Chapter 64: Godly Reward! Literally!

Josh was rushing to a date, a date with rats. He couldn't wait to stab them real hard in the ass with his… But it all came crashing down when this message appeared.

[Insufficient Credits Detected! Would you like to sign a deal with the MTA for Tower access?]

Josh had been so excited that he had forgotten a tiny little problem, he was broke. Once upon a time before his training, he used to have more than 600 credits, but now he instead had a debt of 385, 2 credits extra because of the damn rounding up! Every day there would be 1% interest too.

What a crisis! Or not….An Imp earing sold later, Josh could finally be seen entering the Tower in a red glow.

Anyone seeing his current expression would have believed him to be on his way to meet a world toppling beauty. He was grinning so much, he looked expectant and was even skipping. Josh couldn't contain himself anymore! He quickly dashed into the sea of rats, undaunted by their long, hard, and sharp teeth.

The creatures tried devouring him, but he simply kept killing them, over and over. He could feel himself being surrounded by the warm and oh so very wet torrent of blood as he slaughtered, but there was something wrong.

It truly felt wrong, akin to eating soup with a fork, or playing football with one's hands, or even having the wrong condom size on! That is when he finally understood where the problem lied. He understood why he felt so weird.

Josh concentrated and, in his hands, the sword slowly morphed into a stick. It was a very strange and aberrant-looking stick since it had bladed protrusions but it was one nonetheless. Finally feeling that everything was under control, Josh started whistling a small tune that went da-do-da-da-do.

That is when Josh entered the fray once more. Then began a beautiful symphony. The whistling of a man and the dying squeaks of the innumerable creatures blended to perfection to create the perfect lullaby!

Before, Josh had been fighting the rat swarm with raw power and his weapon mastery, not anymore! No, he was instead figuring out the patterns. He understood how the rats moved, how they attacked, and how they interacted with one another.

Soon, the creatures could be seen hindering each other while Josh simply walked in their midst. This was only possible thanks to the insane training Josh had done and also because the rats themselves were pretty weak individually.

In a way, they were very similar to the goblins he had been bashing over and over. Actually, at least they didn't have any ranged attack either!

Josh was akin to an omen of death for the monsters. There was no stopping him, there was no resisting, there was no hope for them. It was a good thing the rats were not especially sentient or they would have been questioning their existence at the moment.

Why? Simply because this impossibly strong foe in their eyes was currently cackling like a madman while shouting nonsense: "Fear me for I am campfire-less Josh! Without that glaring weakness of mine, I am invincible! I bring doom, I bring retribution, I bring THE stick! Get wrecked!"

Of course, Josh's peculiar boasting didn't impact his ability to kill in any way. He kept slaughtering all the way until the boss suddenly appeared! Then Josh had to start multitasking. Now, he was killing the weak and bullying the strong.

Every time the Boss tried to kill Josh it ended up colliding with many of its brethren before tumbling to the ground. Josh was at peace, Josh was happy, Josh didn't regret one bit using 17% of his lifespan to achieve such prowess.

Then again, lifespan here could be increased. Josh couldn't help but think how great it would have been for Earth to simply get a Tower too. There would have been no stupid summoning and Fallen bullshit for a start.

How many earthlings would have rejoiced? How many would have had their hopes rekindled? So many had been suffering from illness, poverty, accidents, there were so many problems. And yet….the so-called gods had only decided to intervene to create a whimsical death game.

This was akin to a dumb child playing god with ants. Except that in this case, humanity was the ants. Would they be drowned? Would they get smited by divine fire? If Josh was an ant he'd show the gods that ants too could bite, eventually.

He would certainly get stronger, the strongest even, but he would do it his way. He had a plan. Josh would make use of the fact that no one was dumb enough to Solo Climb. How many Solo Clear Feats would he be able to accomplish? That he ignored, but he hoped a sufficient number to give him the strength he required.

Just as he was steadying his resolve the last rat died.

[Alternative Mission Accomplished: Kill all of the Rats Solo!]

[Feat Accomplished! First one to complete the alternative mission! Congratulation!]

[Reward given according to Class! Error! Error!]

[Selecting random reward from all Classes.]

Was that supposed to be good?

[Reward: Mystery Box, God-kin creator Class.]

Mystery box? God-kin?! Any Class with god in its name should be OP, right?! Josh couldn't help but laugh manically: "Nice!!! HAHAHA Break! Break some more for me! Give me all the most insane prizes!" What kind of crazy opportunity was this?!

Josh inspected the mystery box, it simply said that he'd have to open it using the system in order to know what it contained. He prayed to RNGesus before decisively opening it.

A majestic and boundless domineering blue light came out of the box. Josh had to avert his eyes from it. For a split second, the whole dark Floor was instantly brightened as if there was a miniature sun in it.

Josh could feel his heart thumping and his hands shake. This moment would probably be one he would remember forever. Then the light disappeared, that is when Josh noticed that in front of him was a small glowing shadow. As soon as he approached it, came a message.

[Would you like to bind with Godly Pseudo-Pet Rat?]

"Yes! Of course!" Josh didn't even hesitate. Did he personally like gods? Not at all! He thought they were trash character-wise and hateful. But that didn't mean that he was blind either. Gods were extremely powerful.

Anything with godly in its name was bound to be extremely powerful, the kind that could be considered a cheat for sure! Josh wasn't sure about the pseudo-pet part but at least a pet clearly had definitive advantages.

A pet would probably not count as an ally but as part of Josh's strength. In such a manner he would be able to keep accomplishing Solo Feats. Another thing was that a pet was different from a teammate. It would most likely remain loyal no matter what.

[Hatching Godly Pseudo-Pet Rat]

Soon the glowing shadow began taking form. It grew up a bit until it looked quite similar to the other rats on this Floor but it was completely grey, the eyes, the fur, the claws, everything.

[Initiating soul-link]

[Soul link created.]

[Congratulations on linking with Godly Pseudo-Pet Rat!]

That is when Josh felt something. He could feel a presence somehow inside of himself. Was that the soul-link? That is what he was supposed to use to give order to his pet, right? The rat was just sitting there not doing anything.

Josh tried to order it to walk, but it remained motionless. It seemed as if it simply couldn't hear him. That is when Josh tried to sense its spirit directly. He focused on the soul link and...he didn't like what he found. He felt that the pet didn't seem alive.

The rat's soul felt like a rock to Josh. Furthermore, inspecting the rat using the system only gave lots of interrogation marks. It was as if the Tower Protocol itself wasn't sure what it was or was perhaps trying to act mysterious.

That is when Josh took Navi out. "Hey, can you provide me any information about pets?" But sadly all it had as information was the fact that the term Pet had recently been added to its database. This meant it had zero clues at this moment.

Josh simply recalled the Godly Rat, because yes he could do that apparently. Pets were seemingly considered items.

Now, first priority was to get money to clear his name! Josh then started killing the Boss over and over while annihilating any normal rat that would dare respawn. The Boss would appear in utter confusion as it searched for its army.

Josh had a plan, he'd kill the Boss until he had a great number of ratskin boots to sell! Then after that, he'd go information gathering about pets! Good thing he perfectly knew where to go for that!...