The scratching sound was the noise of certain death. It was the sound of chitin against oak, a relentless, deliberate scraping that promised to splinter wood, shred metal, and find the soft flesh hiding behind it. Leo's brief, bitter moment of despair evaporated, replaced by the primal, ice-cold grip of terror. He flattened himself against the back wall of the supply closet, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the door.
He was trapped. A rat in a cage, waiting for the snake.
The blue screen in his vision, which had just delivered its insulting verdict, updated with a cascade of new information.
Generated code
Name: Leo Miller Level: 1 Class: Janitor HP: 110/110 MP: 50/50 --- STR: 8 END: 12 AGI: 10 INT: 11 WIS: 14 LCK: ? --- Stat Points Available: 0 --- Skills Acquired: [Mop Up (Lvl 1)]: Absorb a targeted liquid into a metaphysical container. Cost: 5 MP per gallon. [Scrub Clean (Lvl 1)]: Remove mundane and minor supernatural grime from a target surface or object. Cost: 5 MP. [Waste Disposal (Lvl 1)]: Access a 5-slot pocket dimension for items designated as 'trash'. [Deep Clean (Lvl 1 - Locked)]: ???
content_copydownloadUse code with caution.
HP? MP? Mana Points? It was a game. His life had become a twisted, horrifying video game. He had skills. Useless, pathetic skills that mirrored the job he was trying to escape even in the middle of the apocalypse. Mop Up? What was he going to do, clean the monster to death?
CRACK!
A splinter of wood flew inward from the doorjamb. The Skitterer was breaking through. His mind raced, cataloging his prison. Shelves of industrial-strength cleaners. Stacks of rags. A spare mop bucket. A broken broom handle. Nothing. He was going to die in a closet that smelled like pine needles and failure.
He scanned his new skills again, his eyes lingering on [Mop Up]. Absorb a targeted liquid. His gaze flickered to the floor near the door. A small, viscous puddle of greenish fluid was seeping under the crack. The Skitterer's drool. He had seen it sizzle and melt the marble outside. It was acid.
BOOM! The entire door shuddered violently. A long, vertical crack appeared in the oak. The scratching intensified, accompanied by a wet, guttural clicking. It was almost through.
Leo's survival instinct, the same one that had made him use the buffer and the trash can, screamed at him. He had no weapons. He had no armor. All he had were the ridiculous new tools the System had given him.
He focused on the puddle of acid. He didn't know how to activate the skill, so he just… thought at it. Hard. Mop Up!
A faint blue shimmer surrounded the greenish puddle. In his mind, he felt a strange, ethereal pull, a sensation like drinking through a straw. A small chunk of his blue MP bar, which had just appeared below his HP, depleted slightly. And the acid vanished. It was just… gone. Not soaked up, not evaporated. It was just erased from existence, siphoned into the "metaphysical container" the skill description mentioned.
The Skitterer, perhaps sensing its prey, gave one final, monstrous heave. The lock splintered, the deadbolt ripped free from the frame, and the door flew open with a deafening crash.
The creature stood there, framed in the doorway, its multifaceted eyes glowing in the red emergency light. It opened its mandibles, preparing to spray a torrent of the very acid Leo had just practiced on. He could see the corrosive liquid bubbling up from its throat.
There was no time to think. Leo, now crouched behind a metal shelf, reacted on pure instinct. He didn't target the floor. He thrust his hand out, palm forward, and focused all his will on the monster's gaping maw.
[Mop Up]!
The Skitterer's attack never came. Instead of spraying acid, it gave a confused, gurgling shriek. The acid, coalescing in its mouth for the killing blow, was yanked backward down its own gullet. Leo felt that metaphysical straw again, this time pulling with a vicious, nauseating force. He felt the liquid—corrosive, alien, wrong—enter his conceptual "bucket." His MP bar dropped by a quarter.
The monster choked, its own weapon turned against it. Its internal organs, clearly not designed to contain its own acid, began to dissolve from the inside out. It thrashed wildly, shrieking a sound of agony that grated on Leo's soul.
This was his chance. The only chance he would ever get.
He shot out from behind the shelf. In his hand, he clutched the only thing in the room that resembled a weapon: a three-foot length of solid oak, the broken handle from an old broom. As the Skitterer flailed in its death throes, Leo lunged forward, gripping the handle like a spear.
He aimed for the head, for the cluster of glowing eyes. With a desperate cry that was half-fear and half-fury, he plunged the sharpened, splintered end of the broom handle directly into the monster's central eye.
There was a sickening, wet crunch, like stepping on a giant beetle. The creature's thrashing stopped instantly. Its legs gave out, and it collapsed in a heap, the broom handle protruding from its head like a bizarre trophy.
Silence descended once more, broken only by Leo's own ragged breathing. He stood over the corpse, his knuckles white, his body trembling with a violent overdose of adrenaline.
Then, the welcome blue glow of the System filled his vision.
[You have killed Lvl 1 Skitterer.]
[Loot generated: (1) Skitterer Carapace Fragment, (1) Vial of Weak Acid.]
[XP GAINED: +100 XP!]
[DING! YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!]
[You are now Level 2.]
[You have gained +5 unassigned Stat Points.]
[Your HP and MP have been fully restored.]
Leo stared at the notifications, a giddy sense of relief washing over him. He'd done it. He'd killed it. He, Leo Miller, the invisible janitor, had killed a monster from another world with a broom handle and a magic mopping skill. The feeling was intoxicating. It was power.
He looked at the corpse. Two small motes of light, one gray and one green, floated above it. Hesitantly, he reached out and touched them. They dissolved into his palm, and a new notification appeared.
[Items acquired and stored in Waste Disposal.]
He focused on the [Waste Disposal] skill. An image of five empty gray boxes appeared in his mind's eye. Two of them were now filled. One held a jagged piece of black chitin, the other a small, glowing green vial. It was an inventory. A real-life RPG inventory. He felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in his throat, but he choked it down.
Focus. Survive.
He opened his status screen. Five stat points. Where to put them? Strength was tempting, but what good was strength if he couldn't take a hit? His gaze fell on END and WIS. Endurance for survival, Wisdom for… well, he wasn't sure. The System seemed to imply it was for observation and maybe something to do with his new mana pool. He decided to split them.
[Allocate 3 points to Endurance.]
[Allocate 2 points to Wisdom.]
He felt a subtle warmth spread through his body. He didn't suddenly feel tougher, but the deep ache in his muscles from the earlier adrenaline dump seemed to fade. The world seemed a little sharper, the details of the ruined hallway a little clearer.
Name: Leo Miller
Level: 2
Class: Janitor
HP: 130/130
MP: 60/60
---
STR: 8
END: 15
AGI: 10
INT: 11
WIS: 16
LCK: ?
---
Stat Points Available: 0
He cautiously stepped out of the closet, his broken broom-spear held ready. The 44th floor was eerily quiet. His first kill lay twitching on the floor. He used [Scrub Clean] on a smear of monster blood on his sleeve out of sheer curiosity. The blue light shimmered, and the stain vanished without a trace, leaving the fabric pristine. It was a small, absurd miracle.
Now what? Hiding was no longer an option. Staying on the 44th floor was a death sentence. He needed a defensible position, a place with information. His mind immediately went to the ground floor security office. Reinforced doors. Concrete walls. A bank of monitors showing the entire building's camera feeds. And, most importantly, a dedicated emergency communication line. Maybe, just maybe, he could find out if Sarah's hospital was still standing.
The goal solidified in his mind, sharp and clear. Get to the security office.
He took a bottle of water and a half-eaten energy bar from his janitor's cart and, using [Waste Disposal], stored them in his inventory. It felt strange, consigning his lunch to "trash," but the utility was undeniable. He gripped his makeshift spear and made his way towards the red, glowing sign of the emergency stairwell.
Every shadow seemed to hold a new horror. Every distant sound made him flinch. He moved slowly, hugging the walls, his enhanced Wisdom making him acutely aware of every detail—the pattern of bloodstains on the carpet, the way the air moved down the corridor.
As he neared the stairwell door, a faint sound reached his ears. It wasn't the clicking of a monster. It was a human sound. A whimper. A desperate cry for help.
It came from a large conference room fifty feet down the hall, its glass walls offering a panoramic, and horrifying, view of the interior. Leo flattened himself against the wall and peeked around the corner.
His blood ran cold.
Inside the conference room, a woman in a shredded business suit was backed against a large mahogany table. Her face was a mask of sheer terror. Between her and the door stood not one, but two Skitterers. They were circling her, their mandibles clicking in a hungry, anticipatory rhythm, herding her like a wolf herding a sheep for the slaughter.
Leo's mind presented him with two, starkly different paths.
Path one: The stairwell was right there. He could slip inside, unnoticed, and continue his mission to the ground floor. The woman was a stranger. Trying to save her was suicide. He'd barely survived one of those things; two was impossible. His own survival, and the hope of finding Sarah, was paramount.
Path two: He could try to help. He had the element of surprise. He had his ridiculous, but surprisingly effective, skills. But if he failed, he would die here, on the 44th floor, and Sarah would be alone.
The woman let out a choked sob as one of the Skitterers lunged. Leo watched, frozen, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. The choice was his. A dead stranger, or a dead hero.