The group trudged through the tunnels, already worn out.
They were still on the first floor and hadn't done anything to progress to the second floor.
'This is harder than I thought,' Ares thought.
Wounds, bruises, fatigue, and stress weighed heavily on them.
Silence filled the air—not because they wanted it, but because they couldn't speak after everything they had endured.
"Ugh, I still have that disgusting blood in my hair," Sylvie muttered, running her fingers through it, trying to get rid of the pale stalkers' blood. Finally, someone spoke.
"Really, that's what you're worried about? Blood in your hair?" Jones said. "Then try feeling it in your hair."
"Yes. Do you have a problem with that?"
"Try having it in yours."
"I would, but I wouldn't, because I'd just cut it off."
"So cut it off then."
"Maybe I will."
"I dare you."
"Jones, I swear—"
"Please stop," Ares said, clearly annoyed.
The fight with the pale stalkers had only been to keep them from interfering in future battles. Now they were already drained and exhausted. How were they supposed to handle the other floors?
'I might end up dying from their arguing before anything else gets the chance.'
"And to think that wasn't even the boss of this floor," Venia muttered, and everyone heard her.
"Makes me wonder how much tougher these monsters will get," Marcus muttered quietly to himself.
"How so?" Nia asked, referring to Venia's comment.
Venia pondered before replying; she was not very good at explaining long details of her thoughts, "There's no way the government would place a monster like that here.
That thing had to be A-rank or even S-rank.
Putting a boss like that so close to the dungeon's entrance, where so many hunters would be gathered in one place, only spells death and a waste of resources."Ares nodded, Marcus as well. Henry just stared.
"True, I'd like to think that was just a mistake by the government—"
Henry interrupted.
"Mistake? I'd call it a test." The group froze.
Ares kept his eyes forward—the tunnels stretched endlessly into darkness, hiding whatever lay ahead.
He turned to Henry with a frown. "And how so? A test this early that could wipe out nearly everyone in an instant?"
"It's how the world works, D-rank. I'd expect you to understand that by now. That's what makes hunters strong— thrown into dangerous situations."
"Yes, I agree with what you say," Ares nodded.
"But even if you're the strongest human in existence, that's just a hint of your weakness. No matter how strong you are, when something goes beyond what you predicted, it just makes you weak."
"Then we get stronger. Those who die give birth to new ones — even smarter, even faster."
"Your thinking is very unsettling, Henry," Ares pointed out.
The silver-haired man smirked, as if being complimented. "I don't need your praises, D-rank."
"Hey, I'm C-rank, doesn't that mean I'm a low-rank? Why do you keep pointing out only Ares?"
"Me too," Nia added.
....
Everyone immediately turned to her with expressions that made it clear they knew she was lying. Nia felt like a kitten overshadowed by adult cats staring her down.
"I-I'll scout out forward. Be right back," she disappeared, using that as a saving grace.
"She fought an A or S-rank Queen with us," Jones said, watching the space she'd left behind. "And she ran from us."
"Can you blame her?" Venia said.
"He knows," Henry grinned.
"What?" Ares looked confused.
"What do you mean?" Venia asked.
"Just a statement." A pause. "Though your name carries more weight than a D-rank program suggests. The Rosh name tends to end up somewhere other than the bottom of a government registry."
Ares tensed, trying his best not to show it, but his hands trembled. How much had Henry figured out about him?
He definitely knows.
He definitely knows.
"You're saying some weird shit, crazy bastard," Sylvie muttered as she walked off, leaving Henry slightly stunned.
"I'm going ahead if anyone wants to join me.
I've heard enough from this guy," she added.
Jones and Venia followed her, ignoring Henry's remarks, leaving only Ares and Henry at the back.
Ares felt a wave of relief before turning to Henry. "There's a limit to how far someone can go, especially you."
Henry scoffed, unfazed. "Is that supposed to be a threat? I've faced worse than—"
"It's not a threat, but a word of caution you'd better keep in mind.
If I ever find out you've checked on me again, I won't care about your background or connections.
Things will get a lot more heated than they are now." "What if I want it like that?" Henry grinned.
"You—" Ares stopped, still seething, unwilling to let Henry manipulate him. Staying calm was the only way to respond.
Then, to Henry's surprise, he gave a small smile and said, "You sick bastard."
"Hey, what's the waiting for?" Jones called out.
"Nothing." Ares smiled and kept walking, Henry following with a strange expression.
"Sick Bastard?"
...
...
"How far has Nia gone, and how long is this tunnel?" Sylvie wanted to pull her hair out, clearly frustrated, but the blood on her hands made them slippery.
"Ugh."
"This place is too eerie and a bit dark."
Ares frowned; the tunnel's length in this dungeon exceeded that of others. The more they walked, the more endless it felt.
"Would've been so much easier if we had a map."
"You hear that? Brought knowledge about monsters but couldn't bring a map for this damn dungeon," Sylvie said, indirectly aiming at Henry.
"When exploring dungeons, you are the map," Henry replied confidently, though his face stayed emotionless.
"His attitude is annoying me."
"Just bear it, please." Jones tried to calm Sylvie, but her irritation lingered, waiting for a final push.
"I'd like to ask Henry," said Marcus with a smile. "Do you know of any other monsters besides the pale stalkers?"
Henry frowned, reluctant to answer outright, but with Marcus's keen gaze fixed on him, he had no reason to refuse."Ugh! I only took specific monsters that I deemed dangerous to encounter, and other monsters just for good measure."
Curiosity got the better of Marcus. "Interesting. When you say specific, do you mean monsters we've never seen before or enhanced versions of ones we've encountered in dungeons?"
"Yes and no. Yes, there are monsters never before seen, like those in National Classification Dungeons that create their own unique creatures," Ares replied with interest.
"And no, some monsters from other dungeons are here too, placed intentionally."
"Well, that's something," Sylvie remarked.
"Interesting. How well do you know each one?"
"I told you, I only know about certain monsters," Henry muttered, clutching his head as a headache set in.
Just then—
"HEEEEY!"
Nia's voice bounced off the walls and came back at them from three different directions simultaneously.
"Nia." Sylvie's tone could have stripped stone. "If you bring something down on us—"
"Okay!" Nia called back at the same volume.
Sylvie closed her eyes.
"Did you find anything, Nia?" Ares asked as they approached. Nia looked surprisingly fresh, even better than after their battle with the Queen Pale Stalker.
"Nothing much, but there are dead people a couple of hundred meters from here."
"…What?"
The scene was grim—seven bodies in all.
A few remained whole, most didn't—sliced at deliberate angles, organs shifted but not eaten, heads removed with a calm precision rather than wild rage. Blood had seeped into the floor, pooling in a way that caught the light unpleasantly. It had been sitting there for some time.
"Blueh—" Sylvie turned away hard.
"What the hell," Venia said quietly. She was looking at a face staring at the ceiling and, with complete irrationality, feeling that it was looking back.
"It might be those Pale Stalkers again," Nia suggested, dread settling over them.
"No."
Marcus crouched beside the nearest body, the one with the cleanest wound, studying the angle without laying a hand on it.
"Pale stalkers consume. Nothing's missing here—every organ's still in place."
His gaze shifted to the blood smeared across the wall. "And the bodies are arranged. Pale stalkers don't arrange." Leaning in a little, he added, "The cuts are too precise. Whoever did this wasn't rushing."
....
...
"PLEASE. PLEASE. SPARE ME. I'll DO ANYTHING YOU WANT. JUST SPARE ME."
"Your voice is annoying." In the next moment, the young man, sitting among the corpses with blood covering his hands and face, was dead. It was quick but painful, as he choked briefly before collapsing to the ground.
The culprit: Subject 19.
"All their whining just annoyed me. They shouldn't have joined me."
"Hmm."
He stared at the blood-stained blade, wondering what to do with it.
Then—
He licked it. Instantly, something in him began to change—his eyes, his features. Scales slowly formed on his skin, and his eyes glowed in the darkness that surrounded him.
"More. I need more blood." A voice then echoed within Subject 19, one he wasn't meant to hear.
"Go, potential vessel. Kill more and more, and satisfy your cravings."