rat

The Heroic Rat Hunt Saga

After making his decisive choice, Arion no longer saw himself as a victim, but as a hunter. Sword in hand, resolve burning, he returned to the dark tunnels, searching for prey. Any prey.

"Just two points," he whispered to himself. "One small monster should be enough. A tiny ghoul, a cave bat, anything."

He activated Vibration Sense and began sweeping his surroundings. He ignored the distant sounds of fighting above and focused on the closer tremors. After minutes of searching, he picked up something. Small, fast, and erratic vibrations.

"Got you!" Arion's eyes gleamed. "Whatever you are, you're my ticket to level five! Prepare to meet your doom at the hands of the 'Giant Slayer'!"

He moved confidently toward the source of the vibration, sneaking through an old dwarven sewage tunnel. The stench was foul, the floor sticky, but Arion didn't care. He had faced worse.

At last, he reached a small chamber that once served as a waste dump. In the middle of it, under the dim glow of his summoned system light, he saw his prey.

And all his heroic confidence evaporated in an instant.

It wasn't a tiny ghoul. It wasn't a bat.

It was a rat.

A huge rat the size of a fat housecat, with bald, saggy skin and patches of greasy gray fur. Its yellow, long teeth glistened as its tiny red eyes glowed with a malicious cunning while it chewed on something unidentifiable, making disgusting crunching sounds.

"A rat…?" Arion muttered with absolute disgust. "After everything I've been through, facing monsters and terrifying auras… my next prey is a rat?"

He felt like turning around and leaving. But he needed those two experience points.

"Damn my pride," he sighed. "I have to do this."

He decided to end it quickly and cleanly, from a safe distance. "I'm not touching that filthy thing."

He raised his hand and summoned a Moderate Fire Spark.

"Die, you—"

But the rat, smarter than it looked, squeaked sharply and jumped aside at the last second. The slow fire spark whizzed past it, slamming into a thousand-year-old pile of dwarven garbage.

Fsshhhh…

The garbage didn't catch fire — instead, it started emitting a thick, green smoke with a stench beyond words. It was a mix of rotting socks, spoiled cheese, and a thousand years of regret.

"Cough! Cough! Gods! This is worse than the ghoul stench!" Arion started hacking violently.

"Alright, plan B," he thought, wiping tears from his eyes. "Telekinesis."

He spotted a suitably sized rock on the ground. He focused all his will. [Minor Telekinesis]!

The rock rose into the air — painfully slow and pathetic — and drifted toward the rat. The rat looked at the approaching rock, then at Arion, squeaked what sounded like a mocking laugh, then sidestepped twice to the right, dodging the rock which fell to the ground with a miserable "thud."

"Did… did it just mock me?"

Arion's patience snapped. "To hell with ranged combat!"

He drew his cheap steel sword and charged at the rat, shouting: "I'll turn you into ghoul stew, you filthy little bastard!"

And so began the most humiliating chase in the history of legendary heroes.

The rat was agile and fast, knowing every corner and tunnel in this garbage dump. Arion, on the other hand, was slipping and stumbling on the sticky floor, bumping his head on low pipes, and getting his sword stuck in piles of junk.

"Get back here, you coward!"

Squeeeak! (The rat's reply as it vanished into a small tunnel.)

Arion was panting, covered in filth, now smelling no better than the place itself. "I… an A-rank adventurer… chasing a rat in dwarven sewers."

Finally, after a humiliating ten-minute chase, he managed to corner the rat at the end of a blocked passage.

The rat turned around, bared its yellow teeth, and leapt straight at Arion's face.

In a moment of pure panic and chaos, Arion did not deliver a heroic sword strike. He did what anyone would do when a giant rat lunges at their face. He screamed loudly, squeezed his eyes shut, and flailed his sword wildly in every direction.

Squelch!

When he opened his eyes, the rat was now a mess of fur and blood smeared against the wall.

Arion stood there, panting, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead, the smell of garbage filling his lungs. He felt no victory, only shame and exhaustion.

"I… did it."

Then, the system window he'd been waiting for appeared. He expected to see "Congratulations! Level Up!"

But what he saw was different.

Ding~

> [You have killed a Giant Sewer Rat.]

[+1 EXP]

[Current EXP: 249 / 250]

A heavy silence filled the passage, broken only by Arion's ragged breathing.

He stared at the window. Then stared again.

"One?" he whispered barely audibly.

"One experience point…?"

"I went through all this hell… the chase… the stink… the humiliation… for ONE experience point?!"

Cold sweat ran down his back — stronger than any fear he'd felt before.

He slowly looked around at the dark, trash-filled tunnels. He knew what he had to do. He knew there was no escape.

He took a deep breath and said in a voice filled with despair and resigned fate:

"Alright… where can I find another damned rat in this stinking place?"