed for the tattered remains of his backpack and the few ration bars that remained within. She had done much the same when he had been impaled, but such was his craving that he could wait the few moments that she would need to break off a piece of those bars and transfer it to him within her stomach.

The kobolds near him, the chieftess was practically drowned in her own body fluids, anything on her would probably have been tainted, but the other one? He had grasped for the leather belt upon her waist, a scraggly leather thing most likely fashioned from the skin of one of the Burrows’ monsters.

Within a small pack near her left hip were small bundles of…something, a substance that he scarfed down without question.

It was far from enough to quell his urges.

The butchered corpse of the kobold chieftess nearby had yet to begin rotting, but with her innards and their contents exposed and his stomach no longer empty, the foul stench that had permeated the air had his gag reflex working overtime. But he held it down, certain that if it had not, he would have soon been feasting upon the rotting corpses around him, or even his own flesh.

Thankfully, Her Majesty soon returned, ready to regurgitate the contents of her stomach. Content which he gladly accepted; such was his hunger. It was humiliating to be fed in such a fashion, like a baby bird before its mother, but he did not care for anything but sating his hunger at that point.

It was only after being reminded that, even after his fortuitous level-up, she and he both still had XP to sacrifice.

There were no more unimaginables, which he was kind of thankful for, so he sacrificed everything that he could. Unfortunately, him being level one now, meant that it took more XP to level up, leaving him with fewer to sacrifice. But he had always relied more on Her Majesty’s levels, even when they were back in the city, the shadow demon giving him nine rewards to his two.

He had seen nothing that he could think of as new in the options that his [SACRIFICE] ability had given him, something that had surprised him as he had always presumed that a level-up would have changed something, like increase minor heal to medium at least, but nothing. But he was not in the mind to be disappointed in that at the time, his thoughts only on his still empty stomach.

He selected the option to satiate his daily needs when he could, for a total of four times, one of which he used immediately. Its power soothing the maddening craving, but still leaving him feeling hollow, and doing nothing to ease his headache.

He also managed to get two more minor heals, a clean area spell, two shield spells, a bundle of rope, and an apple.

He ate the apple.

It still did not help.

It was only after taking the time to inspect his wounds that he discovered the reason why.

He was thin. Excessively so.

His body was gaunt. His familiar belly flat as a board. He assumed that regeneration had, no pun intended, chowed through his reserve of calories to enact whatever physical changes that it had made upon him.

A year ago, he would have been all too happy to have lost his weight, but this was hardly the best time for it. And it was not as if he had anything to show off, his body being less than buff, even with his recent change in lifestyle this past two years.

Even worse, while the spell had, again, no pun intended, consumed his fat, it had left his skin relatively untouched. Like a hideous half-empty sack, flaps of hide hung loosely from his form, the folds of his skin swaying with every movement.

The sight, alongside the already intolerable stench within the air, would have finally forced him to wretch up what little he had been able to eat, but It was also then that he discovered something he desperately wished he had not; there was something in his pants.

At first, he briefly considered that a rock might have somehow found its way into his armoured leathers, but the object did not feel like stone, nor was it shaped properly.

It had not moved by itself, so far, so he did not think it alive at the time, but the thought that it might have been some type of unknown bug or new type of monster had him freeze in fear.

Only after an intense few minutes did he raise his leg slightly to let it slide out from the bottom. The cold, dead thing was hard to fully make out with Her Majesty’s eyesight, but eventually, he guessed what the foreign object was; a kneecap.

His knee cap.

No one should ever have to know what the inside of their own kneecap looked like.

He had been filled with horror, thinking that there was nothing over his right knee but exposed bone. Something he was proven wrong about after a few tentative touches revealed that he did indeed possess both kneecaps.

So then, where had the third one come from?

His best guess was that his body, while attempting to heal his old injuries, had somehow deemed it easier to just grow a new kneecap that to fix the old one.

He was getting a whole slew of unforgettable memories from this trip, was he not?

He had tried to ignore the thing for the meantime, instead focusing on what he had originally intended, which was to inspect his wounds.

Investigation his wound with his companions’ vision, a difficult task considering their two inherently different forms of sight, but he was too cautious to try summoning some mage light, he observed that while it seemed that his newfound power of regeneration had healed him, that healing had been relatively surface level in its treatment, the bones beneath the reknitted flesh still weak and fragile, the skin over the once punctured holes in his body both baby smooth and tender.

He might have been able to walk, but he would definitely not have been able to run until he had fully recovered. Even with the discovery that the beasts of the underground were just as easily felled by Her Majesty as humans were, he would still need to be able to manoeuvre on his journey back to the surface

Problem was, he did not know if he could risk waiting for his legs to properly recover, ignorant as to whether or not his satiate needs ability would include his needs for his regeneration ability as well. And even if it did, he had already spent far too long in this hellhole. He wanted to leave before his recent bit of good fortune turned and some other form of bullshit forced itself into his life.

He wanted to leave. But the question remained; how?

He asked Her Majesty to once again go out, this time in search of his spear, his hope to make a splint of some sort, but after a long and fruitless search, he was forced to conclude that the weapon had either lodged itself into the earthen wall of the deep hole that he had fallen down, or he had dropped it when he had initially been pushed, probably being picked up and claimed by the very arseholes that had dragged him into this mess, to begin with.

The arseholes he had to thank for his new, awesome power. His idiotic instincts reminding him that he owed them all debt. That would not be a problem, but it was not the debt that they rightly deserved, the debt that a normal person would have delivered upon them.

It all came down to cost versus benefit.

And as much as he had no value for life, never being allowed finding the joy or whatever it was that normal people found to justify their existence, he did not want to die.

Have been conditioned to have no self-worth, his feeling on the matter at his near assassination, was no different than someone seeing someone else taking out some garbage. In a sick way, he was almost grateful to them for nearly putting him out of his endless misery. Add to that the contradiction that that attempt on his life led to him receiving a gift that would greatly extend it, and he was left with an immeasurable debt that his nature would force him to repay.

It was an intense, subconscious feeling.

Consciously, he knew that they were all a bunch of dicks, but with the, what he now realised was an extremely abusive, upbringing of his ‘guardians’, he was always filled with an intense sense of fear, doubt, and anxiety that caused him to freeze up and act on instinct. That instinct being to bow, and whimper, and submit.

And it pissed him off immeasurably, it always had. But he could never do anything about it, never having been given even the simplest of foundations to build himself up, instead, having any shred his of self-…anything, buried alongside his parents, six feet deep and forgotten.

The fact that it had taken being absconded to another world and being shown the truth by something as intangible as magic for him to realise what had been right in his face the whole time, outraged him to no end.

But still, he could do nothing about it.

He knew that a normal person would, if not necessarily seek vengeance, at the very least defend themselves, but he knew, he just knew that the next time he saw those pricks, that his mind would shut down and he would be all grateful and thankful to them for his meagre gift and all he could consciously be able to do was watch as it all happened and then come down hard on himself later for being such a pathetic loser.

And why was he so pathetic?

Because the people that were meant to protect and nurture him had died, and the people that had taken their place had done nothing but use him as a verbal punching bag, venting their frustrations on the shreds of his ego then leaving him to rot as he tried to hide from the harsh world.

When he had begged them for help, they had sabotaged him, then mocked him for failure.

When that arsehole, Gregory, had beaten him half to death, then left him to die in a sewer, what had they done? Settled out of court for a quick payday.

Yes, they had gotten him the physical therapy that he had need of afterwards, but his aunt had also gotten a new car as well as some other luxuries at the same time. Coincidence?

And what had happened after that?

Back to the same school with the very same arsehole who had put him in the hospital, to begin with, an arsehole who got away with everything because his family infested the town. Infested that very same school. The school that nether of his cousins had to attend.

He had never thought his aunt and uncle as evil… and he still did not, they had never abused him or hurt him or anything extreme, but they were bad people. He realised that now. Sort of…

They had only taken him in so no one would think badly of them, his aunt fully flaunting the poor orphan boy while he had still been cute, only to stop as he grew older and people no longer cared.

He knew all that from the beginning, he was not stupid, but still, he was always grateful, no matter what they did, because he was not their kid, and they could have just as easily left him on the street where he would have been raped and murdered. Why? Because that was what they had told him, day after day after day. Pounded into his stupid little mind.

Goodie squeezed his eyes shut, failing to stop the wet from forming in them, flooding down his face.

Stop it, he had thought to himself, he had far more important things to do; he had to survive.

To reduce the risk of his leg bones snapping under his, reduced weight, he needed to support them with something, but what? He could use something from the kobolds, many of them having…had spears hewn from the bones of the beasts that had slaughtered them. The chieftess’ bone mace was till nearby, but it was far too short to serve as a crutch and would have needed to be shaved down in order to serve as a splint. He also had his shadow powers.

Her Majesty would not have been able to drag anything over to him her meagre strength, even with maxed stats she was still only a snake, and his powers were at best only good for a second or two of long-ranged grabbing before they broke, so what was he to do?

He had thought and thought as best he could. Eventually, he covered his legs in his shadow stuff, trying his best to form a rubber-like substance on each.

He could not create anything with a hard texture like wood or plastic, but his hope had been that if he could make his leg coverings thick enough, it would serve to support him just the same.

What his effort resulted in were to overly long, charcoal black, traffic cone looking boots on each foot, the feet outlined by a sort-of square support and the pointed tips of each reaching to his hips. Then, after managing to crawl his way over to the bone mace, he pulled himself up, his weight focused on the left leg, which had only been pierced just above the ankle, as opposed to his right, which had seen damage both to his thigh and lower leg.

He wobbled a bit when he finally managed to stand himself up.

The sensation he felt as he had done so had not been pain, exactly. But it did feel like the promise of pain, that one wrong movement or twitch would have resulted in a world of hurt. But for once, he had no fear, he was used to pain, after all.

Once he got used to his stiff, uncertain movements, he ‘robot’ walked, not goose-stepped, it looked nothing like goose-stepping even if he was wearing black from the waist down, over to the other kobolds to gather a few of the broken spears that had been scattered during their defeat. After a little more work to insert the spears into his cone boots, he then had to deal with his second problem; Warmth.

The healing and the satiate needs that he had been using these past few days had served to dampen the effects of the deathly cold of the underground, but he had run through his one-use abilities like wildfire and could not afford to waste them anymore like he originally had.

And though his armour was still relatively intact, ignoring the puncture holes here and there where he had been impaled, the extreme loss of weight had left a massive gap between him and it, even when he tried tightening it as much as he could, the armour hanging loose on him with enough gaps to let the chilling air in, further compounding his already existing problems with his inability to retain heat.

His nose was already doing its best impressions of Niagara Falls as it was, the fear that the constant river of snot and hacking coughs would dehydrate him forcing him to drink water like a fish.

He would have padded the space between him and his armour with his shadow stuff, but no matter what form of it he chose to create, it had a habit of draining heat instead of helping to keep it in, and he was afraid that within these cold tunnels it would have spelt an end for his already half-frozen body.

He tried using the rope that he had received from one of his sacrifices, first tying it around himself on the outside, trying to compress the armour inwards, but that did nothing, the piece of equipment too tough to be reshaped by his hand. He tried stuffing it up the front and then up the back of his armour in hopes that if the armour was at least partly against him, it would help him retain some heat, but the rope kept slipping out.

He could have secured it with his powers, but again, the stuff would have only served to drain his body heat.

Eventually, he just wrapped it around himself to create a little bit of insulation for himself.

It was still a while before he attempted to leave the cavern, let alone try and attempt to journey to the surface above. Taking the time to first gather what he could of what little of the kobold’s equipment remained intact, then waiting for her Majesty to scout ahead through the various tunnels that led out of the cavern that they were in.

Yes, the tunnel that he had fallen down would have led him directly to a path out of here, but he was in no fit state to attempt climbing it, even with his new rope.

Upon the return of his shadow demon, the two of them set immediately, his mind fully determined to head straight for the surface and the freedom.

He did not know how long it had been, but he and Her Majesty spent a long time wandering around the dark, him knowing that Her Majesty was leading the right way, but still feeling lost with his lack of eyesight.

The journey was as swift as could be, but with his odd footwear, the need to avoid large gatherings of the underground’s residents, and of course, his accursed cold and never-ending hunger, he spent what felt like ages waiting for something to change.

And then it did.

Some type of trap or something in the floor, a piece of turf that had given way as he stepped upon it, sending him falling along a diagonal tunnel that led downwards.

Tumbling down that tunnel, he……he…was in the Burrows; he was still in the Burrows; Why was he feeling silk in the Burrows?!

Goodie tried to open his eyes, but the comfort of the silk and his general fatigue of the spirit if not the body made the effort impossible.

He took a moment to calm down, trying to use his other senses to try and discern what was going on around him.

A pointless action as the area around him was as silent as the grave, and he felt naught but the smooth caress of the silk against his skin. As for the smell, it smelt like the underground.

This was where that above-average intelligence came in.

There was silk all around him. There were only two creatures that he knew of that spun silk. Yes, being in a fantasy world, they were possibly a dozen more options, each probably scarier than the last, but so far, he was only aware of silkworms and spiders.

But more than that he could not say.

It was then that he remembered that he had a summons and all he would have to do was contact her to see what was what. But he should not have had to, she should have already sensed him, so why had she remained silent?

He tried communicating through their link, but was met with an obstruction, a feeling of fuzziness that distorted whatever he tried to send along it.

It was spiritual essence.

The spiritual essence of something was overwhelming his connection with Her Majesty.

He could feel it, whatever it was. At first, he had thought that it was merely that smothering pull of laziness that the surrounded you when you were all wrapped up in bed on a cold winter morning, but the presence that pressed down on him was suffocating. The oppressive presence of a greater spiritual essence that threatened to crush him.

A second attempt at waking himself was met with greater success than the first, but he still needed time to fully open his eyes as his metaphorical motor revved up.

Upon finally, fully opening his eyes, he saw another cavern, this one far smaller than the one he had previously been in, a few glowing mushrooms granting him enough light to actually see with his own eyes.

Even that dim light was too much. Something that would have caused him to suffer a migraine if he was not already suffering from one due to his hunger.

The cavern was strewn with webbing, some industrious arachnid turning the place into a hall of curtains.

The first thing that his eyes landed upon after that was Her Majesty, who in turn, was looking straight at him.

The essence smothering him lifted, and his shared link became clear.

He sent the impression of a question over to her. Nothing specific, just a general ‘what the hell’.

The response from Her Majesty was simple and direct and needed no translation as the meaning of it was truly universal.

‘DON’T. FUCKING. MOVE.’

The undertone of absolute terror that accompanied her message informed him of the seriousness of whatever situation that they were in.

He tried to freeze, stilling whatever movement that he could, but he could not stop his eyes from darting around in search of whatever danger lurked

Now, he was not afraid of spiders in general, and both games and life in a fantasy world had prepared him somewhat for the strange and the weird variants of the creatures.

But the thought of how they ate, of being injected with venom and having his organs slurped out of him had his heart beating like a drum as he searched for the creature that evaded his sight.

And then it appeared.

It had not been invisible; he had just not seen it while he had been trying to look for everything and anything.

And nothing had prepared him for it.

With all the spider webs around him intact, he knew it would not have been some ginormous thing, but he was fully expecting something the size of a rat or even dog-sized like the mutated rabbits, something to match the warped nature of the Burrows that he had grown accustomed to.

But it was not, it was just sooo…

Tiny!

Barely the size of the nail of his pinkie finger.

An accurate measurement as that was where it was currently perched, atop the fingernail of his right pinkie finger, facing Her Majesty.

It turned around to look at him.

Goodie pissed himself.