The newly developed, survival-oriented part of Nick’s brain wanted him to walk straight in and slit the rat’s throat.

This was an enemy that couldn’t be reasoned with. That would kill him without hesitation if given the chance. Ending the infected ratman’s life would take him one step closer to completing his quest. It would also offer him a chance to acquire some experience. Experience that he desperately needed if he wanted to live through the rest of the tutorial.

He was lucky to have come across the creature while it was asleep. A perfect opportunity to put the rat out of its misery while minimizing the danger to himself. A chance that he would be foolish to pass up. Moreover, the ratman was blocking his access to clean water, not to mention the metal tins and whatever they were storing in the barrels.

The rest of Nick, the person who had grown up in a comfortable, civilized life on Earth, was deeply conflicted. He had never fought or killed anything before, other than the komo, which had been trying to eat him, and the rat on the first level of the dungeon. Unlike his other battles, this wouldn’t be self-defense. It would be premeditated murder.

If I do this, I will open a door that can never be closed. Change a part of myself forever. I will become Nicholas Henry the Murderer, and my hands will be dyed in blood. While he stood there, caught between his rational mind and his humanity, he remembered the description of the dungeon and the torment he had seen reflected in the ratman’s eyes.

They aren’t self-aware anymore. They aren’t people. They aren’t even conscious animals, just unwilling hosts for the parasite. All they feel is hunger, pain, and rage. As he reasoned with himself, clasping his hands together to keep them from shaking, Nick visualized sneaking up close and drawing his dagger across the creature’s throat.

It’s not murder; it’s an end to suffering. If I do this, I will become a killer. There is no denying that fact. But in this case, delivering death will be a mercy rather than mere savagery. If I slit its throat while it’s sleeping, its end will be quick. It’s all that I can do for them now. It’s all that anyone can do.

Mercy aside, there was no way that Nick would have been willing to eliminate the ratman if it wasn’t helpless. The battle with the first rat was still fresh in his mind, and he had no desire whatsoever to engage another in a fair fight. His life was on the line, and he would do whatever it took to make it through the dungeon and the rest of the tutorial.

Over the last week, he had begun to internalize that he was locked in a brutal battle for survival. A contest that he had no guarantee of winning. A merciless struggle where passing up an opportunity to grow stronger could be even more dangerous than the risks involved in seizing it.

Nick knew that he was stalling. The creature could wake up at any moment. When it did, his chance to penetrate deeper into the dungeon would be lost forever. He had to make his decision now, then see it through to the end. It was time for him to either become a killer or abandon the dungeon and head back to the island.

After allowing himself a final deep breath to consider, he made his choice. The glint in his eyes was colder than ice and sharper than his dagger. Nick grabbed the handle of the door that led to his new self, opened it wide, and stepped through, ready to act at last.

He took off his robe and set it on the ground next to his spear. This assassination would require stealth, and the spear was borderline useless against the ratmen anyway. After taking three steps into the room, he came to a halt. Not due to hesitation, but because he had realized something important. The noise he had been hearing sounded off for a single ratman, so he took two more steps to widen the angle of his view.

Sure enough, he saw a second rat sleeping in the far corner. Their territories must border each other, and they bunk here due to the convenient access to water. You can still do this, Nick. If you kill them both, there will be only the foreman left. You might actually be able to complete the dungeon if you can survive the next few minutes.

Heart pounding like a jackhammer on methamphetamine, Nick took one trembling step after another. He barely dared to breathe as he approached his target in slow, measured steps. He was worried that the creature would appear peaceful in sleep, extinguishing the sparks of his newly forged resolve like a candle in the rain.

But as he drew near, the look on the ratman’s face was one of agony. It slept fitfully, whimpering in pain, lips locked in a tight grimace. Like it was trapped in a nightmare with no end. It’s clearly suffering, he told himself. I’m here to put it out of its misery.

Nick couldn’t completely assuage his doubts, but it was enough to keep him moving. He took a long look at the other sleeping ratman, which showed no signs that it was about to wake. Then he stepped in front of his target, foot sliding through a line of white powder ringing its bunk.

Forcing himself to look straight into the creature’s face, he raised his blade as he came to a halt, pausing until his shaking hands were fully under his control before proceeding. While he waited, he looked for the beating of a pulse along the rat’s neck, until he was certain that he had identified a major artery.

Ten seconds later, something deep inside Nick told him that it was time to act. He listened to this inner voice rather than his doubts, then brought the edge of the dagger down on a patch of skin pulsing below the ratman’s fur.

The instant cold steel touched the creature’s throat, its eyes snapped open. He knew with crystalline clarity that if he hesitated in this moment, he was going to die.

Instead of faltering or fumbling, Nick’s hands moved with a brisk efficiency that surprised him. He drew the blade clean across the ratman’s artery, windpipe, and jugular in a single, savage motion, cutting the rat’s throat all the way down to its spine.

The creature’s eyes bulged, wide with panic. It tried to rise from the bunk as it shook and gurgled and gasped. He used his elbows to hold the ratman in place as hot spews of blood poured over them both. Fortunately, it didn’t take long before it was over. The rat bled out so fast that it was unconscious within seconds and dead soon after.

A part of Nick was revolted by what he had done, but he ruthlessly suppressed the useless emotion. Dangerous baggage from his prior, peaceful life. He silently spun in place, terrified that the soft sounds had been enough to wake the other rat. But when he looked over, he saw that it was still fast asleep.

One down and one to go. Do it fast, then you can freak the fuck out, throw up, or do whatever you need to do. If you fuck this up, your blood will be painting the pavement instead of theirs.

He kept up his inner monologue to distract himself from his tumultuous and roiling emotions, preparing to repeat what had wound up being a flawless assassination attempt. Keep it together. One more time, quick and clean. Then you can fall to pieces and lose your shit.

Although he could do nothing to slow the frenzied beating of his heart, he forced himself to take deliberate, measured breaths. Eyes on the prize, and let your ears guard your back. Nick forced his body into motion. Walk, don’t run. Don’t think about what you are about to do. Just walk on over like it’s no big deal until your body believes it. It’s do or die. Fake it till you make it.

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Despite the tension saturating his body, which felt taut as a drawn bowstring, he crossed the room silently and swiftly. He raised his blood-splattered blade in front of the sleeping ratman, waiting to find the ideal angle to land another critical blow.

This rat looked less agonized than the others, if no less wretched. As he gazed into its sleeping face, the morals of his previous life began to stir within the depths of his subconscious, shrieking that he was slaughtering a defenseless creature; that killing a living being while it was helpless was wrong. Evil. Abhorrent.

With a surge of determination, Nick ruthlessly plunged that obsolete piece of his heart back into the lightless depths of his soul. He knew that listening to it would make him hesitate. That in his new, System-governed life, hesitation was just another word for death.

It’s not intelligent. It’s not a person. It’s mercy. Do it, Nick. Do it now!

When the creature coughed and turned its head, the opening that he had been waiting for appeared. In a single, smooth motion, he brought the dripping dagger up to the ratman’s neck. The muscles in his arm were poised to end its life. A heartbeat before he started cutting, the ratman whimpered piteously in its sleep and uttered a single word, shocking Nick to the core of his being.

“Mother,” the creature begged, as if pleading for help.

Nick froze, his resolve vanishing like a dream on waking, just as his blade touched the rat’s throat. The creature’s eyes snapped open, and its hate-filled gaze met his own. The fleeting moment of humanity was lost as the parasite resumed full control. He willed his arm to strike, but his hands remained frozen in place. He could no longer bring himself to end the ratman’s life.

He was about to say, “Wait. We can talk this out instead of killing each other. Find a way to free your people together.”

He only got as far as “wait” before the rat’s fangs sank into his shoulder, as its claws tore into the hand that held his dagger. In that moment, Nick didn’t feel the pain. Instead, the intense sensation shocked him into fight or flight mode, all thoughts evaporating except for a single truth. Kill or die.

His hesitation vanished, and he started to struggle, fighting to bury the dagger in the rat’s throat, his muscles filled with a feral strength that he had never known before. He screamed as the creature bit down, sending hot blood pumping out of the open wound where its fangs had punctured the meat of his shoulder.

Nick’s surge of strength caught his opponent by surprise, almost letting him land a fatal blow. But he was learning how to kill for the first time in his life, whereas the rat had decades of combat experience.

Before the blade could part the soft tissue around its throat, the creature rolled off the cot and fell onto the floor, dragging Nick down to the ground by his wound. The position stripped him of his ability to leverage his body’s weight, and his blood-slicked grasp was quickly losing its strength.

The rat continued to thrash all the while, claws and jaws shredding Nick’s flesh with ease. It let go with one hand and reached out with the other, intending to slit his throat in a total reversal of their starting roles.

Just as the rat’s claws began sinking into his jugular, something clicked into place.

In that moment, where life and death stood balanced on the blade of a knife, Nick’s mind grasped the meaning of something that had been trying to get his attention for the last few minutes—the understanding that if he wanted to live, he had another weapon that could save him. A tool that had awoken at last, ready to obey his command. My Wand skill is kicking in for the first time.

In the blink of an eye, Nick’s left hand shot down, fingers wrapping tight around the hilt of his wand. He pulled it out of the beltloop in a single motion, then raised his arm to point at the center of the rat’s chest, where its heart sat beating beneath the bulk of its padded armor.

As naturally as if he had been using it all his life, his thumb pressed a button on the side of the shaft, sliding it up half an inch before it locked into place. That button is the safety, and the other is the trigger. The gem lights display the number of charges. A small voice in Nick’s mind ran a commentary as his thumb changed positions, coming to rest on top of a protrusion along the wand’s base.

The instant he pressed the button with a soft click, an intense shockwave erupted from the business end of the wand, slamming into the ratman’s chest with incredible force. The part of Nick’s mind that was observing everything with a strange sense of detachment expected the blast to do nearly as much damage to his own torso as it did to the rat’s. Releasing that much force so close to his body should have a kick like a mule on steroids.

However, while he could see kinetic energy ripple throughout the creature’s tissue, not so much as a jolt passed back in his direction. His hand didn’t even tremble.

He had no time to process this remarkable development because the rat’s jaws had opened in surprise, freeing Nick from their grasp but causing his wounds to bleed profusely. Pushing past the pain, he prepared to drive the dagger home. That was when he realized that the creature had stopped struggling and that its eyes had glazed over. Holy shit, it’s dead. The force must have crushed its heart.

I’m sorry, wand. Nick held the weapon in front of his eyes, thoughts muddled by his state of shock. I take back everything I said. I think I love you. In the next heartbeat, the thin shell of dissociation protecting him from his pain burst like a soap bubble. He began to drown as a red wave of agony broke over him.

The clinical part of him knew that although he had defeated his opponent, the fight for his life was far from over. If I want to live, I must stop the bleeding. Then clean and bandage my wound.

Half-delirious from the pain, he staggered over to the metal grate. He picked up the bucket beside it, which was filled with clean water. He pulled his shirt over his head and then emptied the pail, screaming as the cold water broke over his wound.

Fighting to control his body, Nick took the roll of bandages out of his belt pouch, then wound a strip under his armpit and over the spot where the ratman’s fangs had sunk deep into his flesh. He didn’t let himself think about his injury. He had to stop the bleeding before he could worry about the damage.

Although the white gauze was soon stained crimson, the bleeding eventually began to slow, and he moved on to his other injuries. Fortunately, the scratches on his wrists weren’t nearly as deep, so he washed them off and let them coagulate on their own.

That was as far as he got before his exhaustion caught up with him. One second, he was struggling with his pain. The next, Nick was engulfed in a wave of dizziness. Rendered lightheaded and unable to focus. I’m still in shock, the clinical part of his brain reported. I need to recover before I can do anything else.

He looked up at the cots that the rats had been sleeping in. But even in his dazed condition, he was unwilling to touch fabric that was soaked in the creatures’ blood. He didn’t know what was in the next room, but the one behind him was clear, and the sewers beyond hadn’t revealed any obvious threats.

Weaving from side to side like a drunk one shot short of oblivion, Nick forced his body into motion, nearly passing out several times in the process. Although he desperately wanted to lie down, before he left the room, he cut the belts free from the corpses and then pushed the bodies into the river.

He couldn’t risk attracting the attention of any scavengers living in the area, especially when he was so weak. He was certain that the bodies would have drawn beasts like a magnet, eager to feast on fresh flesh. He left everything else where it lay. He would come back and loot the room after he had recovered from his ordeal.

Although Nick would not become aware of this fact until it was far too late, his actions had shifted the dynamics of the dungeon. As the parasites that had been animating the ratmen’s bodies fell into the river and drowned, the energy they had been harvesting flowed out. Adding their power to the ancient, parasitic egg waiting in the heart of the dungeon, they brought it to the precipice of hatching after decades of stasis.

By the time he finished lurching his way down the tunnel and stepped into the empty chamber, he had grown dizzy enough that he could no longer think. With a groan, he collapsed into a corner where he could watch both entrances, ready to rest for a few hours.

He used his final drop of willpower to finish the water in his canteen to help restore his missing fluids. He would have to wait until he came out of shock and recovered from his injuries before deciding what to do next.

Nick would never have believed that he could fall asleep in the middle of a dungeon. A foul maze filled with hostile, alien beings, heavy with the putrid stench of rot. But he had underestimated how much energy he had burned over the last two days.

Less than ten minutes later, he was fast asleep. Not long after, his dreams shifted, transforming into true nightmares.