The Queen

He walked towards the door he had come out of and chose the pulpit of the statue on the left; this left his shield closer to the wall and the spear more freely on the right; with a distance of almost thirty meters, he could recalculate if necessary.

With the other rats, Ikky's stance of stabbing like a fisherman had been useful, the beasts did not come by themselves to attack him but jumped or climbed, but if now a boss rat appeared as his intuition told him he was going to need much more mobility with his spear to keep it at a distance and be able to attack.

Ikky took a deep breath and focused on what was going to happen, only when his heart calmed down a little did the boy give the order to data to continue

The door opened...

"GRROOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!"

A shrill but powerful roar swept through the arena. Ikky's hair stood on end, it was fear, it was apprehension, it was the anticipation that a monstrous being would be his next enemy.

Time seemed to pass in slow motion. Heavy footsteps could be heard, very heavy. A rat the size of a polar bear came out of the door. Although the boy had lost his initial apprehension of rats, he could not stop being afraid of an aggressive being of that size.

But he had to change his strategy, being up there would be a danger for him, it would prevent him from moving and dodging.

From the ground to the top of his back, he could measure more than 1.60 meters while on all fours. How tall would he be when standing up...

"Shit..."

All the advantage that the height of being on top of the pulpit had given him compared to normal rats meant nothing now; In fact, it could make him lose a foot or something when his legs were at the height of a rat's jaw that was the size of a large pot...

The baseball glove-sized claws left grooves in the sand, and the acceleration was impressive for an animal of its size... Ikky covered himself, leaning his leg against the statue... 25 meters, 20 meters, 15 meters, 10 meters, 5 meters...

When the boy could smell the foul odor of the beast's jaws, Ikky threw his spear forward, aiming for its eye, and jumped...

The spear, between the player's strength and the beast's momentum, penetrated the right eye socket, and Ikky's body, precariously balanced, jumped a little to that same side. In the end, the spear had a lever effect, and a huge eyeball was torn out by the roots. It made a strange plop-puff sound like the one made when a sealed can is opened.

The rat screamed, roared, and writhed in pain. But it was too tough a beast to die from a wound like that, despite the wound, the rat turned around in murderous fury, although astonished by the unknown pain, and because of the surprise, it did the most typical thing for a rat: run away...

The giant rat, or the queen rat if you want to call her that, ran off in one direction and Ikky got up from the ground as best he could and ran off in the opposite direction. He was a trickster, not a warrior; not everything could be intense and epic. Thinking that he would finish her off immediately was expecting too much... .

He chose the left pulpit of the statue at the door instead of the one on the right, since it was in front of him and was close, not for nothing but because he hoped that with his back against the wall and the reduced vision of the rat king on that side, he would have some chance of surviving.

However, the jump and the fall had taken its toll on Ikky's already precarious health, he had twisted an ankle and the pain was killing him. During the fall he had also lost the remains of his shield, which was almost destroyed by the previous fights. It was a mass of wood that was barely usable.

That race had not really been epic or pretty, it was a desperate march to the wall where the player had screamed with each step he took with his sprained ankle on the ground.

The rat took his time to regain some composure, it was not even a full minute but it was enough for Ikky himself to compose himself a little. With a spear, his legs fixed and the desire to clear the 100th floor, he waited for the rat, but things would not be so easy.

The damn rat did what its species does, which was not famous for being brave: it stayed in the opposite corner, looking at him with a look between apprehension and fear. I think it was the same look Ikky had at that moment.

He was leaving the initiative to him and that was the last thing Ikky wanted. He didn't want to have to improvise, he didn't want to have to be brave, he wanted to wait and react with the certainty that this monster wouldn't surround him, and attack him from the flanks, however, this stalemate couldn't last forever.

Since that damn beast wasn't coming closer, Ikky, gathering all his courage, advanced little by little, one step at a time, trying not to put too much weight on his battered ankle. It wasn't a glorious march worth telling, the boy could barely hold the spear; he was almost defeated, crawling in agony more than advancing.

They were about five meters away, a more than safe distance. The rat was squealing like a cat, its hair standing on end, facing its opponent or at least trying to intimidate him. The one-eyed rat was invaded by fear of the man in front of him... However, Ikky's mind was not in much better shape. Now it was a question of who would make the first move...