~~~
The portal swallowed them both in a blinding flash of blue light, and Jin's world exploded into agony.
Ugh… This is what getting turned inside out feels like.
Jin barely managed to finish the sorcery—a desperate gamble, built on half-remembered passages from the "original" world's magic system. If he'd been wrong about the incantation, if his essence hadn't been strong enough, they would have been dead before their story even began.
"Thank fuck that worked." His voice was little more than a croak as the world warped around him.
That was way too close.
His vision swam with blood and nausea as the world around him shifted, blended, and twisted like reality put through a blender. The sensation was worse than anything chemotherapy had ever done to him—every cell in his body felt like it was being turned inside out and reassembled.
Jin grunted in pain but didn't let go of his hold on Rudy. Whatever happened, he wasn't leaving his best friend behind.
A bright flash, then sudden stillness.
They were in the dungeon.
The contrast was crazy… gone was Vienna's familiar cityscape, its warm afternoon sunlight and bustling streets. In its place stretched an alien landscape that seemed designed to crush the human spirit.
The sky above was a sickly amber color, like old parchment stained with blood. No sun was visible, yet everything was bathed in that same nauseating golden glow that made shadows fall at impossible angles. The air itself felt wrong—too thick, too cold, carrying scents that made Jin's enhanced senses recoil.
"This place wants us dead," Jin muttered.
"I can feel it in my bones. Then again, a dungeon survives and feeds on unfortunate hunters that die in it, so I guess that's just business as usual."
Jin carefully lowered Rudy to the ground and immediately checked for a pulse, his hands shaking with more than just exhaustion. Relief flooded through him when he found it—steady and strong, though Rudy's face was pale as milk and his eyes stared at nothing with the thousand-yard stare of someone who'd seen too much too fast.
Still in shock…. Can't blame him. Hell—I probably am too.
"Hang on, Rudy," Jin muttered, reaching into his spatial pendant with fingers that trembled slightly. "Don't die on me now. We've come too far for that shit."
He pulled out the healing potion—a small vial that gleamed deep blue in the dungeon's strange light. The liquid inside swirled with its own inner radiance, beautiful and dangerous in equal measure.
This is a high-level potion. Probably a rare grade, considering where Uncle Marcus kept it stashed.
If either of us drinks this undiluted, we'll probably explode from essence overload.
"Can't have that," Jin mused aloud. "Death by magical overdose would be a stupid way to go after surviving everything else."
Jin also retrieved two cups and several key ingredients from his carefully organized supplies: water, Sargoma stalks, and Miran petals. His hands trembled as they moved.
I'll have to explain all this to Rudy... assuming he doesn't have a complete mental breakdown first.
For now, just focus on keeping us both alive.
"Let's see," Jin said, talking himself through the process. "Three drops of the pure potion per cup, mixed with clean water to prevent essence poisoning. Sargoma stalks to regulate the absorption rate..." He crushed the stalks between his fingers, releasing their subtle essence-regulating properties. "And Miran petals for enhancement synergy."
The faint blue liquid transformed, golden specks dancing through it like captured starlight.
As the concoction settled, Jin felt his Mantle respond for the first time since entering the dungeon. Information flooded his mind, Appraisal skill decoded and presented it as text that appeared in his vision like a HUD display:
[POTION OF VITALITY (UNCOMMON) | DILUTED FROM RARE GRADE | SAFE FOR CONSUMPTION UNDER ORDER I | ENHANCED WITH SARGOMA STALKS AND MIRAN PETALS (EFFICIENCY +100%)]
"Holy shit," Jin breathed, genuinely impressed despite their circumstances. "Appraisal is working even better than I expected."
"I suspected that my unique combination of Earth knowledge and deep understanding of this world's mechanics would supercharge the skill beyond normal parameters, but this is ridiculous."
Knowledge really is power.
Jin carefully lifted Rudy's head and poured a few drops of the diluted potion between his lips, watching as the liquid was swallowed. Then he drank his own portion in one quick gulp.
The effect was immediate and intense. Warmth flooded through Jin's body like liquid sunlight, seeping into every wound, every bruise, every point of damage. He felt his split lip seal itself, his various cuts close, and the bone-deep exhaustion that had been weighing him down lift like morning fog.
"Not perfect healing," Jin observed, flexing his fingers and testing his range of motion. "But I'll take 'not dying' any day. God, I'll take that any time."
Rudy stirred beside him, color slowly returning to his cheeks as his breathing steadied.
Jin lay back on the strange grass, letting the potion finish its work while his mind processed their situation. Only now that the immediate crisis was handled could he afford to think about where they were and what came next.
[YOU HAVE ENTERED A DUNGEON (CONQUEST TYPE) — 3 FLOORS DETECTED]
[CURRENT LOCATION: FLOOR ONE]
The message appeared unbidden in his vision, his Mantle automatically interfacing with the dungeon's systems and appraisal decoding that to provide information in a form he could understand.
A Conquest dungeon. That's... actually not terrible news.
In the novels, dungeons had types—Story, Instance, Conquest. Story dungeons that recreated specific historical events, Instance dungeons that were randomly generated death traps, and Conquest dungeons that presented clear objectives and themes.
Story or Instance dungeons would be suicide in our current condition.
But Conquest dungeons are straightforward—complete the objective, clear the floor. Three floors total means this isn't one of the massive multi-level nightmare zones.
For the first time since the portal had swallowed them, Jin felt a spark of genuine hope.
We can do this. We have to do this.
He finally looked around. Endless grasslands, sky like a sick fever dream, uniformity so absolute it hurt to stare. To his left stood a fortress—the size of a city block, its stone walls swallowing the alien light. Only one entrance: a black archway that yawned open, the maw of the maze.
Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.
His Appraisal skill activated without conscious command, pulling information from his vast knowledge of the novel's lore.
[DUNGEON (CONQUEST) FLOOR ONE: THE LABYRINTH OF SHIFTING STONES]
[OBJECTIVE: REACH THE EXIT OF THE MAZE]
"A fucking maze," Jin groaned aloud, running his hands through his light blue hair. "Of course, it's a fucking maze."
"...Jin?"
The hoarse voice beside him was like gravel being ground between stones. Jin spun around to find Rudy stirring, color slowly returning to his cheeks as the healing potion did its work.
"You're alive," Jin said, relief and dread warring in his chest. "Thank god. I thought for a moment there..."
Rudy's hand shot out, gripping Jin's wrist with startling strength. His lips trembled as he forced the words out.
"How?… How did you…"
~~~