What else was there for him to tackle with?

Han had slowed down, only to regain his energy but every now and then he would look back. Almost sure that he had heard a clank of metal armor making their way to him.

Maybe it was just paranoia.

But this time he would surely be more careful.

This time, he was in no nobleman's hallways—he was in a prison's hallway. Metal jail bars and prison rooms were in every corner. How could this be possible?

"Magic." Han didn't even need to think too hard about that answer.

This time, he wasn't sure what this corridor would bring. Nobody was inside this place except him. "Roll for stealth." He muttered to himself while making sure to walk more carefully.

He didn't want any pit spikes to fall in now.

Wait.

It took a quick moment but he did his best to procure a pretty pink shell. Hoping like it didn't seem like he produced it out of thin air.

It skittered across the floor lightly like a pebble but nothing happened.

"Phew." He stepped more confidently into the prison floors. And that was when he realized that a shell wasn't heavy enough to trigger pressure plates.

He looked around in alarm but no weapon sliced through the air until he heard—squeaks and chittering!

Several holes opened in the walls as rats scurried out and Han immediately clambered and clung to the jail's rails. Han Jing was clearly no gymnast but somehow he managed to pull himself up away from the rats.

And when he said rats.

The floor was filled with them.

It was like a sea of rats, pushing each other back and forth in a chaos of vermin.

"What the—?" He loathed rats. They weren't as cute as mice and they carried deadly disease. When was a cat when you needed one. Could he scramble down and kick them and run his way to the door?

He could see the corridor—no, the open doorway's floor was rising. Its height was around knee-length now and prevented the rats from escaping but it would lock him down with them.

He gritted his teeth as he felt his own body getting sore. He was like some kid in a monkey bar—or a jungle gym, except he was clinging to jail bars. Or maybe he was some kind of stripper on a pole.

It didn't matter.

He didn't have any time for jokes.

Either the rising floor would shut him out or he'd fall down weary and get bitten by rats.

Both ideas weren't so good.

Think Han. Think.

What did he have?

He twitched his fingers for a moment and stretched out, clutching and procuring a small fruit in his hand.

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It was bright red. Cherry red.

And very poisonous.

But it wasn't like acid right? He stretched his arm out towards the mice and held the fruit out. He squished it and red liquid squirted down, the juice dribbling down from his fingers and into the floor.

And the rats loved it.

They piled up for the delicious juice, before one of them dropped back. Writhing for a moment and so did the other ones. Choking before dropping dead.

It was working.

Except he only had one berry.

And there was still a sea of rats.

But hey, some of the rats were preying on their dead friends. On second thought, that was actually gross. Han looked up for a moment and tried not to vomit.

The squeaks and chittering wouldn't stop, and even grew louder probably because they noticed that some of their companions were killed.

Han hung on the prison's metal bars for dear life. Glancing at the floor that was nearly shoulder height.

If only he had something else, LumenBerry? The Ashwood bark? No no. He couldn't use those.

If he was some kind of circus trapeze artist he would flung himself from one prison jail's bars to the other but the walls in between them were too wide.

Until an idea popped out of his head.

Would it be possible?

He had to try.

Man, if only it was easy to logout and reset things or start over at a savepoint. But the game wasn't like that. If he tried logging out and leaving, he'd return to this body bitten and chewed out by the rats.

'Status Screen!'

He thought about it hard and the familiar blue screen popped up before his very eyes.

[ Name: Han ]

[ Race: Human ]

[ Gender: Male ]

[ Age: 23 years old ]

[ Level 2 ]

[ Class: Peasant ]

[ Status Points: 3 available for use ]

[ Will: 4 ]

[ Talent: 2 ]

[ Comprehension: 3 ]

[ Luck: 1 (+??? Temporary Favor) ]

Good. Good. That Temporary Favor was still there. But besides that Luck stat, everything else seemed hard to exactly decipher.

"Strength. Dexterity. Why couldn't it be those instead of these." He muttered to himself as he weighed the odds.

Should he put it all in Luck? But he still had that Temporary Favor bonus. What would happen if he placed it evenly on Will, Talent and Comprehension? Would he be able to think of a new plan? Did he have the leisure to fairly distribute it?

Will or Talent?

What could talent do?

[ Indomitable Will ] It was a skill that Miss Orléans had spoken about. Was there a chance that he…?

[ 3 Points Had Been Added To 'Will' ]

There was a tinkle of bells.

He held his breath, waiting.

And zip, nada, zilch.

Nothing.

He gripped the metal bars tightly until his knuckles popped. Well he hadn't exactly been hoping too much for it. Still, [ Will ] was a tricky thing to explain. It was something that he imagined that made mothers able to deadlift a car to rescue a child beneath it. A man to jump out the window to save himself from a burning apartment.

And for him to do this.

It was steel. Metal bars.

Should he have put in some status points to Luck? He was gritting his teeth as he began to feel it bend over to his grip.

Will also happened to be closest to what he assumed to be the Strength stat.

He looked back at the rising floor—neck length now.

Desperation surged in his body, adrenaline adding into his body as finally it gave away. The two metal bars had finally come off. At least half a portion of it.

But that was more than enough.

He stabbed the closest rat with it and heard a squeal of pain and then nothing. Blood coated the metal bar.

Something nasty lurched up his throat at the sight of a dead rat but he began to shake it off and turned to its brethren. Skewer all the rats closest to him while his legs were slowly going down the bars.

This was the only insane plan that had gone through his mind.

And it was barely enough.

He threw back a rat climbing up the metal bar with the other bar in his other hand. And kept stabbing. Piercing like he was picking up trash when he was at community pick up duty.

Blood and rat bits flew everywhere.

Both squeals of anger and terror filled his ears as he tried to keep himself away from them. He began swatting the others away, chucking them into other prisons like hockey pucks.

When the blood started to pool around his floor did he find himself back on the floor.

He then tried to run while avoiding slipping on some guts.

He was still holding the metal bars when he pushed them to the ground—enough momentum to jump through the nearly closed pathway.

Almost akin to a deranged pole vaulter.

Han found himself landing on the other side, buckling onto the floor and biting back a shriek of pain as he hit the ground. It hurt. It really hurt.

Landing was nothing soft compared to Olympic vaulters.

Did he crack his bones? He curled up in pain and felt even more of it as he moved—Stone walls blasted off around him.

And Han was still in a hellish place.