A Gamer's Guide To Beating The Tutorial

I return to the lobby. As I start making my habitat livable, I let my eyes scan the details of the new skill I received.

<[Dance (Lv.1)]

Dance!>

…What is this? How am I supposed to increase it? Dance… As in, dance while I’m defeating things? I know there are classes that combine bard and rogue to make a dancer-fighter kind of deal, but I don’t know how that would work with my current build.

I frown to myself. No, seriously, how am I supposed to increase this thing? What does it even do?

I refuse to believe that it makes me dance better. Likewise, I reject the notion that it would therefore be increased by dancing.

So, since I can’t figure out how to use it, I slot it into the mental category of ‘useless skills.’ With that over and done with, I close down the status screen and continue my work.

Within a brief period of time, the next floor opens.

Do you want to enter?>

I press ‘yes.’

I enter the floor.

Hell Difficulty Twenty-seventh Floor:

The Damnation.>

<[Clear Condition]

Clear the castle of the infestation.

19 330 remaining.>

‘Infestation of what?’ you may ask. Well, as I have found: rats. Big rats. Small rats. Some rats the size of fingernails, others like hogs. For the sake of my extermination, all doors and windows leading out have been barred, leaving the castle dark and silent. Or, well, it would have been silent if it hadn’t been for the rats. Gnawing, scratching, scurrying, squeaking—everything. In the walls, in the floors, in the ceiling… Choked by their own multitude.

The castle itself is an interesting sight. The storage still holds food, and there is still wood to be used in the many fireplaces. Beds are made, though the rats have chewed their nests out of the covers and mattresses. Clothes, cutlery, personal belongings and everything else remains.

By the looks of it, until only recently, someone had been living here. Probably a lot of people, if you count the servants. The clothes are fancy and all, but I can’t find any crowns or similar jewelry to denote a rank near royalty.

Once I reach that point in my investigation, I realize something.

It doesn’t matter.

Whoever lived here before is unimportant. Why they left is unimportant. Where they are now is unimportant.

All that matters is how to best kill all these damn rats.

For this, I decide to spend the first day simply observing everything happening. I was able to end floor twenty-six by the end of the thirty-first attempt, so I’ve got a full month to do this. This means that I have plenty of time to formulate a plan. The castle is more residential in outlay than that of typical castles. More specifically, unlike the castle in Acheron, this one can actually be navigated without getting lost. It has four floors and a large basement connected into three large rooms. The rats are concentrated in the basement and the attic. Honestly, though, no matter where you look in the fifty or so rooms, you’re bound to find rats. And not just a few.

The first day, I investigated how many rats are where, how they live, what they’re up to… That stuff. More importantly, I keep track of if the number of rats I have to defeat changes during the day. They do.

When I entered the floor, there were 19 330 rats. By the end of the first day, that had increased to 19 592 rats. It isn’t an impressive rate or anything, but it does tell me that they propagate faster than they cannibalize.

A passive extermination wouldn’t do.

I considered burning down the castle, but the walls are made of solid brick and stone, and there isn’t actually that much in terms of flammability. So, that leaves me with poison and disease as my most promising weapons.

Luckily for me, there was rat poison in the pantry. Unluckily for me, it had all been eaten by rats. So, to test to what degree my own flesh and blood is poisonous, I began leaving out my body parts here and there. With an abundance of rats, it was easy to recover. Through this, I found that although my poison isn’t especially lethal, it does make the affected rats lethargic enough to catch. Quite nice.

It isn’t a failure, but it is suboptimal. So, I test out the possibility of spreading a disease.

<[Touch of Reversed Disease Protection (Lv.7)]>

The results are… mixed. Over the course of around two weeks, the disease spread from rat to rat, not really killing them. However, as it did, it mutated to the point where it went full-circle and infected me in turn. This.. might not be too bad of a grinding opportunity.

With little else to do, I take up residence in the basement, snuggling into the mounds of living and dead rats, letting them eat my poisonous flesh as I eat their diseased bodies. Tit for tat, as they say.

<17 221 remaining.>

<14 978 remaining.>

<10 003 remaining.>

<8 591 remaining.>

Time goes well. Every now and then I check the time. It’s nice, though. Down here, surrounded by thousands of rats, always having my body bitten and chewed by thousands of mouths, in constant pain, I don’t have to think so much. The only downside is that the sound of the rats gnawing inside my ears, their teeth scraping alongside the inside of my skull, is a bit distracting. It’s easily solved by simply avoiding recovering my ears, though.

All is simple. All is quiet. And…

I remove one of the rats covering my eye. What in tarnation?

petitions the assistance of

Hell Challenger Lo Fennrick

in exterminating a certain pest.>

…Oh, it’s just you guys. Sighing, swallowing a rat that was apparently in my mouth, I put the rat back over my eye. Wake me up when you come with something of actual importance, thankyouverymuch.

sighs.>

Hell Challenger Lo Fennrick

will be granted a certain favor

when the time comes.>

I glance at the message from beneath the rat’s tummy.

Favor, how?

admits that no details

can be given at the present time.>

Ah. I see. Grabbing the rat off my eye, I stick it in my mouth and slurp it down whole.

Well, all right. Sure. Where’s the pest in question?

There’s a marked pause before I get any answer.

encourages you to finish

Hell Difficulty Floor 27

beforehand.>

Alright. Will do.

After a moment, I feel the distinct presence fade away, leaving me alone with the remaining rats. Weird.

I sit up. My chest is open, so the only source of illumination is my own heart. Luckily, it’s too dim to shine with my chest closed, otherwise it might have caused difficulties in terms of stealth.

Since the gods require my presence somewhere, stat, I begin actively killing the remaining rats. It takes around two days, and by the end, going by the number of rat corpses I can still smell, I’ve eaten around ten thousand rats. I have the body of a god.

To finalize my victory, I slurp down the last rat.

Disease Protection Lv.9>

<0 remaining.>

the following item:

[Rat (Lv.0)]>

Just before the floor closes and sends me back to the lobby, I receive my reward in the form of a big, plump rat.

I eat it unhesitatingly.