The clicking didn't stop for a long time.
I lay curled under the roots, every muscle tensed, listening to the chorus of skittering legs and tapping claws echoing across the cavern floor. The centipedes were cleaning the battlefield — tearing at the deer's remains, dragging pieces away, and tearing apart their fallen brother.
Efficient little horrors.
Their mandibles clacked and scraped against stone, the sound sharp enough to make my bitten arm throb in sympathy.
I stayed perfectly still.
Perfectly silent.
Eventually the sounds faded as they retreated deeper into the cavern, leaving only a few stray clicks echoing from distant tunnels.
Only then did I let my breath out.
It came out shaky.
And hot.
Too hot.
I touched my forehead.
Sweat.
Not the cold kind — the fever kind.
"Great," I muttered weakly. "Poison is clocking in for its shift."
A dull ache pulsed outward from the bite marks on my arm. The bandage I'd tied earlier was already damp, and the skin surrounding the punctures had darkened into a bruised purple.
I peeled back the cloth to check it.
Bad idea.
A faint, unpleasant odor seeped up — not rot, not infection… chemical. Like metal and mold and something sharp that stung my nose.
"Yep," I whispered. "That's venom. Definitely venom. Thank you, Floor 75. Very generous."
My vision blurred for a moment, color washing out around the edges. A light, cold wave rolled over my body, followed by a hotter one, like my blood couldn't decide what temperature it wanted to be.
I clenched my teeth.
"I am not dying from bug juice," I hissed quietly. "I refuse."
I shifted onto my back, pulling my arm close. The pain radiated down into my wrist and up into my shoulder, pulsing with my heartbeat.
I closed my eyes.
Breathe in.Breathe out.
Think.
The instructors at the Academy had briefly covered monster venoms… in the safe, predictable, government-sanitized upper floors.
Down here?
Everything was different.
Still — some lessons applied.
Rule One:
"Pain is normal. Paralysis is concerning. Hallucinations mean you're already late to your own funeral."
Good rule.
Not comforting.
Rule Two:
"Stay hydrated. Venom spreads faster when the body is dehydrated."
Well… I'd taken exactly three sips of weird puddle water earlier.
Not ideal.
I crawled out of the root hollow, arm pressed to my chest, and slowly made my way back toward the little water trickle I'd found before. The cavern was darker now — the mushrooms dimmer, as if they were conserving their glow.
Or maybe my vision was getting worse.
Either option was bad.
Halfway to the water, my legs wobbled. My foot slipped, and for a second the entire cavern tilted sideways in a nauseating rush.
I slapped a hand against the wall to steady myself.
"No," I groaned. "Not now. Venom — look — we can negotiate. I'll cut down on bug consumption. I'll stop insulting your taste. Let's just… not kill me today."
My voice echoed back to me in an odd, warped way.
Not a good sign.
I reached the puddle and dipped both hands into the cold water, splashing my face first. The shock grounded me a little. Then I drank slowly, carefully, trying not to gulp even though my throat burned for more.
The fever eased slightly.
The dizziness dulled.
Still bad, but not "collapse and get eaten" bad.
I sat with my back against the wall, letting the cold seep into my skin. The cavern seemed quieter now — the clicking gone, the distant howls faint, the dripping steady.
For the first time since I fell, I realized I could actually think without something immediately trying to kill me.
Not that thinking made things better.
The reality was… sharp.
Clear.
Ugly.
"I'm trapped," I whispered. Saying it out loud made it too real. "I'm… really trapped down here."
My voice cracked.
I pressed my good hand to my face.
No Academy.No classmates.No instructors.No help.
Just monsters.Darkness.Hunger.Pain.
And me.
A boy with a stick and a fever.
A bitter laugh escaped me — short, sharp, almost a bark.
"Bright future, they said," I muttered. "Join the Academy, they said. You'll have opportunities, they said."
I stared at my reflection in the small pool of water.
Pale.Sweaty.Eyes too wide, too bright from adrenaline and fear.
I didn't look like a student.
I looked like prey pretending it wasn't prey.
A shaky breath escaped me.
"…I need a plan."
Just saying the word "plan" felt foreign. Up until now, everything had been pure instinct, pure reaction — survive the wolf, survive the fall, survive the hunger, survive the centipede, survive the fever.
But if I kept just reacting, I'd eventually react too slow.
I forced myself to sit up straighter despite my trembling limbs.
"Okay," I whispered. "Think like a Scout."
Scouts weren't fighters.Scouts weren't tanks.Scouts weren't spellcasters.
Scouts were observers.
Scouts were shadows.
Scouts survived by understanding their environment better than anything else.
So… understand Floor 75.
Observation One: Apex predators kill once, eat once, then leave.
The wolf hadn't returned. It ate, evaluated me, and wandered off.
Good.
Predictable.
Observation Two: Corpses attract scavengers immediately.
The centipede showed up minutes after the wolf.
Then more followed.
Very dangerous.
Observation Three: Noise is death.
Every scrape, every breath — monsters noticed.
This place was a sound trap.
Observation Four: Blood smell travels fast.
The deer's corpse stank strongly even from my shelter.
Every creature nearby smelled it too.
Observation Five: I can kill things… if they're small.
Terrifying, but true.
I touched the bone shard lying beside me. It was still dark with dried fluids from the fight.
My fingers trembled slightly.
Not just from exhaustion.
From memory — the sound of the centipede's screech, the crunch of bone, the fluid spraying across my face.
Killing something changes you.
It changed me.
A little.
Not enough to be obvious.
Just enough to notice the edges of myself shifting.
Becoming… sharper.
"Great," I murmured. "If I live long enough, I might actually get good at this. Not sure if that's inspirational or horrifying."
Probably both.
I sat longer, listening to my own breathing until it steadied. The fever fluctuated — sometimes burning, sometimes fading — but it wasn't getting worse at the moment.
I'd take that win.
Eventually, I forced myself to check my supplies.
Supplies meaning:
one bone shard (slightly bent)
one rib bone (blood-soaked)
half a strip of centipede meat (drier now, still horrible)
one ruined shirt
one fever
one slowly unraveling sanity
Not promising, but at least I had data now.
Data meant I could make decisions that weren't just "don't scream."
The cavern was quiet still.
But the quiet here never meant safe.
My shelter called to me — not because it was secure, but because it was familiar. A small hollow in the roots where nothing had killed me yet.
I limped back toward it, legs heavy, vision swaying at the edges. Every step sent a pulse of heat through my bitten arm.
By the time I reached the shelter, exhaustion pressed down on me like a thick blanket. I crawled inside and curled up, pulling roots around me like makeshift walls.
My body wanted sleep.
Sleep meant vulnerability.
But if I stayed awake, the fever might get worse.
I closed my eyes.
Just a moment, I told myself.
Just long enough for my body to recover a little.
Floor 75 didn't kill me today.
Maybe tomorrow would be different.
I drifted.
Not asleep.Not awake.Somewhere in between.
Thoughts blurred and mixed with fever heat.
Shapes moved behind my eyelids — long shadows, roots twisting like fingers, glowing eyes watching from above.
A whisper curled at the edge of hearing.
Not from outside.
From somewhere deeper.
A low, resonant hum, like the stone itself was murmuring.
A sound I had heard faintly when I first fell.
A sound I had ignored.
Now, in the half-dream state, it felt closer.
Not words.Not language.
Just… awareness.
Like the dungeon itself… noticed me.
I jerked awake with a sharp gasp, heart hammering. Sweat soaked my hairline. My bitten arm pulsed painfully.
"What… was that?" I whispered.
No answer came.
Just the distant dripping of water.
I pushed myself upright and peered cautiously out from the roots.
The cavern was darker than before.
The glowing mushrooms flickered — one dimming entirely.
The temperature felt colder.Heavier.
Like the air had thickened.
Like the dungeon had shifted while I slept.
My gut twisted with a warning I didn't understand.
Something had changed.
Something bigger than centipedes and wolves.
My fever hadn't caused that.
The dungeon had.
And then—A distant sound echoed through the cavern.
Low.Deep.Vibrating the stone.
A roar.
Not a wolf.Not a lizard.Not anything small.
Something massive.
Something awake.
Something hunting.
My blood ran cold.
"…Yeah," I whispered. "I need a better plan."
The roar echoed again.
Closer.