The cave slowly fell silent after the last monster collapsed. No more footsteps echoed through the tunnels, no more growls or wet dragging sounds followed. Only the faint dripping of slime residue and the smell of blood remained in the air. Kaito stood still in the middle of the battlefield, his chest rising and falling as he steadied his breathing. The bodies of goblins lay scattered across the stone floor, mixed with dissolving slime remains that slowly melted into the cracks of the cavern.
For several long seconds, nothing happened.
Then—
Ding.
A bright blue panel flashed open before his eyes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONGRATULATIONS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dungeon Cleared Successfully
Private Practice Dungeon — Completed
Status: ✔ Cleared
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kaito exhaled slowly as the words settled into his mind. The tension in his shoulders eased slightly, but he didn't lower his guard completely. Clearing the dungeon felt satisfying—but more than that, it felt real. He had entered alone, fought through multiple monsters, made mistakes, adapted, and survived.
Another line appeared beneath the panel.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SYSTEM NOTICE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Calculating Rewards…
Please Wait
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
For a moment, the panel flickered softly as if processing large amounts of data.
Then new text appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ENEMY DEFEATED
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Monster Killed: Slime ×10
Threat Level: Low
Rewards Earned:
System Points: +500
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A second panel appeared immediately after.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ENEMY DEFEATED
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Monster Killed: Goblin ×13
Threat Level: Low
Rewards Received:
System Points: +1,300
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The panels merged into a final summary.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TOTAL REWARDS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total System Points Earned: +1,800
Previous System Points: 1,590
Current System Points: 3,390
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The blue glow of the system screen remained steady after displaying his total rewards. Kaito was still catching his breath, his chest rising slowly as the exhaustion from the battle settled into his muscles. The smell of melted slime and goblin blood lingered faintly in the air, but the dungeon itself had grown completely silent.
Then—
Ding.
A brighter panel suddenly appeared before his eyes, larger than the previous ones.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
LEVEL UP
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Level 5 → Level 10
You have leveled up!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kaito's eyes narrowed slightly as he stared at the message. A warm surge rushed through his body at that exact moment, spreading from his chest outward into his arms and legs. His tired muscles felt lighter, the lingering fatigue fading slightly as new strength settled into his body.
The system wasn't finished yet.
Another panel appeared immediately beneath the first.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONGRATULATIONS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Major Milestone Achieved
Level 10 Reached Successfully
[Reward: 20,000 System Points Received]
Total System Points: 23,390
New Features Have Been Unlocked
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NEW SECTIONS UNLOCKED
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Advanced Tier Weapon — Unlocked
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NEW STAT UNLOCKED
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Charm: A (Increases the host's attractiveness and presence, making him more appealing and handsome, especially toward women.
Changes caused by Charm will appear natural, and no one will be able to tell how the host became more Attractive).
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Kaito blinked at the new stat and frowned slightly.
"Charm…? What kind of broken stat is this?"
He read the description again and let out a quiet breath.
"No one will know how I got more handsome… seriously, this system is cheating."
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"I mean… I'm already handsome, but getting even more attractive isn't a bad thing."
A small smirk formed on his lips.
"If I can reach the peak, then why not?"
Kaito stared at the Charm description for a moment, then slowly nodded to himself.
"Good… very good, System. You really know my inner thoughts."
A smug grin spread across his face.
"Making me more handsome and no one questioning it… now that's what I call perfect support."
Just as he finished speaking, a soft voice suddenly echoed inside his mind.
[Thank you, Sir.]
Kaito froze.
His eyes widened slightly as he looked around the empty room.
"...Wait."
He blinked once, then twice.
"Did you just talk back?"
The gentle female voice replied calmly inside his mind.
[System Voice Function unlocked at Level 10.]
[The System can now respond to the Host.]
Kaito stood there silently for a second… then rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Heh… not bad."
A slow smirk appeared on his lips.
"A polite female voice assistant ready to always be my helper System, you really are broken in the best way."
The female voice answered again, sounding calm and respectful.
[System exists to support the Host, Sir.]
Kaito chuckled under his breath.
"Very good… I like this upgrade already."
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SYSTEM NOTICE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dungeon Exit Portal Generating…
Please Prepare to Leave
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
A soft humming sound began forming somewhere behind him as faint particles of blue light gathered in the air, slowly twisting into the shape of a portal.
Kaito turned his head toward the forming exit, his grip still tight around the spear. Sweat clung to his skin, and his muscles ached from the repeated battles, but beneath the exhaustion… there was something else.
Excitement.
This had been his first dungeon.
And he had cleared it.