At the end of the dim, unknown passageway, the silence was shattered.
A chaotic, hurried sound of footsteps echoed from above, mingled with the clanging of metal and the lingering roar of a large creature.
Immediately, several disheveled figures plummeted straight down from the upper part of the passage.
The rocky walls of the passage were coated with a thin layer of glowing moss, its faint light barely enough to illuminate their own surroundings, let alone reveal the bottomless darkness below for these unfortunate souls.
"Help meeeee-Captain! Captain, think of something! I don't want to be smashed into a pulp! I haven't even submitted my practical report yet!"
The mage Liya flailed her limbs wildly in mid-air, her Staff tied with a pink ribbon bow flying out of her hand and tracing a pitiful arc in the darkness.
Her scream was sharp enough to make the moss on the walls tremble.
"Steady yourselves! Grab onto any protrusions on the walls!"
Captain Grang responded loudly, his voice steady, though he himself was tumbling through the air in a sprawled-out position. His heavy steel Tower Shield pressed tightly against his chest, dragging him down even faster.
"Captain, steady yourself first!"
The Rogue Finn shouted from another direction, his tone one of resigned despair. "You call that steady?!"
"Shut up, Finn!"
"No! If I die without leaving any last words, it'd be such a waste! Captain, my notebook is in my left pocket-it says you owe me three silver coins–"
"You're still thinking about three silver coins at a time like this?!"
"Seven! With interest, it's seven!"
Their desperate quarrels bounced back and forth in the empty passage, mingling with the howling wind.
The edge of the passage above was marked with messy scratch marks, and loose stones peeled off, falling into the darkness alongside their bodies.
"My dagger won't pierce it!"
Finn stabbed his dagger fiercely against the wall, its blade scraping a long, blinding trail of sparks across the hard stone surface without leaving a single noticeable scratch. The dagger emitted a heartbreaking tremor.
"This wall is harder than the captain's head! We're doomed!"
"Shut up. Save your energy."
The archer Rek spoke, his tone flat.
His expression remained unchanged as he curled his body, protecting his head with his arms in a clean, efficient motion.
"Protect your heads. Brace for impact."
"Rek, could you at least act a little scared?" Finn roared through the wind. "We're falling! Plummeting downward!"
"Understood."
"Then scream or something!"
"Unnecessary. Screaming won't slow us down."
They fell through the darkness.
These uninvited guests who had descended from above were the Iron Thorn Squad, registered as number 7391 in the Adventurers' Guild–a four-member Bronze-level team.
Not particularly outstanding, but not mediocre either. At least, that's what they had believed until ten minutes ago.
Ten minutes earlier, they had encountered a Mutated Scavenger Beast in the upper passage.
The monster had crimson eyes and was so large it could block the entire passageway, its body covered in absurdly thick keratinous armor. When Grang's Tower Shield slammed into it, the impact left his palms numb.
Liya's Fireball Spell struck its body without even producing a wisp of smoke. Finn tried to flank it, searching for a gap, but his dagger tip slid off the armor, nearly stabbing his own finger. Rek fired three consecutive arrows, only for them to ricochet off in directions more unpredictable than their original trajectories.
The monster didn't attack them–it merely took a step in their direction, and the ground collapsed.
Just like that, without even a proper fight, the Iron Thorn squad fell into the depths in the most humiliating way.
During the fall, Grang instinctively reached with his right hand toward the inner pocket on his chest.
His fingertips brushed against a polished wooden token, the crudely carved letters for "safety" pressing into his palm; His son Flint had carved it with his eating spoon–the strokes were crooked, but he could trace every groove with his eyes closed.
Arlo, Flint, your father might have to break his promise.
He thought bitterly to himself. He had promised to return home and open a tavern after this job. He had even picked out the empty shop at the east end of Stonehammer Village, planning to plant two locust trees at the entrance for shade in the summer.
Arlo said she would put a rocking chair behind the counter, where he could sit and spin tales for customers when he grew old. Flint said he wanted to hang a sign at the entrance that read "The Best Wine in the Village"–the kid couldn't even read all the words yet.
How had it come to this?
Liya clutched her head tightly mid-air, tears flung from the corners of her eyes, vanishing silently into the darkness.
Her mentor had said the Dungeon was full of dangers. He had said it three times. Why hadn't she listened?
She remembered Professor Wilder's old face, half-hidden by his beard, and the words he had thrown at her when he slammed the practical course application form in front of her: "Liya, your Talent is enough to make you an outstanding mage, but your recklessness will get you blown up long before that."
At the time, she had thought her mentor was being too harsh… Now, she believed he had been far too polite!
You should have just yelled at me back then!
Mentor, I was wrong! Can you jump out now and tell me this is all just your illusion, that I'm still at the academy, and Medius is standing right there laughing at me? This is all just an illusion!
Finn flipped over in the darkness, spun his dagger halfway in his hand, and tried stabbing it into the rock wall.
A spark flashed, but it remained unmoved.
He glanced at the weapon in his hand–a gift from Grang when he was seventeen. The blade had never dulled.
Rek closed his eyes, calculating the time and speed of their fall amid the rushing wind.
About forty meters now. If the ground below was solid, at this speed, his femur and tibia would definitely fracture, and his spine would depend on luck.
If it was water, an improper entry would be no different from hitting stone.
His mind was analyzing, but his hands were doing something else–he adjusted his posture, turning his back downward, and pushed the remaining quiver on his back to one side.
Not to protect the quiver.
Because if he landed on his back, the arrows inside would snap, potentially piercing straight through him.
Dying here wasn't so bad, really. Better than rotting in some filthy ditch with a "dishonorable conduct" stamp on his record.
He thought about it again and decided the notion was too melodramatic, so he tossed it out of his mind.
A loud crash–the Tower Shield slammed into his chest, knocking the last breath out of him.
Oh, heavens…
He groaned in agony inwardly, feeling as though all his organs had shifted. A metallic, sweet taste surged into his mouth, and he forced it back down.
"Cough, cough–Is everyone... alright?"
He lay on his back, staring up at the now-invisible opening above, and shouted, "Don't fall asleep... stay awake... count off!"
"One... sob, it hurts so much..."
Liya responded from a few steps away, her voice choked with tears and sniffles, "Captain, captain, captain!!! I think all my bones are broken... I can't move my legs... Where's my Staff? Who saw my Staff?"
"That stick with the bow tied to it? I saw it fly out just now, probably over..."
Finn emerged from another direction, weak but still chattering, "...somewhere I can't reach. Two."
"Three."
Rek responded briefly, followed by a violent cough. He spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and added expressionlessly, "The quiver on my back is shattered. My combat ability is zero right now. I couldn't even fight off a Goblin."
"Great, everyone's alive."
Grang closed his eyes for a moment. The Tower Shield on his chest made it hard to breathe, but he forced a smile. "As long as we're alive... as long as we're alive, we have everything."
"What's the use of being alive when all our equipment is ruined?" Finn gritted his teeth and rolled over.
A gash on his forehead was oozing blood, and the crimson liquid dripped onto the white stone slab, starkly visible. "Do you know how much this set of equipment is worth? Let me calculate it for you–"
"Finn."
"Huh?"
"Now is not the time for accounting."
"Every moment is the time for accounting."
Liya curled up on the stone slab, her hands fumbling around her. Her fingertips touched only the hard stone surface. Her Staff had rolled away somewhere, and without it, she couldn't even conjure a spark.
Sob, sob... my mentor was right. I should have stayed at the Artmage Academy and waited for the academy to assign me...
Tears still hung at the corners of her eyes, but her gaze began to survey the surroundings. Despite the excruciating pain, her eyes caught something unusual.
"Captain... this place is really strange."
"What's strange?" Grang was still struggling with the Tower Shield on his chest, trying to push it away.
"It's too white."
Liya sniffled, the sobs in her voice replaced by unease. "There shouldn't be such a white place in the Dungeon. These slabs... they're not natural. They're artificially laid, and... and they're glowing."
She was right.
The surrounding walls were also built from the same pristine white stones, emitting a faint glow from their surfaces.
It wasn't firelight or magical light sources but rather the stones themselves glowing. In a place like the Dungeon, filled with mud, moss, and the stench of decay, this whiteness was unnervingly clean.
It didn't bring any sense of holiness or peace.
"I don't like it here," Rek said.
"No kidding, who does?"
Finn rolled his eyes and immediately regretted it, as the motion tugged at the wound on his forehead, making him grimace in pain.
He forced his eyes open and was startled by the sight before him. The white stone slab reflected his own face–covered in blood, dust, and a still-bleeding gash–looking as if he had crawled out of a grave.
The slab itself was so clean it seemed freshly scrubbed. The drops of blood from his face fell onto it, creating a stark contrast between the crimson and the pure white.
"This place is creepy," he whispered, his tone unusually devoid of any joking intent. "Everyone, stay still and watch out for traps."
"You sure picked a good time to remind us," Grang finally managed to push the Tower Shield away from his chest.
The steel shield slid far across the smooth stone slab, its metal rim scraping against the surface with a hair-raising screech.
Then chaos erupted.
Due to inertia and the impact of the fall, the four of them didn't land neatly in place. Instead, they tumbled, collided, and tangled across the slab like cats stuffed into the same sack.
Grang's elbow slammed into Finn's head.
"Ow–Captain, are your arms made of iron?!"
"It wasn't on purpose!"
"You always say that! Last time in the swamp, you said the same thing before you kicked me into a mud pit!"
"That time, you slipped!"
"I slipped because you kicked me!"
Liya's foot got caught on Rek's longbow, and she tumbled right on top of the archer.
Rek let out a pained groan, feeling his ribs protest.
"Who's on top of me–"
"It's me, I'm sorry!" Liya hurriedly tried to get up, only for her hair to get tangled in Finn's button. With a tug, the three of them rolled into a heap again.
"My hair! Your button's caught in my hair!"
"Then stop moving! The more you struggle, the tighter it gets!"
"You stop moving! Every time you move, it hurts!"
"It's your hair tangled in my button! Not my button growing legs to tangle with your hair!"
Rek lay pinned beneath Liya, staring expressionlessly at the dark hole above, like a salted fish stranded on shore.
"Could someone please get off me first?" he said flatly. "My ribs are cracking."
"Hold on!"
"I've been holding on."
Somehow, Grang's boot ended up stepping on Rek's face, leaving a clear muddy imprint. Rek remained silent, only blinking slowly, but the look in his eyes sent a chill down Grang's spine.
"Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to–"
"That's the third time you've said that today."
"I'm keeping count!" Finn chimed in from the side. "First your elbow, then your knee, now your foot. Captain, is there any part of you that hasn't taken a swing at us?"
"Say one more word, Finn, and I'll use the rest of me to take a swing at you."
In the chaos, someone kicked someone else, eliciting another pained howl. The Rogue's dagger slipped from his waist, clattering a few times on the stone slab with a crisp sound.
Several glass vials hanging from Liya's waist shattered in the commotion. Red Healing Potion and blue Mana Potion mixed, spreading across the white stone slab like an abstract painting no one could decipher.
"My potions!" Liya nearly burst into tears again, her heart aching. "I bought these with three weeks' worth of living expenses!"
"Write it down," Finn said reflexively. "We'll get the guild to reimburse it when we get back."
"The guild doesn't cover personal supply losses, as you well know."
"Everyone, stop moving!" Grang finally roared, his voice nearly cracking. "The more you move, the worse it gets! Separate! One at a time!"
The passage fell silent for a moment. Then Liya whispered, "Captain, your foot is still on Rek's face."
Grang looked down and saw it was true, quickly pulling his foot back.
Rek now had a muddy boot print on his face, but his expression remained unchanged. He slowly raised his hand, wiped his face with his sleeve, and said:
"...You should change your boots. The tread on the soles is worn flat, not enough grip."
Finn was lying on the ground, his shoulders trembling. Grang thought he was crying, but when he leaned closer, he found the kid was holding back laughter.
"What are you laughing at!"
"Nothing, nothing." Finn buried his face in his arms, muffling his voice, "It's just... Rek, this guy, is really hard to describe."
The chaos finally subsided amid Grang's roar and everyone's exhaustion. The four of them finally separated, each collapsing onto the white stone slab like stranded fish.
The cold from the ground seeped through their tattered clothes, chilling their bodies. The coldness rose from deep within the slab, clinging to their skin, following their blood vessels, and creeping inch by inch into the gaps between their bones.
Liya shivered, instinctively hugging her arms tightly. Her robe was already in tatters, with the fabric on her left shoulder completely torn open, revealing bruised skin underneath.
"It's so cold..." she muttered softly, her teeth beginning to chatter lightly.
"Endure it." Rek lay a few steps away, staring into the darkness above, his tone flat. "Feeling cold means you're still alive. You should worry when you stop feeling cold."
"Can't you say something comforting?"
"I can." Rek paused. "Your Staff is three steps to your left."
Liya quickly turned her head and saw the oak Staff tied with a pink bow lying quietly on the stone slab not far away. The bow was crooked, the ribbon stained with dust, but the Staff itself was undamaged.
"Rek, how did you notice that!"
"I saw it while rolling earlier."
"You had time to notice that while rolling?"
"Habit. Observing the surroundings is a scout's basic skill."
Liya scrambled over and hugged the Staff as if reuniting with a long-lost relative.
The pigeon-egg-sized Fire Element Core at the top of the Staff still emitted a faint warm red glow. She pressed her face against it, feeling a weak warmth.
"Thank goodness you didn't break..." she whispered to the Staff. "If you broke, I'd really have nothing left..."
Finn rolled over beside her, picked up his dagger from the ground, and carefully wiped the blade with the corner of his clothes. The edge of the dagger had several tiny nicks. He glanced at it and winced in pain.
"Captain, you owe me a new one later."
"Why should I owe you one?" Grang was struggling to check his injuries. His left shoulder was dislocated, and he needed to pop it back into place.
"Because you said this mission was a sure thing, that we could complete it with our eyes closed."
"When did I ever say that?"
"Before we set off, at the guild entrance. In front of the receptionist." Finn's memory was astonishingly good. "Your exact words were, 'Don't worry, brothers. I could clear this low-level Dungeon by myself. Taking you along is just for easy money.' After that, you patted your chest and knocked over the ink bottle on the counter."
Grang was speechless. "...I really did say that."
"So, you owe me."
"We'll talk about it if I make it out alive."
Grang held his breath, grabbed his right arm with his left hand, and pulled and pushed hard. His shoulder joint made a dull click as it snapped back into place.
Pain made his vision go white for a moment. Sweat beads from his forehead pattered onto the stone slab, but he gritted his teeth without making a sound.
His hands pressed against the white stone slab, a chill spreading from his palms to his arms, then throughout his body. The plates of his armor scraped against each other with each ragged breath, emitting a harsh metallic sound.
Finn looked up at Grang's unsteady back and wanted to say something cutting, but held back. It was better to keep things harmonious at a time like this.
He sheathed his dagger and began pushing himself up from the ground as well.
Liya hugged her Staff, sniffled, and roughly wiped her tears with her sleeve.
Afterward, she too began to move, one hand bracing against the ground while the other clutched the Staff, swaying unsteadily like an injured fawn trying to stand.
Rek was the last to move. He opened his eyes, glanced expressionlessly at Grang's back, then rolled over and sat up, his movements so fluid he hardly seemed like someone who had just fallen from a height.
Once on his feet, he looked down at the ground.
There was a beetle, unclear where it had crawled from, slowly moving along a crack in the stone slab.
Rek watched it for two seconds, then silently shifted half a step to the side, clearing a path for it.
Finn happened to witness this.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
…Never mind. I give up trying to understand this person.
...
If you want to support, please consider Patreon, and read advanced chapters! Your support keeps this series going! [Patreon.com/RedZTL]