Everything was exactly the same.
Same dungeon.
Same party.
Same jokes.
Same smell of burnt mana leaking from the portal.
But I wasn't the same.
I watched the tank stretch his shoulders and crack his neck before leading the way in.
The healer hummed, tying her hair.
The mage was scrolling through her interface, muttering something about cooldowns.
It was like watching a recording of a memory I shouldn't have.
Because I knew how it ended.
I had seen them die.
My hand trembled as I opened the system window again.
[ACCESS PERMISSION: READ / WRITE]
[COMMAND PROMPT AVAILABLE]
The words hovered in front of me, waiting.
I hesitated, then thought the word— Read.
The text blinked.
[TARGET?]
I pointed at the tank, almost on instinct.
A flood of information hit my mind like a tsunami.
[Subject: Kang Do-hyun]
[Class: Tanker – C-rank]
[Level: 43]
[Skill Tree: Iron Body / Stonewall / Battle Cry]
[Status: 100% Vital / 0% Corruption]
Lines of code flickered behind the words, scrolling too fast for me to catch.
When I blinked, the window vanished.
I gasped, stumbling back. My pulse hammered in my ears.
It wasn't a normal system.
It wasn't the System Hunters used.
It was… something higher. Something that could see the System itself.
If "Hunters" were players in a game…
then this was the developer console.
"Hey, janitor!" Do-hyun barked, grinning. "Don't fall asleep on the job again! You clean faster than that mop moves, yeah?"
"Y–yeah," I said automatically, forcing a smile.
He laughed and marched through the gate.
One by one, they entered the dungeon again — like actors replaying a doomed scene.
I stared at the glowing portal for a long moment before whispering the other word.
"Write."
A new line of text appeared.
[TARGET?]
My throat was dry.
Slowly, I reached out and touched the edge of the portal.
[TARGET: Dungeon_47-SEOUL]
[WRITE COMMAND?]
My mind raced. What if I could… change it? Delete the boss? Lower its power?
It was insane. But so was dying and waking up again.
I thought the word — Delete_Boss.
The world froze for half a second.
Then the portal flared. A pulse of energy rippled through the air, sending my hair whipping around my face.
A single message appeared.
[COMMAND ACCEPTED]
[INSTANCE MODIFIED]
When we entered, the dungeon was… wrong.
The same dark hallways. The same dripping ceilings. But the air was still. Empty.
No monsters.
No ambushes.
No sound but our footsteps.
Even Do-hyun frowned. "Weird. There should be mobs by now."
The healer nodded. "Maybe it bugged?"
Bugged.
Yeah. That's one word for it.
We reached the boss chamber.
There was no armored monster this time. Just a black hole in the ground, glowing faintly with blue static.
The system flashed again.
[ERROR: MISSING ENTITY DATA]
[RECONSTRUCTION REQUIRED]
Then the light twisted, and something else crawled out.
A mass of shifting code and flesh, its body constantly changing shape — like it couldn't decide what to be.
"Administrator detected," it hissed.
"Reconstruction protocol initiated."
"RUN!" I shouted.
The tank turned — too late.
The thing lunged, and the dungeon trembled like it was coming apart at the seams.
And then—
everything went black again.
[RESETTING INSTANCE...]
I woke up at the entrance once more, heart pounding, sweat freezing on my skin.
But this time, something new waited in front of me.
A third line of text.
[NEW PERMISSION GRANTED: DELETE]