A Hunter's Instinct
"Kieeeek!"
Another Ratman rushed at me.
This one was also wielding a crude knife.
In the faint glow emitted by the Night Moth, I caught the reflection of the blade's trajectory.
Whoosh!
I twisted my body out of the way.
Clang!
The Ratman's blade slammed into the cave wall. As the creature jerked the hilt back, the rusted metal snapped in two.
"Ki-ki?!"
So even monsters could feel flustered.
I adjusted my grip on the knife I had taken from the first Ratman.
Squish!
Without a moment's hesitation, I drove it straight into its throat.
"...!"
The beast couldn't even squeeze out a death rattle.
Spurt!
I twisted the blade, which had pierced a major artery, and blood erupted like a waterfall.
At that exact moment, the spark faded from the Ratman's milky, degenerated eyes.
I yanked the knife free. There was no time to catch my breath.
"Kieeeek!"
"Ki-ki!"
It seemed there weren't just one or two Ratmen nearby. It was a pack of at least five.
Can I handle three at once?
A momentary doubt crept in. But then...
Drip, drip...
The hot, sticky blood coating the crude knife washed away my doubts, replacing them with absolute certainty.
Rip!
I tore a clump of glowing moss from the wall and threw it onto the ground.
The glowing moss scattered, casting an eerie, fragmented green light across the cavern.
Through the dim illumination, the Ratmen lunged forward.
"Kieek!"
I had figured them out. These bastards always swung their weapons first. The first one did, and so did the second.
Dodging a blade that thrust dangerously close to my chest, I struck.
Crunch!
I drove my knife straight through the wrist of the lunging Ratman.
"Kieeeeeek!"
Its ear-splitting shriek threw the other two into confusion.
At the same time, I snatched the knife the wounded creature had dropped.
Whoosh!
I hurled it at the ankle of another Ratman stepping onto the glowing moss.
Thud!
A direct hit. The creature dropped its weapon as the blade embedded itself in its ankle.
I rolled quickly across the floor and picked up another knife.
"Ki-kiek?!"
Dealing with the last one, who was hesitantly backing away, was the easiest of all.
Stab!
All I had to do was pierce its heart from behind.
Stab! Stab! Stab!
Unlike when I targeted the neck, it didn't die instantly. I had to plunge the blade in several more times before it finally collapsed.
Maybe its hide was thicker than the others.
"Whew..."
Blood had splattered everywhere. I wasn't completely drenched, but it was still unpleasant.
How filthy.
When I pulled the sword out, the Ratman's body hit the ground with a heavy thud.
"Kieee!"
"Kieeeek!"
The one with the pierced wrist and the one with the impaled ankle were both shrieking in agony.
Yet, strangely enough, the noise didn't bother me at all.
"...I told you not to come."
I brought my foot down hard on the neck of the Ratman clutching its ankle.
Crack!
With the sound of snapping vertebrae, the screaming stopped.
"This is a survival match anyway."
I bent down and pulled the knife out of the dead creature's ankle.
"I could have just waited quietly for it to end..."
Holding a blade in each hand, I walked slowly toward the last remaining Ratman.
"Ki-kieee! Ki! Kieeeek!"
The creature thrashed wildly, its wrist still pinned to the cave wall.
Squish!
Two blades plunged into its skull simultaneously.
Instant death. I didn't even bother watching the light fade from its eyes.
"Haa... haa..."
My breath came in ragged gasps, likely from the sudden burst of violence. I thought my stamina had improved significantly, but...
I guess things were different inside a dungeon.
Zzzzt...
Right then, a tingling sensation ran down my spine, and my vision cleared up instantly.
"This is..."
A level up. Nobody had explained it to me, but I knew it instinctively.
"Wow..."
It was incredible. I felt as refreshed as if I had just woken up from a deep, peaceful sleep.
Even though I was covered in Ratman blood, I felt as clean as if I had just stepped out of the shower.
So this was what leveling up felt like.
I had been thinking about taking a break, but there was no need for that now.
I retrieved the knives embedded in the dead Ratmen. Excluding the broken one, I had four in total.
They were incredibly crude, but they would surely come in handy.
I gathered all four weapons. As I pulled the blades from their hard skulls, I realized something.
My physical strength seemed to have increased. The blades slid out with ease.
Thank goodness.
During training, one of the critiques I often received was that while everything else was fine, my raw strength was lacking. If my strength increased with every level up, that weakness would be covered.
Anyway...
What should I do now?
Time Remaining: 7 hours 30 minutes
I glanced at the system window.
Seven and a half hours... That was longer than I expected. I suppose that made sense since this was a "survival match."
"..."
But did I really need to just wait around?
Even if Tutorial 9 was a "survival match..."
I can just kill everything.
A shiver ran down my spine. It was similar to the sensation I felt when I killed my first Ratman.
Just thinking about it excited me. Was this also the influence of the Heavenly Slaughter Star?
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing...
Either way, doing something was better than sitting here covered in Ratman blood for the next seven and a half hours.
It wasn't empty bravado. I had realized that killing Ratmen was easy.
It was like looking at an answer sheet before an exam. When the answers were right in front of you, there was no reason not to write them down. That would just be stupid.
Alright.
Let's do this.
I stared deeper into the winding cave.
A fork in the path lay ahead.
One way led to where the Ratmen had come from, and the other was lined with glowing moss.
"Hmm..."
I carefully examined both paths before heading toward the one with the glowing moss.
There probably weren't any monsters left in the direction the Ratmen had come from. If there were, they would have rushed out while I was killing the others.
That left only one option.
I stepped over the softly glowing moss as I moved forward. Aside from the occasional drip of water echoing through the cavern, it was dead silent.
How long had I been walking?
The narrowing passage suddenly opened up, revealing a massive chamber.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
It was a space so vast it was hard to believe it was inside a cave. In the center lay a sizable pool of water.
A spring in a place like this?
The sight of the clear water instantly made me thirsty. While drinking unknown water was risky, the pool looked incredibly clean. Even if I didn't drink it, I could at least wash my hands.
Just as I was about to approach the spring...
Tingle!
A sharp prickling sensation hit the crown of my head. It felt as if an invisible thread was attached to my scalp, and someone had suddenly yanked it.
I moved my body instinctively, letting myself be pulled in the direction of that invisible thread.
Whoosh!
At that exact moment, a spear flew through the air and slammed into the spot where I had just been standing.
Thud!
It was a crudely carved wooden shaft with a Ratman's knife loosely lashed to the tip. It was so poorly made it was embarrassing to even call it a spear.
Was it a Ratman?
If so, I would gladly put it out of its misery.
Fling!
I quickly threw one of the Ratman knives I had collected.
Although I could see nothing but darkness, I could feel it. I knew someone was hiding there, trying to kill me.
Die.
Clang!
However, the knife was deflected back out of the darkness. It spun through the air before embedding itself in the cave wall.
What?
A Ratman shouldn't have been able to deflect that. In fact, it shouldn't have even been able to dodge it.
Which meant whatever was hiding in the dark was no Ratman.
Hiss...
An unsettling, raspy breath echoed through the chamber.
A shadow stepped out of the darkness. At first glance, it looked like a large human. But it wasn't.
A Lizardman...!
It was a reptilian creature covered in dark green scales.
"To dodge my attack... Hiss."
"..."
"You do not seem to be a weak human. Hiss."
The creature grinned, flicking its black, forked tongue. Its teeth were incomparably sharper than a Ratman's.
The slit pupils of a predator locked onto me, studying my movements.
And I, too, was studying it.
That's...
My gaze locked onto the Lizardman's waist. More specifically, onto what it was wearing around its waist.
Human remains.
There was no mistaking it.
Reddish-brown intestines were wrapped around its waist like a belt, and tied to them were two severed heads.
One belonged to the grumbler from the restaurant, and the other belonged to the talkative middle-aged man.
Judging by the blood still dripping from their severed necks, they had been killed very recently.
They must have died the moment they entered the tutorial.
"To encounter three humans in the tutorial... Hiss."
The Lizardman opened its mouth wide in a grotesque grin.
"I am truly fortunate. Hiss, hiss."
Lizardmen were not monsters like Ratmen. They were an alien race.
Just like humans, they were species from other dimensions participating in the Babel Tower's tutorial. They were the primary reason the survival rate of the tutorial was so abysmal, as almost all of them were stronger than humans.
Among them, Lizardmen were notorious for their aggressive nature. While there were rare instances of different races cooperating during the tutorial, some refused to interact with others entirely.
Lizardmen fell into the latter category.
Cooperation? Far from it.
Lizardmen were a race that actively practiced cannibalism—or rather, the consumption of other intelligent species. To them, humans were a delicacy because they lacked scales, had little hair, and possessed tender skin.
...Then I have to kill it.
There was no reasoning with it. Just as a human and a pig couldn't communicate, we had no common ground. That left only one option.
Kill it before it kills me.
Yes, kill it.
Kill it for the humans!
Kill it!
Kill it!
Kill it!
Something sparked in my mind, whispering to me. But I didn't have time to ponder what it was. The Lizardman had gripped its sword.
I had to move faster than it did.
"You look delicious, human!"
With a series of sharp hisses, the creature drew its sword. At that exact moment, I kicked a fist-sized rock resting on the glowing moss.
I had never learned anything like this during training.
My body simply moved on its own. Instinctively.
Smack!
The rock struck the Lizardman squarely in its left eye.
"Kuaaaakh!" the Lizardman shrieked.
I didn't miss the opening and lunged forward.
A Lizardman's scales were notoriously tough. The crude Ratman knives I had wouldn't pierce them; they'd likely snap on impact.
So I didn't even reach for a weapon.
Instead...
Squish!
Without hesitation, I thrust my fingers into the Lizardman's remaining right eye.
The vivid sensation of my fingers gouging into the eyeball registered clearly in my mind.
"Kuaaaakh!"
The Lizardman's screams intensified. To my ears, the sound was like a celebratory fanfare.
Clatter!
Flailing wildly, the creature dropped its sword. In that split second, I dropped low and snatched the weapon off the ground.
It was an exceptionally crafted sword, incomparable to the crude knives of the Ratmen. The hilt was sturdy, and the blade was razor-sharp.
With a weapon like this, slicing through the Lizardman's hide would be no trouble at all.