Lamp and Red finally brought back some soap rat teeth.
They had taken much longer than the other skeletons, so Jay was slightly annoyed.
“About time..” Jay said, but then saw blood dripping from their skulls - he then realised what they were doing.
“Eugh!” his face grimaced.
As they approached, Jay noticed bits of flesh and gore covering their jaw bones; tendons, viscera and fur stuck into their wolf-skull’s teeth.
The skeletons were normally imposing by themselves, but this made them seem almost like undead cannibals, like they mindlessly ate flesh even though they had no stomachs; a truly horrific sight.
The skeletons were using their bone eater skill to grow themselves - but Jay completely forgot that they would have to chew through flesh first to get to the bones.
“I forgot, you would have to get the bones yourselves…”
Normally, Jay’s ring would tenderly extract bones from a corpse.
“I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it at least… eugh”
The skeletons dropped two more soap rat teeth before him and quickly resumed hunting, and Jay immediately put them in his inventory; He didn’t mind touching them too much as nothing in the swamp was clean anyway.
More experience points rolled in while Jay walked towards the large burrow, and this was when he heard Stench-rat Molodus.
*HISSSS~*
He heard a deep, threatening hissing noise as he approached and poked his head through the reeds and peered into the clearing.
Molodus was already fighting one of Jay’s skeletons, though it wasn’t alone.
A smaller soap rat fought alongside Molodus, and since it was 2 versus 1, it looked like the skeleton, Sweeper, was almost losing and could use some help.
“Oh, one of you is already here… Well, I want some practice.”
Jay had Sweeper back off from Molodus, and focus on fighting the smaller soap rat, while he went up and slashed at Molodus, grabbing its attention.
*Riiiii~!*
He analysed it.
<[Stench-Rat Molodus - Level 5]>
[34/50 HP]
<[Skills]>
[Slippery] (Passive)
- The rat uses swamp slime to its advantage.
- Crowd control skills have no effect.
[Piercing Bite]
- 5 pierce damage
[Tearing Claws]
- Bleed
- 4 flat damage over 4 seconds (Can stack 4 times)
[Toxic Aura](Passive)
- The stench of this creature poisons those around it.
-1HP/second
- 2 meter radius
[Poison Immune] (Passive)
<[Description]>
[Both king and dread of the soap rats; living in the stench-swamp, it has become one with it. “You only adopted the stench, I was born in it.”]
“Hmm, I guess I won't get a hidden quest this time.. Oh well.” he shrugged.
Jay jumped forward, slashing at Molodus, though the large rat easily dodged and bit Jay.
“Agh! You rat bastard,”
[-0.8][-5][-0.8]
Jay was taking reduced poison damage from Molodus’s aura, though his coat was blocking some of the damage.
He didn’t have time to comprehend how strange it was that Molodus’s soul was apparently in his coat but also in the rat before him.
Were they two different rats? Did the soul respawn or get copied? Did his coat only have some of the soul essence in it? He may never know.
“Well, I have high HP now, so that poison damage is negligible.”
Jay jumped forward, slashing again. Molodus did the exact same thing last time - dodge and bite.
[-0.8][-5][-0.8]
This time however, Jay took the bite in stride and continued to stab and slash at the rat.
[-8][-8]
Molodus slashed back with his own claws; one paw missed with the other landed.
[Bleeding]
[4 damage per second for 4 seconds]
*Hiss!*
It quickly slashed again, but only scraped harmlessly across Jay’s shield.
“Argh! Dammit!” Jay jumped back, gritting his teeth as he waited for his bleed to stop.
“How the fuck is this level 5 rat doing more damage than me?”
Jay remembered that his necromancer gas stopped the poison aura, so he released some around him.
*HISSS*
The fat rat hissed at Jay, attempting to intimidate him.
“It was easier last time, but I guess that’s because I wasn’t alone…”
While Jay was fighting, his skeleton fighting the soap rat nearby had finished its fight.
Sweeper had killed the smaller rat and was coming to help - but Jay decided to have it wait on the sidelines, only to step in when he needed it.
“I’m level 9. I should be able to do this alone.” he thought as he gritted his teeth in anger.
[Stress Response Activated - +5% melee damage]
“Nice” thought Jay as he stepped forward to slash again - but this time, it was a feint; a fake attack where his weight was shifted differently to prepare for the real attack, which would shortly follow.
Molodus dodged the feint to the same side and as it went to bite, Jay slashed, landing a deep cut across its cheek.
[-8.4]
“That’s more like it” he smiled.
[0.8] Jay took some more poison damage; he lost concentration and stopped releasing necrotic gas for a moment.
Jay received a notification after this slash, but decided to wait till after the fight to read it.
*RII!*
The rat seemed to get more furious now and charged.
*Riii~ Riii~ - RIII!!~~~*
It’s survival instinct kicked in and this was its final assault.
Jay attempted to dodge, but took a claw swipe, giving him another bleed - but he retaliated with his own damage.
[-8.5]
Molodus had 1.2 health left now, and both knew the fight was over.
Jay decided to end it quickly, as he was still taking poison damage.
He stepped forward in the mud - “Ah shit..~” he slipped, dropping his sword.
This was the worst possible moment to slip.
Seeing its opponent fall, light twinkled in the fat rats eyes. This was the rat’s only opportunity to live now, and it seized this opportunity like a starving Bertram would cease a baked ham.
It pounced on Jay and slashed, hitting him with both claws.
Jay tried to reach for his sword but the rat was too large, it’s body weight stopped him from reaching his sword.
“Dammit” he said through gritted teeth.
The rat attempted to bite Jay’s shoulder too, but his shield was protecting it so he took no damage.
Jay couldn’t do anything - but he knew the rats health was low, so he began punching the rat.
[-0.1]
“Fuuck, what? So low?”
Jay saw the tiny damage number, wondering what was happening.
Immediately, Jay panicked and got Sweeper to come help him.
Immediately, Sweeper pounced with its sword.
Sweeper only needed a single attack, and the fight was over in an instant.
[100 Exp]
“URGH” Jay pushed the huge fat rat off his body, albeit slowly.
He had taken a lot of damage, so next he checked his health.
[11.8/93]
“Fuck, I nearly just died… How am I so weak? I mean, I can take a hit, but seriously, I only did 0.1 damage with that punch…”
Jay immediately summoned Blue and Lamp to come protect him. His health was low; only a few more hits and he would be dead after all.
“I should’ve used the charged green crystal to end it, but in the heat of the fight I completely forgot.”
He picked his sword up and had his shield out, waiting for his undead guards.
After Blue and Lamp came, Jay had them join Sweeper and form a triangle perimeter around him.
Now that he was mostly safe, he finally had some time to think; analysing the fight.
“Now… What happened there? I am so weak…”
Jay checked his stats, there were no debuffs other than the [Stink] one. He looked at his sword next.
“It still does 8 damage…” He thought for a moment.
“I suppose that all this time, my damage only increased because I made better weapons… and I haven’t put any points into dexterity so I’m probably as slow as I was when I was level 1?”
Jay had a shattering realisation: His strength and dexterity had not changed at all since he was level one.
“...Am I just as weak as I was when I was level one?” he looked at his hands “It seems like the only difference is, is that I have more health and better equipment… Shit… I think I may have really fucked this up…”
“...What have I done...”
Jay shook his head, he felt like his heart sunk with hopelessness for a moment.
He felt pathetically stupid, like he was comparable to that noble brat who relied on his personal guards and expensive items to make himself strong - and what was the difference? He couldn’t find one.
Little did Jay know that Matheson’s progression was going quickly, he was changing for the better both mentally and physically.
“It’s not too late to fix this… I’m only level nine after all… I can start putting points into strength and dexterity… I can fix this.”
Jay nodded, trying to encourage himself.
“I should have put more thought into it back then… man, I really didn’t know what I was doing back then… taking it all too lightly.”
“Okay, my next points will all go into strength” he nodded to himself. It was his lowest stat.
“I’ll make it even to my 25 dexterity, and then raise them both as high as vitality.”
“After that, I will favour dexterity, as my class started with a higher amount.”
After Jay realised he’s actually incredibly weak, he even felt embarrassed...
“Dammit… I even thought I was strong for a little while there... So that was a fuckin lie.” He was self-deceived, but thankfully he had woken up.
What happened in the swamp today may very well stay with Jay forever, a permanent part of his memories.
