For the second time this week, I was in my bathroom crying with a foreign object stuck inside my body and a medkit beside me. The adrenaline from the fight had started to wear off, and as the natural high faded, the pain surged. The spear wasn’t lodged as deep inside me as the knife had been, but after checking the room, getting back to mine, and getting my bathroom triage center ready, combined with the spear’s awkward weight and center of gravity led to it shifting and tearing at my flesh with every step. The wound was significantly larger than it had been originally. At least this time, I had some idea of what to do and had the foresight to sit in my shower so the cleanup would be more convenient.

I pulled out the spear slowly, sobbing through the pain. I tore off my shirt and poured a bit of the alcohol on the wound, groaned, and picked up a suture needle. The wound was an oval two inches wide and, maybe, three inches deep. I was sure there were splinters down inside, but I had no idea how to even try to find them. All I could do was sew up the damage and hope for the best. After one line of stitches down and a second pass going back up, I figured it was as good as it was going to get. “Ding~!”

Skill Improved: First Aid First Aid has reached level 2

“That’s gonna have to be good enough for now,” I grumbled. I turned on my shower and awkwardly got to my feet without putting any pressure on my left arm or shoulder. I stripped in the shower and felt the filth of battle washed away by the purifying heat. I didn’t dry myself or put on clothes. I simply wandered over to my bed and passed out.

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I awoke to a blue screen, stiffness in my shoulder, and a fierce itch in my thigh. I reached to scratch my thigh and found the problem immediately. My stab wound had healed well, but the stitches were still there. I shifted my left shoulder, and it felt much like my thigh had after I woke up from my first improvised surgery. It was stiff but functional, and if I strained the arm, there was moderate pain. After checking on my body, it was time for the pop-up.

Ability Improved: Hibernation Hibernation has reached level 4

I wish I knew exactly what Hibernation did. I couldn’t complain about the extra ability, and it was likely the only reason I had recovered fast enough to keep fighting and survive, but I hated not knowing.

I checked my phone: Sunday, April 25th, 2027. Four days had passed again, and my stomach confirmed it. I hadn’t lost as much blood this time or been anywhere near as weak, but I had also been awake and haunted by lying goblin eyes for two nights straight. I hoped it wasn't an automatic four days every time I got hurt. That would make a stubbed toe awfully inconvenient.

I wandered to my slightly bloodied bathroom and fished through the first aid kit for some scissors I remembered seeing. I snipped the bits of stitches on my thigh that were visible and found some sturdy looking tweezers in the kit to try and pull them out.

It was far more painful than I expected. The healed skin had fused to the stitches, and it took a great deal of effort to extract them, and it left bleeding holes behind. Luckily, what came next was a part of first aid I knew very well. I slapped a few large bandages over the stitch holes and smiled, waiting for a First Aid level increase alert… but nothing happened, ‘A man can dream.’

I cleaned up the mess in my bathroom quickly. My shower plan had worked, and it was nowhere near as bad as before. Then it was time to get ready for the day. I munched down some pop tarts and chugged glass after glass of water while cooking up Mac N’ Cheese. As I ate, I tried another round of guessing what command would actually open a proper status window. “Friend’s List!” I tried in complete desperation, and I got a response! “Ding~!”

Friend's List You have no friends

Stolen novel; please report.

“Oh, fuck you!” I yelled at the completely useless status window. At least I confirmed that status windows could appear with a voice command, but this was probably the most useless window I could pull up because I was alone here. I tried a few more commands, but it was entirely futile. I wrapped up my meal with a strange blend of both frustration and hope. It was shitty progress, but it was still progress. After my balanced breakfast, it was time for something that would completely ruin my day, but that I knew I had to do anyway.

I walked out into the hallway of carnage with seven dead goblins, knowing there were another three inside the room and two human corpses. After four days of decomposition at room temperature, the hallway was filled with a putrid stench. I walked towards the stairwell while lifting my shirt over my nose and mouth. It did absolutely nothing to ward off the stench, but it made me feel slightly more protected from it.

I peered through the small, reinforced glass window of the door, and I didn’t see anything on the landing or the stairs within my field of view. I slowly and silently pushed open the door and was greeted with another rank smell. There was garbage, shit, and urine stains all around the stairwell. It seemed like the beasts had been living here for some time before working up the courage to move into the apartments.

I propped the door open with a broken chair-leg club and sighed. I pulled on a pair of disposable gloves I had brought from my first aid kit and set about my morbid task. I dragged each of the goblin corpses to the stairwell and heaved them over the railing. They plummeted thirty-six stories to the ground, often slapping against the railings on the way down. About halfway through, I heard a loud crash echoing from below.

It was followed by another crash and then another, and I swear I could almost feel the building shake. I heard the sound of something cracking and breaking, and then a noise like a rockslide. I heard growling, some sort of softer impact, and then quiet groaning. I doubt I would have heard the quiet groaning at all if the other noises hadn’t ceased. I looked over the stairwell’s edge and saw a massive shape shifting around on the bottom floor. The span between the stairs was ten feet across, but the creature seemed to fill the entire space. If the stairwell hadn’t been so well lit, I might have missed one of the creature’s massive arms grabbing a goblin’s corpse. The sounds of crunching bones and sloppy chewing reached my ears. Despite being softened by the distance, I heard every bite until I got my wits together and returned to the hallway.

I shuddered at the thought of what that creature could do to me, but at that moment, my most significant concern was the risk of disease and infection from so many rotting corpses. It looked like I found my garbage disposal.

I heaved the rest of the goblins over the edge, but then I was left with another dilemma. I had two four day old human corpses as well. Feeding them to the beast below felt so wrong… but what else was I to do? I was in an apartment. There was no dirt to bury them and no way to build a fire to burn them without killing myself. Even if one of the apartments had an oven large enough, they weren’t incinerators. I had three options:

1. Seal the room and let them rot.

2. Feed the stairwell monster.

3. Cram them down the trash chute, where some other creature would find them and eat them.

Somehow, dropping them down a stairwell to be eaten seemed slightly more respectful than dropping them into a dumpster to be eaten. I dropped them down the stairwell, albeit with more care and grace than I gave the goblins.

The next order of business was the mess. The carpets were caked with blood from both myself and the goblins. The only upside was that I had access to the housekeeping supply room that the cleaning service used on our floor now. It was the size of my bedroom. It had a trash chute, vacuums, steam vacuums, washing machines, dryers, and carts for cleaning supplies, as well as shelves and shelves full of all the cleaning essentials.

It was locked, but I had a key because it served double duty as the laundry room for the people that didn't pay for the cleaning service. My first target was the steam vacuum, and I completely purged the carpets of my apartment. Although their almost clean state had no risk of making me sick, I wanted a place to return to that wasn’t stained with blood. “Ding~!”

Skill Unlocked: Cleaning (Willpower Skill) Dirt and grime have no place in a civilized society. Improves the effectiveness and speed of cleaning by %5 per level. Current level: (1)

“Strange…” I mumbled. I had assumed that only battle-related skills existed. ‘After scrubbing my bathroom and carpets, I should have gotten this a long time ago. Right?’ Most of the skills I obtained happened after only a single-use, although others like Short Blades had only appeared after multiple fights.

I finished erasing all traces of blood from my apartment with steam, Lysol, and many towels. I walked out to the hallway and sighed at all the blood. Today was going to be a very long day.