The cold air whipped at my face as the bunker door closed, locking me out of safety and into the unknown. I shivered as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I opened up my menus once more to triple check the skill I had received.

[Killing Blow]

Richard had been surprised by its appearance. Despite him being a manner of… some part of the System I had now been labored with, he hadn’t seen the skill before. A little prodding had gotten him to come clean that the skills that were possible to gain were something partially procedurally generated. While using my hammer would grant a very common and well documented [Hammer Mastery] skill, some abilities were unique or rare.

I had asked him if that meant it was powerful, as my original cursory glance over the given ability left me with nothing but a sinking feeling in my stomach.

It depends, he had said.

My eyes scoured the full description, just in case we had missed some actual detail or decent explanation the other two times.

[Killing Blow (Rank 1)]

[When an enemy is on low life, occasionally grants an opportunity finisher that reduces the Morale of any witnesses allied to the victim.]

When asking Richard what ‘low life’ and ‘opportunity finisher’ meant, I had been given nothing but a sheepish grin and a shrug in response. Reading between the lines, it sounded like an 'execute' style skill, something that added flourish to killing off an opponent. The actual viability remained to be seen.

Now I was standing out in the cold, with a hammer gripped tightly in my aching hand and an uncomfortable roiling in my stomach.

“This is fucked,” I whispered to myself, shaking some of the disbelief away.

With my eyes now adjusted to the gloom of the open desert, it was perhaps fortuitous that my target destination was already illuminated off to my right. Something that hadn’t been there when we had arrived at the bunker.

Some manner of small church, or chapel. Perhaps a mausoleum? It was a few hundred feet off from the building that I was pressed against and half tempted to reenter. Surrounded by a graveyard, headstones and small monuments dotting the area around it in a wide circle. Although it was lit sporadically, there was something off about the light sources. Clearly lanterns or torches by the way they flickered, but it was like they were discolored. A filter of menace had been placed over the scene.

Before I could even drum up the willpower to take my first steps forward, I saw shapes moving between the foul light and shadows.

It would probably be a terrible idea to light my torch at this stage. While I couldn’t make out what the skulking humanoid shapes in the graveyard actually were, I didn’t want them to make a beeline for me on approach. Against better judgement, I crept forward toward the nearest set of headstones, trying to keep a low profile.

There was some amount of madness that I was trying to ignore. This situation was absurd. If it weren’t for how the occasional wind bit at my skin through my shirt, I would have thought this was a dream. Even ignoring the sudden appearance of this graveyard, it only took a glance toward the city to know that this was real. Lights flashed between the buildings, some of which were on fire or smoking. A thick haze enveloped part of what I could see, and I felt my whole body tense at the implications.

I lowered myself further as my feet hit softer ground. Actual mud and dirt rather than the expected sandy rock of the desert. I wasn’t sure if that was an improvement or benefit quite yet, but the smell that carried along the air the closer I got to the mausoleum had me feeling like I’d eventually give up on keeping my diner meal on the inside.

Something wet and rotting. A sickness that lingered stagnant and earthy. I ducked down and placed my hand against a stone coffin affording me cover. My breathing was all over the place and I hadn’t realized I had been holding it where possible. I leaned against the cold surface and the warmth wicked away from my torso as the current situation took a moment to sink in. Fuck this.

I edged myself toward the corner of my cover with short steps. Hammer still gripped tightly, I leaned out to get a better look at my situation. At the moving figures that I was supposed to assault and murder.

There were three moving shapes relatively close to my position. I narrowed my eyes at the nearest as they walked under the light of of one the lanterns, washing their shadowed robes with foul light. It was only now I saw the long tail emerging out of the back of their dirtied clothing. It waved and slunk around like a thick worm. From beneath the raised hood, a snout protruded.

[Ratman Plaguetouched (Level 1)]

I winced and ducked behind cover again, as if the monster would have been able to sense that the System had just given his details over to me. Currently, I wasn’t sure how much I liked the occasional bursts of information being fed straight into my eyes… but knowing that they were also level one gave me some minor comfort.

That didn’t mean my heart would stop pounding away in my chest, however. I was nearing the edge where I’d need to decide if I was really going to do this. Kill a monster.

Yeah, I was.

Committing to the process with a surge of adrenaline to keep me steady, my eyes flicked open my Inventory, and I withdrew the unlit torch into my left hand. Instead of toggling it alight, I drew my hand back and lobbed it down further west from me among some headstones. The inert wooden item struck one of the grave markers on the edge, letting out a satisfying donk. Not especially loud, but hopefully… yes—there was the sound of footsteps.

I got into a crouched position as the padded sounds of one of the monsters came my way. A sniffing noise thick with running snot followed along with it, as the ratman muttered something unintelligible to himself. My breath caught in my throat as he stepped past my cover, his back toward me as he looked over at the grave where my torch now lay.

As he started to draw something from his belt, I leaped up, my jaw clenched as I took two long steps toward him.

He turned, and I caught a brief glance at him. Baleful yellow eyes that almost glowed. Pus and blood matted into his dark fur. A mouth full of jagged teeth, drool soaking down from the sides of his mouth. Just as he clocked my appearance and drew his knife up in his hand, my hammer connected with his head.

Thanks to him looking around at me, I struck him right in the temple. Only slightly dulled by his hood, the strike came as a shock and he stumbled away, dazed. Before he could gather his senses, I followed up, bringing the hammer down onto his face again. Teeth fell from his bloodied mouth, his clawed hands coming up to grab at his shattered snout. I struck him in the head again, before the fourth attack split his skull.

The assailed ratman took two shaking steps away before collapsing like a sack of potatoes, bouncing off one of the gravestones before slumping to the soft soil. I raised the hammer back up to make sure the deed was done, when a notification from the System delayed the swing.

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[Milestone: You have killed your first monster. There are plenty more where they came from.]

[Reward Received: Title: Adventurer]

I gasped for air, now aware of the streaks of warm blood across my shirt. There hadn’t been a prompt for Killing Blow, but that didn’t matter right now. I had killed a monster. Before I could revel in my minor victory or start scrambling to make sure nobody else had caught sight of the brief skirmish, the System flashed a rolling list of new skills I had just earned the first rank of.

[New Passive: Hammer Mastery 1]

[New Passive: Ambusher 1]

[New Passive: Flawless 1]

[New Passive: Skull Breaker 1]

More important than digging into what these meant was getting somewhere safe. I swore under my breath as I ducked down low and move around the headstones by the corpse. Richard had said something about looting bodies, but I had a bigger problem.

Two of the other rats had been alerted to the skirmish.

My eyes widened as they scurried in my direction. Both dressed similarly to the first, although the one a few steps ahead of the other had dark green robes, mottled gray fur sprouting amidst the amount of filth covering him. The second had a leaner figure—possibly female—and light brown fur. Both had an equal amount of anger in their eyes, their jaws slavering, ready to take a bite out of me.

It was something of a small miracle that their fervor had drawn them straight toward me, rather than calling for further help. I stood my ground, partially frozen with indecision, but I knew this was the only way. Nowhere to run, for once. I narrowed my eyes, and the System brought up some basic information on my assailants.

They were level one, the closer rat holding a flail while the other had a curved blade. If there were any further details to be gleaned, I didn’t have time for them now. I slid my right foot back to get ready to engage them. Some past memories of a few self-defense classes rotated around in my mind, but the best lessons had been hard earned. Muscle memory and adrenaline took over. I tightened the grip on my hammer, partly wishing the System had given me something more useful.

It was barely two heartbeats, and then they were here. A mass of matted fur, terrible body odor, and violent intent. The first swung his flail around, the spiked metal end rusty and neglected. Still, it looked like it would hurt - and I wasn’t about to find out firsthand if I could help it. Using both of his hands to swing the weapon committed his body weight to certain movement. I twisted to his open side, avoiding the attack. My own hammer lashed out and struck him in the forearm.

With a grunt of pain, a dull crack came from his arm. A minor break, but he rolled away from me to avoid a potential follow-up attack. As nice as it would be to take advantage of the upper hand, I had to worry more about-

Before I had the chance to re-adjust my footing, the second plague-ridden monster collided with me. I fell, and we hit the ground and rolled. The sharp sting of her blade punctured through the fabric of my suit jacket and cut into my shoulder. Fetid breath clouded my sense as the ratwoman scrabbled against me, attempting to end up on top of the scuffle. I felt sharp pains along my shins as her clawed feet scratched through my slacks.

Despite my height and weight advantage, she was wily, and eventually won the grapple. Her tail wrapped around my right wrist and held my hammer down in the dirt as she straddled my chest to keep me in place. I felt the cool mud on the back of my head, muddying my hair as I glared at the ratwoman. Seething. While she tried to bring her blade back up to stab at me, I lashed out with my left fist in rage. First strike buried into her robes, the dirty cloth absorbing the blow. My second swing was more desperate, but found a better target.

I clipped her right on the end of her nose, causing her to wince and hiss out in pain. As one of her clawed hands grabbed at her snout, I grabbed her arm that was wielding the blade. With my life on the line, I pulled at her, my own strength gradually overpowering the monster. Twisting at the held limb, I managed to pry her off and onto the ground. Her tail released me as she landed awkwardly on the mud.

My freed hammer didn’t have much power to it with the first attack, but the dampened strike was enough to make the monster flinch. I pushed her further away. The first rat had recovered and was swinging his flail at me now that I had usurped their accomplice. I rolled across the ground to avoid it, getting back up to my feet as he struck the earth. Expecting me to stay on the defensive, I surprised him by darting forward. With a reckless slash of my weapon, the metal end connected with his eye, shattering the socket.

He shook his head and growled, half blinded, in pain, and shocked. It was enough time for me to bring a follow-up into his head undefended. With a damp thud, his body shivered and briefly flashed red.

A tutorial prompt within my internal HUD told me this was the cue for me to use Killing Blow.

With a surge of adrenaline, I took a quick step toward the monster and lashed out with a kick. I struck him in the leg, causing his footing to falter. He dropped to both knees, still clutching at his ruined eye. In my hand, I twisted the hammer around and swung upward with the clawed side.

The attack burst through below his chin and ripped his lower jaw straight off with the movement, spraying warm blood up my front. The rat spasmed, gurgling as he slunk over onto the ground. I flicked the blood from my silver weapon and snarled at my other opponent.

Now back to her feet, her eyes were wide. Shocked over the excessive kill I had just meted out. An execution I made look so simple, the monster now believed I was way out of their league. With her tail lashing back and forth, she froze briefly while trying to decide whether to flee or run for help.

I pressed the advantage and didn’t allow her to reach a conclusion. Her knife hand came up, but it was far too late. First strike stunned her, and the flurry of desperate swings that followed turned her into dead pulp within seconds.

My eyes burned as I turned to see if any other motherfuckers wanted to join the fray. My breathing was ragged. Suit soaked through with sweat, blood, and covered in dirt. After seeing how sickening the creatures were up close, there were possible even worse bodily fluids involved.

I took a few meandering steps towards cover and lowered myself while I scouted for violence on the way. No… it seemed fine, for now.

That was… fucking terrifying, actually. I had survived and ended the lives of some of these otherworldly invaders. Didn’t feel too great about it, but I was okay. Pushing forward.

The System was happy to announce that I had gotten down to 70% health in all that scuffling about. Scratches in my legs ached where I was probably bleeding. My collarbone had a light gash. Not entirely life-threatening, but a quick glance through the Logs said that I had lost a chunk of health from minor poisons the attacks had inflicted. For some reason, the System was keen to give me rewards for this bullshit.

[Milestone Reached: You have been poisoned. Sick.]

[Reward Received: Antidote (2)]

That seemed a lot less helpful if I had died from one of the poisons. For the next fight, I’ll be better prepared, at least. A deeper dive into my Injuries window revealed that I had resisted infection in both of my legs. Fantastic.

I thought adventures usually started with fighting slime creatures, zombies, or giant rats… oh, well, this was close enough.

“Fucking rats,” I whispered towards the corpses, hoping that the System wouldn’t punish me for the disdain. My experience bar had stopped at 97%, which meant I had to throw myself into further danger with the smelly rodents just to appease my ‘guide’.

Instead of sticking my hand straight back into the fire, I gave a cursory glance over the new skills I had apparently learned from beating the shit out of these monsters. A new one joined the others from the first part of the fight.

[New Passive: Imposing 1]

Most of them just seemed to increase my damage by a small amount per level, differing by method. With hammers. When surprising opponents. Attacking enemy skulls. Richard had mentioned that these basic skills would be unimpressive at the start, but at levels 5 and 10 they either improved by giving extra bonuses, or by unlocking better skills. That didn’t mean much while they were all at the basic stage, however.

[Imposing] increased the chance of causing Morale loss on opponents. The whole stat system seemed rather abstract still. Using [Killing Blow] on that one ratman had scared the shit out of the other rodent. Actually committing to the execution felt oddly smooth as well, just like I was locked into a video game animation. The brief surge of adrenaline had given me the strength and wit to know how and where to strike for maximum effect.

I shook my head. There would be plenty of time to browbeat Richard when I survived the night. Right now I had to get this dangerous situation wrapped up.

Believing that I wasn’t about to attract the eyes of any more monsters, I shuffled myself over to the ratman whose jaw I had ripped clean off. Kneeling down beside him, I pulled a face.

They were even more disgusting without the haze of battle distracting me. Literally man-size rats, but diseased. They smelled like an open sewer, full of decay and rank piss. My glare of disgust brought up a menu, asking me if I wanted to loot the corpse.

Thank fuck I didn’t have to do it the manual way.

With the heat of combat slowly ebbing away, I opened up the window to see what potential oddities the creature could offer me.