Maria led me through the bustling plaza, weaving effortlessly between clusters of hunters. I followed closely, struggling to match her frantic, skipping pace. After a few moments, we reached a group of three hunters standing near the shimmering maw of the dungeon entrance. Their eyes landed on me instantly, scanning me with clinical precision.

  A tall man with broad shoulders and a jagged scar running down his cheek folded his arms. “Who’s this, Maria?” he asked, his voice a skeptical rumble.

  Maria beamed, gesturing toward me with her staff. “This is Ren! I just recruited him.”

  The man looked me up and down, weighing my worth. “What’s your level?”

  I hesitated, the weight of my inexperience heavy in the air. “L-Level 1.”

  His eyes widened slightly, but he gave a curt nod. “So, this is going to be your first raid?”

  I nodded silently.

  “Well, alright then,” he said, his expression softening slightly. “We’ll be glad to help you level up.”

  I clasped my hands together, a surge of excitement thrumming through me. But then, a young man dressed in blue stepped forward. He paced around me, examining me like a piece of faulty equipment, before finally speaking.

  “Don’t be a burden,” he snapped. “Just stay back while we do the work. You collect the shared EXP and grow your level. Understand?”

  I nodded. It was a cold reality, but a common one. This was how the weak survived long enough to become strong.

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  We entered the dungeon.

  The two men took the vanguard, while Maria walked beside a blonde woman who, judging by her robes and ornate staff, was the party’s healer. We soon encountered a few low-level goblins. They were dispatched with effortless efficiency while I stood back in the shadows, watching the golden flickers of shared EXP settle into my consciousness.

  Everything seemed routine until John, the boy in blue, noticed an unusual passageway branching off from the main hall.

  “What is it, John?” Maria asked, her cheerful tone faltering.

  He pointed. We all turned to look. The pathway was eerily quiet, the air within it cold and stagnant.

  “Umm… I have a bad feeling about this, guys,” the healer whispered, her grip tightening on her staff.

  We stood in a tense silence until Adam, the broad-shouldered leader, stepped forward. “What? It’s just an E-rank dungeon. What could possibly go wrong?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Adam began walking toward the dark path alone. We had no choice but to follow.

  The tunnel was oppressive, the darkness swallowing the light from our torches. Finally, it opened into a massive, hollow chamber.

  “Is this… a treasure room?” Maria whispered, her voice echoing.

  Treasure rooms were anomalies—rare occurrences that could appear in any dungeon, even an S-rank. To find one in a mere E-rank dungeon was a stroke of unbelievable luck.

  Until the screeching began.

  A sound so sharp it felt like glass across the brain tore through the silence. A massive Hobgoblin emerged from the shadows. The sheer pressure radiating from the creature was suffocating. It wasn’t an E-rank monster.

  Our bodies refused to move. We wanted to scream, to turn and flee, but a primal fear had taken root in our marrow, paralyzing us where we stood.

  One by one, the Hobgoblin began its slaughter.

  BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…

  “So, this is how my story ends.”

  I was lying on my bed, the memory of the blood and the screaming fresh behind my eyelids. Tears started streaming down my face uncontrollably, hot and bitter.

  “I wish… I wish I had never found that system,” I sobbed into the silence. “How am I going to… how can I…”

  Suddenly, the air in the room shimmered. The golden screen flickered into existence once more, but the text was different—erratic, pulsing with a strange urgency.

  [ U-S-E… S-K-I-L-L… ]

  The letters stuttered as if struggling to form. It felt as though someone—or something—was trying to reach out to me from across the void of the system.