[Four hours had passed. Or maybe four days.]
In the crypt, there was no sun, only humidity and the rhythmic sound of Mordecai chewing stuff that shouldn't be chewed.
All of his """"Grinding"""" lead him to unlock a new skill, named [Steel Jaws]: He could chew really hard things without taking damage.
Crunch. Gulp.
[SYSTEM: You have ingested 'Mutated Rat Tail (Stale)'] [Vitality +1] [Resistance to Intestinal Parasites +0.5%]
Mordecai wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, staring into the void with dead eyes.
"Wow," he said, his tone so flat it could be used as a spirit level. "Can you feel the rush of adrenaline? I just gained one hit point. My life has changed. I am a new man."
He looked at Larry. The skeleton was trying to pick up a rock, but his bony fingers kept slipping. He had been trying for twenty minutes.
"Larry, stop it. You're ruining the epic atmosphere of my exponential growth."
Mordecai turned toward the "audience," pointing at the floating System window.
But this time, his expression wasn't just annoyed.
It was cold.
Analytical.
"Are you serious? You like this stuff?"
He tapped the glowing blue glass.
It rippled under his touch, fake and intangible.
"You're there, sitting on your ergonomic chairs, reading about a guy eating rat tails. But... it's not just entertainment, is it?"
He looked around the crypt.
He looked at the impossible geometry of the stones.
He looked at the absurd loot drop: The coupon from 1492.
"This isn't just a buggy game," Mordecai whispered, his voice dropping to a murmur that Larry couldn't hear. "It's too specific. The humiliation. The tediousness. I' have a very strange sensation."
He kept looking around and touched his body a few times.
He even pinched his cheek to see if everything was real.
Spoiler: It was.
The place around him was real.
He was real.
Then, a dark thought crossed his mind.
A flash of memory from his previous life.
Not the electrician life, but the end of it.
The rain.
The exact moment the truck hit him and his victims.
"Mmh... Everything seems so strange. Is my reincarnation connected to what I did?" he asked the darkness.
The System window flickered.
For a microsecond, the text wasn't game stats.
It looked like static.
Like eyes watching him from a screen.
"You know, don't you? That's why I'm here. This isn't an Isekai adventure. It's a terrarium. And I'm the lizard you're poking with a stick to see if it bites."
He laughed, but there was no humor in it, only bitterness.
"You think this is funny? You think making me eat trash and pose like a chuunibyou is a fitting punishment for... that night?"
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION] [Mood Detected: Existential Dread.] [Reward: +1 Wisdom.]
[Note from Admin: Don't overthink it, sweetie. Just kill the rats.]
Mordecai stared at the notification.
The condescending tone.
The "sweetie".
The paranoia solidified into cold, hard hate.
It seemed like the System already knew him, way too well.
To be specific... it sounded too human.
But our beloved fake necromancer pretended not to care.
He had more important things to do.
"Fine," Mordecai hissed. "You want to treat me like a toy in a cheap set? Then I'm going to break your toys."
Another rat came out of a hole in the wall. It didn't look threatening. It just looked tired of existing. Mordecai didn't even monologue. He raised his hand. "[Shadow Bolt]." Splat.
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 15 XP] [LOOT: 1x Decayed Rat Tooth]
"A decayed tooth," Mordecai commented, picking it up. "Excellent."
He popped it into his mouth.
[SYSTEM: You have ingested 'Decayed Tooth'] [Jaw Strength +2] [Trait Acquired: Heavy Breath (Passive)]
"See?" Mordecai spread his arms, breathing heavily through his nose with a disturbing wheezing sound. "Progression. I will play your game. But I will play it my way."
He marched for another ten minutes, fueled by spite and the suspicion that he was in a cosmic prison built by sadists.
The endless corridor finally ended at a massive obstacle.
It was a colossal door. Reinforced oak, bound with thick iron bands.
[OBSTACLE DETECTED: The Gate of The First Trial] [Requirement: 'Rusted Iron Key'] [Drop Rate: 0.5% from Mutated Rats]
Mordecai stared at the notification. 0.5%. They wanted him to go back. They wanted him to run in the wheel like a good little hamster.
"So," Mordecai whispered, a vein throbbing in his temple. "You want me to grind. You want me to beg for a key."
[SYSTEM HINT: Grinding builds character! Also, user xX_ShadowSlayer_Xx suggests you 'git gud'.]
"ShadowSlayer..." Mordecai murmured. "You aren't just a 'reader', are you? You're one of the wardens. I have a lot of things to discover."
He approached the door.
He looked at the massive iron hinges.
"I am an electrician," Mordecai said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "And I am done following the blueprint."
He grabbed the bottom hinge with both hands.
He opened his mouth unnaturally wide, activating his new [Jaw Strength +2].
CRUNCH.
The sound was sickening. Metal screamed against enamel. But Mordecai didn't stop. He chewed with the fury of a man trying to eat his way out of prison.
[CRITICAL DAMAGE TO ARCHITECTURE DETECTED!] [WARNING: User is consuming the Level Geometry!] [System Panic: Wait! You can't do that! That's not in the script!]
"Script?" Mordecai mumbled, his mouth full of iron. Gulp. "I'm rewriting it."
[Vitality +2] [Defense +5] [Title Progress: 'Devourer of Worlds' (0.01%)]
He bit the second hinge. SNAP. The massive door groaned.
Without the hinges, the lock was useless.
The heavy oak slab tilted forward, gravity doing the rest.
BOOM.
The door fell inward. Mordecai wiped iron filings from his lips. "Knock knock."
He stepped over the fallen door, ready to face whatever torture lay beyond.
But the room beyond wasn't a dungeon chamber.
It was tiled with pristine, white ceramic squares.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead—shitty, flickering lights, the kind he used to replace in office buildings back on Earth.
On the wall, a faded poster: "Safety First: 365 Days Without Accident."
And in the center, a Vending Machine.
Mordecai froze. The familiarity hit him harder than any monster. The lights. The poster. It wasn't just random. It was a mockery of his old life. A stage prop taken from his memories.
"You sick bastards," Mordecai whispered, realizing the depth of the cosmic joke. "I knew that something was wrong with this world."
The Vending Machine roared, standing up on mechanical legs. [BOSS DETECTED: MAGICOR, THE MIMIC OF CONVENIENCE (Level 5)]
Mordecai grinned. It wasn't a happy smile. It was the smile of a prisoner who just found a shiv.
"A Vending Machine?" he laughed, activating [Iron Stomach]. "Finally. Lunch is served."