I won’t go into details about what happened to the goblin’s corpse, except to say that by the time I had finished it – and me – both looked a little worse than before. It was… harvested is as good of a word as any for what happened to it, and I was now covered in blood and goblin guts. I literally had a strand of its guts wrapped around my neck like a scarf. I figured if I was going to test my theory, I might as well do it properly! And if anyone wants to know how I could stand to do such a thing, all I can tell them is this: “A person can do whatever they have to, if they think it’ll help them survive.”

I didn’t enjoy it one bit. I was sticky. It smelt. I kept wanting to gag and my skin felt like it was crawling on my body. But, I don’t regret trying it. If it helps me hunt those rats and survive, I’ll crack open that goblin’s corpse like an overripe pineapple and bathe in its juices. I don’t regret what I did at all. I don’t! At least, that’s what I kept telling myself…

Once I was properly cloaked in a layer of goblin, I gathered up my resolve and eased back over to the door. I might be slow learning, but bite me on the ass enough times and I’ll catch on. No more just walking into places or out of places for me from now on. Look. Peak. Sneak. Observe. And then MAYBE it’s safe to move. It’s probably best to look, peak, sneak, and observe a second time first, just to be certain.

I was getting ready to ease my head around the corner to see if there were any rats near the entrance, when another ideal come to me that might be useful instead! Quickly I backed away from the doorframe and moved back to where all the backpacks were that I’d rummaged food out of previously and I began to look through them again; this time viewing each item in them in a different light.

Guy’s packs I found were mostly useless stuff. Comics or porn, school books, music players, or video games. Junk, junk, and more junk. Girl’s though! Girl’s packs were full of the most wondrous things! I found a compact mirror which I thought would be perfect for peering around corners. Maxi-pads – mysterious items of feminine hygiene that I would’ve avoided like mad in the past – now looked like nothing more than oversized bandages to me. And I even found several vials of what I was thinking might make a very potent secret weapon against the rats! The Maxi-bandages I didn’t need at the moment, nor did I presently have use for my secret weapons, so I gathered all them up and safely packed them into a single pack and put it in the far corner where I’d went to hide from the rats earlier.

I was beginning to feel like I was getting a little more resourceful. I suppose it’s a case of live and learn, or in my case live and die and live and die and live and die and learn…

Finally, I went back over to the doorway and flipped open the case on the compact and eased it around so I could try and catch a reflection of the hallway. In the spy movies they always make it look so simple, just poke the mirror around the corner and look into it, but I didn’t personally find it that easy. For one thing the compact I had wasn’t even quite the size of my hand. For another, it was convex (or concave or whatever you call the shape) so that it made it easier to see the nose and eyes to put make-up on. But, it was the tool I had on hand, and after a few moments twisting and turning and positioning, I felt reasonably certain that there wasn’t any beasts right outside the door to jump on me again.

Snapping shut the compact, I laid it down on the floor near the door and then I finally chanced sticking my own head around the corner to double check. At the moment, the hallway was clear, so I quickly scurried down it and retrieved the rod that I’d dropped earlier while bashing the larger rat off my arm. Once I had a weapon, I still didn’t have any clothes since the last time I’d died and burnt all mine up with my corpse, I decided that I was as ready as I could possibly be once again.

Gently I tapped on the left wall once more. Thump.

When no rats answered the first knock, I did it again a little harder. Thump! Thump.

This time I was rewarded when three rats came out of the room and started sniffing in my direction. Their tails went straight up almost instantly and they hissed in my direction, and one of the beasts slowly backed back into the room. It was working! They truly were afraid of me now! (Or at least afraid of the goblin-stench I was covered in.)

Determined not to let my prey get away, I charged down the hallway and closed the distance between me and the two rats left out in the hall, and much to my surprise they turned and ran from *me* this time! Feeling a rush of adrenaline, I chased them on down the hallway while swinging my club like a madman anytime I got anywhere near them.

It was the birth of “The Bloody Streak!” And surprisingly enough, it was a glorious afternoon, all things considered! (I’m just honestly glad that there wasn’t anyone around to witness my behavior, but a person does what a person has to do, you know.)

It took me three times of banging on the walls and luring a few rats out before I’d killed enough to level up to level 4. When I did, I placed most of my cheat points into CON, taking it up twice, so that if I got hurt in the future I could heal quicker and get back into fighting shape faster. It was quite a bit later that evening before I’d managed to coax out enough rats to hit level 5, and I decided to spend those points on CON once again as well.

One thing I did notice when I leveled up from level 4 to level 5: my health had increased by 12 this time and not 10. Apparently CON doesn’t just help you heal faster; it gives you more life each level. I think for the next four or five levels, it’s going to be the only thing I spend my cheat points on. I figure in the long run it’ll add up to me becoming a lot less likely to die. 10 levels gained with a CON of 10 would give me 100 life. 10 levels gained with a CON of 20 would give me 200 life! I could always get stronger or faster at higher levels, but I could never make up for those lost points in life.

From now till level 10 at least, I’m spending my cheat points in nothing but CON.

Another thing I’d noticed: It was taking me a lot more kills to achieve a level now. One goblin kill got me to level 1. Four rat kills after that and I’d achieved level 2. It took me six more rats and an achievement before I got to level 3. And from level 3 to 5 took almost thirty more rat kills in total. The hallway was littered in rat corpses, and I was tired and exhausted and decided it was time to take a break for the day.

Dragging one of the corpses back to the goblin’s room with me, I sat and reviewed my stats and skills.

Name: Bloody HellTitles: The WitnessAge: 17Level: 5CP: 10STR: 9SYI: 8WIL: 7DEX: 10MYS: 8PRE: 7CON: 14SPR: 4LUC: 11HP: 74MP: 48SP: 24PD: 1DR: 0MR: 0SE: 8

Witness Protection -- ????

Witness Liquidation -- ???

Witness Reconstitution -- ??? (Current death today: 0)Spiritual Manipulation – Allows the user to manipulate the energy of the spirit realm when the conditions are right to do so. (12)Club Use – Proficiency (8)Harvesting (Animal) (1)—Allows the user to attempt to harvest meat and other goods from an animal. The higher the skill, the higher quality animal products that can be harvested.

Seems like I’d also improved my skill with the Club a few times today. I must not have noticed while chasing and smashing rats down the hallway. Those pop-up windows do seem to close if you touch them, and I suppose running into them as soon as they pop into existence would make them almost instantly disappear.

Two levels. 22 more points of life. Two more points in using a club. An achievement which helped me do more damage to rats. (I wonder where the heck it’s listed at?) And I didn’t actually die once today! All-in-all, I think today has been a great improvement over yesterday!

I wish I would’ve saved those points I spent on harvesting, but what’s done is done now. Without some sort of fire, I’m going to have to eat the meat raw no matter what, but I guess it might be worth it to try taking it up while I’m resting tonight. Who knows when what might come in handy in the future. Deciding I was going to go ahead and try to improve it anyway, I went out into the hall and collected all of the corpses of the rats I’d slain today and began trying o harvest them as the sun went down and I was stuck in the pale glow of the emergency lights. Once again I had to thank fortune’s sake for the solar panels on the roof. I don’t know how I would cope if there wasn’t any light at all in the school at night. I’d probably just curl up and cry.

Multiple failures with rat harvests later, with very few pitiful successes, and I managed to get a few chunks of raw meat to eat while increasing my skill up to a 3 in Harvesting (Animal). I suppose proper tools go a long ways for somethings, and I simply didn’t have anything really suitable. Splintered sticks, teeth, and fingers simply ended up ripping and ruining more of the rats than it did actually harvesting them.

But, even with all the failures in harvesting, I’m still happy with the way today turned out. Tomorrow, I think I’m going to go back into that nest and see what’s left in there. By the time I’d finished hunting this evening, it was getting harder and harder to get anything to come out of the room. Unless these beasts respawn somehow like I do, there’s got to be a finite number to them in there – and that numbers got to be smaller than it was yesterday!

Thinking pleasant thoughts of wiping out all the rats and getting revenge for all the students they’d killed and feasted upon, I finally laid down and went to sleep for the night.