His day had been relentless, his muscles ached from the constant fighting, and his clothes clung to him covered with the grime of combat. Even now, he still felt the sting on his back where the Ironhide Boar had sent him crashing into the tree. He was scared at the thought that he might have broken a bone or something else. He had no idea how he would deal with something like that in a world where doctors and hospitals had gone poof in the span of a day. Though he'd survived all his encounters until now, it had left him drained and on the edge.

He knew that each of his steps hypothetically brought him closer to the original goal he had in mind, but with each passing minute, he couldn't help but think of the lurking dangers that seemed to multiply with each passing hour.

The eerie silence occasionally broke with the distant screech of unseen creatures. For some reason that spooked him a lot more than witnessing one up close.

Every street he crossed a memory rekindled within him. All it took was a single night for all of what he knew to completely disappear just like that.

Within it all though a small beacon of familarity in the chaos made him a bit more hopeful. The rundown walls still stood. It was a miracle that nature hadn't claimed the building. He had arrived at last. The old, beaten-down building stood proudly as an anomaly in all the chaos. Grayson took a deep breath, allowing the memories to settle over him, if only for a moment, he braced himself for whatever was to come next.

As Grayson stepped closer to the general store, an unusual presence stopped him in his tracks, it was a Squelch. This one was a bit different— its silver skin gleamed unnaturally, and it exuded an intelligence the others he encountered before didn't possess.

Who would have predicted, a final boss right before the home stretch. Internally Grayson rolled his eyes. Luckily though, I'm way too tired to just turn and hungry to just turn around and walk away, I think I've recovered enough mana— if it's anything like an Adult Squelch, one of these blasts should be enough to finish it off.

In his mind, Grayson weighed the good versus the bad. If he left now would he even find another decent place before night fell, but on the other hand if he successfully defeated this Squelch there wouldn't be anything stopping him from reaching his goal at last.

"There's no point cowering in that corner like a rat, I know you're there," a voice interrupted his train of thought. Did that Squelch just speak!? Even more warning bells rang in his head. If all the media he consumed as a kid was anything to go off of, a speaking enemy was always something you do not underestimate. He was not prepared to fight this level of battle.

"Running away won't do you any good, I've been following you this entire time." His skin started to crawl hearing its calm and leveled tone. Fight or flight? He chose the latter as he eyed the creature one last time before rotating his body the other way.

"I told you running away wouldn't do you any good." The Squelch who had just been a ways away from him had suddenly appeared right behind him.

"What in—" Grayson yelped stumbling backward.

A finger pressed against his mouth. "No need to scream, yes I'm a talking monster or Squelch or whatever you think I am. I'm not here to kill you" It didn't even get to finish his words as Grayson lifted his Squelch dagger with great speed and cut across its face.

It paused and felt at its face. A small trickle of blood started flowing from its cheeks. Damn, its skin is tough. Grayson clutched his dagger in a two-handed motion and aimed to stab through its throat, but suddenly, he felt that all the momentum he gathered dispersed. He stared up and saw the Squelch who had two fingers holding onto the tip of his dagger. "If you're not going to let me finish my words, I guess I shouldn't be nice either." A heavy blow went into Grayson's gut knocking all the wind out of him as he collapsed to his knees.

"I wasn't going to kill you even after you killed some... lesser members of my species, but seeing how disrespectful you are to me, I think you're in for a proper beating." This time a powerful kick hit him and he was sent flying through the air toward the general store, where he was forced to stop rolling as he crashed into its front.

"Boy, you should be grateful to me. There is so much you don't know about the circumstances you're in right now." The Squelch smiled. "For a human to not be teleported to the tutorial intrigued me greatly." It was already in front of the bleeding figure struggling to get up and regarded it a single time before getting up and swiping its feet. Grayson fell back onto the ground this time he didn't seem like he would get back up.

"I barely even hit you, you can't possibly be"

"[Firefly]!" He might have been heavily damaged but he wasn't just going to keel over and die. With great speed, he aimed his finger at the Squelch's face, whose eyes went wide.

An explosion erupted as the Squelch stopped moving, a cloud of fog covering its face. Is it dead? Grayson stared at the unmoving figure waiting for the fog to clear.

As he did he saw a small blue hue where the Squelch's face should have been. "[Barrier], unfortunate but like you I also have skills of my own, it was a good attempt I give you that, but it seems like we should rap this up." The Squelch lifted his hand up and right where his hand was a slick gleaming blade appeared. "Goodbye."

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Before Grayson could react he heard the blade descend toward him.

Not even 2 days have gone by and I'm already meeting my maker. He closed his eyes preparing for his inevitable fate. He saw how hopelessly outclassed he was. His trump card did nothing and he couldn't even see the blows that knocked the wind out of him.

There was no point in trying anymore. Mom, Dad, everyone, I'm sorry I couldn't have survived any longer.

Like that, the blade connected with its target and a thump hit the ground.

Am I dead? Grayson slowly opened one of his eyes only to find the Squelch picking up the little pouch he looted from the other Adult Squelch. "Suprised?" it smiled as it reached for the pouch and looked inside.

"Why...?" Hrayson murmured forcing the words out of his mouth.

"Why? Well, I don't have any reason to leave you alive, but I also don't have any reason to kill you. Sure you killed some of my... species, and disrespected me, but I think those punches and kicks were enough. Besides that little move you did at the end made me smile, it reminded me of my past."

"That's not what's important, the real reason I'm here is to collect this bag that idiot who died was carrying, it had something important in it. Other than that, I simply don't care to end your life. Who knows you might bring more delight into my mundane life." The Squelch finished his little speech and began to turn and walk away.

That's it? All this happened for a stupid bag? Right as Grayson said that the Squelch paused and turned around.

Can it read my mind!?

"I almost forgot." The Squelch reached into the little bag and threw a little red vial over to Grayson. "Here take this." He instinctively caught the little glass vial and eyed the red liquid suspiciously. Blood?

"It's a healing potion it should heal up some of your wounds. Drink it up and you'll feel better, but save a little to pour onto your larger wounds." It once again turned around and began to walk away.

Grayson sat there confused but he felt like he needed to know why the enemy that had once been trying to kill him would just give him something like that. "Why are you giving me this," he spluttered out.

This time it didn't turn around and simply reached into a different pouch, much more different than the one of took from Grayson. He reached inside and held up a little red glowing jewel. "Payment for the monster core. You really should have checked the insides of those monsters." That being said, the Squelch kicked its feet and disappeared like a blur.

Grayson continued sitting there.

Fuck my life.

He closed his eyes and just wanted everything to truly be a dream. His heart still needed to calm down from everything that just took place. He didn't care about the potential dangers because right now he just wanted to sit there. Well, actually he did because only a few seconds felt by before he yelped as he felt a little nibble at his finger. He jolted upright which caused the pain in his battered body to ignite. Angrily he looked around at whatever bit him and he saw a rat with three eyes staring at him.

Grayson screamed. Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. Squelch and boars were one thing, but a rat? a three-eyed rat? Grayson already didn't like normal rats but this one sent shivers down his spine that the silver Squelch from earlier couldn't. He grabbed one of his backup daggers and threw it straight at the three-eyed rat without a moment's hesitation.

God, I hate rats.

Scavenger rat slain!

10 XP gained!

Level up! You have reached level 4!

It would have been pretty cruel if that rat transformed into some strong boss after its death. Cores... There's no way I'm searching that thing's corpse for a core, it couldn't possibly be worth anything since it's only worth 3 XP. Even if it did I'm not risking getting some sort of rat disease. No way, no way.

He shook his head and decided that he didn't even want the crude dagger he'd thrown at it. He could probably find a much better knife anyway in the store.

Firming his decision, he walked to the entrance. "It's not locked. I was worried," he sighed. To be fair there wasn't much of a reason to assume the store would be closed. It was still pretty early yesterday when everyone was summoned to the tutorial. The only chance of that happening would be if, within that single minute, the tutorial appeared the owner decided he should close up and lock his store. Grayson wouldn't put it past the strange man, but even that was a little crazy for the old man he remembered.

"No point thinking about that though." Grayson walked into the store and was met with the familiar smell of his childhood. The lights were off but there was enough light coming through the windows to light up his surroundings.

Don't know how that's a good thing or a bad thing considering the possibility of enemies.

"Ah right." For some odd reason, he finally remembered the potion he had been carrying.

As much as I don't trust that Squelch if I wasn't sure if I broke anything during the fight with the boar, I'm definitely feeling a crack in my ribs. If I know anything about video games it's that lesser healing potions can't heal broken bones, which I'm assuming this is. But if it's just a crack I'd better use this before I actually shatter something.

"Strange taste, but not bad." Grayson corked the glass vial back up leaving around a 1/4 left in the bottle. Instantly he felt all the pain in his body start to disappear. Even some of the wounds he had on his body began to close rapidly, though his larger ones only seemed to scab over a bit. Besides the few larger wounds that had yet to close and the muscle pain, he was feeling much much better.

That worked much better than expected. Well, I guess that confirms it, this is a lesser healing potion. I'd assume a better one would have closed these wounds and dealt with this terrible muscle pain. I should probably clean these cuts off and wrap them up.

Grayson walked around the store gathering a few supplies. He grabbed everything he needed before he cleaned his wounds with some water and alcohol wipes he found. After that he poured the rest of the healing potion onto his wounds and was glad that he listened to Silver Squelch's advice as the healing potion seemed to close his wounds more than they should have. Happy with what he saw he he wrapped the wounds in some bandaids. No point in risking an infection, those first-aid lessons from that one random class I took are proving their worth now.

"Now." Grayson looked down at his dirty and torn clothing. "I'm sure the clothes can wait a bit more, 'cause boy I'm starving.”

Words were all it took because his stomach began growling furiously. "Calm down boy, glad you agree, but be a bit patient."