DIE TRYING [A Roguelite Extraction LitRPG]

The light within faded, and all that was inside was a bottomless hole filled with teeth, as if it had come straight from a horror show. All of it lunged at him exactly like the weasel had.

Instinct did most of the work, with both his hands reaching out to protect his face as he jerked backwards. His front forearms took the damage as the jaws bit down. Pain spread across his left arm, while the right one felt a mild feeling of muffled pain.

A new debuff was applied: Mimic Venom III.

He choked a scream, half in shock, then lifted the entire chest up in the air and threw it. Adrenaline, mixed with his improved strength was a hell of a thing.

By some sheer good luck, the chest had reopened it's maw to go for a second bite right as he tried tossing it backwards, sending it off his arms and into the wall.

It rolled back on it's base, opened its maw once more and then sealed it shut straight away to protect itself from a rock flying right at it. Wade had thrown with every bit of strength he had in him, all while jumping like he was going to dunk a basketball. The chest shut its mouth immediately, and the projectile struck the top silver metal without a single bit of damage.

Identify.

Level 19 Mimic - 100%

No Skyviper debuff was applied either. But Wade wasn't concerned with that, he was following the original plan he'd prepared: Get out of the house as fast as possible if something goes wrong. Outside, he'd have more room to work with and more time to consider what to do next.

Whatever the mimic was, it wasn't quick as Wade sprinted out and dove through the alleyways, easily leaving it behind. He found another house to barge in on, did just the bare minimum check for enemies with identify, then rushed inside sealing the door behind him.

Blood was trailing behind him from his left arm. The muscles in his forearm had a few puncture wounds through them, but oddly didn't look that damaged. The hand was twitching however. There wasn't pain at all. Instead his arms felt numb. Well, his left arm felt numb. The right one felt just fine, infected with the blackrot and everything.

"What the fuck. Play, what the fuck."

The phone buzzed. He took it out, blood getting smeared slightly on the screen, the tremors making his fingers feel fat and slow.

Wowowow did not have the System being straight sadistic on my bingo sheet (⚆_⚆)

Wade knew enough tropes to tell exactly what that thing was. "What the hell is going on? How is there a mimic from a reward chest?!"

Why are you asking me all this?? I'm not the one who spawned a mimic on you, mimic's aren't even a thing in Azdrial

Wade opened up his stats, going straight for the debuffs but getting caught by another piece of information.

Health: 111/125

He watched it go down by one, to 110. He was losing health over time. By small chunks. Already his left arm was feeling off, getting harder to move.

The debuffs showed him exactly why:

Mimic Venom III: Inflicts damage and paralysis. Four minutes thirty two seconds remaining.

Wade had seen youtube videos in the past. Mice being fed to a snake. How the snake would strike out once, and then retreat to wait. Until the mouse would flop on the ground, losing coordination until eventual death.

No wonder the mimic hadn't followed after him with any speed or tried biting his arms off, even when it's jaw had chomped over him so clearly. It wasn't trying to tear them off, it just wanted to envenom him. And now, it was waiting for him to die.

From the numbers alone, it would kill him with a good minute to spare.

Level 4 Player - 87%

He had to get this healed as fast as possible. He slapped his blackrotten arm right over the other forearm, watching as the motes spread out from arm to arm. The numbness started fading off, but he knew deep down he'd been too late. The venom was already spreading through his body from his left forearm. The one that wasn't blackrotten.

His health was draining, about one percent every few seconds - he wouldn't survive at this rate. And he needed to make it through all four minutes and extra change. Not to mention heal back up and fight off the mimic that would absolutely come after him.

The next step he took was a half-stumble, legs starting to feel heavy and unresponsive. Already his left arm wasn't moving anymore, limp at his side, phone slipping through his fingers until it hit the ground with a clatter. Full paralysis was seconds away. If he couldn't protect himself through the four minutes that were coming, then he needed the environment keep him safe until the venom wore off.

Wade knew he had precious few seconds to make a plan and get out of this one. He wasn't going to be able to relocate anywhere besides here, so whatever defense or last stand, it had to be here. Wade shot a look to the kitchen area where the window would be. "S-shit."

Broken.

Which meant the mimic could come after him even if the doorway was locked. Wade turned and limped his way to the back of the unit, into the master bedroom. The doors here were sturdy and the entire room didn't have any broken down walls. He also knew they could be locked.

Inside the saferoom, he turned and closed the door with his shoulder and half-working hand.

The lock mechanism rattled as he fumbled the attempts, fingertips feeling stiff but still moving. The muscles moving his fingers were already half-exposed to blackrot on both arms, so there was still some motion available.

He heard the heavy click of some kind of deadbolt within locking in place. Safe.

Turning around, his legs gave out and he fell facedown, spasming. Even his breathing was getting hard.

Shit. That's how snakes killed their prey. Suffocation. Or heart failure. Hah, maybe his increased strength was what was keeping his heart and lungs going.

"I-identi-f-f-y."

Level 4 Player - 81%

He was dying. The timer still had three minutes to go. Maybe he could get some resistance to it or something? Or speed up the timer?

"S-stats."

Mana: 9/125

Could he do something with mana? It was in his body right now, maybe if he tried feeling for it he could cast some kind of healing or flush out the venom. Find his dao or somehow learn how to feel his inner chakras, he didn't fucking know. Anything.

No sense could be felt deep inside him other than that of his body shutting down. He crawled his way to a wall, relying on his right arm to move him around. At least it continued moving without issue.

Health continued to drop, percent after percent. This idea wasn't working. He moved onto a new plan.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Snakes could moderate how much venom to inject into their targets, and they judged this based on the size. Venom was costly to make, and most venomous animals always tried not to overkill. If the mimic was like a snake, it might have given him just enough for a lethal dosage. Hell, it might have given him a little under so that it could follow him after and finish the job without wasting any more venom. Which meant any extra health might screw the math over.

All he had to do was somehow get more health than he had started with.

Fuck. Those two extra points in vitality could have saved him, maybe. Or maybe he wouldn't have lived this long without the strength increases to his lungs and heart. Catch 22, all he knew is that he needed a higher goddamn level and more points to work with.

He checked the rate of health loss, compared to the debuff timer and found them close to one another. He'd die about a minute before the venom faded. Which meant just a little more health than it had calculated, and he'd survive.

Where would he get that though?

As he looked over the full screen, Wade's addled mind saw the numbers and he felt an idea click into place.

Vitality: 5 (7-3+1)

There was a way to get more vitality. It was staring him right in the face this whole time: His vitality wasn't supposed to be just 5. It was supposed to be 8.

Because three points were being sapped away by his neck, leg and malnutrition debuffs. He'd put a point into vitality before, but that hadn't fixed his debuffs, it had just mitigated some of the pain and damage. They were still active.

If he could fix those, he'd get that health back. And it might just be enough to save him.

He heard a sound outside the door. A scratching sound, as if something was testing the strength of the doorway.

"I-ident-ify,"

Level 19 Mimic - 100%

Scratch, scratch.

Like a cat demanding to be let in. Of course it had followed him here. At least if he died in this bedroom, the mimic wasn't getting anything to eat, not with the doorway blocking the path.

He started laughing, a choking desperate thing. He didn't want his last thoughts to be of that thing on the other side of the door. So he thought about better times. The memory flashed through his mind, hints and snippets of the larger thing, but it still gave him some odd sense of inner strength with each second.

The sound of their voices. Bickering. Jokes. A sense of working for something more, all together.

"Ann, you have your own living room to haunt now," Wade pointed out. "You put up a sign saying 'Annabell Wade Territory' even. Come on, leave poor Jason alone. Do you know the kind of S.O.S texts he was sending me all shift?"

"Jason's room has better lighting for studying." Ann said without looking up from her blueprint sketches. "Plus he lets me steal his energy drinks. No caffeine, no blueprints done. I ran the math on that a long time ago."

What she meant was that she was bored, and wanted company while Wade was working. "There's like two seven eleven's and one starbucks on the bike ride from home to Jason's house. I think you're here to harass him." Wade said, raising an eyebrow.

"She is." Jason said, not taking his eyes off his screen as he typed in his current homework. "She's been a menace here for the past four hours now."

"Menace? What? Me?" Ann asked, acting both offended and innocent at the same time.

"She critiqued my desk setup, reorganized my bookshelf by color instead of subject - which is wrong, by the way - and now she's using my bed as her personal architecture studio. She's your sister, you get her out of here. You know I can't do it, if I get near, she'll bite me."

"Ann." Wade said, mock horrified. "What did we say about biting?"

"His bookshelf needed fixing and I did it out of the kindness of my heart!" Ann immediately said, erasing something aggressively on her newest blueprint. "You had your secondary monitor at the wrong angle too. It had to be fixed. How do you even live in chaos like this?"

"I liked my chaos! It had character!" Jason protested from his seat.

"Ann... quit bullying Jason." Wade said, looking over the little room that had once been their home. "That's not nice."

"Don't get too comfortable," Ann said, pointing a pen at him. "You're next. I've seen the filth you wallow in, pig."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa, calm down there Satan, my room's fine. There's barely anything in it too."

She'd drawn him up one too many sketches on what his room could look like, and he was having decision paralysis since they all looked excellent. Each month that went by as he saved up his funds for decoration, Ann came out of nowhere with another new fully furnished bedroom idea that would add to his indecision pile.

"That pile of work shirts on your floor isn't fooling anyone. It's not a 'system,' it's depression." Ann said, the pen now waggling like a ruler at him.

"How dare you. That pile is perfectly organized by shift schedule." Wade protested. "It's peak efficiency. You should take notes."

Ann threw the pen at him as answer.

She was all alone now. On Earth, bedridden. He had to live. Had to.

The scratching had stopped, and the health bar fully moved around, slightly downwards before it settled with a soft clunk he could hear.

It was waiting for him to die. Even getting comfortable.

Wade suddenly stopped fearing that thing on the other side of the Nathir door. Instead, he hated it. Hated it more than anything and anyone he'd ever run into. Even more than the debt collectors, lawyers, and all the worst customers in his entire seven years of being a retail wage slave. Hated it more than every petty fucking manager that had stomped all over his life.

None of them had poisoned him and then just sat back to watch him die. Even that asshole that drove them off the road had sped off to escape getting caught.

Wade drew on his spite, he wasn't just going to roll over and die here. Not after all this. "F-fuck you." He hissed at the doorway. "I'm going to goddamn kill you. I'll kill you."

He wasn't dying like this. Wade brought his still functional black rotten hand out, and started using it to crawl on the floor until he reached the far wall. Then, he pushed himself up against it. He was going to live, and then kill this asshole.

Trembling hands reached down to his belt. One old dagger came out of it. Not Illy's daggers. He'd need those for their debuffs, and they'd be one-time uses. What he needed right now was the very first dagger he'd gotten his hands on. The one he used to kill his first enemy in this world.

Hilarious that in the end, he had to do his own goddamn surgery himself.

But he was going to live through this and murder the shit out of that mimic if it's the last thing he did.