"Kkurrek."

The tables had been turned.

The creature who had been chasing me began to run away.

I thought the thing was quite despicable.

Everything here was busy trying not to starve to death.

How dare it try to pull rank here?

"Grrrrrrrrrrrr!"

I crawled towards it and bit down on its tail.

"Kurreh!"

The creature screeched as if to begging me to spare its life.

However, I would neither spare it, nor eat it.

Although I was in hot water myself, wasn't it just a buglike creature like me?

"Greeeech!"

Crumble.

Eventually, after some time, the creature starved to death and crumbled.

[Activate Power 1 - Learning Rate 1000%]

I quickly rolled sideways and started eating again.

I didn't want to waste a moment.

[Level Up!] [Lv.367 / Power: 0.0367]

My feasting frenzy continued.

Leveling up was my sole source of joy.

I thought about the creature that I had made sure starved to death.

I didn't feel any remorse, nor did I feel good about it.

In fact, I was apathetic.

Was it because it wasn't human?

[Mirror Quest - Enter the Rich Pit]

[Mirror quests: Night Colored quests reward the day, and Day Colored quests reward the night. Do your best to complete them. It may have a direct impact on your survival]

The Mobius Superstring interrupted my one-dimensional goal of becoming superior through constant consumption.

I thought it couldn't get any more extreme than it already had, but now a quest that would affect the daytime had appeared.

"Ggurek."

I rolled my eye, having only one, and ate the waste.

The Mirror Quest relayed a lot of information to me.

Until now, the Mobius Superstring, a vague being that proved the possibility that I hadn't gone mad, was the only thing connecting my day to the night.

Now, the Mirror Quest told me that I had an opportunity to change each reality.

With this, I had two opportunities.

One, an opportunity to discover traces of the nighttime during the day.

Two, an opportunity to experience supernatural phenomena like my three powers, during the day.

"Kkuruk!"

It would no longer be about trying to escape the agony of the night.

I would be able to actively use Mobius Superstring during the day.

The day would affect the night, and the night would benefit from the day.

[Level Up!] [Lv.512 / Power: 0.0512]

I continued to eat and grew like crazy.

In a way, eating had become a source of such ecstasy that I found myself feeling bad that the night was ending.

My body getting bigger and stronger and the hope of someday reaching the second floor made me want to live even more now.

"Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

"Ggurek!"

I did not hesitate when my eating routes clashed with another creature and a fight broke out.

[Activate Power 2 - Awakening]

"Greeeeech!"

I swallowed the fleeing monster in one gulp and digested it.

As expected, it was not as painful or disgusting as eating filth.

[Level Up!] [Lv.536 / Power: 0.0536]

"Grrrrrrrrrrrrr."

I no longer had to only eat this muck.

I realized I was supposed to consume these creatures.

[Time left to survive: 58s]

As if to confirm my suspicions, the time limit reset, just like it did when I ate some excrement.

"Kururrr..."

However, I couldn't put it to action immediately.

Even though they were creatures that were no better than bugs, weren't they the same as I was?

If they were humans, I would be considered a cannibal.

For now, they were just insects that only knew their instinctual hierarchy but it was likely that I would meet intelligent creatures, like the figures from the 130th floor, as I ascended.

[Level Up!] [Lv.539 / Power: 0.0539]

I continued to eat the filth and controlled my thoughts. I had to live as a human in the daytime, and anyways, I was essentially a human being.

If I became comfortable with the idea of becoming a cannibal, I wouldn't be able to stay sane.

"Grrrrrrup."

Therefore, I decided to form my own .

On the first floor, I will only consume another creature if they attack me.

I would only consume regular matter otherwise.

That was the only way to keep me from going insane.

Having to live as a monster during the night was traumatic enough for a regular person.

I did not need to add to it.

"Kkuruk."

[Level Up!] [Lv.611 / Power: 0.0611]

[Karmon - 1st floor - Rank 761,638,812]

After a few more hours, I felt the dungeon become a little colder.

From my experience, that meant that the night was almost over, and I would open my eyes as a human again.

"Gruuuu."

I had not completed the Mirror Quest yet.

Forget entering the Rich Pit, I hadn't even been able to discover it.

My rank was still in the seven hundred millions.

While I could just wait for the next night, I felt impatient.

"Kurughh."

I looked around for matter that would be much more convenient to consume than this junk.

I spotted a creature nearby me. It would give me more experience than eating waste.

"Grrrrrrr!"

Just this once, I decided to go against the I had set.

Doesn't that sound like a lame excuses from a drug addict?

I suppose I was high on a drug called 'growth.'

Just this one... time.

[Target - 1st floor - Rank 1,071,280,231]

Anything I ate while [Awakened] was not subject to [Learning Rate 1000%].

The creature I devoured had given me quite a lot of experience.

"Kurachhhe!"

I started to consume all of the creatures around me without remorse.

I could look up their ranks and picked only the ones weaker than me.

My growth was exponential, devouring them while under [Learning Rate 1000%].

I felt very guilty.

But I wanted to get off the first floor as soon as possible.

And I desperately wanted to complete the Mirror Quest before the night was over.

I thought I would go mad during the day, waiting for night to come, if I didn't complete it now.

Therefore, I put my aside for a while.

[Level Up!] [Lv.2611 / Power: 0.2611]

[Karmon - 1st floor - Rank 3,638,812]

It was an explosive growth.

My body had grown larger and was more defined, splitting into two connected parts.

My crawling had become much more natural, aided by the section's contracting and expanding. This growth had only taken twenty minutes.

"Kuru."

It was indeed a strange situation.

The despicable act of cannibalism had been the catalyst for such aggressive growth.

I looked around the first floor at the creatures that were busily eating to survive.

Yeah.

I ate as much meat as I wanted even when I was in human form.

I was trapped in a body like theirs, it didn't mean that I was really a monster like them.

"KRRRREEEEEEEECCCHHH!"

I continued to feed on these creatures with these flimsy excuses.

I would grow rapidly with each passing second and the numbers on my Character Stats rose fiercely.

"Grraaak!"

"Gkrrrrrrr!"

I wondered if this was how predators felt.

Seeing the numerous creatures disappear down my gullet, I was filled with a kind of melancholy and a peculiar sense of superiority.

However, those trivial feelings were easily overshadowed by the ecstasy of growth.

[Level Up!] [Lv.8274 / Power: 0.8274]

[Karmon - 1st floor - Rank 101]

[Natural Awakening - You have unlocked dormant genes through extreme physical capabilities. You can now communicate through pheromones!]

Finally, at the end of my wild gluttony, I could see my goal.

I realized that there was a way to communicate on the first floor.

Pheromone communication.

I decided to stop the cannibalism.

I had a strong feeling that it would become impossible to go back from it if I continued any longer.

"Gkrrrrrrrr,"

I continued to consume the garbage as I walked around the first floor.

The first floor was so wide that I could not see the walls on any side.

I thought as hard as I could. Where would the top dogs of this floor congregate?

Of course, they would be where the food was most plentiful.

"Kkuruk!"

I followed the path towards the stinkiest, most disgusting, and densest pile of filth.

My speed had improved quite a bit now, so I was able to cover a good distance.

I found the largest waterfall of filth, pouring down from a hole in the ceiling, on all of first floor.

I heard something like a voice for the first time.

My brain began to itch.

-Really. Giants from the 130th floor came down and killed a bunch of our comrades.

-No way. The 130th floor? Not even the dwellers from the second floor want to come here.

-Believe it or not.

-What if they return?

I quickly crawled towards the ceiling hole.

The Mobius Superstring spoke in a sickly sweet voice.

[Mirror Quest Complete. You have discovered the Rich Pit]

My vision grew black before I could say a word to the beings in the Rich Pit. My night had come to an end.

*

I opened my eyes and could feel my regular arms and legs.

I woke up drenched in sweat and saw I was back in my scrawny, uninteresting body.

every time I opened my eyes in the morning, I could feel the marks the agonizing nighttime had left on my body.

I would wake up with an uncontrollable hunger and emptiness.

I began to devour the expired convenience store food that I had put aside before I went to bed. It was just instant food, but seeing as it was not the disgusting excrement, it was delicious.

I became full fairly quickly, but the feeling of emptiness had not subsided.

Which is why I continued to shove the food in my mouth.

"Whew."

I felt at peace after eating like a pig.

"Hm! Ah, ah."

Because I could not speak during the night, I would always talk after bingeing on food, once it was day.

"Mobius Superstring."

It felt refreshing to be able to talk after a long time.

Then again, I had gained the ability to communicate during the night.

For the first time, I began to get curious about the night.

It would be the first time that I would be able to talk to something that wasn't the Mobius Superstring.

Not to mention that they were the Rich Pit residents, the highest-ranking creatures on the first floor.

I couldn't help but be intrigued.

[As a reward for completing the Mirror Quest successfully, the Mobius Superstring will be activated during the day]

[You can use the Rank Instinct during the day! You will be able to tell your rank in specific communities. It will be visible to you alone. Look at the red dot above a person's head to see their rank]

[Ability Learned! Power Trip: You will be able to order someone with a lower rank than yours. The action will consume Superiority Points, and the order will be absolute]

[You will be able to earn Superiority Points by fulfilling Mobius requirements]

The Mobius Superstring let out a storm of information.

It had been worth it to endure the dirty feeling of cannibalizing those creatures.

My days would no longer be filled with boring experiences of going to cram school and working at the convenience store.

Everything would be different, like it was in the dungeon, at night.

Power Trip.

To think I would be able to give absolute orders to people.

I don't know how many people could possibly be lower than me, but that will also change.

"Ugh."

I lifted my stiff, aching body and took a quick shower before changing into a fresh pair of clothes.