CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Bottleneck
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Ninety enemies pressed together in the darkness. Goblins, direwolves, and orcs filled the tunnel, packed tight and moving as one mass. Abo wedged himself into a narrow crease in the cavern wall, just off the natural choke point where the path funneled into shadow. Corpse-small, shovel-heavy, surrounded by dry stone with no moss and barely any mana. The light was gone. Only darkness and Abo remained.
"Ninety," he whispered. "Ninety fucking monsters."
System: Host facial analysis complete: 87% terror, 13% indigestion.
Abo snorted, voice low. "Yeah, yeah, funny."
System: Are you pissing yourself now?
He flicked dirt at the System's voice, if only it had a face. "Not yet."
Abo gritted his teeth and drove the shovel's edge into his own body, over and over. His regeneration tried to close the wounds, but he kept going, pushing until his health dropped just below twenty percent.
⋗ BATTLE INSTINCT
They didn't see him, they couldn't. A single goblin crept to the front, squinting into the black, sniffing. It parted its lips to speak—
Crunch.
The shovel split its skull in a downstroke so fast the body stayed standing. Abo caught it, lowered it silently, and let the corpse slump behind the rubble. Another stepped forward., another vanished.
Snap. Crack. Wet hush.
One by one, the front line disappeared into the dark. There were no screams, just the sound of heavy blows and bones snapping under steel. Then someone finally noticed.
"W-what was that?!" a voice whispered, breathless.
Abo blinked. Wait, they could talk? A slow smile crept across his face. "System, do I still get EXP even if I don't kill them directly?"
System: Affirmative. Experience awarded when Host initiates enemy death, including indirect causes. Normally, indirect kills grant reduced experience to the initiator, but since Host is sole player, full experience is granted.
Abo's smile widened. "Neat."
He moved low, smooth, shovel raised. Whenever his health nudged above twenty percent, he stabbed himself again. The shadows clung to him, and his passive did its work.
Crack.
Another skull folded in.
STAT POINTS ALLOCATED
Level Up! 2 → 3
Auto-allocating: POW +3, SPD +2
"I—I heard bones break!"
"It's too dark! I can't see!"
Something wet hit the wall with a slap. Then a scream, short and sharp, cut off mid-breath.
"WHAT WAS THAT?!"
"I HEARD SOMEONE SCREAM!"
"WHERE?!"
"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"
System: Goblin morale - 41%.
Coordination - Severely impaired.
Visibility - Zero.
Recommended strategy: Continue psychological dismemberment.
Abo grinned. He didn't need to fight them all, just enough to lead them into chaos, where they'd tear each other apart.
Somewhere in the crowd, a goblin shrieked and stumbled back, landing on a direwolf's tail. The beast howled and snapped, lashing out at whatever it could reach, its own allies. Its jaws clamped down on a goblin's arm. The goblin screamed and stabbed in a panic, hitting another goblin in the neck.
The chaos spread fast.
An orc turned at the noise and swung wide in the dark. Its axe split the first goblin from shoulder to hip. The swing didn't stop there, it tore into a second, then a third, who barely had time to react before losing its head. Blood sprayed into the dark, and the screaming started.
One goblin tripped over a corpse and landed on a wolf pup. The pup yelped. Its mother heard and charged. Snarls turned to clashes, claws to steel. The choke point devolved into a meat grinder, limbs torn free, skulls caved in by panicked blows. The stone floor soaked up the blood.
Somewhere in the shadows, Abo grinned like a lunatic, eyes gleaming through the darkness.
STAT POINTS ALLOCATED
Level Up! 3 → 4
Auto-allocating: POW +4, SPD +1
Then came the shout.
"He's in the shadows!" a goblin shrieked.
"I saw something move! Tiny, glowing red eyes!"
"It's a demon! A crawling demon!"
Abo stilled, his grin faded. Tch. So much for stealth. "No. Not a demon."
He slipped back into the dark, repositioning with silent steps. "Just a baby with a fucking grudge."
The horde imploded, collapsing inward with each scream and snap of bone. Fangs tore through flesh, and steel split skulls. Panic spread quickly, turning allies into prey. Abo was playing with the mob.
He moved through the dark, shovel slick with blood. A goblin stumbled, trying to find a way out. Abo stepped in behind it, drove the shovel's tip into its heel, and disappeared. The goblin screamed and swung blindly, its blade catching the throat of the one reaching down to help.
Another direwolf limped away from the fighting, until Abo hurled a broken femur like a spear, straight into its remaining eye. The beast howled, spun around, and slammed into a group of goblins mid-argument, knocking them down like pins.
Abo crept under an orc's legs, small, quiet, and drove a sharpened rib up into one of its testicles. The orc let out a roar and swung in pain, accidentally taking off a nearby goblin's head.
Another orc slipped on the spilled guts and crashed onto a jagged rock. The impact made a sickening crunch. As the orc tried to crawl away, another panicked orc brought its hammer down by mistake, once, twice, crushing its fallen ally. Bones broke. Flesh caved in. The third strike snapped the spine clean.
"Oops," Abo muttered, lips twitching.
He struck a direwolf's back leg as it jumped, cutting through the tendon. The beast collapsed mid-air and crashed into a group of orcs. It rolled across the ground, bones snapping, then started biting wildly in the chaos.
Abo spotted a dying goblin twitching near the rubble. He leaned in and whispered something. Humans might not understand it, but the monsters seemed wired to a frequency that even an undead infant's voice could reach.
"Your brother did this, he called you weak, and said your feet smelled like mushroom ass."
The goblin, gurgling with blood, screamed its brother's name and hurled its blade as a last act of spite. The blade hit someone. Screaming resumed.
System: Goblin morale: 21%. Intelligence: Concussed.
"Thank you, thank you," Abo whispered, ducking into another shadow like a stage magician exiting mid-applause.
The choke point had become a theater of horror, and Abo its gremlin director. His shovel tapped skulls, slashed tendons, nudged corpses just-so to trip the next wave of panic. At one point, he held up a severed goblin hand and waved it through the darkness, squeaking, "Help me, I'm too ugly to die!" Just to spook a nearby wolf into eating its own ally by mistake.
System: Uncertain whether Host is a genius... or unwell.
⮞ STAT POINTS ALLOCATED
Level Up! 4 → 5
Auto-allocating: POW +5
⮞ STAT POINTS ALLOCATED
Level Up! 5 → 6
Auto-allocating: SPD +5
⮞ STAT POINTS ALLOCATED
Level Up! 6 → 7
Auto-allocating: POW +3, SPD +2
⮞ STAT POINTS ALLOCATED
Level Up! 7 → 8
Auto-allocating: SPD +5
By now, most of the goblins were dead, torn apart, trampled, or turned into abstract art on the stone walls. Only a handful of goblins, direwolves and a few pissed-off orcs remained, bloodied and breathing hard.
Abo tilted his head, shovel resting on his shoulder. "System, how many of these fucks are still breathing?"
🎯 QUEST PROGRESS
• Kill 50 Goblins (41/50)
• Kill 30 Direwolves (24/30)
• Kill 10 Orcs (2/10)
Most of the cannon fodder was dead, and the chaos had begun to fade. Formations were holding more often, and allies had stopped striking each other. The panic was wearing off. Now came the hard part.
Abo sighed. "Guess the fun part's over." He stepped over a goblin's still-twitching leg and asked, "System, what's my current stat spread? Skip the useless crap. Just POW and SPD."
System: Power - 27
Speed - 24
Abo paused. "What were my stats before I died?"
System: Unable to access exact data. However, based on cross-referenced patterns in the Book of Threads and comparative logic, estimated values range in the 30s.
Average adult human (age 20-35): POW 11-17.
Host, based on physical conditioning and recorded feats, likely ranged between 23-29.
"What are the stats of those bastards?" Abo muttered, his senses locking onto faint movements ahead.
x_x SYSTEM ERROR
Error: Skill [Analysis] not acquired.
Accessing external data via administrative override command...
System: Initiating manual scan. Select one (1) entity per enemy subtype for profiling.
Abo pointed figuratively, mentally, it hardly mattered. The cave was still lightless.
System: Targets confirmed. Executing scan...
Scan complete.
Displaying target metrics through passive interface relay.
✦
◆ STATUS WINDOW ◆
NAME: Gobri
LEVEL: 10
RACE: Goblin (Rank F)
AGE: 9 Years
◈ COMBAT STATISTICS ◈
POW: 20
SPD: 18
DEF: 14
Perception: 10
INT: 14
Willpower: 3
CHAR: -1
Luck: 2
Health: 68 / 68
Mana: 28 / 35
Stamina: 11 / 34
◈ SKILL ◈
- Rabid Stab (F)
Increases speed by 15% when health is below 50%. Attacks may cause Bleed (5s).
(CD: 15s | Cost: 5)
✦
◆ STATUS WINDOW ◆
NAME: Bloodfang
LEVEL: 11
RACE: Direwolf (Rank F)
AGE: 10 Years
◈ COMBAT STATISTICS ◈
POW: 35
SPD: 40
DEF: 29
Perception: 25
INT: 13
Willpower: 5
CHAR: 10
Luck: 1
Health: 98 / 112
Mana: 34 / 40
Stamina: 48 / 56
◈ SKILL ◈
- Savage Lunge (F)
Next attack deals +25% damage and knocks down targets below 70%
(CD: 15s | Cost: 8)
◈ SKILL ◈
✦
◆ STATUS WINDOW ◆
NAME: Ughmash
LEVEL: 10
RACE: Orc (Rank F)
AGE: 22 Years
◈ COMBAT STATISTICS ◈
POW: 40
SPD: 20
DEF: 40
Perception: 7
INT: 15
Willpower: 10
CHAR: 2
Luck: -1
Health: 140 / 154
Mana: 54 / 80
Stamina: 67 / 77
◈ SKILL ◈
- Battle Smash (F)
A wide swing that damages up to 3 enemies. -20% DEF for 8s if hit.
(CD: 17s | Cost: 15)
✦ ✦ ✦
End of Chapter