Chương 12: Rampage

The dungeon's hallowed walls drummed with screeches and shrieks of dread and fury. In the darkness a lone blue wisp snapped erratically from left to right, surrounded by eyes of sharp white, bloody red, and sinister green. The set of blue, cold eyes were the only source of calm in the chaos of darkness. Nero stepped right, allowing one of the red-eyed rats to zip past him, while he spun, using the momentum to cut down over the body of another green-eyed rat to his left.

His blade dug into its meat and bones alike, crunching through them before coming off the other side, separating the neon rat's body into two.

"SSKREEEE!!!" The rats behind it shrieked louder, with ever more fury they leapt forth, abandoning all forms of encirclement and predictability. They clawed and pounced through the stalagmites and stalactites, each hungry for his blood. Nero didn't have time to contemplate them; instead he let his body move free, acting on necessity alone. A red rat launched from a high stalagmite and shot directly at him. Nero felt like applauding its sheer eagerness and commitment.

He simply pointed the tip of his short spear as the thing pierced itself through the head first. The force made him take a step back, and duck the next strike that came from behind. He felt a tingling sensation at his feet just then, and instead of wasting time looking down, he simply slammed his foot down. The feedback of something fat and meaty getting flattened came with an odd sort of satisfaction.

The rats around him, though they now numbered only six, grew increasingly more creative and unpredictable as their numbers thinned. Their attacks had shorter and shorter gaps between them as the battle grew ever more intense. Nero, too, felt increasingly restless, standing in place and taking advantage of the short-brained rats' flaws. He'd grown stronger after assimilating more genes. He could feel his body's lightness, the strength that burst forth with each of his movements more noticeable than before.

Most of all, the rats' attacks also hurt less than before, and his stamina felt strangely deep and inexhaustible. Of the five remaining rats, three were Neons. One came soaring through, its teeth bared, thick viscous green venom hissing at the touch of air. Nero lunged at it, abandoning his defensive stance, grabbed hold of its face, and ignoring the sizzling sensation of his skin burning, burst forth with all his strength and slammed it down.

With a wet squelch, the creature's meat and bone turned to mush, spattering the ground as bits of blood stained his face. Nero felt a pulse of pleasure as his muscles tensed, and he ran forward at the remaining four. Two of them skittered through stones large and small and jumped to bite at his legs. Nero found the motion strangely slow; he kicked with the tip of his boot as though it were a ball. The strike connected, sending back a mild jolt of pain.

The rats, on the other hand, rocketed backwards, bouncing off several sharp and blunt stones before coming to a stop. It lay there, unmoving. Nero, too, found the pain in his toes fading just as quickly as it had come. The field of battle had gone quiet, the rats frozen in place, staring at the still corpse of their fallen kin. Nero felt equally dazed by the result of his simple kick. He hadn't put much effort into it at all, and yet it had killed the rat just like that.

His heart pounded at the implications, and he felt an irresistible urge to grin. He charged into the darkness, gripping his short spear tight, as the last of the two Neons—larger than the rest—came barreling forward. Air cracked against his spear as it snapped at the creature's side like a vile whip, cutting into its hide and flesh, flinging it sideways.

At the sensation of something latching onto his back again, Nero immediately spun and slammed his back against a stalagmite; a pained groan left the creature's mouth as its grip loosened and it fell. It was an ordinary rat. Nero promptly dispatched it with a spear tip to the neck. The fight didn't last much longer under Nero's counteroffensive.

Where before he'd had to wait for the perfect opening to land a lethal strike, now he moved with a touch more recklessness, and even at slight cost to himself, began dismantling the rats at a much faster rate. After several more minutes, all the squeaking, shrieking, and skittering died down, leaving only Nero's heavy breathing as he tried to catch his breath. He slumped down, pulled the backpack from his shoulder, took out the water pouch, and went for a deep, long sip.

"Hah! That was good." It felt like the tastiest water he'd ever drunk. He unholstered the healing potion next, applied it to his wounds, and drank a sip too.

"Ha," he breathed, "now everything's feeling much better." Overhead, he noticed green light emerging from the deepest end of the cave, forming into a vast safe zone that encompassed most of the cave halls. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"The last safe zone, huh." he noted. Usually, a safe zone this large was only ever constructed before a boss fight.

"I still have the chance to escape, but if I do, I won't be able to enter again." It was always this way for E-grade dungeons, as far as he knew—they tended to allow only an hour of rest before you had to advance and face the boss in its deepest chamber. If you didn't reach the chamber during or by the end of the safe zone's timer, and instead lingered in the halls, the boss would leave its chamber and come to you. If you left the dungeon entirely, the entrance would seal, denying any further entry.

"It's a cheeky tactic by that dungeon core," he said, pulling out some chicken jerky to fill his stomach.

"It wants me to fight the boss while I'm tired—an hour of rest barely lets my wounds recover. And it knows that." Dungeon cores were by far the most intelligent part of a dungeon. It designed monsters, distributed the energy and loot collected from deaths within it, and did unpredictable things when its existence was threatened. Raiding a dungeon was less like clearing a place full of brainless beasts and more like facing an experienced, scheming monster tamer or forger.

There was a reason even the lowest-grade dungeons were often only raided by parties.

"If I could've afforded a party, I would've joined one." Parties ate significantly into profits, and the only reason he was going solo was to move fast—toward wealth or power. Not to be stuck in one place for ages, crawling like a turtle.

"High risk, high reward." he murmured, lying back on the cold dungeon floor. He'd basically cleared every monster within a ten-meter radius of himself. Unless the bats above swooped down to attack, he should be relatively safe." Hopefully." He smiled and closed his eyes, savoring the pleasurable sensation still humming through his muscles for some odd reason...... After several minutes, Nero woke to the same dark cave, lit by the glow of the safe zone. He stood and stretched his muscles and tendons.

"Hmm," he hummed, noticing something missing before the thought fully formed.

"The indulgent sensation is gone from my muscles." He moved his hands and legs, gave a light hop, testing whether it would resurface. No luck.

"It's odd—why did it show up when I let loose on those beasts…" It was as if his mental clarity had dipped slightly when he'd gone full throttle against the rats. At first he'd felt the sting of their acid on his skin, but as the fight wore on, the pain had reached him less and less. For a moment, he'd felt invincible. And that pleasurable feeling in his muscles had stirred an unusual urge to sleep. Nero shook his head, setting the thought aside—it wasn't the time or place to get introspective.

Instead, he turned his attention to the monsters scattered about. Time for some more harvesting. From the ten normal rats and five Neons, he collected four blue water elemental beast cores—round and cold to the touch—and about six fire elemental cores, hot as usual. He used the cores to warm his sore muscles for comfort before bagging them. The five Neons yielded only three jade-green poison cores; in his aggression, he'd killed a few Neons so thoroughly that even their cores had turned to powder.

The loss of profit made him want to smack his past self's overly aggressive ass. But what was done couldn't be undone. He harvested the other valuable parts of the rats, plucked the gene-rich gonads, and boiled them. He ate bits from each as the familiar announcement followed. [Acquired Primitive Gene x1] [Acquired Primitive Gene x1] [Acquired Primitive Gene x1] Nero looked at the screen and let out a deep sigh. It was expected—nothing surprising about it.

But the fact that he now had to work twice as hard for far less reward than before was more than a little disheartening.

"Still, a reward is a reward," he said, shaking his head, and checked what kind of genes they were. There were two more speed genes, and a single strength gene.

"Not bad. Speed will come in handy against these fast little bastards." Though he suspected the boss would be bulkier and slower, "the speed gene should still help along the way." He sat down cross-legged to begin assimilation. After ten minutes, he felt the chaos in his stomach rise and subside. But unlike the other times, that familiar hum returned to his muscles. He began experiencing an odd sort of joy and pleasure radiating from every part of his body.

It wasn't overwhelming, but subtle—the kind that gave him an unusual sense of fearlessness.

"After I get back, I really need to dig up some information on this." he noted to himself.

"For now, best to put it to good use." He looked toward the deeper parts of the dungeon, where the boss's lair resided. It was almost time; only a few minutes remained on the safe zone. He didn't want the boss leaving its chamber—that usually meant things got more unpredictable, and in his first-ever boss fight, unpredictability was the last thing he wanted. Opening the status panel with the command "status," he took stock of his current attributes.

Status Name: Nero Race: Human Core Stage: Dormant Base Attributes STR: 14(+7) DEX: 7 (+3) CON: 14 (+4) SPE: 18 (+9) INT: 9 WIS: 11 CHA: 3 LUCK: 2 (+1) Assimilated Primitive Gene: (24/1000) Unassimilated Genes: N/A Gene Talent: N/A Beast Soul: N/A Gene Fragments: N/A He nodded and closed the panel. Next was preparing his equipment and packing the loot. He picked up his backpack, poured the loot inside, and rechecked his equipment—mainly his lantern.

Though its face was thin glass and the rest plastic, it remained in superb condition despite all the shaking and jostling it had endured while strapped to him. He wiped its surface clean, planted a kiss on it, and clipped it to his backpack.

"My light deserves some love, after all." He laughed to himself and headed toward the deeper recesses of the cave. Yes, he planned to take on the boss as he was.

"Even though I've never even seen a boss fight before." He shrugged at his own overconfidence and pressed forward anyway. He exited the safe zone and began melting into the darkness, lit only by his sole blue lantern, repeating his mantra.

"High risk, high reward."