Chapter 1, The Ugliest Rat in Existence
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"Rocks, rocks, and guess what!? More GODDAMN ROCKS!" I hollered as I kicked a pebble unlucky enough to be in front of my boot. I had been in this dark and dank cave system for four hours at this point since waking up, with not a hint of life around me. Despite how hard I looked, I couldn't find even an insect, much less any small rodent or lizard to eat. And boy was I starving. "That damn shota god definitely sent me here with an empty stomach on purpose didn't he!? If he didn't want his appearance mentioned then why read my mind? What an unreasonable brat." Convinced of my reasoning, I nodded to myself and turned the next corner and stopped shocked at what was in front me. There was light. There was LIGHT! Finally! A passage that led to somewhere other than a dark dead end showed itself. 

I raced to the passage like a man in the desert to an oasis and suddenly stopped once again, though involuntarily this time, as I felt as if the air I was moving through had suddenly become thicker, yet somehow refreshing. It felt as if I was suddenly getting a new type of oxygen that I had lacked before. Basking in this comfortable feeling, I nearly didn't notice the light skittering across the stone interrupting this wonderful moment. My attention snapped ahead of me to see a giant rodent, I would be doing it a disservice to call it a simple rat. I would rather describe it as if every possible disease decided this ugly fuck was the best place on earth and made it their home. I could nearly see the green cartoon stink lines coming off of it for goodness sake. It was limping along on five legs, yes not four like all self respecting rodents on Earth, oh no he was too gross for that. The fifth leg looked like a tumor growing just ahead of the front right leg, almost sharing a shoulder socket. It was covered in boils and growths and eerie patches of green skin marring it and it practically oozed the word toxic out of its pores.

Luckily for me, lord of the uglies over there was preoccupied with some glowing grass it was eating instead of me, letting me get my fill of the worst thing I've ever had the misfortune of having eyes to see. Now as much as I didn't want to I had to sneak up close and use my knife to sneak attack it. As I prepared to try sneaking a rumbling soon filled the cavern and reverberated off the stone walls. Was it an earthquake? No. A large beast? No. My stomach with the worst possible timing? Ding Ding Ding! You earned a new car! But seriously, I think I may be fucked here with the asswipe of the universe looking at me with his beady eyes.

♦ ♦ ♦

Now then, to start off the very, very brief flash of my new life before my eyes, I had first awoken to myself in an entirely blank space. It was seriously the image of 'eternal white' everywhere in eyesight. Personally, I thought it showed a clear lack of aesthetic taste in whoever owned it. "Well sorry for not having any aesthetic taste, jerk. I didn't think those dummies on Earth would send me someone so lacking in manners." A young voice befitting such childish insults interrupted my thoughts as I was about to go off on a tangent and drew my attention to a figure that had certainly not been there a moment before. A small young boy in a tunic glared up at me from a short distance away. I felt like I was looking at the definition of a shota right now, a creature that an unnerving subset of women liked to prey upon. He seriously didn't look like he was out of elementary school yet, what in the world was he doing here? Oh look his face is changing colors, how odd, is he sick? "I'm not sick you idiot! I'm a god! The god of travelers Faerum in Avia, and i can hear your thoughts!". The tiny boy hollered with his face a bright crimson as he didn't even take a breath as he continued in an even more ear grating tone,  "You know what, screw you! I don't have to take this crap from you, just take your class and name and get out! I'm not explaining a thing to you.". Well that just seems imma- AAAAAHHHHHHH!

After the sudden feeling of falling into an abyss, I awoke once again in the opposite of the last place, a cave of utter darkness, with no light to be had. How did I know it was a cave you ask? Well thanks to the handy dandy info screens that showed things like stalagmites and stalactites along the floor and ceiling in front of me, thus I made a guess. Trying to get my thoughts in order, I went over what had happened to me so far. So first, who am I? Shit, off to a rough start, I have no clue. No name or memories about my life appeared, however it seems I understood language and had knowledge of things such as games, novels, and technology on Earth, basically anything except who I am unfortunately. Alright next, what is my current situation? Well I believe I knew better on that front at least. Firstly, it seems I died on Earth and lost my memories. Secondly, I was transported to meet the God of Travelers but ended up pissing him off with my thoughts. Major bummer so far. Lastly, I was forcefully reincarnated with little info on this world of my situation thanks to that children's film actor wannabee.

Alright, with that out of the way, lets get on to figuring out more about myself. "Status!" I whispered to myself, worried about anything I couldn't see hearing me. Without a moment's delay, a large book reminiscent of a fantasy grimoire floated in front of me with the following on the page open in front of me:

[Name] Aura  

[Class] Biomancer  

[Subclass] None  

[Race] Human(?) 

[Level] 1

[HP] 100/100 [MP] 86/100  

[Vitality] 10  

[Capacity] 10  

[Strength] 4  

[Agility] 4  

[Intelligence] 7  

[Charisma] 5  

[Fortune] 2    

[Stat Points] 0

[Unique Skills] Unsteady Life, Abnormal Growth

[Class Skills] Bio Analyze 1, Flesh Reinforcement 1, Notepad

[Skills] Analysis Eye 1, Storage 1

Ooooookaaayyyyy, am I the only one that sees a rather ominous skill in the Unique Skill category? No? Well shit I'm not imagining it then. Unsteady Life sounds like how you'd describe a no good drifter, not a damn skill. Also why does my Fortune seem so much lower than all the other stats, I mean based on the current distribution I'm definitely some kind of Intelligence build but my Vitality makes me look like a tank in comparison to my other stats. The hell is this? Also what the fuck is a Biomancer anyway, it sounds quite close to Technomancer which I've read things about.

[Biomancers are a rare class that study and control all forms of life, possibly even growing to create life themselves. However, they have a high risk of insanity and death due to self alterations.]

Well damn, that sounds cool but also scary as hell, I mean what kind of class description includes the risks right in it, I mean does that just go to show how many of them fell down that route? Let's take a look at the rest I guess, my enthusiasm is oddly curbed by that bummer of a start.

It seems that Analysis Eye and Storage do exactly what they say on the tin, being an eye skill that shows descriptions of things I'm looking at and Storage well, storing things. Similar to an Inventory, and it even came with some starter items, hell yeah! A small knife, a second pair of clothes, and a canteen. Better than not having them, considering the environment I guess. Incidentally, I discovered that Analysis Eye uses 2 MP to use, mostly because for whatever reason my MP isn't regenerating. Is it a full rest kind of thing or is it just so slow I haven't gotten a point back? Anyways, for my Class Skills, Bio Analyze adds more info to my Analyze Eye when scanning a Biological creature or material, while Flesh Reinforcement increases my Strength and Agility by 5 each. Interestingly before I used Bio Analyze it did nothing, so I suppose I needed information on myself before it would work, maybe the buffs would increase in strength and duration if I had more info. Through some testing I discovered that the buff lasts for about 10 minutes. Notepad added a new section to the grimoire that held my status screen, which listed information on everything I've Analyzed and even let me take notes. Mighty convenient that one, and lent more credence to the 'study' portion of the class description. And now for the creme de la crap, the Unique Skills, neither of which are super positive. Unsteady Life seems to cause odd or unlikely events to occur around me far more likely than normal. Not necessarily bad or good, just unlikely and enough so I can't lead an easy slow life on the countryside, not that I particularly wanted that anyways. However Abnormal Growth is currently just a handicap. Abnormal Growth stops me from gaining any stat points for leveling up, which incidentally is the main fucking way to get them! In this world evidently when you level up you get stat points distributed automatically in amount and where depending on your class and its rarity. The Farmer class would earn like one in Strength and Vitality each level up, while a Swordsman would get five per level up in Agility, Strength, and three in Vitality for example. Everyone gets 5 free stat points until level 50 where it increases, but that's currently irrelevant. Anyways, Abnormal Growth means I get only free stats, with the benefit of getting the full stats of changing my body with other biological materials, which sounds cool as hell right? But if you take a nice long look at my skill list, I haven't unlocked whatever the relevant skill for that shit is yet. So until I have, I'm gonna be the bottom of the food chain.

♦ ♦ ♦

As I sat there cursing and swearing, I noticed my distinct lack of anything to fill my stomach and accompanying irritation, which led me to fumble through the cave with my hands outstretched and fumbling my way through a pitch black cave using Analyze sparingly to try to find anything useful. This leads me back to my current situation, staring down Saint Illness the Rodent King here, as I used Analyze on the Labrador sized rat to figure out how bad my situation was.

[Name] None  

[Class] None  

[Subclass] None  

[Race] Plague Rat  

[HP] 80/80 [MP] 0/0  

[Vitality] 8  

[Capacity] 0  

[Strength] 18  

[Agility] 20  

[Intelligence] 3  

[Charisma] 1  

[Fortune] 1    

[Skills] Illness Bite 1, Fang Combat 2

What the fuck!? Illness Bite!? Am I gonna get Ebola just front getting bitten? Though looking at that thing the race Plague Rat is definitely apt. And it's Strength and Agility were double mine even using Flesh Reinforcement, so not only do I have to dodge it, I have to somehow hit it's slippery ass. Luckily it seems my Vitality and Capacity are out of the norm with them so high so I can probably do enough damage to kill it at least. I quickly buffed my Strength and Agility to 9 each as it scurried at me at a much faster pace than I was expecting. I held up the dagger I had pulled out of storage and stood ready but not ready enough because when it jumped at me at the speed of a car I pathetically rolled out of the way with the rocks on the cave floor digging into my back as I hurriedly straightened up and looked at it again. It had run into the wall that had been behind me, really showing off its tumor for a brain as it twisted its head to look back at me, not even a drop in it's HP. I figured my only chance to hit it would be during the charge, since it was waaaaayy too fast for my legs to catch up to, and if I tried I'd probably only catch a nasty illness for my troubles. I held the dagger in a reverse grip and as it charged again I twisted my body to the left and plunged the knife down towards the skull of the rat king of filth, but it seems my inexperience had to rear its head as I missed and only stabbed into it's right shoulder. Of fucking course it had to be the on part of it's body with two arms to claw at me with. I grunted loudly and clenched my teeth as blood poured down my elbow from the slash wounds on my right arm as I desperately flailed with the knife still stuck to avoid it rabidly trying to bite any part of my body with its rotted yellow teeth. Hell. No. That nasty shit its NOT touching me, I tried to slam the rat into the ground with the knife still in it. Dazed, the rat couldn't react as I clutched it's tail in a death grip and whipped its body up and then down onto the nearest stalagmite. I backed up as fast possible abandoning my dagger in fear for my life as it became frenzied with a brand new stone stake added to its list of organs. I watched it like a hawk ready to run if it somehow wrestled itself free from the nice and pointy perch I gave it, but it quickly died of blood loss and slumped further on the makeshift stone spike.

I plopped onto the ground as I breathed heavily, completely exhausted from the exertion of killing the world's grossest rodent, as subdued fanfare rang out in my mind.

[Level Up]

[Gained Unarmed Combat 1, Dagger Combat 1]

I stared at the dead Plague Rat, and thought that no matter how starving I was, I would never eat that thing.

 
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