CHAPTER 4: NEW WEAPON…?!

Rena

I stagger up, forcing myself to stand upright with my good arm. I break past the pain. And I dash towards my weapon.

Each step feels like a glacial chill. Devils from below bellowing, gnawing on my body, harvesting my blood and anguish.

A…A-almost there…

I attempt to leap forwards to cover the distance. But I put too much pressure on my right knee, and it begins to buckle, sending me tumbling down.

The jagged rocks probe at me.

And worst, I just left myself wide open.

The roach takes this opportunity to attack, and it swivels sideways to face me. Pouncing, it latches onto my leg. And begins tearing.

Shit! This seriously hurts—Arrgghhhh!!!! Did it just… rip off my foot?

Rena Shinohara has acquired skill [Pain Resistance Lv1]>

Shut up!

What good will that do?

This is seriously gonna be the stupidest, most wasted-potential death ever!

NO!!

If I can still fight, then it isn’t over yet!

I’ll make my own path to salvation even if I have to crawl the entire way!

…Okay, maybe not.

In a last ditch attempt, I jam my hand into the roach’s wounded area, and begin repetitively ripping and grasping, holding onto strands of muscle and flesh in an attempt to tear them away.

Every emotion. From twenty years of solitude. All released at once.

I hear another snap, and the roach roars in pain—only for its voice to crack as I rip at another strand of material.

I go on again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

Soon, my rage begins to cool down. But I keep on hitting. I ignore the pained clicks and screeches coming from the roach laying on the floor spasming.

I can’t show any mercy. Or else I’ll die. I keep on tearing. And I don’t stop. Not until I feel my consciousness begin to slip away.

Only then, do I slow down.

I feel my eyes roll back, showing only the whites.

All basic attributes increased.

Level up proficiency acquired.

Proficiency has reached required level.

Skill [Pain resistance Lv1] has become [Pain resistance Lv2]

Skill Points acquired.

Skill Points doubled as [Hero] bonus.

Combat Points acquired.

Combat Points doubled as [Hero] bonus.

50% of max health recovered.

Additional 50% of max health has been recovered as hero bonus.>

The voice whispers inside my head—an ethereal chant. The words seep, wisping around like wicked willows.

My fuzzy, shaky vision begins to stabilise. I feel flesh click back in place, and strands of interwoven muscles coalesce.

I gasp for breath, and begin wheezing maniacally. But not long after, my thoughts begin to stabilise again.

To be honest, it feels pretty weird.

But I don’t have time to worry about that.

Because right now, I’m processing all the information given to me by the system.

So… I got half my health healed, some ‘Skill Points,’ and some ‘Combat Points’. Then, they all got doubled because of my heroic exploit.

Wait… no, that doesn’t add up correctly.

The system said ‘[Hero],’ as in a skill…? Or… maybe a class? Right, a class would make more sense. Or maybe a title?

Well, doesn’t matter what it was, all I know is that I had [Hero] something, but it got yoinked away.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

[Hero]—gone. Just like my fathe- WHAT?!

Wait- HUH!? SO YOU'RE SAYING EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE PRIVILEGE ONWARDS WAS JUST REVOKED?

Though I still got the doublers this time. But from now on… I’m normal…?

Sure, if you put it that way, I sound pretty spoiled.

But seriously, what good is an isekai without any good buffs or advantages to use as a stepping stone?

I lost all my stuff? What even is with this stupid ‘[Hero]’ gig anyways? To be honest, I’ve lost so many perks and items to it, that it literally feels subhuman! My rights are getting revoked!

Seriously? W…what the hell?

I lost epic and insanely overpowered loot!

What even is a ‘[Hero]’? Nothing about this feels human! Discrimination! This is discrimination!

1. Want. My. Privileges!

Is that too much of a request to ask for?! This isn’t fair, not in the slightest bit! Why is this so scuffed? Huh?

Cough it up and tell me.

Maybe it would be better if I never had the [Hero] class to begin with?

Oh. And sorry for the prior outburst.

I know I gave some sort of lottery analogy beforehand, but this is a bit different.

Alright. Think about it this way.

Who would you feel more sorry for? A young, talented kid with a bright future ending up homeless and living on the streets, or some delinquent junkie who ends up on the streets?

Obviously the kid with potential.

The more you gain, the more you lose.

I think I just waffled out a really nice quote!

Starting off at one hundred and falling down to zero would be heaps worse than starting off at one and falling down to zero.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Really, I’m just being greedy. I should be content that I even got a [Hero] buff for one level-up.

But…

Argh, dammit.

This feels…

Forget about it.

I’m happy, right?

Yep!

Glad I got at least something out of this!

Yay!

Well, end of the story!

Yipee!

Ugh.

I always seem to have this habit of getting lost in thought and letting my mind wonder. I mean, I know my current situation is pretty dire—If I struggled this much on a single roach, how will I ever be able to deal with the dungeon as a whole?

I should take this to heart and get serious.

Though, maybe this mental aloofness of mine could be considered a saving grace. No normal person would be able to stay sane in my situation. Not at all.

Yet, I’m still all calm, sanguine, and… uh, Buddha-like despite the circumstances. Why?

Cause I allow myself to get distracted from reality…

… Putting it that way, this bad habit might be a good thing?

Crap.

See? Here I go again, thinking about copious amounts of useless stuff that in no way benefit me.

Okay, veered a bit off track, but that’s alright.

Let’s get this mission started!

Mission 01: Survive the night.

Or something like that. That roach nearly meant the end of me. But if I don’t get taken by surprise, I feel like I should be able to fend off a roach one-on-one.

If I get jumped by multiple roaches?

…Yeah, no way am I gonna get out of that alive.

All I can do is pray to Lady Luck and hope it doesn’t end up like that.

Not that Lady Luck smiled down on me or whatever these past few hours. I mean—all of this is a tad too much, even for me. Getting randomly reincarnated, attacked by a group of rabid chihuahuas, entering a dungeon full of hostile monsters before finally fighting a gigantic, mutant roach that probably had seven foreign, unseen diseases that can transfer on touch?

Really?!

Haha… the outside world sure is scary. Makes me want to hole back up in my room and chug some energy drinks…! Who said anything about decency?

I wanna go back and grind online dungeons and slay some online dungeon bosses. Though, I certainly don’t want to be running into boss monsters this time round.

My life is literally on the line!

…

As I said before, I’m really glad it was just one roach. If I do face multiple roaches at once though… well… sayonara, see you on the other side. If I’m lucky, maybe I get re-reincarnated back to Earth?

I could go back to grinding on the leaderboard.

For all I know, time could travel differently or something, and a year here is a second on Earth. Or maybe it’s the other way around? Conversely, one second here could be an hour on Earth. If so, I guess I’ll never see myself on the leaderboard again.

Competition is too grindy.

Everything went downhill as soon as the roach struck first.

If I can strike first, things should turn out less… gory.

The stick also ended up saving my life. I’m so thankful I didn’t throw it away! Sorry for dissing you before, Mr. Stick! I love you! Not romantically, of course.

Five attack stat for the win!

Well, that said, did I get stronger after levelling up? I guess I’ll also use this opportunity to see if anything else interesting happened.

Alright, time to go ask the go-to-guy, [Appraisal]!

“[Appraise]!”

Name: Rena Shinohara

Level: 2 Rank: F Class: None>

Well, there doesn't seem to be any visible changes, apart from the increase in level, which was expected considering the system message literally said ‘You just levelled up from one to two’

Never mind what I said before about [Appraisal] being a go-to-guy. It's actually a… useless skill, isn’t it?

I mean, [Appraisal] doesn’t even show me my other skills—I know I have [Pain Resistance], so I can use that as a sort of control to test some functions of [Appraisal].

Talking about those two skills, I haven’t found anything else I can use apart from [Appraisal], since [Pain Resistance] seems to activate only when I feel the corresponding attribute. Either that, or [Pain Resistance] is passive, and is active the entire time; even now.

That said, it means I can’t actually test out or train any of my current skills. Not really.

U-unless if I hit myself a bunch of times to level up [Pain Resistance].

Whoa. Am I a genius or what? Talk about a genius!

That way, I can improve my defensive capabilities… well, at least I can improve my resistance to pain, which therefore will lead to my defensive capabilities getting better. I can also improve my offensive abilities by trying out new techniques and stuff.

Talk about killing two birds with stone!

…Except, hitting myself obviously means that I’ll take damage—meaning that I’ll be in a weakened state until I level up and get a fifty percent health recovery. Which means, if another roach shows up after I cripple myself…

Nope, never mind. Talk about a short-lived plan.

Still though, I feel like I got the right idea. I have to prepare for the next battle if I want to increase my chances of survival and get marginally stronger in a short period of time.

I could use some better gear to be honest…

I reluctantly scooch over to the roach—ignoring the yucky stuff—and salvage its corpse meticulously, hoping to find some stuff that could be of use.

And believe it or not, I don’t even have to search for long. Why, you ask?

Just a single glance at the roach gives it away. Some certain parts literally scream the word ‘WEAPON!’.

Namely, the roach’s legs.

It never occurred to me before, since I was fighting with my life on the line and all, but these legs have these weird, spiky prods all over them. These outrank the stick for sure.

Oh yeah, it’s time for an upgrade!

[Appraisal], do your thing!

Damage: 15 Durability: 150 Resistance: 10

Specials: None>

H-hey…

When I asked for an upgrade…

I didn’t mean it like that.

This sure is… surprising.

Not in a bad way though.

It’s just, these stats are way over the top!

Compared to the stick, of course.

Was the roach too strong, or was the stick too weak?

The latter. Hopefully.

But now I’ve got another question.

If memory serves right, the roach was rank D, right? So why did the roach leg get a downgrade and fall to rank F?

I don’t think I got gaslit, so what’s going on?

How does that work?

Alright, time to think.

Well, when I think about it, the roach didn’t actually use its legs when fighting against me. Instead, it was mostly biting me and chomping around.

So, maybe different parts of the body have different stats?

Say, the roach’s mouth was a higher rank than its legs. If so, then the ‘rank D’ I saw before was probably an average of its total body parts.

I don’t think that would work very well though.

If every single body part is ranked differently and the [Appraisal] results show an average of them combined, I think it would be too complicated.

I mean, how do you define a body part? Where does the head end and where does the neck start? And to measure that to utmost precision?

Nah, I don’t buy it.

Well, I might as well try something out just to confirm if I’m correct or not.

Damage: 25 Durability: 200 Resistance: 15

Specials: None>

Yeah, just like I thought. The mouth also ranked down. Its stats are better than the legs, but…

No way am I gonna carry a decapitated roach head around with me. How would I even fight like that?

For convenience's sake, I’ll just stick with the legs. I’ll also [Appraise] the roach as a whole.

Unnamed

Level: 7 Rank: F Class: None>

Just as I thought. The entire thing was downgraded. How the heck did it lose a rank though?

Unless I have the memory of a goldfish, this guy was ranked D—for sure.

Am I incognizant and forgetful?

I don’t think so… I hope not, at least.

Which means the roach really did lose a rank…!

How on Earth did that happen?

Maybe because the roach died, it's then considered less powerful? Sure, the roach’s body is still intact. Mostly. Meaning that its body is just as strong as it was a few minutes ago when it was still beating me up.

But the roach can’t attack me now, can it?

If I were to dump this into another analogy, I think the roach would be some sort of futuristic battle mecha. The robot is dangerous and all, but without energy, what good can it do? Sure, the bot retains all of its missiles, nuclear launch codes and whatever else, but without the fuel to use them, the mecha would just be like any lump of metal.

If it can’t attack, the only thing that remains the same are its pure defensive abilities, like the density of the armour or something.

Makes sense?

So since the roach can’t even do anything, it got ranked down.

Still, I find it hard to believe that I got a better weapon so fast.

Its damage is threefold that of the stick! Threefold!

Times three more!

I said it ‘three’ three times because… never mind.

Forget about me saying the dodgy stick was my lifeline a few minutes ago. If some random monster drops outrank it, then what good was it?

I can’t believe I was literally worshipping it a few minutes ago.

Haha… call me ungrateful or unloyal if you want, but I prioritise myself first and foremost! I’ll ditch a crappy weapon any day for a better one…

Well… Watch out, roaches!

Here I come!