The corridor stretched for what felt like miles.
Kura walked through darkness lit only by bioluminescent fungi growing in patches along the walls. The air was cold, damp, and carried sounds he couldn't identify—dripping water, shifting stone, and occasionally something that might have been breathing.
He was deep. Impossibly deep. Floor forty? Fifty? The numbers didn't even matter at this point. He was in territory where even the strongest adventurers rarely ventured.
With level 2 stats.
And a knife.
The absurdity of it would have made him laugh if he wasn't so terrified.
The corridor eventually opened into a smaller chamber. Kura stopped at the entrance, every sense screaming danger. The room was roughly circular, maybe thirty feet across, with—
Movement.
Something was in there.
Kura pressed himself against the wall, heart hammering. His eyes adjusted to the dim light, and he saw it:
A creature about four feet long, segmented body like a centipede but armored with chitinous plates that gleamed wetly. Its mandibles clicked as it moved, searching, hunting.
A Dungeon Crawler—he'd read about them in the bestiary lessons. Low-level scavengers on the upper floors, but down here? This one looked bigger, more dangerous. Probably a variant evolved for the deep environment.
It hadn't seen him yet.
Kura had two choices: try to sneak past, or fight.
Sneaking meant hoping it didn't detect him. One mistake and he'd be dead.
Fighting meant risking death with stats barely above human baseline.
But fighting also meant taking control. Making a choice instead of hoping to be overlooked.
Kura had spent his whole life being overlooked.
He was done with that.
He studied the creature's movement patterns. It was searching the chamber in a grid, methodical but predictable. Its armored head swept left and right, mandibles clicking.
Armor plating covered most of its body, but there—between segments, where it had to flex—there were gaps. Vulnerable points.
Kura's Material Analysis kicked in automatically, examining the chitin structure. Hard outer shell, but the joints were softer tissue. And the head, while armored, had sensory organs that could be damaged.
He had one advantage: surprise.
Kura waited until the creature's search pattern brought it close to his position, back partially turned. Then he moved.
He didn't think. Didn't hesitate. He lunged from the shadows, knife aimed at the gap between head and first body segment, and drove the blade in with everything he had.
The crawler shrieked—a sound like metal scraping metal—and thrashed violently. Kura held on, twisting the knife, feeling hot fluid spray across his hands. The creature's tail whipped around, catching him in the ribs and sending him flying.
He hit the wall hard, pain exploding through his already-injured chest. The crawler turned toward him, one mandible hanging loose, green ichor pouring from the wound. It charged.
Kura rolled desperately, the mandibles snapping closed where his head had been a second before. He came up running, circling, keeping mobile. The creature was faster than him but injured, its movements less coordinated.
It charged again. This time Kura dove under it, slashing upward at the softer underbelly. His knife bit deep, opening a long gash. More ichor sprayed, and the creature's shriek became a gurgle.
It collapsed, legs twitching, then went still.
Kura stood there, chest heaving, covered in monster blood, knife dripping in his hand.
He'd killed it.
His first real fight. His first kill.
And he'd won.
A notification appeared:
Level Up! Level 2 → Level 3
Kura stared at it. He'd gained a level from one fight? The deeper floors must give massive experience.
His stats increased. Strength, agility, vitality—all jumped from 15 to 25. It wasn't much compared to the combat classes, but it was significant. He could feel the difference in his body—muscles slightly stronger, reactions slightly faster.
But more than that, something had changed in him.
He'd looked death in the face and fought back.
He'd survived.
Kura knelt beside the crawler's corpse, examining it with his Material Analysis. The chitin plates could be useful—heat resistant, fairly durable. The mandibles were sharp enough to be weapons if shaped properly.
Without thinking too hard about it, he began harvesting materials.
This was survival now. No rules. No backup. No safety net.
Just him and the abyss.
* * *
Kura continued through the labyrinth, more cautiously now. He encountered two more crawlers over the next several hours, dispatched both with increasing efficiency. Each fight taught him something—timing, positioning, weak points.
Each fight made him a little bit faster. A little bit harder.
He found a water source—an underground stream running through one chamber. Tested it carefully, found it safe to drink. Filled his water skin.
He found edible fungi—at least, his Material Analysis said they were edible. The taste was awful, but they provided calories.
He found a safe chamber to rest in—small, single entrance, defensible. He wedged his pack against the entrance as a makeshift alarm and allowed himself to collapse.
Sleep came immediately, exhaustion overriding fear.
He dreamed of Daisuke's eyes. Cold and certain.
He dreamed of Shirayuki's smile.
He dreamed of falling.
When he woke, his body ached worse than before. The adrenaline had worn off, leaving behind the reality of his injuries. Bruised ribs, various cuts and scrapes, muscles strained past their limits.
But he was alive.
Kura forced himself to eat more of the awful fungi, drink more water, take inventory. His supplies were limited. He needed to find more resources, better weapons, actual food.
He needed to survive.
The sealed corridor beckoned. Deeper into the prison. Toward whatever was contained there.
Every instinct said to avoid it. But every other path led nowhere. The chamber he'd landed in had no exits except forward.
So forward it was.
Kura gathered his meager possessions and continued into the depths.
The corridor changed gradually. The rough-hewn walls gave way to deliberate architecture—carved stone, geometric patterns, runic inscriptions. This wasn't natural dungeon. This was built. Designed.
A prison, yes. But also something more.
A temple?
The corridor opened into a massive chamber, and Kura stopped, breath catching.
It was enormous—easily three hundred feet across, with a ceiling so high it disappeared into darkness. Massive pillars lined the perimeter, each one carved with intricate runes that glowed softly. The floor was inlaid with precious metals forming elaborate designs.
And at the chamber's center stood a structure.
A shrine? An altar? It was circular, raised on a platform, surrounded by concentric rings of glowing symbols. At its center—
Kura squinted. There was something there. Something he couldn't quite make out from this distance.
He approached cautiously, every nerve screaming warnings. The air here felt different—charged with power so intense it made his skin prickle. The runes grew brighter as he got closer, pulsing in rhythm like a heartbeat.
Twenty feet from the platform, he could see it clearly.
A coffin.
Made of crystal, transparent, glowing from within.
And inside—
Kura's breath stopped.
A girl.
She looked about his age, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Pale skin, delicate features, long silver hair spread around her like a halo. She wore what looked like an elaborate dress from centuries past, preserved perfectly.
She was beautiful.
And she looked dead.
No—not dead. Asleep. Her chest rose and fell with slow, steady breaths. Sleeping, just like the inscriptions had said.
The Sleeping Princess.
This was what had been sealed here for ten thousand years.
Kura stood at the edge of the platform, staring at the crystal coffin, trying to process what he was seeing.
Why seal a sleeping girl? What was she? What had she done to warrant this kind of prison?
And more importantly—why did he feel drawn to her?
There was something about her. Something that called to him, that made him want to reach out, to touch the crystal, to—
Don't.
The thought came clear and firm. Touching the seal would be a very bad idea.
Kura stepped back, forcing himself to look away. He examined the chamber instead, his Ore Appraisal going into overdrive. The materials here were incredible—Adamantine, Orichalcum, rare crystals he'd never even heard of. The whole structure radiated power.
This was a masterwork of the Age of Gods. A prison designed to hold something—someone—considered dangerous enough to lock away forever.
And Kura had fallen right into it.
He spent hours exploring the chamber's perimeter. Found side rooms—ancient living quarters, storage areas, what might have been guard posts. All abandoned for millennia.
But the seal remained active. The prison still functioned.
Whatever the Sleeping Princess was, the gods had made sure she stayed asleep.
As night fell—or what Kura assumed was night, since time was meaningless down here—he made camp in one of the side rooms. It was defensible, with a single entrance he could monitor. The seal's power seemed to keep monsters away from this area.
He sat with his back against the wall, exhausted, injured, alone.
Alone except for the sleeping girl in the crystal coffin twenty feet away.
Kura pulled out Shirayuki's protective charm, holding it in his palm. It was still warm, still pulsing with her blessing.
She thought he was dead now. They all did. The trap had claimed him, he'd fallen into the abyss, another tragic casualty.
Daisuke had won.
No.
Kura's hand clenched around the charm.
Daisuke hadn't won. Because Kura was still breathing. Still alive. Still fighting.
He would survive this. He would find a way out of this abyss. He would get stronger.
And when he finally made it back to the surface—
Daisuke would learn that some people refused to stay dead.
Kura closed his eyes, exhaustion finally claiming him.
In the crystal coffin, the Sleeping Princess stirred slightly.
For the first time in ten thousand years, she was not alone.
And deep within the seal, something ancient began to wake.