It had been a few days or hours—who knows how time passed here—but it had been a long while since Benny went down to the second floor sanctuary to discover if this floor also had that weird magical sub-space thing.
But it was much harder to get to the monsters' place of origin here. For one, the monsters on this floor, the rabbits and scorpions, were far too active. It was a wonder why there was such a stark contrast, but maybe these monsters had already found out that their home in the sub-space could definitely be invaded. Hence the increased patrols and guards on the second floor.
Today, Benny considered what to do, but he was finished with the rabbits. Those fucking hopping sons of bitches were annoying as hell. They had the speed and ferocity to bounce everywhere. So he decided he'd have to find the scorpions' lair instead.
But trying to invade the scorpions was a death sentence in itself. They had many legs and were just as fast as the rabbits. They also had thick carapace armor. And he most definitely couldn't ride them like a mutated rat, unless he wanted to be skewered by their two tails. The four pincers were manageable since they were forward-facing, but getting on top of a scorpion was suicide. So if you wanted to kill the bastard, you'd have to crawl down to its underside. But how you'd achieve that was another task entirely.
Anyway, he'd figured out that these monsters heavily guarded a certain section of this labyrinth floor. So he wondered if that was their place of origin.
It must be, but how would he get there? That was a whole slew of questions running through his mind. Another was: if he was indeed able to confirm it, then what? It's not like he could beat these bastards anyway.
Well, he did at least try, or rather, it was almost an accidental encounter that sent his spine shivering in fear. Imagine meeting these bastards in this dark, gloomy place, massive in size with a lot of weapons up front.
That's exactly what happened when he was about to exit the sanctuary again. Suddenly, a massive silhouette of a dark shadow rose behind him, between the sanctuary and the tight narrow space.
"Fuck!" It was too late, and he hurriedly tried to run away from the scorpion. Instead, he was almost skewered by one of its stingers. These monsters had the ability to see in the dark since they had some sort of heat signature sensors that could differentiate between the living and the inanimate. That was how these monsters had been identifying the rabbits.
They couldn't identify anything other than that or determine species. To them, anything that moved and produced body heat on this floor was a rabbit.
Benny managed to avoid the dangerous attacks until finally one of the patrolling rabbits took interest in the seemingly ongoing battle, thinking one of its own was in danger. These rabbits seemed to form groups when attacking the scorpions. Smart, but Benny didn't have such a grand luxury as teammates. He only had himself now. Benny thought those he'd left behind had long perished, unaware that those he'd abandoned had been steadily retreating back up to the upper floors, hoping to exit this place. They would learn the truth very soon.
After hearing the rabbit come closer, he used that chance to slip away and hide somewhere else. Thankfully, the scorpion armor he wore was enough to dissipate some of his heat signature from the scorpion's thermal vision. But because his body wasn't fully covered, or because he didn't know how those sensors functioned, he didn't realize he was still leaking body heat.
That was indeed a very close encounter with his maker. So after this valuable lesson, Benny figured it was time to head back up. That was what he was going to do in the first place anyway.
Now that he'd given more thought to conquering the rat kingdom, he understood he might have to postpone that further into the future. It was just too impossible for one man. Sure, he might be able to burn a few buildings, but that was it. Fighting the hordes of what seemed to be endless rats with their own society, customs, and military was a task that needed an entire army of humans.
His venture down to the second floor seemed to be coming to a close. He also had additional scorpion armor and rabbit fur. Maybe it was time to advance further down, or he could return to the rat kingdom and look around its environment to see if he could bring back useful resources like wood from the forest there.
He had many more options now than what he'd had a few months or days back. At least now he could choose how much time and effort to put into something, whether discovery, resource hunting, or training himself.
With that realization, Benny reached the stairs that bridged the second and first floors of the labyrinth.
The close call with the scorpion had taught him something important about his limitations. He was getting stronger, sure, and more skilled at navigating this hellscape, but he was still just one man with makeshift gear. The fantasy of single-handedly conquering entire civilizations was exactly that—a fantasy.
But maybe that wasn't the point. Maybe survival wasn't about becoming some legendary hero who could take on armies. Maybe it was about being smart enough to recognize when you were outmatched and finding other ways to achieve your goals.
The rat kingdom had resources he could use. The dimensional barriers had mechanisms he could learn to exploit. The labyrinth itself seemed to be offering him choices through that mechanical voice.
There were paths forward that didn't require him to become a one-man army. He just had to be clever enough to find them and patient enough to build toward them gradually.
As he climbed the spiral stairs back to the first floor, Benny felt something he hadn't experienced in a long time: genuine optimism. Not the desperate hope of someone clinging to survival, but the calculated confidence of someone who was starting to understand the game he was playing.
He was still the same cowardly guard from Tiamerith, but now he was a cowardly guard with options. And sometimes, options were worth more than courage.