I wake up with bile building in my throat. I immediately scurry off to find a bathroom, only to remember that I’m currently standing in one and proceed to puke on the floor. It’s far enough away from where I made camp, not that it’ll affect the smell much. Something tells me this is going to set the pace of today.

Once I actually start focusing and getting out of my morning haze, I’m greeted with two notifications.

[Disease Resistance] has reached level two!

You are no longer suffering from [Hypothermia].

At least I start with some good news. The bedroll is a godsend. Keeps all the unwanted moisture out and is surprisingly comfy. Makes the whole place nearly livable.

Now for breakfast… uhg. My options are beef jerky and raw calamari. Obviously I’d prefer the jerky, but… the squid won’t last as long. I need to conserve food, so I’m eating some fucking raw squid I guess. My mouth is dry too and I’m definitely dehydrated, probably the work of the diarrhea, but there’s not much I can do about that.

I grab the bag filled with severed tentacles and look at it with disdain. I grab one of the slimey fuckers and bite down before I can think too much about it. I regret this immensely. It’s like chewing rubber and the tentacles suction cups just stick to the inside of my mouth. The taste isn’t anything to write home about, granted it’s not as horrible as I thought it’d be. I eat three before deciding that was enough.

And it’s as I’m gagging on raw fish that I notice something. It’s quiet. I look towards where the massive waterfall of sewage only to see that it’s not there. I look up and see that where there was once a massive chasm is now replaced with a grungy stone ceiling like the rest of this place. Guess waiting for help isn’t an option at all anymore. As far as I’m concerned, that was my one way out of here, now gone. Yeah, it’s sinking in just how fucked I am again.

Guess putting off that expedition deeper into this place won’t do any good. I prepare myself by emptying my bag onto my bed. I might find something useful, so I’ll need my bag to carry it. Plus carrying my jerky in case I get hungry. I have no island for going too far and the map should prevent me from getting lost, but just in case. Hopefully I’ll find something useful fast.

But then I look at the books on my bed and get an idea. I pick up my biology textbook and,

Would you like to learn the skill [Anatomy]?

Umm… ok?

You have learned the skill [Anatomy].

Wow… that’s weird. It’s not like disease resistance which just helps my body fight stuff off (at least I think so). This skill is direct knowledge. Like I just took the textbook and crammed it in my skull. The skill’s only at level one, so I don’t know much, but… it’s still fucking weird. I can look at my hand just vaguely know where certain muscles are and what they’re called. I ignore my chemistry and German textbooks. I doubt I have any use for that knowledge, not yet at least. I can already think about a few uses for anatomy.

Enough being weirded out over this shit. I take my switchblade and set off for adventure!

… where do I go? I got three options, left, center, and right. Uhhhh, front and center first? I take a few steps down the hall and immediately turn back because it’s pitch fucking black. Didn’t think that one through.

I just grab one of the weird blue torches off the wall. The fire doesn’t even seem like fire, it doesn’t give off any heat. I don’t think submerging it underwater would even put it out. That should be fundamentally impossible, but I feel like we’re beyond that point as it is.

Now that I’m actually armed with a light source, I go down this hall once more. Torch in my left hand, knife in the other, I make my way through. The path is really just a small cave, maybe big enough for two people to walk side by side, with a puddle of much that reaches up to my ankles. It’s pretty much completely straight and I go for about ten minutes before opening my map to see if anything has changed.

It has. Instead of “Safe Room” it says “5th Floor Hallway”. So I’m on the 5th floor? How many floors are there in here? Then the room expands and I now stand in front of a giant black metal gate. The map changes again to say “Boss Room”.

Yeah, I decided to turn back for now. I’d rather not be turned to paste by whatever this place, which houses krakens and giant crocs, considers a boss. I know my entire generation says we wanna die, but it’s not like we’ll go out of our way to do it. But this is good to know. If the boss room is here, then this is likely the last floor.

But that also confuses me a bit. If this is the top, then why the hell were those giant kaiju doing up there? Whatever, nothing in this place makes sense. Although if I know games, then behind the boss room lies the exit. I have no expectations of doing that now, I’d rather not look at death as the escape. I’ll have to be able to fight on par with some of the regular monster fuckers before even thinking about it.

This time I take the right path, which I’m hoping leads to something other than death. Or at least something survivable. After a few minutes I sigh and stop for a second. I’m getting used to the sickness but it’s still far from fun. I have a constant feeling of “I’m gonna puke” that I force down because I know I can’t afford to waste food.

I feel like I’m forgetting something… I open up my status. Looking through it, I see my HO has gone down a few points. It’s nothing major, but it’s not nice to look at. Scrolling further down, I once again see my abysmal strength stat. Right, I can spend SP on these too. Kinda important if I want to fight monsters then that’s kinda important. I raise everything to 50, just to be safe. It halves my SP, but it’s worth it… I think.

OH JEEZUM FUCK THATS WEIRD!! It feels like someone is directly pumping energy drinks mixed with cocaine directly into my brain and muscles! My whole body can feel this weird ‘energy’ coursing through me, with a sort of fizzy burning sensation. It doesn’t really hurt, but holy shit I was not prepared. The effect fades, but the mental scarring does not. A new experience I was not ready for. Yes, I’ve come across krakens and now my life is a video game, but it's different when you can FEEL it affecting you directly.

Name: CJ Daunt

Species: Human

Age: 13

Sex: Female

Class: [None]

Subclass: [None]

Skills:

[Disease Resistance] Lv.2

[Anatomy] Lv.1

[None]

[None]

[None]

Racial Skill: [Thriving]

Personal Skill: [Intrinsic Mana]

Class Skill: [None]

Stats:

HP: 500/500

MP: 500/500

Strength: 50

Agility: 50

Vitality: 50

Intelligence: 50

Wisdom: 50

SP: 184

Boons:

Curses: Typhoid, Diarrhea

I don’t feel smarter. Well, comparatively to my other stats, my intelligence and wisdom were already pretty high, so maybe the difference needs to be bigger for me to feel the results. This is still so fucking weird. I’m a damn video game character. Let’s hope in this storyline that I’m not a NPC that a bunch of murderhobos come across. That will not go well.

I continue down the musty and damp hallway. No matter how silently I try to step, my foot makes an audible plop sound when it hits the wet stone. It’s unnerving. That being the case, I start to practice walking without making noise, if for no other reason than to distract myself from being driven insane from stress. I’m already pretty decent at it, an advantage from sneaking around stealing stuff back in school. Middle schoolers tend not to have much money, and neither do teachers, so I never got much out of it.

After a few minutes of silently walking, or at least trying to, I get a notification.

You have learned the skill [Silent Steps].

And the practice pays off!

Silent Steps

You’re light on your feet. The noise of your steps is decreased.

Ok, how good is this skill. I take a step forward. It’s not bad, there was still a noise but nowhere near as loud. How does that work anyway? My steps just magically make less noise now? I’m wondering how the science of this all works. Although I’d probably understand none of it and zone out almost immediately, but still. Going from a world of science and clear rules of reality to this shit is going to take some getting used to.

CRUNCH! Gah! I stepped on something!

You have killed a Lv.3 Muckwader! Due to having no class, you will gain SP instead of EXP.

I gained a whopping 3 SP for that. Although it is from something so weak that stepping on it killed it, so I guess that’s fair. Let’s bring up the bestiary to see what it does and looks like, because the one I stepped on is currently submerged in a thin layer of piss water that I do not want to stick my hand in.

It’s a lizard, all black with weird fins sticking out of all it's limbs and head. It also seems to have gills on it's stomach.

Muckwader

A 2nd stage lizard type creature that lives in highly toxic and moist environments. They have a special liver that stores clean water that they filter from their environment.

Fuck. I mean, this could sort out my clean water situation, but now I have to actually pick the damn thing up. I hold my breath and stick my hand into the muck to fish it out. I pull the lizard out, crushed head and all, while being thoroughly disgusted with myself. I dismantle it and get the liver, which is oddly durable and secure, although fleshy. It's kinda fun to hold and wiggle. I shove it into my bag and move on.

I can see the hallway coming to an end, opening up to a much bigger cavern. I’m approaching the chamber when I freeze. I hear a squeaking sound, followed by a fleshy RIIIP.

My peak around the corner, into the giant hall. It’s big enough to fit a four lane highway and the ceiling is… fucking tall. Don’t judge me, I can’t think of similes for everything. The cavern goes so far down both ways that I can’t see the end. The walls have pipes protruding from them, pouring sludge out by the gallon. The concoction of human waste drains into a large pool in the middle, which takes up most of the room. The pool itself seems relatively shallow, and moves at a lazy pace. There are sidewalks on both sides, average size, big enough for two friends to walk side by side while a third wheel awkwardly walks behind them. There’s also bridges connecting the two opposing ends, as well as stairs that lead down to the pool. I hope I’ll never have to use that last one.

But my biggest concern at the moment was the 3ft tall blackish-green rat currently munching what looks like the remains of a human. There’s not much left of the guy, the only reason I can tell it was ever a person is the torn clothes everywhere. There’s a puddle of blood beneath it that keeps expanding. I think it just killed this guy recently. My only saving grace is that it’s back is turned to me.

So now I find myself with two options. Fight or flee?