***Author here. This is a 5,100-word chapter. Normally they’re about 1,200 words, so get comfortable and expect a long read for this one. Thanks! – Aero182***
As Jay approached the oblivious soap rat, he realised he couldn’t really make use of his necromancer class since there were no corpses around – only rotting wood and swamp grass.
“I guess I’ll have to do this the old fashioned way…” smiling slightly as he equipped his 1 damage cooking knife.
Squinting, he clenched his jaw a little as he held his knife as he prepared himself mentally.
He imagined he was like an assassin hunting his prey, thinking of himself as being much cooler than what he actually was – a person covered in slimy shit, holding a cooking knife in the middle of a swamp, about to ambush a fat rat.
He looked more like a homeless person looking for dinner.
“Inspect” he thought, gazing at the rat with predator-like eyes.
<[Soap Rat Level 1]>
[10 HP]
<[Skills]>
[Slippery] (Passive)
– The rat uses swamp slime to its advantage.
– Crowd control skills have no effect.
[Bite]
– 1 pierce damage
[Claw]
– Bleed – 2 flat damage over 3 seconds (Can stack 2 times)
[Poison Resist] (Passive)
– 80% Poison Resistance
<[Description]>
[While the name suggests that it may be clean, it is the furthest thing from it.]
“The rat’s large, about the size of a pig – but with a slender body and a long tail.” thought Jay. It was covered completely in a slimy sheen of black fur.
Studying it, Jay was in the process of sizing up his prey.
“Huh, it’s hardly a rat, more like a mutant dog”
A large muscular head was sticking out from the rest of its body;
“Shit… it could easily crush a pumpkin between those jaws.”
Trying his best to be stealthy – as good as a level 2 Necromancer can be – he was sneaking over as the rat appeared to be distracted while eating something.
It’s choice of snack appeared to be decaying wood, causing Jay to pity the oversized rat.
Sneaking ever so closer, Jay wiped the grime off his cooking knife and held it in a reverse grip, preparing himself mentally.
“Kill or be killed” he thought to himself. Sure, Jay could have just left – but in his eyes, returning to a mundane life was as good as being dead.
Now was the time. Stepping forward and then jumping with the grace of a pregnant elephant, Jay broke cover, pouncing at the rat while stabbing down as hard as he could.
Unfortunately, his prey reacted in time. It turned to its side and hissed as Jay’s knife left a deep gash on its ribs – a damage number appeared over the rat.
[- 1]
The rodent hopped back and then used its momentum to plant its paws in the ground and leap, pouncing at Jay’s right hand.
Jay pulled his wrist back and slashed at the rat’s face, leaving a gash across its snout.
[- 1]
“Riiiii~!” The rat screeched as it leapt at Jay again, slashing back at him with its own knife-like claws.
Jay braced himself and held his breath. He raised his arms up into a boxer stance with the bloodied knife gleaming in his right hand.
The rat’s claws gashed down his arms; Jay successfully protected his head and torso, but deep cuts on his arms began to bleed.
Jay dropped the knife from the pain as his arms were turning red.
“Ahh! you bastard” Jay clenched his jaw as his anger and adrenaline helped to dull the pain.
[You are bleeding]
[0.7 damage per second for 3 seconds]
[You are bleeding]
[0.7 damage per second for 3 seconds]
“A double-fucking bleed!”
Kicking and stomping at the rat’s head a few times in frustration, Jay forced it to back up.
This was Jay’s first fight, and it wasn’t long into it before he realised that he needed to be a bit more tactical.
He picked up the knife, preparing to dodge and counter attack the rats’ next attack.
Jay taunted it “Come”
[Stress Response] (Passive) activated. +5% melee damage.
“Nice” smiled Jay with a predator-like grin.
The rat lunged and snapped, but Jay back-stepped and stabbed at the rats’ head.
“Take this bitch!”
Planting the knife right onto the rat’s head, it didn’t penetrate the skull, but thankfully still did damage.
[-1]
Unfortunately, Jay’s damage was not high enough to factor in the extra 5% melee damage.
The rat was aggravated from the attack and went savage – it knew it was kill or be killed.
“Riii-Riiiiiii~!”
It didn’t let Jay pause, continuing to attack – it’s survival instincts completely kicked in.
While its head was still numb,it didn’t retreat as an intelligent creature would have – stepping forward, it sunk its teeth into Jay’s leg.
“GRRR!~” Jay released a primal, guttural roar from the pain as he clenched his teeth.
He was almost falling over as his leg was being pinned down and gnawed at – the rats’ head shaking as it tried to remove a piece of flesh.
[-1]
[-1]
[-1].
“Ah shit,”
Losing 3 health all at once, Jay’s blood boiled with rage.
“Fucker!”
Responding with his own survival instinct, Jay went into overdrive and stabbed down repeatedly as his life depended on it; his vision going red while stabbing the rat like a maniac.
[-1]
[-1]
[-1]
[-1]
“GRRRH!”
He made a barbarian noise, still stabbing at the rat, the knife was now completely red after finding purchase in its flesh.
Shaving away more health from the rat, it began to die.
Loosening its grip, it stopped shaking its head.
Jay grabbed its fur and continued to stab but only got his hand covered in slime; nevertheless, he continued stabbing in a mad frenzy.
“Just die you fuck!”
[-1]
[-1]
[-1]
[15 Exp]
The rat had died at this point, but Jay continued – he wasn’t keeping track of the rat’s health, all he knew at that moment was he needed to stab to survive.
He stabbed more but began to slow down, the pain stopping as he realised the rat was dead, he let out a sigh.
“Finally”
Jay checked his arms for damage, but they were completely healed up.
“Huh, I guess my HP went down instead of me taking actual damage? …Though I do feel a strange sense of weakness after losing all that health…”
Panting at this point, he took a few deep breaths in.
Calming himself, he began to feel accomplished.
“Tough rat” Jay exhaled as he showed the dead soap rat some respect. “You sure wanted to keep your life huh…” he shook the slime off his hand “..slippery little bastard.”
Finally catching his breath, he decided it was finally time to practice his mana craft.
Holding out a hand over the corpse, Jay chanted his spell
“Rise”
Again, Jay felt a little light-headed as green gas materialized around his hand and spread around the creature; he didn’t realise this before since it was daytime, but the gas was luminescent.
“Cool” said Jay as the green glowing light reflected off his pupils.
He seemed like a true necromancer as he watched the beautiful dancing gas – yet this magical moment was cut short as when the gas penetrated the creature and disappeared – its body starting to spasm.
Jay’s eyes bulged, realising the rat corpse was about to explode and flick little bits of flesh all over his face.
“NO! NOT AGAIN! NEVER AGAIN!”
Jay gritted his teeth as he sprinted to the nearest log, jumping behind it.
~Pooowfh!~
The corpse exploded.
All Jay heard was a muffled explosion followed by a light-rain from the other side of the log.
Smiling behind the log, Jay waited an extra moment after the rain-noise stopped.
“Nope, I’m gonna wait. There are probably still some smaller bits of flesh raining down that I can’t hear”
He still shuddered at the thought of what happened last time, vividly remembering it.
Peeking his head over the log, he was happy that he missed getting a face full of gore.
Viscera, organs, intestines, black fur, unidentifiable flesh and fatty residue was left all over, it temporarily changed this part of the marsh from black-grey to a deep crimson red.
It was probably the only part of the marsh that wasn’t black.
The green gas forcefully expelled all the flesh from the rat corpse, leaving only the bones.
It seeped into the bones as they rattled, cartilage popped and snapped as other bones began sticking to each other and floating; a solid dark-green cartilage was forming at the joints.
The bones began to assemble and form a humanoid body with a hunch back – however this time it was slightly bigger, about the same height as the soap rat.
The last part to move into place was the massive soap rat skull – still gleaming with blood and interstitial fluid, it found its home at the top of the creature.
It didn’t morph into the same humanoid-goblin-shaped head that it did before, it seems like the rat skull was sufficient for its purposes – yet two small horns still formed at the top of the skull.
Jay analysed it while it was self-constructing.
It appeared to have a much smaller amount of the dark-green material making up the skeleton and filling in the missing gaps.
“Huh, perhaps it was smaller before because there were less bones to form it”
After it self-constructed, Jay received a notification
[Chimera Research – 1%]
“Chimera?” Jay was confused, and pondered “I’ve only heard stories of such creatures.. I thought they were myths? hmm…”
An evil grin appeared on Jay’s face.
“I can’t wait to make a freaky looking abomination with tentacles, scorpion stingers, antlers and scales; they will tell tales of its horror… mwahahaha…”
Laughing alone in the black marsh, he truly seemed like a psychopath.
“But why did I get this research? Hmm…”
Jay inspected the creature.
<[Feeble Creature Level 1]>
[10 HP]
[Base Damage] – 1
<[Skills]>
[Bite]
– 1 pierce damage
[Claw]
– bleed – 2 flat damage over 3 seconds (Can stack 2 times)
[Undeath] (Passive)
– immune to cold, poison, bleed, hunger, stress, fear, pain.
<[Description]>
[An abomination, it’s existence spits in the face of life and death. Execute with extreme prejudice.]
“Hmm, nope, nothing out of the ordinary…”
The status gave him no clues as to why he gained chimera research, but he was more surprised at the description
“…Wow, execute? That’s not very nice… but I suppose it makes sense.” Jay shrugged “Anything that messes with a corpse is probably detestable to nature say the least” he looked at his own hands “…wait, what does that say about me?” Jay frowned.
He didn’t want to be a necromancer, but this was his lot in life.
Reasoning with himself, he made a decision.
“I won’t raise a human corpse, that’s where I draw the line… unless it’s an emergency and they were utter scum, then maybe I won’t feel as if I’m the abomination… yeah.. no one is forcing me to be evil after all.” he sighed looking at his new companion.
“Seems like you have the same skills as the rat.. Well, except the slippery passive since your slimy fur exploded, but I’m not complaining”
Before he planned his next steps, he looted the remains of the corpse
[Fur scraps] x 3
[Marsh bones] x 2
[Soap Rat teeth] x 3
“Hmm, I probably can’t do much with these. Maybe I can sell them to that fat merchant… What was his name again? B- something? Eh, I’ll just examine him next time I see him.”
Jay realised he should probably learn the merchants name at least – all he remembered was his smoking, his moustache, and his weight; though this wasn’t very specific – most merchants and nobles were overweight in this world; obesity was not frowned upon at all, but instead, it was among gold and jewellery as sign of luxury and success – its symbolism was attractive to some, though it wasn’t for everyone.
Looking at the marsh bones, Jay wondered why there were bones left over after he raised the creature to undeath…
The bones were blackened, slimy and damp.
Evidently, they have been decaying here for years – then realisation dawned on him: the rat was eating these bones, and not some decaying black wood as he initially thought.
“It turns out even bones are not immune to the blackened stain of the stink-rat marsh…”
Jay realised what happened after he summoned the rat.
“Huh, so combining bones of different creatures does make a difference. Though you did still turn out as the same creature, it seems like I may discover another skill eventually… Man, being a necromancer is so cool,” He chuckled to himself, shaking his head in disbelief as he started talking to his new companion now that no one else was around.
“Hmm, but were the marsh bones from another soap rat or another creature entirely? Seems like I’ll need to do more testing before I jump to conclusions”
Starting to feel pain as his anger died down, Jay checked his status.
<[Necromancer level 2]>
HP: 43/48
MP: 34/39
Strength: 15
Dexterity: 25
Vitality: 15
Energy: 24/30
Exp: 15/150
<[Skills]>
[Raise Feeble Creature level 1] – 1/1 Raised
[Stress Response] (Passive)
[Running level 1] (Passive)
“Hmm, I’m not too banged up,” said Jay, looking at his health before glancing at his minion.
“At least you can protect me now on”
The creature moved over to stand in front of Jay, as if waiting for orders, its green glowing eyes gazing at him.
Jay ignored it, standing up and gazing at the marshland around him he posited “This will be easy now that I have a summon”.
Jay took out his water bottle from his knapsack and used it to wash his hands; he took a drink and then began eating some wild nuts.
“Mm. Probably too early to treat myself but I should keep my energy up”. Noticing his bondtussle roots as he was grabbed more nuts “Oh yeah…” He popped a root into his mouth, chewed and swallowed it, getting a notification.
[Mana Regen buff 1%]
– lasts for 1 hour(s).
—
Eyes squinting over the marshland grass, he looked at his surroundings as he put his water bottle away. He seemingly looked like a giant as he peered over the surrounding waist-high grass.
The wind paused for a moment and the grass stopped swaying – all except for a patch which seemed to be getting closer.
“It must’ve heard me fighting…”
Looking at his creature he wondered if he should name it for the sake of practicality “…Don, prepare to fight”.
The creature, now called “Don”, looked confused for a while – perhaps even angry as it’s new name had no thought put into it – it even seemed to scowl at Jay before assuming a fighting stance to make best use of its claws. Having similar stats to the soap rats, Don had one main advantage to tip the scales in its favour – Don was an undead bi-ped.
Sure enough, another pig-sized soap rat came to investigate the shouting; parting the grasses, it glared at Jay and Don.
Jay examined it.
[Soap Rat Level 1]
Having a smug grin, Jay spat on the ground as he death-stared at the rat and provoked the rat in a deeper voice.
“DO SOMETHING”
The rat took a few steps forward, hissing, as the rest of its body slipped through and exited the grasses.
Surprisingly, Don pounced at the rat, immediately responding to the rat’s intention to fight.
Before the rat could respond, Don’s teeth were already sinking into its flesh.
Don shook its skull-head from side to side to rend the flesh, while its skeleton-claws were just as damaging – slashing at the rat and digging them into its flesh.
The rat didn’t hiss, but squealed.
“Riiiiiii~!!” It was in immense pain.
Conversely, Don didn’t make any sound, perhaps because Don had no voice box – though Don appeared to be bored.
Jay gasped as he subconsciously took a step back, being shocked at how savagely Don was fighting.
The rat tried to shake Don off but only made its pain greater as it propelled Don to rip a chunk of flesh out of its shoulder.
Don was flung on the ground with a chunk of flesh in it’s mouth as its prize, while Jay stepped forward and stabbed at rat; it then died after suffering only 1 damage from Jay.
[15 Exp]
Jay was completely surprised.
“Wow, you did 9 damage? You’re an absolute savage” he praised Don, amazed as he gathered the loot from the soap-rat corpse.
[Fur scraps] x 2
[Soap Rat Teeth] x 3 freewe(b)novel
“Man, that was the easiest kill ever. I barely had to do anything. I probably could get away with ignoring the fight entirely while cleaning the dirt from my fingernails” Jay said with a proud little smile.
Looking at his blade; It had begun to dull and the point had chipped off. “Hmm, hope these fur scraps are worth something, maybe I can get a better knife or something.”
Don gazed back at Jay with its hollow green eyes as it swallowed the flesh out of a natural reflex.
Jay gave Don a puzzled look as the flesh left Don’s empty skull, slid down Don’s spine and plopped out on the ground nearby – Don seemingly not noticing anything unusual.
“Haha, you’re weird” Jay chuckled as he began looking for movement in the marsh.
Failing to see anything, he began walking in the direction the last rat had come from.
It took a few minutes before the unlikely duo came to a small clearing within the reeds and grasses. The dirty homeless-looking man and a waist-high hunchback humanoid skeleton with a huge rat skull entered the clearing.
Alone in the middle of the clearing was a slightly fatter rat sprawled across a log, uncaringly surveying the duo.
The rat seemed to be an alpha in these parts of the marsh, having its own little territory market out.
To Jay, it seemed like a battle-hardened warrior.
As Jay and Don approached, it lazily stretched and jumped down from its log as if this was a common occurrence.
Jay squinted, examining the confident soap rat.
<[Soap Rat Level 3]>
[15 HP]
<[Skills]>
[Slippery] (Passive)
– The rat uses swamp slime to its advantage.
– Crowd control skills have no effect.
[Bite]
– 3 pierce damage
[Claw]
– Bleed – 4 flat damage over 4 seconds (Can stack 3 times)
[Poison Resist] (Passive ) – 80%
“This is gunna be a harder one Don. Wait till it attacks, then we strike.”
Jay, Don, and the rat each went into their respective combat stances.
Each party waited for the other to strike first – the rat seeming to know some basic strategy.
“Circle around behind it, draw its attention”
The rat tried to back up as it switched focus between Jay and Don, still in the process of encircling it.
Realizing its predicament and pouncing at Don, it hoped to kill the smaller one quickly so it could 1v1 Jay.
The rat bit down onto Don’s collar bone and shook its head, immobilizing its right arm.
[-3]
[-1]
Don took no notice of the pain as it happily bit back at the rat’s neck and started rhythmically clawing it and shaking his head.
[-5]
“Ha, big mistake!” Jay smiled as he stabbed down at the rats back.
[Critical hit – 2 damage]
Since Jay was so low level, the critical hit seemed like nothing, but he was happy with the proceeding notification.
[Dagger Proficiency Level 1] Acquired
+2% damage when using daggers
+2% speed when using daggers
– Can backstab for double damage
Not having time to enjoy the upgrade, Jay stabbed at the rats back and ribs to kill it faster and save Don.
[-2]
[-2]
[-2]
Meanwhile the rat continued to bite Don – damage numbers appearing over his creatures head
[-3]
[-3]
Don’s hp depleted quickly, but still clawed one last time at the rat, stacking one last bleed on it.
[-1]
The rat died to a
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