Kai felt his arms weaken as the paralysis poison reached them.

His breathing was getting harder too, and he felt like there was a heavy weight placed on his chest, making each breath rugged and strenuous.

A bitter smirk on his face as he watched a black blob get closer.

“No… I’ll take as many of you fuckers with me into the next life as I can.” he spat, crushing another bug with his bat.

His last act of defiance.

Suddenly, the world seemed to get slower.

The rain slowed down for a moment.

Something appeared before Kai’s eyes, almost like a ghost or apparition.

It hovered for a moment before disappearing again.

[Level up]

[Human - Level 2]

Suddenly, the pain left Kai’s body. The injuries from the wounds he had suffered disappeared as if evaporating.

The coldness which seeped all the way into his bones disappeared too, replaced with a comforting warmth.

But it was more than a warmth. His muscles flexed and felt swollen, though it was a nice sensation.

In moments he was back to his feet again, feeling more powerful than ever.

“What the… did I just level up?” Kai asked, yet before he did anything, it was time to finish off the rest of the bugs.

“Looks like your poison didn’t work you little pricks.” he sneered.

Smashing, pumelling and swatting the bat around, more brave bugs died to his strikes.

“Am I faster?”

Somehow the bat felt lighter, and in his grip, it felt weaker too, like it could fall apart into splinters if he swung it any harder.

“Faster, stronger…”

Kai fearlessly went around the house, quickly and easily destroying all traces of the bugs.

Any black spots would be punished with unrelenting force, even if they were simply just a shadow or a darkened stain.

After he couldn’t find any more bugs, he waited, watching.

No movement.

Nothing at all.

The bugs had really been culled.

“Finally. I think it’s over.” he nodded, a smile on his face.

“Now… I levelled up? Must be why I’m stronger and faster… and that feeling? It was almost euphoric. I’m definitely gonna chase that feeling.”

After the level up, Kai didn’t even feel like he would need to rest anymore. He was completely revitalised, so he decided on what to do while his clothes dried, and soon found a task.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

With the bugs slain, the guts began to let off a urine-like smell.

Or perhaps it was Kai’s pants from when his lower body was paralysed.

Either way, he used the bat to push all their corpses out of the door and into the street. Some of their little bodies floated into potholes and disappeared, while others simply sat there, being cleansed by the rain.

Kai also took the opportunity to rinse his pants of the urine. They were still wet anyway, so they might as well be wet with water instead.

“Ah, that’s better.” he thought, coming back inside as he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get more water out.

“Now… I shouldn’t think of this as a computer game, even though I leveled up, I shouldn’t take things so lightly.” he nodded, before trying something.

“System… Open system…” he said with some expectation, “Interface? Inventory? Character? Uh… class?”

“Dammit…” he pursed his lips.

Kai tried to open some sort of interface, though to his dissatisfaction, nothing was happening. As he dried out and thought of more words he would say them, hoping to bring up information of some sort, or really anything that resembles a system interface.

However he soon ran out of words and ideas, so he could do nothing but sit there.

Now there was truly nothing else to do - nothing but watch his clothes dry as he survived the storm outside.

Though as his eyes danced around the room, he began to notice something strange.

“Huh… didn’t I push the dead bugs over that?”

Moving towards a certain part of the floor, there was a perfect square. It was only apparent as the rest of the flood had been covered by bug blood, yet this was untouched, as if it had cleaned itself.

The perfect square on the floor was flat like any other part of the floor, yet as Kai touched it, it was not flat at all.

Neither was it made of stone like the rest of the floor.

“What…” he felt around the square with his hand.

Finally, Kai’s searching hand found a ring-shaped latch. It was invisible yet he felt it in his hand, and the anomaly slightly messed with his head.

“Well, obviously I’m gonna...” he smiled, giving it a light tug.

As he pulled, the illusion suddenly disappeared. He found his hand holding a metal ring attached to a thick hatch of heavy wood.

“Interesting.” he thought, lowering it back down.

To Kai’s surprise, the illusion reappeared again, making the hatch invisible as an image of the flat stone floor reappeared.

“Nice.” he smiled.

Something about this simple but practical use of magic made him pleased.

Kai pulled it up again.

The hatch itself was made with a thick, dark wood covered with a thick lacquer coating. It made it heavy, but was necessary so that it wouldn’t warp, bend or make any creaking noises if someone were to walk over the top; necessary to maintain the illusion.

Below the hatch was a ladder, and a faint blue glow appeared as soon as he opened the hatch fully.

“Automatic lights? Nice touch.” he nodded approvingly. Without light he doubted he would have descended into what could be a sea of those bugs.

Checking there was no movement below, he began to descend the ladder.

The illusion magic and automatic lights made the underground room seem like it had much more invested in it than the building above - and thankfully, it seemed that no one had looted its contents.

Kai closed the hatch above him as he went down the ladder.

The light in the room came from two round orbs embedded in opposite sides of the square room. Kai couldn’t help but get closer and stare into one of them for a moment.

The orbs were filled with what seemed like a molten liquid that gave off a warm, steady glow. It was simply mesmerizing.

“I wonder what they’re powered by.” Kai thought, guessing it was magic as he realized how naive he must sound.

Yet in the grand scheme of things, it was really just a light.

“Curses, it’s a simple light and I’m practically obsessed with it. I must be so far behind compared to others…” he shook his head with a dissatisfied frown.

Kai peeled his eyes away and began to look around the rest of the room.

A quill and a pot of ink which has long since dried up sat on a rectangular table in the middle of the room, made with the same thick darkwood as the hatch.

On the walls were some engravings, looking like elaborate pentagrams and patterns.

In the corner of the room, a small glass-door cabinet held some books. On top of it was a bottle with a small shot glass next to it, along with some old-looking, dried out blossoms of flowers.

On one of the walls was an embedded purple gemstone, which Kai decided to touch, but nothing happened.

“Damn, it must need mana.”

Looking around the room, there was not much else.

“Whoever owned this either took everything with them, was tidy, or didn’t have much in the first place…” his eyes drifted over the wall, “I wonder what those engravings do… perhaps it’s for the illusion spell?” he guessed.

Of course, he could only guess at this point.

Kai moved over to the small cabinet next.

“Hmm, books it is.” he shrugged.

While he was hoping to find something to help him, for now he was content with being out of the rain, in a lighted room which was hopefully safe.