He snapped awake in what felt like an instant and let out a groan “How long was I out?”

  “A bit. I wasn't exactly counting the seconds. How are you feeling?”

  “Like a million fucking dollars if it was all torn up and smothered and bug bits.” He slowly stood up, really regretting not washing himself off first before falling asleep. Stumbling into the bathroom he tried to scrub himself down as much as possible using the sink.

  “Another thing on my to do list now that I have this storage ring. Get a bed, the comfiest bed that has ever existed. Also a portable shower. Definitely a portable shower. Also several changes of armor and clothes too.”

  He looked at his face in the mirror. Probably the first time he truly examined himself since the start of this whole fiasco. He looked tired. Really tired. Dark rings under his eyes, stress lines across his face. His hair had bits of dirt and what looked like a shard of rat tooth and roach exoskeletons matted in there. He was also getting a decent length beard that grew unevenly across his face.

  He also seemed thinner too. Probably having lost some weight. He had been eating, but he had also been rationing the food too. Technically everything he got rewarded by the system was enough food to last for the whole tutorial but he didn't know how much food would be available when he got out. He was going to need to ask Ssevinac what they ate to sustain themselves and maybe get more of that.

  “Well they are rats so maybe they just eat their own kind. They also have plenty of roaches to munch on too.”

  “That's a nauseating thought.” but it could also be possible. Maybe he would collect a few roach corpses as an “emergency/no other options” kind of food. Though based on the smell he was not looking forward to the taste.

  “You technically have tasted it given how much you accidentally swallowed when you plunged into that pool of their guts.”

  He suppressed a gag. “Please don't remind me.”

  Taking a handful of water. He splashed water on his face hoping to get out at least a little bit of the dirt and grime as he took a deep breath. Just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I mean, he was technically almost done with the roaches. Just needed to focus on that. He was almost done. Almost done….Almost done..

  “GAAAAAH!” He screamed out in frustration and slapped his face “Right! One foot in front of the other! Let's go!”

  Quill marched out of the break room and stored the Throne of Gluttony back into his storage ring before flinging the trap door open and jumping back into the tunnels, all with faux determination. If he was going to be miserable and depressed. Then he could be miserable and depressed when he wasn't on such a deadline. That's how mental illness worked right?

  “No.” was her only response

  “It was a rhetorical question, one that's just meant to trick me into keep going forward. When you're surrounded by a shitty situation and a shitty life your best bet is to just keep moving forward in the hope that things will get better. Even if you can't see it.” he spoke those last words in a whisper before slapping his face again and opened up his map.

  He wasn't sure if some of the roaches survived the utter massacre that had happened but he felt like he wiped out enough that he could just make a beeline for the Grand Station. He half wondered if he should even bother with asking to speak to their leader, or King, or whatever was in charge of their group.

  Once his route was set, and making sure she would correct him if he accidentally made a wrong turn, he headed back into the tunnels. Ignoring how the darkness that etched across the walls floor and ceiling seemed extra oppressive today.

  Making his way down the tunnels, noting that unlike the tunnels that were around the rat-controlled stations. Most of these tunnels were wider and higher but that seemed to be more due to the fact that the smaller tunnels were blocked off by rubble.

  They clearly did not like the idea of potential enemies being able to sneak around through the tunnels doing guerrilla warfare while also making sure that the tunnels that were open would give the roaches the advantage with their numbers.

  It was smart, which concerned him. Heck all of the roaches' tactics seemed to have an era of intelligence to them. More than the rat had at least. Really Quills only advantage in this instance was that he was just overwhelmingly stronger than his opponents. An advantage he might not have with their leader, especially if he was backed up by an army.

  He started coming to the main hallway that would lead to the Grand Station and strained his hearing to see if he could catch any movement. there was nothing but he also knew that wasn't the best way to tell either.

  So as quietly as he could he made his way towards the entrance and ever so slowly poked his head out, making sure to examine the walls and ceiling for any lurking roach ready to ambush him.

  However there was nothing, no sign of any roaches which was suspicious as hell. There didn't even seem to be tread marks on the dirt or anything that might suggest a blockade had been here or a campsite. It was just completely undefended.

  “Maybe you killed more than you thought and now they are all barricading themselves into the Grand Station as a final stand?”

  It was a possibility, but he also felt like that was wishful thinking. No they were up to something, likely another ambush but one that he couldn't quite understand. Or there were multiple traps in this hallway and they wanted his guard down so he could more easily trip them.

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  “Can't tell if you're paranoid or talking sense, probably both. Either way it's clear you're not going to discern anything from here and as you said last time. You know it's an ambush/trap so might as well trigger it and do the ambushing yourself.”

  Yeah, might as well. He stepped out into the main hall. Taking care of where he placed his feet while also trying to keep an eye open for trip wires or pressure plates. He didn't know what they were capable of, but the fact that they had scorpions meant they had some level of engineering.

  A thought did occur to him that there was the potential of magical traps but he had not seen any signs of magical users. Even if he did he wouldn't know what to look for anyways so instead of worrying about that he would just hope his survival instincts would kick in if you were to trick or something like that.

  He carefully made his way down the hall. The lack of anything happening only stressed him out more. he knew something was going to happen but he didn't know what or where and it was starting to-

  His survival Instinct screamed and he ever so barely moved out of the way as a blade skidded past him slightly cutting into his neck with the faintest of scratches.

  He quickly moved towards the direction the attack came from but saw nothing. A laugh slowly escaped from his mouth “Thank goodness. The stress of waiting for something to happen was worse than whatever did actually happen. Looks like we aren’t dealing with assassins or rogues. But ninjas. I think I can handle a ninja roach.”

  He let himself relax more as he took out two clubs from his storage ring, breathing a sigh of relief in the process. He waited for the next attack to come but nothing did. They were likely waiting for their own opportunity.

  With his senses on high alert, he caught the faintest sound of whooshing air and quickly sidestepped a second attack this time without taking a blow, only to then have a third attack hit him from behind. A dagger hit him in the kidney causing Quill to scream out in pain as he dropped one of the clubs and gripped the invisible arm that had stabbed him, bringing his other club down into something invisible with a very loud crunch causing him to rip the arm out of the bug in the process.

  He growled and quickly jumped away from a fourth attack, glaring up at the dead bug as its form slowly melted into view. Since when do roaches know camouflage?? And of course there were multiple! He felt like an idiot thinking there wasn't!

  However he didn't have much of a chance to curse his stupidity as the ground underneath where he stepped broke revealing a pit trap with spikes ready to greet him as he fell.

  He quickly manifested a hook shot from his hand and fired it towards the ceiling catching himself before he hit the deadly blades. Having the hook shot bring him upwards past the trap hole until he was midway between the floor and ceiling.

  “Of course there are traps as well, how silly of me.” he complained through grit teeth trying to ignore the burning pain of the wound from the kidney shot. He swung himself down on the ground, landing on his feet, just barely dodging a projectile bolt that aimed to hit him while he was in the air.

  The moment he landed he felt something underneath his feet click and instantly rolled, dodging a plume of flame that shot out of the wall. His role however put him in an awkward position as he saw a blade swinging right for his eyes.

  Knowing he wasn't going to be able to dodge out of the way in time he manifested a mask on his face as quickly as possible and felt the dagger hit but unable to penetrate the protective film.

  Not wanting to let an opportunity go to waste, he manifested a sword and slashed through where he thought the roach might be. Getting a clean hit and slicing through its exoskeleton with little resistance.

  His victory was short-lived as he quickly had to jump out of the way from another attack from behind, this one aiming for his other kidney. Naturally he jumped into a third trap with darts fired out of the wall and stabbing into him.

  Ailment infliction status poison (weak)

  Poison too??? must be his fucking birthday!

  “When is your birthday anyways?”

  “Not the time!” he screamed out. This was getting him nowhere and he was just going to continue incurring more and more wounds at this rate. If he couldn't see them he was just going to have to hit them through volume.

  He summoned up several hundred needles, his powerful mind trait making it easier for the conjuration to happen, of course to keep these needles manifested he had strings attached to every single one. Then without further ado he fired them in all directions. Most flew off into nothing but several did manage to land hits.

  He quickly curved the needles that had hit so they were like fish hooks and yanked those back towards him with the string. He then summoned up his pizza cutter as his catches grew close and swung widely in a 360 Direction. Killing five more of the Ninja roaches with relative ease.

  “There!” he let out panting slightly, feeling a tad nauseated which was likely due to the poison. “ I don't need to be a better shot, I just need to fire more!”

  “Sure, but your hit to miss ratio is going to suuuuuck!”

  “Let it suck. I'll still be alive and they will be dead” he took a step forward and promptly triggered another trap, This time several heavy rocks came falling down on his head which he quickly battered away with a manifested baseball bat.

  “Not if you don't pay attention to where you're steppin.” she teased clearly amused by him seemingly stepping into every single trap that existed.

  He growled out in annoyance as he pulled out the poison darts that were in his body. Between the poison, the kidney wound, and the darts, he was in slightly rough shape but before he could even take out a health potion he heard the faintest sound of rushing wind and his survival instincts blared again. He ducked just in time to miss a dagger that went for his throat.

  “Oh hey, even when you do fire by volume you still miss. Glad you keep it consistent.”

  He spat out a curse and quickly did the same tactic with the needles and string. This time in snaring three more roaches and quickly killing them. Then for good measure he did it once more. Catching one more roach and killing it.

  “Okay! are we done?” he shouted out into the tunnels and waited to see if he was about to get ambushed again. When none came he pretended to lower his guard as he took out a health potion and slowly brought it to his lips keeping his ears open for any potential attack.

  Only after he wasn't attacked again did he finally relax a little and drink the potion. Feeling relief from the stabbing pain in his side as well as the minor wounds from the darts. He still held the affliction of poison but because it was weak he wasn't too worried. The most it seemed to do was give him an upset stomach.

  “ Had you been poisoned while still in g-rank you would definitely be doing worse. Some extra benefits for being an F-rank it seems.”

  He grunted in acknowledgement and taking care of where he stepped slowly made his way down the hall. As he neared the trap doors entrance he saw that there was no potential blockade.

  He couldn't decide if that was a good sign or bad, and after sending out another set of needles just to make sure he didn't miss any ninjas. He sat down and waited for him to feel fully recovered from using his energy manifestation. He had a feeling he was going to need it.