Tutorial Rewrite 63 (Patreon)

Giving a silent prayer to whoever will listen, I heave myself over the ledge and begin my descent. The very second I placed my exposed, supple flesh and skin in front of the bat inferno, the lot of them decided that just flying in circles was apparently not good enough for them, and they decided to have a bat mitzvah on my legs, and my back, and my arms, and even my face. Trying to bat them away was like trying to use a towel underwater. Every bat I ripped off and clenched in my hand was just as soon replaced by yet another, and another, and another.

Countless bats. So many bats I couldn’t have counted them even if I had all the time in the world.

I can’t count the times I wanted to just stop bothering with the bats. Killing them would just replace them, so what was even the point? But if I stopped trying to kill them all, then I wouldn’t have any way of replenishing energy. Grabbing every bat I could get and crushing it to paste and then stuffing it in my mouth was the only real way of dealing with the swarm.

Within only minutes, I was so covered with bats I had turned completely brown and furry myself. They were everywhere, even in my own damn eyeballs. Since I couldn’t exactly focus on the ones in my eyes alone, I had no choice but to accept the fact that I would just have to be blind the entire way down. That wasn’t much different from floor 4, so it wasn’t too bad. The only difference from my climb to the chalice was that this time I was going down, and this time, I was carrying about ten kilos worth of bats.

<You have learned:

Indigestion Resistance Lv.2>

<You have learned:

Indigestion Resistance Lv.3>

<You have learned:

Parasite Tolerance Lv.6>

<You have learned:

Parasite Tolerance Lv.7>

<You have learned:

Parasite Tolerance Lv.8>

<You have learned:

Virus Tolerance Lv.4>

<You have learned:

Virus Tolerance Lv.5>

After some time, I could swear my stomach contained more bats than were on my back.

I feel bloated. I can hear nibbling and suckling across my entire body. I think I can even hear some bat teeth scraping against my bones. They started chewing not long ago. They just weren’t happy with my blood alone. But the bats are one thing. I can tolerate them, to some extent. The issue is that my feet and hands are starting to get too bloody to have a proper grip.

<You have learned:

Climb Lv.6>

<You have learned:

Climb Lv.7>

I’m compensating by forcefully shoving my clawed fingers into whatever crevice I can find, but the second I lose one finger too many, I’m a goner. Losing one or two fingers is fine. I can grow them back with salamander healing and moving meditation, but this whole situation is starting to get to me just a bit too much. The bats are one thing. The steep descent is one thing. But together? Not a fun combo.

The only good thing is that a stupidly high number of my tolerances and resistances are rising at a very steady pace.

My head is spinning. Now that I think about it, it’s been spinning for the past hours or days or years or so. I can’t really think. I pluck a bat from the back of my neck, crush it in my hand, and stick it in my mouth.

<You have learned:

Clutch Lv.6>

I wonder if the bats are endless. Do they count as enemies? Will I need to defeat all of them in order to get a complete clear? They have levels, though all of them are at level one. If I had my Touch of Reverse Tolerance at the resistance level, I might have been able to, like, spread a plague of some sort among the bats, but even then, they’re already diseased as it is. I don’t think any bacteria or virus I can give them would even be able to stand on the same stage as whatever they’ve already given me.

Ah, bats… I think, if I wasn’t covered head to toe with bats, I would probably have frozen to death at this point. Though, then again, they are also actively chewing away at my flesh and bone, so the price is heavy. These past hours or so, I’ve been catching bats and putting them into my inventory instead of eating them. My plan is that if I can just string together enough bat skins, I should be able to make a pretty cool cape of some sort. Or something. Assuming all my duplicates don’t get sold like last floor, that is.

I take another step down.

I tear a bat off my back and stick it in my inventory.

I take another step down.

I tear a bat off my leg and stick it in my inventory.

I take another step down.

I tear a bat off my face and stick it in my inventory.

I take another ste—

My foot slips on something, possibly my blood, possibly a loose rock, and my hands grip for something, anything, in sheer blind panic, unfortunately only finding loose rocks and I only have six fingers right now anyways so even if I had grabbed something this would still have happened so as vertigo takes hold of my body and the screeching of bats turns louder and louder my body slips off fully and my heart sinks as I begin to fall, and fall, and fall, and fall, and fall, and my mind whirls and my body whirls and I spin round and around and around with the bats clinging to my body like mad, and somewhere deep inside my head, inside maybe the only part of my head that can keep calm no matter what, I start counting, slowly, one, two, three, four, fi—

And then I hit the ground.

My head bursts open and my bowels burst open and the only reason I didn’t instantly die on the spot is because I’m covered by a layer of bats but even that isn’t enough as my body spasms violently. My brains are on the ground. I’m on the ground. My jaw moves robotically in circles. My spine is broken. I can’t feel my legs. I don’t want to die. Where did my eyeballs go. If the bats weren’t dead beneath me they would be eating me.

Ooo—ooww.

<You have learned:

Brain Damage Resistance Lv.6>

<You have learned:

Brain Damage Resistance Lv.7>

<You have learned:

Brain Damage Resistance Lv.8>

<You have learned:

Brain Damage Resistance Lv.9>

<You have learned:

Brain Damage Resistance Lv.10>

<You have learned:

Brain Damage Protection Lv.1>

<You have learned:

Falling Tolerance Lv.7>

<You have learned:

Falling Tolerance Lv.8>

<You have learned:

Falling Tolerance Lv.9>

<You have learned:

Falling Tolerance Lv.10>

<You have learned:

Falling Resistance Lv.1>

<You have learned:

Organ Rupture Tolerance Lv.7>

<You have learned:

Organ Rupture Tolerance Lv.8>

<You have learned:

Fracture Protection Lv.2>

The darkness takes me.