The monster that made its way out of the cage was just that. Monstrous. It was a large black snake, maybe ten feet in length with what looked like bloody teeth jutting out of its spine. Bits of gristle trailed along behind it, caught on the jagged back. Its eyes were the color of the blood it wore, and its tongue flickered out in rapid motions.

  It opened its mouth and hissed, which let me see the two usual fangs, but also the teeth of a shark. A clear liquid dribbled off of the fangs and hissed into smoke on the thing’s lower jaw.

  Delightful. Positively amazing. I had to deal with poison now, too.

  Identifying the thing, I realized the feature might be even more useful than I thought. It gave me far more information than I had been told.

  Gluttonous Charviper(Lvl 2)

  Native to the fiftieth floor, these beauties are incredibly dangerous. The one you see before you has had its level lowered directly by the system and is still more deadly than most anything else the Sanctuary has to offer. Everything about this thing is a weapon. Those teeth on its spine are razor sharp, inflicting the bleeding status effect, and the venom on its fangs is necrotic, meaning it will rot away your limbs if not taken care of immediately. Stay away from the mouth at all costs. The gluttonous variety is always hungry, eating up to twenty times their bodyweight in a day.

  Pretty much as I had suspected. Everything about it was dangerous, from top to bottom. Why did it have to be a snake, though? I hated snakes. Something about a slow and agonizing death just didn’t appeal. Crazy, right?

  And I had brought perhaps the two worst items for this fight I could have. A shield was a defensive item the snake could just wrap around, and the dagger was a close range thing. They paired well together, but in some situations it was better to be at range. This was a prime example of such.

  I crouched even lower, trying to get as much of my mass behind my shield as I could without losing my ability to move at will. Just in time, too, as the snake flung itself forward, moving at a speed I couldn’t hope to match.

  The muscles in its body rippled smoothly and powerfully, causing the sand to fly backwards in little puffs. It gave the illusion of a leviathan moving across the surface of the water, tossing up bits of spray.

  With a heave, the snake launched itself at me, mouth open to a scary degree. Teeth dug into my shield as I panicked and moved it into position to block, unwisely blocking my face.

  You have partially resisted Fear.

  Fear > Unnerved

  Unnerved - 1:00

  Holy, the strength of that strike. I was shoved backwards, losing my balance and nearly toppling. Not good. Definitely not good. The charviper had the weight of a large mini fridge, and the strength to throw most of it at me. And yet, I could tell it was mostly focused on agility. It was just too fast.

  I felt something wrap around my leg. It was cold and clammy, and incredibly rough. Looking down, I saw the tail of the serpent hugging my calf. Droplets of blood trickled from where the scales scratched up my skin, but luckily those spinal teeth hadn’t reached me yet.

  Spinal teeth. What a weird phrase to say. I had a feeling this would be one of the lesser oddities I would see by the time I was done.

  Unfortunately for me, the snake was smart. While its stats had been lowered with its level and floor, its natural intelligence had stayed the same. So it gave up striking at my shield and thumped back to the sand, speeding off the other direction with my leg still in tow.

  My leg was yanked out from under me and I flopped to the ground, the sand breaking my fall. Thankfully. It still hurt, but it didn’t give me the concussion it would have otherwise.

  Groaning, I raised my head just in time to watch as the snake reared back to strike. I tried to scramble away, just managing to make it miss, but didn’t quite get far enough. Those nasty spinal teeth—man, that still sounds weird—sliced through my pants with an unnatural sharpness.

  I didn’t even feel it when they entered my leg itself. They were just that sharp.

  Blood spurted onto the monster’s head. At first I was alarmed. Had it cut an artery? Was I going to die from bleeding out? But as the blood slowed to a slow crawl, I relaxed a little bit. Just a little bit, mind you. I was still in panic mode from the thing’s vicious attacking.

  Bleeding - 3:00

  Right. I was going to be bleeding at a steady rate for the rest of this battle. Because if I was certain of one thing, it was that this fight was not going to last for the next three minutes. Either the charviper or I would die, and we would die quickly. Three minutes was snail pace in a fight for survival.

  The snake thrashed from side to side, cutting me even more and yanking its fangs out of the packed dirt underneath the sand. My blood had driven it into a feeding frenzy. It was gluttonous, after all.

  Mouth foaming with poison, much like a rabid dog that had come down with rabies, the snake lunged at me. It wasn’t nearly as fast this time, but it was crazed with hunger. And that was dangerous enough.

  I slapped it aside with my shield, more out of pure reflex than anything. I couldn’t help it. Every time the snake attacked, I flinched. When I did that, it was up to my body to react on its own. This was what it came up with this time. It wasn’t the worst idea, but it probably wasn’t the most helpful either.

  A crunch sounded when my shield hit the snake, and I watched as teeth I hadn’t seen that were attached to the sides of its head bit into the wood and tore threw it like paper. That solidified the idea that they were unnaturally sharp. But this was a native floor fifty mob, so what could one expect.

  Alright, no jumping on it with the shield to trap it. Not to self. That would be a very bad idea.

  Now if only I could find my dagger somewhere. It had tumbled out of my hand when I fell, and I couldn’t see it. That would be the only way I could kill this monster. I couldn’t step on it, I couldn’t crush it with my shield, even grabbing it would be hazardous to the health of my fingers.

  Also, I was beginning to feel the effects of blood loss. It had only been a few seconds, but I hadn’t ever lost this much blood before. Not even when I’d broken my shin so badly the bone had come out through my skin.

  That slight wooziness didn’t help me any. In fact, it did odd things to my vision. I wasn’t sure what, but my balance wasn’t quite what it used to be.

  The snake lunged for me again, driving me backward. That was going to be a problem. I was nearing the wall of the arena, and that would give me even less room to maneuver than ever.

  Stolen story; please report.

  I felt something dig into my back as I retreated further. It was the weapon’s rack. Could I get something off of there without getting hurt when the snake attacked? What weapon would I go for? Was it worth it? I didn’t know how to use any of them, after all. I might very well end up stabbing myself along with the snake. But that might be better than the alternative.

  All these thoughts passed through my head in a split second as the charviper recovered from the nice smack I had given it with the shield’s edge. I didn’t have much time at all. Now or never.

  Making my decision, I kicked sand on top of the thing’s face to disorient it, then spun and grabbed the closest weapon I could get my hand on. I didn’t even know what it was until brandishing it at the serpent.

  It was the bow.

  Of all the things I could have picked up off of that rack, a bow was not what I would have chosen. A quarterstaff, perhaps, though even that was pushing it. It would break fairly easily if smashed hard enough, though so would the monster’s skull.

  A bow was an entirely different matter. But maybe it was something special? I had seen that girl kill her enemy in one shot. But identifying it told me differently.

  Rats. Oh well. I would have to figure out some way of using it.

  By this time, the snake had shaken the sand free of its eyes and was glaring at me even more ferociously than before.

  I scrambled back, away from the weapons rack and the snake. It followed, darting forward with its mouth snapping on open air inches from the tip of my bow. I was doing my best not to get the weapon caught by its fangs, which would snap the string and cause it to jerk out of my grip.

  Blood loss was really starting to get to my head now. I was loosing my balance with every movement, staggering back with every strike of the serpent. This fight was no longer about winning, but about survival.

  But why should it be?

  Unnerved - 0:00

  Right then, I found a boost in confidence. I could beat this thing. It was only level two. What was I doing? This should be easy. Sure, the blood loss was becoming pretty severe, and I would take more wounds being confident, but who cared? That would get taken care of by the complimentary healing potion after the bout.

  Suddenly, the snake no longer looked quite so big as it used to.

  As it struck again, I kicked it square in the face. My shoe wasn’t particularly reinforced, but it did the trick against something as small as this. It felt like kicking a softball, and the snake flew a yard or so back, carving a small trail in the sand with its teeth.

  “Take that, ya little psycho!” I cried in success.

  It hissed in response, reorienting itself and resetting its dislocated jaw. The attack hadn’t done much to it. Well I was still excited; I had fought back!

  I stepped forward. This was going to be… maybe not fun, but at least exciting.

  Slinging the shield off my arm, I got set in a vague approximation of a baseball stance. While the bow might be useful for something, the shield would act as a much better bat.

  Smack!

  I walloped the snake across the nose. It was quite satisfying, even if it caused more holes to appear in the shield.

  An idea occurred to me then, and I used the bow as a noose to catch the thing around the neck. Those teeth immediately carved half of it away, but I managed to lift it about a foot in the air before booting it across the face again.

  By now the snake wasn’t moving as fast as it used to. It was probably dizzy, possibly even concussed—if snakes could even get concussed. I would have to ask someone later. It would be amusing if they could.

  The bow snapped, as I had expected it to. But it had gotten a good run. Well, as good as a ranged weapon could do in a close-quarters fight. It had gotten in two strikes.

  Two? Yeah, that’s right. The first one was when it helped me kick the thing across the noggin. The second was when it snapped and rebounded, jerking up and then back down as I forced it away from my face. That one clobbered the snake in the eye, which believe me, hurt. I had experience in that area.

  I got in one more good strike with the shield before it came apart in totality, metal binding snapping and wood shavings flying everywhere. I got a couple in my arm, and the snake caught a few as well. It was spitting mad, now, not just frenzied.

  Now the problem was I didn’t have a weapon. Well, I had my hands and feet, but they were off and on. I didn’t want to part with my digits this early in life. And I didn’t know if healing potions could fix missing limbs. Gashes, yes, but not limbs.

  So as the maddened snake slithered closer, I backed around it. I was trying to circle back to the weapons rack, but it just wouldn’t let me. Frustrating. I also kept an eye out for the dagger in the sand. Just one, mind you. I didn’t want to lose track of the monster. Bad things would follow if I did.

  There. Over in the center of the arena. The tip was just ever so slightly poking out of the sand. But it was too far. Running there would get me killed. Backing in that direction was far easier, but the snake could strike at any moment.

  It worked, too. The charviper kept stalking me, and I kept backing up, getting closer and closer to the center of the pit. I was almost there. Just a little bit longer. Just a little—

  And it attacked. Quicker than I could fully react, it was on me. Scales rougher than a goat’s tongue rasped over my pants and wrapped around my belly, just above my waist. The head reared back, mouth opening wider than I had ever thought possible. Five-inch fangs flicked up from the roof of the mouth, and a drop of venom dripped onto my shirt. It hissed like acid and started eating away at my shirt and the skin underneath. The venom wouldn’t get into my bloodstream. It had to be injected for that, but it could still hurt.

  Then the viper struck.

  And I caught it.

  Not the mouth itself. That would just be suicide. A venom strong enough to eat through skin could kill me before I got the antidote. No, I caught its neck.

  The teeth sliced at my flesh as the snake thrashed, trying desperately to reach me with its teeth. Its muscles flexed trying to squeeze the life out of me. But I held on, and I wouldn’t let go. Even if the teeth tore into my belly.

  I rolled over and crawled on hand and knees over to where the dagger lay, partially hidden in the sand. Picking it up, I gave it a cursory examination. Just a normal dagger. Nothing special about it.

  Then I jammed it up through the viper’s chin and into its pea-sized brain.

  The snake jerked and reflexively tried to strike at me again, but I held it firm as it writhed and hissed. A few seconds later, its movements slowed, then stopped entirely. I disengaged it from around my waist and flopped it onto the sand.

  A few different notifications dinged. I ignored them. There was one more thing I had to do.

  Loot Gluttonous Charviper(Lvl 2)?

  I mentally assented, and the snake vanished. Checking out my inventory, I saw the loot had been added there. It wasn’t nearly the whole snake, but it was something at least.

  Money

  Bronze: 5

  Equipment

  Set of Clothes

  Items

  Daily Food Rations x15

  Water Bottle(Full)

  Set of Clothes x2

  Backpack

  Charviper Tooth x3

  Charviper Scale x1

  Only three items. I had only looted three items from the entire corps. I could have looted far more if I had only done it myself. Then again, they wouldn’t have the special properties the system imbued them with.

  Walking back to the gate, I received my complementary healing potion and downed it. Almost at once, I could feel my wounds healing stitching back together, the scars that would have formed no longer required.

  “One last thing,” I said to the woman who handed me the potion. “Who was it that made the decision to give me that charviper? I wish to speak with them.”

  “I’m afraid the system chooses which mob is sent out next, Mr. Patron. We don’t have any control over it.” Her voice shook a little, as though she expected him to burst out in rage.

  “Ah. I see. Well, that’s fine then. Thank you.” I tossed an identify her way.

  Arena Helper(Lvl 0) - NPC

  This is a basic helper NPC. They help with various duties around the Sanctuary. Do not harm them or do anything untoward towards them. You will find yourself in deep trouble real quickly.

  I left the Sanctuary happy. Mostly. Apart from being beaten up one too many times, I was feeling dandy. And, I had some notifications to go over.

  Congratulations! You have reached Level 1.

  Because you do not have a tier, the system will assign your stat point(s) for you.

  Def 6 > 7

  Well this was both a surprise and not a surprise at the same time. I had been expecting the level up, but not the system’s… help? Overreach? At least it was the stat I would have put it in anyway. So I didn’t worry about it too much. I had two more notifications, after all.

  You have completed the Floor Quest!

  Reward: Shield

  That was fairly boring and to be expected. At least I got a piece of gear out of it. I would have preferred a weapon, but a shield would do just fine. I hoped.

  And finally…

  Achievement: The Beginning

  Everything has a beginning. Everything has an end. You have found one such beginning. Now you must find the end—if there is one.