It took only five minutes before the next trap tried to eat me. The presence of another deadly encounter made me wonder what this adventurer party was even doing and how in the system were they bypassing all these traps.

  Thankfully, there was not another spear covered in acid. No, this one was way worse since the bloody thing could move. And bloody was not just a curse; it was a descriptor for a giant mass of blood that flowed up out of the floor.

  The creature coalesced into a semi-humanoid form, wide torso, two arms ending in claws and two legs equally sharp. The head was a child's attempt at drawing a human, with a small parting of flowing blood.

  "Was this bastard smiling at me?"

  Whoever created this place and whatever in the hell these ungodly creatures are. Well, for one thing, they are very creative, dedicated to the theme and clearly had messed up parents or they were orphans.

  Well, I didn't have a mum or dad, and I turned out okay. I told myself that a lot. I'm sure that one day it will be true. But for now, let's see what they called this nightmare fuel.

  The creature was glowing faintly; I could see a spark of the system dwelling within. Casually, I wondered what a sapient being would look like. I gave it a good old inspect and a neat little pop-up detailed the monster.

  [Blood Golem. Level 10.]

  Well, that kind of made sense. It was a humanoid construct of blood, so its being a golem seemed logical. Also, it was totally on par with the whole blood and death vibe.

  "Is this a vampire temple? Because I'm getting serious Strahd vibes from this place."

  The blood golem didn't respond. I guessed that fake-ass smile was just for show. Didn't even let me get ready as the lumbering leech started barrelling towards me.

  On instinct, I withdrew my machete, readying to slice and dice, hopefully cutting it to ribbons will work. If not then, well, practice makes perfect or makes dead.

  "What time is it? It's machete time!"

  Raising the weapon like I just shot myself full of drugs, shaved half my hair off and high because this time, that underground dweller will die! I charged headfirst as the blood golem came at me.

  Fueled by pure adrenaline and my new attributes, I deftly dodged the thing throwing a blood spike and sliced down with my weapon, cleanly severing its outstretched arm.

  The limb fell limply, and I jumped back out of reach. The damn narrow corridor made me an open target, but perhaps removing its limbs would help. Of course, I said that too soon as its lost limb roiled off the ground, flew up and reattached like some horror tentacle.

  "More hentai shit!" I yelled and pointed.

  This temple creator must have been a freak, or perhaps I was for pointing all this stuff out. I swear my browser history is on the level. I know all this stuff from a friend of a friend. Definitely didn't use incognito mode and perform regular history purges.

  Damn, I was too specific, need to act like I'm clueless. Please don't think less of me Jen, your creator is a stand-up guy. I said that just as the bloody appendage tried to backhand me. So I stopped being a stand-up fellow and got low.

  Performing a commando roll out of the way, somehow I could do that. The weapon in hand found its way to the golem's torso.

  "Huh, how did that get there?" I said, no clue how this machete finds its target.

  But like last time, the golem reformed. With my acute senses, I could see something shiny within. Both in luster and with a system aura. That's going to be the temporary name until I come up with a better one.

  Another backhand nearly clubbed my forehead to bits. I really needed to stop with the whole inner monologue and fight. So I did so, and the machete sliced its other arm off and cut his torso a few more times. It reformed almost immediately. How did it have the juice to keep doing that?

  There was something in there, and it glowed like a big old weakness. Yet that split-second distraction made my next dodge less than perfect. Another backhand sent me flying to a nearby wall. The impact was hell on my back, but the pimp slap was even worse.

  "Sorry, Daddy, all I've got is a hundred-dollar bill." I groaned. Somehow, jokes made the pain more manageable.

  Luckily, it only took a few moments to get up and out of the way. Leaping to the side as another blood tentacle lashed out. Performing another commando roll that would make any Ju-Jitsu instructor proud. As quick as a ninja, I rose to my feet and planned to take this creature down.

  Gripping the machete so tight my fist went white. Digging my heels into the floor, I exploded with movement, coming at the enemy straight on. The blood golem sent a punch, and I dodged the attack, getting under its guard.

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  With my weapon raised, I sliced the torso in half; the blade bounced off something metallic. The impact seemed to hurt it; the golem writhed around, lashing everything in sight. Ducking a few strikes, I reached inside and palmed the weird red orb.

  "Kinetic Strike!" I announced as I put every point of force into that hit.

  A force exceeding a thousand newtons crashed into the orb. An impact strong enough to bend steel and shatter everything in between. Split the orb in half and sent the pieces flying.

  "Gotcha," I announced as the golem slumped into a puddle of blood.

  [Experience Points Harvested.]

  Instead of a mechanical feminine voice, a cold and hard male voice announced my victory, making me wonder why the change.

  This achievement was good, finally a decent fight that ended in my complete, albeit painful, win. The power of my attributes and the skills we painstakingly created came onto the stage and showed their mettle.

  Sadly, two more blood golems coalescing behind me soured the glow of my victory. The telltale sound of viscous fluid oozing out of the floor made me want to gag. Quickly I turned around and noticed for a second two glowing orbs pull the blood around them and form a humanoid body.

  Instead of fear, I felt a wave of calm wash over me. It was not me being a badass or some system ability warping my brain. It was merely my build and the assurance that I had a repeatable strategy that proved successful.

  "Bring it on!" Sending a challenge, the pair went full tilt.

  Running to meet them, I quickly sliced through the first and blasted the core with a kinetic strike. Instantly shattering the golem in a matter of seconds. The second golem tried to sideswipe me; their predetermined attack patterns were child's play.

  Thankfully, my experience prevented me from getting another pimp slap. Instead, Jeremy, whom I totally forgot, was still on my shoulder. Somehow the feline had held on to my leather armour like a vice grip.

  He leapt from my shoulder and began clawing up the golem's face. His claws made an absolute mess of the golem's bloody appearance. Hissing up a storm, Jeremy went absolutely to town on the creature like it swapped out his wet food for the hard stuff.

  Not letting this opportunity go, I sliced the rest of it apart and kinetically struck its ball. That sounded way dirtier than I intended. I blasted its orb? No, that's way worse. Through my grand powers, I exploded it. Nope, I'm not doing that.

  Golem didn't care about my internal musings and promptly died to the sound of feline hissing and the experience points coming in. Shaking my head, I tried to wave off the fatigue, but sadly that didn't work, and so I sat down to rest.

  "Okay Jen, I'll set up the filters for the XP harvester and send a percentage to you, and we will store the rest or put it to a level up."

  I got a great loan from Jenny and was eager to pay back what I owed. Still, I had to level up and distribute points to my attributes. Have to keep several of them high enough so my body doesn't go out of balance.

  The experience points we collected from those three were decent, but I would need a lot more before I even approached a level up.

  "Rest over, let's explore and kill stuff for exp." I proclaimed to the heavens, vowing to sow death and destruction so my numbers can go up. "Wow, that makes us sound like psychos. Killing stuff purely to make numbers go up."

  Not sure how I felt about that and the realisation that I had been killing things for the past hour. Well, they were self-defence. I had murdered that Volkaran. While he was bestial, he likely had a mind of his own and maybe a family.

  But given the creepy dude that likely made this place, someone probably made him in a jar like me. Okay, that just made it worse. It's orphans killing orphans in a parentless battle royale.

  The only solution was to play it by ear and take the difficult situations as they came. I mean, I may look human, act human, and human culture may have had a heavy influence on me. At the end of the day, I'm not part of that species beyond what I choose to be part of.

  As a result, morality is kind of flexible, and I can deal with it on a case-by-case basis. And that is what I will tell myself as I go around killing people. Brilliant moralising, Joey, you are a genius.

  "Jen, log this milestone of moral growth."

  [Achievement Unlocked: Moral Flexibility. Description: You have achieved a partial rationalisation of the subject of murder. Rewards: the psychological ability to rationalise killing people within the confines of the self-defence argument. Warning, this does not apply to premeditated homicide.]

  "Well, that's something."

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