DIE TRYING [A Roguelite Extraction LitRPG]

"What are you?"

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He shoved a particularly large rock into the channel, and then kicked it forward with more dirt, feeling the other side get loose as the skeletons tried to claw it back out the other way. "Besides an asshole," he grunted, shoving the stone hard with his foot. "Are you a person or something else?"

I'm a deity. Specifically of games and stories. Kind of a big deal now, you know? (ง ื▿ ื)ว

He chuckled to himself with a nervous tick. Too much of this felt too real, and simultaneously completely stupid. He was talking to a god through his phone. A god named Play. All while frantically plugging away a hole that was constantly getting dug out the other way.

"Are you the system?"

Me? Strong enough to warp reality itself just to fit video game rules? Aww, you think so highly of me (￣▽￣*)ゞ

"You're not?" He didn't know how reliable Play was about this. The 'god' could be just lying to his face. Or a subpart of the system. "How exactly are you involved in all this!?"

It's a game to me just like it is to you Michael. Only difference is that to me, it's like an auto-battler. I pick my champion, toss them into the world and get to see what happens. You're the first player, the freebie I got to pick myself. And I'm very good at playing games.

"You dropped me into a lethal difficulty map." Wade hissed. "As a level one. You're shit at this game."

Like I said, if you survive to the end, you'll be waaaaay ahead of everyone else. (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ

"I want a different god."

No you don't lol, other gods are control freaks who'll puppet you around like a marionette or demand things from you. I'm letting you pick your own destiny, wherever that leads.

So he was stuck with Play.

A deep crack in the hole snapped Wade's attention, and the keystone shifted an inch backwards. Fuck. They'd been able to out-dig how fast he'd been able to pile in the dirt.

He could even see the large chunks of rock start falling off. Immediately, he grabbed one of the edges and shoved it into the tunnel, getting it stuck further in there. That would buy him just a little bit of time at best.

He could run. Behind him, the tunnels led out into darkness. His phone light would help navigate through the pitch darkness. But there was the risk of running into more skeletal miners within the mining tunnels here, and there wouldn't be a nice chokepoint to hold them off.

On the other hand, there might be a lot of dead ends in that direction, and running through it right now would at least let him buy enough time to tank two or three dead end picks.

Wade rolled his options and decided he had to fight back. This was a good defensible location, a funnel that would let him fight them one at a time.

He had tools here, weapons he could use.

But more importantly, he had to learn if he even could fight back against these enemies.

In some games, a level one couldn't even so much as damage a higher level opponent, while in other games, higher levels might just mean one or two extra hits before death. What kind of game system was this world running under? Only way he could find out was by trying.

Mid-way through debating his options, the skeletons made the choice for him.

The stone he'd shoved pushed backwards, and rolled down. Few dozen skeletal fingers instantly started prying the rest of the stone shards backwards, like some kind of infernal undead power drill eating up rocks.

This was it. They were coming for him. He was out of time. At least the pathway out was still too small for anything more than someone crawling.

Wade grabbed his phone off the wall, shoved it in his pocket, then yanked the closest pick off the ground, readying it to bash in the first skull that came through. He didn't need to wait for long.

The moment a skull poked out, he swung with all his might. Unfortunately, he noticed at the last second his pick was aimed at the skeleton's mining helmet.

Clang

Level 13 Undead Nathir Slave - 98%

The red health bar above the skeleton flashed for a second, dipping down two percent. The skull rattled and went still. Then its attention snapped up to face him. Eyeless sockets staring.

As if the monster was insulted to have been attacked.

It started thrashing in place, trying to squeeze through the opening, silently biting away at the air.

He went for the skull again with his pick as hard as he could. And he realized his first hit on the helmet hadn't been a fluke, this thing was using its gear to protect itself, tilting its head to block hits. Two more hits from different swing angles confirmed it, each time the skeleton saw the trajectory, and angled the helmet to properly guard against it.

Wait - what if the skeletons weren't the ones that were intelligent, but instead puppets? That meant necromancer. Which meant he was extra fucked.

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He stumbled back as more helmeted heads pushed through the widening gap like mushrooms sprouting off the wall.

Hand and arms came out next from the hole, four or five, all shoving and pushing against each other in their haste to get to the tasty human screaming on the other side. Only reason they hadn't was because they were each getting in the way of each other. At this point, the entire mass of bones was more of an obstacle.

If it had been a necromancer, they wouldn't have dogpilled the entrance in the first place and then kept making it worse. Small blessings.

Wade slammed the pick down again, three more times, each time blocked by the skeletons using their helmets, until the final third hit got halted by something else: One skeletal arm had jabbed up and wrapped three still working fingers around the shaft of the pickaxe, and yanked it wholesale out of his hand.

He stumbled backwards, a crazed cackle coming from his mouth. The skeleton crew were now making use of the stolen pick, bashing at the stones around. Like a multi-armed, multi-headed hydra trying to wiggle through too small of a hole. Another hand was reaching to the ground trying to grab a discarded pick there. Wade had the good sense to kick that weapon out of the way before turning around and looking for something more dangerous: One of the two sledgehammers he'd brought out.

Then he went to town again. The lead skeleton fought back, almost annoyed at having to swat him away again and again. Until the other bony arms tried for another grab in the middle of the frenzy. But Wade was wise to the tactic, and he'd been waiting for the skeleton to overextend like that.

He deftly dodged, twisted on himself and landed the attack down hard on the helmet.

Wade heard a snap. The skull and helmet rattled off, rolling onto the ground, jaw extended open and lifeless. The health bar flashed bright red - and finally went down a solid chunk, hovering at 87%.

"Thank fuck, that's what yo-" His words were stopped halfway as the skeleton's headless body reached down and grabbed the discarded helmet, lifting it off the unmoving skull, while keeping the stolen pick in the other hand. Then it continued trying to dismantle the stone behind it, the arm moving in ways the body naturally shouldn't be able to.

Wade swung once more, screaming all the while, and saw to his growing horror that the skeleton was using the discarded helmet like a shield. Not a great one, but good enough to blunt his hits.

Worse, the other skeletons were all steadily squeezing through, arms and fingers getting good grips on the rocks, pulling forward only to get stuck once more against each other. The moment the stone fully broke way, they were going to pop out of this hole like a pimple, and he didn't want to be anywhere around when that happened.

Attacking the mass wasn't working, Wade changed his tactics and swung his hammer straight down on the lifeless exposed skull, hoping that by destroying it he might snap some kind of spell. That's what the skulls usually were all about in movies, right?

The weapon landed hard on the skull, driving it into the mud. The health bar flashed red again from the skeleton stuck in the hole, but only a few percent down. The skull remained intact.

Wade stared at the skull, then to the heavy weapon in his hand, and then back at the skull. This sledgehammer weighed a good ten pounds and was made of solid metal. There is no possible chance in hell a regular human skull could survive impact against this.

He swung again. Once more the skull refused to shatter, the health bar equally going down a few percentage points. This must be what's keeping the skeleton going if it's so hard to break. It had to be. He did another swing down but it glanced off the domed head. More out of panic he swung a fourth time. Something changed. A notification flashed across his vision.

Luck triggered: Critical hit!

The skull that had resisted his earlier hits suddenly crunched down exactly like it should have, fracturing into dozens of shards and flying teeth.

The red bar above the headless enemy went down to 66%.

The skeleton seemed to shudder, freezed as if confused, but resumed its mission to murder Wade, one swing of the pick at a time.

Maybe whatever spell wasn't yet completely broken? He tried to smash the smaller pieces of the shattered skull further, but after pulverizing the additional fragmented pieces, he could see the diminishing returns. Eventually, not even the health bar flashed anymore.

64% was the best he'd done to the skeleton's health.

Wade ran the data he'd learned in this first matchup and came to a single conclusion: He turned and ran for it, praying that he could identify enough things to get that quest done and something new to work with.

Keeping a heavy weapon on him was useless, it already wasn't doing damage. So he dropped it and kept his hands free with his phone light to guide the way into the darkness. Ahead there were plenty of tunnels to pick from and run. Once he got deep enough, he'd find somewhere to hide and turn the light off.

Halfway into the cavern, a small red health bar appeared.

The Blackrot rat that had raced past him earlier had been hiding under a rock. And it certainly spotted Wade racing forward. The rat scrambled away with a tiny shriek far faster than he could limp after it, jumping over a few rocks, zipping over the mud, then squeezed through something that let it drop down out of view. He could see the red health bar through the walls fall with the speed of gravity.

There was an exit there. He raced around, pointing his light all over it. Just mud and stones everywhere, deep black pockets of darkness from shadows where the rat could have snuck into. But he did have something that could see things even his light couldn't reveal: "Identify, Identify, Identi-fucking-fy!"

Stone. Dirt. Mud. Pickaxe. Stone. Hidden Rebel Tunnel.

Glasses of the trade: Identify targets 27/30