Will ran back up the stairs, and the level 24 serpent tried to follow. It was fast, he realized. Faster than him, probably, which made him glad that he had a head start on the stairs. He took them two at a time, watching his step to avoid any other spiderweb mishaps, and then he was safe—at least, he thought he was.

He chanced a glance over his shoulder just in time to get hit by a truck.

At least, that was what it felt like, though he was pretty sure trucks weren’t this wet. Or pink.

Oh, Will realized. That’s its tongue.

And then he hit the wall. His entire body exploded with pain as the serpent continued trying to shove its head through the doorframe. The building shuddered, but it held. Will remained still, biting down a scream, and the tongue flicked out again, searching for prey but missing.

The last time Will had broken a bone was when he was eleven years old. Then, he’d taken a nasty fall while sprinting the last segment of a mile, breaking his leg. He distinctly remembered his best friend at the time telling him to “man up” while Will’s leg had felt like it was on fire. When he had come back to school two days later on crutches, he’d pointedly not spoken to said friend for a week. It had been petty, but damn had it felt good.

Now, though, that pain radiated throughout his entire body, and there were no doctors here to put him back together. Even if there were, he would definitely die if he tried to face even a spider on crutches.

He hoped this next part would work.

“Store,” he croaked. Talking hurt when it felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest, but he managed.

The menu appeared, and he mentally selected Basic Health Potion, which cost 100 of his 529 coins. It hurt to see the number tick down so drastically, but he suspected that not buying it would hurt a lot more.

Just like the card, it appeared out of thin air. This time, though, Will actually saw it materialize. Pale white light flashed briefly in his hands, so lightly that he almost missed it, and then he held a single stoppered glass flask in one hand, full of cherry-red fluid.

The serpent slammed its head against the doorframe again, its tongue forking out in search of its prey. Once again, it missed, but this time Will could feel the warmth of the appendage when it passed above him.

How am I supposed to drink this? Will couldn’t move his arms.

He tried it anyway, and shooting pain lanced up his left arm. His fingers went numb.

Basic Health Potion

[DRINK or DISCARD]

The menu appeared suddenly, surprising Will. He selected DRINK.

He watched as the liquid in the flask vanished on its own, draining out of nowhere. When it was empty, the flask turned to dust as surely as the cards did.

And he felt his bones begin to mend. It was a weird sensation, but it felt good. Rejuvenating.

It stopped almost immediately.

Good thing I have more coins.

All told, it took three Basic Health Potions for him to feel normal again, bringing him down to 229 coins. They would heal more when they got more expensive, he was sure. He wondered how long it would take to unlock better ones in the store.

The serpent ended up losing interest eventually. While he was drinking his second potion, the big snake must have found something that smelled tastier and easier to get to, because it left while he was using the System to drink it.

Will actually drank the third one. It tasted like cherry soda, fizz and all. Not terrible.

As soon as he felt well enough to walk, he retreated back up the stairs. A quick check from the windows revealed that the level 24 monster was still hanging around the outside of the first floor. It was even larger than he’d thought it was.

“This is going to be a problem, isn’t it,” he muttered to himself. “Oh well.”

The System had assigned him a Hidden Event, which most likely meant the face-to-face confrontation with the boss had been a trigger for a pre-programmed event or something similar.

So now he had slightly more than three-quarters of a day to figure out how to kill something 23 levels higher than him before he died.

Maybe even less, depending on how long it took the snake to smash the building apart.

Okay. That sucked, and the time limit especially sucked, but it wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to. Harsh deadlines were an old friend.

“Man, I start having fun and you go and ruin it,” Will sighed. “You remind me of my fuckin’ boss.”

Predictably, the System did not respond. Oh well.

Looks like even the end of the world can’t free you from stupid-ass assignments.

Now that he knew what he was up against, he could see it from here. Looking out the third-story window revealed the snake’s length form down on the ground. It wasn’t curled up against Will’s office anymore—instead, it was assailing the neighboring one. As Will watched, a chunk of the other building collapsed, sliding down the face of the office as its supports were crushed by the snake’s body.

He sighed. It looked like he had some more time before the Earth Serpent smashed his building apart, but it was quite obviously able to knock them down.

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At least his briefcase was intact. That meant his extra deckboxes and drinks were intact, which meant he could grab another coffee.

As he sipped it, he considered his next moves. His mana regenerated within the first ten minutes, during which the serpent barely budged from his spot. After his level up, his maximum mana was up to 17. He supposed that was thanks to the automatic stat point assignment that the System had done for him.

Options, options, options. He had 229 coins left, which meant he could buy up to four cards or two potions.

It couldn’t hurt to at least try getting a new card, right? Fifty coins wasn’t that much in the grand scheme of things, based on what he’d seen.

You have purchased a Random F-Tier Card.

[Alarm (Basic) - lvl 1]

Cost: 5 mana

For when you wish to be undisturbed. Set an alarm against unwanted intrusion of a size up to 15 feet in radius. Lasts 8 hours. You will be alerted if a being enters the area. You may designate allies that will not trigger the Alarm.

Well, they were still F-Tier cards. It should’ve come as no surprise that some of them would be near useless.

That put a pin in the plan of buying three more cards, then. His current cards were solid—three offensive spells and one defensive one that could be Inverted to create a brief attack. Realistically, he wasn’t going to gather enough coins to buy another stat or skill point in the remaining 20 or so hours before Main Event 0 completed, so his options were F-Tier cards, G-Tier cards, and potions. He hadn’t tried getting a G-Tier card yet, but given the abysmally low cost and the fact that it was under F, he was sure they’d be garbage.

Then again, it was only a single coin.

You have purchased a Random G-Tier Card.

[Blood Boil (Inferior) - lvl 1]

Cost: 0 mana

Boils your own blood. Can burn opponents if you get lucky enough to die on them.

So Inferior corresponded with G-Tier, and Basic to F-Tier? Will wasn’t sure why the tiers and spells had different scales that meant the same thing, but he could deal.

Also, that confirmed that G-Tiers were probably useless. This one was worse than useless. It would kill him if he used it. At least he’d only wasted a single coin.

Well, one thing was for sure. Having more coins meant having more options. That meant he needed to kill something.

Fortunately for him, he definitely hadn’t cleared the building yet! He discovered as much when he checked the staircase and found another Hunter Spider waiting for him. This time, his draw got him Resonance Wave, which he found was extremely effective at disrupting the web. Since he started this fight at maximum mana, he was able to use Chill to finish off the spider before it could even try to spit venom at him.

It took him thirteen of his seventeen mana points to kill, though. Will was sure that later down the line, he would have the mana regeneration to make that completely worth it, but at this stage, that was far too much.

So he looked around in a storage closet and found a baseball bat instead.

Once he found that, it was much smoother sailing. Killing the spiders got pretty easy after a few, since they were super predictable, even the venomous, trap-laying Hunter Spiders. Within a couple of hours, he managed to get another 152 coins, bringing him up to 380 overall.

During the process, he also discovered that spells did level on their own, albeit slowly. He used Magic Missile and Chill enough times that they raised to level 2, though the other two stayed the same. Each of them gained slightly more effectiveness upon reaching the second level, which was much appreciated.

There were eight floors in total in this office building, and so long as that serpent didn’t budge, he wasn’t going to stop grinding. It was kind of sad that he couldn’t leave thanks to that thing, because Will really didn’t want to spend more time in the damned office, but at least he could level up while he was here.

After doing a full sweep of the staircases, he was convinced he’d cleared the second, third, and fourth floors of spiders, bringing his total coins back to around 500—he skipped the first floor to avoid any potential interactions with the earth serpent, which was still there.

For some reason, he still hadn’t leveled up. Maybe it was because he was still fighting the same kind of monster?

The sound of a window shattering at least two floors above him brought him back to attention while he was practicing his swings with the bat. The metal bat was stained with green blood now. Will made sure to wipe it off on something or wash it after most kills, but it was impossible to get all of it.

He checked his mana—15. Close enough to full that he was comfortable in creeping upwards, gripping the bat with both hands. Will left the briefcase at his cubicle, where he was entirely confident it would go unmolested.

The staircases were still clear, and a brief sweep of the fourth floor told him that there was nothing there either.

On the other hand, the yet-unexplored fifth floor revealed the first new enemy he’d seen since the serpent.

As soon as he opened the stairwell’s door, a screaming hairy creature dropped onto his head, grabbing onto his shoulders, nails piercing in painfully deep. Will couldn’t see thanks the the creature’s belly in his face, and he couldn’t hit the thing with the bat because it was literally on his head. He could, however, Identify it.

[Twisted Monkey [F] - lvl 3]

“Dr—“ Will started, but then the monkey clawed at his face, cutting him off. “Ow. Stop that.”

Draw, he thought as he spoke completely rationally, switching his grip on his bat to one hand. Bringing up the Hand menu was second nature at this point.

Resonance Wave. Shit. That wasn’t useable.

Discard. Draw.

Shield. That was more like it.

Invert. Will activated the card, sending the still-screeching monkey flying upwards. At the same time, he swung his bat underhand, aiming for the sky.

He felt a satisfying crunch, but no notification of an increase in coins.

Draw. Since he’d started with a full deck, he had either Magic Missile or Chill now. Both offensive cards.

It was Chill.

With the monkey off his head now, Will could see his target. It was one ugly bastard, and the blow he’d delivered to its face couldn’t have helped. Its fur was light brown and matted with a dull red.

Will added blue to the palette of colors, then struck again. With Chill taking effect, the monkey was brittle enough for him to shatter with a single hit. It broke apart into bloody chunks, and he whooped.

[You have received 21 coins!]

He had all of three seconds to celebrate his kill when another window shattered.

“Draw!” he shouted, adrenaline still pumping through his veins. He didn’t even have to look at his menu to know what it was. Magic Missile was the only one left in his deck.

Was it another monkey? Had they been climbing the office building? Will readied himself for another monster fight, scanning the ceiling above him in case another monkey tried to surprise him.

That made him all the less prepared to see another window shatter. This time, it was directly to his right, and he could see what had caused it.

A brick landed next to his feet.

That’s weird. Will shrugged. He’d seen weirder.

A dark figure the size of one of the spiders appeared in front of the window, and Will almost fired the Magic Missile on instinct.

But something was different about this one. It wasn’t attacking immediately, even though it’d seen him, and it was… flying?

The figure approached.

“Hi,” Will tried.

It sped up.

“Can I help you?” he continued. The excitement of the fight drained from his veins in an instant, as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over him.

The black figure stopped mid-air, and Will stepped backwards in confusion.

A crow stared back at him, perching on a knocked-over cubicle.

And then it opened its mouth and spoke. “Hi.”

Will stared at it for a second.

The bird talked.

“Who the fuck are you?” it asked.