Quill went through two packs of chips that, with his enhanced taste, was way too freaking salty before remembering he could toggle on and off his senses and promptly did so for both taste, touch and smell.
“Would you please stop laughing at me.” He couldn’t help but grumble
“I Can’t help it! The whole thing was just priceless. Oh that is going right into my core memories!” She barely managed to explain in between the excessive snickering.
He let out a sigh and after drinking a lot more water to try and make him forget about the excess salt and rotting food taste in his mouth he packed up what he could in his torn bag with what was left from the vending machine and filled the two empty potion vials with water.
“Soooooo. What's the plan now?”
“Right now? I want to try identifying those scary worm-like creatures. I doubt I will get anything based on how helpful this skill seems to actually be, but any information I can get would be welcome.”
“You will probably get noth…. Actually, I really like this plan. You should absolutely do this!”
Quill froze at the sudden enthusiasm. “Why? What do you know that I don’t.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. I just fully believe in the phrase ‘Knowledge is power’, or however it goes. Time to get learning! Plus maybe you’ll level up your skill if you try identifying something so big and scary. You never knooowww~”
Tempting him with a possible level up for his skill huh? Eh, even if he did identify the thing, what was the worst that could happen? Though he also felt like he just cursed himself by thinking that exact statement. The malicious giggling from her wasn’t helping either.
“Oh just do it and stop being such a worry wart.”
Without much reason to protest, Quill headed out of the breakroom. As he stepped out he decided to cast an identify on the dead rats and got a simple status screen
Adolescent dire rat- Dead
Yeah, it didn't really tell him what he didn’t already know. Hopefully when it did level up he would learn more or get some better insight onto things.
Also he was really glad he turned off the enhanced smell cause damn did they smell bad just with his regular nose. He almost turned off his enhanced sight too just because being able to see every gross detail of the dead and rotting rats was nearly unbearable.
Perhaps it was a good thing he was planning on leaving the station. If he were to stay here for a few more days the corpses would easily become unbearable. Even without his enhanced sense.
Moving past the dead rats he checked each station just to make sure nothing more was lying in wait for him and then checked the arrival times, picking the one that was to arrive the soonest which was the maggot colored monster, Quill hid on top of the stairs and waited.
In order to pass the time he started identifying everything around him but it was all useless info like “wall”, “Floor”, “Sign”, or “rock”, but there didn't really seem to be a limit to how many times he could use the skill.
Soon he heard the scraping sounds and quickly ducked behind a wall at the top of the stairs and peered at the tracks as the monster slowly crawled its way into the station.
You are inflicted with f-
HE KNOWS!!! Quill dismissed the prompt the moment it showed up and looked at the creature as its hands started to pad around the station, obviously looking for anything to munch or chow down on. Gritting his teeth, Quill casted identify.
Cursed Sin
Huh.. Well that was new and only just drove home the point that he should probably avoid these things at all cost. There was no way he was going to fight such a monster unless absolutely necessary.
New quest has been issued!
Kill the cursed beings infesting the tunnels!
They’re things in this multiverse that would bring absolute misery to those that find themselves at the receiving end of their attention. You are to kill all Cursed Sins in this dungeon before the tutorial finishes.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Objective- Kill all of the Cursed Sins in the dungeon.
Reward upon completion- A village ticket (high E grade, Peak quality)
Consequences for failing- You will be dropped in the middle of a D grade monster nest once the tutorial is complete
Quill just glared at the screen for a long moment, forgetting all about his fear towards the monster as it soon slowly left the station. And after waiting a few more minutes he took a deep breath and spoke.
“You knew this would happen didn’t you.”
“Wha??? Little ole me? How could I possibly know this was going to happen?”
“You Totally Did!”
“You can’t prove nothin! And I will not be slandered over these baseless accusations.”
Quill let out an exasperated sigh. “Are you on my side or not? Cause it’s starting to feel like you are trying to get me killed.”
“Oh my love. Trust me, I have nothing but your best interests at heart. Even if you don’t understand it. All you need to do is trust me, listen to me, even if you don’t understand it. And we will do many, many great things together~”
He paused ever so slightly and frowned at the annoyance of the fogginess of his brain before shaking his head and refocusing “Yeah, you are right. I am just stressed. Sorry for getting upset at you.”
“It’s quite alright cutie. Don’t you worry bout a thing. But we should probably keep going now”
“Yeah.” She was right, she was always right. That thought gave him pause but he knew he had to get moving, so he got up from where he was hiding and walked down to the tracks. He certainly wasn’t going to fight one of those things now, that was for sure. But he still needed to leave and sadly the only way out of the station was through the tunnels.
He hopped down onto the tracks as quietly as he could, the first order of business though was to see how well he could see in the dark.
He stepped into the pitch black tunnel with some hesitation, half expecting the worm sin thing to just jump out of nowhere and eat him whole as he walked a little further until he was far enough removed from the light of the station to not get any light.
The final result. He could sorta see if he really strained his eyes. Thankfully he also had enhanced hearing, and now that he was no longer around a bunch of dead decaying rats he turned on his enhanced sense of smell too.
Knowing things weren’t really going to get better with his situation he decided to keep moving forward but instead of walking like some lame dork, he had a better idea in mind that could hopefully help with his skill leveling.
He began to channel the grey energy with a very specific idea in mind. He made a small narrow platform with two wheels in the front and two wheels in the back.
“Did you really make a skateboard?”
“Yep! But with one distinct difference. I can control whatever energy I am using. So that means I can control the wheels and that means” Quill couldn’t help but grin a little as he placed a steady foot onto the makeshift board.
“Thought you were going to make something that didn’t make you come across as a lame dork.” She responded in a light hearted teasing tone which Quill decided to ignore.
Once he confirmed it could hold his weight he stood on top of it and with a mental command started to have the wheels spin and soon he was off down the rails, granted it was a bumpy ride and he wasn’t going as fast as he would like on the account of how difficult it was to see but he was indeed moving much faster then he could run! For about one whole minute at least.
As he moved forward in a bumpy but very fun ride he began to feel the effects of using the energy for as long as he had. His body started sweating, his muscles started to feel sore and drained, his mind almost began to feel fuzzy and he began to have a hard time concentrating on the task at hand which was simply moving forward.
Recognizing the writing on the wall he quickly dissipated the energy and stumbled forward. Placing a hand on the tunnel wall to steady himself as he did so.
“Well, I kinda expected to be able to go further than that” He muttered somewhat quietly so as to not attract the attention of anything that might be nearby.
“Yeah, should have told ya but hey, best you find out about the negative effects from over using that skill now rather than later when you might be in a very dangerous fight. You probably would have noticed the effects when you were fighting the rats had you actually been paying more attention and weren’t in such a life and death situation.”
“Yeah. And why didn’t you tell me beforehand?” he couldn’t help but ask exasperated.
“I find the best way to learn something is to experience it first hand. Would you not agree?”
“Well if experiencing it first hand could potentially mean my death perhaps it would be prudent to share something beforehand.”
“Hmm. Yeah, I see your point. Well you should probably know that had you kept pushing your body beyond the limit, your body would have started to rupture and your mind would slowly lose consciousness. The good news is that the more you level and strengthen your body and mind, the more resistant you become to the strain of using the skill, and even be able to do more with it too.” She delivered the lines of his body rupturing and his mind losing conscious in a way to cherry tone
“Yeah.” Quill responded, trying to ignore said tone “See that is very useful information to know beforehand. I take it I don’t need to worry about any effects on my soul”
“No, your soul is perfectly safe and secure honeybuns, I am making sure of it~”
Before Quill could even ask what she meant she suddenly continued with some urgency in her voice “By the way, don’t mean to freak you out or nothin, but you might want to get a move on.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Well you are in the metro tunnels and those horror things are also in the tunnels and you don't want one catching up on you while inside right?”
“Well sure but I don’t think the one in this tunnel will have made its round or whatever. It seems to take them over an hour to do whatever loop they are doing, and we still have plenty of time.”
“Perhaps. But this tutorial dungeon is based on the metros in your world right? Don’t multiple trains use the same tracks to get to different places?”
Quill froze at the sudden realization and since he couldn’t see very well he strained his ears to see if he could hear anything. There was nothing still, but a new sense of urgency overcame him. Shaking off his drowsiness and the soreness from his muscles he started moving with a bit more pep in his step.