The tunnel felt longer than it should have. Every scrape of Han-Jun's new, obsidian-hard claws against the stone echoed like a drumbeat in the cramped space. He kept looking back at those faint, glowing blue footprints, his mind swirling with questions that no loading screen had ever answered.
'Am I dead? Is my body still slumped over that sticky keyboard in Seoul? Is the ramen getting cold while my brain is busy playing National Geographic with a dragon body?'
He'd read enough webnovels to know the tropes. Sometimes the protagonist is just a copy, a digital ghost. Other times, the world back home continues while they rot in a coma. The thought made his chest tighten—not that he had much to go back to, but at least in his room, the only thing trying to eat him was his credit card debt.
'If I'm still back there... if my heart stopped... then this is it. This is the only life I've got left. And it's a life where I'm a lizard with a body count.'
[NOTICE: 'COMPOSED MIND' SUPPRESSING EXISTENTIAL DREAD.]
The cold, icy sensation washed over his brain again, forcing his focus back to the present. The air was changing. The damp, stagnant smell of rot and wet stone was being replaced by something sharp, sweet, and overwhelmingly fresh.
He rounded a final jagged corner, squinting as the dim cave light exploded into a blinding, golden radiance.
"F-fuck... my eyes..."
Han-Jun hissed, shielding his slit-pupiled eyes with a scaly paw. He waited, his draconic senses adjusting to the sheer intensity of the light. When he finally lowered his arm and looked out, his jaw practically hit the dirt.
"No way. This is... this isn't a dungeon."
He was standing on a high ledge, the mouth of the cave overlooking a vast, emerald-green basin that stretched as far as his new, sharpened vision could see. It was a world rendered in 8K—no, better than that. It was reality.
Massive trees with trunks wider than houses swayed in a gentle breeze, their leaves shimmering like polished jade. To his left, a thunderous roar drew his attention to a colossal waterfall, the water crashing into a crystal-clear pool hundreds of feet below. Rainbows danced in the mist, and the sound was so visceral he could feel the vibration in his very bones.
"It's... it's beautiful."
He crawled forward to the very edge of the cliff, looking down at a nearby pond fed by the waterfall's runoff. He could see silver-scaled fish darting between the reeds, their movements fluid and natural. The air was filled with the chirping of birds he couldn't name and the rustle of a forest that felt alive in a way no game engine could ever replicate.
'In the game, this was the [Green-Leaf Basin], a level 5-15 grinding zone. It was just a place to mash buttons and farm herbs. But here...'
He reached out a paw and touched a blade of grass growing at the cave's entrance. It felt cool and slightly waxy. He could feel the tiny veins in the leaf.
"I'm really here. I'm actually in Aethelgard."
A sudden, sharp hunger pang reminded him that he wasn't just a tourist. His stomach growled, a deep, rumbling sound that seemed to vibrate his entire ribcage. He looked down at the pond, his predatory instincts flaring up.
'I can't stay on this ledge forever. I need to get down there. I need to eat, I need to hide, and I need to figure out how to get to that Stage 2 evolution before something bigger than me decides I look like a snack.'
He looked at the steep, rocky path leading down toward the forest. He was bigger now—the size of a large dog—but in a world of monsters and high-level hunters, he was still just a very shiny target.
"Alright, Aethelgard. You gave me the SSS-rank. Now let's see if I can survive long enough to actually use it."