I tapped the holographic screen in disbelief, wondering it was a glitch. But no, it merely kept in place, the 100 flickering with every tap of my fingertip. Was this the help of the cloaked figure?

“Yusen?”

I snapped out of my stupor and looked over to Maya, who was tugging at my sleeve. Worry and confusion covered her face. She had gotten the same popup as me and was currently looking at her screen, which for me was blurred.

“It looks like one of those screens from your MMO, Fake Fantasy? Try tapping some of the buttons.”

I am a terrible liar, I know that. But I could only pray to the lies of a god that the situation would blind Maya from my blatant attempt to distract her for only a moment. And seeing her brows furrow as her hand shakily reached for the translucent screen, it had worked.

‘Now what do I do with these points.’

I could do the easy way and just, put them all into one category. Or spread them out evenly across the board for a better chance at survival all round. But I felt myself hesitate. This time I didn’t want a sponsor, which was as you would have guessed. A Divine Idol who sponsors you through the trials. Other users would rely on these sponsors and dance to their tune for assistance.

On one hand it was extremely useful, allowing you to obtain rare items and money. But on the other, you would find yourself completely reliant on your sponsor. Those who were lucky got ones that would stick with them as long as they did what they liked, others would bring them father into the trials before abandoning them. Watching them die and struggle like baby birds fallen out of the nest too early.

‘Ill just spend a few and save the rest for emergency.’

Generally speaking, a normal person would start out with 5 attribute points. 5 Attribute points with 5 categories. Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Stamina, and Wisdom. In the beginning I had thought that putting one in each would be best, after all a jack of all trades a master of none is often times better than master of one.

“Yusen, what do I do with these.”

Drawing my attention back to her, Maya leaned over to show me her screen, the blur lifting. She was pointing at the attribute points that she had, a 5 sitting right where its suppose to be.

“Hmmm, just choose one that sounds good and put them in.”

Maya nodded and went back to thinking. In truth, any of the five besides wisdom would be useful with 5 points in. Although it seems like nothing, the introductory trial was still difficult. I trusted Maya with her choices. She was smart and precise even though she was young. At the moment, she was no longer shaking, her eyes were clear and she seemed to be deep in thought. Pride tugged at my heart and a smile crept onto my mouth.

‘On the other hand…’

It would be best if I chose one attribute as well and just put 5 points into it, but it felt like a waste of an opportunity. It wasn’t as if the Divine Idols could actually see users status boards.

‘That means….’

My decision clear, I put 5 into strength and 3 more into dexterity. It wouldn’t be too noticeable since there are a few humans that have 3 dexterity naturally. The only one who would question it would be Maya, but I trust her fully.

“Kreeaah!”

A high pitched yell echoes down the tunnel, Maya and me looking up from our panels. It wasn’t a human cry by any means, which could only mean one thing. I felt my teeth grit, gears turning in my head. Fighting in the tunnel wasn’t ideal.

“We need to move.”

Maya understood immediately and followed me quickly as I turned to the opposite direction of the call. I could already feel the attributes doing wonders, my posture and leg movement being adjusted slightly. It would be unnoticeable most of the time, but since I was in my fully human body the change was mechanical and unnatural.

“Yusen, what are we going to do once we get there?”

Her voice was soft, trying not to echo too loudly. I knew what she meant. If there were monsters behind us, there were monsters in front of us. Although I had buffed attributes, we were still unarmed. It would have been nice if we had even a stick with us, but the urgency to leave the surface left us empty handed.

“We hope, if we’re out of luck I can use fists.”

I said it in a joking tone, but there was no punch line. Maya looked at me with a crooked frown but said nothing. Instead, she handed me a leather glove, one that she uses for archery. It was smaller than my hand, but that only meant I wouldn’t be able to buckle it closed. It would help for what was needed, and that was to protect my knuckles from shattering against whatever I was hitting.

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The closer we got to the end, the more evident our luck was out. Traces of blood were left on the walls, dragging towards our end goal and the twist in my gut warned me of danger ahead. I felt my muscles go stiff in preparation and I lightly tugged the back of Maya’s clothes.

“Cruack! Crunch!”

The terrible sounds of bones and flesh snapping and tearing could be heard bouncing off the tile walls and I could feel the tension raise. I knew whatever was just beyond this turn would not like us intruding on its feast. I could only hope there weren’t that many.

‘Damn, if only I had a weapon….’

I pressed my back against the wall and carefully peaked my head around the corner. There were three of them, creatures that could only be described as a dog covered in tar were having their feast on bodies that littered the floor. It wasn’t a sight that would particularly leave a good feeling in you, but luckily this wasn’t my first time around.

‘Punching them is going to hurt like hell…’

The first wave creatures were these things, incomplete monsters that were still unstable in their form, called Void Nolls. The tar like substance on their skin was a bitch to hit and made me usually rely on longer distance methods to take care of them.

That wasn’t an option right now and it would be better to act fast while there were only three. My teeth grit again and my mind raced, it would be a hard fight but I knew how to fight them. The only question was if I could fight three of them at once.

‘Now isn’t the time to hesitate….’

I looked over to Maya who was now seeing the same scene as me. She was scared but mostly in shock, which was good. Shock didn’t let a scene like this sink in and would help better move the matter at hand forward.

“Maya I need you to stay here alright?”

I felt her stiffed and look at me in horror. She obviously didn’t want me to do whatever I was going to do. Which is fair, but I tightened my grip on her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. I knew she’d understand because right now we didn’t have choices.

“Just sit tight I wont be long.”

I gave a smile to try and calm her down but I don’t think anything would help calm her down right now.

‘One step at a time.’

I was a coward before, I hid and relied on others only to get so far and die. This time would be different.

I clenched my jaw and took a few steps out, I needed space to get a head start. My knees bent slightly and I could see the black empty sockets turn to look at me. There was no turning back now, I lunged forward seeing the hound flinch before preparing an attack of its own.

‘Down to the left….’

My body followed my mind like fish in the water, swiftly moving the side and I watched as the beast flew past in a lunge of its own, much faster and stronger than mine. I felt my body quickly turn in that moment and my fist hit sticky tar and rib.

‘Behind…’

There was a growl behind me and my leg swept out, colliding with the muzzle of another. The pack had noticed me and now it was 3 against 1. But I didn’t let up, pivoting with my now landed foot and brining down my heel on its head.

Another movement of air and I duck, lashing out and hitting another. I knew this was getting nowhere, their skin was made to take on blunt hits. I dodged to the right and stepped to the left, the cogs in my brain churning out solutions.

‘I need more strength.’

And that’s exactly what I did. I popped up my stats window while dodging to the left again, barely missing fangs and tar. I rapidly tapped the strength attribute, feeling the muscles in my arms and legs harden and my back turn easier. It was now at a 10, I could only hope that it wasn’t too much. Adjusting to too much strength is difficult and would cause more problems than answers.

“Yusen! Watch out!”

I let my attention slip for a moment, barely turning my head to see claws and fangs come too close to my face. I felt a sting on my cheek and a warm bead drip down my cheek. I hissed between my teeth and looked to the one that just landed. It seemed triumphant in licking its claws of my blood.

I didn’t let it celebrate too much, pushing forward and brining my fist down as hard as I could against its neck. I felt a crack, a hard crack that sent shivers down my spine and I watched as the hound collapsed to the floor, its head dangling in an awkward position.

‘Alright, too much strength.’

I had no time to assess and swerved back, catching my footing just in time. Jaws snapped past and I leaned forward as the other one went at me just as quick. They were getting more coordinated. My foot whipped out and hit a leg, the same snap sounding and a mixture of a yelp and a gargle sounded.

It did little to hinder its attacks though, its one good leg having enough strength to launch another attack. Unlucky enough, the other one behind me also launched an attack. My stamina was running low at this point as well, fighting and dodging in rapid succession.

‘Ill need to take one of the hits while dodging the other.’

The thought of getting another bite after my last death wasn’t very positive, but dodging down would require a moment of hesitation while going up. I braced for the pain in my forearm while ducking forward for the one behind me.

“Fwoosh!”

I heard a shatter and another one of those yelps, the one in front of me staggering out of its lunge while the other flew over my head. Before asking myself I hear another shatter and the one that just landed from the lunge flinched as well.

From the tunnel Maya held shards of broken tile in her hands. It wasn’t doing damage but it gave me an opening and I kicked at the one in front of me hard, hitting its throat. It coughed up tar and bone before I brought my fist to its cheek and I saw it fly to the side before sitting still.

The last one had turned its head to Maya and before even thinking I grabbed its head and twisted violently. The snap was satisfactory and I stood there trying to catch my breath.

“Yusen!”

Maya ran over to me, careful not to step on body parts or tar and looked over me.

“Youre bleeding! Here I have-“

Her hands were shaking. She seemed to be on the verge of tears as she brough a handkerchief up to my face and dabbed at the wound. It stung and it was bleeding a lot more than I thought it would. That would scar for sure.

“You throw pretty well, I didn’t expect you to be a master league baseball player.”

I quickly tried to distract her, changing the subject. She seemed to snap out of her distress and looked at me before laughing tiredly.

“Well you told me to put my points into anything. So I put them all into dexterity. Since I- I know I don’t really have the strength to fight up close.”

She gave a tired laugh, her distress being replaced by exhaustion. I could feel myself exhausted too. Although we didn’t fight a lot, it was a fight none the less. Getting food down here would be difficult and going to the surface would be even worse.

“We should follow the tracks. The trains should have either stopped or crashed by now.”

I saw Maya flinch and felt guilt. I said crash so casually, but it would better if she came to terms with the situation now rather than later. The tracks would have less monsters and people but if we had gone on them before, the runaway trains would have been deadly.

“Brother, can we rest a bit?”

“Maybe, maybe not right now. It would be better to get away from this mess.”

I gave an apologetic smile and she nodded. The last thing we needed was another pack of those things to appear while we were resting. We had three days to get use to fights and level before the first real trial started, and I didn’t want to be unprepared again.

“We’ll rest up at one of the maintenance platforms.”

The tracks were already worn out, probably from the haywire trains in their final moments. I could only hope we didn’t run into any. Both moving and crashed would be a sight to see.

True to my word, a flickering light lit up the dark tunnel. A door with a thin platform sat a few steps away, an electrical sign plastered next to it. I tested the nob, the lock firmly keeping it in place. Of course, normal doors were nothing for 10 strength and I hit it hard with my shoulder, the metal of the frame bending slightly and giving way.

The interior was dusty with machines rattling quietly. It was empty, and for once I let out a breath and relaxed my shoulders. Only to tense up again as I heard a sob from behind me. Maya closed the door softly and simply, broke down.

“hic- Brother I- sob”

She was a stuttering mess and I gently led her to the wall. Sitting down next to her and lightly patting her back as she let out her heart. All I could do was be here for her, all I could do was protect her. Her sobs only got stronger and I let myself close my eyes, holding her and listening to the machinery hum.