I know, I know! I’m a snake and that’s a mouse and it really should be dinner—but it's a mouse. I hate mice!

If snakes could cry, I’d be crying, but I can’t. So right now, I'm just running away from the damn thing as fast as I can. Since turning around isn’t really an option, I quickly slither through the fork opposite of the dirty creature—but it’s brushing my tail with its filthy hands!

It’s enough to pull the combat UI into my vision, and I can see my health bar ticking away one at a time.

“Squeak, squeak!” it goes—probably laughing at me. Or cursing me. I don’t know nor do I care. What I care about is—

“—don’t TOUCH my tail, you—” I hiss and swing back at the mouse’s face with bared teeth. My fangs manage to graze its face. 

I spit in disgust of my own actions, but it finally backs off. All the muscles in my body tense as I hover and sway in the space the tunnel allows. 

“Chit, chit!” says the mouse as we have a standoff.

“What the hell do you want?” I ask. “For me to eat you? I need emergency rations. It would hurt my pride and I’ll probably vomit, but I will do it!”

How many coins would I get for a mouse? I wonder as I size it up.

I’d been living on bugs for about ten coins each. Twenty for beetles. A mouse must be at least a hundred, right? Maybe more?

I clench my jaw and stare at the chattering creature that is the epitome of everything I hate and weigh my options. Continue running, or commit murder.

Hm. Murder. 

Murder the mouse. 

Huh.

I grin and look at my opponent in a new light, but my confidence doesn’t last long.

The mouse lunges at me. I dodge and slither back, slapping it in the face with my tail. It shakes off my feeble blow and claws at my face. I lift my head so it's just out of reach, and the claws just catch air.  

The mouse isn’t big. If I had to guess, we were about the same size. The health bar floating over its head didn’t tell me much other than my previous attack had done next to nothing. 

Luckily it wasn’t all that fast, either; at least not in comparison to my reflexes. As a narrow target, I clearly have the upper hand, but the question remains: How, exactly, is little old me going to kill this thing?

I don’t actually know what kind of snake I am. I know that I have white scales and that I am far from a big, strong, scary snake. I am fairly long, though, and the mouse is small enough that I can probably wrap my body around it two or three times. 

Aside from how gross that thought is, I’m not a huge fan of how open that might leave me to its grubby paws.

I do have my fangs, but I don’t think I have venom. While I haven’t bitten many animals before this, I know for sure that [Poison Fang I] is a fairly expensive store perk and I doubt the system would give me anything for free.

So my options are to attempt to strangle it or whittle away its health by biting it to death.

Both options kind of suck, but hey, that’s the food chain, isn’t it?

Mentally preparing myself for my next moves, I watch every move the mouse makes as it lashes out at me again and again. I can feel it move. With every breath, every quiver, the vibrations in the air telegraph its movement.

A breath there, and it bites. A movement there, and it strikes. With knowledge comes foresight, and with foresight, time seems to warp. I see the future for a brief moment. I envision the way that my body will wrap around the creature’s body and bind it. I see how I will grip it until it dies.

The mouse’s strike misses me again, and I take my opportunity to strike.

Unfortunately, my body is not as efficient as my senses seem to be. Instead of things playing out as I plan, I struggle to get a good grip. It’s not my strength that’s the problem so much as it is my speed and ability. I had forgotten to account for how difficult it would be to gain the leverage I needed to do it properly, and so I end up bashed against the wall of the tunnel.

I let out a hissing cry, but this creature won’t defeat me! Its claws scrap against my white, scaly skin, but I continue to bind it, tighter and tighter until all it can do is feebly claw the air. 

I can feel its fluttering heartbeat. Its panic. It knows I have no intention of letting go.

A sense of morality grips me as I feel the life in my grasp. Unlike the bugs, there is a true sense that this is a living creature, just like me. I hold it immobilized and a new thought flickers through my head:

What if this creature is just like me? A once-human that was given no choice about their fate and only wants to survive like I do. “Murdering the mouse” takes a new light.

But this creature—man or mouse—wants to kill me. Even if I let it go, there will be no communication between us. One of us will die in this tunnel and be food for the other. Whatever I did now only determined the victor.

Am I a bad person if I kill this mouse? My emotional-brain asks as it flounders with last minute ethics.

Will you give up your life for a moral quandary you’ll probably never get an answer for? My logic-brain jabs back in alarm as I struggle to hold my enemy in place. Keyword, Noa: Enemy.

Killing is bad!

Dying is worse!

My hesitation leaves an opening, and the mouse gets enough traction to ram my body into the wall again. Once. Twice. And again.

Its actions are desperate and rabid as I do everything within my power to maintain my grip. The tip of my tail flails and the mouse manages to catch it in its teeth. It burns.

Hissing, I lift my head back and snap my jaws open, letting my long fangs emerge to their full length. Instinct takes over as I dart at its neck.

This time my aim is true and my teeth sink into the mouse’s soft, fleshy neck. The taste of wet, sweet iron runs into my mouth as I squeeze it tight. I can feel the bones crunch under the pressure and it brings me a certain, morbid satisfaction.

The creature isn’t yet dead, but I won this fight. Its weak attempts to free itself slowly die out as the vibrations of life cease.

║Player Noa as successfully defeated [Mouse] 200 Eden Coins have been awarded.║

Unexpectedly, the mouse poofed out of my grasp. I collapsed onto a pile of conveniently sized bits of meat and material. 

A loot pile.

Huh. So I guess I don’t need to worry about the size of my opponents? I just ate the bugs, so if they poofed, I wouldn’t know.

It was also a bonus that a mouse was worth a whole two hundred Eden Coins. 

Five would be worth a thousand, so if I could find fifty or so more then I might be able to level up for once. Evolution by mice extermination. It has a certain ring to it.

Before that, though, I have to deal with the pile of goods on the floor. 

Unlike most games, Final Eden isn’t kind enough to give the players a base inventory. It was, like every other useful thing, a store perk.

One that I don’t have. One that costs a whole five hundred coins.

Then again, maybe I’m thinking about this all wrong because I’m a snake and before now I’ve just been putting pennies in a jar. If a mouse is worth two hundred coins, then what about a mongoose, or something much bigger?

It is a game after all. I’m supposed to graduate from piddly enemies to legendary monsters at some point, right? What I needed was the technology and the abilities to get that far. 

Which meant I probably needed to stop being so stingy with my points and just commit more murder. 

“System, store,” I commanded, and it flickered open again as announced by its annoyingly calm voice. I’m sure I made a face when I purchased the [Inventory I] perk, but I told myself that it was an investment for the future.

Repeatedly. Like a chant. 

It’s an investment, it’s an investment, it’s an investment… And really, it’s closer to skill points, isn’t it? I could save up my points until next level, but what if there are locked skills in the second evolution that I’ll need to have purchased these for? 

If I were human, I probably could have gotten away with that, but since I’m not and I can’t, this was a necessary evil. I might level slower because I have to take my time, but I’ll never level without tools.

I scroll through the store again and hide everything that I can’t use. Rather than items and technology, it's more a store of abilities and traits for me. [Spiked Tail]. [Rattle Tail]. [Cobra Crown]. [Chameleon Skin], and several others. Each has a different cost, and some have a note that they can’t be taken at the same time as other traits.

[Poison Fangs I] is one that I know I’ll need. At one thousand five hundred coins, it would take me a while to acquire but there was hope that it would make gaining points much faster. 

I can also buy stats, each for one hundred coins. This is more affordably realistic, and killing faster would only benefit me. [Perception], [Agility], and [Strength] are the ones I should probably focus on. I pull up my stat screen to confirm what I already know:

⚫

<<Orenoa Dannan - Level 1 - Snake>>

<<Stats:>>

< Strength - 3 >

< Constitution- 5 >

< Resilience - 1 >

< Agility - 7 >

< Intelligence - 4 >

< Wisdom - 6 >

< Presence - 2 >

< Willpower - 2 >

< Perception - 10 >

< Luck- 8 >

⚫

I’m weak.

[Perception] is my highest skill, which explains why my senses kicked into overdrive during the fight. With that in mind, I go ahead and purchase three points of [Agility] and two points of [Strength]. 

Seeing my coins actually hit such a low number for the first time since I joined physically hurts my soul, but I continue to chant my mantra: It’s an investment, it’s an investment, it’s an investment… 

Then I pack my spoils into my new virtual inventory, and go on slithering down the tunnel in search of prey.