Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Eighth, escape the lab

The stairs are long. I knew that, of course, since I read the map, but knowing the length of a journey and understanding it are two completely different things.

Look, I’m patient. I have to be. After all, advancement is more important to me than anything else, and that includes entertainment.

Still, an hour into the trek, I’m starting to get bored. My physical body isn’t tiring much, which I think must be thanks to the demonic musculature that I have. Whatever those lab techs did to make me, I must be past the peak of human bodily functions.

As I walk, I think. Obviously, I’m still hyperaware of the space around me, but the staircase up is just flight after flight after flight of monotony. If it weren’t for the numbers indicating how many I’ve climbed, I could believe that I’m in a timeloop.

71, 72, 73…

Here and there, service doors extend into small hallways. I go down one of them at one point, but there’s really nothing there. There’s a couple cabinets that have SUPPLY KIT labels on them, but they’re empty. To blindly speculate, I think that the previous residents of this place had to evacuate, and they took many of the valuables with them.

Well, it’s also possible that there’s actual maintenance going on, but I doubt that they’d said anyone this deep, right?

I stay on my guard regardless. I try to train the skills I have, but it’s not terribly fruitful. I manage to get Shape Self to level 2—the moment I feel the skill come off cooldown, I use it to increase my height once again and start on my face. It’s a little complicated to do, since I don’t have a mirror, but I try to mimic Marie Jade’s eyes and skin. I won’t be able to check my work for a while, since there’s no reflective surfaces here, but I make do with it anyway.

And as soon as it levels up, I’m able to use it again, so I do. At this point, I have to be a solid five and a half feet tall. Average height for a human female, I’m pretty sure, and if the pictures I have are anything to go off of, I should have a somewhat accurate body. My torso is still mostly demonic, since I found that least important. I’ll fix it the next time I have Shape Self off cooldown.

137, 138, 139…

Unfortunately for me, all of my other skills refuse to level up, even though I make active use of Stealth the entire time.

Well, I suppose that’s not too surprising. A staircase is not exactly the highest-quality training room, and there’s no monsters for me to train myself on. The greatest gains I’ve made so far were made when I killed other living beings.

When I get to the surface, I’ll kill more. Assuming there’s more entities I can Devour up there, at least.

164, 165, 167…

At the 175^th marking, I can see the light above changing. I’m near the top.

Just over ten minutes later, I arrive at the 200^th flight of stairs only to find that there are no more.

There’s only one corridor and a single door between me and the outside world.

I don’t hesitate, not even throwing a glance at the lab behind me. The door is unlocked, and it opens with surprisingly little sound. I step out unceremoniously.

The beauty of the outdoors slams into me all at once, flooring me. It’s some indeterminate time at night. The two moons shine faintly in the sky, framed against a carpet of twinkling stars. Around me, evergreen trees rise proudly, reaching so high into the air that they seem to brush against the celestial bodies themselves.

Then reality settles in, and I tense.

Not all of the trees are tall and prideful—in fact, most of them aren’t, which is why I can see the sky’s beauty in the first place. That’s not just because there aren’t trees. As I look around, I see fallen trunks, trees marked with deep scratch marks made by claws that have to have been larger than my entire body, patches of scorched dirt where nothing grows, splashes of blood here and there, and a glint of something that might be a discarded weapon… or bone.

The outdoors looks no safer than the lab where I was created. This looks like a warzone, and from the freshness of those bloodstains, it is one.

I draw as hard as I can on Stealth, but I don’t return into the unassuming door behind me.

Sure, the outdoors might be danger, but danger is good. It means opportunities.

I spam Appraise a few times, scanning the area like I did wihen I was finding EV11, but I don’t find anything.

Alright. I don’t think there’s any enemies in the immediate area, though I also don’t know if Appraise is infallible. It’s still only Bronze-tier just like all my other skills, after all.

I move away from the complex’s door, memorizing its location, and I move as quietly as I can. It’s exponentially more important now that I’m out of the complex, since it’s pretty obvious that there’s a lot of enemies out here.

Stealth advanced to level 5!

Stealth (Common)

Tier: Bronze

Level: 5

Your steps are silent when this skill is active.

Now that is a solid benefit. I wonder what I’ll gain with further levels in the skill.

What’s the difference between here and the stairs? Even while practicing Stealth as much as I could, I didn’t advance at all down there, while simply slipping into the shadows here leveled it up instantly. Maybe imminent threats to me make leveling easier, even if I’ve not yet encountered them.

After all, my enemies could be Stealthed as well.

I recall the map, not bothering to take it out. If the notes on it were accurate, then I should head north, which is directly away from the door I left from. Once I make it a couple of miles, there should be an outpost that has transportation to major cities.

What cities are major? That’s a good question, and one that I don’t have the answer to yet. That’s all I got from the map.

One thing at a time.

I advance forward, placing my steps carefully. Even with fully silent steps, I need to be careful not to leave traces of myself. I step over dry leaves, around bloodstained grass, and through a thicket of trees within the first hundred steps.

Ten minutes in, I find the first body.

It doesn’t come as a shock to me. It’s human, and it’s completely and totally decomposed. There’s little left other than the bones and chunks of slowly-disintegrating flesh.

The body’s head is missing, severed cleanly at the neck. Whatever killed this person, it clearly didn’t stay for long enough to consume the rest of their body.

I find out why a moment later when I try to Devour them and find that there’s no XP available. Maybe they’ve been dead too long.

Whoever this was, they died wearing a uniform, a grey and dark blue coat with similarly-shaded pants. Their top is crusted with days-old blood that must’ve flowed down from their fatal wound and dried there.

Site-17 Auxiliary Security D-12, I read. There’s Common text sewn into parts of the coat, indicating who this person was in life.

I kneel and pat the skeleton down, searching for anything that might be useful. They must’ve been traveling light or been relying entirely on skills to survive, because I don’t find anything useful.

Instead, I steal the uniform, leaving the bloody skeleton behind. The dead body had a similar build to me, around the same width and height, so this is actually usable. Thankfully, it turns out that my skills work on even old dry blood.

I use Shape Blood to get the worst of the gore off, cleaning it off just enough for me to put it into my pack. It’s ripped in places, but that only makes sense. The underbrush isn’t very nice to walk through, and if the signs of monsters I see here tell me anything, it’s that I should be glad to have a mostly-intact uniform.

I keep walking, my senses on edge. The bushes rustle, but even as I freeze and throw an Appraise, I find nothing. The sounds in the air could just be the wind, or they could be a fast-flying animal about to tear me apart.

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My increasing paranoia is finally validated after another seven minutes of walking. This time, when I hear steps next to me, I whip my head around and Appraise. Even without the skill, though, I spot my enemy.

Hanging on a literal piece of thread from a nearby tree branch is an albino spider the size of my torso.

Name: MSV772

Age: 0

Race: White Spider

Class: Teraspinnan

Level: 4

Last Used Skill: Thread-weaving

Level 4 is pretty high, but this seems a lot less scary than EV11. I suppose the race and class being different affects it, but I can worry about those questions later.

First, I need to kill it.

My knives flash into my hands immediately, my constantly-on-edge mind firing on all cylinders, and I sprint forward at it.

The Teraspinnan detaches itself from the tree and shoots a thread at the ground, propelling itself forward. Its motions are jerky and unpredictable, but that doesn’t matter as much when I can track it.

There’s benefits to a human-shaped body with demonic power behind it, and a strong body is part of that. I twist to one side as it jumps towards me, sliding under its leap—and then it readjusts midair.

A sticky thread impacts my still-demonic chest, and the white spider pulls itself towards me, its eight limbs and eyes flaring out as it approaches.

It latches onto my now-human face, barbed legs digging into my skin, and twin spikes of pain erupt as it sinks its mandibles into my neck.

Irritating, but not impossible to deal with.

It becomes a little more irritating a moment later when the pain redoubles, breaking through my Pain Resistance. I manage to push it aside anyway, but the burning sensation spreads through my veins, exploding inside me.

I know what this is. I use the same attack.

I won’t let it beat me with that, so I bite it back, activating a Venomous Bite of my own.

At the same time, I stab it from two sides, using Knifefighting to ensure both of my hits are as devastating as I can make them.

And my skin is still burning.

New skill unlocked: Poison Resistance

You take 40% less damage from poison and venom.

It lessens enough for me to set the pain aside once more, and I stab the spider again and again and again.

This thing’s battle plan is to latch onto its victims and disable them. I haven’t been disabled, and it hasn’t learned how to adapt.

With each attack, I use Enhance Bleed, followed by a Shape Blood to control the leaking crimson, shaping spears to assail it more.

Enhance Bleed advanced to level 2!

It’s dead within the minute.

Devour granted +31 XP!

Spiders aren’t that appetizing, and the XP this one granted isn’t anything special, either. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s lower than what I would’ve received from a similarly-leveled EV.

As soon as I finish consuming its corpse, I get moving.

Poison Resistance advanced to level 2!

Poison Resistance advanced to level 3!

Hm. That venom’s still acting in my body. Honestly, it’s kind of nice. I won’t say no to fast leveling, and it doesn’t hurt enough for me to care. Plus, Demonic Heritage will restore me to full health soon enough.

I check my stat screen and find that I’m painfully close to another level. I need to find something else to kill. More things to devour.

Fifteen minutes of northward travel don’t result in an encounter, unfortunately. As I move, pathing through dense shrubbery and thick half-destroyed forest, I find more traces of previous battles. None of it is usable to me, so all I do is stay on guard.

The next skill-up I get is almost completely unexpected. It appears just as I’m about to cross into a wide clearing, calculating the best way to make my way across. It’s five hundred feet wide and almost half as long. Going around it would be a pain, but I might need to depending on whether there’s monsters hiding in the tall grass…

Stealth advanced to level 6!

Stealth (Common)

Tier: Bronze

Level: 6

Your steps are silent when this skill is active. You are 10% harder to see in the dark when this skill is active.

While I’m busy congratulating myself on leveling Stealth up again, I hear it.

Footsteps. Several sets of them, none of them making an attempt to hide themselves. There’s a group. Either they’re utter idiots or they’re fully confident in their ability to stay alive. Given the circumstances, it is almost surely the latter.

I stop moving, relying on my newly-leveled skill as hard as I can. I’m confident in facing one or two monsters. A large group, confident enough to stomp around in this forest?

I hold my breath as their steps start in my direction.

A hundred feet away from me, the first six humans I’ve ever seen emerge into the clearing.

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