"You should've seen the monsters we ran into last week on the ninth floor. Ugly things, as someone mashed together a wolf and a pile of bones. Nearly tore one of our guys in half before we managed to bring it down."
Adrian listened quietly while finishing the transaction, only occasionally glancing up.
Ronan continued talking, as usual.
"Still, we handled it. Floor nineteen's practically solved now. Once we clear twenty, things should start getting interesting."
He sounded confident, but there was always a hint of tension beneath the bravado that seasoned adventurers carried with them. Anyone who spent enough time inside the Tower knew that confidence and survival were two very different things.
Adrian slid the items across the counter.
As the adventurer reached for them, Adrian asked casually:
"It's been a while since I've seen Eve. Are you two still together?"
Ronan blinked.
"…Eve?"
Adrian looked up.
"Yes, your girlfriend."
For a moment, the adventurer simply stared at him, the grin fading from his face as confusion replaced it.
"What?....girlfriend?"
Adrian frowned slightly. "You usually come here together."
The man stared at him as though he had just said something ridiculous.
"Adrian," he said slowly, "did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? I've never had a girlfriend."
A few nearby adventurers chuckled on hearing that, and Ronan continued, shaking his head.
"You...are teasing me or something?"
Adrian studied his expression carefully.
The confusion looked genuine. There was no hesitation, no sign that he was joking.
Adrian forced a faint smile and leaned back slightly.
"Yeah...I'm just messing with you."
Ronan laughed immediately, the tension disappearing just as quickly as it had appeared.
"Good one," he said, grabbing the bag of supplies, and gave Adrian a casual salute before heading for the door.
"Next time you see me, we'll talk about what happened on Floor twenty." He said, and Adrian nodded in response.
Adrian watched him leave the store, his expression slowly tightening once Ronan disappeared into the street.
Something about that exchange felt wrong.
He was certain Ronan had a girlfriend. He remembered the two of them standing together at the counter more than once, the woman occasionally teasing him while the adventurer complained about dungeon injuries.
The memory was clear.
Yet Ronan had looked completely serious.
Adrian eventually forced himself to shake the thought aside. It was possible that Ronan and the girl had simply broken up, and if that was the case, the man probably didn't feel like talking about it.
The door opened again before he could think about it any further, and another group of adventurers stepped into the store.
Adrian's hands paused slightly as he looked up.
The moment he saw them, something in his chest tightened.
It was a four-person party made up of young adventurers, the type who carried themselves with the loud confidence of people who had not yet been broken by the Tower. Their armor was still relatively new, their laughter carefree, and the way they moved suggested they believed the dungeon was simply another obstacle waiting to be conquered.
Adrian recognized them immediately.
And the recognition made him freeze.
He remembered hearing about them not long ago, a story that had spread quietly through the lower districts after their last expedition. The group had attempted a leveling run on Floor Five, hoping to gain a few easy levels before pushing deeper into the Tower.
They never came back.
The entire party had been wiped out.
Adrian remembered the conversation clearly because it had happened right here in the store, a pair of adventurers discussing the incident while buying potions. One of them had even mentioned the group by name, shaking his head while explaining how overconfidence had gotten them killed.
Yet the four people standing in front of him now were very much alive.
They laughed among themselves while browsing the shelves, talking casually about their next attempt at the fifth floor as if nothing unusual had ever happened.
Adrian stared at them for a moment longer than he intended.
One of the boys noticed.
The young adventurer turned toward the counter with a raised eyebrow.
"What?"
Adrian blinked and quickly looked away.
"…Nothing."
The group approached the counter and began placing their supplies down one by one while continuing their conversation about monster spawns and leveling strategies. Adrian packed their items efficiently, his movements steady even though his thoughts were anything but.
Before handing the bag back, he hesitated for a brief moment.
Then he said quietly, "Be careful down there."
The warning earned nothing more than a few amused smiles.
One of them chuckled as he took the bag.
"Relax, weirdo. We'll be fine."
With that, the group left the store, their laughter fading as they disappeared into the street outside.
Adrian remained standing behind the counter long after the door closed, his eyes fixed on the empty entrance.
Something about today felt deeply wrong, and no matter how much he tried to ignore it, the uneasiness settling in his chest refused to go away.
Several hours passed as the day continued like any other, the store gradually filling with the usual noise of adventurers preparing for their dungeon runs. Conversations overlapped across the room, metal equipment clinked against wooden counters, and the smell of potion ingredients lingered heavily in the air.
Then the door burst open.
A man rushed inside, breathing hard as though he had sprinted the entire way.
"They're dead!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the room like a blade.
The chatter inside the store immediately died down.
"The party that went down to the fifth floor," the man continued, still struggling to catch his breath. "They just found them. The whole group's been wiped out."
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then murmurs spread throughout the room as people began talking all at once.
Adrian felt the blood drain from his face.
The fifth floor.
His mind immediately returned to the four young adventurers who had stood at the counter earlier that day, laughing as they talked about their next leveling run. He could still picture them clearly—their confident smiles, the careless way they brushed off his warning.
And suddenly the memory came rushing back with terrifying clarity.
He remembered hearing this exact story before.
The same party.
The same floor.
The same careless attempt to gain levels.
They had died exactly the way the man was describing it now.
Adrian's fingers tightened slowly against the edge of the counter as the realization began to sink in.
This wasn't just similar.
It was the same.
Exactly the same.
A sharp pain suddenly pulsed through his head.
Adrian staggered slightly as his vision blurred, his heartbeat beginning to pound loudly in his ears.
Then he heard it.
A faint voice echoing somewhere deep in his mind.
The same voice from the dream.
Climb the tower.
It's the only way to escape death.
His breathing became uneven as a tremor ran through his hands, his body reacting to something he could not explain.