CHAPTER 30 – ESCAPE

Tom’s mind went into overdrive. He was in a dark, relatively narrow corridor and had accidentally stepped into what he was now sure was a monster lair. That conclusion had come from both the change in the stone texture and the smell. He had retreated, and then there had been the extra noise. A squeak? Had he generated that? Maybe it were his shoes on the stone as they twisted. Or? Had it been something external? Something alive?

Oh Shit, he thought as his mind finally caught up and latched on to that fact. There had been an unexpected sound near a monster lair. There was no time for further thought, only action. Instinctively, he threw himself to the side.

Something brushed past his hair.

Damn, he cursed mentally. The threat was not imaginary. Clinically, he suppressed the base instinct to flee screaming, and ran the calculation on the benefit of fight or flight. Surprisingly, biology and logic agreed with each other, and he sprinted forward without further hesitation.

The only fact that mattered was that he was still too close to the den, and, while staying and fighting was usually superior to blindly fleeing, this was an exception to the rule. He couldn’t afford to attract any extra attention.

There was another squeak, this time to his right. He threw a punch and felt a touch of wings against his hand, as well as the feel of changing wind as the creature dived away from his blow. Tom’s mind hadn’t slowed down, and he considered this new information. The monster had dodged rather than landing a counter. A small measure of relief flooded through him. He wasn’t safe by a long shot, but its decision to avoid contact rather than tank it and strike back, implied that it was weak. He was lucky.

Hopefully, it wasn’t even a monster, and was instead a low-ranking beast. If that was the case, he wasn’t in direct danger. But there was so much he didn’t know.

He kept running. Against a single enemy, even with this body which lacked abilities, attributes and even a weapon, he had a chance of winning. But a hundred would overwhelm him. He needed to create distance from the den to avoid that.

As he ran, he frowned. It was not certain, but he was probably fighting a bat equivalent. A weak one, certainly, but the degree was unknown. It was definitely tier-three or less, as he had survived it ambushing him within its domain. Its agility and offense also had to be rank one at the most, or else he would have suffered more damage by now. However, Tom knew that this single observation did not make him safe. The creature’s caution did not guarantee that he could win in a straight fight. There was always the risk that it possessed some dangerously lopsided attributes. A build that prioritised strength and vitality, for instance; and, if that was the case, while Tom was able to dodge it, it would finish him if he ever allowed it to engage him properly. If the fight became a grapple in close quarters, he would be torn to bits. Unless he found out differently, he had to avoid a direct confrontation.

Forcefully, he slowed his steps down so as to hear it better.

There was another squeak on the edge of his hearing. This time, he suppressed his instinctive reactions. During the last attack, his fist had almost landed. A fraction of a second was all he needed to delay, and then it wouldn’t be able to dodge. It was agony to force inaction while knowing that an unknown creature was swooping in…

He lashed out with a fist at where he predicted its attack would put it. His counter was based on that one squeak - and on his years of battle experience. In the near pitch-blackness, his understanding of how bat-like monsters flew and attacked was his greatest asset.

He struck something.

Teeth bit down with fangs cutting into his knuckles, and then there was a crack, and it bounced away from him. His hand stung, but he was more interested in his other senses.

Primarily, his hearing. The thing flapped erratically, then crashed five metres down the tunnel. It was not tier three; it was closer to an earth bat than anything else. Light, slow to react, and it sounded like he had hurt it.

For an instant, he paused in indecision. This was a closer choice than previously, and he was torn about what was the best action. He could pursue it and stamp it to death, or he could flee. After a bare moment of thought, he chose the latter. Action, even if wrong in this situation, was better than inaction. Creating distance was the wiser choice because, in the darkness, given the bat’s small body, there was no guarantee he could find it quickly, especially if he was still close to the den. If he fought here, its friends might hear him, and that would be a disaster.

A flock of earth bats were not dangerous. A flock of earth bats with suicidal disregard for their own safety and a taste for human blood was a different matter.

To mitigate that risk, he ran, attempting to open up distance from the lair.

The tunnel sloped up steadily, and he forced himself to keep going. His breathing became laboured and his lungs hurt, as did his calves and quads. He hated this body, even though the growth potential of being reincarnated so young was off the charts. The future might be bright, but his current strength profile was horrible.

With iron will, he pressed onwards. Every breath rasped as he drew it in and caused a sharp pain. It was worse than his cuts, but he kept pushing.

There was another squeak, one barely loud enough to register over his thumping steps and gasping breaths.

In his exhausted state, he registered, but didn’t react.

Something slammed into his shoulder blades. Teeth bit, the pressure pinching him even as his clothes prevented access to his soft skin. Its claws scratching frantically as it tried to cut him open. Without conscious direction, his body reacted to the threat, and he launched himself into a forward roll in an attempt to squish it between him and the ground.

It disengaged and leapt to safety a moment before he was about to land on it.

Instead of the impact being cushioned he hit rock and bounced painfully. He held in a wince and cursed at the inconsistency of whatever was hunting him. Statistically, it should have continued its attack and then got crushed when he rolled over it. This was something that had followed him for hundreds of metres, so it was clear he was facing a monster. The prolonged chase should have driven it mad with rage.

Yet it had let go when threatened. A monster shouldn’t have been able to do that. That slight degree of intelligence or self-preservation instincts worried him. It suggested that there was something more to the monster’s makeup.

It clearly didn’t kill by close combat, so the next obvious option was it relied on magic. But, likewise, it hadn’t used anything like that yet. If it didn’t kill by magic or force, then what else could it specialise in?

Shit, shit, shit, he cursed. Only one other option for a creature this low tier made sense.

It was venomous.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The delivery mechanism was not its teeth or saliva, because if it had of been Tom was sure he would have felt the negative effects by now. That meant he would probably have to watch out for its claws, or maybe a specialised delivery appendage, like a scorpion’s tail or a spur on its back leg.

It didn’t really matter - all the options, in the end, meant that he had to be more careful.

The fight suddenly felt much deadlier than before. He needed to protect himself. There was no point to leave anything in reserve. He had to use his remaining fate. Creating the mental image to apply was easy.

‘Don’t let it kill me.’

With a surge, he spent the remaining fate, regretting his earlier impulsive use. His previous investment had been against his enemies, to stop them from finding him, rather than about survival. Specific use was usually better than general - until it wasn’t, and this was one of those exceptions. He had made the mistake because he hadn’t expected to be fighting. Who designed a system that let a child wander into a monster den? In hindsight, that assumption had been in error, because apparently the designers of this place weren’t big on ensuring safety.

Tom experimentally clenched his fist. As far as he could tell, there was no unexpected numbness. Shortness of breath was a possibility, but he had been sprinting, which explained what he was feeling. Erratic heartbeat fell under the same umbrella. If it had already tagged him, he doubted he would survive, so he put the risk of being already doomed out of his mind and focused. It was vital that it didn’t land a blow on his skin.

Determined not to get hurt, Tom stood in the corridor with his hands on his head while attempting to control his breathing. It was necessary to lower the noise he was generating to achieve better triangulation of where it was. Its squeaks were probably a form of sonar, which meant that, if he was quiet, he would hear it coming from further away.

Things could have been far worse, he reminded himself. The den could have contained something immediately fatal, or a swarm of these bats might have noticed him. As it was, there was a path to success. All he needed to do was to ensure it didn’t inject him with whatever deadly venom it used.

It was a monster, and would keep hounding him until it saw an opening to land a telling blow. It would not relent, and it was up to Tom to allow no lapses in concentration that might encourage it to strike. At least, he had to do that until he had learned its patterns which should allow him to safely kill it. Though a weapon, he thought wistfully, would trivialise the fight. There were lots of items in the gymnasium that could be turned into a makeshift weapon. Getting there immediately became his only aim.

There was a squeak, and, because he was listening for it, wing beats. It swept over his head, not coming in to strike because he had been facing it straight . The monster liked to attack exclusively from behind, and Tom turned to face its new location. It would come back, see his eyes, and avoid him. That would buy him more time to recover. The tunnel was working in his favour - it was having to do a long figure of eight loops. Basically, it had to get far enough away from him to feel comfortable losing all of its speed to turn around. Additionally, the low roof had the bonus that it couldn’t glide and reach him silently from above. It had to keep using its wings to one accelerate, and then prevent itself from losing height.

He kept turning every time it passed, because it caused the bat to abort the attack run.

Tom snorted. At least, that was consistent with what he expected. It was too dumb to learn from each encounter and adjust its tactics. Despite that, it was clear that it was stalking him and searching for an opening.

With his breathing close to being under control, he moved tentatively forward, his ears twitching. Instinct made him throw himself onto the ground, and he felt the wind of its beating wings in his hair as it shot over him.

The bloody thing was persistent. Whenever it went past, Tom would run for ten seconds and then turn to face it.

A minute passed, and then another.

It seemed to understand that he was escaping. Its attack runs were getting closer to him. If Tom had wanted to land a punch, he could have, but he was worried about it tagging him when he did so. If he had a weapon, this would already have been over.

He sprinted and then stopped.

There were extra squeaks, and he realised that it was going to commit to an attack. He raised his hands to strike, and it flinched away.

They repeated the dance, with Tom moving slowly forward now because it was doing tighter turns. He broke into a run, stopped, went to throw a punch; but it was already diving sidewards to avoid him. The frustrating thing was that, in these tight confines, he had a massive advantage. If he had a weapon, or if the light levels were higher, he would have landed a strike by now. But once he left the corridor, he wasn’t quite so certain of how things would play out. He didn’t know whether he would be able to fend it off as easily as he was if it could attack from above as well as from an extra side.

It swept past him and he sprinted forward, taking advantage of the time it took to turn. At the next pass he mimed a punch, then next attack was avoided with a quick sidestep. Then he repeated that technique, but this time the creature guessed right and smacked into his back. He tumbled forward, and it flew away without trying to get through his clothes.

Tom paused.

He was panting once more. He stood ready as he regained his breath. Like last time, it didn’t attack while he was in the defensive position.

Then he kept going, and he felt it when the atmosphere of the tunnel changed. The air flow was subtly different, and while he couldn’t see it, he had to be almost out.

He accelerated.

This time, the bat went far lower than it used to, and struck his leg. He lost his balance and fell hard and loud. With a groan, he pushed to his feet - only to get a mouthful of bat. His fingers closed over it and he threw it at the wall as hard as he could.

There was no satisfying thump, and he couldn’t believe he had done that. So stupid, he couldn’t feel any pain, and he hoped it wasn’t like the vampiric bats on earth who had the ability to dull or outright numb the pain when they bite. In some places of the world, if they got into barns, they could bleed a cow out without it ever realising what was happening.

And, since he took the risk, throwing it was doubly dumb. He should have held on and bashed it against the floor.

It circled him, and Tom continued forward right until he reached the large cavern - and then he froze. The problem was definitely as bad as he had feared. The height and limited width of the tunnel had been working to his advantage because there were only a couple of directions that the bat had been able to use to come at him.

When he went out then…

Slap, Slap.

Someone large was running toward him.

Tom felt panic flash through him as he remembered his earlier heavy fall. Had he cried out at the time due to surprise? He suspected he had.

It must have been heard.

There was a shrill whistle and then, out of the corner of his eye, the shape of the bat was briefly illuminated by a distant light. It veered away.

A moment later, there was a thud.

“Shit. Watalak bat,” Dimitri their main caretaker cursed. The large man was visible, he was standing deliberately between Tom and a light so his full silhouette was on display. He was facing directly away from where Tom was. “Don’t say a thing. Whoever you are, you’re not authorised to be here. I can smell blood, so even if it means getting caught, you need to go use healing crystal immediately. Any cut, whether from teeth or claws, will affect you. You’ve got about an hour until the venom begins to cause severe problems.”

Tom didn’t move.

“Kid, what you waiting for? I can smell blood. My back’s turned, there’s no one else down here, and, luckily for you, no one on duty above. Don’t stand there. Move!”

Tentatively, he started toward the exit.

“Go faster!”

He decided to listen and jogged. He reached the steps upwards.

“Kid. This is to remember not to sneak out after hours.”

Tom felt a pressure on his mind. There was a sensation of intense fear but dissociated from himself, so he didn’t feel it directly.

Then a blood curdling scream erupted from behind him.

Tom spun.

Dimitri had dropped his weapon and was sprinting away from him. He had felt the edge of the spell, and had been unaffected as a result, but the big man had obviously been hit with it more directly. He didn’t know what had happened, but there was no point staying around. Anything strong enough to get a high tiered adult to react like that was way beyond Tom’s pay grade to counter. With his mind racing, he retreated, pausing only to use a healing crystal in one of the active climb rooms. When he tucked himself under the covers, his brain was in overdrive.

His mind dwelt on the inhabitants of the lairs, especially on the Watalak bat, which was the perfect thing for children to fight. It was weak enough to be killed, but a genuine threat due to their venom. If you were given an anti-venom before engaging, it would be almost impossible to lose. Then there was Dimitri and the way he had faced away and had not given himself a chance to identify Tom and then, of course, how he had run at the end.

That implied something more dangerous than humans had been down there, but probably not anything that would kill children. There was a lot to think about. Once he heard others moving, he got up and, pretending nothing was wrong, went to breakfast.

The metal door was shut, and there was not a single adult present.

Tom was not at all surprised to see that, but Dimitri had been nice to little Ta, so he hoped nothing had happened to him.