“What are you?"

  I'm your sponsor here, your partner in crime, basically your best friend.

  He shoved a particularly large rock into the channel and then kicked it forward with more dirt, feeling the other side get loose as the skeletons tried to claw it back out the other way. "Besides being an asshole with a phone plan,” he grunted, shoving the stone hard with his foot. “Are you a person or something else?"

  Oi. I'm a deity. Specifically of games and stories. Kind of a big deal now, you know? (? ?? ?)?

  He chuckled to himself with a nervous tic. He was talking to a god through his phone, a god named Play, all while frantically plugging away at a hole that was constantly getting dug out the other way.

  "You’re the system?"

  Me? Strong enough to warp reality itself just to fit video game rules? Aww, you think so highly of me (￣▽￣*)ゞ

  "You're not?" He didn't know how reliable Play was about this. The 'god' could be just lying to his face or a subpart of the System. “How exactly are you involved in all this?”

  It's a game to me just like it is to you Michael. And I'm very good at playing games.

  "You dropped me into a lethal difficulty map." Wade hissed. "As a level one. You're shit at this game."

  Like I said, if you survive to the end, you'll be waaaaay ahead of everyone else. (????)?

  "I want a different god."

  No you don't lol, other gods are control freaks who'll puppet you around like a marionette or demand things from you. I'm letting you pick your own destiny, wherever that leads.

  So he was stuck with Play.

  “What good are you even then?!”

  You got the game system, right? The system that turns everything into game logic? The system that can warp reality itself around you, and give you a guaranteed path to power? That little system? Kind of a big deal Michael, you should use it~

  Wade opened his mouth to argue back, when he heard a small bit of scampering. Something tinier. In between the pick sounds.

  “Identify.” He hissed out.

  Level 2 Blackrot Rat - 84%

  Glasses of the trade: Identify targets 26/30

  When he looked for the smaller red bar, he found a tiny rat squeezing its way near the hole he'd come from. It got free, plopped silently on the ground, then raced past him to the back of the cavern like a tiny black missile. It acted terrified, though he couldn't quite tell how it looked—more like a rat-shaped shadow with a shimmering white outline that flashed around for half a second. It was leaving small traces of blood behind, dust rising from the droplets before fading away.

  That was weird.

  But the rat wasn't trying to kill him, which meant it automatically went into the 'low priority' category. It probably wouldn’t count as a hostile target for that first quest either, but not like Wade could even catch the thing.

  It was racing off way too fast.

  The phone buzzed.

  I recommend running.

  A deep crack in the hole snapped Wade's attention, and the keystone shifted an inch backward. Fuck. They were coming.

  Wade considered the options. This was a good defensible location. A funnel that would let him fight them one at a time. He had tools here, weapons he could use.

  Question really was: Could he fight them at all?

  In some games, a level one couldn't even so much as damage a higher-level opponent, while in other games, higher levels might just mean one or two extra hits before death. The earlier rock slamming suggested this game might be more like the first type.

  Play told him he should run, but Wade had a straight up sledgehammer right here to use. A heavy, sturdy thing with a long lever. Way stronger than a rock cudgeled by his skinny noodle arms.

  Midway through debating his options, the skeletons made the choice for him.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The stone he’d shoved pushed backward and rolled down. A few dozen skeletal fingers instantly started prying the rest of the stone shards backward, like some kind of infernal undead power drill eating up rocks.

  Wade grabbed his phone off the wall, shoved it in his pocket, then yanked the closest sledgehammer off the ground, readying it to bash in the first skull that came through. He didn’t need to wait for long.

  Hands and arms came out from the hole—four or five, all shoving and pushing against each other in their haste to get to the tasty human screaming on the other side. The only reason they hadn't was that they were each getting in the way of each other. At this point, the entire mass of bones was more of an obstacle.

  Finally, a skull with a helmet shoved itself past. Two more sprouted out of the rock like invasive mushrooms.

  Wade swung down hard, he couldn’t miss with this many.

  Clang!

  He hit a helmet.

  Level 13 Undead Nathir Slave - 98%

  The red health bar above the skeleton flashed for a second, dipping down two percent.

  Wade stared at the skull, then at the heavy weapon in his hand, and then back at the skull that was thrashing in place, beyond pissed off.

  This sledgehammer weighed a good ten pounds and was made of solid metal. There was no possible chance in hell a regular human skull could survive impact against this, even if the skeleton was using a helmet to blunt the damage.

  He went for the skull again as hard as he could. That’s when he realized his first hit hadn't been a fluke; these things were using their gear, tilting heads to block hits. Two more hits from different swing angles confirmed it, both smashing against the helmet. On his third swing, he was rewarded by pure luck:

  Luck triggered: Critical Hit!

  The skull and helmet flew straight down into the mud, detached from the body. Wade whooped victory, until he almost had his hammer yanked out of his hands when the headless body lunged for it. It wasn't dead.

  Well, it was dead. But not the good type of dead. Maybe the intact skull was the issue. Wade kicked the helmet off the skull and took a few precious seconds to start hammering down on the immobile target without any reservation. Three more heavy swings finally had the skull shatter into pieces.

  These really were absurdly sturdy. Even without the helmet to protect the skull.

  And worse, the skeleton still hadn't died. It was currently shoving more rocks out of the way without hesitation. But there was something different: The health was lower. Wade turned and smashed again into the skull fragments, and that's when he saw it: The health bar was slowly going down with each hammer swing into the shards.

  System still considered the parts to be connected.

  He had a possible plan here. If he could do damage by proxy he might be able to kill it safely.

  He got to work. But with every hammer blow downwards, he could see the damage was tapering off. After his seventh swing, the health bar didn't even flicker red.

  Level 13 Undead Nathir Slave - 91%

  Shit. Barely any damage. And now he had to knock one more body part off and try again.

  Wade turned and got into range. The skeletal hands were occupied, busy. Distracted. He swung hard, hoping to dislodge a shoulder or something. Instead, two of the arms speared out, grabbed his hammer shaft and yanked it straight out of his hand, disarming him with little difficulty.

  It had happened in a blink of an eye. One moment he had his hammer and a plan, and now he had nothing.

  Wade crunched the data he’d learned in his first real fight in this strange world and came to a single conclusion: Run.

  What little damage he could dish out wasn’t anywhere near what he needed to effectively use even a choke point. Plus, they’d proven capable of grabbing things out of his hands too, which meant any weapon was a single bad swing away from being useless. A heavy weapon was just going to slow him down in a place he couldn't fight back.

  So he kept his hands free with his phone light to guide the way into the darkness. Ahead there were plenty of tunnels to pick from and run. Once he got deep enough, he'd find somewhere to hide and turn the light off.

  Halfway into the cavern, he heard a loud squeak.

  The rat. It had been hiding under a rock this whole time, and now that Wade was running around, it freaked out and sprinted away.

  Vanishing into the darkness beyond. Wade couldn't see it anymore.

  But something else caught his attention right after.

  New Fleeting Quest added: Emergency Exit – Follow the rat until you reach safety. Rewards: Nothing.

  Wade read that quest and instantly broke out into a sprint, chasing blindly after where he’d seen the rat run off to. "Goddamn it, come back here!"

  Terrified squeaking and more scampering came back in answer, but his phone light wasn't catching sight of the thing ahead anywhere.

  And behind him, the sounds of the tunnel breaking down grew even louder. He forced his legs to comply and sprinted ahead as fast as he could. The real problem in his head was that he'd be hitting forks in the road or possible side paths real soon, where the rat could give him the slip.

  He couldn't see a pitch black rat in a pitch black cave... but he didn't need to. He had a System. Which showed health bars. "Identify!"

  A red bar appeared far ahead in the darkness, bobbing up and down. Way further than Wade had thought the rat had ran off at.

  Wade frantically tried to sprint after it, through the curves and twists of whatever this mining or expedition tunnel was for, until the health bar suddenly dove into the mud and burrowed inside.

  There was an exit there! Somewhere! Wade yanked his phone out, pointing his light all over where the rat had vanished. Just mud and stones everywhere, deep black pockets of darkness from shadows where the rat could have snuck into. There had to be something here. Rats don't just vanish in place.

  And if there was something, then the System would have it labeled.

  Wade ran his Identify over and over, desperate.

  Stone. Dirt. Mud. Pickaxe. Stone. Stone. Hidden Rebel Tunnel.

  Glasses of the trade: Identify targets 27/30