Marcus' black school shoes squelched on the wet stone. He gripped his school bag's strap so tight. The wire-like roots lining the moss-covered wall were pulsating, like they were alive. The air reeked of decaying flesh. It was suffocating. Marcus wanted to vomit and run back but he knew he had to do this. He has been a normal human before the coma and now that he was given a gift, he won't waste it.
Marcus heard a weird sound, something was running towards him. It was fast. His eyes snapped left.
Marcus dropped his bag and held the dagger tight, his breath shallow and rugged. And then Tacma spoke in his head, delivering a report
Enemy detected:
Type: Mutated Rat
Level: 7
Warning: Pack behavior detected
Count: 3
Three? Marcus screamed in his head. Damn it.
One of the mutated rats hopped from the hole in the wall, the two scurried from the shadows behind it. Marcus froze when he saw how big these rats were before him. They were as big as his grandpa's pig, no, maybe bigger.
The mutated rats' eyes glowed in a sick embers. There was no emotion, just pure, focused hunger.
Tacma noticed Marcus' fear. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't move. Tacma came to the conclusion that Marcus' fear would hinder him from fighting back.
And the mutated rats charged.
Tacma activated the Snap reaction.
Marcus' body jerked sideways just as one of the rats lunged. Its teeth snapped past his ear. Marcus stumbled and rolled but stood up immediately, swinging his dagger.
The dagger dug up shallowly into the rat. It shrieked and flailed. Its blood sprayed like spray paint, but it was not enough to kill it.
Tacma lit up the weak spots like red dots in Marcus' vision. These guide Marcus to aim for the right spots.
The second mutated rat leaped.
Marcus managed to dodge again, this time the right way, his legs remembered the Agility stat he just pumped. The slide low and the Tacma lit up a weak point like the ray light of a sniper gun.
The lit was on the rat's spine.
Marcus stabbed its spine. The dagger sank deep, and he pushed the dagger more, allowing it to sink deeper.
The rat spasmed and then collapsed.
When Marcus was about to face the last rat, he gasped. The dagger in his hand was warm and it pulsed. Or was he just imagining things?
The third rat was already mid-lunge. Marcus didn't dodge this time. He sidestepped. He pulled the dagger that was still buried deep in the other rat.
Marcus stabbed the dagger straight into the rat's eyes. The rat fell dead. The silence returned as Marcus' chest rose and fell.
The system screen appeared.
[All threats eliminated]
[New Passive Acquired: Beginner Predator +5% after kill in combat]
Marcus dropped to the ground. His white shirt was now covered in blood, his shiny shoes were now tainted with blood-like mud.
The dagger vibrated. Marcus felt it. And when he looked at it. He thought the dagger's blade smiled at him.
Tacma gave him a choice to pick up a weapon. It was basically a rusty dagger left by the previous dead owner.
"Something's happening to your dagger. My observation keenly noticed it," Tacma said.
"How? I mean you said this is just an ordinary dagger."
"It wasn't until recently. I'll show you the dagger's menu".
Item: Rusted Dagger
Class: E
Durability: 2/10
Description: Just left-over rusted knife
"After you made the first kill using the dagger, the system flared. It wasn't normal leveling," Tacma said.
"How can that be?"
"I'll analyze this. Please hang for a moment. Something might have triggered it."
Neither of them knew, as the rat's lifeblood hit the blade, something ancient inside the weapon stirred. It was not a spirit, it was an echo of a dormant power or a glitch in the system.
SYSTEM
[ERROR! ERROR!]
Item ID Mismatch
System anomaly detected
Weapon Evolution Triggered: Traits Absorption in Progress
Screens appeared before Marcus' eyes. Each one of them has exclamation points with an alert behavior.
"What the hell is going on?"
"The system has not anticipated the awakening of your weapon. It turned out to be a weapon that was long forgotten."
"What do you mean?"
"The record of the blade was not recorded in my codes. My hunch is that it was ancient."
"Ancient?"
Marcus watched the dagger and drank the blood as it shimmered. It shifted and was not reforged. It was mutating…
Marcus felt the dagger's handle pulsing like a muscle. The blade grew serrations, some small teeth forming along the edge like a jawline. Its surface becomes darker, semi-organic, and like an obsidian fused with bone.
A screen appeared before Marcus
[Weapon Evolved: Fang (Level 1)]
Class: Parasitic Blade
Trait: Devour what it kills
Passive: Weapon absorbs traits from defeated enemies to level up.
Hunger level: Dormant
Marcus heard the weapon breathe. No. He must be imagining it. But he heard it breathing.
"Y-you're not just a weapon…"
"And neither are you," it said, and it almost made Marcus pass out.
"Oh no, I'm probably hallucinating,' Marcus said, almost to a whisper.
Fang noticed the fatigue in his little boss' had. If he did talk to him right now, he might really pass out. And the anomaly inside him glared at him like it warned him to shut the hell up. And so he did.
He just rolled his absent eyes and didn't speak again.
Marcus fought his way up to the dungeon boss. Tacman had been managing his hunger, his tiredness as he also helped him by pointing out the enemies' weak spots.
The time remaining was 5 hours before the end time. If Marcus failed to kill the Dungeon boss, there would be no repeat resurrection for him forever.
As soon as Marcus entered a path, Fang immediately squirmed while Marcus' knees trembled. Up to now, he has only been fighting. He was kind of tired but he could manage.
Marcus found the boss's door.
Dungeon: Beginner Survival Zone Final stage
Boss: Gravewrecker, the bone tyrant
Marcus pushed the door open. He walked inside, praying he'd survive this. The chamber Boss was too big. The walls and the floor were wet and decaying. Marcus has lost his two shoes,and he walked barefoot.
He grimaced when he stepped on some chewy and mushy thing on the floor. When he looked down, he almost screamed when he saw a decaying half-torso of a human.
What the hell is a human doing in this survival dungeon? He asked himself.