I can feel its breath as I narrowly escape its first lunge and don’t stop moving till I reach the other side. Breathless, I whip around and watch as it slowly backs up out of the tunnel it had run into, unable to react to my faster movements.

Did I say at some point that all my luck was used up?

Apparently I was wrong. Either I had the best instincts ever, or I was super lucky that I spent all my points before I finished looting.

Also, if I hate mice, imagine how much I hate rats. Rats are the literal worst.

This rat in particular was several times bigger than the mice, which made it several times bigger than me. On the plus side, it was too unwieldy to move well even in the open cavernous space we were dueling in. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that I would die if it got to me even in the slightest.

“Chit, chit, chit,” it goes as it folds its body around to look back at me. “Screee!”

Every ounce of my body wants to flee into the tunnels as this thing runs at me, but I can tell at a glance that would be an even worse idea than standing my ground. There would be no chance of a counter attack if I turned tail, and I might even lose my access to this part of the tunnel.

I shiver and lower my body to the ground. If I make myself as small as possible, will it ignore me? I consider trying to trick it into overshooting into a cave again so I can practice my camouflage skill, but it takes too much time to cast for an active combat situation.

After facing me fully and sizing me up again, it charges at me again.

More luck strikes as my mind catches up: it’s slow.

With more time to react and a calmer mind making judgements, it's easy to dodge. I slither out of the way before it reaches me. Without a tunnel to run into behind me, it crashes head first into the wall. 

If it wasn’t a life-and-death situation, it would have been funny, watching it shake and paw at its head to help recover from the impact.

A small hss! escapes my lips before I can stop myself, and the creature freezes. “Sorry,” I say in snake, but who knows or cares if it can understand me.

I understand it as it turns toward me, its eyes ravenous as it growls—a deep, rumbling sound that comes from deep within its chest. I imagine if I were human the sound would be creepy at worst, but being smaller than it, it's terrifying. It’s the sound I imagine a hungry bear would make if I were about to be its next meal. 

Visibly salivating, it charges towards me again.

This time I take a deep breath and ready my tail. I wasn’t going to get out of this by whittling away the rat’s health because it runs into walls.

My perception lends me insight to the creatures movements and this time my body can keep up. I give as much length to my tail as I can, ready up, and swing like a batter going for a home run once I’m confident I’ll hit it right in the head. 

A mighty crash fills the room and sends violent vibrations across the floor.

“What the…?!” I say in awe as the rat collapses to the grounds, its face bloodied and filled with sharp bits of rock. 

All I expected was for the rat to be thrown off course by the impact—preferably into the wall and take more damage. 

What I got was the rat crashing into said wall with all the force of the baseball I imagined I was hitting in my head. 

Maybe I will whittle its health away by letting it crash into walls…

On one side, its skull looked like it had taken on the shape of my tail. On the other side, it was covered with splintered rocks. It twitches, and works to stagger back up. 

Impressed, I look at my tail. “Damn.”

[Tail Swipe] might have sounded like an unnecessary use of Eden Coins, but with that amount of force, it was an unexpected game changer. 

And here I was thinking that [Poison Fang] was going to be the make-or-break skill…

The damage is extensive, and looks scary as hell—but the one who caused that damage was me. 

Little snakey me.

It's more than enough to make this rat a lot less intimidating.

If [Tail Lash] is that effective, then what does [Poison Fang] look like? I circle around my wounded prey. In the state that it was in now, it would be easy to strangle it to death, but that would be a waste.

I wish the game showed me the health bars of other creatures the same way it shows me my own. It would give me a better way to judge the strength of my skills. Nevertheless, what I have here is an opportunity.

A guinea pig. A test subject.

Injured as it is, there isn’t much of a challenge left to the fight. Weaving around its heavy, tired paws takes little to no effort. Its vision is likely impaired due to the severity of the injuries as well, so it sniffs around between attacks, hoping to catch my scent. A pointless gesture.

Once I’m comfortable and confident enough, I take my shot. I snap a bite at its flank and the venom injects itself into its body in milliseconds. 

“RREEEE!” It cries and swipes back at me, but it may as well be in slow motion. 

Low to the ground, I circle it. I watch its movements carefully and zig-zag around every one of its attempts to end me. Slower and slower it becomes, drained by its injuries and the poison. Its breathing grows labored as blood coats the floor. 

I watch the time, tracking every minute and the changes it brings as the poison takes its toll.

It’s a slow death. Painful, it seems, but to the creature’s credit, it never gives up the fight. At the third minute, it drops dead and bursts into loot that's very similar to the mice.

║Player Orenoa as successfully defeated [Rat] 500 Eden Coins have been awarded.║

A worthy bounty for a creature I could have killed in a much shorter timeframe than I did.

At this moment, however, I realize just how much a handicap it is being a weak snake. 

I mean, I knew it was a disaster. No doubt that the lower you started on the food chain the worse off you were. For me, it felt like my starter area was something closer to a mid-game zone filled with elites. 

I had to stay alive through cats, crocodiles, birds of prey, that damn mongoose and who knows what else that could instantly kill me a thousand times over. Meeting a dragon or some other weird fantasy creature? I might as well not even bother to try living.

And that’s in addition to overcoming the shock that logging off didn’t seem to be an option and the “I guess I eat bugs now!” of it all.

Because of that, it took me so long to progress this far, and I couldn’t even get past first level. Even if there was some kind of experience curve, how much would a standard wolf killing quest net the average human in this game?

Two wolves would probably get them to level two. 

And in a humanoid village, would there be quests? I’ll bet a human’s very first fetch quest would get them to level two.

If I see a human, I should bite them just out of spite. 

I know. Not a good look—but let me be a little salty.

In reality, there’s no use crying over spilt milk. If there were a way to reincarnate into a better body other than maybe dying, I think I would have found it by now—and I have no interest in finding out if dying works. 

After all that fighting, however, I’m exhausted. I swallow up some mouse meat to fill my belly and look at my stats. 

⚫

<<Orenoa Dannan - Level 1 - Snake>>

<<Stats:>>

< Strength - 15 >

< Constitution - 10 >

< Resilience - 10 >

< Agility - 15 >

< Intelligence - 10 >

< Wisdom - 10 >

< Presence - 10 >

< Willpower - 10 >

< Perception - 15 >

< Luck - 10 >

⚫

My OCD appreciates the balanced numbers I have going on. With only five hundred points to spend, it seems like a waste to break them. Still, if I learned anything in the last hour or so, it's that until I find a way out of here, I may as well get as strong as I can. 

I struggle between the choice of spreading my points out one at a time or just dumping all five points into something. A five point increase was a pretty good jump for a single skill, and it seems like a lot of abilities work best when their correlating skills are in harmony. 

If that was the case, then isn’t it best to bring all my stats to the same number? 

Two skills immediately jump out at me as being the best candidates. [Constitution] and  [Resilience]. [Constitution] and [Resilience] were the base ability scores used for [Poison Fang], which meant raising those would increase the damage my venom DoT would do. 

In the interest of keeping things even, I throw two points into each of my Con and Res stats, then throw the extra point into [Luck] for good measure.

That settled, the next thing I needed to decide was which of  the three tunnels the annoying rodents had come from was I going to venture down next?

The one furthest to the left feels like it has a lot of activity going on. If I was interested in quick and easy Eden Coins, that would be the direction I should go for. 

The one to the right has stronger vibrations, which suggests that while there was less prey, it was of higher value. Stronger enemies would be good to build my skills, but there was always that unpleasant risk of death.

The middle path, however, smelled of air. Fresh air. I lick the air to confirm, and my sensitive fork tongue picks up the differences in the scent trails between what might be a way out, compared to the stagnant air of the other tunnels. 

I wasn’t sure I was ready to abandon my trove of easy Eden points, but if I missed my chance to escape now, I might not get another one. 

The trick then, was not to get lost, but I already knew that was easier said than done.

So. What will you do next, Noa?