I spent the rest of the night bouncing across rooftops, slipping through alleys, and watching Orario breathe under moonlight. The city pulsed with a life I had only ever dreamed of seeing on a screen.
Adventurers staggered out of taverns, tipsy and laughing. Merchants closed shop with heavy coin pouches. Even the guards, clad in mismatched armor and carrying spears, looked like something out of a fantasy poster.
I had never felt so alive — or so untouchable.
But eventually, the thrill gave way to something else: hunger. Not for food, but for more. I needed to test the mark further, to push past simple pickpocketing and cheap tricks.
That's when I saw it.
Babel Tower.
It loomed above the city like a god's spear thrust into the earth, its white walls shimmering under the rising sun. The closer I got, the more details I saw — intricate carvings, massive windows reflecting morning light, banners flapping from high balconies.
I remembered it all.
Babel. Built to keep the Dungeon sealed, to stop monsters from flooding Orario. The first twenty floors aboveground were owned by the Guild, packed with Familia businesses, exchanges, blacksmith shops. From the fourth to the eighth floor? All Hephaestus Familia.
I could almost hear the wiki entries echoing in my head.
I took a deep breath and stepped inside.
The interior buzzed with life. Adventurers of all shapes and sizes lined up in front of reception counters, most of them armed and clad in armor that looked more expensive than my entire high school tuition.
I shuffled into the line to register, trying to look inconspicuous — though that was hard with my mismatched cloak and the mark that felt like it was burning a hole through my hand.
The line moved painfully slow. My mind drifted to all the loot I could swipe in this room alone. But I forced myself to stay put. I needed official access to the Dungeon first.
Eventually, a bored-looking Guild staff member waved me forward.
I recognized her instantly: pink hair in soft waves, pink eyes that glimmered with a lazy warmth. A star-shaped beauty mark under her eye.
Misha Flott. Eina's friend.
She wore the standard Guild uniform: black vest, white long-sleeve collared shirt, grey bow tie, black pants, polished black shoes. Even in that boring getup, she looked like she'd stepped straight off a glossy character sheet.
She tilted her head, her pink eyes sweeping over me with mild curiosity.
"Welcome to the Guild. Are you here to register as an adventurer?" she asked, her voice light and casual.
"Yeah," I croaked, my voice catching in my dry throat.
"Do you have a Familia?" she continued, her fingers already tapping away at a small crystal tablet on the desk.
I shook my head. "No. Not yet."
Her eyes softened a bit, and she sighed. "I have to advise you not to enter the Dungeon alone, especially without a god's blessing. It's extremely dangerous."
I almost laughed. Dangerous was an understatement.
"Thanks for the warning," I said, waving her off. "I'll take my chances."
She frowned, but continued the registration process without further argument.
"Alright," she said finally. "If you insist. You'll need some basic equipment at least. Armor from the Guild costs 3,000 Valis. A knife is 3,600."
I felt my fingers twitch.
Good thing I'd lifted that dwarf's coin pouch earlier.
I reached into my cloak and fished out the crystals, sliding them across the counter. Misha looked genuinely surprised for a moment before gathering the payment and gesturing me aside.
"You're officially registered," she said with a resigned sigh. "The entrance is on the first underground floor of Babel. Please… be careful."
I gave her a small nod and moved past her, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I followed the polished stone hallways deeper into Babel. The sound of my footsteps echoed eerily off the walls.
Then I reached it.
A massive, circular chamber. In the center, a ten-meter-wide pit yawned open like a hungry maw, spiraling stairs wrapping around its edges. The walls glowed in a soft light-blue hue, and overhead, an intricate painting of the sky made it look like the heavens themselves watched me descend.
The Beginning Road.
I swallowed hard and took the first step downward.
As I went deeper, the air grew colder, thicker. My footfalls slowed. My pulse pounded in my ears.
The bottom came into view. Narrow corridors stretched beyond the wide opening, their stone walls rough and uneven. Torches flickered against the walls, casting shifting shadows that seemed to breathe.
Then I saw it.
A goblin.
It was hunched, its green skin quivering as it sniffed the air. Its red eyes flickered with a giddy hunger. It looked smaller than I expected, almost frail — but my instincts screamed caution.
I reached for my new knife, fingers slipping around the hilt. My heart thundered.
"Okay… just like in the games," I muttered.
Before I could move, the goblin screeched and lunged at me, clawed hands flailing wildly.
My instincts kicked in.
Blink.
My body folded into smoke and darkness, and I reappeared behind the goblin in a single heartbeat.
I didn't think — I just acted.
I plunged the knife toward the back of its head, feeling it scrape bone before lodging deep.
The goblin froze, its scream cut short. Then, like a deflating balloon, it crumpled into black ash, leaving only a shimmering blue crystal where its body had been.
I stared, my breath catching in my throat.
I bent down and picked up the crystal, turning it over in my fingers. It pulsed faintly, like a tiny heartbeat.
I slipped it into my pocket, exhaling shakily.
One kill. One step deeper.
The echo of my heartbeat mixed with the echoing silence of the Dungeon, each pulse reminding me just how far from home I really was.
I looked ahead, deeper into the winding tunnels, the unknown pressing in around me like a living thing.
I wasn't ready. Not really.
But I grinned anyway.
"Let's see what else is hiding down here," I whispered to the dark.
I stood there for a moment after the goblin vanished, clutching the knife so tightly my knuckles turned white. My breath rasped in my throat, each inhale sharp and cold.
I forced myself to move.
Step by step, I crept down the corridor. The walls seemed to press in around me, flickering shadows twisting into shapes that looked almost human before dissolving back into darkness.
Every sound echoed — the scrape of my boot, the soft clink of the crystal in my pocket. I had no map, no party, no plan. Just the mark on my hand and a stolen knife.
The deeper I went, the more the air thickened. I passed other branching tunnels, some choked with rubble, others yawning wide and inviting like open jaws.
Then I heard them.
A clicking, scrabbling sound — faster than the goblin's stumbling gait.
Kobolds.
I ducked behind a jutting stone outcrop, my heart hammering. I peeked around and saw them: two kobolds, hunched and snarling, their eyes gleaming like dying embers. Their claws scraped against the stone floor, dragging crude, jagged blades.
My fingers flexed around the knife, and I could feel the mark burning with excitement, almost as if it were alive.
I sucked in a breath and stepped out.
"Come on, then," I whispered, my voice low, more to myself than to them.
The first kobold shrieked and lunged forward, its blade arcing toward my chest.
Blink.
I vanished in a shiver of blue-black smoke, reappearing behind it in a heartbeat. My momentum carried me forward, and I slammed the knife into its lower back, twisting hard.
It howled, convulsed, then burst into ash and a single small crystal.
The second kobold whirled, its teeth bared. Before I could react, it rushed me, blade raised.
I tried to Blink again — but a jolt of exhaustion seized my muscles, like an empty battery.
"Shit!"
I barely dodged, the blade slicing my cloak and grazing my side. Pain flared, sharp and electric. I stumbled backward, gasping.
The kobold snarled and lunged again.
I ducked low and drove forward, tackling it to the ground. My knife clattered away, but my hands found its throat. Its claws raked at my arms and chest, tearing fabric and skin.
I felt something primal rise inside me — a cold, dark focus.
I tightened my grip, feeling its frantic heartbeat under my palms. My thumbs pressed into its windpipe, harder and harder, until finally, its body shuddered and collapsed into ash beneath me.
I staggered upright, chest heaving, my blood smearing across my sleeves.
"Goddamn," I panted, wiping my forehead with a shaking hand.
I picked up the crystals, slipping them into my pocket. My knife lay nearby, blade nicked but intact. I snatched it up, my fingers curling around it with a newfound ferocity.
Then I heard footsteps.
I spun around, knife raised, blood dripping from my torn sleeve.
A figure stepped into the flickering light.
A young woman — maybe my age, maybe a little older. She wore light armor, a white breastplate over a dark tunic, and carried a short sword at her side. Her hair was a glossy black, tied back into a high ponytail. Her eyes — sharp, almost hawk-like — narrowed when they landed on me.
"Whoa," she said, stopping a few paces away. "Easy there. I'm not here to rob you."
I didn't lower the knife. My pulse thundered in my ears.
She glanced at my bleeding side, then at the crystals in my pocket.
"You're alone?" she asked, disbelief creeping into her voice. "No party? No Familia?"
I hesitated, my throat tight. "Yeah. Alone."
She let out a sharp laugh, shaking her head. "Damn. Either you're crazy or you've got a death wish."
"Maybe both," I muttered.
She stepped a little closer, raising her hands in a calming gesture.
"I'm Lyu," she said. "Lyu Leon. Adventurer. You?"
I swallowed hard. "Ogun," I said finally.
She scanned me again, her gaze lingering on the mark glowing faintly on my hand. Her eyes flickered with suspicion — or curiosity.
"You need to patch that up," she said, nodding at my side. "You'll bleed out before you make it back to the surface."
She tossed me a small cloth bundle — a basic potion, wrapped in linen. I caught it clumsily.
I stared at her, unsure.
"Go on," she urged. "You won't make it otherwise."
I unwrapped it, popped the stopper, and drank. The liquid burned down my throat like liquid fire, but warmth bloomed beneath my skin. The pain in my side eased almost instantly.
I looked up, breathless.
"Thanks," I muttered.
Lyu gave me a brief, almost amused smile. "Don't mention it. You look like you might do something interesting down here… or die horribly. Either way, I'd rather not step over your corpse on my way back up."
I almost laughed. Almost.
She turned to leave but paused, glancing over her shoulder.
"Be careful, Ogun. The Dungeon… it's alive in ways you can't imagine."
And then she vanished into the shadows, her footsteps echoing faintly before fading entirely.
I stood there alone again, my breath misting in the cold subterranean air.
The Dungeon felt different now — more alive, more watchful.
I tightened my grip on the knife, the mark on my hand pulsing with a dangerous warmth.
I took another step forward, deeper into the winding dark, and let a thin, reckless smile stretch across my lips.
"Let's see what else you've got for me," I whispered to the Dungeon itself.
I watched Lyu vanish into the tunnels, her quiet presence dissolving into the endless dark. For a few moments, the silence pressed against me like a heavy cloak, wrapping my ribs and threatening to choke me.
I forced myself to breathe.
In. Out.
I flexed my fingers around the knife's handle, the mark on my hand pulsing slowly, almost like it was whispering to me.
One fight. One encounter. I was still alive.
I could have turned back then. Cashed in my crystals, found a safe corner to collapse in, licked my wounds.
But something deeper — hungrier — gnawed at me. A raw, coiled thrill that kept tightening in my chest.
I took another step forward.
The first floor stretched ahead of me like a living labyrinth. The blue-hued walls twisted and branched, some paths ending abruptly in jagged rock, others yawning wide into dark unknowns.
I moved cautiously, every sense on edge.
More kobolds and goblins drifted through the tunnels. Some sniffed the air, others pawed at old bloodstains on the stone. I didn't wait for them to come to me this time.
I lunged.
Blink.
A rush of motion — smoke, blue flickers — and I was behind the first goblin. My knife sank into its neck, and it crumpled with a wheezing shriek before dissolving into ash and a crystal.
Two kobolds charged at me together next. My heart hammered in my ears as I ducked under the first swing, pivoted, and kicked one into the wall. The other slashed at my arm, grazing my flesh and sending hot pain shooting up to my shoulder.
I roared and twisted forward, slamming my knee into its chest and driving the knife up under its chin.
Ash. Crystal.
I moved faster with every kill, the mark on my hand burning hotter, almost gleeful. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw that dark tree in the void, its runes pulsing like distant stars.
I pocketed the new crystals, my cloak heavy and my breath ragged.
Deeper. Just a little deeper.
I stalked down another corridor, boots squelching through a damp patch of moss. A soft glow caught my eye ahead — something flickering against the wall.
I slowed, my knife ready.
As I crept closer, my breath caught in my throat.
It wasn't a torch or a crystal.
It was a mark.
A faint, shifting shape glowed on the stone — a rune, just like the ones on the tree. It twisted and rippled as if alive, threads of blue-black energy bleeding off it like smoke.
I stared, my mind spinning.
Slowly, almost as if in a trance, I reached my marked hand toward it.
The moment my fingers brushed the rune, the world snapped out from under me.
I felt myself ripped upward, my spirit spiraling past my bones, my thoughts smeared across some endless dark canvas.
When I blinked, I was back in that void realm — the cave-like hollow, the writhing walls, the shimmering fog of yellow light.
I turned, my heart thundering, and saw the tree again.
It looked taller now, its bark shimmering with new runes that twisted like phantom veins.
I staggered forward, my feet crunching on phantom gravel. The branches above shifted, flickering in and out of existence.
I climbed again, each handhold cold and alien under my fingers. My breath fogged the unreal air as I pulled myself up to a new branch.
There it was.
A new rune pulsed gently on the black wood.