"Finally," Mordecai groaned. "The moment every reader wanted! The moment where I gain some experience!"
The five rats screeched in unison.
They kicked off the ground, claws extended, acidic drool flying through the air, muscles tensed for the kill.
By all laws of physics, Mordecai should have been mauled in approximately 0.4 seconds.
"COME AT ME, STUPID RATS! LET ME LEVEL MY STRENGHT FROM 1 TO 2! LET'S DO IT!" He shouted with a malicious laugh.
He didn't even cast a spell.
But suddenly, the colors of the world desaturated into a dull grey.
The rats froze in mid-air, suspended by an invisible force.
The drool hung motionless.
The sound of screeching cut off abruptly, replaced by generic elevator music.
[SYSTEM PAUSE: TUTORIAL MODE ACTIVE] [Reason: Player is about to die without using skills. That would be anticlimactic.] [Please review your available abilities while the universe waits.]
Mordecai blinked, looking at the suspended rodent hanging two inches from his nose.
"You paused reality so I can read the manual?" he asked, incredulous. "I was ready to accept my fate."
He glanced back.
Larry was standing there, doing absolutely nothing.
He hadn't even reacted to the attack.
He was just vibrating slightly in place, staring at a pebble with the intensity of a dead philosopher.
"Great support, Larry. Really. You're the MVP of standing still."
He then took another look around him, at the grey world around him until realization hit him-
"Ah. I see. This is the 'Talking is a Free Action' glitch. The part where the hero gets ten minutes of introspection while the enemy politely waits. Is this plot armor, or did the server just lag?"
With a sigh that rattled his ribs, Mordecai then looked at the blue window hovering before him.
[CURRENT SKILLS:]
1. Lesser Reanimation (Lv. 1)
Status: Active.
Result: Larry (The Skeleton Intern).
Utility: Questionable.
2. Shadow Bolt (Lv. 1)
Description: A concentrated projectile of pure darkness.
Activation Requirement: Must mimic a gun with your hands and make a shooting sound (optional but encouraged).
Damage: Moderate.
3. Edgy Protagonist (Passive - Rank F)
Description: Your aura is so melodramatic that it affects the weak-minded.
Effect: 10% chance to inflict [Fear] on enemies if you deliver a "Fake Deep Monologue" or a "Cool One-Liner" before attacking.
4. Control Dead (Lv. 1)
Description: You can use commands like "Attack!" , "Follow" , "Stay", to control your minions.
Bonus Effect: You minions will gain [+10%] Bonus Stats for 20 seconds for every different command.
Mordecai read the list. His eye twitched.
"Are you kidding me?" he whispered, his voice cracking with indignation. "Shadow Bolt requires finger guns? I am thirty years old. I am a certified electrician. You want me to point my fingers and go 'Bang!' like that sociopathic cyborg kid who massacred half of Tokyo just because he was bored?" He sighed again.
"This is not cool. This is disturbing. If I start saying 'Bang' with a straight face, I'm checking myself into a mental institution. I'm an electrician, not a nihilistic anime villain with a god complex."
[SYSTEM ALERT! AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR DETECTED! STOP IT!]
"Okay, okay." He said.
Mordecai then looked at the passive skill.
"And what is this? 'Edgy Protagonist'? I have to give a fake speech to scare them? I have to roleplay to survive?"
[SYSTEM TIP: The rats are very hungry. We suggest suppressing your dignity and using the finger guns.]
Mordecai looked at the frozen rats. Then he looked at the ecosystem around him, trying to distract himself from the humiliation.
"Let's analyze the logical situation while we wait," Mordecai muttered, desperate to delay the inevitable cringe. "Why are there rats here? What do they eat? There's nothing but dust and my shattered hopes. It's lazy narrative, Larry. Just laziness. And now I have to shoot them with imaginary bullets."
[TUTORIAL REVIEW COMPLETE.] [RESUMING REALITY IN 3... 2... 1...]
"Wait, I'm not mentally prepared to—"
SNAP.
The elevator music stopped.
Gravity remembered it had a job to do.
The rats landed with a wet thud, screeching as if they hadn't just been paused for a lecture on game mechanics.
[BATTLE STARTED!]
The rats charged.
"Larry!" Mordecai ordered with a lazy wave of his hand. "Go and... I don't know, exist in their general direction! Attack!"
Larry, finally realizing that violence was happening, threw himself forward with the grace of a sack of potatoes tossed from a balcony.
He didn't attack; he simply fell over.
The first rat trampled him instantly, scattering a few ribs across the floor.
"Useless," Mordecai hissed.
The remaining four rats were closing in.
Mordecai grit his teeth.
He felt a piece of his soul dying, but he didn't want the rest of his body to join it.
Slowly, painfully, he raised his right hand.
He extended his thumb and index finger. He aimed at the leading rat.
"I hate this," he whispered. "I hate this so much."
He took a deep breath, trying to activate the [Edgy Protagonist] passive just to see if it worked.
"...You are merely dust in the wind of my despair," he droned, putting zero effort into the delivery.
[PASSIVE CHECK: FAILED.] [The rats are not impressed. They think you look silly.]
"Fantastic."
The lead rat leaped for his throat.
Mordecai squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the imaginary trigger.
"Bang. Shadow bolt."
[SKILL ACTIVATED: SHADOW BOLT]
A bolt of dark, violet energy exploded from his fingertip with the recoil of a magnum.
It slammed into the rat mid-air, blasting it backward into the wall with a satisfying CRUNCH.
Mordecai opened one eye.
Smoke was rising from his index finger. "...Okay," he admitted, looking at the dead rat. "That was efficient. But I'm never telling anyone I did the finger gun."
The first rat was dead, headless and smoking.
Mordecai felt a surge of adrenaline.
Or maybe it was just relief that he hadn't died in the tutorial.
[DEFEATED (CAVE RAT, LV 5) EXP +100]
"100 Experience points? Is it good or not?" He asked to himself.
He pointed his finger at the second rat, which was currently chewing on Larry's ribcage. "Bang," Mordecai said, feeling slightly more confident.
Nothing happened. No violet light. No explosion. Just a man pointing a finger at a rat like a disappointed school teacher.
"Bang?" Mordecai repeated, louder. "Bang! Shoot, damn you!"
[SYSTEM ALERT] [SKILL ON COOLDOWN: Shadow Bolt] [Time Remaining: 14 seconds.] [LEVEL UP THE SKILL TO REDUCE ITS COOLDOWN]
"Cooldown?!" Mordecai screamed, backing away as the remaining three rats turned their red eyes toward him. "It's a finger! How does a finger have a reload time?! Did I run out of imaginary bullets?!"
[DEVELOPER NOTE: Cooldowns increase player engagement.]
"F*ck off." Mordecai said.
The rats didn't care about game mechanics.
They screeched and lunged.
Mordecai scrambled backward, tripping over something hard and calcified.
He looked down.
It was Larry.
Or rather, the pile of bones that used to be Larry.
The skull was lying on its side, watching the scene with empty, non-judgmental sockets.
"I need a weapon," Mordecai hissed.
He looked at his inventory: Empty. He looked at his robe: Flammable.
He looked at Larry's scattered remains. Specifically, at a long, sturdy-looking thigh bone lying conveniently within reach.
"Larry," Mordecai said, grabbing the bone. "I'm promoting you to equipment."
He yanked the femur up. Larry's skull clicked its jaw once, perhaps in protest, or perhaps to say 'That's my leg, boss.'
[ITEM EQUIPPED: Larry's Left Femur (Common)]
Type: Blunt Weapon / Employee Body Part.
Damage: 4-6 (+2 Calcium Bonus).
Durability: Fragile.
"Better than nothing," Mordecai grunted.
The second rat leaped at his face.
Mordecai didn't use a sword technique.
He didn't use a martial art.
He used the muscle memory of an electrician who had spent ten years hammering stubborn brackets into concrete walls.
He swung the femur like a tire iron.
THWACK.
The bone connected squarely with the rat's snout.
The sound was wet and sickeningly satisfying.
The rat flew sideways, hitting the damp wall and sliding down like a discarded wet towel.
"Percussive maintenance!" Mordecai shouted, swinging wildly at the next one.
The third rat tried to bite his ankle.
Mordecai stomped on its tail with his heavy boot—thank you, generic edgy costume—and brought the femur down on its head with an overhead smash.
CRACK.
"Stay! Down!"
The fourth rat hesitated.
It looked at its dead brethren.
It looked at the crazy man in the black robe wielding a human leg bone like a baseball bat.
It made a strategic decision to flee.
"Oh no, you don't," Mordecai snarled. "You're Experience Points. You don't get to leave."
He wound up his arm and threw the femur with all his might.
The bone spun through the air, end over end. It struck the fleeing rat in the back of the head.
**He didn't know, but his eyes were glowing of an intense purple**
Squeak. Silence.
Mordecai stood there, chest heaving, hands trembling.
The crypt was silent again, save for the drip of water and the heavy breathing of a man who really, really needed a cigarette.
[COMBAT RESOLVED] [Experience Gained: 50 XP] [Level Up! You are now Level 2.]
Mordecai wiped a spot of rat blood from his cheek.
He walked over to the thrown weapon, picked it up, and walked back to the pile of bones.
He looked at Larry's skull.
He looked at the femur in his hand, now covered in rat brain and grey fur.
"...Here," Mordecai said, tossing the bone back onto the pile. "Good job, Larry. You really... put your foot down."
Larry's skull stared blankly.
"Don't look at me like that," Mordecai muttered, turning away. "I'll wash it later. Maybe."
Mordecai dropped the femur and turned toward the dark corridor ahead. "Right. Let's keep moving. If I walk fast enough, maybe I can find the exit before my dignity catches up with me."
He took a step forward. Or rather, he tried to.
**THUD.
His nose collided with an invisible wall.
It felt like walking into a pane of glass, but with the added texture of static electricity.
"Ow!" Mordecai stumbled back, rubbing his nose. "What the hell?"
He reached out. The air in front of him rippled with a blue honeycomb pattern. He pushed against it. It was solid.
"A barrier?" Mordecai hissed. "Why is there a barrier? I killed the rats! I did the stupid finger gun! I even used Larry as a blunt instrument! What more do you want?"
[SYSTEM ALERT] [PROGRESS BLOCKED] [Reason: Unassigned Stat Points detected.]
A giant, unskippable menu slammed into his field of vision, hovering aggressively in the air.
[LEVEL UP! (Level 2)] [You have 5 Unassigned Stat Points.] [Please distribute points to proceed.]
Mordecai stared at the screen. Then at the invisible wall.
"You're holding me hostage until I do math?"
[CONFIRMED.] [A Hero must be optimized. You cannot face the dangers ahead with Level 1 stats. It would be bad for ratings.]
"I don't care about ratings!" Mordecai shouted, punching the barrier. It didn't budge. "Let me through! I'll distribute them later! I'll put them all in 'Sarcasm' if I want to!"
[ATTRIBUTE 'SARCASM' DOES NOT EXIST.] [CURRENT ATTRIBUTES:]
Vitality: 10 (Survival of a wet cardboard box)
Strength: 8 (Can lift a medium-sized cat)
Agility: 9 (Slower than Larry)
Intelligence: 14 (Smart enough to be depressed)
Mana: 20 (Edgy Battery)
Charisma: 25 (Harem Protagonist Standard)
[DISTRIBUTE POINTS TO CONTINUE.] [Time until 'Helpful Fairy Guide' is summoned to assist you: 30 seconds...]
Mordecai froze. "Fairy Guide? You mean a high-pitched, flying annoyance that says 'Hey! Listen!' every five seconds?"
[25 seconds...]
"Okay! Okay! I'm doing it!" Mordecai screamed, frantically tapping the screen. "Just don't summon the fairy! Anything but the fairy!"
He looked at his stats. He looked at the Charisma stat, which was already disgustingly high.
"If I put points in Charisma, do I get more stalkers?" he muttered. "Probably."
He looked at Strength. "If I put points here, maybe I can break this stupid invisible wall."
He dumped all 5 points into Strength.
DING.
[POINTS ASSIGNED.] [Strength: 8 -> 13] [New Title Unlocked: "The Angry Necromancer"]
The invisible barrier shattered like glass. The blue screen vanished.
Mordecai stood there, breathing heavily, feeling a strange surge of power in his muscles. It wasn't godly power, but he felt like he could now carry two tool bags at once.
"I hate this game," Mordecai whispered.
He sighed and turned back to the messy pile of bones on the floor.
He couldn't just leave him like that.
It went against every professional instinct he had; you don't leave a job site in disarray.
"Alright, Larry. Break time is over."
Mordecai knelt down, grabbing the femur he had used as a club.
He wiped the rat blood on his black robe—because, obviously, it was self-cleaning or some magic nonsense—and jammed the bone back into Larry's hip socket.
CLICK.
"Arm," Mordecai muttered, grabbing a radius. SNAP. "Ribs... god, these are like a cheap puzzle." CRUNCH.
Finally, he picked up the skull. He stared into the empty sockets. "Next time," Mordecai told the head, "try to fall in a way that makes reassembly easier. I don't have a manual for your anatomy."
He shoved the skull onto the spine. Larry twitched. The magic took hold, and the skeleton rattled back to life, standing up crookedly.
He was missing a pinky finger and his left foot was on backward, but he was functional.
"Good enough for government work," Mordecai decided, dusting off his hands.
He pointed down the dark corridor. "Let's go, Larry. Let's find something else to kill before I get another pop-up."