The dungeon heard them before they came—laughter, clanking gear, the reek of sweat and arrogance seeping through the cracked stone.
The door groaned, kicked open by a heavy boot.
Torchlight slashed across moldy walls, catching a lone slime trembling behind a rotting barrel, its gelatinous form quivering, pathetic.
He watched.
Silent.
Unseen.
A cracked crystal core pulsing faintly in the dark, feeling every scuff of their boots like needles in his spine.
"Smells like mold and rat shit," a voice sneered, sharp and cocky.
"Shut up, Torv," growled another, deeper, edged with authority.
"Check the corners. I want this cleared before lunch."
Four bodies filled the chamber.
Patterns he'd seen a thousand times.
A mage, cloaked in cheap runes; a rogue, Torv, all smirks and daggers; a warrior, Gorr, slabbed in dented plate; and her—Elia, trailing behind, a flicker of fear in her eyes.
[ELIA – Level 2 – Class: Unassigned]
No class.
No skills.
Barely armored, her leather tunic frayed, hands ungloved, shaking.
She stepped forward, eyes darting like a deer in a trap.
Torv laughed, his grin a blade. "Hey, Elia, go pet the slime. Maybe it'll kiss you."
She blinked, voice soft. "Why would I—"
The slime lunged, a desperate flop.
Elia yelped, stumbling back into the wall.
Torv's dagger flashed, pinning the slime mid-air.
It burst, spraying her cloak with viscous goo.
"First kill bonus, bitch," Torv said, winking. "This place is a fucking joke."
Elia knelt beside the slime's twitching core, wiping slime from her face.
Her lips moved, a whisper too faint for the others. "Sorry."
The dungeon felt it—a word he hadn't heard in four hundred years.
A tremor in his core, sharp, unfamiliar.
The others didn't notice, too busy ransacking a barrel for nine copper coins and a bent fork.
Gorr, the warrior, hefted his greatsword, voice like gravel.
"Move it. Fake loot room, then the core. I ain't wasting daylight."
Elia lingered, staring at the stone floor.
Her hand brushed the wall, fingers tracing a crack.
"It feels sad," she whispered.
The wall pulsed under her touch, a heartbeat of stone.
Not pain from damage, but something deeper—her recognition, her pity.
It burned.
"Lila, keep her moving!" Gorr barked at the cleric, who rolled her eyes, staff glowing faintly.
Elia followed, head down, steps hesitant.
The dungeon tracked them, room to room, their blades slicing slimes, their tools snapping traps. Each kill was a poke in his gut, each disarm a bone cracked.
Their laughter—Torv's cackle, Gorr's grunt, the mage Myra's bored hum—hammered nails into his essence.
But he didn't stir.
Not yet.
He waited, watched, endured.
They reached the core chamber, a dim cavern where his crystal sat, cracked and red, barely alive on its pedestal.
Torv sauntered up, sneering. "Still looks like shit. Bet this core came out of a goblin's ass."
Gorr shoved past, dropping into a squat.
"Gotta mark it." A stream of piss hit the stone, steaming in the cold air.
Elia flinched, eyes wide, hands clenched.
Then she moved, alone, unnoticed by the others lost in their mockery.
She approached the core, kneeling before it.
From her pouch, she drew a half-broken mushroom—slime food, worthless. She placed it gently at the base, fingers trembling.
"I don't know if you're real," she whispered, voice barely a breath. "But if you are… I'm sorry you have to suffer like this."
The dungeon felt it.
All of it.
Her voice, her breath, her hesitation.
Her sincerity.
And for one moment—
Something moved.
Not a trap.
Not a monster.
Something inside him.