Getting redressed and fitted back into her clothes, her shirt freshly modified to accommodate the new arm for just one point. Bug gets ready to get going. She has spent too much time in one spot, and there is supposedly a bunch of people looking for her just one floor up.
“For now, just going to focus on finding the stairs. I don’t want to waste too much time on this floor… Mhh?”
Just as Bug was about to exit the hole in the wall, she notices on her HUD that Mail is blinking. Opening the tab, she finds a new message titled ‘Congratulations on your first Class!’
But most importantly, the message has a gift attached to it.
Bug immediately throws herself back into the hole and sits down as she throws open the message. Her three arms excitedly drumming on her lap as she does so.
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“Hello cute little Bug,
Let me start by saying, Congratulation! Great job on reaching Level 10 and getting your first Class, and so quickly too! For reaching this milestone, you have received a reward for your hard work and dedication. Congrats!
Now, with that out of the way, I have some things I would like to let you know and to thank you for. First and foremost is that I have been placed in charge of managing your profile. I would tell you my name, but I am afraid that it would simply show as REDACTED if I did. For context, it was me that sent you the cookie. Hint, hint, about the attached gift ;)
Secondly, I would like to personally thank you for finding that error with the Death magic primary element selection. I was SO surprised when you chose Death magic of all things as your primary. So, I checked into it and found that for some reason, the details about the survival rate for those that pick that magic were not included in the description. Apparently, it has been on the board to be fixed for a few days now, and I could have sworn that REDACTED had been assigned to fix it already. Alas, the good news is that because of you, that problem has been pushed to the front and has now been properly addressed and fixed now. In the next patch, the related Knowledge and descriptions will be updated, and you will even be accredited for the find! Congratulations again and thanks; it would suck if we had users killing themselves on accident! And in case you are curious, you had an 87.972% chance of dying when you picked Death as your primary. Scary!
Lastly, as I am now permitted to share a bit more information with you. You can expect your next milestone reward to be at Level 50. I know it’s not much… but it’s all I can really share at the moment.
Loving the new arm by the way! Just try not to go too nuts with the Body magic. We get some real monstrosities that way and it is never cute.
Stay cute and keep leveling little Bug, I’ll be happily watching your progress.
Sincerely and with so much love, REDACTED.
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“87.972% chance of dying… I had a… I almost ended up killing myself!”
Three hands find her face as she looks at and rereads the bubbly written message over and over again.
“I only picked it because I thought that it was the best way to quickly get stronger, but if I knew what the chances were, I would have never picked it. I, I would have picked fire magic or something! Who the hell is the one responsible for not including that info!? I’m going to strangle them!!!”
Bug screams at the ceiling, cursing the System and its makers as she punches a wall.
“I don’t care if the System is only half finished! Make sure that the parts you have out actually work properly first, so that people like me don’t get killed by it! Do your fucking jobs!!!”
…
“Hah-hah-haaaah….”
Catching her breath from releasing some pent-up frustrations against an uncaring wall, Bug finally slumps back and calms herself as she looks back to the message, a tired little smile gracing her face. Reaching out, Bug taps the glowing icon and accepts the gift into her inventory.
At least I can look forward to another cookie. Finally! And all I had to do was kill a bunch of humans and piss off the Dungeon. Worth it!
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Opening the gift in her inventory, Bug watches with much excitement as some new icons fill the boxes.
‘Hooded Cloak. Useful for those that wish to hide their appearance from prying eyes. Not much use defensively, but makes it very easy to hide what your hands are doing. It even has pockets!’
‘Mask. A wooden mask that is shaped to fit your face perfectly. Great for hiding your face, but will definitely make you look suspicious.’
‘3 Pack of woman’s underwear. A colorful section of undergarments with different patterns.’
‘Cleanliness Starter Kit. A special kit for helping all new System users learn about proper bodily care. Contains an assortment of soaps and lotions, deodorant, teeth, nail, and hair care tools, and even the Knowledge, Self-Care, and why You Should Really Take a Bath.’
‘Ring of Vit. + 1 Vitality.’
‘Box of a dozen assorted cookies. A special gift made just for you by REDACTED. Contains 3 chocolate chip, 3 sugar, 2 peanut butter, 2 macadamia nut, and 2 Chocho-chocolate and caramel surprise.’
…
“A dozen cookies… twelve… twelve whole cookies…”
With shaking hands, Bug withdraws the box of cookies and shudders as it appears in her waiting hands. Through the wood box, she can feel the warmth of its contents radiating through. Even with it sealed, the heavenly smell of fresh baked goods is still leaking through.
Holding the box with two hands, so as to not risk dropping it, Bug uses her third to carefully lift the lid. It slides loose without fighting. The perfectly crafted wooden box happily giving way to her. As the lid is carried away and set aside, Bug can’t help but marvel at what she finds inside.
Resting on a bed of white paper is twelve cookies, each divided by a partition of paper to keep the fresh and melty things from sticking to each other. The smell is the first to reach her as it invades her senses. Almost as if a hand had reached up through her sinuses to gently and lovingly caress her brain. Completely unable to stop herself, Bug’s mouth starts to flood with drool.
The second is the sight of them. They may as well be gems within this box. The glistening chocolate chips, the shining crystals of sugar and sprinkles, the white of the macadamia nuts, the light browns of peanut butter, and the dark secrets of excessive amounts of chocolate drizzled in caramel… It is all too much.
Should she pray, should she cry? Should she dance and celebrate? Bug has no idea what to do with herself… She had finally done it. Right before her is one of her biggest goals, finally being realized. She got another cookie. A dozen at that no less!
Swallowing down a bunch of saliva, Bug moves a hand forward, and after much debate, finally grabs one of the little morsels. It is white, practically an opposite to the chocolate chip cookies, and smells incredibly sweet.
Before she can stop herself, it is already in her mouth being devoured. Sweetness flooding her mouth between bites of melty soft cookie and crunchy macadamia nut. Tears run down her face as she swallows the cookie. Bug had almost died several times for this, and It. Was. Worth. It!
Bug moves to grab another cookie, hungry to devour the whole box right now, down to the very last crumb, but stops as a memory hits her. She remembers the others. How they would fight over moss. How one just kept eating and eating, stuffing its face like a mess. How the others gorged themselves on the corpse of another…
I am better than them…
Bug takes just one more cookie and then returns the lid to the container before storing it away. This time, she takes the time to slowly savor the familiar taste of a chocolate chip cookie, enjoying it down to the last bite before then cleaning her fingers.
I have ten left. I should make them last and enjoy them properly. Not just eat them like some animal… I am better than them.
Relaxing and enjoying the feeling of cookies in her stomach, Bug eventually returns her attention to the rest of the gift. There is no note from REDACTED this time, but that is probably because they already said everything that they wanted to say in the message this time.
Besides the box of cookies, there are some clothing items like a cloak and some underwear. Bug has no idea why she was giving the underwear when she already has one of her own, but free stuff is free stuff, and she isn’t going to say no.
After playing with the mask for a little while and then putting it away, Bug finally takes out the ring and the cleanliness starter kit.
The ring is the first to really catch her attention, as it has a silver band and is adorned with a red gem. Bug quite happily puts it on one of her left hand’s index finger and smiles.
Now this is a gift! So shiny and pretty. Thank you REDACTED, I love it.
With a quick check of her stats to see that it is working properly, Bug then looks to the last thing.
The Cleanliness starter pack opens in her inventory to produce a bunch of items and a Knowledge book. Taking out some of the items, Bug looks them over. A lot of it smells really nice, and almost all of it is labeled with, ‘Do not eat!’
Regardless of the labels, Bug find herself tempted to bite the nice smelling thing, called a bar of soap, but thankfully, she changes her mind as she considers that the labels are probably there for a reason…
Growing bored of looking the stuff over, Bug goes ahead and uses the Knowledge that was included in the package.
A short loading bar later and Bug is left a bit stunned and blushing. She looks at herself and has to fight down some disgust.
Bug isn’t exactly filthy, right now per se. She washes the blood off of her stuff when she can, and besides some dirt, she isn’t a complete mess. But she isn’t clean either. Most noticeably is the smell of sweat that she hadn’t really cared about or hardly noticed until now, but now it is distracting. Besides that, is her hair, which is getting oily and is a tangled mess, her fur is looking dusty and needs a wash and a brushing, she has never cleaned her teeth once besides licking them clean, her claws are still blood-stained from their resent changes, not to mention her new arm and all the dried blood from where her side spit open…
Smelling an arm pit leaves her gagging…
Ok, shit, I definitely need a bath. And now I also understand why they gave me new underwear… Thanks REDACTED…
“Ok! New priority. Gotta take a bath first, then I am making my way to the next floor.”
Peeking out of the hole in the wall, Bug sees that the coast is clear, and that all of her zombies are still playing dead. Giving it a smell, she realizes that the hallway is starting to get a bit of a rotten smell to it.
Lovely… I guess the zombies are already starting to go bad. They aren’t going to be pleasant to be around here soon. When I find a safe place later, I should just hurry up and turn them into skeletons. But for now, they should be fine.