Wade's eyebrows shot up. The regional location announcement was standard video game stuff—he'd seen plenty of those. But… "Lethal Difficulty? What the fuck?"

  If you survive, you'll be way ahead of the pack!

  "And if I don't?"

  Just gonna have to try again harder (????-)?

  How much self-loathing was dug down deep enough into his brain to bring something like that into his dreams? Maybe he really did need therapy. He put the phone away and glanced around to take stock of where he was.

  Lethal difficulty, huh? All he ended up in was just a bigger underground cavern, with more signs of mining and construction.

  The golden glow he'd followed had come from crystal-like lanterns sitting on curved metal poles with odd designs, illuminating the shallow creek. Giant stone slabs lay abandoned on makeshift sleds, ropes and gear still connected.

  Was this a dungeon of some kind?

  Wade's eyes traced the wet walls up into darkness. This wasn't just a cave—the structured layout suggested something more deliberate. A mining... outpost, maybe? Which meant there should be workers.

  There were. Or rather, there had been.

  Bodies littered the stream bed, all bones. Metal hard hats still crowned skulls, gear and tools clutched in skeletal hands. Some were half-submerged underwater, moss and mushrooms growing over where it was damp enough. Others slumped by the slabs, ropes still tied across empty ribcages as if they had been used to pull the slabs. Wade forced a nervous laugh—if this was his subconscious sending a message about overworking himself to death, it was laying it on a bit thick.

  The phone buzzed. He looked down at it.

  Better start running 。。。ミヽ(。＞.＜)ノ

  What the hell—his train of thought ended the moment he noticed the skeleton twitch. Then came the horrifying sound of bone scraping against stone as the first skeleton pushed itself up on its hands and feet.

  Others followed, their hollow eye sockets somehow finding him in the gloom. Mouths opened like a silent war cry from their rotten throats. Then, as one, they charged, some scrambling on all fours before rising upright into a full sprint.

  Because, of course, they would. This was a nightmare after all; walking dead bodies were just par for the course.

  Still feeling like everything was a lucid dream, some part of his mind didn't quite panic at the sight. Which meant he could very rationally decide to do the obvious choice:

  "Ah-hah-hah-ha, nope." Wade turned on his heel and sprinted right back to his hidey-hole, with slightly unhinged laughing at how utterly ridiculous it all was.

  He didn't care if this was a dream anymore—he wasn't about to get torn apart by the undead. He dove right into the gap in the wall and started to scramble and claw his way back inside, getting his feet and chest fully in, afraid that he'd get yanked out if he left anything in grabbing range. "Nope, nope, no, and fuck no," he muttered to himself the entire time, like a desperate mantra.

  Bony fingers reached after him, catching at his shirt as he wiggled deeper into the opening, tearing the fabric. One cold, slimy skeletal hand covered in mud and silt grabbed his ankle and started reeling him back, stronger than he'd ever thought.

  Dream or no dream, getting grabbed was going to freak him out no matter the situation.

  He kicked hard at the hand in blind panic. More hands dug after him, the pile of skeletons trying to get a firm grip and yank him out like some nine-year-old menace trying to pull a hermit crab out, leg first. This dream was feeling less and less like a dream by the second. But he was wiggling downwards faster than they were catching up, getting cut up and scratched but not fully grabbed again.

  Wade shoved forward, ripping off a good amount of cloth and skin to break free past the rocks, finally tumbling through to the other side.

  And the skeletons were still after him, dragging themselves into the hole like demonic hellspawn, slowly blotting out the light behind him.

  Wade did the only rational move he could think of. He heaved a stone stuck in the mud under him and slammed it into the open hole as far as his hand could shove. He didn't stop there, piling up more stones until he couldn't fit any more. The final one could barely be lifted, so he rolled it over the ground and then pushed it into place after some heavy shoving.

  He sat behind it, holding it in place with his back, breathing heavily, listening to the frustrated scratching from the other side of the hole.

  Okay. What if this wasn't a dream? Because his sides were scratched up and bleeding. And it looked real. Plus, after the last few minutes of utter panic and terror, that should have woken him up from anything.

  A sharp jab at his side made him leap to his feet and snap his head around to see. One of the skeletal fingers had wiggled through all the rocks. It curled out, wrapping around the rock.

  The only thing that came out of Wade's mouth that wasn't a terrified scream was an equally terrified string of swear words and incoherent babbling.

  He kicked the finger as hard as he could with his feet. Socks didn't make for good stomping equipment, so he yanked out a muddy hand-sized rock and started slamming it like a caveman, again and again.

  The finger squirmed like an angry worm with each slam, and Wade didn't let up.

  On the seventh hit, something else happened.

  Luck triggered: Critical Hit!

  It was instantly crushed into shards, as a normal bone should have been against a rock from the start. "Good, get fucked," he hissed, breathing heavily.

  He took a moment to settle down, forcing his breathing back to a regular cycle. He was safe here. He wasn't safe out there, but here he was safe. And as long as the giant stone was wedged into the hole, none of them could crawl through.

  They'd give up eventually, or he'd come up with a new survival plan.

  …

  The scratching on rocks stopped.

  Then he heard the sounds of metal picks tapping away at the rocks.

  They were using their tools. These weren't just feral, fast-running skeletons; they were intelligent, feral, fast-running skeletons.

  When had skeletons ever been smart in any game or movie!? "How are you fuckers intelligent!?"

  Wade took a peek through the cracks, moving his phone light closer to get a better view. White bone stared back at him with empty hatred, well lit by the light. It opened its mouth in a silent scream, trying to bite. But Wade saw what he needed to: the skeletons were too jammed in to use actual pickaxes; the picking sounds were coming from chisels and smaller tools being used further behind.

  Something inside Wade's head finally clicked. He had two options: take this seriously or don’t.

  If he was wrong and this was just a nightmare, Jason would give him that smug look tomorrow. 'Even your subconscious is staging an intervention, dumbass.' And then he'd probably ask if the skeletons had better work-life balance. Good time.

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  If he was right and didn't act, those things would lovingly rip his eyes out and kill him. Horribly. Bad time.

  Options starkly clear, Wade locked in and got to work.

  There were weapons behind him: picks and tools he could use. Could he pry the keystone rock back a bit and then go whack-a-mole with all the skulls that popped out afterward?

  The hammer strategy could work, but he wanted redundancies. If he couldn't keep up with the head bonks, then they'd dogpile him. Then the eye gouging and eating would happen. He got up and raced around, gathering whatever he could in the small cavern: two solid hammers, a pick, and several choice rocks to act as a desperate cork in case of the worst, which was likely to happen.

  That was it for preparations. That was all he could do, with the exception of the game system. He contemplated taking a look in that direction. Did he have time? He turned the phone light back on and looked through the hole to see what their progress was.

  A partly uncovered, leering skull stared back at him as it had before, deep within the hole, two or three feet on the other side. It silently opened its jaw up and down again, shaking violently, trying to get closer in every possible way it could. The chipping was coming from behind that skull, probably another skeleton with a better angle. This one just wanted to claw his eyes out and couldn't do anything else.

  He stared at the phone screen. "You got any ideas here on what to do?"

  Look who's come crawling back to little old me huh (＃￣ω￣)

  This piece of—Wade shook his head; the texts wouldn't be here if whatever was on the other side didn't care. "You want me to live through this, right? Help me. Give me some advice or something!"

  Stuff more rocks in there to block their way. Use mud to pack in the sides, it'll help absorb shock and make the picks slightly less effective. And after that... ミヽ(。＞.＜)ノ

  “What, not even going to try and fight back? Just run for it blindly?”

  How many attempts did it take you to snap that finger with a heavy rock?

  “...Too many.”

  Exactly. You can’t make a dent in those things yet.

  So keep packing that hole up and get to running (?′ヮ`)?*: ??

  He got to work, grabbing more rock and packing in mud into the gaps. All the while, his head raced. Those bones were unnaturally strong. They only snapped when he got a critical hit.

  Critical hits... “Is there a weak point to them or something? If this is all a video game, then there had to be ways to win, right?”

  Eh, the system said it was luck. I'd bet it's more of a flat critical strike chance that got triggered earlier, not that you had the finesse to hit the right angle. Skeletons also keep moving even with their heads knocked off, so there isn't a critical weakpoint like that either. You need to crush their arms, legs, and everything. Basically, blunt force. And a loooot of it.

  If it was a question of strength, then he had a method to get stronger. “I need more points in strength. That’s what you’re saying?”

  Could work. Gear and a better weapon would also pair nicely. And not the stuff laying around here imo. Who knows how long it’s been in the mud rusting away, right?

  If he had a video game system he needed to work around, that was fine with Wade. Normally getting stronger was months of work. Time spent at the gym not working at a job, and a full on diet that was probably going to cost more than his beloved ramen.

  But a character stat sheet that listed out strength and a quest earlier implying he could just put points into those stats? Now that was a more express way to power.

  Studying the System he’s got on hand to work with while he still could would probably be a good plan right now. What else could he do while piling up rocks and preparing his escape?

  There were what, quests? Stats? A useless boon that needed a bow and arrow, and he didn't have either. The quests seemed to focus a lot on a storefront and the coins. Maybe those could get him further rewards? A gacha from hell type thing, where he'd redeem the coins for a pay-to-win weapon that he could actually use?

  He needed a real weapon; the coins might get him one. And there was one quest that seemed in reach:

  System Quest: Glasses of the trade - Use identify thirty times on unique targets. Rewards: One storefront coin.

  Get a quest done, and also a coin to buy something from whatever that cash-shop storefront thing was. Assuming it was a store. Two birds with one stone.

  Saying 'quest' out loud had done the trick. So by that logic… "Identify."

  A red bar appeared above the skeleton, floating in his vision. Above that were letters.

  Level 12 Undead Nathir Slave - 100%

  Three more things happened. First, the glasses quest went up to one out of thirty.

  Second, he was instantly hit with two more quests in his notifications.

  New fleeting quest added: Press gang ganged - Defeat the workforce of skeletal pursuers after you. Rewards: One storefront coin.

  New fleeting quest added: Baby's first kill - Defeat a hostile target. Rewards: One storefront coin.

  Har har, the System was also a troll. Was it directly communicating with him through the phone while maintaining a more neutral interface?

  The scratching grew more frantic as he moved closer to catch a glimpse past the first few skeletal slaves all bunched together. He needed 30, and there were plenty on the other side.

  "Identify."

  Level 13 Undead Nathir Slave - 97%

  Level 11 Undead Nathir Slave - 99%

  Level 12 Undead Nathir Slave - 99%

  The quest bar remained at one out of thirty. "Unique targets, oh fuck off." He muttered a few more curses, then shifted gears.

  He turned and tried it on the rocks next.

  Stone.

  Glasses of the trade: Identify targets 2/30

  Obvious stone was obvious, but points were all that mattered.

  He did the same for the tools at his feet: picks, hammers, phone. Each one earned him a point in the quest. Five down so far.

  He went on to check the wooden support struts, mud, water, or anything else he could cut in half using some of the discarded tools to cut things up. 'Wooden handle' and 'broken-off pickend' triggered a new point each.

  Cutting off a chip of wood from one of the support struts gave him just regular wood as a target. He took his shirt, socks, pants, and underwear, nailing a point for each, going as fast as he could.

  A small rip of cloth gave him another point for 'textile,' but he couldn't milk it with the socks and pants since they all returned the same type.

  Making a drawing on the ground also didn't trigger anything more than 'mud,' from which he had already earned a point. He went back to the hole and tried using identify on some of the gear the skeletons had, like their helmets or rope, but the system only recognized the unit as a whole. He bit off a bit of nail and a strand of his hair; both returned 'Organic Material.'

  All in all, he reached twenty-three out of thirty before he hit hard limits. He just needed seven more targets.

  He could break his phone down for more sub-components, though he immediately discarded that idea. The phone was too important for survival. There had to be other things nearby to work with.

  Running out of targets, he hit himself.

  Level 1 Player - 94%

  Glasses of the trade: Identify targets 24/30

  Just six more targets to get that coin.

  The picking continued behind him; he could hear the rocks being scratched and cleared away. They’d be on him soon.

  He needed to delay them a bit longer. He set his phone off to the side so he could read any texts that came in, on the small chance they’d be useful, while grabbing mud and dirt in his hands. Then he packed it into the hole. It splattered all over the skull on the far side, but as long as he piled the entire channel up with dirt and loose rocks, it might further reduce their range of motion.

  They’d dogpiled after him without any plan so he was going to punish that mistake. Plus, while he clawed things off the ground, he might find something new to identify.

  Half a minute passed, and the channel was steadily getting filled with debris and smaller rocks. But he couldn’t find anything new to identify.

  Racking his brain, he came up with one more option: "Stats," he called out, and then cast Identify right on the floating text.

  Glasses of the trade: Identify targets 25/30

  The panel shifted, showing more details. He read through it as fast as he could, searching for anything he could use as he frantically built up the defense.

  "Thanks, real helpful." Sure, if he survived all of this, then he'd take a closer look, but right now there wasn't anything he could gain from it. However, it did give him another point.

  Further down the stats list, he found his buffs and debuffs, which now had explanations.

  There had been mention of the storefront, and Wade suspected THE GAME was this system interface. But why was "Play" capitalized? Was it a name?

  "Who's Play?" he asked, frantically shoveling another clump of dirt and rocks into the hole.

  You're making me sad here Michael, took you until now to ask me my name?

  "….You're Play."

  :]