Whenever Gapar died, he produced a four-digit amount of Mana — making him one of the highest-grade fuel sources currently available. When Elsa died, she yielded several hundred points as well, placing her firmly in the exceptionally valuable category.
At this stage, Sein Dungeon was already pulling in enormous amounts of mana every day through sheer population volume alone. It no longer needed to rely on holding onto a handful of high-value individuals to stay afloat. Tricking eight or nine ordinary adventurers into dying would already outperform a single Elsa kill — and the former was obviously far easier to arrange. Killing Elsa required either exploiting game mechanics or overwhelming her with raw stats, both of which were more trouble than they were worth.
Even so, Wade's instincts told him that special characters like Heroes were absolutely not to be discarded once they crossed his path.
If this were a game, there would probably be a giant exclamation mark floating above a Hero's head at all times. Characters like that were triggers for major events — the fantasy world equivalent of the Flash in DC. They attracted the extraordinary the way a bonfire attracted the undead.
Keeping an eye on her couldn't hurt.
But —
"I still can't figure out what this girl actually wants."
If you wanted to draw someone in, the first step was understanding what they truly desired. Then you put it right in front of them.
It had worked well enough before:
The Abyss Watchers for Darrick. The Tear for Gapar. Thops for Stella.
Wade had been watching Elsa for a while now. She had the quality of an endlessly diligent instrument — something that existed purely to be pointed at problems and used. What exactly had this child gone through growing up to come out like this?
Sali: She merely ended up with a family situation comparable to Batman's, with some assistance from the Demon Race.
"Since she prefers following other people's lead, I'll have to work through the people around her first. Get to the people she's close to, and she'll follow."
"Sali seems practically attached to her at the hip — essentially her external brain. But that one has developed some serious psychological trauma toward my dungeon."
Ever since recognizing this place as Sein Dungeon, Sali had not set foot inside even once. He was probably genuinely frightened.
"The rest of the Corps have been exploring enthusiastically lately. Maybe they'll pull her along eventually."
"Although — why are mercenaries suddenly this interested in dungeons? They showed zero interest not that long ago."
The Corps had recently displayed exploration enthusiasm that matched the adventurers' stride for stride, which was difficult to reconcile with the group that had previously treated dungeon-diving with complete indifference.
"That kid Tami is worth watching."
"The Hero seems to get along well with him. And he's part of the Skyrim Group — starting there would be much easier."
The fact that Tami had come up with the inspired solution of defecting to the enemy inside Painting World: Carthus Warriors — a chain of reasoning that resembled a rollercoaster derailment more than actual logic — had already earned him a special watchlist slot. He seemed like a passionate, principled young man. People like that were the easiest to pull in with grand, inspiring stories, and Sein had plenty of those.
All things considered, Tami was basically a cheerful, sunlit version of Darrick.
"In any case — let's get these two closer."
After a brief consideration, Wade got to work crafting a brand-new Painting World from scratch. He even invested extra mana to raise the player limit to two simultaneous occupants.
"If you want to build a bond between people, games are obviously the answer."
Conveniently, there was a map he had been wanting to introduce for a long time — a location that felt genuinely worthy of the name Sein. He would release a simplified version for now.
[Painting World: Ancient Sen Fortress]
Deep in the lower half of the Catacombs of Carthus, Tami and Elsa had unknowingly become the explorers with the highest progression in the entire region.
Through a combination of luck, poor decisions, and spectacular accidents, they had arrived here.
After everything that had happened, they pressed on — but a strange quiet had settled between them.
Elsa walked a deliberate half-step behind Tami.
She understood that in his eyes, she had already become something other than herself. So she stayed behind him, trying not to make things harder than they already were. Whenever the gap widened too much, Tami slowed down and waited without saying anything. An unspoken understanding had taken shape between them.
Elsa watched his back, and something flickered in her expression.
The atmosphere had subtly, unmistakably shifted.
Inside Tami's head, there was only one word:
Mom.
The impulsive courage from earlier had run dry, and now he simply could not bring himself to turn around.
Because Elsa had genuinely become the thing he feared most.
His mother.
Every time he looked back, what he saw was a somewhat round middle-aged woman draped in arithmetic worksheets, holding two plates of food of deeply questionable color, smiling with warm maternal energy while urging him to eat more.
Everyone's deepest fears were different.
Fearing your mother wasn't particularly strange.
He had become an adventurer partly to escape both his academic obligations and his family in general.
So no matter how gentle Elsa's smile was — no matter how moving her expression became — no matter how warm the air around her felt —
Tami understood none of it.
He only felt terror.
Why does my deepest fear have to be THIS? The mood is completely ruined!
He looked like a man contemplating whether death was actually the worse option.
When monsters appeared, he would watch "Mom" swing a giant sword through them with focused intensity. Afterward she would flash him a victory sign.
What kind of waking nightmare was this?
His eyes had started to feel unreliable.
After clearing another group of monsters, Elsa came jogging back toward him wearing an expression that transparently requested praise — purple eyes bright with anticipation.
From Tami's perspective, he was looking directly into a scene from the underworld.
Just as he was desperately trying to formulate some kind of polite non-response —
[Invaded by "IDontLikeRosemary"]
That naming sense identified the source immediately. A real player.
Elsa's expression went cold in an instant. She drew her weapon and leveled it at the slowly materializing figure with the calm intent of someone who had already decided how this would end.
The invader finished materializing, looked at the two of them, and grimaced.
"Tch. Wrong again. Where did that group go?"
He pulled out a Severing Dagger, slashed the air, and vanished.
[The Invader Has Left]
"…What was that? Just passing through, apparently."
The interruption saved Tami from whatever the previous moment had been building toward. He immediately picked up his pace, quietly increasing the distance between himself and the now noticeably warmer Elsa.
In that moment, the skeleton warriors jumping out from dark corners seemed genuinely endearing by comparison. At least combat gave him something to focus on.
"Take this!"
He kicked a skeleton warrior's shield aside, stepped into the stagger, and followed up with several clean hits.
Then something tapped him on the shoulder.
Politely. Gently. Like a quiet request for attention.
"Hm?"
He turned.
A transparent ghostly hand had emerged from the wall.
SLAP.
A painting drove itself directly into his face.
"WAAAH!"
Elsa was at his side in an instant — but Tami was already gone.
She scanned the area. The ghostly hand was still there, waving at her from the wall with what appeared to be a beckoning gesture.
Under normal circumstances, most people would have immediately answered with a sword.
Elsa tilted her head.
"Have you seen Tami?"
The ghost hand shook the painting it was holding and made several gestures.
"He's inside? And you want me to go get him?"
A thumbs-up.
"If you're lying to me, I'll chop you into pieces."
The ghostly hand began trembling visibly. It held the painting out with both hands.
[Painting World: Sen Fortress]
A painting depicting the scenery of Sen Fortress — the most beloved proving ground among the Undead, the perfect amusement park that has inspired countless heroes to sigh in equal parts admiration and deep regret.
The world shifted.
When Elsa's senses returned, she was standing in near-total darkness broken only by the dim flicker of firelight. Before her rose a structure unlike anything she had seen.
Bottomless abysses fell away on every side. Suspended above them were narrow brick pathways barely wide enough for one person to walk — some running straight, some twisting unpredictably, with what appeared to be mechanisms and traps lurking in the shadows on either side. Following the pathways far ahead, they eventually led into an enormous building.
The legendary —
Something about it felt deeply, inexplicably ominous.
"Eh? Elsa, why are you in here too?!"
Tami's voice reached her the moment she arrived — shouting from somewhere very, very far away. A bottomless abyss sat between them. In front of him ran a pathway that mirrored hers exactly; the two routes would eventually converge somewhere inside the distant ancient structure.
What kind of design was this?
Before she could fully process it, she realized her body was moving forward on its own.
Moving fast.
Sliding along the straight pathway as though simultaneously under the effects of both Flight and Haste magic, and completely beyond her control.
"Don't fight it — we can't stop! Watch what's ahead of you!"
Tami's warning arrived at the exact moment Elsa saw what was coming.
A giant pendulum. Solid stone. Swinging with the kind of momentum that would reduce a skull to powder on direct contact.
A look of mild disdain settled on her face.
A pendulum? Watch me knock it back.
"Wait — with your current strength—"
Tami watched her throw the punch.
Then watched the pendulum send her into a perfect parabola that ended in the abyss.
Even in the moment of death, two distinct emotions seemed legible in her expression.
The left eye: confused.
The right eye: stunned.
"…Sigh."
Tami pressed a hand to his forehead. Then a pendulum appeared on his side and knocked him into the abyss as well.
A few seconds later, both of them reappeared at the starting point. Their bodies immediately began sliding forward again.
"Our strength has been cut down! Don't try to overpower the traps — dodge them!"
Painting Worlds could either strengthen or weaken whoever entered. Strengthening had no upper ceiling. Weakening, however, had a lower floor — Tami had been reduced to roughly the level of an ordinary person, while Elsa, no matter how much was stripped away, still retained at least Silver-rank physical capability.
The understanding landed on Elsa's face.
She wasn't used to this body yet. And with constant forward momentum making precise movement difficult, complex techniques were largely off the table.
This Painting World was stranger than anything she had encountered before.
The giant pendulum swung toward her again.
This time she watched the timing carefully and threw herself flat against the ground.
It passed overhead without touching her.
Not so hard after all.
She was just about to share her success with Tami when she saw him fail the dodge and disappear into the abyss once more.
The moment he fell, she was instantly teleported back to the starting point.
Forced to restart alongside him, despite having done nothing wrong.
This mechanic is absolutely infuriating.
"That one was on me…"
The knowledge that he was holding Elsa back sat in Tami's chest like a stone. At the same time, the shape of the challenge was becoming clearer.
The answer was simple, and brutal:
Both of them had to clear every trap between here and the end without either one making a single mistake.
"You can do it!" Elsa called.
Tami held his breath.
When the pendulum swung, he timed his jump —
And was immediately knocked into the abyss.
"Crap — I forgot my body's been weakened!"
On the next attempt, he threw himself flat instead.
He cleared the first trap.
He felt no particular joy about it. The first trap alone had killed him three or four times. Everything ahead would be worse.
These obstacles probably weren't all that difficult for Elsa. For someone operating at his current reduced capacity, they were genuinely punishing. He had to work harder. He couldn't afford to be dead weight.
"Watch out ahead!" he called as a new trap materialized — three giant blades sweeping left and right at a regular rhythm.
The speed was manageable. The gaps appeared at consistent intervals.
It looked straightforward enough.
Just time it and —
"But I can't stop moving!"
He ran straight into the blades.
In the fraction of a second before his body was torn apart, he discovered something.
So the speed can actually be adjusted.
They couldn't stop completely — but through focused intention, they could briefly accelerate or slow down. Working with that newly understood rule, Tami cleared the blades on the second additional attempt.
He glanced back at Elsa.
She was in the air.
Her toes made light contact with the tops of the swinging blades — once, twice, three times — using them as stepping stones before landing gracefully on the other side.
Three distinct emotions crossed Tami's face in rapid sequence.
Envy. Jealousy. Resentment.
If he hadn't been weakened, he would absolutely have tried something like that.
After the pendulums and giant blades came: floors that erupted in flame, electrified floors, spike-covered floors, floors slicked with oil. Then came giant arrows fired from unknown positions and explosive jars hurled from sources equally invisible. Tami ate nearly every single one of them at full force.
The distance from the starting point to the ancient city didn't look long from the outside.
It felt like years were passing from the inside.
Both body and mind had been worked over to the point where he had stopped wanting to speak.
Elsa's side held even more traps and hit harder across the board. Her death count had reached double digits, and the smile had been gone from her face for some time.
Then came the traps that affected each other's pathways.
Tami accidentally stepped on a floor tile that was a slightly different shade from its neighbors. Elsa's entire path collapsed.
Elsa failed to reset a lever in the correct sequence. Metal spears erupted from beneath Tami's feet.
The most maddening element of the design was that none of it was genuinely impossible — only very, very unforgiving. If you paid attention and reacted in time, everything was survivable. Couldn't get through? That was on you. Pay more attention next time.
Elsa's temperature had been steadily rising.
Tami was sinking quietly into despair.
No wonder so many people grind their teeth whenever Sein comes up. This place really is capable of producing soul-crushing suffering.
When he had first started exploring Sein Dungeon, guides for most areas had already existed. Following them had insulated him from the worst of it — he had never truly experienced the suffering of the people who had mapped those routes for the first time.
Now he understood.
Every class he had skipped was being made up at once, with interest.
"We're almost inside."
"I'm genuinely hoping it gets safer in there…"
After enduring more hardships than either of them wanted to count, the entrance to the Fortress finally came into range.
And directly in front of it — a familiar trap.
Another set of swinging blades.
"Something like this can't stop me anymore," Tami said, with the hollow confidence of someone who had failed this particular task enough times to have developed a relationship with it.
He slowed his movement and prepared to thread through the gap.
Then he heard crackling from somewhere ahead.
Lightning energy gathered in the air.
He looked up.
Creatures stood waiting on the other side of the blades. They resembled snakes that had grown limbs and decided to walk upright — serpent-men, each one clearly designed with purpose.
One stood directly among the blades with a shield braced firmly.
Behind him stood a mage, Lightning Spear already charged and ready.
A perfect formation.
Warrior holding the line. Mage dealing damage from protected range. Terrain used to maximum advantage.
The kind of coordination that would draw genuine praise from even Gapar.
Tami's mouth twitched.
Then a despair-filled scream tore out of him — the scream of a protagonist staring down a fate he had done absolutely nothing to deserve.
"NOOOOOOO!"