The dungeon had a sense of humor. It waited until I'd strangled an orc the size of a forklift, then opened a deeper hallway and locked the door behind me like a polite kidnapper.
Blue roots braided over the stairs I'd used and glassed themselves shut. I tapped the new wall with a knuckle. It chimed like a wineglass and didn't care about me at all.
[New Objective: Proceed to core.]
[Warning: Threat level exceeds registered level by multiple tiers.]
"Add: 'no kidding,'" I told the floating box. The system, true to form, offered me silence and a path that sloped down like bad news.
Water still ran out of my jacket from the pipe I'd broken. The chain looped at my wrist clinked. My "dagger" was a bent locker handle. My shield was a locker door with opinions. The kitchen knife was dead—confetti and nostalgia. Level Four felt like a participation ribbon in a gunfight.
The corridor narrowed to a throat. Roots pulsed under tile, blue light breathing, making the air feel thick with static. Mana—at least that's what everyone called it when the world started humming in your bones and your thoughts got a pressure headache.
[Mid-Boss Eliminated.]
[Proceed to core.]
"Any chance of a 'stamina' stat before we meet whatever owns the core?
"[Invalid. No stat: Stamina.]
"That is just cruel."
The tunnel opened onto a catwalk that hadn't seen a safety inspector since ever. Below, an old switching yard yawned into a bowl, half subway, half cathedral. The tracks were gone under a carpet of glowing roots that rose in pillars like frozen lightning. Between them, I saw shapes that used to be people. Hunters, by the gear.
I crouched by the rail and breathed slow. Mara's text bubbled up—Be boring, sexy—and I tried. My heart ignored me and jackhammered anyway.
A landing held a broken emergency locker: a dead mana lantern, a coil of crumbly rope, a flare that still had hope. I waved the flare at the window. It vanished into Inventory with a blink.
A body lay near the landing. He'd died on his side, guarding a pack. I slid the pack free. ID tag. Snacks turned to chalk. A photo of a kid in a paper crown. I swallowed and slid the tag and photo into Inventory. The system didn't ping. Good. I didn't want points for this.
Far across the bowl, the roots opened and shut. I didn't hear it. I felt it—low thumps through bone like bass from a club five blocks away. Then again. A heartbeat. The core's or the thing that owned it.
"Oh, great," I whispered. "A dungeon with a pulse.
"[Tip: Mana pressure may cause epistaxis, dizziness, impaired coordination. Breathe slowly.]
"Epistaxis," I repeated, and my nose picked that moment to leak.
Status came up because denial only gets you so far.
[Status Window]
Name: Ethan Cross
Level: 4
Strength: 20
Agility: 16
Endurance: 9
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 5
Luck: ???
Skills:— Absolute Regeneration (SSS-Rank)
I stared at Endurance. "Nine? I've had hangovers with higher Endurance.
"[Assign points?]
"Do I have any?"
[You have 0 unassigned stat points.]
"Right. Because I fed all ten to 'hit harder' and 'trip less.' I stand by it."
On the bowl floor, the roots were thicker—veins turned to arteries. The blue light beat in time with that low note. I stepped off the last rung of the ladder and the air got heavy on my shoulders, like the dungeon set down a hand to see if I flinched. My knee almost did.
"Not flirting," I told the air. "We're not flirting."
Something glittered under a bent railing: a guild badge. I slid it into Inventory with the quiet promise I'd hand it to someone who asked me why I'd survived. Maybe honesty would count for something later. Maybe I was lying to myself. Either was fine, as long as "later" existed.
The little fort of barricades had held just long enough to feel like it would. Spent flares. A puddle scabbed black. Bullet casings from people who still believed guns worked in gates. A charm bracelet with letters that didn't spell anything anymore.
I worked around the ring slowly, locker handle out, shield up. My brain kept listing trivia because panic likes facts: my sink still dripped; the landlord called it ambience; a recruiter had once called me "plucky," which felt like an insult and a dare. Somewhere above ground, a woman with curls and a mean laugh had told me to be boring and meant it like a blessing.
"Inventory," I whispered. Chain, locker plate, locker handle, bent ring, fake-looking coins. I tore a strip of duct tape and wrapped the locker handle tighter to my palm. If I walked out of here, I'd buy a real weapon. If I walked out of here.
Halfway around the bowl, the pressure spiked. Not sound, not light. A weight behind the eyes. The blue brightened to sick white, then dimmed. A ring of roots split ahead and unspooled into an arch. Beyond: a chamber that didn't belong under a city. Ceiling too high, floor too level, walls grown into ribs.
I stopped because my body did. The chamber breath smelled like cold iron and old storm. In the center, something big moved, just enough for my brain to decide it wasn't a statue.
"Identify," I breathed.
[Identify]
Target: Core Guardian — Unknown
Estimated Threat: A-Rank (or higher)
My stomach dropped so hard it tried to leave through my shoes.
A-rank.E-ranks kill rookies. B-ranks ruin guilds. A-ranks kill cities. And I was standing here with a bent locker handle and duct tape.
"Nope," I whispered. "Hard nope. Put me back in with the goblins. Hell, put me back in high school gym class."
Advice: Retreat recommended.
"Door's locked asshole," I reminded it. "And I don't think the window opens."
The thing in the center finished deciding to exist. It rose out of itself like a hill standing up. Not an ogre, not an orc. The bones in its silhouette were wrong for human and right for problem. Plates like basalt, fur like smoke, horns that had grown along someone's bad idea of symmetry. A tail lashed once and the air jumped.
It didn't roar. It looked at me. From across a hall too big for eyes to meet, it looked at me, and something in my chest tried to make my legs leave without me.
My hands did the stupid thing and checked my shield for cracks. My brain did the stupid thing and wondered if Mara would have liked this room's lamp. My mouth did the stupid thing and asked, "Any chance we talk about it?"
The Guardian moved and the room got smaller. It wasn't fast. It didn't need to be. Every step landed like a verdict.
[Tip: Irregular openings may occur during telegraphed attacks.]
"Is that your way of saying 'watch for wind-up'?"
[Yes.]
"Oh, now you talk." I flexed my fingers on the locker handle. They didn't feel like mine. They felt like rental.
I edged left, testing the floor. The roots here had grown grooves cut by the same intent over and over. Fights happened in this room. A lot of them.
That bass note became a pattern. Not heartbeat—breathing. The Guardian inhaled. The light in the roots drew toward its center the way tide runs out before a wave. Somewhere in the press of air, I started to smile like an idiot because recognition is a weird comfort.
"I can trade," I told myself. "I can trade pain for an opening." It was the one thing I'd learned that felt like mine.
The Guardian stopped five human paces past the arch. It tilted its head like a butcher deciding where to cut. Its jaw unhinged a fraction. Not a roar. A breath. Mana flooded the floor and my nose bled again.
"Be boring," I said, because saying it made it sound possible. "Be boring, be boring—"
The horns dipped. The shoulders rolled. Even I could read this telegraph: a swing with the weight of a truck. I coiled to move, not away but through.
The first step shook the ribs. Dust fell in a slow shimmer. The second pressed the blue light outward like a ripple. Then—
Something above cracked. A pane of root-glass split. A hairline of daylight snuck in and died on the floor. The Guardian's head turned, just a sliver. The system chimed, small and cheerful.
[Opening detected.]
I ran straight at the monster, shield up, chain biting my wrist, locker handle clenched like it was something braver than it was.