It stood over nine feet tall, and had to duck down to clear the archway when it squeezed through. The bed frames got shoved aside with such ease that they might have well been made of cardboard.

I recognized what this beast was supposed to be too.

Bloodred eyes peered down at me over a pig-like snout of a nose, with two tusks poking up from its mouth. Its skin was a mottled green, nearly brown, and it wore thick leather over its body. I could see muscle bulge under its skin as it moved. It looked me up and down, like a jungle cat eying a field mouse, before it grinned.

Then the ogre roared again.

My heart began to pound in my chest as I took aim at its chest and fired. My first round struck it right where the heart should be, and I could see a trickle of blood begin to drip down. The ogre’s eyes widened, as if it wasn’t expecting the sudden pain, and its hand patted at the wound, staring at the blood on its fingers.

“Come on fucker, fall over.”

Its eyes darted back to me, and it started walking forward. Another round pierced next to the first, and it didn’t slow down. A third round was equally unuseful. Four rounds. Five. A sixth round in the leg made it stumble, but it just smiled as it kept approaching.

I fired a seventh round, this time into its shoulder, and felt the blood drain from my face when the bolt locked back. This thing had tanked seven rounds of 5.56 and looked as if it was the same as being bitten by seven mosquitos. An annoyance, nothing more. That’s what I was to this beast. I was a pest.

And pests get squished.

It towered over me, staring down as if gloating. Challenging me to try anything else.

“Go ahead” I heard its imaginary voice tell me.

“Go ahead and give it another go.”

It watched patiently as I drew my handgun with a shaking hand and inserted a full mag. Its head tilted like a puzzled dog as I leveled the now loaded gun at its face.

I shot it right in the goddamned eye.

And all I accomplished was pissing it off.

Its head reared back as it roared in pain, the mosquito had stung its eye and could no longer be ignored. Dust drifted down from the ceiling, the bedframes toppled over, and my head felt like it was going to split open. Thank god for my ear-pro, or my brain might’ve liquified at such a noise. Its hand swung out at me, and I ducked down just in time to dodge it. I fired again as I dived, bouncing a 124gr JHP off of its impenetrable skull.

Its fist hit the wall behind me with enough force to shatter the stone, chunks of it scattered. I didn’t stop moving, rushing past before it could wind up another swing. While I passed its knee, I fired a few rounds into the joint, hoping it might buckle, but the big bastard took it like a toddler was kicking his shin in a tantrum. I made it past him, and thought I had a clear run to the door, but alas, I was wrong.

He turned with speed I’d never expected from such a large frame, and his foot kicked me square in the side. I flew sideways in a spin, and slammed back-first into the opposite wall. Even as I slid down onto the floor, I could hear the sides of my plates crunching, the armor had been pulverized on that side. The jolt of pain when I tried to move told me a few ribs had been broken too.

It gave me no chance to recover, already walking toward me to exact revenge. My handgun had ended up twenty feet away, and in my condition I’d never make it there in time. My rifle was still slung across my chest, and by pure luck a single live round had rolled across the floor and came to a rest right by my side.

I grabbed it and shoved it directly in the chamber, manually single-loading, slammed the back of the stock into the floor to drop the bolt, and aimed for the ogre’s head.

Well, that was the plan at least. In the time it had taken for me to load that single hail-mary round, the thing had crossed the room and was looming over me. As I took aim it grabbed the end of the barrel and pushed it aside, my round went off into its palm, pissing it off even more.

It pulled on the rifle, and with it still slung to me I was pulled along for the ride. It grabbed the receiver in its other hand.

I got to stand and watch in horror as its hands began to twist. The barrel, made of 4140 steel, bent sideways. The upper receiver snapped free of the lower, and he threw the whole upper assembly to the side. Then the fucking thing grinned at me.

“Ha ha, I broke your toy,” I heard that imaginary voice say. I tried to pull away, to push through the pain and run, but it still had an iron grip on the lower receiver, and before I could detach the sling it grabbed me in a bear hug.

I was pulled into its chest, and then it began to squeeze.

My right arm was pinned to my side. I felt my humerus shatter. In my whole life up to that point, I had never felt pain like I did in that moment.

I’ve been stung by stingrays. I’ve been pepper sprayed more than once. I have been stabbed, set on fire, my foot ran over by a car. Fallen down stairs and ladders. More than a few concussions.

I’d never actually broken a bone, until then. As I began to scream, the bastard just laughed. Its awful breath hit my nose.

My left arm was still free to move, and I started reaching for the one weapon I still had on me. Even as I was fumbling for it, I could hear my rear and front plates start to crack, he did his best impression of a boa constrictor. I couldn’t breathe.

By the time my ka-bar had been freed from its sheath, blood was dripping from my mouth. I think more than a few of my broken ribs were puncturing something.

I was certain that I was going to die right there in that room. I would die, but I was going to give that fucker hell right up until I faded to black.

My uncle had a poem he loved, he quoted it to me frequently. I remember it well.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,”

I raised the knife up, and the ogre eyeballed it, seemingly impressed by my tenacity.

“Old age should burn and rave at close of day,”

It roared in my face as it squeezed tighter, my plates finally shattered.

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

I mustered all the strength I had left, and drove my knife into the side of its neck.

The ogre refused to let me go, even while it thrashed around the room in pain. The tip of the blade had gone in barely an inch, its neck was too thick with muscle, nearly nine inches wide. I’d need to go deeper if I wanted to do any real damage.

So I pulled the knife free and stabbed it again.

And again.

Each time I plunged the knife into it, I aimed for the same spot, going a bit further each time but my stabs were growing weaker as I was quickly losing my fight with oxygen deprivation. Its dark purple blood was pouring down my arm, but by the time it bled out from these wounds I’d be long dead.

All it had to do was endure the pain, squeeze my life out of me, and then wander off into the tunnels to bleed out or get help. Instead, it made a grave mistake. It slammed into the wall. I think that it was trying to break my grip on the knife, or break the weapon itself, but it happened to line up perfectly. Instead of my feeble last stab, the knife was driven into its throat with the full force of the ogre’s body weight being thrown into it. With the hilt firmly against the stone wall.

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Its last defiant roar died in its throat, replaced by a waterfall of purple as its blood rushed out with each beat of its heart. Its grip loosened a bit, and it collapsed.

Right on top of me.

Now, instead of being squeezed to death, I was going to die from having a dead body the weight of a boulder crushing me slowly.

I wasn’t aware that I had descended from Giles Corey.

Thankfully, I blacked out before we both hit the ground. I wasn’t going to have to experience it.

When my eyes finally opened again, all I could see was all-consuming darkness, and for a moment I thought that I had died. A jolt of pain from my broken arm and ribs reminded me that I was still quite alive. The fact that I could breathe, though painfully, let me know that I wasn’t being crushed by the ogres body. I patted around my chest, and my finger brushed against something warm and hard. A warm feeling rushed through me, which ceased the moment I pulled my hand away.

While it didn’t help mitigate the pain, it still felt better than without, and the coldness of the dungeon was made that much worse by my blood loss. I firmly grabbed what felt like a rock, and let the warmth comfort me. Along the floor I began to crawl, pushing brass out of the way as I blindly searched for my backpack. I finally found it, around twenty feet away. It sucked to let go of my magical warm rock, but I needed a hand free as I pulled things out of the pockets, feeling them until I found what I wanted.

My portable charger had a distinct shape, and I fumbled around it until I found the button and pushed it. The room lit up with the bright flashlight, and I had to aim it away from my face. I could finally see again.

That’s when I learned that the blue crystals only glow when other light is present. That's also when I learned that the magic warm rock in my hand was a blue crystal the size of my fist.

My first reaction was to chuck it across the room, but something inside me stopped my hand. It just felt right in my hand. Natural even. It was like I was holding a part of me that had been separated long ago, and now it was back. It was outside knocking on the door. Waiting for me to let it in for our grand reunion.

So I did.

The soft inner glow of it began to intensify, outshining even my light, and for a second I thought I had made a dire mistake, until the light subsided, and my hand was left clenched around nothing. The crystal had vanished.

First absorption of Soul Crystal confirmed, Congratulations!

What?

The words hung in the air right before my eyes in a golden font, and I instinctively batted at them with my good hand.

Soul Crystal exceeds the minimum amount of soul energy to initiate the System, please wait.

What the hell was going on? Was I hallucinating now from the blood loss?

System successfully initiated. Excess soul energy has been retained and applied toward the next level.

“The hell is that supposed to mean! I don’t understand!”

To open the Status window, think or say “Status”.

Status?

A transparent window faded into view. Like I was staring at a menu in a video game.

Name: James Rogers

Class: Unassigned

Level: 1

Soul Energy: 8/10

Aura: 0%

Stamina: 25/100

Mana: 0/0

Strength: -

Endurance: -

Intellect: -

Wisdom: -

Dexterity: -

Curses: None

Boons: None

Debuffs:

Critical Injuries: Aura will not regenerate until injuries have been healed. Stamina regeneration reduced to 10%.

Abilities: None

Actually, it felt more like I was staring at a tabletop character sheet. At the top of the ethereal window was two more options

Equipment

Inventory

Wondering why it was stricken out, I tried to select the Inventory.

No valid inventory item detected.

Was it some sort of isekai item box? That’d be useful as hell, but it didn’t work. I opened my Equipment instead.

Worn Equipment:

Head: ᕕ´›æ´˘≥ œ˘¿›˘ı (Stats unknown)

Eyes: ᵛ˘ɲı˘≥ 𝖡æ𝖡𝖡¿˘ϐ (Stats unknown)

Arms: µææ≥°˘ (Stats unknown)

Hands: †æ´« 𝖡¿æᵛ˘ϐ (Stats unknown)

Torso: ”¿Әı˘ ˆӘ´´°˘´ (Stats unknown)

Legs: 𝈇¿¢˘ ±˘Әɲϐ (Stats unknown)

Feet: Boots of The Traveler, -5% Stamina drain, +5% Stamina gain

Underclothes: ı-ϐµ°´ı (Stats unknown)

Inventory: None

Accessories: None

Weapons:

None Detected

It looked like this “System” didn’t like my stuff. Everything except the boots I had found earlier looked like corrupted data on the screen. Even when I retrieved my handgun and my knife, they both didn’t register with it as weapons. It was good that my first aid kit had painkillers, even if they were only low-strength advil. Better than nothing. The cool water also felt heavenly. I finally thought to check my stopwatch, only to find it with a shattered screen. It was dead.

Once the pain relief had set in a bit, I was able to walk around, but breathing was still awfully painful. My rifle, or part of it I should say, had landed in the corner. The flashlight was busted, my red-dot crushed. It took a few minutes with my multitool, but I managed to get them pried off, I’d see if that “no questions asked” warranty would pan out. My rifle upper, it went into my backpack. No way was I leaving that behind for the dungeon to eat, or the goblins to steal (if that was what had happened to the tape).

I grabbed my empty mags as well.

Then there was all the gold everywhere.

It took forever, between it being painful to crouch, or to walk, or to lean over, to collect every piece of it along with the equal amount of crystals. My tupperware was completely full. I counted forty three of each. Now that I finally realized what the crystals were used for, I took one out and held it with my bare hand.

Absorb Soul Crystal?

“Yes,” I thought to myself.

It flashed brightly, then disappeared.

Gained 1 Soul Energy, 9/10

I was honestly upset with myself now, for not collecting more of the crystals yesterday, but oh well. Hindsight is 20/20 I hear.

I shoved my hand into the tupperware.

Absorb Soul Crystals?

Duh.

Gained 51 Soul Energy, 60/10

Level threshold has been met. Would you like to level up?

Oh fuck yes.

In a lot of video games you get a full heal when you level. If I could get that, it’d make getting home that much easier. My body lit up with a soft golden glow as a wave of warmth flooded me. Seconds later it died down, and I checked my status.

Class: Unassigned

Level: 2

Soul Energy: 50/15 (Level Up Available)

1 point assignable

Unfortunately I didn’t get healed. But I had another idea. I focused on the word Strength in the menu.

Strength: A measure of one’s physical might. This affects how hard you can hit and how much you can lift.

Neat, now Endurance

Endurance: A measure of one’s ability to resist harm. This affects how much pain you feel, disease and poison resistance, and rate of bleeding.

That's what I needed. I imagined there was a little arrow next to the number, and willed it to go up.

Endurance: - -> 1

Confirm?

Yes for the love of god.

My body glowed gold again, and when it returned to normal I could already feel the difference. If the Advil had been a shot glass, a point in Endurance was like a full cup. I figured there was no reason not to level up here and now, and dump my points into Endurance so I could stumble home.

Level: 3

Soul Energy: 35/25 (Level Up Available)

1 points assignable

Level: 4

Soul Energy: 10/40

2 points assignable

Endurance: 1 -> 3

Confirm?

Later, when my ribs weren’t tearing into squishy bits of me, I’d level everything else, but god I need that pain relief now. When the glow died down it was like night and day. I don’t have an exact metric for you, but I’d say it was about 30% less? At the very least I could breathe more comfortably, and walk.

That was the most important part.

It didn’t feel like the walk home was going to kill me anymore.

My attention finally turned back to the thing that started this whole mess. The treasure chest.

It looked different than it had earlier. The old mossy wood had been replaced with glossy stained walnut, the steel banding was shining. The lock was reattached, but not secured. It was like someone had straight up replaced it while I was unconscious. I poke it with the crowbar a few times, marring the finish a little, but nothing happened.

Then I pried it open.

A soft golden glow emanated from inside, as three yellow gems floated out and upward to hover a foot above the chest. Citrine I think? Topaz maybe? Whatever they were, they glowed softly whenever my hand got near them.

Congratulations, please select an Ability Stone.