How to Get Girls, Get Rich, and Rule the World (Even If You're Ugly)
Chapter 59: How to NOT get in home after a long night in a manhole (3)

Chapter 59: How to NOT get in home after a long night in a manhole (3)

The tunnel felt smaller now, and it wasn’t just my imagination. Each breath seemed to consume the last traces of oxygen, and the remaining air came in dense, contaminated, saturated with the vapors of decades of rot compacted into stone.

The walls were sweating moisture, but there was something more — as if the old concrete was slowly giving back every secret it had absorbed over the years. The space between me and the rat was short, but the time between my heartbeats stretched out with cruelty.

Blood ran from the cut on my arm, hot and throbbing, mixing with the muck on the ground like spilled paint on a ruined canvas.

Behind me, Thalia tried to stay still, but her panic vibrated in the air like a muffled drum, pulsing right at the back of my neck. I felt it. All of it.

The creature still stared at me, and now there was a slight sway in its body — not nervous, but ready. An animal rhythm, instinctive, that comes right before the leap.

I had seen that before — not in rats, but in fighting dogs, in cornered men, in predators who had learned to love the blood more than the victory. The tunnel was the arena, and we were both at its center.

I needed a way out. But there was no way out. Only forward, and the rat.

The pickaxe, my usual companion, had been left behind — a tactical mistake, justified by the need to move light, to appear civilized in a city that only accepted appearance as currency. Now, the price of that choice was bleeding down my wrist.

"Think, Dante. Think."

[ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS]

→ Visibility: Low – light only from magical sparks

→ Air Quality: Contaminated – suffocating, saturated with flammable gas

→ Mobility: Limited – confined space, slippery terrain

→ Hazards: Fire magic may cause explosion - No solid footing - Psychological strain (claustrophobia, blood, panic)

The environment was against me: tight space, no room to swing, ceiling low enough to kill any hope of momentum. But I still had fire.

Not enough to set the tunnel ablaze — not safely. But enough to cause pain, shock. Maybe open a window.

The sparks, used so far as a beacon, could be weaponized. If I channeled more magic into my fingers, maybe I could generate a short but intense discharge — like a magical shock at a focal point. Not lethal. But strong enough to stun.

Another option was to use the environment. I’d seen before a buildup of flammable sludge where the air felt warmer. If I could make the rat retreat there...

But that would require risk. A deliberate move. A bet that it would follow me. And that I’d be fast enough to ignite the floor without igniting myself.

[CURRENT STATUS – DANTE]

→ Health: Wounded (deep bite, bleeding arm, fatigue)

→ Resources: = Fire magic (usable in short bursts, risky in current environment) = No weapon (pickaxe abandoned)

→ Mental state: Focused but strained, high pressure, calculating under stress

→ Actions Taken: Used concentrated spark to stun enemy - Engaged in close-quarters combat - Crushed enemy skull manually

My eyes searched for something. Anything. A chunk of stone, a broken stick, a bone. Nothing. Only sludge, scraps, and the rhythmic sound of the monster’s breathing ahead.

I took a deep breath. The pain in my arm was constant, but no longer burned — it had become a warning, a reminder that hesitation came with a price.

The creature stepped forward.

And I decided.

The whole world became the tunnel. The city, the mission, the past — all erased. Only this remained: a beast between me and the exit.

I raised my hands — not in defense, but attack. The energy was already pulsing in my fingers, hot, insistent. I let it rise, not like an explosion, but like a tide — steady, silent, threatening. The rat stepped back half a centimeter, not out of fear, but recognition. It knew something was coming.

And then, I moved.

Not with a scream. Not with heroics.

With resolve.

I slid along the tunnel wall, feet slipping in the sludge, shoulder scraping stone, sparks glowing like invisible teeth. I aimed for the creature’s flank and discharged the gathered energy directly into its exposed neck, between filthy fur and rough cartilage.

The light exploded like muffled thunder.

The stench of burned fur filled the air like a heavy cloak.

The beast shrieked — a grotesque, high-pitched sound of pure rage and surprise.

And the real fight began.

The creature’s screech echoed through the tunnel like thunder buried under wet earth. The improvised electric shock didn’t kill — only enraged. The rat leapt with a guttural snarl, and this time came with everything: outstretched paws, claws wide, teeth bared, aiming to bury its skull into my shoulder.

I rolled to the side, feeling my flank scrape against stone and mud, and struck with my right forearm, hitting the creature’s snout.

It pulled back, but only out of instinct.

I saw it in its eyes — this wasn’t about hunting anymore. It was war.

With my body tensed and muscles burning, I surged forward again. My feet slipped with each step, and the pain from the earlier bite burned like fever in the flesh. The creature snapped at the air near my throat. Close.

I managed to lock its neck with my left forearm, using my body to pin it against the wall. But the beast was strong. Stronger than anything that size should be.

Its thick tail wrapped around my leg and knocked me off balance. We both crashed into the mud — a whirlwind of fur, blood, screams, and animal breath.

On the ground, the fight became a massacre.

Not out of technique.

Out of desperation.

I grabbed the creature’s head with both hands and slammed it. Once, twice, three times against the soaked floor. Bones began to give, but it still thrashed. Thick blood splashed across my face. Something snapped with a wet crack. The rat’s jaw finally loosened.

I didn’t stop.

I only stopped when the skull was split open and the flesh hung like soaked rags. Entrails burst from the side of its abdomen, sprawled like grotesque ropes across the tunnel’s sludge. Its paws twitched one last time—reflexively... and then, nothing.

[CURRENT STATUS – RAT]

→ Health: Dead (skull shattered, internal rupture)

→ Traits Noted During Fight:

→ High resilience (survived shock and multiple blows before death)

→ Adaptive (adjusted tactics, used tail to trip)

→ Rage-driven (ceased strategic behavior after being wounded)

I breathed.

Heavy. Irregular. Gasping.

With the creature dead beneath me, the entire tunnel seemed to freeze for a moment.

Silence.

Almost silence.

Behind me, a different sound: crying.

Thalia was on her knees against the wall, her face buried in her hands, body trembling as if trapped in a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. The sobs came loud, desperate, without rhythm. It was the crying of someone not just afraid... but breaking down.

"Thalia," I murmured, still trying to catch my breath.

She didn’t answer.

With each breath, I could smell the creature on me. Blood, entrails, scorched fur, and something like burned leather. A smell that clung to the soul.

Thalia finally pulled her hands from her face.

Her eyes were wide. Soaked. She looked at me like she had just watched someone turn into a monster.

"You... you killed it..." her voice cracked. "With your hands..."

[THALIA – STATUS]

→ Health: Unharmed physically

→ Mental State: Near breakdown – phobia triggered, frozen in panic

→Combat Role: Passive, non-combatant

→ Rescue Status: Carried by Dante during escape

"I had no choice."

She shook her head.

But not in disagreement.

It was pure denial.

Denial of reality.

She no longer saw the rat. Only the blood. The smell. The sound of the skull cracking.

I didn’t blame her.

But there was no time.

The first sound came as a whisper.

Then it became a tide.

The scraping of claws—hundreds of them—echoing inside the tunnel walls.

I turned around.

The shadows at the far end of the corridor began to shift. Not one shadow.

Multiple.

Pulsing.

Advancing.

And then I saw them.

Rats.

[IMMEDIATE THREAT – SWARM]

→ Incoming: Horde of rats (varied sizes, some as large as prior enemy)

→ Sound Indicators: Echoing claws, low growls, coordinated advance

→ Visibility: Shadow mass approaching

→ Options:

→ Fire magic = suicide

→ Combat = impossible

→ Escape = only viable path

Of all sizes. Small, large, and some nearly as big as the one I had just killed. They came fast. A furry wave of gleaming eyes and bared teeth.

There was no way to fight.

And even if there was... I couldn’t use fire.

The memory hit me like lightning: a magical discharge here, in this enclosed space, with that concentration of gas, in this atmosphere of flammable rot... and we’d both be ash in less than three seconds.

It wasn’t bravery.

It was calculation.

"Thalia!" I shouted.

She didn’t answer. Just looked at me with lost eyes.

I grabbed her by the shoulders, lifted her without waiting for consent, and slung her over my shoulder like a sack of drenched linen.

She screamed, weakly, but didn’t resist.

I ran.

The tunnel sloped slightly ahead, suggesting an exit, maybe a turn, maybe just another kind of hell. It didn’t matter.

I ran with her in my arms, body aching, breath faltering, and the sound of the rats growing louder behind me.

The tunnel shook.

Not from structure.

But from life.

And that life...

was coming.