Quarantine Lot C looked like every other dead corner of the southside: chain-link, flapping hazard tape, and a guard scrolling his phone behind a folding table that should've retired. "KEEP OUT" signs sagged like they'd given up.
The gate hung behind the tape—glass cracked across air, edges rippling like heat above asphalt. Standing near it felt like hearing a subwoofer with no sound. Pressure, not noise. The little hairs on my arms stood up like they wanted front-row seats.
I was not dressed like a hero. Duct-taped kitchen knife at the belt. Patched jacket. The same washed tee Mara had insisted I take, tucked like an amulet. If you squinted, I looked like a free funeral with legs. The F in F-rank stood for "funeral" i reminded myself, because I love affirmations.
Be boring sexy, she'd texted. I dare you. Pancakes first, heroics later. My mouth twitched at the memory, and for a second I could almost taste syrup and coffee over bus brakes and hot tar.
"Badge?" the guard said, eyes never leaving his screen.
I slid my guild ID across. He beeped it and grunted, "F-rank," in the same tone as "cloudy." He jerked his chin at the gate. "Two minutes. F-rank trash."
"Trash," I echoed. "My specialty sir." I ducked under the tape.
The system hovered at the edge of my sight like a well-trained ghost.
[Quest]
— Test your limits. Nearby Gate: Quarantine Lot C — E-Rank (2 m)
"Polite," I muttered. "Be decent. Got it." The system had opinions about consent. I respected that in my invisible life coach.
Cold sheeted over my skin as I stepped through the crack. The world hiccuped from sun to stale underground. A narrow subway tunnel stretched ahead, choked with roots that glowed a faint, unhealthy blue. Tiles heaved. Air tasted like wet concrete and old batteries.
"Okay," I told the dim. "Level One, politely visiting." I glanced at the duct-taped kitchen knife and heard myself from this morning: Perfect. This one's gonna break even faster than the last one. I brought it anyway.
Something skittered. A rat-wolf slid from behind a pillar—rib cage too big, teeth too many. E-rank vermin, the kind real hunters kick aside without losing a sentence.
It lunged. I side-stepped and drove the knife down. The blade hit bone and stuck; the rat twitched and went limp.
I froze. Normally this was the part where my weapon bounced off and I screamed for a healer. Instead? One stab. Dead.
"Wow," I muttered. "So apparently sex really does make you stronger. High school me would like a refund."
[EXP Gained: 12]
[Level 1 Progress: 12 / 100]
I laughed once, sharp. Proof. My life had a bar now. I could grind. I could actually grind. Somewhere a high school guidance counselor sneezed.
The tunnel sloped deeper, roots knotting thicker overhead. The glow behind me—the gate—was already a smear in the distance. No way to measure meters down here, but my brain counted every shadow like rent.
Two more came at the scent. I backed toward the wall, let one tangle the other, and kicked the first into a broken bench. Knife, neck, twist. The second clipped my shin; my knee kissed concrete; the blade skated and bit my finger. Bright sting—
[Absolute Regeneration Activated]
[Minor wound recovered.]
The pain vanished like it owed me money. "Great genes," I muttered, because lying to other people starts with practice on yourself, and finished the job.
[EXP Gained: 9]
[Level 1 Progress: 21 / 100]
[EXP Gained: 8]
[Level 1 Progress: 29 / 100]
A storage alcove gaped on the right—maybe twenty meters from where I'd started. Door hanging crooked, maintenance cart dumped on its side like it quit. maintenance cart dumped on its side like it quit. I poked through quick: a roll of duct tape (blessed), a flashlight that was deader than my bank account, and a pry bar so heavy I'd need to cosplay a forklift. I pocketed the tape and left the rest.
Slime oozed across the floor like a spilled nose. I stabbed through it; the thing quivered, popped like a zit, and melted flat. My knife handle squeaked in my grip, duct tape begging for retirement.
[EXP Gained: 6]
[Level 1 Progress: 35 / 100]
"Great," I muttered. "First EXP from a monster that belongs in a janitor's bucket."
Ahead, claw marks scored the wall—they were high, too wide for rats. The light from the gate was gone now; only the blue roots lit the tunnel. I was officially in deeper than I'd ever been. My mouth dried. Bureaucracy mis-tags gates all the time, I told myself. The city plays darts blindfolded. The city also misses a lot.
Laughter tinkled—thin, high, wrong. Two goblins hunched on an overturned trash can, arguing over a bottle like it was a holy relic. Green stringy arms, ears like leaves, eyes full of mean.
I crept closer, knife sweating in my hand. The first one spotted me mid-sentence, shrieked, and jumped. I panicked and shoved the blade out sideways. Pure luck: it rammed straight through its neck. Warmth splashed across my knuckles and I almost gagged.
The second blinked, dropped the bottle, and swung at my head with claws like broken scissors. I grabbed its wrist out of instinct, yanked, and we both stumbled sideways into the wall. My knife missed the ribs the first time, scraped bone the second, and finally punched in the third try. It wheezed in my face, hot and foul, before it slid down and off the steel.
I stood there shaking, trying to catch up to what just happened. My hands weren't steady. My stomach wanted to leave. This wasn't a victory lap. This was two idiots who got caught drinking, and me almost joining their bottle on the floor.
[EXP Gained: 13]
[Level 1 Progress: 48 / 100]
"Cool," I muttered, voice cracking. "First goblins down. Only took three tries and a free sample of their perfume. Ten out of ten, would not recommend."
My hands shook. My breath came back in pieces. The system waited, bored and precise.
"Menu," I said.
— Status
— Skills
— Log
— Quest
— Inventory
— Titles
— Options
— Partners
"Status."
[Status Window]
Name: Ethan Cross
Level: 1
HP: 150 / 150
MP: 0 / 0
Strength: 12
Agility: 10
Endurance: 9
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 5
Luck: ???
Skills:— Absolute Regeneration (SSS-Rank)
"Assign points," I tried.
[You have 0 unassigned stat points.]
"Right. Grind first." I hesitated. "What about… stamina?"
[Invalid. No stat: Stamina.]
"Tragic," I said. The system did not sympathize. Somewhere in my head, the couch in Mara's living room squeaked in memory and I almost laughed.
I skirted a collapsed section and slipped into what had to be the third chamber. Ceiling lower, air thicker, echoes wrong. stuffed with old dusty equipment. In the far shadow something hunched over a heap of fabric and metal. Bigger than a goblin. Quiet in the way anger is quiet.
It turned. A brute—it was a goblin scaled wrong, jaw crowded with teeth, shoulders like knotted rope. It hissed, grabbed a length of rebar, and swung like a dad who hated his kid's coach. I ducked. The bar screamed against the wall and shook dust from the ceiling.
"Okay," I said, because my mouth narrates stress. It charged. I slid under the next swing and jammed the knife into its armpit. It screamed and elbowed back; the point grated bone; my wrist jarred. The rebar came down again and my forearm took it on reflex. Something in me cracked. The knife clattered away.
[Absolute Regeneration Activated]
[Major trauma detected. Temporary cooldown applied.]
My hand went numb. The room narrowed and stretched. I grabbed the rebar with both hands I couldn't feel, drove my knee up because biology is my favorite equalizer, and wrenched. It howled and loosened. I ripped the rebar free, pivoted, and rammed the end through its throat. The sound it made stopped halfway to anywhere.
I sagged against the wall, fingers tingling back to life like they were remembering me.
[EXP Gained: 52]
[Level Progress: 100 / 100]
[Level Up]
Stat Points +5
A laugh jumped out of me and I clapped a hand over my mouth. My forearm finished knitting with a pins-and-needles shiver. Somewhere far away a pancake flipped in my memory and landed perfectly.
"Assign points."
[Distribute 5 points.]
— Strength
— Agility
— Endurance
— Intelligence
— Wisdom
— Luck
"Three in Strength, two in Agility." Then, because I am me: "Anything for… stamina?"
[Invalid. No stat: Stamina.]
"Had to try."
[Points assigned.]
[Updated Status]
Level: 2
Strength: 15
Agility: 12
Endurance: 9
Intelligence: 6
Wisdom: 5
Luck: ???
[Level Progress: 0 / 200]
I turned back to the heap the brute had been hunched over. Not junk. Gear. A pack. A boot. A hunter's jacket peeled inside-out by something that didn't respect zippers. The smell hit—metal under dungeon cool.
I knelt. My stomach tried to leave. The pack had a name stitched inside in marker. I didn't read it out loud. A broken mace lay nearby, head cracked like a skull. Drag marks scarred the floor. A guild patch lay half-ripped free, threads pulled like veins.
I reached for the pack on instinct, then stopped. My jacket pockets were already half-full of duct tape and lies. "Inventory," I whispered.
[Inventory — Empty]
I pushed the pack toward the window. The thing blinked once, then folded the gear into itself like a magician's scarf trick. Gone.
I tried the same with the mace. [Item Acquired: Broken Mace]. A ghostly icon flickered in the box.
"Holy shit," I muttered. "Pocket dimension. I have DLC storage. Suck it, bus lockers."
I held the half-ripped guild patch in my hand for a beat. Threads clung to my fingers like veins. Then I shoved it in, too. Proof to hand a clerk later that I'd found honesty inside a lie.
"This is E-rank," I told the empty air, because I wanted to hear myself lie and catch it. "Right. E-rank."
The tunnel pressure deepened like someone had turned gravity sideways. The blue glow in the roots brightened. Farther down, something big moved with slow certainty—the kind of confidence that only ever belonged to things that had never been hurt.
My knife looked small. My jacket looked like thrift-store armor. My heart climbed into my throat and found the door locked.
The system chimed, polite as a bell on a hotel desk you ring before complaining.
[Warning: Threat Level exceeds registered level.]
[Proceed anyway?]
Be boring sexy, Mara had said. Come back, she'd whispered, mouth warm against my ear. Consent remains required. Be decent. The reminder had popped up earlier like a wink; now it felt like a rope I could hold.
"Proceed," I said softly.
[Proceeding acknowledged.]
The light ahead dimmed, as if the gate itself had taken a breath and held it. I stepped into the deeper dark, and the cold came with me like a hand.