Cherreads

Chapter 2 - Chapter 2: A Mind That Cannot Rest

---

The dungeon's breath was cold and damp, and it filled Takumi's lungs like a moldy cellar. The torches flickered with a sickly green hue, casting shadows that pulsed like heartbeats against the stone. Every tile he stepped on was uneven. Every wall brick misaligned. The symmetry of the passage made no sense — a corridor that widened and narrowed without rhythm.

It gnawed at him.

His fingers kept twitching, longing to realign the loose stones, to scrape away the damp rot on the right wall that wasn't present on the left.

But that wasn't the worst part.

It was his status screen—still floating just within the corner of his vision like a mosquito that refused to be swatted away.

> Current Level: 7

Level Cap: ∞

Stat Distribution: [Unassigned: 70]

Seventy points. Unspent. Just floating there. Uneven.

He didn't know why, but the system hadn't automatically allocated them. Maybe that was a perk. Maybe a curse. The idea of manually assigning stats felt... intrusive. Risky. Unclean. What if he didn't balance them properly? What if Strength ended up higher than Dexterity?

He shuddered.

He wasn't ready.

He needed to reach Level 10.

Ten is clean. Ten is whole. Two digits. Five times two. Divisible by itself and by one and two and five.

"Focus."

He whispered to himself, like a mantra. His bare feet padded against the wet stone, careful and quiet. His eyes swept the space ahead like he was solving a puzzle — scanning for shapes, cracks, asymmetries.

Every broken line in the wall, every burn on the torch, every crack in the floor… he saw them all.

---

The next monster found him before he found it.

A rat — enormous, grotesque, with matted fur and yellow eyes. Its tail was missing a chunk. One of its ears was split.

Takumi winced. "It's… off-balance."

It lunged.

He ducked. The movement was automatic — so fast his own mind struggled to catch up. His arm extended, hand sharp like a blade, and struck the rat beneath its jaw with surgical force.

A crunch.

The rat twisted midair, smacked the ground, then slid to a stop.

Dead.

Takumi blinked.

> [Dungeon Rat defeated. +2 Levels]

Current Level: 9

Warning: Mental instability threshold approaching critical.

His jaw clenched. His fingers curled into fists so tightly that his knuckles cracked.

"Nine," he hissed through his teeth. "Nine!"

His legs moved on their own. He turned the corner, eyes darting. Another rat. No. Two. A third peeked from a side tunnel. He didn't hesitate.

He grabbed a torch from the wall — burning mold flaking off it — and hurled it like a javelin. It struck the nearest rat in the face, igniting its fur. The others scattered in blind panic. He chased them.

He killed them.

Each one with a single strike. Every movement precise, surgical, almost inhumanly clean. When the last one slumped in a corner, his breath came in heaves.

Then the message appeared:

> [Dungeon Rats (x3) defeated. +3 Levels]

Current Level: 12

Skill Gained: [Perfect Execution Lv. 1]

Mental Strain Reduced.

---

Takumi dropped to his knees.

It was over. For now.

Twelve. A divisible number. Clean. Whole. His mind relaxed just a little. He inhaled and noticed the stone under him — crooked, but he was too tired to care. A crack ran through it like a fault line in his head.

He opened his Status Menu for the first time by choice.

---

> Name: Takumi Arata

Race: Human Anomaly

Level: 12

Titles: [World Error], [First of Infinity]

Stat Points: 120 (Unassigned)

Skill Slots Unlocked: ∞

Active Skill: [Perfect Execution Lv. 1]

Mental Load: 68%

---

He paused.

Mental Load?

He tapped it.

A small window opened:

> Mental Load represents the strain caused by obsessive logic checks, intrusive patterns, and order correction behaviors. Increasing Load may cause breakdown, paralysis, hallucinations, or stat degradation.

System Tip: Maintaining numerical or spatial symmetry reduces Mental Load.

He sat still for a long moment.

"So I really am sick in this world too," he whispered. "They couldn't fix that."

A cruel joke from the gods. Even with power, he would suffer the same.

Still… he had a goal now.

If this system was honest, and if his level had no cap, then he could rise forever. If he played by his own rules—rules of order, symmetry, and balance—he could build a world that didn't break his mind just by existing.

One that was clean.

---

He heard footsteps again.

Not the skittering of beasts.

These were armored. Heavy. Rhythmic.

He pressed against the wall, eyes sharp.

Three figures approached, torches in hand. One held a spear. Another, a short sword. The third, a mage with red-glowing rings circling their fingers.

They looked young—maybe a few years older than him.

Adventurers.

Takumi's breath caught.

People.

He hadn't spoken to anyone since his death. He hadn't even thought about it. But now, he was panicking.

What do I say? What if they try to talk to me? What if they ask my level?

If he said twelve… that was fine.

But what if he said "twelve point one" later? What if the number changed again? What if they noticed he had too many skill slots?

He stepped back into the shadows. Watched.

He would not approach them yet.

Not until he knew they were clean.

---

🔹 End of Chaper 2

More Chapters