"No, no, no. No way. I won't do that"
Shaking his head furiously, Naruto reminded himself he didn't come here to eat rats.
When he first heard the Dwarf's advice, he didn't think much about it. Why did he need to worry about the food?
Now? The only options he had in front of him were: starvation or eat rats, or...
"I could eat those mushrooms, huh?" Naruto was ignoring the information he got before. Anything but eat rats.
"The fountain helped me to purify the rat infection... Maybe I can do the same with the mushrooms? It said that it was edible(for rats). Well, let's try. What could go wrong?"
Convincing himself, Naruto started to look in the room for some mushrooms.
He didn't take long to find them. In a corner he could see a pack, it was the place where the rats were before.
Approaching it, he noticed that some of them had bites and were scattered on the ground. He interrupted their meal.
Bending down, he collected some of them in his inventory.
[Rat mushroom: Rats feed on this, it has poison.]x6
And he grabbed some of the wall.
[Fluorescent mushroom: Provides a small amount of light, grown in groups]x2
"Try first with the fluorescent..."
He returned to the pool and submerged one mushroom. Once he was sure that all the harmful things in it were cleansed, he took a deep breath and took a bite.
He didn't taste the flavor, just swallowed it.
"Nothing happens... "
Noticing that he was fine, Naruto continued to eat the mushroom, but only taking small bites.
As he continued, he didn't notice that his pupils continued to get bigger. He didn't take long to eat the two he picked up.
Feeling better than ever, he trusted that the miracle water could let him eat the other type of mushrooms.
Cleaning them with the miracle water, he started to eat once again.
The flavor of these types was stronger. There were only a few times he had eaten something so delicious
"The status check wasn't as strong as I thought before, I can eat these without any problem..."
After a few minutes he had eaten all the mushrooms he had picked up before and he started to feel weird.
Taking a moment, he sat down beside the pool and started looking at the room.
It seemed normal, only a little bigger than before and the light from the mushrooms moved itself. Nothing unusual.
Until he turned his gaze to the skeleton.
"Wait, why are there two?"
Only now he realized that something was wrong. The first two he ate were mixed with the others he ate later.
The nausea returned, stronger. This time he had something to vomit.
Not again...
Was his last thought before he began to vomit. Then he could feel the rancid flavor, it didn't taste as good as he thought, it was the mushrooms that confused his senses.
How could something that rats eat, and especially has 'rat' in its name, have a good flavor?
He continued in that state until he had vomited up everything he ate. Once he was sure nothing more came up, he took a sip from the fountain to dissipate the ailment.
Falling down on the ground, he wanted to cry but he had no tears.
Why did this happen to him? Wasn't this supposed to be a good place for him? He had no peace since he arrived at this place.
His body felt weaker, the energy he thought he could recover with those mushrooms didn't exist.
Naruto continued lying on the ground, he didn't want to get up and look for more food. He didn't believe that he could find edible food in this place.
The only way was eating rats...
Thinking about that, anger filled his head. This place sucks, the only thing he had acquired here was those numbers! It looked good but he wanted food!
Only the thought of eating a rat turned his stomach.
Curling up on the ground, Naruto just wanted to sleep. He knew that he couldn't do that, but he felt so tired.
He continued like that for another 15 minutes.
"Fine, I will do it. All this pain I will return to those bastards who ruined my life." Naruto gritted his teeth.
Getting up, he went to the corridor and grabbed a torch. There were many here and he only needed it to start the fire. The flavor didn't matter; he only needed energy.
"Grabbing some dry moss and twigs from the ground and gathering them to form a fire pit, he grabbed a rat and took it to the pool to clean it. No matter how much dirt he put in the water, it disappeared before he could notice it.
He didn't have any tool to skin it, so he grabbed a stone with a tip and tried to perforate the rat's body and take out its organs. It wasn't the first time he cooked an animal, but this time he needed to do the whole process. It took him 20 minutes, and he felt more tired than ever.
With the rat ready, he skewered it on a stick and rested it on his hammerhead over the fire.
The fire began to do his thing and the smell was nauseating.
After a while, the rat was cooked, and he grabbed the same stone to try to skin it. It was hot even though he was using gloves.
With most of it burned by fire, he didn't take long to separate a piece from the body.
He felt irritated. The thought of doing it was a thing, and actually doing it was a different matter.
Forced by circumstances, he prepared himself to take the first bite.
"Where the fuck is Ego?! How he dares to took me to this place and leave me alone! If he ever recovers his body, I will give him rat stew!"
With those words, Naruto did it.
The taste was foul, but the mental pressure he felt was worse.
But he didn't stop, he continued until all the pieces were in his stomach. He wanted to vomit, but he held on.
[Title acquired [Caveman]]
!!!
Naruto had veins popping out of his forehead. What is this stupid system saying?
He felt annoyed but it was the second time he got a title.
Status window
He noticed it, below his name appeared a new line.
[Name: Naruto Uzumaki]
[Titles: [First step] [Caveman]]
[Race: Human]
"This might be the same as the stats?" Naruto had a thoughtful look.
Once he thought of the title, a new system window appeared.
[First step: Given to those entering the dungeon for the first time. Increases NPC favorability]
"NPC? What's that? I don't know any NPC..." He tilted his head in confusion.
The next one.
[Caveman: You, who dare to eat anything to survive, have earned the respect of the goblins]
...
"Why do I feel like this stupid thing is making fun of me?"
He took a deep breath to calm himself.
"No, that's impossible. Why will Lady make fun of me? That can't be."
As he was thinking about it, another system window appeared in front of him.
[Acquired abnormal status: poisoned] [Lose 1HP/s]
...
Without saying anything, he began to drink from the pool.
He only stopped when his HP stopped going down.
Falling on the ground, he felt a sharp pain in his stomach. The only good news is that this time he didn't vomit and only was in pain.
Smiling bitterly, Naruto gathered his strength and got up. He couldn't stay like that for long, he didn't want to become rat food.
"Well... everyone said that the first time is the hardest, but I don't want to eat these things again..."
Feeling tired from staying in this place, he left the room and tried to return down the same pathway.
But it felt unfamiliar. The rooms changed, the corpses of some rats he had killed on the way didn't appear, just an intact ground.
"Please, no..." Naruto didn't know what to do if he got trapped in this place.
The food source was resolved (against his will), but sleeping in this place? The rats would devour him before he could notice it.
Walking with a bad feeling, Naruto became more nervous every second. When he was midway, he realized something.
The dungeon changed. This wasn't the same path he entered before.
"Haha... I know that it won't be that easy..." Letting out an awkward smile, Naruto sat on the ground with his back against a wall.
He needed to find a place to sleep quickly, he could resist for a few more hours but after that his body would collapse from exhaustion.
He didn't believe that he could find the exit at this point, he needed to survive here until he had the enough energy to do whatever he wanted.
Going back down the same path, he encountered the room with the pool. He had come here to fill his bottle of water, maybe it could save him later.
"Okay, let's go. I just need to find a place to sleep, right? Lady wouldn't be so bad with me, right?" Convincing himself, Naruto began his journey to bed.
He satisfied his desire for food, but he hadn't the energy to continue killing rats.
Grabbing a torch from the wall, Naruto just went in a straight direction. This place seemed to have no end.
He didn't find a bed, but he found places that seemed to be inhabited by people. He could see stalls, shelves, wooden seats, pieces of beds and more.
"What is this place? People lived here before? Then why do I only see rats now?" The bad feeling grew, this place looked ominous from every direction.
He also found other skeletons, but these didn't have any equipment on them. The pool of miracle water also stopped appearing and only the sound of the underground water could be heard.
He tried to follow the sound but that way, there were packs of rats in every corner. They didn't allow intruders in their territory.
With his neck numb, he took another way. The closer he got to the sound, the bigger the rats he found.
The rats were protecting the water or something in it.
I need to find what deserves the protection of these things...
But not now, he was so tired.
He continued walking for another two hours but he didn't find anything, so he stopped.
Feeling that his body was on the verge of collapse, he decided that he couldn't continue like that.
So, he started to pick up things and put them in his inventory, things that looked clean and not rotten. It was hard, most things in this place were in a constant state of corrosion.
After searching for about 25 minutes, Naruto decided that was enough.
Taking out the things, he started to build a tower in a corner of the room.
After he had placed all the things, he didn't feel comfortable and went back to pick up more.
Another 30 minutes later, the tower almost touched the ceiling.
"Fine, that's enough, I guess... I hope I can rest in this place." With a pious expression, Naruto started to pray to the gods. He didn't believe in any of this, but he hoped this time they could hear him and finally he could sleep.
Naruto climbed the tower of trash he built and went to 'bed'.
He couldn't even notice when he fell asleep, the moment he lay on it, his conscience vanished.
As he went to sleep, his body began to suffer the consequences from overexerting himself.
The red chakra began to run through his body, trying to repair the damaged zones. That continued for two hours and most of his chakra reserve was empty.
Another hour passed and this time he had visitors. Rats began to appear near the room.
They didn't notice that a kid was sleeping in it, and that continued for 35 minutes until they started to enter the room. They needed to verify that everything was in order.
The moment they entered, they could see something strange. A bunch of things were stacked in a corner.
They slowly approached it, they needed to know what that was. Then, a smell covered their noses, it was a smell they didn't know, something unknown.
The captain sent one of them to investigate. As the rat was climbing the tower, the smell was stronger.
At the top, an unknown creature rested. Seeing a new prey, it wanted to bite him, but it didn't know how because the creature was covered. It continued looking and noticed that upper on his knee, he hadn't protection.
With an objective clear, the rat bit.
The sudden pain awoke Naruto, his head felt heavy and numb, he didn't remember where he was. But the pain was real.
Without time to react, he landed a punch to the rat.
The impact sent the rat to the ground, and the others started to hiss at him.
That familiar sound finally woke him up.
The rats... kuh...
The pain on his knee felt horrible, the one who bit him wasn't a small one, it was one of the rats he had been killing hours ago.
If he hadn't defended himself at that moment, the rat would have taken off a piece of his body.
"These damn vermin..." The feeling of being awakened without resting well filled his head with rage. He was already fed up with them during the day and now, even when he was sleeping, they wanted to bother him?
He didn't think twice and threw himself to the ground. With the hammer in one hand and a stone in the other, he began to fight with them.
Just recently awakened, he felt his body was slow, but that didn't matter. The rats just ran in a straight line at him, only dodging when they saw him land a strike.
The process of killing hundreds of rats was teaching him enough to deal with a small amount of these.
Moving his chakra through his body, he tried to focus a portion of it on his hand to hit harder, but he didn't know how to do it correctly.
It was supposed that Iruka would teach them that in the next year, he could only try what he thought was right, but doing so hurt him.
He felt like something was hitting his hand from the inside.
Trying to ignore the sensation, he landed a kick to the rat he threw before, the fall disoriented it, and the kick broke its spine. One less, 6 remained.
The other rats didn't wait for their mate and started to attack him. They always tried to bite his ankles, the boots he equipped could help him, but not forever, a bite from them in the same position would destroy the object.
He raised his feet a bit and the rat couldn't stop its race, when it was below his feet, he crushes its head. One less, 5 remained.
He couldn't continue doing the same, the rats began to separate and run towards him from different directions. Making a leap, he impulsed himself off the wall and started throwing stones at them.
Those ninja tools lessons will finally be useful
The stones were small, but the force with which he used to threw them wasn't. It was enough to incapacitate vermin.
Two less, 3 remained.
He hit the others, but it wasn't fatal, and they recovered after rolling a bit.
Throwing more stones to distract the others, he went straight for one of them. The rat couldn't dodge it after being hit by the stone.
Crushing its head with the hammer, Naruto didn't lose time and went straight for the others before they could recover from it.
With only two remaining, it was easy for him to do it. Less than a minute later, all the rats were killed.
He felt exhausted but he knew that he couldn't stay here, the noise might call more rats.
When he wanted to collect the fragments, he felt stunned for a bit, his head felt heavy, and he hadn't sleep enough. And he noticed something this time.
[Discompose the body into items?]
This is new.
Thinking about it, the body disappeared in a blue light. A piece of leather fell onto the ground.
Picking it up, Naruto checked the information.
[Fragment of rat leather: Gather 5 to form a piece]
So, this is what the Shopkeeper was talking about. Okay, it will be useful later, I think.
Collecting all the fragments, Naruto left the room and continued his journey.
He didn't believe that she wouldn't leave a place to sleep after being trapped here.
He felt hungry from the excessive use of red chakra during his sleep, but there was no time to eat here.
Walking through the passages, Naruto went in another direction with fewer rats, he continued like that and changed direction every time he heard a pack of rats.
After doing that for almost 6 hours, he finally found it.
A wooden door was in front of him, light could be seen inside.
[Change of location: Safe zone-bedroom]
He didn't think twice and opened the door, and he saw it, a bed. It looked old but it was a bed.
Closing the door, Naruto threw himself onto the bed and fell asleep.
This time no one came to bother him, and he could sleep until the next day. His body was recovered in its best condition except for his hunger.
12 hours later he awoke.
He felt confused and disorientated. So many hours of sleep made his mind a mess.
Stretching, he got up off the bed and took his bottle of water.
Taking a sip, he felt better.
He was ready for more.
But Naruto didn't leave the bedroom immediately, no, he needed to remember this place or make a map. The only thing he could think of was the rat leather.
He took a fragment, grabbed a stick, and burned the tip with the torch.
Using his memories, he created an improvised map of the zone. Now with a map, he was ready.
Naruto didn't save it in the inventory; he put the piece in his pocket.
Leaving the room, Naruto kept his eyes on the scene in front of him. It was different from yesterday. The wall was replaced by a plaza.
Naruto had a bad feeling about that.
With his eyes trembling, he turned to the bedroom and he could see it.
A wall, the bedroom disappeared and only a wall remained.
...
Naruto's life in the dungeon began.