Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was dark.

Not the kind of dark that comes with nightfall, nor the dim gloom of a power outage. This was a deeper black—so complete it smothered depth and erased edges, as if the world had given up trying to shape itself. The taste of stone dust clung to the back of Jinwoo’s throat. Something heavy pinned his ribs.

A voice groaned. His own.

He tried to move, but his arm refused to obey. Broken? No—numb. His body was still reeling, caught somewhere between E-rank fragility and S-rank memory. Breath hissed through clenched teeth as he twisted beneath what felt like a slab of fractured pillar. Cracks spiderwebbed the stone above him. Loose gravel scraped across his shoulder as he pushed.

The pressure shifted.

With a grunt, Jinwoo rolled onto his side, gasping. The world tilted. For a moment, all he could hear was the sharp static hum in his skull—like a thousand radios whispering in a dead language just beyond hearing.

And then—quiet.

He blinked. Blinking hurt.

Above him, a faint green glow pulsed in broken intervals—runes etched into the dungeon wall, flickering like a dying heartbeat. He was in a low-rank dungeon, that much he could tell. Stone corridor. Generic architecture. No trace of design or identity, just the brutal uniformity of system-generated death traps.

He touched his temple. Blood.

Something hard and round rolled against his hip. His old guild-issue mana gauge—cracked and flickering.

He sat up, slowly. Vision swam, steadied. The sounds came next: booted feet, panting breaths, someone sobbing softly a few meters down the corridor. A voice barked orders—young, male, trembling with fear poorly hidden behind bluster.

“Formation! I said formation! That thing’s still back there, we need a circle, now—where’s the healer?!”

Jinwoo’s fingers closed around the wall as he stood. His legs wobbled. Every muscle ached as if he’d been reassembled wrong.

This body… was his. But not.

It had been years since he’d felt so slow, so weak, so painfully breakable. But the eyes—his eyes—cut through the dark like a hawk’s. He could count the flecks of rust on the nearest blade lying abandoned on the ground. He could feel the vibrations of each footstep on the stone through his soles.

S-rank perception. E-rank bones.

His lips curled. A dry, bitter sound escaped his throat. Half a laugh, half a cough.

Someone turned toward him. A girl—mid-twenties, staff glowing weakly in one hand. She squinted through the dust. “Wait—are you okay? You were—You weren’t moving.”

Jinwoo tilted his head, then looked past her.

A corpse. No—a body. Still breathing. Crushed leg, blood pooling. They’d dragged the man out, but not far enough. A trail of it led from the far hall. Whatever attacked them had been big, fast, and smarter than it looked.

He inhaled sharply, and that was when he felt it.

Faint. So faint he almost missed it.

A presence. No, not presence—presences. Dozens. Hundreds. Lingering just at the edge of awareness, like fingers brushing silk. No visuals, no voices.

But he could feel them.

The shadows were with him.

Dormant. Distant.

Waiting.

He closed his eyes.

Then opened them.

And took a step forward.

*****

The second step was worse.

His foot slipped slightly on the cracked stone, and his balance pitched forward—not because he tripped, but because his body couldn’t correct itself in time. The lag between decision and execution was only a fraction of a second. But to him, with eyes sharpened beyond human norms, it was an eternity. That delay might as well have been a death sentence in any real fight.

He steadied himself on the wall, jaw tight.

A growl echoed from deeper in the dungeon. Low. Wet. The kind that burrowed into your spine and made your lungs feel too shallow.

The woman beside him—the healer—flinched. She wasn’t looking at him anymore.

“Formation!” the team leader shouted again, louder now. “I said move! It’s circling back!”

Jinwoo blinked toward the sound of the voice.

There he was—young, barely older than Jinwoo, sword held in a stiff grip he clearly didn’t trust. His eyes darted toward the side tunnel. Panic masked as command. His armor was second-hand, scratched along the sides, probably hadn’t been repaired since his last raid.

Jinwoo knew the type. First-time leader. Desperate not to lose anyone on his record.

Not out of kindness—out of fear of paperwork. And lawsuits.

The growl came again, louder this time.

Something heavy thudded across the stones behind them. Two beats. Then silence.

Jinwoo’s hand brushed instinctively toward his side—nothing. No dagger. No sword. Just the crumpled half of a gear pouch with half a healing potion bottle shattered inside it.

He scanned the corridor.

Too tight to flank. No alcoves for cover. A single narrow hall led into the chamber they’d just fled—caved-in at one end, collapsed door at the other. They were boxed in.

He turned to the healer. “Your mana?”

She blinked. “Wh-what?”

“Can you still cast?”

“I… I think so. But it’s low. I used—on Daejin’s leg—”

“Good. Save it. For yourself.”

That shook her.

Jinwoo didn’t wait.

He stepped forward, past the groaning swordsman slumped near the center of the group, and stooped low, snatching a fallen weapon—a short sword, chipped along one edge, barely balanced. It felt foreign in his grip, like he was trying to hold water.

Behind him, someone hissed, “Hey! What the hell are you—”

He didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

Every step closer to the tunnel was agony. His muscles screamed. His breath came in short bursts. The low thrum of incoming mana—the predator’s aura—was like iron scraping against his skin.

Then it charged.

It burst from the left—eyes gleaming red, skin a jagged gray, claws long enough to split bone.

A C-rank dungeon beast. Ugly. Quick.

Jinwoo moved.

But not fast enough.

He barely twisted out of the way. The claws grazed his chest, shredding the edge of his hunter’s vest. The pain came after, but not sharp—dull. Distant. The adrenaline was kicking in, masking everything but motion.

He dropped low, twisting the sword around in his palm, and stabbed upward—not a strong blow, just precise.

Right into the beast’s armpit.

It howled.

Didn’t die.

Slammed him against the wall with its free arm.

Stone cracked. His shoulder screamed.

Then someone else struck—a firebolt from the rear, slamming into the creature’s back. A shout. Steel clanging.

Jinwoo didn’t hear the rest. He was already sliding down the wall, vision flickering.

Weak.

His own word. Carved into the silence.

But before the dark could take him, before the static returned, he saw the shadows again—no shapes, no names.

Just a cold patience.

Watching.

Waiting.

Still there.

Still his.

*****

Pain flared down his ribs like a hot wire.

Jinwoo coughed and spat red, tasting iron and grit. His shoulder was screaming, but it wasn’t dislocated—just crushed under impact. He could move it. Barely.

The dungeon beast snarled, whipping its gaze from him to the team now scattering behind him. Smoke still curled from its shoulder where the firebolt had landed, but the burn was shallow. Annoying, not fatal.

“Get back—get back!” the leader shouted. His voice cracked.

Too slow.

The creature turned toward a swordsman with a limp, bloodied leg—one Jinwoo hadn’t seen in the fight before. The man was dragging himself backward, sword forgotten, panic frozen in his face.

The beast leapt.

Jinwoo moved.

His body didn't want to. His nerves were dulled, reflexes lagging behind instincts—but his perception fed him everything. The angle. The trajectory. The weight distribution on the creature’s haunches. The target. The gap in timing from the others.

He ran straight into the beast’s path.

“Move!” someone shouted.

He didn’t.

Jinwoo’s foot caught under him—intentional. He dropped low just as the beast lunged, driving his full weight into its chest. It wasn’t strength that stopped it.

It was placement.

He redirected it—slightly—just enough that it missed the swordsman and crashed into the ground, claws raking empty air.

They rolled. The beast slammed him hard against the floor once, twice, trying to dislodge him.

He didn’t let go.

Couldn’t.

His arms wrapped around the creature’s throat. One of its claws tore through his side, but he didn’t scream. He bit down on the pain. Blood bubbled at the edge of his lips.

“Now!” he croaked.

A blur of fire hit the beast from behind. Another hunter charged in and slashed—messy, desperate—but it worked.

The beast shrieked and finally staggered off of him, bleeding from three new wounds. It turned to flee—limping—and vanished into the corridor’s dark curve.

Gone.

Breathing filled the silence. Shaking. A sob. The team leader shouted for a count—checking who was still alive.

Jinwoo lay on the stone floor, chest heaving, vision swimming.

Hands reached for him.

He waved them off.

“I’m… fine,” he said. It was a lie, but the kind he knew how to tell.

No one questioned it.

They were too busy pulling the wounded swordsman back to his feet, too stunned by the near miss.

Too busy trying to make sense of what just happened.

“Did he—did you see that?” one muttered.

“Was that… timing?”

“Luck,” someone else said too quickly.

Yeah.

Let them think that.

Jinwoo sat up, wiping blood from his lip.

He could still feel them—the shadows.

They hadn’t spoken. They hadn’t moved.

But they’d watched.

And they hadn’t left.

*****

The corridor narrowed ahead.

Old mana lanterns flickered overhead, shedding just enough green-blue glow to cast distorted shadows across the cracked stone. The team moved slowly, limping and leaning into each other. No one spoke now.

The high from survival had faded into that post-adrenaline hollow where fear didn’t scream—it whispered. Jinwoo knew that silence. He’d walked through it thousands of times.

He walked last in the line.

Not by accident.

His breath was shallow. Every step pulled at the torn muscles in his side, and his left shoulder ached with a pulsing throb. But he wasn’t watching his own wounds.

He was listening.

There it was again.

A click. Too sharp. Not a loose pebble under a boot. Not human.

He half-turned his head, letting his gaze trail behind without moving his body. The corridor bent slightly around a protruding section of wall, masking most of the rear path. Nothing visible.

But something was there.

It wasn’t the monster they’d fought. Too light. Too soft. But fast.

Scouting behavior.

A secondary hunter? A carrion-class predator?

He whispered low, mostly to himself, “You didn’t come alone.”

His fingers brushed the pouch on his belt.

Nothing useful.

A half-unwrapped binding rune tag—damp and unstable. A pit trap orb, half-charged. And a roll of fine string used for tripwire alerts.

That would have to do.

He slowed. Bent.

Pretended to tie his boot.

Carefully, using his good hand, he ran the wire across the narrowest point in the corridor, anchoring it with tiny crystal-bond tack at ankle height. He coated it in dust with a quick brush of his fingers.

Then he stood and moved again—faster this time, letting a limp show.

To bait.

By the time he reached the group, they were near the exit gate—runes spiraling on the wall where the dungeon’s core had been claimed.

They didn’t notice the way he angled his stance, eyes fixed backward.

The trap snapped.

A high-pitched snarl tore through the silence.

A blur of gray-black muscle slammed into the tripwire, crashed to the ground in a spasm of limbs, and hit the collapsed wall hard enough to knock loose a spray of dust.

Everyone jumped.

Swords half-raised. Cries of confusion.

But the beast didn’t rise.

Jinwoo was already halfway there. Not running—walking. Calm. One motion. He grabbed the broken short sword he’d dropped earlier and drove it into the creature’s neck.

It spasmed. Shuddered.

Died.

The others stared.

“You… caught it?” one finally asked.

Jinwoo glanced at the body.

Skeletal frame. Thin tail. Probationary beast—often used to test response teams before the final chamber.

“Yes,” he said simply.

The leader walked over, face pale.

“That was a stealth variant. They don’t usually…”

He trailed off.

Jinwoo didn’t offer anything else.

Just wiped the blade against the creature’s fur, dropped it again, and turned back toward the gate.

His hands were shaking again.

Not from fear.

From exhaustion.

And something else.

The silence in the back of his mind… was beginning to fill.

*****

The gate spat them out with a hollow sound, like a seal breaking underwater.

Jinwoo stepped into the dungeon lobby’s artificial light and squinted. Fluorescents buzzed overhead. Cheap tile floor. Plastic chairs lined one wall like broken teeth. The Association rep—barely older than Jinah—stood frozen behind the desk, mouth open slightly.

No one looked good.

Blood, dirt, and monster filth clung to everyone like smoke. Most collapsed into chairs without speaking. One of the mages was crying silently into a towel. Another held an ice pack against a bruised eye, staring at nothing.

Jinwoo didn’t sit.

He moved to the far wall and leaned his back against it slowly, breath tight in his throat.

His body screamed with every motion. The kind of slow, spreading ache that didn’t speak of damage—it spoke of limits. Of a body pushed just beyond what it could handle, still wobbling on the edge of collapse.

But that wasn’t what made him tremble.

He looked down at his hands.

Faint tremors ran through his fingers. His knuckles were red from strain. Dirt had settled into the creases of his palm. He turned them over, stared at the skin.

This was wrong.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

The Cup had promised him time. A clean return. His mother. His sister. A world before the rot set in.

But he hadn’t gone far enough.

He was still too late.

And his body—this body—was a cage. Every instinct he had screamed for movement, for force, for power. He knew how to kill the things that had stalked them today. He knew how to turn shadows into blades, how to split mountains in half with thought.

But the strength wasn’t there.

Not yet.

He exhaled slowly, forced the rage down.

Then he did something dangerous.

He reached inside.

It wasn’t a physical motion. It was deeper—a mental stretch, a reach into the reservoir that had once been infinite. Into the space where the System had lived, where the cold blue text had once filled his thoughts like a second language.

Nothing.

Then—

[Error: Core Access Incomplete]

A flicker of light. Faint. Blue.

Gone as soon as it came.

He blinked. His breath hitched.

It’s still there.

Damaged. Quiet. Fragmented.

But not gone.

Not erased.

He opened his inventory.

Empty.

Just a flicker of static at the edges.

A soft chime, half-heard, in the back of his mind.

Not a word. Not a message.

Just…

waiting.

He closed his eyes.

The shadows did not speak. But they stayed close.

Still here.

Still his.

He let out a breath. Then, as casually as possible, straightened off the wall and limped out of the room without a word.

Let them think whatever they wanted.

He had work to do.

Chapter Text

The key turned with a soft click.

Jinwoo pushed the door open and stepped into the apartment like a stranger.

Same hallway. Same cracked light above the coat hooks. Same faint scent of detergent and rice—an echo of meals cooked long ago, now ingrained in the wallpaper. The air was warm, still, lived-in. He stood there for a long moment, one foot inside, the other still on the threshold.

He didn’t belong here.

Not really.

The door closed behind him with a soft thud.

He moved on autopilot, shoes off, backpack half-zipped and bleeding shredded cloth, sword case slung over one arm. The strap broke halfway down the hall and the case thudded to the floor. He didn’t pick it up.

The bathroom light buzzed when he flipped it on. Yellowed tiles. Slight mildew near the tub.

He stared at himself in the mirror.

His reflection stared back—twenty-one years old, bruised, gaunt, blood smeared down his collar and neck. One eye already purpling. A shallow gash curved over his jawbone like a smile.

He looked… small.

Not frail, but unfinished. The body of a boy still losing fights with gravity.

He undressed slowly. The shirt peeled off like second skin, stiff with dried blood. Underneath, new bruises had already bloomed across his ribs. A long scrape ran down his side where the beast’s claw had dragged along him.

He stepped into the shower and turned the water on full.

Hot. Scalding.

He stood under it, unmoving, while the blood ran off him in slow, lazy streaks. Red turned pink, then clear.

The sting felt distant. The heat, too.

He watched the blood spiral down the drain and thought of the first time he died. The third. The hundredth. All the ways a body could fail. All the ways a soul could splinter.

His hand pressed against the wall, water hitting his shoulders like rain that wouldn't end.

He waited for a voice.

A prompt.

A whisper from the shadows.

Nothing.

The silence was heavier than the water.

When he finally moved, the tiles beneath his feet had gone cold.

*****

The steam from the rice cooker fogged up the window above the sink.

Jinwoo stood in front of the kitchen counter, towel still wrapped loosely around his shoulders, his wet hair dripping onto the back of his shirt. The bathroom light was still on down the hall. He hadn’t turned it off. Couldn’t remember if he meant to.

The knife in his hand was old. Dull. The handle chipped from years of use. He tested its weight, then lowered it to the cutting board.

Kimchi first. From the plastic container in the fridge, still sealed tight. He peeled the lid back slowly, trying not to let the brine splash.

His hand trembled once.

Just once.

He stilled it by gripping the handle tighter.

Slice. Press. Fold. Stack.

Each movement methodical. Familiar. The kind of rhythm that came not from thought, but from repetition. A daily dance he’d long since memorized.

Eggs next. Pan hot. Oil slicked in a slow spiral.

He cracked them one at a time, separating yolks from whites without effort. A pinch of salt. A whisper of soy. Just like their mother used to do before she fell silent.

He didn’t think. Just moved.

When the rice cooker clicked, he opened it and stirred the grains, letting the scent wash over him—simple, warm, human.

He didn’t feel hungry.

Didn’t even know if he could eat.

But Jinah would ask questions if dinner wasn’t ready when she came in.

That was the rule.

He ladled soup from a leftover container into a pot and brought it to a slow boil, adding sliced tofu and seaweed for texture. The knife clinked as he set it down. The pan sizzled. The rice steamed.

Normal sounds.

He set the table without looking.

Two bowls. Two spoons. A pair of chopsticks slightly warped from heat.

He stepped back and stared at the spread.

It looked right.

Smelled right.

But none of it felt real.

*****

The door opened with a sudden bang against the wall.

“I’m home!”

Jinwoo didn’t flinch.

From the kitchen, he heard the thud of shoes being kicked off, the rustle of a backpack dumped onto the entry mat, the jingle of keys hitting the catch dish like a practiced routine. He turned slowly, wiping his hands on the towel draped around his shoulders.

“Welcome home,” he said.

Jinah poked her head around the hallway corner, mid-laugh at something only she knew.

Her eyes lit up when she saw the table.

“Oh my god—is that egg? You actually cooked something other than microwaved noodles?”

“Had time,” he said.

She blinked at that, a little surprised. “Didn’t you have a raid today?”

He shrugged. “Wasn’t long.”

Not a lie. Not exactly.

She breezed into the kitchen, still in her school uniform—tie crooked, sleeves rolled up, skirt dusted from gym class. Her hair was pulled into a loose braid with a few strands sticking out like antennae.

She sat down and immediately began scooping rice into her bowl. “Teacher Kim finally lost it today. Someone hid his thermos, and he screamed so loud in the teacher’s lounge, we heard it across the courtyard.”

Jinwoo sat opposite her, slowly, hands folded in his lap.

She barely looked up as she talked, too busy stirring her soup, complaining about homework, mumbling through bites of kimchi between stories.

“And then Jisoo tried to—what happened to your lip?”

He blinked.

She was looking at him now, halfway through chewing, eyes narrowing slightly.

“Training accident,” he said smoothly. “Tripped. Guy next to me didn’t.”

“Right,” she said slowly. “And the bandage on your arm?”

He smiled, small and thin. “Same training.”

She frowned, then blew air through her nose in mock frustration. “You’ve gotta stop being the designated meat shield. You’re not invincible, you know.”

“Sure.”

She kept eating.

He watched her.

She talked with her hands, like always. Animated. Expressive. The room felt warmer just from her voice. She asked him how his shift went, if he was gonna apply to the Association full-time eventually, if he remembered to buy more soy sauce.

He answered every question with the same tone. Soft. Even. Almost like he was there.

Almost.

She didn’t notice when he stopped eating after the third bite.

Didn’t notice the way his eyes glazed over halfway through her story about a chemistry mishap.

Didn’t notice the way he kept touching the table with one hand, grounding himself.

He smiled when she laughed. He laughed when she smiled.

And when she yawned, stretching with a groan and complaining about homework again, he told her gently to go shower and sleep.

She grumbled, grabbed her phone and earbuds, and shuffled off.

He stayed at the table.

Soup cold. Rice untouched.

The silence returned, slow and heavy.

He didn’t move.

*****

The sound of the shower ran for ten minutes.

Then ten more.

When it finally cut off, Jinwoo was still at the table, elbows resting loosely on either side of his untouched bowl, fingers laced together. The towel around his shoulders had slipped halfway down his arm. A drop of soup clung to the side of his spoon and didn’t fall.

Jinah shuffled down the hall in oversized socks, her earbuds already in, mumbling along to some pop song he couldn’t hear. She gave him a sleepy two-finger wave as she passed.

“‘Night, oppa.”

He raised a hand. “Good night.”

The door to her room clicked shut behind her.

Silence returned—not like before, not like the dungeon. This was domestic silence. Soft. Dim. Familiar.

He stared at the flickering bulb above the kitchen sink.

His breath slowed.

He exhaled once, long and silent, and let the smile he’d been wearing dissolve.

His body slumped forward slightly. The mask slipped off like an afterthought.

The pain returned in full.

His side throbbed, dull and pulsing with each heartbeat. His shoulder felt wrong again—twisted, bruised. His temples ached. But the worst pain wasn’t physical.

He looked at the table again.

Two bowls. Two spoons.

One full. One untouched.

He reached out and slowly turned his spoon over in the rice. The texture felt wrong on his fingers. Grainy. Warm. Human.

Too human.

He stood, chair scraping softly against the floor, and began clearing the table.

Bowl. Bowl. Chopsticks. Napkin.

He washed everything by hand, slowly, one by one. The hot water stung his fingers. The scent of soap reminded him of his mother’s hands.

His eyes stung, too.

When the last bowl was on the rack, he turned off the water and dried his hands. The towel was damp from earlier. He didn’t care.

He leaned forward against the sink, palms pressed flat against the countertop.

That was when it came.

Not a voice.

Not a whisper.

A flicker.

In the corner of his vision—like a hallucination, like déjà vu dipped in static:

[ ]

No words. No box. Just the flicker.

A presence.

He didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

Only closed his eyes, let his breath hitch once, and stayed there in the darkened kitchen while the world turned silently on without him.

*****

The apartment was quiet.

He had turned off the light in the kitchen, letting the warm glow of the hallway lamp bleed faintly across the floor. The soft hum of Jinah’s playlist drifted under her door, a muffled thump-thump of idle music.

Jinwoo stood alone, towel now draped over the back of a chair, his bandages damp with sweat. His hands were dry, fingers sore from scrubbing ceramic clean.

He moved to the window and looked out. The city below flickered with its usual chaos—headlights, neon, the buzz of life that didn’t know it was on borrowed time.

He closed his eyes.

Then it came.

Sharp. Cold. Mechanical.

[ALERT: Daily Quest Generated.]

His eyes snapped open.

The text floated midair, no sound, no flourish—just stark, glitched lettering flickering slightly at the edges.

[Daily Quest: Preparations to Become Stronger]

• Do 100 Push-ups

• Do 100 Sit-ups

• Do 100 Squats

• Run 10 kilometers

[Failure to complete the quest will result in a penalty.]

There was no voice attached. No second message. No countdown.

Just that old, familiar command—like a joke from a dead man.

He stared at the prompt for several long seconds, unmoving.

Then, very quietly, he laughed.

It was dry. Hollow. One breath. Almost a cough.

He turned away from the window, pulled the towel from the chair, and walked toward his bedroom.

No, he didn’t have the mana.

No, his body wasn’t ready.

But the System didn’t care.

It never had.

And now, apparently, it was back.

He dropped the towel beside his bed, sat slowly, and let his head fall back against the wall.

The screen still hovered in his vision, flickering faintly.

He didn’t dismiss it.

He just let it float there in the dark as his breathing slowed and his eyes, at last, began to close. 

Chapter Text

The floor was cold.

It pressed against his palms like stone, biting up through the skin of his hands, anchoring him to the apartment’s narrow living room. Jinwoo didn’t feel the cold. Not really. Not anymore.

His arms trembled with the thirtieth push-up.

His breath came shallow and sharp through gritted teeth. Sweat rolled down his forehead and pooled at the base of his neck, soaking into the collar of his threadbare T-shirt.

Thirty-one.

His elbows flared slightly—bad form. He adjusted on the next rep.

Thirty-two.

His vision blurred for a moment. Not from fatigue. From rage. From memory. The kind of rage that didn't scream. It just… stayed.

Thirty-three.

A sharp pulse in his shoulder—the same one that hit the dungeon wall yesterday. It hadn’t healed. It wasn’t going to. He’d wrapped it himself, but tape only went so far.

Thirty-four.

The System hadn’t offered healing potions. No stamina restoration. No shortcuts.

Just the task.

One hundred push-ups. One hundred sit-ups. One hundred squats. Ten kilometers. Every. Single. Day.

He finished the push-ups with a growl low in his throat, barely audible. Rolled to his back, began sit-ups. His ribs creaked. His abdominal wall felt like raw canvas stretched over bone.

He didn’t stop.

Not when his muscles shook.

Not when his breath came in gasps.

Not even when the System flashed a faint prompt in the corner of his vision:

[54/100 Sit-ups Complete]

As if it were checking.

As if someone were watching.

He didn’t care.

Outside the apartment, Seoul was just waking up. The morning light slid over the floor like a whisper. A truck honked two streets over. Jinah’s alarm buzzed faintly through the shared wall. She’d be up soon.

He wouldn’t stop.

Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. One hundred.

He fell back onto the floor and stared at the ceiling, chest rising and falling.

Then he got up. Slowly. Body stiff. Limbs leaden.

And began the squats.

Every movement screamed at him.

The human body wasn’t made for repetition without recovery. And his was still very, very human.

But that was the point.

To break it.

To rebuild it.

He finished the last squat, stood there swaying for a second, then limped to the door, laced up his old running shoes, and left the apartment.

The sun had just crested the skyline.

Ten kilometers to go.

And he was only just starting. 

****

The confirmation pinged at 3:04 a.m.

[Gate 43B: D-rank – Temp Party Slot Confirmed. Arrival Time: 07:30. Minimum Team Size: 10 Confirmed.]

Jinwoo didn’t sleep.

He trained. He stretched. He cleaned his gear.

And by the time the morning broke, he was already dressed in a faded jacket, fingerless gloves, and scuffed boots that no longer quite fit right. His ID badge hung from a cracked lanyard under his coat—still marked “E-RANK // CLEARED: 26 GATES.”

Most of those were nothing jobs. Easy sweeps. Haul runs.

He remembered all of them.

Especially the ones that almost killed him.

The raid team gathered outside the gate—a plain warehouse lot cordoned off with folding barricades and yellow hazard lights. Most of the hunters were young. Some were familiar.

He saw the flickers of recognition in their eyes.

The too-fast glances. The way they leaned toward each other and murmured.

“That guy.”

“No way.”

“Thought he quit.”

“He’s still alive?”

One even said it aloud—just loud enough: “Is that Sung Jinwoo?”

Someone snorted. “Seriously? That guy?”

The team leader was a tall, lean D-rank who clearly wanted to be anywhere else. He didn’t bother addressing Jinwoo directly—just glanced over him once, expression unreadable, then turned back to the group.

“Same rules,” he muttered. “Stick to your lanes, don’t panic. Keep your damn spacing. No heroes. You see anything weird, don’t solo. Ping it, pull back.”

No names were exchanged.

They rarely were. Too many hunters in rotation, too little reason to remember people who didn’t matter.

Jinwoo stayed near the back, adjusting the wrap on his right wrist. He didn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

He was the eleventh member. The expendable one. The dead weight.

No one wanted to walk next to him.

Perfect.

The gate activated with a low groan of mana folding into itself. The warehouse shimmered. The world blurred—and then broke open into cold, wet stone and dim, humming corridors.

Dungeon light.

They entered.

And once again, Jinwoo walked last.

Just the way he liked it.

*****

The dungeon walls dripped.

Moisture gathered along the seams in the stone, collecting in slow rivulets that traced old claw marks and cracks left by earlier teams. The corridor was narrow enough that two people couldn’t walk shoulder to shoulder, so they filed in a staggered column.

Jinwoo kept to the back, eyes scanning every surface.

The others joked softly near the front. Half the party had grouped into familiar pairs—guild freelancers who ran dungeons together often. A healer in the middle hummed under her breath, softly shielding the bruises of a bruiser who’d misstepped on the descent.

They weren’t careless.

Just underestimating.

Jinwoo saw the first threat before anyone else did.

It was the slight ripple in the mist that clung low to the ground. A shift in ambient mana—too quick, too thin. The kind of thing no E-rank should even notice.

The team’s lead swordsman stepped forward, blade drawn. His stance was good, form clean. His eyes locked onto a shadow at the edge of a crumbled archway.

Too late.

The beast lunged.

It came from the side wall—not the arch. Camouflaged. Fast. Long-limbed. Sharp-toothed.

Jinwoo’s voice cut across the corridor, sharp and flat:

“Step left.”

The swordsman didn’t question it.

Maybe it was the tone. Maybe the fear.

He moved just as the monster’s jaws snapped through empty air where his throat had been.

Steel met flesh a second later as two other hunters moved in on instinct. The beast went down under weight of numbers.

The swordsman stood frozen, breathing hard.

“...What the hell,” someone muttered.

Jinwoo said nothing.

They moved on.

Further down, it happened again.

A floor trap—old, barely visible, mana-dulled. The kind that wouldn’t kill, but would break a leg.

“Jump,” Jinwoo said, just before the frontmost scout stepped.

The scout didn’t react in time.

But the person behind him did—grabbing his arm, yanking him back.

A burst of stone spikes shot up with a crack.

The scout stared at the hole in the floor, then back at Jinwoo.

“How—?”

Jinwoo walked past them both, not looking up.

“Watch your spacing.”

No thanks. No awe. Just confusion. A tension starting to build.

By the third time he gave a warning—this one a silent hand raised and a pointed look—they began watching him instead of the corridor.

He didn’t care.

He wasn’t here for them.

He was here to see how much he could endure.

The monsters came in waves after that—nothing dangerous. Just enough to make the weaker team members stumble. But each time, Jinwoo was already moving.

A low whistle came from one of the backliners.

“Guy’s got freakin’ precog.”

The swordsman—now walking just behind Jinwoo—grunted. “No. He just sees it faster than us.”

Another whisper: “Isn’t that the E-rank guy? What’s his deal?”

No one had an answer.

And Jinwoo wasn’t offering one.

*****

The dungeon core shattered with a soft ping, like glass breaking beneath silk.

Mana bled from the ceiling in thin strands of light, drifting upward as the walls around them began to ripple. The gate wouldn’t collapse immediately—not yet. They had time. An hour, maybe more. Standard sweep protocol: secure the boss chamber, then begin the real work.

The miners were already unloading packs, hauling tools, starting core extraction.

The rest of the hunters milled near the edges, nursing wounds, arguing over kill shares, taking inventory.

No one was dead.

That alone made this run unusual.

Jinwoo moved wordlessly past a pile of corpses, dragging one leg slightly. His thigh burned, but the bleeding had stopped. He’d wrapped it in silence during the post-fight chatter. No one noticed.

They were too busy whispering about him again.

He caught the edges of it.

“...saw the trap before it even clicked.”

“Didn’t flinch when the boss screamed. Who does that?”

“Pretty sure that guy’s the one they call the Weakest Hunter—what’s his name? Sung-something?”

“E-rank? Nah. That’s not an E-rank.”

He didn’t wait for the rest.

The extraction would take time. The Association reps would sort out the loot later. His cut would be there, processed to the account linked to his license. He didn’t need to linger.

He turned and began walking toward the gate.

The leader’s voice called out behind him, “Hey—don’t want your share?”

Jinwoo didn’t answer.

He stepped into the gate’s threshold, the light curling around his shoulders.

And vanished.

*****

The city outside his window was a dull smear of orange light and evening silence.

Jinah’s room was dark. No music now. Her fan spun lazily in the summer heat, soft and low.

Jinwoo sat on the floor beside the couch, one arm resting on his bent knee, head tilted slightly back against the wall. His bones throbbed. Not sharp pain—just the heavy, slow protest of a body worked to its limit and offered no reprieve.

The notification appeared without flourish.

Just a simple flicker in the air.

[Daily Quest Complete.]

+0.5% Mana Core Restored
Total Restoration: 2.0%

He exhaled. Not a sigh. Just breath escaping the cage of his ribs.

The next line appeared.

[Reward Acquired: Random Loot Box (Unopened)]

Followed by:

[Skill: Instant Status Recovery (Cooldown: 12 Hours)]
[Stack: 4/4]

His eyes stayed fixed on the glowing text.

Four days. Four stacked recoveries. Not one used.

He knew this skill. The original System gave it freely—one of its early kindnesses. A safety net for the fool too weak to live without it.

He could use it now. The ache in his ribs. The deep bruise on his thigh. The growing burn across his shoulder where a monster’s claws had grazed him too closely today.

One thought. One flick of will.

All of it gone.

But he didn’t move.

Didn’t call it.

Not because he couldn’t.

Because he wouldn’t.

He was saving it—for when it truly mattered. For the moment things slipped again. When someone else’s life, not his, was on the line.

Until then, he’d hurt.

Because pain reminded him this was real. This wasn’t a dream. Not some pocket between timelines.

This was the world he failed to save.

Another notification rolled up.

[New Quest Unlocked: Instance Dungeon Key (Locked)]
[Progress to Next Key: 7 Days Remaining]

And beneath that:

[Optional Chain Quest: Tactical Awareness Calibration]

• Detect Three Ambushes Before Activation

• Predict Movement Trajectories (Minimum: 3 targets)

• Intervene in Fatal Wound Events (Min. 2)

Reward: +0.3% Mana Core Restoration / Per Objective
[WARNING: This Quest Will Expire in 72 Hours.]

He stared at the list.

Didn’t react.

Just closed it.

And sat in the dark a little longer.

The shadows behind his eyes stirred faintly—quiet.

Still with him.

Chapter Text

The gate buzzed like a live wire.

It shimmered faintly under the early afternoon sun, nested in a cordoned alleyway between two abandoned storage lots. Association teams had done the basics—mark perimeter, check readings, clear the civilians—but this one wasn’t high-risk. Just a D-rank job. Standard clean-and-clear.

Jinwoo stood with his hands in his pockets, hoodie up, face unreadable.

The other hunters arrived in a staggered line—nine of them, loud, confident, too clean. He clocked the armor polish, the modded blades, the bright guild logos on the sleeves.

Private freelancers. Mid-rankers with more pride than caution.

The moment they saw him, the air shifted.

One guy—tall, sharp-jawed, with designer gloves and a smirk that looked surgically attached—didn’t even try to hide his reaction.

“Are you serious?” he said to the woman beside him. “That’s our tenth?”

She glanced at Jinwoo, looked at the clipboard, and laughed. “That’s him. E-rank. Real tragic backstory, I think.”

The first one shook his head, mock-somber. “Well, at least we’ve got a mascot.”

Someone snorted.

Jinwoo didn’t respond.

He didn’t even look at them.

He just took his spot at the rear of the formation and adjusted the strap on his gear harness. The familiar pull of the shadows stirred at the edge of his awareness—silent, resting, watchful. They didn’t rise, didn’t speak. But they were close.

The leader—stocky guy with a cropped haircut and a big voice—stepped up and gave the usual pre-brief:

“Keep it tight, right-side sweep, healers central. Clear the mid-hall and boss chamber. Pull loot tags, ignore the bugs unless they jump.”

He glanced at Jinwoo once. Didn’t bother learning his name.

“Try not to trip,” he added casually.

Jinwoo gave the faintest smile.

The kind you give to a joke that isn’t funny, but is predictable.

They lined up.

The gate flared blue.

One by one, they stepped through.

Jinwoo went last, as always.

*****

The dungeon was wrong.

Jinwoo felt it the moment he stepped through the gate.

Not saw. Not heard. Felt.

The air inside was too still. Not calm—held. Like a breath waiting to exhale. Stone walls lined both sides of the corridor in seamless, machine-cut slabs. No erosion. No cracks. Too symmetrical. The floor was dry. Not one bloodstain, not one gouge.

That wasn’t normal.

Dungeons weren’t pristine. Especially not old ones.

The group moved ahead quickly, falling into practiced positions. Jinwoo kept to the back. No one told him to—he just did. No one wanted him at their side anyway.

“Check that alcove,” the leader barked.

Two scouts peeled off. They moved with purpose but not urgency—like they’d done this hundreds of times, like they knew this would be another payday, not a risk.

Jinwoo let his senses stretch.

The ambient mana wasn’t rising—it was curling. Gathering in pockets near the ceiling. Like it was trying to hide from detection.

Ahead, the corridor widened.

Jinwoo narrowed his eyes. That wasn’t in the dungeon type’s standard map profile. This variation wasn’t random—it was engineered. That meant a trap. A behavioral anomaly. Maybe a—

Movement.

He slowed slightly, dropped one hand to his belt, brushing the hilt of a knife he hadn’t used in two days.

The forward tank grunted, adjusting his shield. “Too damn quiet in here.”

“No one asked you, Ryu,” the healer said lightly.

They laughed. Moved on.

Jinwoo stopped.

The feeling hadn’t passed.

He looked at the walls again. The seams were thinner here—flush. That meant hidden panels. Spawn pods.

He inhaled slowly through his nose.

This was a double pull zone.

Two overlapping spawn points. One visible, one latent. It would trigger when the team reached center.

He stepped forward, fast enough to catch up with the backline, and said—quiet, firm, toneless:

“Back off center. Don’t group.”

They turned.

“What?”

The leader sneered. “You speak now?”

Jinwoo met his eyes. “This is a double pull.”

Silence.

Then laughter.

“Okay, fortune teller,” the tall one said. “Should we draw a circle and chant, too?”

“Go ahead,” Jinwoo said, already stepping to the side.

They didn’t listen.

Of course they didn’t.

And then—

The wall screamed.

It didn’t groan, or creak, or even shake.

It screamed—a high-pitched metal-on-bone sound as the stone folded in on itself, and two spined beasts the size of vans burst from concealed hatches, eyes glowing with raw, unstable mana.

“Contact—!” someone shouted.

Too late.

The trap had triggered.

*****

The world broke open.

Two beasts, all bone plates and spined jaws, tore through the corridor in tandem. One flanked left. The other barreled straight into the center—right where Jinwoo told them not to be.

The screams started immediately.

“Shit—shit—position—!”

The lead tank was too slow. His shield caught the brunt of the charge but folded inward with a sickening crunch. He flew backward, slammed into the far wall, and didn’t get up.

The others scattered.

A spear user thrust too wide, clipped a limb but didn’t penetrate. A scout’s arrow hit one of the beasts in the side—glancing, useless.

And then the tall, smirking one—Mr. “Mascot” comment—did the stupid thing.

He charged.

Not at the creature’s blind spot. Not as backup. Just straight in, screaming like he thought he was something more than he was.

“Pull it down—NOW!”

He leapt, brought his sword down in a clean arc—

—and the beast caught him midair.

One claw, curved and gleaming like obsidian, hooked straight through his side.

He didn’t scream at first.

He just gasped.

Then blood.

So much blood.

He dropped his weapon. Hands clutched at his ribs as the beast flung him like garbage against the far wall. His body slid down and stayed there—curling in on itself. Still conscious. Barely.

The others hesitated.

The healer started forward—too far back.

The leader barked something. Useless. No plan. No angle.

Jinwoo was already moving.

He sprinted—not fast, not smooth. His body still hurt. Still resisted. But he moved like he had to. Like nothing else in the world mattered.

He dropped beside the fallen man, one knee skidding on stone. Blood poured freely. The claw had pierced clean through, likely ruptured something internal. Seconds mattered.

The man’s eyes fluttered open. Shock. Recognition.

“You—?”

Jinwoo didn’t answer.

He reached into his inventory, fingers brushing glass.

[1x Greater Healing Potion: Medium-Grade (Soul-Bound)]

He pulled it, unstoppered it with his thumb, and tilted the man’s head back with one hand. The other poured carefully, efficiently, into slack lips.

Some spilled. Most didn’t.

The effect was near-instant.

The man jerked—body seizing once as magic hit. The bleeding slowed. Muscle knitted. Skin pulled taut over bone.

He coughed. Shuddered.

But didn’t die.

Jinwoo stood, turned, and walked back toward the fight without a word.

Behind him, someone whispered, “Did he just—was that a potion?”

“Where did he—?”

“How did he even—”

“He moved before it happened,” another voice said.

Jinwoo didn’t listen.

Didn’t care.

The beasts were still up.

And the others were still floundering.

He rolled his shoulder once, bones cracking.

And rejoined the fray.

*****

The dungeon didn't collapse—it faded.

The hour had run out. Mana saturation dropped to nil. The gate began its shutdown sequence in a slow pulse of fading blue light. The team gathered at the edge, bruised, battered, but intact.

Barely.

The two spined beasts lay crumpled behind them, black blood staining the floor in spiraling patterns. The tank had regained consciousness thanks to the healer’s last-minute spellwork. The cocky one Jinwoo saved—still pale, still wheezing—was resting against a wall, hand clutching a clean white bandage across his ribs.

No one was laughing now.

They stood in loose silence, not speaking to Jinwoo, not looking at him directly. But their eyes flicked toward him every few seconds. Like they were trying to see something that didn’t quite make sense.

The leader muttered something to the healer.

She shook her head.

“He moved before it happened. Like, he was already going when Ahn got hit. That’s not normal.”

“Instinct?”

“No,” she said flatly. “Prediction.”

The scout near the back crossed his arms. “He was ready. For the pull, the trap, the strike. All of it.”

“Thought he was E-rank.”

They all did.

Jinwoo stood a few meters away, hands in his pockets, eyes on the ground. He wasn’t pretending not to hear.

He just didn’t care.

The gate pulsed one last time.

He turned and walked through.

No goodbyes. No cut share. No name given.

Across the city, deep inside the Hunter Association’s internal report servers, a junior analyst named Min Ji-ah sat at her desk with a half-empty energy drink and a stack of incident logs from the last four raids.

She flagged another.

Timestamp. Team composition. Outcome.

Again, the anomaly: Sung Jinwoo.

Low-rank hunter, E-rated, unremarkable physicals, no guild affiliation. And yet—

Three consecutive raids with near-fatal injuries reversed.

All logged as “timely potion administration or tactical prediction.”

Each time: reaction speed exceeded median human range.

She opened his file again.

No changes since last quarter. No skill reports. No combat bonuses registered.

But the pattern was clear.

She leaned back in her chair, frowned slightly, and clicked “Flag for Review.”

Something wasn’t adding up.

*****

The apartment was quiet when he returned.

He dropped his coat onto the back of a chair, tugged the zipper down one-handed. His shoulder ached—not badly, just a lingering throb from the block he’d absorbed near the end. The room smelled faintly of detergent and instant rice.

Jinah was still out—club meeting or cram school. Her absence left the place feeling half-lit, like it was holding its breath.

Jinwoo sat on the floor, legs crossed, back to the wall. He pulled up his System window with a thought—expecting the usual.

He didn’t get it.

The text that appeared was familiar.

The formatting. The blocky gray-blue overlay. The sterile font.

But the phrasing—

[Daily Quest Complete. Good job, I guess.]

He froze.

The next lines followed:

+0.5% Mana Core Restored
Stacked Recovery: 2.5%
[Reward Acquired: Random Loot Box (Unopened)]

Then:

[You’re making progress. Don’t let it go to your pretty little head.]

No voice.

Just words.

But those weren’t System words.

The real System had been cold. Clinical. Machine logic.

This?

This was something else.

A tone. A cadence.

Dry. Wry.

Amused.

Mocking.

He watched the screen carefully as the final prompt appeared:

[New Quest: Instance Dungeon Access Key – Countdown: 6 Days]

[Bonus Objective: Impress Me.]

No parameters. No reward list. No deadline.

Just that line, hanging in the air like a smirk.

Jinwoo didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

He closed the window slowly.

Sat in silence.

And smiled.

Just a little.

Chapter Text

[Start recording: 5:41 AM, Thursday]

“Okay,” Jinah whispered dramatically from behind the camera. “Look at this cryptid in his natural habitat…”

The lens focused shakily through the cracked opening of her bedroom door. Out in the living room—bathed in the gray half-light of pre-dawn—Sung Jinwoo was doing pushups in absolute silence.

Not fast. Not sloppy. Just clean, mechanical motion.

His hair was a mess. His shirt clung damp to his back. A half-empty bottle of water stood upright next to him like it had been placed there as part of a ritual.

“Note the haunted expression,” Jinah whispered. “So tragic. So sweaty. So serious.”

He shifted into squats without pause. No music. No timer. Just motion, breath, and a tension in the air like he was preparing for war instead of school pickup.

Jinah zoomed in with a conspiratorial cackle.

[Clip Title: “Oppa vs. Sentient Protein Powder”]

The scene jump-cut to later that morning. Jinwoo stood in the kitchen, staring down a silver packet of high-calorie protein mix like it had insulted his family. He was barefoot. The rice cooker was steaming quietly behind him.

“You have to shake it,” Jinah said from off-screen.

“I did.”

“Oppa, you just glared at it for twenty seconds.”

He said nothing.

Just twisted the lid off, took a sip, and made a face so dry and judgmental that her viewers would later pause the video just to screenshot it.

“You drink black coffee but that’s the line?” she snorted.

“It’s lying about the chocolate.”

[Clip Title: “Oppa Has Conversations With the Void”]

Later that night, she caught him on the balcony.

He was talking to no one.

Not on the phone. Not whispering. Just… murmuring. Low and firm, like issuing instructions.

His posture was relaxed, but his hands were gesturing—small movements, subtle shifts in the air like he was pointing to positions no one could see.

She zoomed in through the sliding glass door.

“Either he’s lost it,” she muttered into her mic, “or my brother is a general in the army of ghost cats.”

[Cut to: Bedroom. Vlogger Facecam Mode.]

Jinah grinned at the camera, hair in a bun, oversized hoodie sagging off one shoulder. “Okay, no lie, I thought he was gonna yell at me when I asked if he wanted fried egg or rolled omelet.”

She held up her fingers dramatically. “Guess what he said? He said—and I quote—‘Whatever uses fewer pans.’”

She paused.

Deadpan.

“Fewer pans.”

Her smile exploded again. “He didn’t even blink! Like it was a hostage negotiation!”

[Comments under the video (53 likes total):]

@shortcircuitbrain: your brother scares me but in like… the hot way
@riceismagic: he’s so done with existence i love him
@lofi_gal_07: I would absolutely die for ‘fewer pans’ man
@eggwhitesrevenge: did he make the rice cooker apologize yet?
@JinahFan_13: girl pls mic him up during sleep next time i bet he’s plotting

[Back in real time]

Jinah clicked the upload button.

Another episode live.

Not viral. Not yet. But there was traction—tiny flickers of it. Comments, likes, the occasional DM asking if her brother was single and also mentally stable.

She leaned back in her chair, staring at the last still of Jinwoo from that morning.

Hoodie off. Sleeves rolled. Barely healed bruises across his shoulders. Silent eyes staring out the window.

He wasn’t the same anymore.

He never talked about it. Not the hospital bills. Not their mom. Not the days she found him standing on the balcony at 3 a.m. like the sky was about to speak to him.

She sighed softly, then smirked.

“Tomorrow’s title,” she muttered. “Cryptid tries tea. Epic fail.”

*****

The first raid of the week was a C-rank.

Barely.

A mining-focused job with moderate threat levels and a terrain profile that forced close-quarter combat through tight corridors. The team was competent—six veterans, three mid-rankers, one silent E-rank wildcard.

Jinwoo.

He hung back as usual. They let him, assuming it was fear. Cowardice. Dead weight.

Until the corridor narrowed near the second sub-nest, and a twin-fanged serpentine ambusher dropped from the ceiling.

Jinwoo didn’t scream.

He didn’t flinch.

He moved.

His knife—short, basic, almost dull—pierced upward through the creature’s mouth, severed the nerve cluster with surgical indifference. The body collapsed around him in a heap of hissing gore.

Someone yelled. The formation shifted.

By the time they turned, Jinwoo had already stepped over the corpse and was pressing forward like it never happened.

He didn’t say a word.

At the end of the raid, as they cataloged loot, the team leader approached him—awkward, fidgety.

“Hey,” he said, scratching his neck. “You’re good. You trained under someone?”

Jinwoo didn’t look up. “No.”

“You ever think about joining a private guild?”

He paused.

Then: “No.”

The man opened his mouth again—some half-formed pitch.

Jinwoo was already walking away.

The next day’s job was smaller. D-rank. Rural location. Mostly first-timers and a few freelancers looking to pad their quotas.

Jinwoo ended up in the rear again.

That suited him.

The team leader was a woman in her thirties—well-spoken, polite, clearly ex-military. She didn’t make fun of him. She just nodded once, gave him a role, and didn’t micromanage.

Midway through the raid, one of the healers panicked and botched a defensive chant. A bonebeast lunged.

Jinwoo stepped in, intercepted it at the base of the neck, and used a single controlled strike to collapse the spinal column before it hit the ground.

The healer stared at him.

He just nodded once.

After they cleared the core, she approached him.

“Thank you.”

He nodded again.

“You moved like… like you saw it before it moved.”

He tilted his head. “Lucky angle.”

She smiled faintly. “Lucky doesn’t move that fast.”

He said nothing.

On the way out, another hunter—a skinny archer with purple dye in her bangs—jogged after him.

“Hey,” she said. “You’re that guy from the serpent job yesterday, right?”

He didn’t stop walking.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

Still no response.

She frowned.

“You’re kinda weird, y’know that?”

Jinwoo turned just enough to glance over his shoulder.

“Good.”

And kept walking.

*****

The prep zone was a parking garage.

Not uncommon.

The gate shimmered quietly at the far end, walled in with emergency barriers and Association tape. Low-tier job—D-rank on paper, C at worst. The kind of job bored freelancers took to stay active. Easy money. Minimal blood.

Jinwoo arrived before the others. Hoodie zipped to the throat, gear bag slung one-handed.

The moment he stepped into the concrete shadows of the garage, his eyes narrowed.

Not because of what he saw.

But what he felt.

It was too quiet.

Even for a gate zone.

The air pressed in slightly. Just a little too thick. A little too close. Mana readings weren’t visible—but they didn’t have to be. Jinwoo had learned to feel the world again. Relearned it. The stone beneath his feet wasn’t humming. It was trembling—subtly. Like a breath drawn in and held.

He stepped closer to the gate. The flickering blue surface hissed faintly, a sound just below hearing.

He reached out and let his palm rest lightly on the edge of the barrier.

It thumped once.

Not loudly. Not hard.

But distinctly.

Like something on the other side had just noticed him back.

His hand dropped to his side.

He turned as the others began to arrive.

Eight men. One woman. Mid-rankers, mostly. Loud. Confident. One of them was still chewing a protein bar. Another was scrolling a map on his phone and laughing at something in group chat.

Jinwoo didn’t say anything.

He just stood to the side, watched, and waited.

The leader—a tall guy in green tactical gear and mirrored sunglasses indoors—clapped his hands.

“All right, folks, ten-man fill, standard formation, we’ve got one shield, two frontliners, three midcasters, ranged support, healer, and the ghost in the hoodie.” He nodded toward Jinwoo without making eye contact. “You can float.”

Someone chuckled.

“I heard about him,” one of the mages muttered. “Mr. No-Name. Leaves before the cut’s divided.”

“Maybe he’s shy,” another said with a smirk.

“Maybe he’s cursed,” someone else whispered, half-joking.

Jinwoo didn’t react.

The gate pulsed again.

He felt it in his teeth this time.

Not hard. Just a low-frequency hum. Something living. Thinking.

This wasn’t a D-rank.

This wasn’t what it said on the assignment sheet.

He tilted his head slowly, as if trying to hear something no one else could.

The wind in the parking structure shifted.

And the gate flared.

*****

The countdown began.

A slow churn of time in the air as the gate stabilized—twenty seconds until the veil thinned, until they could pass through. The others stretched casually, unsheathed blades, charged spell runes into focus points on their wrists and palms.

Jinwoo stood still.

His eyes tracked the air around the gate—not the portal itself, but the shimmer it left behind in the atmosphere. The flickering particles weren’t moving right. Not in the slow, lazy spirals of a weak gate. They were pulsing.

Short bursts.

Like a heartbeat.

He counted in silence.

Seven seconds between surges.

A C-rank? Maybe. But the mana density didn’t match. The heat didn’t match. It was like watching a fire burn with no smoke.

He turned to the surrounding concrete.

The parking structure was old—70s poured slab, moisture-stained in some corners. But where the gate stood, the wall was clean. Too clean. Mana had burned it sterile. The stone glinted faintly in unnatural grooves, like the dungeon was already leaking.

And then he noticed the smell.

A faint tang of copper and ozone, like blood burned too long in the air.

No one else seemed to notice.

The leader—still in mirrored sunglasses—clapped once.

“Alright, kiddies. Let’s stretch our legs and hit quota. You—” he pointed a thumb at Jinwoo without looking “—don’t die. Or do. Honestly, I don’t care.”

Jinwoo didn’t respond.

Didn’t even blink.

He was too busy watching the shimmer at the edge of the gate shift. Just slightly. Like something moved.

He exhaled quietly through his nose.

This wasn’t a D-rank.

He didn’t need a scanner. Didn’t need a report. His bones told him. His instincts, trained and re-hardened through blood and cycles of death, screamed it.

This was a mistake.

The Association had gotten this one wrong.

He stepped toward the gate, hands loose at his sides.

The others lined up.

And as the countdown hit zero—

The gate thumped one last time.

Harder now.

Not subtle.

Like something had just woken up.

Chapter Text

The dungeon opened with silence.

Not the usual hush of stone and air, but something deeper—denser. A silence that pressed into the eardrums and settled there, low and weighty.

Jinwoo stepped in second to last, just ahead of the rear guard. The gate closed behind them with a soft hum, sealing in the cold.

Immediately, the temperature dropped.

Not by much. But enough for Jinwoo to feel the difference between a fabricated environment and a predatory one.

The space was wide. Wider than any D-rank should allow. The walls were smooth, marked with faint indents—vertical, rhythmic, almost like slats for something to emerge from. But nothing moved.

The others didn’t notice.

“Clear corridor,” one of the casters said too loudly. “No contact yet.”

The team advanced.

Jinwoo held back, scanning—not for enemies, but for placement.

He counted ten indentations evenly spaced along the wall.

He matched that to the ceiling ridges. Every sixth block had a faded rune etched above it.

He stopped walking.

This wasn’t random.

This was positioning.

Five meters ahead, a sword user stepped into the next threshold.

The wall behind him twitched.

Just once.

So small it looked like settling stone.

Jinwoo’s eyes narrowed. He shifted his stance, tilted his chin slightly.

The air carried scent again.

Salt. Decay. Cold.

A click behind the wall.

Not a sound most would hear. Just enough to register if you were listening.

And then—

Movement.

The wall plates folded back with a smooth hiss, and two creatures slithered from their holds—thin-limbed, long-jawed, almost serpentine bipeds. Fast. Quiet. Not D-rank.

“Contact left!”

The mage screamed.

Too late.

The creatures dropped into the corridor at opposite ends of the formation.

Jinwoo didn’t move.

He’d already watched it happen once in his mind.

He stepped forward and turned, knife out—not swinging, not slashing, just placing it, edge-first, into the throat of the closest one mid-lunge.

It fell instantly.

No blood. Just a wet collapse.

The second creature was intercepted by the tank, who grunted as it slammed into his shield.

“They’re fast,” the healer gasped, already prepping.

“Form up!” the leader barked. “That wasn’t in the—! Stay alert!”

Jinwoo knelt beside the body.

It was still twitching.

Up close, the skin had no pores. No muscle threading. No biology.

It wasn’t grown.

It was printed. Built.

Like the dungeon knew what it wanted.

He stood.

This wasn’t right.

Not the shape of the corridor.

Not the timing of the spawn.

Not the clean, effortless way it tried to catch them watching the wrong way.

He didn’t say anything.

Didn’t warn them.

Because he already knew this wasn’t a test for them.

It was for him.

*****

The party moved again.

This time tighter. Shields raised. Weapons drawn. The casual bravado had peeled away in a single cut. Now they walked like hunters—not tourists.

Except they weren’t hunting.

They were being observed.

Jinwoo could feel it. A pull at the edge of his mana sense—not hostile. Just present. Like the space around them was paying attention.

The corridor narrowed ahead. Arched into a dome structure, support beams carved with false-script symbols that didn’t match any dungeon architecture he knew.

No one hesitated.

The leader gestured, casual despite the tension. “Ryo, scout the curve.”

Ryo—mid-twenties, black buzzcut, double-dagger grip—grinned like he was still in control and strode ahead.

Jinwoo inhaled through his nose once.

Too loud.

The footsteps echoed wrong. Not a D-rank’s narrow acoustics. This was a larger room. A chamber.

A choke point.

Ryo stepped over the threshold.

Click.

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

Jinwoo didn’t wait.

He moved.

Not because he saw something—but because his body remembered the sound of dungeons betraying their shape.

Three panels in the ceiling snapped open.

Three monsters dropped.

Not the slither-beasts from earlier.

These were heavier.

Faster.

Heavier-limbed with jagged heads and plated necks, snarling silently with too many teeth and no eyes.

The first one landed on Ryo.

The others landed behind them.

Screams.

Jinwoo was already at Ryo’s side.

Blood was pooling. The claws had punctured too close to the lung.

He pulled a potion from inventory, glass cool in his hand, and smashed it against Ryo’s side, liquid soaking the gash. It hissed.

“Wha—?” Ryo gasped.

“Breathe.”

The claws withdrew.

The creature reared back to strike again.

Jinwoo didn’t dodge.

He stepped into the swing and shoved his knife up under the jaw—twisted, cracked, and let the corpse drop.

The team was scrambling.

Magic flared. Steel rang out.

Jinwoo turned—

And the world blinked.

Not around him. In him.

A message appeared across his vision, sharp and sudden:

[NEW QUEST UNLOCKED]

[Impress Me.]

That was it.

No other text.

No goal. No timer.

Just the dare.

And in the back of his head, just for a split second—

Not a voice.

But a feeling.

“Let’s see what you’ve got, sweetheart.”

*****

The next stretch of the dungeon unfolded like a challenge.

Not the kind built for level scaling.

The kind designed for an audience.

Jinwoo felt it in the stone beneath his feet—each step forward sharpened the air around him. Every decision he made echoed, not in sound, but in response. The dungeon was adapting. Shaping itself around his movement. Around his choice to act.

He didn’t hold back anymore.

He ducked low under the swipe of a skitter-clawed hound that dropped from a corner ledge and slit its throat before it landed.

He yanked a stunned swordsman back from a trigger tile as the walls pulsed with near-invisible glyphs.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t explain.

He just moved—and the others began to move with him.

They didn’t even realize it.

The leader kept barking orders, but the formation was already shifting, unconsciously reshaping itself around Jinwoo’s silent lead. When he paused, they paused. When he drifted left, others followed his flank. He wasn’t part of the unit. He was the pattern.

Another chamber.

Three tunnels. All looked viable.

The air in the leftmost one was wrong—just a little too warm. Heat signature trap.

Jinwoo walked down the right tunnel without hesitation.

No one argued.

The mage beside him whispered to the archer, “How the hell does he know?”

“I don’t know,” the archer murmured back. “But I’m not splitting off.”

They reached a large antechamber.

Too big.

Jinwoo stepped to the center, eyes scanning the walls.

And then it happened again.

The corridor behind them shifted.

Not collapsed.

Shifted.

The stones rippled inward, like water running in reverse, and the way they came—vanished.

A narrow passage opened on the other side.

Someone screamed.

“Where’s the way back?! What the fuck?!”

“No dungeon does that—!”

Jinwoo’s eyes narrowed.

Yes.

They did.

But only when they were watching him.

This wasn’t a layout mistake.

It wasn’t some glitch.

The dungeon was learning.

And it was learning him.

*****

They entered the new tunnel in tense silence.

It was narrower—barely wide enough for two to walk side by side. The walls were wet with condensation, but it wasn’t water. Jinwoo could smell the mana clinging to it, steeping the stone like brewed iron.

The others were rattled. No one said it, but their steps faltered. Breaths were louder. Weapons were gripped too tightly.

Jinwoo walked like he was home.

Because he understood now.

This wasn’t about damage output.

Not kill count. Not teamwork. Not reward.

This was a gauge.

It wanted to know how far he would go while pretending to be nothing. How deep he’d bury his edge before the moment came.

How far he’d let them fall before acting like a king.

And it wanted to see if he’d cheat.

Would he call the shadows?

Would he let the grin slip?

He wouldn’t.

Not yet.

The System wanted a performance?

He’d give it one.

Five steps into the new corridor, he felt it—the pulse.

Not physical. Not pain.

Just a shift inside him.

His mana.

It cracked.

Not violently. Not loudly.

Just enough for the pressure in his chest to shift—like a muscle unclenched.

[Mana Core Reconstitution: 5.0%]

He didn’t flinch.

Didn’t blink.

But somewhere beneath his consciousness, something stirred.

A twitch of pressure in his shadow.

A breath that didn’t belong to him.

Not a voice.

But presence.

Igris.

Then—

Tusk.

Nothing fully formed. No summon. No call.

But their awareness brushed against his own like fingertips tapping glass.

Just once.

And gone.

He didn’t react.

Not because he didn’t want to.

But because this was still a test.

He flexed one hand slowly.

And walked forward into the next chamber.

*****

The door to the boss chamber wasn’t carved.

It was grown.

Twisted roots and spine-bone lattice shaped the frame—each tendril laced with glowing sigils Jinwoo didn’t recognize, but felt down to the marrow. The party stood frozen before it, breath heavy in the charged air.

The leader approached cautiously, then placed his hand flat against the gate.

It melted open.

Not slid.

Melted.

The pressure that bled out wasn’t heat.

It was weight. Will.

And Jinwoo felt it smile.

They stepped inside.

The room was cathedral-sized.

Vaulted stone above, slick red moss below, and a raised altar of black granite at the far end. Standing atop it—

Something not quite a beast.

Not quite a man.

Broad shoulders, elongated limbs, obsidian-plated skin, and a face half-buried beneath a segmented mask. Its chest moved slow and deliberate with every breath.

It did not roar.

It spoke.

Low. Clear. With words no one else in the room could hear.

“Ah,” it said, cocking its head with a slow smile, sharp teeth just barely visible.

“Found you again.”

Jinwoo stopped walking.

He felt it in his bones.

This wasn’t a monster.

This was an actor.

A construct with memory.

A trial dressed like a threat.

The others readied their weapons.

“Boss class! Group in tight!” the leader called. “Sapphire Blade pattern—mages, lock—”

The creature raised one hand.

And the magic in the room froze.

The spell fizzled in the caster’s palm.

“W-what the hell?”

“I can’t channel—”

“Something’s blocking it!”

Jinwoo didn’t wait.

He stepped forward.

And the creature turned only to him.

It tilted its head again, mask cracking wider into something resembling a grin.

“So quiet this time. Are you still pretending not to be you?”

Jinwoo said nothing.

Just slid one foot back.

And drew his knife.