We’re instantly on guard. Chris raises his shield, Kim shoulders her rifle, and I hold my shovel like a halberd, ready to impale the Minotaur, the Chimera, or whatever mythological horror guards the exit.
“Contact!” Kim screams. “Target at twelve o’clock!”
We stare at the center of the room, muscles tense to the point of snapping. And we see… that. It’s neither a Minotaur nor a Dragon. It’s a pig.
A porcine humanoid barely a meter tall, dressed in a dirty burlap loincloth, holding a wooden club that looks more like a big twig than a weapon. He looks at us with small beady eyes, sniffs, and lets out a grunt that wouldn’t scare a toddler. We stay frozen for a moment, our minds blank.
“Is… is this the Boss?” Chris asks, lowering his guard slightly.
I narrow my eyes, analyzing the target.
[MONSTER ANALYSIS] Name: Porci | Level: 3
[Statistics]
- HP: 85 / 85
- Attack: 15
- Defense: 15
- Speed: 5
[Skill]:
[Flabby Charge] (Active) — Tries to charge the target with enthusiasm. 90% chance to trip.
“No, it’s a joke,” I say. “It’s a basic mob.”
The pig raises its club and tries a heroic—and very slow—charge toward us. CLACK. Kim doesn’t even bother aiming. She fires from the hip. The bullet goes through the pig’s skull before it has taken two steps. It collapses with a brief squeal and dissolves into dust.
Ding. A notification pops up, sober and disappointing.
[System]: Welcome to Level 1.
And that’s it. Nothing else. I look around. This room is different. It’s larger, about fifty square meters. No more clinical white burning the retinas. Here, the walls are made of grayish granite blocks, roughly cut, oozing ice-cold dampness. It smells of wet earth, saltpeter, and an old, poorly ventilated vault. On the floor, the tiles are cracked, letting blackish moss grow between the joints.
“Finally, a real asset pack,” I comment. “It’s the ‘Medieval Dungeon’ default preset. The dev just loaded the textures without changing the settings. It’s classic; I’ve seen it a thousand times.”
On the floor, seven runic circles are scattered about. This time, there are no colors. Inside each circle, a letter glows with white light. I walk around them: E, X, V, O, A, B, Z.
“Okay…” Kim breathes. “So we aren’t at the Boss room. The ‘French Flag’ code just served to get us out of the tutorial labyrinth.”
Chris scratches his head, staring at the letters. “If the System says we’re at Level 1, does that mean there are several levels?”
“That’s exactly it,” I confirm. “And every level has its own teleportation system. It’s a multi-level labyrinth. We just finished kindergarten; now we’re in first grade.”
“And what do those letters mean?” Kim asks. “E, X, V… Is it a code? An anagram?”
I look at the letters on the floor with growing contempt. I think back to the previous level. Blue, White, Red. Zero-effort thinking. “I have a theory,” I mutter. I walk straight toward the A rune. “We’re going to test this one.”
Chris looks at me, wondering if I’m playing Russian roulette with our lives, but he eventually shrugs and joins me on the circle with Kim.
Flash.
When the light fades, we are… in the same room. Same gray stone, same dampness. “We’re back in the same place, I think,” Kim says while observing the runes.
“Exactly,” I confirm, pointing at the floor. “The letters are still there, but they’ve swapped places. The A moved south.”
I smile. I see the pattern. “Okay. We did the A. Now, we’re going to look for the E.” We move toward the E rune glowing in the northwest corner.
Flash.
This time, the arrival is different. The air is warmer, heavy with the stench of rancid sweat and a poorly kept pigsty.
“Contact!” Kim screams.
Before us, five shapes stand out from the shadows. I expected warriors, but I let out a sigh of relief—and contempt. They are five carbon copies of the previous monster. Five three-foot-tall porcine humanoids in loincloths, holding their ridiculous clubs.
“There are five of them, but it’s still the same cannon fodder,” I announce. “Watch out for their clubs; 15 Attack isn’t much, but it can leave bruises.”
“GROUUU!” the pigs grunt in unison. Without a second of hesitation, they charge. It’s slow, it’s clumsy; it looks like a chaotic scramble at a buffet.
“HIYAAAA!” Chris screams, imitating the cry of a famous hero in a green tunic, even if the sound ends in a high-pitched squeak. He plants his boots in the floor and raises his shield.
The first Porci reaches him and swings its club.
POC.
The sound is flat, almost comical. Chris doesn’t move a millimeter. With his 54 Defense, the pig’s attack has as much effect on him as a summer breeze.
“I’ve got him! He’s weak!” Chris exclaims, surprised by his own toughness.
“Kill them,” I say. “Let’s get this over with.”
Kim shoulders her rifle.
CLACK.
A blue pulse briefly runs through the barrel as she injects her mana. A bullet instantly materializes in the chamber. She pulls the trigger. The shot hits the pig’s shoulder, tearing out a high-pitched squeal.
“150 HP, he doesn’t die right away!” she warns. “Leave it to me.”
I dash, going around Chris on the right. The Porci is focused on the shield. I’ve got a clear path. I hold my shovel with both hands. I aim for the skull.
BONK.
The sound of the shovel on the pig’s skull resonates like a broken bell. The beast wavers, eyes spinning in their sockets, a victim of its own uselessness. The monster collapses into pixels.
“One down!” I say. “Four more to go!”
The other Porcis, seeing their comrade fall, try to change targets. Two continue to tap weakly on Chris’s shield, while two others turn toward me and Kim, half-stumbling over their own feet.
I raise my trash can lid. “Come on, you hams. The sanitation department is open.”
The four remaining pigs encircle us clumsily. They look more confused than threatening, but they’re numerous enough to be annoying. Two of them throw themselves at me and Kim. One aims for my leg with its club, the other tries to bite the barrel of Kim’s rifle.
“Trash Can Shield!” I shout—yes, I’ve decided to name my parries; it’s for the atmosphere. I raise my galvanized lid. The Porci’s club bounces off it with a loud DOING that makes my whole arm vibrate.
But with my Defense, I feel almost nothing. It’s as if a five-year-old is hitting me with a plastic sword. “Kim, on the left!”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Kim doesn’t need my order. She steps back, dodging the bite, and fires at point-blank range.
CRACK.
The bullet slams right into the biting monster’s forehead. Critical hit.
“Two down!” Kim calls out as the pig crumbles into dust.
Meanwhile, Chris is having a blast. The last two Porcis are hammering away at his shield, but the kid is a brick wall. He isn’t even flinching anymore. He just realized he’s totally untouchable against these trash mobs.
“This is easy!” he laughs. “They suck!”
He throws a heavy shield bash, knocking both monsters back at the exact same time. He raises his sword and brings it down hard on the first one’s skull.
SHLACK.
The blade cuts deep. The Porci howls, its health bar tanking straight into the red.
I finish my own target off with a horizontal shovel swing that sends it flying against the stone wall.
“Wrap it up!” I call out.
Kim puts a bullet in the back of the one Chris wounded. Chris finishes off the last one with a clumsy but highly effective thrust.
In under a minute, the room is completely clear. Just the three of us, panting, surrounded by evaporating green pixel particles.
“Alright,” I say, dusting off my yellow vest. “That was the warm-up. Cannon fodder cleared. Now what?”
I stare at the floor runes with absolute calm. The letters changed during the fight: G, T, Y, D, S, X, P. I know exactly where to go.
“I figured out the pattern too,” Kim chimes in, her eyes locked on the glowing letters.
Chris looks at her, waiting for the rest. She points at the letter D with the toe of her combat boot.
“This level uses the universal ranking system from LitRPGs, dungeon manhwas, and adventurer guilds. It’s a power scale.”
She draws an imaginary line in the air.
“The stages are ranked by tiers: F, E, D, C, B, A, and probably an S at the very top, considering there are seven letters in the room.”
She turns around.
“When we spawned in the first room, we were at Rank F. We took the E circle. And what did we find? Five weak monsters. That’s a textbook Rank E, the absolute bottom of the barrel.”
She turns toward the D rune.
“So, if we want to bump up the difficulty and get closer to the Boss, the next logical room is D.”
Chris widens his eyes, totally impressed.
“Whoa… It’s exactly like Adventurer Guilds! F means you suck, and S means you’re a god!”
I nod, validating the theory with a smug smirk.
“That’s exactly it,” I confirm. “F, E, D, C, B, A, S. It’s the standard naming convention. Good catch, Kim.”
Chris frowns, suddenly looking confused.
“But… why S? I mean, sure, A makes sense. But why is the absolute best grade an S? What does it stand for? ‘Super’? ‘Supreme’?”
Kim opens her mouth to answer, hesitates, then closes it. She looks down at her boots.
“I… I honestly don’t know,” she admits. “I’m just used to seeing this ranking everywhere in games. It just is what it is. S is always above A.”
She turns to me.
“You used to code games. Do you know why?”
I sigh, adjusting my collar.
“It’s the Japanese academic grading system. They popularized it in their video games and anime. S stands for Sugoi (Incredible), Subarashii (Magnificent), or Special. It’s an excellence grade that goes beyond 100%, specifically designed to stroke the ego of players who want to feel like they’re beyond perfect. Western devs just copy-pasted the whole concept because it looked ‘cool’ to have a mysterious letter sitting above A.”
I walk over to the D circle.
“Anyway. That’s just weeb semantics. All that matters is that D is harder than E. Brace yourselves, this is about to get rough.”
We group up on the D circle.
Flash.
The landing is rough. The light barely fades before a stench of manure ten times stronger hits the back of our throats. The room layout is identical, but way more crowded.
“Contact!” Kim calls out. “Fifteen targets!”
Fifteen Porcis. Carbon copies of the last ones, just with a bumped-up spawn rate. They’re already surrounding us, their beady pig eyes gleaming with malice.
“This is Rank D?” I say, raising my trash can lid. “The dev just hit ‘Copy-Paste’ and tripled the mob count. Real original.”
“They’re charging!” Chris yells.
This time, it’s a tidal wave of fat and muscle. The fifteen monsters swarm us all at once, making the ground shake.
“Chris, hold the center! Kim, light up the flankers!” I order.
Chris plants his feet and raises his shield. The impact is massive. Five or six Porcis smash right into him, but with his Porter stats jacked up on steroids, he barely slides back an inch.
“You shall not paaaass!” he screams, eyes wide with adrenaline, fully embracing the roleplay.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Kim is an absolute machine. She isn’t even aiming down the sights anymore; she’s just firing from the hip. Every gunshot equals a popped head. Three Porcis drop before they can even hoist their clubs.
On my side, two smartasses try to flank us on the left.
“Oh, hell no,” I grunt, swinging my shovel. “Not in my house.”
I use the edge of the blade like a sweep, taking out the first one’s legs. He eats dirt snout-first. I finish him off with a heavy heel stomp to the skull. The second one catches my trash can lid straight to the face, knocking him out cold before I cave his head in.
It’s brutal, dirty, and incredibly fast.
Chris shoves the mob back with a heavy shield bash, ripping open a gap in their line. Kim instantly exploits it, sinking two surgical shots into the crowd. I wrap up the fight by launching my shovel like a javelin right into the back of the last one trying to bolt.
POOF.
The final monster disintegrates into pixels. Silence drops back over the room just as fast as it was broken.
I yank my shovel out of the evaporating dust, blowing out a hard breath.
“That was tedious, but not hard,” I say, dusting myself off. “It’s a pure grind. If the logic holds, the next room is C.”
I scan the floor runes. J, K, C, M, L, P, O.
“Over there,” I say, pointing at the corner. “The C. Brace yourselves. If we follow the mathematical progression, the next welcoming committee is going to hit harder or drown us in sheer numbers.”
We group up on the C circle.
Flash.
We barely materialize before the shift hits us. The room is the exact same, but the atmosphere is crushing, thick with a heavy killing intent. And more importantly, it’s packed to the walls.
“Multiple contacts!” Kim calls out, her voice rising a notch. “Fifteen standard targets… and two Elites!”
The usual cannon fodder is back. Fifteen pigs in loincloths. But right in the middle of the pack, towering over the melee by a solid head, stand two Porci Generals.
They stand a meter and a half tall. Their clothes are torn, but they’re rocking studded leather pauldrons. And zero wooden sticks this time. They’re wielding two-handed iron swords. Crude, chipped, and absolutely lethal.
[MONSTER ANALYSIS] Name: Porci General | Level: 5
[Statistics]
- HP (Health): 200 / 200
- Attack: 30
- Magic: 0
- Defense: 30
- Magic Defense: 0
- Speed: 10
[Equipment]: Rusty Bastard Sword (Bleeding).
“Watch out! The two big ones have doubled stats and real weapons!” I warn. “Don’t let the small ones overwhelm us while the big ones strike!”
The two Generals let out a grunt, much deeper than the usual squeaks, and point their swords at us. On their order, the fifteen small ones charge.
“Chris! Tank the mass!” I order. “Kim, focus on the General on the left! I’ve got the one on the right!”
Chris steps forward, his shield raised. The wave of small Porcis crashes into him. BAM. THUD. CLANG. It’s an avalanche of club hits. Chris grimaces under the repeated impacts, but he holds firm. He’s buried under the pink tide, but his sword continues to sting like a wasp, thinning the opposing ranks little by little.
Meanwhile, the two Generals bypass the melee. They aren’t stupid. The first one rushes at me. He raises his longsword to split my skull.
“You’re going to see what it’s like to fight a sanitation professional!” I raise my trash can lid in a high parry.
CLANG!
The impact is heavy. It’s nothing like the small ones. My feet slide back, and the shockwave travels up to my shoulder. If I didn’t have my new Defense stats, my arm would be broken. The General grunts, surprised that I’m still standing, and readies a lateral strike to cut me in two. I don’t have a sword to parry with. I’ve got a shovel. I duck, letting the blade whistle over my head, and strike back.
A thrust, vicious, with the tip of my shovel, right into his gut. The monster recoils, breathless, but its leather armor absorbs part of the shock. 30 Defense is no joke. “Kim! He’s tough!”
BANG.
On my left, Kim fired. The General she was aiming at took the bullet in the shoulder. He howls, pivots toward her, and charges. Kim retreats, recharging her mana in a fraction of a second, and fires again.
BANG.
Right between the eyes. The General collapses, sliding for two meters before bursting into pixels. “Priority target eliminated!” she shouts, turning toward mine.
My General, seeing his friend die, enters a rage state. His eyes turn red. He brings his sword down on me with a new frenzy. CLANG. CLANG.
I parry with the lid, again and again. The metal of my trash can starts to bend.
“That’s enough!”
I take advantage of an opening. Instead of hitting, I use the handle of my shovel to hook his ankle. With my 40 Attack, I pull with a sharp jerk. The two-hundred-pound monster topples like a bowling pin. He falls heavily on his back. Before he can get up, I jump, feet together, to land on his chest, and bring the edge of my shovel down on his exposed throat.
SHLACK.
Critical hit. The General dissolves. I stand up, out of breath.
“Chris!” The kid is still standing, but he’s starting to tire under the weight of the ten small ones left on him.
“Cleanup!” Kim yells. Freed from the main threats, she lines up rapid shots. Bang. Bang. Bang. The small Porcis fall like flies. I join the melee, my shovel spinning, mowing down the last survivors. In thirty seconds, it’s over. I look at my trash can lid. It’s got a big notch on the side and the handle is only holding by a thread.
“That was close,” I breathe. “If we continue to scale up like this, my hobo equipment won’t last long. I have to take a break.”
We sit for a few moments in the middle of the empty room. Chris approaches me, looking serious. “Hand over the lid, Uncle Ben.”
I hand him the bent piece of metal without a word. It’s time to see what his ‘Customer Support’ is worth. Chris places the lid on his knees. He doesn’t pull out a hammer or a blowtorch. He simply places his hands on the metal and focuses. A faint white glow envelops the object.
For ten minutes, we watch in silence. It’s slow, but fascinating. Under the effect of his [Equipment Cleaning] skill, the metal groans softly. The notch closes like a wound healing. The rust crumbles and falls into dust, revealing the galvanized steel underneath. Even the handle fuses back together.
When the glow fades, my trash can lid doesn’t look like trash anymore. It shines. It’s like new, fresh out of the factory, polished to perfection. Chris returns it to me with a tired but proud smile. “There. It’s ready for another round.”
I retrieve my shield. It’s impeccable. I can see myself in it. “Not bad for Customer Support,” I admit as I slide my arm through it. “You may be a Porter, but you’re basically a walking forge. You’ve earned the right to carry one more ration.”
Kim stands up, impatient. “Are we good? Finished tinkering? The next one is the B. Rank B.”
I look at the runes on the floor: H, U, B, K, L, M, W. “Then on to the B,” I say, adjusting my High Visibility Vest. “Let’s just hope there aren’t three Generals this time.”
We group on the circle. Flash.