[Evan Pov]
The dungeon had gone dead silent. Not just the walls, not just the cracked stone, but everyone—both my group and theirs—had frozen, their movements suspended in disbelief.
The only sound left was the sick, wet drip of blood leaking from the troll's torn neck, and the ragged, broken breaths of the boy lying beneath it.
Lucas. That blank, hollow stare plastered on his face.
He wasn't looking at the troll, or the blood, or his teammates. He was staring at me, his eyes wide and lost, like a mirror reflecting my own cold detachment.
Seriously… what the fuck? Did he really lose himself in admiration of me? Can't blame him though. I am pretty cool.
"Raven—Ravenshade… huh. The runaway coward decided to come back."
That voice wasn't Lucas. It was Aldric, still struggling to push himself off the ground, bloodied but loud enough to spit his judgment.
His face was a mask of furious disappointment, a stark contrast to Lucas's hollow stare.
"My lord Evan… I thought you had abandoned us." This time, the trembling voice belonged to Jasmine.
Her wide eyes made me look like some divine savior instead of the late bastard who almost let them all die.
Truth? I did abandon them.
When the troll first showed up, I bolted. Took a few turns, found myself at a dead end. Backtracked, ran in circles—fuck, I've always been shit at directions.
By the time I stumbled back here, the scene was already a mess. Half of them barely standing, Lucas about to get crushed like a bug.
So, naturally… I hid.
Watched.
Waited.
And when it finally looked like someone was about to die—the protagonist, no less—well, of course I jumped in. Perfect timing.
Can't let the golden boy die too early, right?
Not because I saw the wide, exposed back of a tired beast and thought, hey, free kill. Definitely not that.
…Not that I'd ever say any of this out loud.
"No, of course not. Why would I abandon my favorite teammates? What do you take me for?" I said, my voice smooth, almost playful, a well-practiced performance.
"A scum," Aldric spat back without missing a beat, his battered body still lying on the stone floor.
…The fuck was his problem?
I just saved his ass, and this is the thanks I get?
I ignored Aldric. My eyes stayed on Lucas.
"Man, you look like you're a step away from the afterlife. You sure you're not taking your last breath?" I said, half-teasing, half-checking, a cynical part of me wondering if he was faking it.
He kept staring at me—blank, lost. Like someone who'd run out of whatever makes people keep moving.
Jasmine and the other girl—Lara, I think—scrambled to his side. They dropped beside him, their palms glowing a soft, healing green. Classic support-mage move: steady hands, slow radiance.
They started knitting flesh and steadying breaths before anyone else could think to move.
"So we're not going to talk about how the coward ran off and decided to grace us with a last-minute cameo, huh, Ravenshade?" Aldric spat, his voice hoarse with fury.
"Man, what's with you? Aren't you happy you're still alive? None of you are dead." I clicked my tongue. "For your information, that wasn't fleeing—that was a strategic retreat. I'm not some dumbass with a single brain cell who throws himself at a troll like a suicidal maniac. I've got a logical mindset. I wait for the perfect chance—"
Before I could finish my glorious explanation—
THUM.
A brutal force smashed me against the wall, hard enough to make the entire shaft tremble—stone dust poured down like ash.
Whatever I was about to say got crushed out of me.
"Fuck—who the hell dares—" I started, turning.
I didn't finish the sentence. The sight stopped me cold.
There, half-buried in blood and gore, the corpse—or whatever lump of flesh I'd last watched die—was still.
Blood leaked slow and steady from a wound across its neck and chest.
It was the troll, face torn, eyes hollowing out in frozen shock. My spear jutted from its chest like proof.
For a second, everything narrowed to the drip of that blood and the dull metal sticking out of a corpse that had, moments before, been a living storm.
"What the fuck—ain't no one gonna tell me this bastard had a second life bar?" I spat, trying to push myself up.
My arm screamed in pain. I glanced at it, twisted at a bad angle.
"Fuck… it's broken," I hissed.
GRAAAAAAAAAAA!
The abomination—beast, corpse, whatever the hell you'd call it—roared.
Blood poured from its mouth, its vocal cords shredded. How the fuck can it still scream?
It slammed its arms, its legs, its whole mangled body against the stone, flailing like some mindless husk. Every crash shook the dungeon, dust raining down.
Like a dying beast refusing to fall… or a headless snake, thrashing even though it should already be dead.
I looked at my spear still stuck deep in the beast's chest and hell I was sure it pierced the heart not once but twice. And still the fucker moves.
Nothing makes sense. It's like someone deliberately fucked with the rules just for some twisted, better plot.
I scanned the room. The two support mages—tired, panting, glowing hands barely steady—yeah, they could heal, but in a fight? They were dead weight.
The two archers? Quivers empty, bows useless. They might as well throw rocks.
Aldric and Arthur were plastered against the wall, broken and coughing, the only thing they had left was their big mouths. Taunts weren't gonna kill this monster.
And Wilson… where the fuck was he—
My eyes catch him. running. the bastard's fleeing, not even sparing a look at Seraphina, the pretty little elven princess, her mana drained dry.
Huh. Guess carrying a shield doesn't make you Captain America after all.
All I could see was me—the only one in better shape than the rest. Yeah, my hand's broken, but I've still got my dominant one. That's all that matters.
I yanked out a dagger and shouted, "Hey, you freak—half-giant, half-rotting colossus!"
The beast snapped its head toward the sound. I hurled the dagger. It sank straight into its first eye.
Graaaa!
It screamed, thrashing, blood pouring down its face. I didn't wait. Another blade was already in my grip, and I sent it flying into the second ruined socket.
"Should I start calling myself Evan the Eye-Poacher now?" I muttered, tightening my stance.
My brain raced. How the fuck was I supposed to finish this thing one-handed?
Do I run again—drag everyone out while this blind bastard stumbles? Or stand here and gamble everything on a beast that refuses to die?
Then a blur shot past me, cutting through my thoughts.
Not some unknown savior. Not some miracle.
Lucas.
That suicidal freak actually charged the monster head-on. And I just froze for a second, staring.
What the fuck—how the hell was he still moving? Logic died a while ago in this place, or maybe I was the only one left thinking straight.
Lucas charged the troll like a bull that had just seen a red cloth. He slipped past every wild swing, weaving through the monster's blind, clumsy strikes. One slash to the leg.
Another to the knee. Flesh split, tendons tore, and the troll dropped hard, forced down on one knee like some fallen giant.
Then that crazy bastard didn't stop. He jumped—grabbed onto the handle of my spear still buried in the beast's chest—like it was a fucking playground bar.
The troll twisted, convulsing, its whole body shaking like an earthquake, but Lucas held on. Tight. Too damn tight. What the hell drives someone to cling to death like it's a lover?
His weight tilted the spear at an angle. Then, with both hands gripping it, he spun the shaft, grinding the blade deeper—turning the wound into a brutal tunnel of torn flesh and shredded muscle.
GRRRRRAAAAAAAA! The troll's roar was desperate now, guttural, its voice more blood than sound. It thrashed, then collapsed with a thunderous THUM.
Silence.
I half-expected it to rise again. Third life bar. Some undead bullshit. But no. This time, it stayed down.
And then I saw Lucas. Not blank-faced anymore. Not dead-eyed. He was smiling.
A smile so wide, so twisted it looked… holy shit, it looked happy. Too happy.
Like he'd just had a divine orgasm in the middle of all this blood. Creepy as hell.
"Am I finally doing something
meaningful," he muttered, his voice ragged and raw, "or just another stupidity? …but I feel alive."
Then he collapsed—face-first onto the troll's blood-soaked belly. Out cold.
I stared at him. Then at the corpse. Then back at him.
"…Now I'm confused," I whispered. "Who's the monster here?"
Before I could figure it out, light shimmered.
Tiny particles—glowing, radiant—rose from all of us, not just me. And then a force pulled us in, a blinding white light swallowing everything.
-----
--
As the blinding light faded, my vision slowly sharpened, clearing from the haze.
Only then did I actually notice—really focus on—what surrounded me. I was no longer in the dungeon.
The dark, stone walls and muddy stench were gone… replaced by open greenery.
Grass stretched beneath my boots, the air felt lighter, and above me was a clear, endless blue sky.
I noticed the others—not just my teammates, but everyone. The entire first-year batch.
They didn't look fine, not even close.
Exhausted, beaten, on the verge of passing out—and some had already slipped past that, lying flat like corpses. But if you looked close enough, you could still catch the faint rise and fall of their chests.
Many were crying. Many were just sitting there confused, staring at nothing. And… was that one lady praying?
Two grown boys clung to each other, bawling like the world had ended. As much as I wanted to crack a comment about that, I didn't get the chance.
Because a voice cut through.
"Disappointment."
We all turned toward it.
Two figures stood towering over us. Their faces… damn, they had the exact expression of some strict Asian father whose kid just failed math.
"Disappointment. You kids are nothing but disappointment."