Evelyn stared at the roll of black plastic bags in Leo's hand, then at the two hulking insectoid corpses leaking black ichor onto the formerly pristine conference room carpet. A profound disconnect seemed to be happening in her brain. "Take out the trash? What are you talking about? We have to go!"
Leo didn't answer immediately. He walked over to the first Skitterer he'd killed, the one with the broken spear still embedded in its neck. He calmly yanked his weapon free, the sound a sickening squelch. "We are going," he said, his voice flat and matter-of-fact. "But we're not leaving this behind."
He accessed his inventory, and the small, simple box cutter from his janitor's uniform—the one he'd had before the world ended—materialized in his hand. Evelyn watched, her revulsion warring with a morbid curiosity, as Leo knelt beside the dead monster.
This was no hero's pose. This was the practiced motion of a man starting a difficult job. He wasn't savoring a victory; he was beginning a process. He jammed the point of the box cutter into a seam in the creature's carapace, where a leg met the torso. With a grunt of effort, he sawed through the tough, rubbery membrane connecting the joint.
"What are you doing?" Evelyn whispered, horrified.
"Field stripping," Leo replied without looking up. "The System gave me loot, but the body is still here. It's a resource. This carapace is harder than kevlar. The claws are sharper than steel." He worked with a meticulous, unsettling efficiency, his janitorial precision now applied to amateur butchery. The process was gruesome, punctuated by the wet tearing of sinew and the crack of chitin.
Evelyn, the senior risk analyst, felt her brain reboot. She suppressed her gag reflex and forced herself to analyze the situation. Threat: immediate danger from other monsters. Asset: a man who could kill them. Secondary Asset: the monsters themselves. Risk: staying here too long. Reward: acquiring valuable materials. Her mind, trained to see the world as a spreadsheet of profit and loss, slowly began to align with Leo's terrifying pragmatism.
She watched as he successfully severed a leg, then used the creature's own razor-sharp claw to more easily cut and pry off a large, curved section of its back plating. The piece was about the size of a riot shield.
[You have acquired (1) Large Skitterer Carapace.]
[This item is too large for standard inventory. Would you like to break it down? Y/N]
"No," Leo muttered under his breath. He took one of the heavy-duty trash bags, slid the large carapace inside, and then, to Evelyn's astonishment, placed his hand on the bulky, lumpy bag. It shimmered and vanished.
"How…?" she breathed.
"[Waste Disposal]," Leo said, pointing to his temple. "My class skill. It's a small inventory. Thinks everything's trash." He didn't stop working, moving to the second creature. "It's got five slots. My water bottle and energy bar are in two of them. I used the loot drops from the last two Skitterers to fill the rest. Now I have to clear them out to make room." He mentally discarded the two smaller carapace fragments and acid vials from the first monsters, feeling a pang of regret at wasting resources. But the larger, more intact pieces from these two were far more valuable.
In under ten minutes, Leo had harvested four large, curved sections of carapace, four razor-sharp forearm claws, and carefully cut out the two intact acid sacs, storing them in empty water bottles before putting them in his inventory. The conference room now looked less like a battle scene and more like a bizarre, alien abattoir.
While he worked, he opened his own status screen, a detail Evelyn couldn't see. He had 5 points. He'd survived this encounter through cleverness and exploiting a weakness. Wisdom had paid off. But speed—or the lack of it—had almost gotten him killed. He needed to be faster.
[Allocate 3 points to Wisdom.]
[Allocate 2 points to Agility.]
A familiar warmth suffused him, but this time he felt a new lightness in his limbs. His perception sharpened even further. He could now see the individual dust motes dancing in the red emergency light.
Generated code
Name: Leo Miller Level: 3 Class: Janitor HP: 140/140 MP: 75/75 --- STR: 8 END: 15 AGI: 12 INT: 11 WIS: 19 LCK: ? --- Stat Points Available: 0 --- Inventory (Waste Disposal): 1. [Large Skitterer Carapace] in bag 2. [Large Skitterer Carapace] in bag 3. [Skitterer Forearm Claws (x4)] in bag 4. [Skitterer Acid Sac (x2)] in bottles 5. [Half-eaten Energy Bar]
content_copydownloadUse code with caution.
He stood up, wiping black ichor on his pants. "Okay. I'm done. We can go."
Evelyn pushed herself off the wall. "The main stairwell is a kill zone," she stated, her voice now crisp and professional. "I heard at least a dozen people try to go down that way. The screaming didn't last long. But there's a service stairwell. West side of the building, past the executive washrooms."
Leo nodded, impressed. "Is it used often?"
"Almost never," she said. "It's for maintenance and catering. It's not even on most of the public fire escape plans. Less traffic means, hopefully, fewer problems."
Risk analysis. She was already proving her worth. "Lead the way."
They moved through the darkened 44th floor like ghosts. Leo took the lead, his broken spear held at the ready, his senses heightened to an almost painful degree. Evelyn followed close behind, her heels forgotten in the conference room, her movements surprisingly quiet in her stockinged feet. She pointed them down a series of corridors he rarely cleaned, the exclusive domain of the C-suite.
They found the service stairwell behind a door marked 'UTILITY.' It was dark. Not the dim red of the emergency lights, but a deep, oppressive blackness. The air that puffed out as Leo opened the door was cold and smelled of concrete, rust, and something else. Something foul, like old meat.
"Wait," Leo whispered. He retrieved the energy bar from his inventory, took a bite, then stored it again. The small boost of sugar and protein helped clear the last of his fatigue. "Stay behind me. Step where I step."
He entered the stairwell, his eyes slowly adjusting. It was a narrow, concrete chute that spiraled down into infinity. There was no light, save for what little bled in from the hallway behind them. They descended, one flight, two flights. The only sounds were their soft footfalls and the drip-drip-drip of water from somewhere far below.
On the 40th floor landing, they found their first sign of others. A hastily made barricade of office chairs and a vending machine, torn apart from the other side. There were dark stains on the floor and a single, discarded shoe. No bodies.
They kept going, the silence pressing in on them. Leo's enhanced Wisdom was a double-edged sword. He was aware of everything—the scuttling of a normal rat far below, the shift in air pressure as they descended, the subtle vibrations in the concrete under his feet. It was overwhelming.
By the 35th floor, the smell of decay was stronger. Leo motioned for them to halt. He listened, not with his ears, but with the focused intent his Wisdom stat seemed to allow. He felt… a vibration. A low, rhythmic hum. It wasn't mechanical.
He crouched, touching his palm to the concrete floor. The humming was stronger here. It was coming from below.
"What is it?" Evelyn mouthed in the darkness.
Leo shook his head, putting a finger to his lips. He crept to the edge of the landing and peered down into the spiraling darkness. The stairwell continued its descent, but about three floors below, the way was blocked. A mass, a web of some kind, filled the entire stairwell from wall to wall. It was made of a crystalline, shimmering substance that seemed to almost bend the dim light around it, making it difficult to focus on.
And within the web, small motes of light blinked on and off, like malevolent fireflies. They weren't creatures. They were lures. Leo's System-enhanced brain supplied the information unsolicited.
[Glimmerweb (Hazardous Obstruction)]
[Creature: Lvl 5 Stalk-Weaver. Stealth predator. Extremely sensitive to sound and light.]
Stalk-Weaver. The name itself was terrifying. It wasn't a brute like the Skitterers. It was a trapper. An ambusher.
As if to prove the point, a rat, panicked by their presence, scurried down from a higher flight of stairs. It ran past them and continued down, its claws making tiny clicking sounds on the concrete. As it approached the shimmering web, one of the lures pulsed brightly. The rat, mesmerized, ran straight towards it.
The instant the rat touched the web, the entire structure illuminated for a fraction of a second. Leo caught a glimpse of a creature suspended upside down from the ceiling just above the web—a spider-like thing made of pure shadow and sharp, crystalline legs. It moved faster than his eyes could track, dropping onto the rat with a silent, final efficiency. The light from the web vanished, plunging the stairwell back into darkness.
Leo pulled Evelyn back from the edge, his heart pounding.
They were trapped.
Below them lay a silent, light-sensitive hunter's nest. Above them, 10 floors of unknown, uncleared territory. The main stairwell was a deathtrap, and the service stairwell, their one safe path, now led into a predator's parlor. They were cut off, suspended in the dark, and they had just announced their presence.