I Am A Table [LitRPG Isekai Progression Fantasy]

It's so fast!

In a split second, Blorbo activated Adjustable Angle. The gadget swooshed past him. It missed his front leg by a hair, and smashed into the cushioned wall with a thud.

"And that's why I cushioned my wall," Griesa said without looking back.

Maybe the returned AGI actually saved me back there!

"Did something just lean?" the customer asked.

"Probably not the table," Griesa replied.

[Check Complete—Congratulations]

[1 AGI earned]

How is this 'check' thing any different from a quest? Do I automatically accept one and I have to fulfill it within a very short timeframe? Is that the only difference?

The gadget bounced off the wall, hitting another unknown gadget, which in turn hit another, which in turn hit another, which in turn hit another, which in turn hit a gadget which looked like a clown face with a short inflatable stick attached to its nose. The stick elongated.

"My Foreign Markings On A Furniture Surface Detector!" Griesa yelled.

Foreign Markings On A Furniture Surface Detector?! It's my lucky day!

She ran over and picked it up. The stick elongated further, ready to point towards the one foreign marking that Blorbo had wanted attention to so much, before… deflating.

Griesa patted the gadget happily, "Good thing it's already broken, so it can't be broken twice! That's why I usually keep my important gadget in my pocket. Somehow, the gadgets I leave in my room keep malfunctioning."

What? How? Why would you play with me like that? Just have Griesa walk out of the room and let me fail the quest already if you're just gonna tease me!

"Okay. Let's walk out of the room," Griesa told the customer.

"Okay." She nodded. They walked out of the room.

[Quest Failed—A Chance Encounter (1)]

No! The quest reward was super juicy too!

A loose floorboard near where Blorbo was standing creaks. Then, a quest randomly popped up without any exclamation mark.

[Quest Available: The Bouncing Betrayal]

Objective: Kurix's arch-nemesis showed up. Stop him before he sabotages another contraption.

Reward: +444 EXP, +4 AGI, +4 HP, +1 MP, Basic-level Skill 'Precise Pounce'

What? Who's Kurix? Also, Precise POUNCE? I can barely move!

A small, furry blur darted from beneath the loose floorboard. It was indeed a rat, but unlike any Blorbo had seen. This one bore an uncanny resemblance to Kurix, the rat who (now that Blorbo had recalled) usually perched on Griesa's head, though this new arrival sported a distinctly more malevolent glint in its beady eyes. It even rubbed its tiny paws together with an unsettling, villainous glee.

So this is Kurix's arch-nemesis, Blorbo realized, connecting the dots. The rat's sinister presence confirmed his suspicion: this must be why the Foreign Markings On A Furniture Surface Detector was already inoperable. This little fiend was a saboteur! The realization fueled a spark of determination in Blorbo, even if his body still felt more like a lead weight than an agile warrior.

With a self-satisfied twitch of its whiskers, the evil rat scurried forward. Its gaze sweeping across the array of scattered gadgets and components littering the workshop floor as it moved with a bizarre efficiency. Its beady eyes locked onto a small, gleaming contraption near the far wall—something with delicate-looking gears and an exposed wire.

Click, whirr, click. The rat's dexterous paws were already at work. It gnawed at the wire, then twisted a gear with surprising force, the sound of delicate machinery grinding to a halt filling the room. A tiny, triumphant squeak escaped its lips.

Okay. How do I stop it? I can't even move.

With another series of calculated nips and tugs, the rat quickly rendered one of the tubes useless: a small, sad puff of air had escaped from the partially severed end.

[Quest Failure Progress: 59%—The device is partly broken]

Suddenly, the evil rat paused. Its twitching nose, which had been so focused on sniffing out vulnerable gadgets, flared. A different scent had reached it, a rich, enticing aroma. Its malevolent gaze shifted, landing squarely on Blorbo. There, still clinging to Blorbo's surface from Lena's earlier, incomplete cleaning, were streaks of cream and a scattering of delectable breadcrumbs.

Its stomach rumbled audibly. The rat's villainous demeanor melted away, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated hunger.

Turns out Lena deliberately did not clean me for this moment! She's a genius!

The rat jumped on top of Blorbo's surface. He could feel the rat. He could feel the filthy little feet of the rascal on his surface. He could do something.

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Blorbo waited. He felt the minute vibrations as the rat ravenously consumed the cream and breadcrumbs. He felt tiny claws scrabbling against his surface. But he must endure. He must practice patience.

He waited until the moment was perfect, until the rat, in its greedy zeal, positioned itself precariously close to the edge of his chassis.

Now!

He activated Surface Wobble.

His entire frame shivered, an almost imperceptible tremor. A Level 1 Surface Wobble likely wouldn't have done anything, but Level 2 was just enough to startle small creatures. The rat was caught off guard in mid-chew and lost its footing. With a startled squeak, it tumbled from Blorbo's surface.

It would have been a clean fall. But by some stroke of karmic justice, the rat landed exactly on the small, irregular hole in the floorboard it had emerged from. The hole, however, wasn't quite big enough to swallow it whole. The saboteur rat, in its panicked descent, fell at an odd, unfortunate angle. Its head vanished into the crevice, but its body remained stubbornly stuck, its tiny legs flailing uselessly in the air. A pathetic series of distressed squeaks filled the room as it struggled to free itself, its hindquarters comically raised towards the ceiling.

Just then, the door creaked open. Griesa re-entered, her head tilted in thought, followed by the customer. Her gaze swept across the room, landing first on the device with the rat-bitten, defunct tube, then on the comically stuck rat, its little buttock wriggling futilely in the air. The connection was instantaneous.

"Aha!" Griesa exclaimed with a mischievous glint in her eye.

From beneath her hat, Kurix launched himself like a furry, four-legged projectile. With a heroic leap, he landed precisely on the trapped rat's elevated posterior. What followed was a spectacle of true rat-on-rat justice: Kurix proceeded to give his nemesis a literal buttock-whooping by delivering a series of sharp, martial arts-style kicks to the enemy's exposed hindquarters. The squeaks of distress from the stuck rat escalated into yelps of pure indignation.

"We have caught the little rascal red-handed!" Griesa came over and pulled the rat out of the hole by its tail. It stirred in futility. "What luck! You have caused quite a stir, you little thing!"

Luck?! I planned this all along! Now clean me properly!

[Quest Completed: The Bouncing Betrayal]

Reward: +444 EXP, +4 AGI, +4 HP, +1 MP, Basic-level Skill 'Precise Pounce'

Yes!

He immediately checked his skill, Precise Pounce.

Description: A lightning-fast burst of movement. When an object or target is within striking distance (a range equivalent to the user's current END stat), one of the user's legs will instantly extend and pounce towards it at their current AGI speed. The damage dealt equates to the user's STR.

Cooldown: 95 minutes

Cooldown 95 minutes?! Do I go into a coma every time I use this skill or something?

Also! This doesn't tell me much! How is this distance calculated? What's the END–distance conversion?

Still, this was much better than anything he had had so far. Finally, he could go on the offensive.