Patrick Deemer, twenty-two, doesn't like his job. That's nothing surprising, considering seventy percent of Americans share the same feeling.

"You have a nice day!" Patrick says to the woman leaving his checkout line. He works as a cashier in a small grocery store. Once the woman is out of sight, Patrick checks his surroundings.

'Fucking idiot,' He sees nobody, and the smile quickly fades from his face. No one can see, but the permanent scowl that left his face for the last three customers has returned. If someone walked upon Patrick now, they would never know how much he hated them. After years of use, the scowl has become Patrick's normal face, barely recognizable from a calmer alternative.

"Hi, did you find everything alright?" Patrick asks the next customer to walk into his line. His eyes squint, and the corners of his mouth shoot up to the middle of his cheeks. This time, Patrick has chosen to show his smile full of a gray-tinted teeth.

"I'm fine, how are you?" The customer asks, obviously not paying attention to Patrick's question. It's alright though, Patrick never meant to ask it with any seriousness.

A few hours later, Patrick is at the end of his shift. He works from five in the evening till ten at night. Not because he has a day job to go to, but because the store cannot find more people with his availability. After all, Patrick doesn't have anything that he needs to schedule time for.

Patrick drives an old sedan. It was previously owned by his great aunt, who bought it new and only drove it about twelve thousand miles. Still, it's a twenty year-old car. The gas mileage isn't great, the seats are uncomfortable, and the knobs for the air conditioner are all broken.

The car takes a few minutes to warm up. While it does, Patrick sits in the driver's seat and listens to the radio. A rock channel, a classic rock channel, another rock channel, and then two random stations that his great aunt had set and he never changed.

'They never play Dark Side of the Moon,' Patrick hates the people he encounters at work, and he also hates the people who run the radio stations. Of his favorite bands, only a couple of their songs regularly play, and they aren't even the most popular songs. Also, since a pop star recently died, they're playing many of his songs.

Congratulations, you have been selected as a candidate for the position of Dungeon Core. To accept, kill three entities within sixty seconds.

Begin now. If you wish to decline, sustain from killing three entities for sixty seconds.

While driving, Patrick looks at the words in front of his vision. They were white against a gray background, but everything was transparent enough for him to still see the dash and road in front of the car. A lighter gray line borders the text, distinguishing the floating box in his vision.

Patrick's first thought is to kill three entities. He doesn't have technology that could produce the floating box of text, so the cause of it is obvious to him. For some reason, a god was taking notice of him. Patrick feels he only has this chance to act. Out of his twenty two years of life, a god never spoke to him. Now, right now, he was being given a chance for something that would probably never come again.

Patrick plans to take it.

On the road, there are two other cars beside Patrick's, and both are on the right lane. Patrick speeds up, exceeding seventy miles per hour, and comes side to side with a crossover. There are two people in the car, which Patrick could kill to achieve 66% of goal, but that still leaves one more entity to kill.

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Neither the driver nor the passenger in the crossover have any clue what Patrick is thinking. They are coming back from a comedy show in a nearby town, and happily unaware of the other cars on the highway.

They're both about one hundred feet from an off-ramp. At that distance, it would only take a little more than one second...

Patrick jerks the wheel and slams into the crossover. The woman driving it doesn't know how to act. She's not a new driver, but she tired and slightly intoxicated from a drink she had at the comedy club. This is, however, much better than her husband who clearly could not drive.

"Ah!" A small shriek escapes her mouth just moments before her vehicle hits the guardrail between the highway and the off-ramp. Time slows down for her as she impacts the guardrail at sixty miles per hour. Her car crushes the guardrail but also flips over. After one roll, the vehicle crashes into a tree.

That's two. You only need one more, with twenty eight seconds left to go.

Patrick looks around for another car to hit. There are no cars in front of him, and the sedan behind him is slowing down after witnessing the wreak. Without any other course of action, Patrick stomps on the pedal break. His car decelerates much faster than the car behind him, but they swerve to avoid him.

Patrick takes his foot off the break and puts it on the gas. Fortunately, for him, the other driver doesn't think Patrick is actively trying to hit him. Patrick turns off his lights to reduce other's visibility of him, and slams into the back of the sedan. The sedan swerves slightly, and the driver begins to pull over.

There are barely fifteen seconds left to kill the last entity. The driver of the sedan exits his car, ready to inspect the damage done to it, but Patrick swerves with his car to run him over.

It's a shoot and a miss. Patrick's car scrapes along the side of the sedan, and the driver falls to the ground. Patrick passes over him, but doesn't kill him. Determined to finish the job before the time limit runs out, Patrick abandons his car while it is still moving and runs back to the other driver.

The sedan driver is scrapped, but not fatally injured. He's mildly overweight, so part of his backside was damaged by Patrick's car.

With five seconds left, Patrick takes the pen in his pocket and stabs it into the man's neck. He then takes the multi-tool on his key-ring and does the same with its miniature knife.

Close call, but you did it! Your position as a Dungeon Core has been secured!

To start in your new position, kill yourself.

Patrick sits on the back of the dead man and looks at his surroundings. His car is slowly making its way down the median strip, and his hands are bloody. It's dark out, but Patrick can see cars passing in both directions. He decides to go home before killing himself, and gets into the dead man's car. He drives away, not feeling any regret.

Twenty minutes later, Patrick arrives at his home. The drive would normally take only ten minutes, but he decided to take the next exit and take the scenic route. After all, it might the last time he sees his hometown. Once parked, Patrick steps out of the car, leaving it unlocked with the keys inside, and walks around to the back of a townhouse. This is where he lives, a shitty basement room.

Inside the rented space are all of Patrick's possessions. First, he erases all of his web browser histories. Second, he takes out the trash with his masturbation tissues in it. Third, he piles his valuables in the center of the room. It's not much, but it will help whoever is going to clean up after him.

In the corner of the room, in a spot not visible from the entry door or the stairway leading to the first floor of the townhouse, Patrick has a flourishing castor oil plant. It almost reaches the ceiling, and seeds are spread out along its body. At the floor where it's planted, a small glass vial filled with a white powder.

This is ricin that Patrick has collected from the castor oil plant. He gained the idea after watching a popular television series, and planned to use it against the woman living above him is she ever had another party for her college friends.

The glass vial is topped with a screw-on lid, which Patrick removes. Laying back in his only chair, a recliner gifted to him by his mother, Patrick swallows the contents of the vial. While Patrick waits for the poison to kill him, he eats seeds off the plant.