It was supposed to be a small trip. But now it's become a death trap.
My left hand—the one that was supposed to be healed—still refuses to work properly.
On my left side, Raska stood, eyes widened.
"What the hell is that?"
Her tail went stiff. Ears snapped straight up. High alert. Ready to move the second that thing in front of us does.
Bell—the one we met on Floor 10, the one who used the protagonist's powerful Argonaut Charge to erase an infant dragon—now stood powerless.
"Is this really a Wall Shadow?"
Floor 7 has way less space than Floor 10. Using his power here is a death sentence. We'd end up buried under rubble. Cave-in. Done.
So asking the protagonist to fire off an AOE attack in this narrow path? That's suicide.
And I'm the only one here—as a former fan of this world—who can understand what that thing actually is.
"An irregular..."
The word left my mouth before my mind could even process it.
It moved.
Fast.
Faster than any Wall Shadow I've ever seen.
Fwoosh—
Clang—
---
The long corridor stretched. After what looked like hours of walk through floors and the intersecting paths led us to floor 10.
The floor had wide, open paths compared to upper levels, but heavily obscured by a thick, magical white mist.
Field of vision reduced to a few meters, making long-range combat difficult and ambushes frequent.
Size of this floor still feels like a mystery to me even after we crossed it to reach floor 14 in the previous expedition.
Silence and tension started to catch up. "So, this time is just floor 10," I started.
"Why? Wanna dive deep? I'm always happy to."
"Ya. Happy to. How? Enjoying while I ran for my life?"
"That sounds good too. Remind me later."
"Tch..."
I walked cautiously while looking for ambushes through the fog.
Raska was beside me, chill as the surroundings. Not even bothered by the damp and cold that was starting to creep through.
The walls were made of pale, damp stone. Here and there, jagged outcrops stuck out like broken markers in the fog. The lighting wasn't from anything solid—just a faint, sickly phosphorescence leaking from the ceiling moss, swallowed and spat back by the mist. Made the floor look less like a path. More like a burial ground.
I took maybe three steps.
Then I heard it.
Footsteps. Multiple. Coming from somewhere in the fog ahead. Not ours.
Raska's ears snapped forward.
"Already?"
"Yeah. Great. Perfect date ruined in minutes."
Thud... Thud...
I kept my voice lower. "Can't see five meters ahead. And somehow they know exactly where we are."
"Maybe you're just loud."
"I'm not the one with the tail."
She cracked her knuckles. "You really want to die making bad jokes, don't you?"
"Eyes on the road, please."
The footsteps got closer.
---
THE CULLING:
The scraping came first.
Claws on stone. Multiple sets. Light, quick—Imps.
Raska's hand dropped to her hip, fingers brushing the short sword's grip. Didn't draw. Not yet.
"Okay. Warm-up round."
The boy straightened, both hands sliding to the knives strapped at his hips. The blades came free with a whisper of leather—each one slightly oversized, but different.
One designed for cutting through monster hide like it was wet parchment. The other for piercing through tough monster scales like scrap metal.
"Even your weapons are weird," she muttered.
He just ignored her.
The mist shifted.
Several Imps burst through—small, hunched, wrong. Their arms stretched long and spindly, ending in hooked claws that clicked against the stone as they spread out, circling.
Pack hunters.
Behind them, heavier footsteps. Deliberate. Confident.
Two Orcs. Broad. Brutish. Each one standing close, muscled frames wrapped in scarred green hide. One carried a dead dungeon tree branch—thick as a grown adult's arm, jagged at the end where it had snapped off. The other had a chunk of rubble, edges sharp from where the dungeon had cracked it.
Makeshift weapons.
Natural scavengers.
Despite being slightly over a hundred celch tall, Imps were surprisingly agile and strong—pack coordinated, using attack-and-retreat tactics in the mist to ambush prey from multiple angles.
But here, on this floor, in this mist?
They weren't the hunters.
The Imps hissed, tongues flicking behind needle teeth.
The Orcs grunted, spreading wide to flank.
And the mist swallowed the space between them.
The lead Imp lunged—low, fast, claws extended for the boy's ankles.
He didn't dodge.
He vaulted.
Boot planted on the Imp's skull mid-leap, used its momentum as a springboard, twisted in the air—
—and came down with both knives in a scissoring cross-cut.
The second Imp, which had been circling to his left, didn't have time to react.
The blades caught it at the neck and shoulder, meeting in the middle.
The body dropped in three pieces.
He landed in a crouch, knives already reversing grip.
The first Imp—the one he'd stepped on—was still recovering, skull dented, vision swimming.
He drove the left blade down through its spine without looking.
Pinned it to the stone.
Cut clean through its neck with the right.
The Imp's body dissolved into black smoke and dust.
When he stood, two others were already gone—smoked by Raska while he'd been busy showing off.
"You're slow," she said flatly.
"You're welcome for the distraction," he shot back.
The last Imp shrieked and launched itself at her.
She caught it.
Mid-air. One hand around its throat. The other around its wrist.
Momentum carried them both backward three steps.
Then she pivoted.
Used the Imp's own weight, rotated her hips, and planted it into the dungeon floor.
The impact cracked stone.
The Imp's body folded wrong—spine snapping, ribs cracking unnaturally.
It vanished as black smoke and dust.
Raska flexed her fingers once. Looked at the boy.
He was already moving.
"Show-off," she muttered.
The first Orc—tree branch raised overhead like a war hammer—charged.
Heavy. Committed. No technique. Just raw strength and mass.
It swung.
The boy didn't block.
He slid.
Dropped low, legs extending, momentum carrying him under the descending branch as it smashed into stone where he'd been standing.
Chunks of dirt and rubble flew as a small crater formed.
He came out of the slide on the Orc's left flank, spun on one knee, and drove the left knife into the back of its leg—just above the ankle, where the tendon sat fat and exposed.
The blade went through.
But the Orc didn't fall.
It roared, tried to turn—
Raska was already there.
She stepped inside its reach, ducked under the wild backswing, and drove her fist into its leg where he'd just cut.
Once.
The Orc jerked.
Twice.
Bone cracked audibly.
It fell flat.
"You're welcome," she said.
"Wasn't asking for help," the boy muttered.
He yanked his blade free, kicked the back of the Orc's good knee, and when it dropped forward—
—brought the cutting knife across its throat in one smooth horizontal draw.
The Orc hit the ground.
Blood spread across the mist-slick stone.
The second Orc didn't roar.
It hurled the rubble chunk.
Not at the boy.
At Raska.
She saw it late—off-balance from the strikes, weight still shifting—
The stone chunk flew past her head by inches and exploded against the dungeon wall behind her.
Shrapnel scattered.
She blinked.
"When did they start using those as weapons?"
The boy didn't look up. "The dungeon's becoming more creative nowadays."
"Great. I hate creativity."
The Orc was already charging, using the throw as a distraction, closing the distance while she recovered.
The boy stepped in.
Planted his back foot, torso rotating, and whipped the cutting knife in a wide horizontal arc—not a slash, a throw—
The blade spun once.
Caught the Orc across the eyes.
Not deep. Just enough.
The Orc stumbled, hands flying to its face, vision gone red.
"Did you just—" Raska stared. "Did you just throw your weapon?"
"It worked, didn't it?"
"What if you missed?"
"I didn't."
"That's not the point!"
Raska moved while he was being smug.
She didn't punch this time.
She grabbed the Orc's extended arm—the one reaching for its face—locked the wrist, stepped under it, and pulled.
Leverage. Angle. Body weight.
Despite being double their size, the Orc's shoulder dislocated with a wet pop.
It bellowed.
She didn't let go.
Kept the arm extended, stepped behind it, drove her boot into the back of its knee—
It dropped.
She released the arm.
Drew her short sword in one fluid motion.
Drove it down through the base of the Orc's skull.
Clean.
Efficient.
The roar cut off mid-sound.
The body slumped forward.
Raska yanked the blade free, flicked blood off the edge, and sheathed it without looking.
"Now who is show-off?" the boy muttered behind her.
Raska stayed standing. Alert. Watching the fog.
"You know," she said after a moment, "most people don't throw their only cutting blade at an Orc's face."
"Most people don't dislocate shoulders for fun either."
"That's technique."
"So was the throw."
She glared at him.
He didn't look back. Just kept watching the corridor.
---
Raska crouched. Pulled three small magic stones from where the Imp corpses had dissolved. Pocketed them. Moved to the Orcs. Two more stones—bigger, worth slightly more.
"That's it?" the boy asked, walking over to retrieve his thrown knife.
"For now."
She stood, scanning the mist.
No more movement. No more scraping. Just the slow drift of white fog settling back over the carnage.
The boy leaned against the wall, eyes drifting back toward the corridor they'd been watching.
Still waiting.
Still nothing.
"This is a waste of time," he muttered.
"Small stones are still stones."
"Small stones are small money."
"Better than no money."
He didn't argue. Just crossed his arms and went back to staring into the mist.
***