* * *

After several minutes of exploring the abandoned village, Hiroki finally came to the conclusion that this was an abandoned territory in the middle of a forest. 

There was no sign of modern technology or anything that would tell him the exact location of this village. 

This village seemed to have been abandoned after being mostly destroyed by some sort of attack.

There were no bullet holes and no sign of human force. That's what made Hiroki more confused as well. 

So, what could’ve caused this place to turn out like this? And how did he end up in this situation?

There was no way for him to get immediate answers about this. 

That was the case until—

—a see-through window screen with a celebratory sound effect appeared in front of him.

‘Am I... seeing things?’ Hiroki questioned himself. 

He was pretty calm the whole time, but seeing this game like a hologram in front of him made him think about his own sanity. 

He knew that playing video games was just a way of killing time during school. However, he was never addicted to them, nor did he like spending a great deal of time on them. That's why he was sure that hallucinating about them right now wasn’t the case.

‘I’ve been summoned?’ 

Hiroki’s eyes narrowed to slits while he read the game like a window in front of him.

He wasn't a fan of games, but he did find amusement in many RPG games since he was able to exploit glitches or plot holes in the story. 

However, getting dragged into another world without any sort of consent pissed him off.

“Hold on, I never agreed on becoming part of this adventure.”

He tried speaking to the screen in front of him. Even though there was a chance that this was an automated system, he still wanted to try and see whether another being was going to respond.

However, there was no response — or at least any hints that they were going to listen to him.

“Trust me, he says….”

Hiroki’s deep voice said to itself, mockingly at the way this system kidnapped him in this place.

“——To defeat the demon lord....” 

And as Hiroki finished reading the last words on the screen, everything in front of him vanished exactly as it appeared, leaving him with unsatisfactory answers.

“Meeting me….” 

Hiroki kept his calm composure despite the fact that he was brought in here without any sort of consent. 

He rewinded all of the information that was given from the hologram alerts before making a judgment about what had happened to him.

And after a few moments of trying to process everything that had happened, he tried thinking of why he was summoned as a ghost rather than with his original body. 

Was it the fact that he couldn't fight with the injury that he had on his back? 

Hiroki was perplexed at those moments because if an entity was able to summon him to another world and give him skills, it wouldn't be surprising if his body would also be fully healed. 

That's where he raised another hypothesis in his mind.

‘The one who dragged me in here couldn't care less about me or this adventure that he's trying to convince me of.’ He thought to himself. ‘Something is not right here….’

But even if something wasn't right at this exceptional opportunity — one that many rpg fans only hope for — he still wasn't given the option of being returned to his own world.

There were no proper answers, and there was no other option for him in this sort of situation. 

When someone gets summoned, the natural course of action is to seek answers from the summoner. And from what he read from the screen, that's what that entity wanted.

“...Fine then—” 

Hiroki said to the nonexistent entity with a stern yet amused look on his face.

“I’ll play along with your games.”

But in order to see what this entity has brought for him, he needed to see what his skills looked like.

He wasn't sure how it worked, which is why he said out loud the next word that came to mind.

“Status.”

And as per his command, a game-like screen appeared in front of him with the necessary information that he wanted to see.

‘So it does work like a game.’ 

But despite easily figuring out how to see his own status, he soon found out the ridiculous numbers that were shown in his status. 

Everything except his intelligence was zero. It was almost as if he was starting a new game in impossible mode due to his nonexistent physical body.

‘The lack of a leveling system means that when encountering anything dangerous to me, I must primarily rely on my skills and stats.’

 

After a few minutes of reading each of his skills carefully, he was left with a few thoughts on his mind. 

He understood that these skills were suited for his new form; however, the fact that he lacked passive skills was problematic. 

And what's worse, he wasn't going to be able to join the society of this world if he couldn't find a solution for his ghostly form.

‘I might have a few ideas of how I can get more skills…’ 

Hiroki thought before looking in the distance at where the path of this village was leading. 

‘—but it's going to be painful….’

* * *

Once Hiroki was done exploring his status and how this system worked, he made up his mind to leave this place. 

If anything else, the first thing that he had in mind at that moment was a way to level up his status as quickly as possible.

However, just as he was about to float outside the territory of the abandoned village, an invisible barrier-like force stopped him. 

Even though he was supposed to be a ghost who can walk through any physical object, he wasn't able to pass through the barrier. 

‘...so a barrier can work on me as well.’ 

He came to a conclusion after discovering something he had been wondering about since he realized he was a ghost. 

He can be captured. Or worse. Killed.

However, what he found even more strange was the reason why an abandoned village would have a barrier. 

Was the reason behind it to keep hostile creatures away from here? Or to keep something even more dangerous hidden within the village?

That was also a possibility. And while he was trying to figure out why, he tried using appraisal over the barrier to see if it would tell him anything.

The same screen-like status suddenly popped out the moment he thought of using the appraisal skill.

‘So this is why this village has ended up in this kind of situation.’

This also explained the lack of corpses in this whole place.

Hiroki knew that something had caused this destruction to this village, but the fact that a dungeon would spawn right in the middle of a village was something that didn't add up.

‘It was intentional… Whoever wanted this village destroyed, is able to create dungeons….’

But the reason is, why would anyone want to do this to a village? Was there something valuable in there? Or did it have anything to do with the fact that he was summoned right here?

Since Hiroki was aware that this village had been destroyed more than a few months ago, he doubted the last presumption. 

As Hiroki searched for the location of the dungeon, he became aware of how his senses had changed from those of a human. 

He felt as if he was floating, but at the same time not, since there was no longer any sense of touch.

He could float around for a while in this kind of form, but based on what he could see, he didn't seem to be able to move very quickly or even to go above the nearest trees. That's why he assumed that this was due to his low stats.

After continuing to float around, Hiroki eventually located a sizable hole in the midst of the village that had a proper staircase leading underground. 

Even though Hiroki hadn't played that many dungeon-like games, he knew that that stairway was the entrance of the dungeon.

The dungeon's entrance was designed in such a way that it initially appeared to be a safe bunker, but as Hiroki got closer, he realized the true danger that this dungeon posed. 

Just by entering the staircase made of old stone bricks, he could already feel that he wasn't alone anymore.

The torches, which could be located every six meters, lit up the place, proving that the dungeon itself could feel the presence of Hiroki. 

The whole place was dead silent until, for the next following seconds, Hiroki heard distancing tapping sounds and squeaking noises that were beginning to get closer.

He wasn't sure what kind of monsters this world had, that's why Hiroki prepared himself for the worst. 

However, despite being in this kind of situation for the first time, he was very calm. He remained calm without moving until he could see many critters racing in his direction that resembled rats.

Their dark-haired bodies were rather huge, which showed how massive their front teeth were. And from the sharp fingernails on their feet, scratching and tapping sounds could be heard from here. 

Those rat-like beasts kept running in his direction until they attempted to harm him by aiming their repulsive teeth at his face. 

If he was in his human form right now, his entire body would have been consumed in a matter of seconds by hundreds of these rats that kept jumping towards Hiroki's face in an attempt to trip him up. However, none of the attacks managed to reach him due to his new form as a ghost. 

All of the rats simply passed through his body as if Hiroki wasn't there at all.

But what made this easier for him was the fact that all of the rats were dumb enough to not realize that he was untouchable.

‘I expected too much from some low-level rats. However this might be the best time to test out the skills that I have.’

And as he made up his mind, Hiroki concentrated his thoughts on just one rat before sensing a pull on his entire ghost form. 

His senses were getting messed up for the next few seconds, but the moment he tried opening his eyes, he quickly realized that his possession skill had worked.

Right now, he was possessing one of the rats that were near him. He could feel and smell the disgusting stench of other rats. However, he didn't let that thing get in the way of what he was trying to do.

‘SF should be something similar to Manna or an energy bar. I understand— And based on how strong a monster is, the more SF is going to cost me.’

All of these little things have been eating corpses and anything else that could be found, which explains why there weren't any human bodies around the village. With nothing else but to feed on, these rats consumed the villagers until the very last of them was gone.

However, the fact that the rat he was possessing right now might have consumed human flesh didn't bother Hiroki at all. That wasn't because he didn't mind it, but because that one thought was going to get in his way.

‘If this rat is in my possession, then I should be able to peek at its status as well—’ he thought to himself before attempting to check the status of the possessed rat.

The other rats were scattered around the floor with the sole goal of either finding Hiroki or searching for food. 

They still seemed to be able to sense him, but based on their confused reactions, it means that they weren't aware that Hiroki was between them. Meaning that Hiroki could figure out his skills while other monsters would ignore him.

Although the status of this rat wasn't particularly remarkable, he was able to figure out many things, including the way his skills functioned. And after a while, he finally made up his mind. 

‘If I don't have any offensive skills, then I must find other means to acquire them.’

With powerful teeth that could dig through any solid material, Hiroki, while possessing the body of a rat, bit through the flesh of another Ratdoo. 

“Squeeeek!!!!! Squeeeeekkk!!!!” 

As the Ratdoo cried in pain while its blood was being drained out of its body, Hiroki managed to get his first kill.

‘As I suspected—  Since I don't have a physical body, these skills are more or less useless to me. That's why the system in this world must’ve thought that my race is incapable of using them at all. ‘

However, once again, this did not discourage Hiroki since, despite not getting new skills, he was still able to acquire certain points after defeating his first monster.

Hiroki had a gist of what those points could be used for, that's why the moment he looked at his stats, a plus sign beside INT and SF was visible. And to see whether he was right, he tried adding one point to his intelligence.

He also tried adding points to his strength or agility, but as he already guessed–

‘—It's useless after all….’

Since he was a ghost, he didn't have a physical body, which means that he wouldn't be able to increase any of his other stats. This was a limitation in a way, but also very overpowered due to the fact that he was immune to any physical attacks. 

The only thing he could do right now was level up either his spiritual force or his intelligence. 

And that's what he did for the following hours on this floor. He kept searching and smelling around till he came across rats who were either in search of food or consuming the remains of the previous visitors who had attempted to conquer this dungeon.

It was surprising that even after killing a lot of rats, many of the other furry, stinky monsters didn't really care unless they had food or were attacked.

But that didn't last for long, as the more he continued going deeper, the stronger and smarter these rats became. 

They were growing wary and more aggressive with him the more he continued running forward in the body of this disgusting rat.

However, to the eyes of Hiroki, this could only mean one thing.

‘I'm getting closer to the end of this floor….’

As Hiroki dashed forward with his tiny little legs, he met hundreds of other fellow rats who were quick to catch and kill his possessed rat. However, the death of his possessed body wasn't the end since he was a ghost to begin with.

He continued possessing the next stronger rat and immediately let its teeth do the work by ripping their neck out of their body. It was such a brutal sight that even his past self would’ve probably twisted his face in disgust. 

‘I'm getting used to controlling a rat’s body….’

However, that wasn't the only reason Hiroki thought of that. 

Thanks to muscle memory, Hiroki was able to mimic the basic motions that this rat’s body was used to performing. And thanks to that, he was able to easily kill many other rats that were in his way.

[ Ratdoo was defeated! ] [ Ratdoo was defeated! ] [ Ratdoo was defeated! ] [ Ratdoo was defeated! ] [ Ratdoo was defeated! ] [ Ratdoo was defeated! ] [ Ratdoo was defeated! ]

“Sqeekkkk!!!!” “Squeekkk!!!!” “Squeeeeekkkk!!!!” “Squeeeeekkkk!!!!” “Squeezkk!!!!” “Squeeeekkkk!!!!” “Squeeeeekkkk!!!!” “Squeeekkkk!!!!”“Squeeeekkkk!!!!” 

* * *

On the first floor of the same dungeon, hundreds of monster-looking rats could be seen laying around, brutally torn apart. 

It was a disgusting sight that many humans would puke from the amount of smell that was coming from their dead bodies.

And the cause of this?

It was a strange rat with many scars on his body and red piercing eyes that could give anyone chills. 

However, what was strange about this rat was the fact that it wasn't like the rest of them. It was actually a possessed rat by a once-called human, Hiroki.

‘This should be the end of all rats on this floor.’ 

Hiroki concluded to himself while looking back at the mass killing that he had done. 

It wasn't something that he was proud of, but his method of gaining points was definitely effective. And this way he didn't lose too much SF while killing this many rats at the same time.

He didn't spend any of the points until now due to the fact that many of the other rats were growing wary of his presence here. But that wouldn't really stop him from using his stats at those moments.

The real reason he hadn't used any of his points was because of the door in front of him. It was a rather large door with a special design on it, which indicated that the main event of this floor was just about to begin.

Before he could approach the massive door, he looked at his own status and used some of his saved up points on both INT and SF.

‘Alright, so I can increase my spiritual force with points. I don't want to waste all of them, that's why I will save some for later in case I run low during the battle.’

And with this, Hiroki was finally ready for what was about to come next. 

Even if he was going to lose this wounded rat body he was possessing, he wasn't scared. Because in the end, he can still come back with a stronger body and challenge the boss of this room over and over again with no rest.

However, once he approached the massive door that would lead him to the boss’s room, he felt something tingling in his head. No, it was almost like something was trying to communicate with him…

 Even though it was a sensation he had never experienced before, he understood what it meant.

~Are you the little one that betrayed us?~