Rise of the Demon King: Caleb Gonzales's Rat Race

Chapter 5: Eating the Demon Wolf

[Caleb Gonzales]

[Level 2]

[Species: Demon Rat]

[Strength: 4]

[Intelligence: 6]

[Stamina: 4]

[Endurance: 5]

[Dexterity: 5]

[Mana: 7]

It looked like he had gotten lucky and only needed to spend two stat points to raise his Strength stat to a decent level where he could actually chew on the meat of the demon wolf. That had left Caleb with four stat points left to use. He knew he should save the rest for emergencies, but after everything, he didn't feel comfortable leaving the rest of his stats as they were.

After raising his Stamina and Endurance stats to four, he had been left with one stat point left. He considered saving it for a brief moment, but ultimately added it to his Endurance stat in hopes that it would make him sturdier in future fights. Now all that was left was to actually eat the demon wolf's corpse. With a grimace, he went right to work.

[You have eaten a portion of a demon wolf. Your Strength stat has gone up by one.]

[You have eaten a portion of a demon wolf. Your Stamina stat has gone up by one.]

[You have eaten a portion of a demon wolf. Your Endurance stat has gone up by one.]

"Ugh. I hope I never have to do this again," Caleb said as he plopped down on the ground, unable to eat anymore.

Caleb had barely eaten any of the corpse, which wasn't surprising. He would have been shocked if he could even eat a tenth of it, and it did quell the hunger he hadn't realized was there. However, what caught his attention more was how three of his stats had risen. The Strength stat was expected, but he didn't think his Stamina and Endurance would go up.

[Caleb Gonzales]

[Level 2]

[Species: Demon Rat]

[Strength: 5]

[Intelligence: 6]

[Stamina: 5]

[Endurance: 6]

[Dexterity: 5]

[Mana: 7]

With a sigh, he muttered, "I can't believe I wasted my stat points raising them. I should have waited until I ate first."

Well, there was no use crying over spilled milk. At least he had gotten stronger just by eating, which he could say was slightly better than how the game dealt with stats. In the game, raising stats was like gambling, which was something that had frustrated him. Stats would go up when performing certain actions, like in other games, but the chances of it happening were randomized.

Randomized. He could perform the same action multiple times on one day and not earn a single stat point. The next, he could suddenly gain one by just performing the action once. It made no sense, and he had made sure to put that in the bug report he had sent to the makers of the game. If it wasn't a mistake, then he had to wonder what they were thinking when implementing it.

Also, increasing the stats got harder as the game progressed, so perhaps he had gotten lucky by becoming a demon rat. Who was he kidding. The 'heroes' hunted demon rats like him as a beginner's quest, and there was a chance he would bump into them at any given time. He didn't even know which country he was in right now, so hiding would be difficult.

"System, can you tell me where exactly I am?" he asked.

[The user is in the Kingdom of Shadarwen. The system will display the map of the kingdom.]

He really lucked out. That also happened to be the place he had chosen to play. Whether it was by chance or he had been purposely sent to this place, it didn't matter. What mattered was that he knew this place like the back of his hand. What was even better was that the system had a real map. In the game, maps weren't a feature, which had been a pain.

Caleb could recall how he spent hours trying to figure out where to go. It had been the most agonizing experience to have to retrace his steps when he realized he had gone the wrong way. There were many times where he wanted to throw the game out the window after wasting hours redoing the same quests over and over because he failed them due to not reaching the location in time.

"Well, enough reminiscing. Let's see where we are." After scanning the map, he said, "System, should I assume the red dots are enemies, the green dots are allies, and the gray dots are neutral parties?"

[The user is correct.]

"I don't see any green dots. It's basically all red," Caleb said.

[The user is correct.]

"Doesn't that mean I have no allies? How does that make sense? Shouldn't there be some green? What about the other demons?" he demanded.

[The user is a demon rat.]

That was right. Demons only cared about strength. As he was basically at the bottom of the hierarchy, they would only view him as something not worth noticing or treat him like the rodent he was. If he were a higher ranking demon, he could make other demons obey him more easily. How was he supposed to create an army to protect himself?

His shoulders slumped. "Then what about the star? What does it stand for?"

In the game, it had represented the place where the heroes were summoned, which had been the castle in the capital. Was it supposed to represent where he had woken up? However, the star was actually quite far from where he was. Sure, he had done a bit of running, but he didn't think he had traveled a couple of miles in such a short period of time.

[The star represents the user's current home base. When the user moves their home base, the star will move to the new location.]

"Home base? What was I doing so far from my home base?" he asked.

[When the user was brought here, the user was accidentally dropped off at the wrong coordinates.]

Of course it did. "Can you tell me anything about my home base? Actually, never mind. I'll find out when I get there."

Since it was his home base, he should be safe there for the time being. Leaving the corpse behind because he couldn't bring it with him, he made his long trek home. Fortunately, he didn't encounter any enemies along the way, and he wasn't as easily tired as before. He took back his earlier words and was glad he had increased his Stamina stat.

When he finally reached his destination, he didn't expect to stand in front of a cave. "Why would my home base be a cave? I thought rats lived in nests."

The system didn't say anything as Caleb entered the place after some hesitation. He could barely see anything and vowed to change his home base as soon as possible. It was inconvenient to have to roam around in the dark, hoping he wouldn't bump into something. His ears and whiskers twitched as he heard noises in the distance.

"What is that?" The system remained silent. "System?"

That's when he realized the noises were heading in his direction. All thoughts about it being safe there flew out the window. In a panic, Caleb spun around to hightail out of there, but he ended up tripping over his feet and landing face first into the ground. By the time he recovered, it was too late. The source of the noises was already upon him.