Monster Evolution System: I became a Rat-Chapter 105: The Thing Behind

The stench of blood once again infiltrated his nostrils, and Rosacer struggled against the wave of nausea rising in his throat. It felt like it clung to the very air of the lower district, thick and metallic, as if the stones themselves had begun to bleed here.

But the truth...Rosacer now knew, it was due to experimentation, and the test people do here on the poor folks.

He moved quickly, steps sharp and careful, cutting through the narrow street until he reached the only lodging house he had managed to find.

A crooked wooden board hung above the entrance.

Marryton House of Stay.

"More like a house of strays," Rosacer muttered.

Even as he made this joke, he inwardly sighed.

He looked in front. The massive establishment stood before him.

The door looked as though it had been shattered earlier and simply wedged back into place out of stubbornness rather being repaired. When he pushed it open, the entire frame gave way. The door crashed flat against the floor with a bang, defeated sound.

From behind the counter, a chair scraped violently.

"What? What do you want?" the receptionist asked, rising in alarm.

The receptionist was a boy, small and thin, brown-skinned, with dark black hair that had been slicked down carefully. A faint mustache clung to his upper lip, as if trying very hard to prove he was of age not to be fooled. He wore brown khaki trousers and a black shirt buttoned all the way to his neck. The collar looked tight enough to choke him.

Rosacer wanted to address him as gentleman but instead chose not to, for who knows what kind of twisted man he could be behind that innocent look.

Instead, Rosacer studied him in silence from head to toe.

The boy tried not to shrink under that gaze, but failed.

"I need a room," Rosacer said at last, voice stern and level. "Five days."

The receptionist’s eyes widened for a second.

He quickly dragged the large register toward himself, nearly tipping off his high chair in the process. The ledger’s pages were yellowed and warped from damp. He flipped through them with hurried fingers, licked the tip of his pen, then paused.

"Name and occupation," he said automatically.

A breath later, he seemed to reconsider. "Only name is enough."

He extended the pen toward Rosacer.

Rosacer did not take it immediately.

His eyes drifted over the lobby instead.

The room was dim despite it still being early evening. Two lanterns hung from iron hooks, their glass blackened with soot. The wooden floor bore dark stains that had been scrubbed, but not well enough. The air smelled of old liquor, sweat, and something underneath it all. Something coppery.

’Blood again.’ He cursed inwardly as the thought came.

But with stern look, he faced the receptionist again.

"How much?" Rosacer asked.

"Three Ernest per night," the boy replied, voice steadier now that business was being discussed. "Paid in advance."

’Expensive!’

Rosacer rolled his eyes back and finally took the pen.

The pen felt cheap, its nib slightly bent.

Rosacer paused and for a second stared at the receptionist.

Then returned back his gaze to the register.

He muttered something under his breath as he bent over the register and wrote in deliberate strokes:

Romano.

The boy stared at the single word as though he knew that name already. And it was not from somewhere pleasant.

"That is all?" he asked carefully.

"That is enough." Rosacer replied with perplexed expression.

The boy might have caught the Rosacer expression but chose not to clarify it.

Rosacer then reached into his coat and placed fifteen Ernest coins on the counter. The sound they made echoed louder than it should have in the quiet room.

The receptionist swallowed.

Then quickly muffled the coins sound with his hand.

"Third floor," he said quickly. "Last room on the left. Do not wander at night."

His mouth already watering as he spoke, "Also, no food.....Be---wa--re of Ni---ghtma--re ----Ma--g--e."

His words sound inaudible because of his greed, still Rosacer gave a polite nod back.

"Why?" Rpsacer asked without looking up.

The boy’s hand already on the coins.

He hesitated.

"Lower district rules," he replied, eyes flicking toward the broken doorway, then back to Rosacer. "People disappear..."

"In Nightmare."

"You’re old but can still be used for test too."

"A lie...consider it. If it scares, you."

Rosacer gathered the key that had been pushed toward him.

"I hope, it’s not you that is up for something." He said at the same time, pointing the dripping saliva of the boy on the counter.

The key’s metal was cold, old, and slightly rusted. Room number 307 was scratched into it unevenly.

As he turned toward the staircase, the boy spoke again, softer this time.

"If you hear scratching," he said, "ignore it."

Rosacer stopped at the first step.

"Scratching?"

"Rats," the boy answered too quickly. "Big ones."

Rosacer gave a faint nod and began climbing.

As he began climbing, each step creaked under his weight.

The stairwell was narrow, the walls close enough that his shoulders nearly brushed both sides. The smell intensified as he ascended, not fresher blood, but dried now. This building might have absorbed some while back it seemed.

Halfway up, he paused.

Then looked back, for a second he felt as if someone was behind him, matching his footsteps.

He could feel it.

A residue of some sort of past events.

Something has happened awhile back, and this place still repeat it, regret it, though only in an ethereal form.

Most people wouldn’t notice them.

Rosacer did.

And even felt.

From below, he heard the receptionist drag the broken door back into place. Rotten wood scraping against stone.

Rosacer sighed back.

He pitied the boy on the counter.

Perhaps this place wasn’t the best for him.

Then he continued back upward until he reached the third floor. The corridor stretched long and dim, lit by a single lantern at its center. Doors lined both sides, most of them closed.

The last door on the left was his.

He inserted the key and turned it slowly.

The lock clicked.

Then quickly stepped inside without delay.

Inside, the room was small with narrow bed and a cracked mirror facing the bed. And just adjacent to it, a wash basin with water that did not look entirely clean.

With the muddy puddle in the wash basin, it looked as if someone has birthed a monster of swamp in it.

On the far wall, barely visible in the low light, were faint marks.

The marks were thin, repeated with vertical scratches and they were apparently not random enough.

It seemed as if someone has properly measured them before painting them on the wall.

Rosacer closed the door behind him and slid the bolt into place.

Then he stood very still.

He conjured more ears to listen, his senses heightened to the extreme, and then he waited for something to happen.

With the grafted sigil shining, the effects slowly came into reality. Rosacer’s ears turned long like a rat’s, and then they multiplied more and more until they covered his whole face.

He looked as though mushrooms were growing on him, as if he were a husk prepared for the germination of buds.

As time passed, Rosacer slowly grew tired, and the toll of the sigil increased.

Just when he thought to stop it,

he finally heard it: a knock. Not on his door, but on a door on the first floor. If his memory served him right, it was 101.

The door creaked open, and then a scream tore through the entire building.

"Someone has opened the door... it certainly isn’t a rat..." Rosacer muttered to himself.

Slowly, the gouging sounds, the gnashing and rending of flesh that only he could hear, began.

Rosacer could vividly imagine from the sounds what the thing was doing to the resident of 101.

When it was finally done, it turned to another door.

Knock Knock

This time, the resident didn’t open the door. Rosacer could hear the resident of that room holding his breath as he hid under the bed.

"At least someone is smart enough..." Rosacer said, as he waited for the thing to barge into the room and do the same to its resident.

But to his surprise, it didn’t.

Instead, it turned to another room and repeated the same thing—a knock.

Knock Knock

If somebody responded, the thing barged in. If not, it left them alone.

Finally, the knock came near him, and soon the shadow of the thing was behind his door.

Knock Knock

The sound rang, deafening as fear grew within him.

Rosacer’s mind raced over whether he should answer or not. He was curious, but he didn’t want to suffer the same fate.

"Damn it, I am immortal." He mocked himself as his heart tightened under the pressure, the shadow still lingering before his door.

Rosacer might have taken too long to decide, for the thing began to move, its shadow growing fainter.

But before the shadow could fade—

"Fuck it," Rosacer cried.