The beast rose on its hind legs and swung its claws at Jack. He yelped in pain and frustration. He was so weak that the rock seemed three times as heavy as it’d been before. Shouting and exerting all his strength, he lifted the rock. Turning to face the monster, Jack tried to strike it with his improvised weapon. However, his body was so tired that all his movements were slow. The croc-rat had no trouble at all jumping out of harm’s way in time.
The creature must have realized how tired and weak his prey was now. It sure noticed how slowly he moved, and this observation made the croc-rat more confident. Growling angrily, the creature crept toward Jack.
It was bad. It was real bad. Even though he’d known from the very beginning that his chances to win this battle were slim to none, he still hoped that he would be victorious. But now his hope completely died off. He was severely wounded and exhausted. He was hardly able to hold the rock in his hands.
Jack began to move backward, staring at the growling animal that was approaching him. He had to come up with a plan, otherwise the monster would finish him off. It could charge him at any moment. But what could he do? How to defeat the monster? Jack kept retreating, racking his brain for a solution to the problem. No bright idea came to his mind. Still, he refused to just give up.
He took a few more steps backward. The croc-rat continued to advance on him, but it still didn’t make an attempt to attack him. It was clearly afraid of the rock in his hands. It was the only thing that discouraged the beast from charging at him, so Jack made sure to hold the rock tightly in his hands. Even though the rock was heavy as hell, he wasn’t going to drop it. After all, right now it was the only thing that kept him alive.
As he continued to retreat, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. He quickly glanced in that direction and saw a few more similar large rocks lying nearby. A plan of sorts formed in his mind. He had no idea if his plan was going to work or not. However, he had no time to think it through because the croc-rat finally made up its mind and burst into a run toward him.
Jack lifted the rock in his hands higher and hurtled it at the approaching beast as hard as he could. The beast clearly didn’t expect it and reacted slower than it should have. It wasn’t able to get out of the way in time, and the rock grazed its side, leaving a long bleeding scratch along its body. The creature yelped in pain, but Jack didn’t give it another look, because he was already darting for another nearby rock. Bending at the waist, he grabbed the rock with both hands. He was dog-tired, and his hands trembled from the effort, but he was going to do his best to finish the creature off. Or he would die trying. Either way, he wasn’t going to stop now.
With great effort, he lifted the rock from the ground and brought it up to chest level. When he turned toward the beast, he was pleasantly surprised to see that it still hadn’t completely recovered from the last blow. Before the creature could do anything, Jack lifted the rock above his head and hurled it at the beast with great force.
The croc-rat noticed it fly toward it, but it was too late for the creature to do anything. The rock smashed into the monster’s head, leaving a bleeding gush in it. The beast staggered. It tried to keep its balance but failed to do so and toppled over. Encouraged by such success, Jack darted for another rock. By the time he picked it up, the croc-rat had already gotten to its feet.
Only it didn’t charge at him. Upon seeing another large rock in his hands, the beast must have decided it had enough. The creature was bleeding profusely from numerous wounds and was in no condition to continue to fight. It wheeled around toward the opening that led out of the cavern. As it staggered toward the exit, Jack hurled the rock, and it hit the creature in one of the hind legs, breaking it. Yelping in pain, the beast collapsed to the cave floor. It tried to immediately get up, but the pain in its broken leg caused the creature to fall again.
Jack grabbed another rock from the floor and ran to the fallen monster. Straddling the beast, he smashed the heavy rock against the croc-rat’s head again and again, splashing dark blood over the ground. The creature yelped in pain and its body thrashed around, but the monster couldn’t do anything to save itself. Yelling in wild rage like a barbarian, Jack hit the monster again and again. He struck it repeatedly, not realizing that the monster was long dead. He continued to smash the rock against the beast’s now heavily deformed head until he got completely exhausted.
The rock fell from his hands. Breathing heavily, he stared down at the monster he’d just defeated. Half its head was turned into a gory mush. There was no way the beast could be alive, so Jack finally allowed himself to relax. He backed up, walking away from the dead body until his back bumped into a cave wall. He slid down to the cave floor and sat still. And all the while, his eyes were fixed on the motionless body as if he expected it to rise from the dead. But it didn’t happen. The beast was dead for good.
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Then something happened. At first, he thought that the croc-rat revived, but he quickly realized he was wrong. Some kind of energy wafted from the dead body and floated across the cave toward him.
“What the hell is that?” he muttered.
He tried to get up but couldn’t. He was too tired. The energy reached him and disappeared into his body. Almost immediately after that, a text message appeared before his eyes.
You have received 10 Essence points.
“Fuck me,” he muttered. “It’s really like a video game.”
Those Essence points must have been an analog of XP in role-playing games.
Then another message popped up in his vision.
Bounty fulfilled! You have received 1,000 gold.
“Nice,” Jack thought tiredly. “I’m fucking rich now.”
With a thought, he brought up the main menu and switched to his character sheet to examine the first section of it.
Level 0 Current Essence 10 Essence to Next Level 100 Available Skill Points 0 Gold 1,000 Survived 0 days
Killing the croc-rat gave him only ten Essence points. To level up, he needed to kill nine more such vile creatures. The croc-rat had almost managed to kill him, so he had no idea how he would be able to deal with nine more such scary monsters.
“That’s brutal,” Jack muttered tiredly.
At least, he got one thousand gold. That’s got to count for something.
He heard a strange sound coming from across the cave. Instantly alert for any danger, Jack turned his head to look in that direction. On the other side of the cavern, he saw a section of the wall move forward a few inches and then slide aside, revealing a hidden compartment. Inside the chamber sat a wooden chest.
Jack just stared at it for a second before he realized what it all meant. In video games, you receive rewards for killing monsters, completing quests, clearing dungeons, and so forth. So since this place pretended to be a video game, things worked similarly here. He killed the croc-rat, so he was offered a reward. He was curious about what was in the wooden chest, but he was too tired to get up at the moment.
It can wait, he thought. Gotta just rest for a bit.
Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he felt severe pain in his injured legs. He looked down at them. His ankle that the croc-rat had bitten was bleeding profusely. The wound looked bad. Very bad. He had to do something about it. The other leg sported three long scratches, but they weren’t bleeding. The legs of his pants were torn to shreds as well, but it was the least of his worries at the moment.
He brought up the main menu again.
Character Store (available for 10 days only) Bounties/Quests/Challenges Map
He opened the store. There were a lot of various items, consumables, and even buildings for sale. He was interested only in medical stuff, though. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. The first thing that he noticed was that everything was extremely expensive.
First of all, he purchased a small bottle of antiseptic for 500 gold. It materialized out of thin air right before his eyes. There weren’t any sound or visual effects like you would expect in an actual video game. It just appeared in front of him. He held out his hands, and the small bottle without a label dropped into his cupped palms.
He uncapped the bottle and tipped it over the gash in his ankle. He screamed bloody murder at the sudden burning pain, but he kept pouring. He used most of the antiseptic on his injured ankle, and what was left of the medicine, he poured over the scratches across his other leg. He then brought up the store again and bought two gauze bandage rolls for 100 gold each and wrapped them tightly around his injured legs. The torn wound on his ankle oozed through the dressing several times before the bleeding was stanched.
He was still in a lot of pain. He checked the store one more time. There were painkillers for sale as well, 300 gold for one pill. He spent the remaining three hundred gold to buy one, and just like that, all the gold he’d just earned was spent. A pretty large white capsule materialized before him. He caught it as it fell down. He popped the pill into his mouth and dry swallowed it.
Almost immediately after that, the pain began to subside. Jack leaned his head against the wall behind him and closed his eyes.
He wasn’t planning on falling asleep. He just wanted to rest for a little bit. However, the stress of fighting the croc-rat, the tiredness, and the soothing effects of the painkiller did the trick. Before he knew it, Jack fell asleep.