He had been lying in the dark for the past two hours, eyes open, staring at the cracked ceiling where damp stains formed shapes that resembled monsters. Perhaps it was an omen. Perhaps it was just his imagination spiraling, fueled by anxiety and lack of sleep.
When the alarm vibrated against his palm, he immediately silenced it, before the sound could wake Emy in the adjacent room. Silence fell again, heavy and thick, disturbed only by the distant hum of the city that never truly slept.
He rose silently, his joints creaking softly in the darkness. The floor was cold beneath his bare feet, sending shivers up his legs. He dressed quickly – the same worn-out jeans, a dark t-shirt under a gray hoodie whose sleeves were beginning to fray. Discreet clothes. Clothes that wouldn't draw attention.
In the tiny bathroom, he splashed cold water on his face, the droplets sliding down his cheeks like tears he hadn't shed in a long time. His reflection in the cracked mirror stared back – pale, hollow-eyed, eyes too wide in a face too thin. He looked away.
Just one day. You'll be back tonight. You'll bring the money. You'll relieve Emy.
The mantra looped in his head, mechanical, necessary.
He left the bathroom and approached Emy's bedroom door, which had been left ajar. Through the narrow opening, he could see her sleeping silhouette under the thin blanket, her brown hair spread across the pillow. She slept on her side, curled up as if trying to take up as little space as possible in the world. Even in her sleep, she carried that invisible burden.
Aiden stood there for a moment, hand on the doorframe, engraving this image into his memory. Emy. His sister. His entire family. The only reason he was doing this.
I'll come back. I promise you.
He didn't dare enter, afraid of waking her. Instead, he turned away and headed for the kitchen. On the wobbly table, he placed a hastily scribbled note on a torn piece of paper:
"Left early for the handling job. Don't worry. I'll be back tonight. – A."
Short. Simple. A lie wrapped in a promise.
He grabbed his old backpack, stuffing a reused water bottle and two cheap cereal bars into it – all they could afford for provisions. Then he slipped on his worn sneakers, the ones whose soles were coming off at the sides, and stepped into the dimly lit hallway of the building.
The door closed behind him with a dull thud that echoed in the pre-dawn silence.
The subway at this hour was a world apart.
Aiden descended the greasy steps of the nearest station, the smell of urine and industrial disinfectant immediately assailing him. Fluorescent neon lights cast a pale, flickering glow that gave the concrete walls a sickly greenish tint. Faded advertisements boasted the merits of new insurance for Awakened, state-of-the-art dungeon equipment, miraculous creams supposedly erasing scars left by monsters.
A whole world built around those with power. For the others, only the basements and the underbelly remained.
The platform was almost deserted. A few ghostly figures waited in silence, spaced apart as if loneliness were contagious. A man in a crumpled suit, probably returning from an endless night shift. An elderly woman with a shopping cart full of plastic bags, her trembling hands gripping the rusty handle. A young man in a hoodie like him, his face hidden in shadow, perhaps another desperate soul on his way to a dubious job.
No one spoke. No one looked at each other. It was the unspoken rule of the early morning subway: everyone carried their own burden, and acknowledging others' made their own heavier.
The subway arrived with a metallic rumble, its brakes screeching against the rails. The doors opened with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a dimly lit, half-empty interior. Aiden got on and settled near a scratched window, placing his bag on his knees.
The journey to District 7 would take about forty-five minutes, crossing Seoul from east to west, from the dilapidated residential areas to the industrial zones on the outskirts. Through the dirty window, Aiden watched the city roll by, a succession of dark tunnels and deserted stations.
Each stop brought a few more people. Night workers returning home, their faces marked by fatigue. Morning employees leaving for twelve-hour shifts. Some slept standing, lulled by the regular rhythm of the subway. Others stared at their phones, screens illuminating their faces with a bluish glow.
Aiden closed his eyes and let his head rest against the cold window. The vibrations of the train passed through the glass, spreading into his skull like a dull headache. He tried to think of nothing, to clear his mind, but thoughts always returned, insistent, parasitic.
Eight hundred thousand won. Rent. Food. A week's rest for Emy.
Class E Dungeon. Regular. Cleaners don't go to the front. They stay behind, pick up what the Hunters leave. It's just handling. Just a job.
But if it was that simple, why were they paying so much? Why did they need an "urgent" replacement? Why did this offer reek of desperation in every word of the advertisement?
Because someone dropped out. Or someone died.
The thought imposed itself despite him, chilling and brutal. He reopened his eyes, staring at his ghostly reflection in the window. Outside, Seoul continued to scroll by – gray buildings, darkened signs, highway bridges spanning polluted rivers.
At Yeouido station, a group of Awakened boarded the car. Aiden recognized them immediately, even without seeing their status windows. It was in their way of moving – that fluid assurance, that presence that effortlessly occupied space. They wore semi-formal gear, reinforced synthetic jackets that shimmered slightly under the neon lights. Rank C or D Hunters, probably, on their way to a morning dungeon.
They spoke to each other in low voices, laughing occasionally, relaxed. For them, entering a dungeon was just another day at work. Not a matter of life or death. Just a routine.
Aiden looked away, stuffing his hands into his hoodie pockets. The contrast was too obvious, too cruel. Them, with their powers, their equipment, their confidence. Him, with his worn backpack, his torn sneakers, and a lie scribbled on a piece of paper for his sister.
The subway plunged into a long tunnel, plunging the car into semi-darkness. The interior lights flickered briefly, and for a moment, Aiden saw only moving shadows around him. Then the light returned, and with it, reality.
Industrial District 7 station was exactly what Aiden expected: cold, functional, and completely devoid of charm.
He stepped out of the subway into a glacial draft that smelled of metal and machine oil. The platform was wide but gloomy, the bare concrete walls marked by years of neglect. A few workers in dirty overalls passed him without a glance, their heavy boots echoing on the cement floor.
Aiden followed the signs to the north exit, climbing metallic stairs that smelled of rust. Each step creaked under his weight, a sharp sound that reminded him of the old abandoned buildings he had explored as a child, before the world definitively plunged into the chaos of dungeons.
On the surface, District 7 stretched out in all its industrial splendor.
Massive warehouses lined the wide, straight streets, their corrugated iron facades covered with faded graffiti and spray-painted identification numbers. Trucks were parked along the loading docks, some already unloading crates marked with warning symbols. The air was thick, laden with dust particles and exhaust fumes. The sky above was a uniform gray, that perpetually hazy tint that characterized Seoul in the morning hours.
Aiden took out his phone and checked the address he'd noted the day before. Warehouse 73-B, North Sector, near the Freight Terminal. He activated the GPS – the battery was at 47%, it would last – and began to walk.
The streets were surprisingly quiet at this hour. A few vehicles passed from time to time, their headlights piercing the morning fog. Solitary figures walked along the cracked sidewalks, all heading towards invisible destinations with the same hunched posture, the same fatigue in their shoulders.
The shadow workers. Those who keep the world running while the Awakened reap the glory.
Aiden passed a row of stacked containers, some rusted to the point that their contents must have been forgotten for years. Stray cats slinked between the metal structures, their eyes gleaming in the gloom like shards of broken glass. One of them – thin, with matted gray fur – watched him pass with an expression that almost resembled pity.
Yeah. I know. We're in the same boat, you and I.
The GPS still indicated twelve minutes of walking. Aiden quickened his pace, his hands shoved into his hoodie pockets, his hood pulled up against the biting cold. His breath formed small clouds of vapor in front of his face.
At an intersection, he caught sight of other people visibly heading in the same direction for the first time. A man in his forties, with a shaved head, a cigarette clenched between his lips, walking with a heavy step. A younger woman, perhaps twenty-five, her hair tied in a tight ponytail, staring straight ahead as if mentally preparing for something. Another man, in his sixties, hunched, dragging his left leg slightly.
Cleaners. There was no doubt.
No one spoke. No one greeted each other. They simply walked in the same direction, separated by a few meters, like shadows converging towards a common point.
Warehouse 73-B appeared at the end of a particularly desolate street, sandwiched between a scrap metal depot and an abandoned building whose windows had been boarded up with wooden planks.
It was a massive corrugated iron structure, the kind of industrial building found by the thousands on urban outskirts. Three stories high, with a rolling garage door wide enough for an entire truck to pass through. On the side, a smaller door marked with a faded sign: "Authorized Personnel Only."
A white van was parked in front of the entrance, its engine idling, spewing exhaust fumes into the cold air. Beside it, a man in gray overalls stood, an electronic tablet in his hand, checking something on the screen.
Aiden approached, his stomach tightening with each step.
The man looked up as he approached. In his forties, with a square face marked by years of hard work, a scar running across his left eyebrow. His eyes were small, scrutinizing, evaluating Aiden with a single quick glance.
"You here for the job?" he asked without preamble, his voice raspy as if he had spent years shouting in noisy environments.
"Yes," Aiden replied, trying to keep his voice steady. "I'm Aiden. I answered the ad yesterday."
The man nodded, tapping something on his tablet. "Last name?"
"Park."
Tap tap tap. The man frowned slightly, then nodded again. "Okay. You're on the list. You ever done this kind of work before?"
"No. First time."
The man looked at him again, more slowly this time, and Aiden felt as if he was being dissected. Finally, the man sighed.
"Of course. They always send the new guys when no one else wants to go." He pointed his chin at the van. "Get in. We're waiting for two more people, then we're leaving. Briefing on site."
Aiden walked around the van and opened the back door. Inside, four people were already seated on metallic benches that lined the walls. The interior lighting was dim, cast by a single bulb protected by a wire mesh on the ceiling.
The shaved-head man he had seen earlier was there, slumped in a corner, arms crossed, eyes closed. The ponytail woman was sitting near the door, staring at her hands on her knees. The elderly man with the limp leg was further back, gently massaging his knee through his worn pants.
And then there was a fourth – a young man, perhaps eighteen, his face still round and beardless, his eyes wide and nervous. He flinched slightly when Aiden got in, then quickly looked away.
Aiden settled on the bench near the door, placing his bag at his feet. No one said anything. The silence in the van was thick, almost suffocating, laden with a tension they all seemed to share but no one wanted to name.
Outside, muffled voices. Then two more figures got in – a man in his thirties, stocky and muscular, with tattoos running up his neck, and an older woman, perhaps fifty, with a stern face and short gray hair.
When everyone was aboard, the man with the tablet closed the back door with a metallic clang. The interior of the van plunged into a reddish gloom, lit only by the ceiling bulb and the faint light filtering through the small grated windows on the sides.
The engine roared, and the van started, rattling over the uneven road.
For the first twenty minutes, no one spoke.
The van drove through the industrial streets, taking sharp turns that made the passengers sway on their benches. Aiden clung to the metal ledge beneath him, trying to keep his balance as the vehicle hit pothole after pothole.
Around him, the other Cleaners seemed surprisingly calm. The shaved-head man still hadn't opened his eyes. The ponytail woman still stared at her hands. The elderly man continued to massage his knee.
Only the young boy seemed as nervous as Aiden. His legs constantly moved, tapping a frantic rhythm against the metal floor. His hands clenched and unclenched constantly, his knuckles whitening with each squeeze.
Finally, it was the stocky man with tattoos who broke the silence.
"First time?" he asked, looking directly at Aiden and the young boy.
Aiden nodded. Beside him, the young boy did the same, his throat moving nervously as he swallowed.
The man sneered, a humorless sound. "It shows."
"Stay together," the ponytail woman said without looking up. Her voice was calm, professional. "Never stray from the Hunters. Don't touch anything that glows abnormally. And if something moves towards you, you scream. Understood?"
The young boy nodded frantically. Aiden settled for a more measured nod.
"How many times have you done this?" Aiden asked the woman.
She finally looked up at him. Her eyes were tired, hollow, but alert. "Sixteen missions. All in Class E or D dungeons." She paused. "I've seen four people die. Three Cleaners, one Hunter. So listen carefully to what I'm telling you: your pride, your arrogance, all that, you leave it at the entrance. In there, you're just prey trying not to get eaten."
Silence fell again, even heavier.
The elderly man finally raised his head, his glassy gaze settling on Aiden and the young man. "My son," he said in a hoarse voice. "He was your age. He did a cleaning mission two years ago. Class D Dungeon." He stopped, his jaw tightening. "He didn't come back. They found his body three days later, when they went back to finish the purge. He was..." His voice broke. "He was unrecognizable."
"Then why do you keep going?" the young boy asked, his eyes wide with horror.
The man looked at him for a long time, then shrugged with infinite weariness. "Because I have a sick wife and two grandchildren to feed. And no one else will hire us." He coughed, a wet cough that shook his whole body. "Dungeons are all that's left for people like us."
The van turned sharply, throwing them all to the side. Then the vehicle slowed, the engine purring more softly.
"We're almost there," someone announced from the front cabin.
The shaved-head man finally opened his eyes, straightening up and rolling his shoulders like a boxer preparing for a fight. "Listen to the briefing. Do what you're told. Stay alive. That's all."
The van stopped completely. The engine cut out. In the sudden silence, Aiden heard his own heart beating in his ears, a dull, insistent rhythm.
The back door opened with a metallic creak, letting in the gray morning light and a cold draft.
"Everyone out," the man with the tablet ordered. "Briefing in five minutes."
One by one, the Cleaners got out of the van.
And Aiden, clutching the strap of his bag against his shoulder, followed them.
The dungeon entrance was not what Aiden had imagined.
He expected something spectacular, certainly, but nothing had prepared him for this.
In the middle of a wasteland littered with industrial debris and weeds growing between cracked concrete slabs, there was a tear in reality itself.
The portal floated about a meter off the ground, suspended in the air without visible support. An oval shape, almost organic, three meters wide and five meters high. What struck Aiden first was the color – a deep, almost hypnotic blue-black, like looking into the abyss of a forbidden ocean. But it wasn't a uniform blue. Veins of electric violet ran across the surface, pulsing slowly, regularly, like the beats of an invisible heart.
The substance itself resembled a thick, viscous jelly that undulated endlessly, never still, always in motion. Slow waves crossed the surface, creating hypnotic patterns that drew the eye and refused to let go.
But the most disturbing thing was what one saw through it.
The portal did not clearly show the inside of the dungeon. Instead, Aiden saw a swirling, distorted mist, as if looking through superheated water. The shapes on the other side were stretched, compressed, twisted until they became unrecognizable. He vaguely distinguished silhouettes – trees perhaps, or stone structures – but nothing made sense. The colors were altered, shifting from earthy brown to toxic green to ashen gray in a constant, nauseating flow.
The outline of the portal was framed by a thin line of crackling light, like a silent electric arc that danced relentlessly. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time, this energetic signature of pure mana, this boundary between two worlds that should never have touched.
And then there was the effect on the environment.
The air around the portal was different. Colder, but not a natural cold. It was a cold that bit the skin, that penetrated to the bones, that made it feel like something other than the wind was touching the body. Aiden felt goosebumps rise on his arms despite his sweatshirt. The air itself seemed charged with static electricity, making the hair on his neck stand on end, creating an unpleasant tingling sensation on his exposed skin.
And the silence.
The portal absorbed sound. The noises of the wasteland – the distant hum of a truck, the voices of the Hunters, the slamming of vehicle doors – everything seemed to muffle as one approached the entrance. There was a bubble of supernatural silence around the portal, an acoustic void that made it feel like the world was holding its breath.
Aiden couldn't tear his gaze away. The portal called to him, in a way he didn't understand, that he didn't want to understand. It was like looking into the mouth of a sleeping beast, knowing that at any moment it could wake up and devour everything around it.
Around the entrance, a security zone had been established. Metal barriers delimited a perimeter of about twenty meters. Portable floodlights were installed at the four corners, casting a harsh light on the fracture – but even this artificial light seemed to bend, to slightly distort near the portal, as if reality itself refused to function normally in its immediate vicinity.
Two Atlas Guild vehicles were parked nearby – black SUVs with tinted windows, the Guild's logo – a stylized globe crossed by a spear – painted on the doors.
And there were the Hunters.
Six of them, all in full gear. Not the gleaming, impressive armor seen in advertisements, but functional, worn outfits that had clearly seen service. Shoulder and chest plates, reinforced pants with multiple pockets, heavy boots. Each carried at least one visible weapon – short swords, daggers, in one case a telescopic combat staff hanging from a belt.
They stood in a group near one of the vehicles, speaking in low voices, their body language relaxed but vigilant. Professionals. People for whom entering a dungeon was routine.
But even they, Aiden noticed, didn't look directly at the portal for too long. Their eyes slid over it, then turned away, as if staring at this thing for too long was dangerous for the mind.
Aiden and the other Cleaners were gathered near the barriers, forming an awkward semicircle. The man with the tablet – visibly the coordinator – stood in front of them, his hands in his overalls pockets.
"Okay, listen closely because I won't repeat myself," he began without preamble. His voice carried, clear and authoritative, the tone of someone used to giving orders. "You're here to do a simple job: retrieval during active purge. The Hunters will enter, advance towards the Boss, eliminate threats in their path. Your job is to follow them at a safe distance, pick up anything valuable in the areas they've already cleared – monster parts, mana crystals, equipment fragments, whatever – and fill your bags."
He took out his tablet and held it up so they could all see the screen. A schematic map of the dungeon was displayed – a labyrinth of interconnected corridors and chambers on three levels.
"Regular Class E Dungeon. Three levels. The upper level is mainly simple tunnels. Middle level, larger chambers, more complex environment. Lower level, that's where the Boss is. You will NOT go to the lower level. You stay on the first two levels, in the areas already secured by the Hunters."
He paused, sweeping his gaze across the group. His eyes lingered on Aiden and the young boy. "This dungeon has been active for three weeks. The Hunters have mapped the upper levels but haven't engaged the Boss yet. Today is the full purge. That means the Hunters will go all the way down, kill the Boss, and close the dungeon. You have a limited work window. When the Boss dies, the dungeon begins its closing process. You have about thirty to forty minutes maximum between the Boss's death and the complete closure of the portal."
Thirty to forty minutes. Aiden noted mentally. That's short.
"Safety rules," the coordinator continued. "One: you ALWAYS stay in areas that the Hunters have already cleared. You never venture into unexplored corridors. Two: you stay in a group. No one goes alone, ever. Three: if you hear sounds of combat, you immediately retreat. Four: if a Hunter tells you to get out, you get out without asking questions. Five: if the evacuation signal sounds, you drop everything and run to the exit. Is that clear?"
Nervous nods all around the circle.
The coordinator turned to a pile of rough canvas bags and equipment stacked near the barriers. "Each of you take two bags. They're reinforced, bloodproof, and resistant to weak acids. You'll also each get a headlamp – dungeons are dark – and a distress beacon." He held up a small cylindrical device the size of a lighter. "If you're in immediate danger, you press the red button. It sends a signal to the Hunters and activates a GPS. But beware: you only have one use per beacon. So don't waste it."
One by one, the Cleaners stepped forward to retrieve their equipment. Aiden took two canvas bags – heavy, thick, smelling of chemicals and something more organic he preferred not to identify. He fastened the headlamp around his forehead, checking the power button. The light burst forth, white and harsh, casting a narrow beam in front of him. He quickly turned it off.
The distress beacon was cold in his palm, its weight insignificant but its importance overwhelming. One button. One life. Aiden slipped it into his hoodie pocket, praying he would never have to use it.
"Quota today: fifteen kilograms of materials per person," the coordinator announced. "You'll be paid based on the total weight recovered. If you reach the quota, you get full pay. Below that, it's proportional. The mission will last between six and eight hours, depending on how fast the Hunters advance. You'll have breaks every two hours to drop off what you've recovered at the entrance and hydrate."
He put away his tablet and crossed his arms. "Any questions?"
The young boy timidly raised his hand. "And... what if we get lost?"
The coordinator looked at him with an unreadable expression. "You stay where you are. You activate your beacon. You wait. And you pray." He paused. "But you try not to get lost."
No one else asked questions.
"Good," the coordinator said. "The Hunters enter in ten minutes. You follow them five minutes after. Stay together. Stay alive. And bring me those fifteen kilograms."
The ten-minute wait was the longest of Aiden's life.
He stood with the other Cleaners at a respectable distance from the portal, but close enough to feel its influence. The tingling on his skin had turned into a constant prickling sensation, as if thousands of tiny invisible needles were brushing his epidermis. His breath formed thicker clouds of vapor here, the abnormal cold emanating from the portal biting the morning air.
The Hunters prepared methodically. One of them – a woman in her thirties with short-cropped hair and a scar that bisected her left cheek – checked the straps of her gear, tightening a buckle here, adjusting a pouch there. Another, a massive man with forearms covered in tribal tattoos, tested the sharpness of his short blade against his thumb, watching the thin line of blood appear before it closed almost instantly.
Aiden had read about these abilities. Seeing someone heal before his eyes, even from a small cut, was different. It was a visceral reminder of the gap that separated him from these people.
The leader of the Hunter team – a man in his forties with greying temples and eyes that had seen too many battles – approached the coordinator. They exchanged a few words in low tones, then the leader nodded and turned to his team.
"Let's go," he said simply.
The Hunters fell into formation without any further orders. A line, with the leader at the front, the most defensive members on the flanks, and what looked like a Support Awakened – recognizable by their less aggressive posture and lack of heavy weapons – in the rear position.
They advanced towards the portal.
Aiden held his breath.
As they approached, the air around them seemed to distort further. The outlines of their silhouettes became blurred, as if they were already beginning to be absorbed by the altered reality of the portal. The leader was the first to reach the gelatinous surface.
He didn't hesitate. He raised a hand, touched the blue-black membrane – and his hand disappeared inside, swallowed by the dimensional jelly. Then his arm. Then his shoulder.
The surface of the portal rippled violently, the violet veins pulsing faster, as if the thing was reacting to his passage. The leader took another step, and his entire body was engulfed. He didn't disappear instantly – for a fraction of a second, Aiden could see his distorted silhouette through the mist on the other side, stretched and compressed in impossible ways, before it was completely swallowed by the swirling darkness.
One by one, the other Hunters followed. Each passage caused the same reaction – a violent ripple, a luminous pulse of the violet veins, then complete disappearance. It was like watching someone drown in a thick, viscous sea, except they went willingly, calmly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
When the last Hunter disappeared, the portal slowly stabilized, resuming its hypnotic and regular movement. But something had changed. The intensity of the violet veins seemed slightly increased, as if the portal was now... active. Aware that it had been breached.
The coordinator checked his watch. "Five minutes," he announced to the Cleaners. "Get ready."
Aiden felt his stomach clench further. The young boy next to him was now openly trembling, his hands gripping the straps of his bag with a force that whitened his knuckles. The woman with the ponytail closed her eyes, her lips moving silently – a prayer perhaps, or a personal mantra.
The elderly man was still massaging his knee, but his gaze was fixed on the portal with an expression of deep resignation. The bald man lit a cigarette, taking a long drag before crushing it under his foot.
"Remember what I told you," the ponytail woman whispered, reopening her eyes to look at Aiden and the young man. "Stay close to me. Do exactly what I do. If I retreat, you retreat. If I run, you run. Understood?"
They both nodded.
"What's your name?" she asked the young boy, her voice softer now.
"M-Min-ho," he stammered.
"Min-ho. Okay." She placed a hand on his shoulder. "You'll be fine. Breathe. Stay focused. And most importantly, don't panic."
Min-ho nodded frantically, but the terror in his eyes did not diminish.
The woman turned to Aiden. "And you?"
"Aiden."
She assessed him for a moment, then nodded. "You look less terrified than him. That's good. But be careful – overconfidence kills as surely as panic."
Aiden didn't answer. He wasn't confident. He was just... numb. As if his brain had reached its fear limit and decided to shut everything down to keep functioning.
"Forty-five seconds," the coordinator announced.
The Cleaners moved closer to the portal, forming a compact group. Aiden felt the presence of the others around him – their ragged breathing, the smell of nervous sweat, the rustle of their clothes as they adjusted their bags one last time.
The portal was now less than five meters away. The cold was more intense here, biting through Aiden's sweatshirt as if the fabric didn't exist. The tingling on his skin had become a constant, unpleasant burning. And the silence – that abnormal silence that absorbed all sounds – was oppressive, suffocating, making it feel like they were already cut off from the real world.
"Time's up," the coordinator said. "Go. And good luck."
The woman with the ponytail was the first to advance. The others followed – the bald man, then the stocky man with tattoos, then the grey-haired woman. The elderly man limped forward, gritting his teeth.
Aiden and Min-ho exchanged a look. The young man's eyes were wide, pleading, as if he hoped Aiden would tell him it was all a mistake, that they could leave now, go home.
But Aiden said nothing. He took a step forward. Then another.
Min-ho followed him, his feet dragging on the ground as if they refused to obey.
The woman with the ponytail reached the portal first. She stopped just in front of it, closed her eyes for a moment, inhaled deeply, then extended her hand.
Her hand touched the gelatinous surface and immediately disappeared, swallowed by the viscous blue-black. She pushed forward, and her arm was engulfed, then her shoulder, then her torso. The portal rippled violently, its violet veins exploding with light, and she was completely sucked in, her silhouette dissolving into the swirling mist on the other side.
One by one, the other Cleaners disappeared. Each passage was identical – a touch, a ripple, an absorption. Like being swallowed by something alive.
Then it was Aiden's turn.
He now stood directly in front of the portal, so close he could see the intricate patterns running beneath the surface – spirals, fractals, impossible geometric shapes that hurt the eyes if stared at too long. The dimensional jelly undulated slowly before him, hypnotic, almost inviting.
Behind him, Min-ho was breathing in gasps, on the verge of hyperventilating.
For Emy. You're doing this for Emy. Eight hundred thousand won. Rent. Food. A week's rest. You'll be back tonight. You promise her.
Aiden reached out his hand.
The moment his fingers touched the surface was indescribable. It wasn't solid. It wasn't liquid. It was in between, a texture that didn't exist in the normal world, that had no word to describe it. It was cold and hot simultaneously. It was viscous but without resistance. It was like touching emptiness itself.
And then it pulled him in.
Not violently. Not brutally. But inexorably, like a tide that refuses to be fought. His hand disappeared, then his arm, and suddenly his whole body was pulled forward. He had time for one last coherent thought – I just made the biggest mistake of my life – before the world tilted.
The transition was instantaneous and eternal at the same time.
For a fraction of a second that seemed to last hours, Aiden was nowhere. He floated in a space that didn't exist, where the concepts of up and down, before and after, had no meaning. He saw colors that had no name, heard sounds that weren't sound, felt his body stretch and compress simultaneously.
And then, brutally, he was on the other side.
Aiden fell forward, his knees hitting a hard, uneven floor. He gasped, his lungs filling with air – but a different air, thick, laden with abnormal humidity and an odor he couldn't identify. Metallic. Organic. Putrid.
He lifted his head, blinked, trying to make sense of what he saw.
The dungeon.
They stood in a corridor of rough stone, the walls covered with phosphorescent moss that cast a sickly greenish glow. The ceiling was low, barely two meters high, with twisted roots hanging like tentacles. The floor was uneven, strewn with pebbles and stagnant puddles that reflected the green light eerily.
The air was oppressive. Not just the humidity, but something else – an invisible pressure that weighed on his shoulders, that made each breath slightly harder than it should be. It was mana, Aiden realized. The concentrated mana of the dungeon, saturating the atmosphere, altering reality itself.
Behind him, he heard a wet sound and a muffled cry. He turned just in time to see Min-ho emerge from the portal – which, on this side, looked like a wall of blue-black jelly suspended vertically in the middle of the corridor, pulsing softly with violet light.
Min-ho collapsed to the ground, vomiting violently, his body trembling uncontrollably. The woman with the ponytail crouched beside him, placing a hand on his back.
"Breathe," she said calmly. "It's normal. The first transition is always the worst. Breathe."
The other Cleaners were already standing further down the corridor, lighting their headlamps and checking their gear. The bald man mumbled something under his breath, perhaps a prayer. The elderly man leaned against the wall, massaging his injured leg.
Aiden slowly straightened up, testing his balance. His legs trembled slightly, but they held him. He turned on his headlamp, adding its white beam to the ambient green glow.
The corridor stretched in two directions. In one direction, it disappeared into darkness after about twenty meters. In the other, it turned sharply, revealing a more intense glow – probably where the Hunters had gone.
"Let's move," the ponytail woman said, helping Min-ho to his feet. "The Hunters have already gone ahead. We need to catch up but not too close."
She started walking, following the corridor towards the more intense glow. The other Cleaners followed suit, forming an irregular line. Aiden positioned himself in the middle of the group, with Min-ho almost clinging to his arm, his eyes still teary from vomiting.
They walked for what seemed like an eternity but probably only lasted a few minutes. The corridor twisted and turned, sometimes widening into larger chambers where the phosphorescent moss completely covered the walls, creating an atmosphere of an unhealthy cathedral. Other times, it narrowed to the point where they had to walk in single file, their shoulders brushing against the damp walls.
And then they heard the first sounds of combat.
Screams. Metallic clashes. A guttural roar that made the hairs on Aiden's neck stand on end.
The woman with the ponytail raised a hand, stopping the group. "We wait," she whispered. "They're clearing the area."
They stood still in the darkness of the corridor, listening to the violence unfolding somewhere ahead. The sounds were brutal, visceral – groans of pain, the wet sound of tearing flesh, screams that abruptly cut off.
Then silence fell again.
"Now," the woman said.
They advanced cautiously, turning the last corner to emerge into a larger chamber.
What Aiden saw froze him in place.
The chamber was littered with corpses.
Goblins. At least half a dozen, their deformed bodies sprawled in pools of black, viscous blood that reflected the green glow. They were small – barely a meter tall – with greyish skin covered in warts and pustules. Their faces were hideous, mouths full of sharp teeth, eyes yellow and glassy in death. Some had been decapitated. Others disemboweled, their entrails spilling onto the stone floor.
The smell was unbearable. Blood, shit, rot. Aiden brought a hand to his mouth, fighting his own urge to vomit.
The Hunters had already left, their silhouettes disappearing into a corridor on the opposite side of the chamber. Their work here was done.
"To work," the ponytail woman said, already taking out her bags.
The Cleaners dispersed into the chamber, beginning their macabre task.
Aiden watched, dazed, as the bald man knelt beside a dead goblin, taking a knife from his belt and beginning to methodically cut. The claws first – they were valuable, apparently. Then the teeth – pulled out one by one with pliers. Then something in the chest – a crystal perhaps, or a special organ.
"Move it, kid," the stocky man with tattoos growled as he passed Aiden, heading towards another corpse. "We don't have all day."
Aiden looked at Min-ho. The young man was livid, on the verge of complete panic.
"I... I can't," Min-ho whispered. "I can't touch that. I can't..."
The ponytail woman straightened up from where she was working, her gaze stern. "You can and you will. Otherwise, you go home with nothing, and you won't get paid. It's that simple."
Aiden closed his eyes for a moment. For Emy. Eight hundred thousand won. You're doing this for Emy.
He approached the nearest corpse, knelt beside it, and extended a trembling hand.
The goblin's skin was cold, clammy, covered with a viscous substance that stuck to his fingers. Aiden felt his throat tighten, but he forced himself to continue. He took out the small basic knife they had been given and began to clumsily cut.
It was the beginning of the longest day of his life.
The hours that followed blended into a repetitive nightmare.
Advance. Wait. Cut. Collect. Fill the bags. Repeat.
Chamber after chamber, corridor after corridor, they followed the Hunters through the dungeon. Each area they reached was already cleared, strewn with monster corpses – mostly goblins, but also other creatures. Gelatinous, translucent slimes that left behind crystalline cores to be harvested. Giant rats the size of dogs, their bristly fur worth a few won on the market. Once, they found the corpse of something Aiden couldn't identify – a mass of tentacles and eyes that stank so strongly that Min-ho vomited again.
Aiden learned quickly. He learned where to cut to extract valuable materials. He learned to ignore the smell, to shut off a part of his mind so he could keep functioning. He learned not to look too long into the dead eyes of the creatures, because even if they were monsters, there was something in those glassy stares that reminded him too much of humanity.
His bags slowly filled. One kilo. Two kilos. Three.
At the first break, after two interminable hours, they returned to the entrance portal to drop off what they had collected. The coordinator weighed each bag, noting the quantities on his tablet.
"Six kilos," he announced when it was Aiden's turn. "Not bad for a beginner. Keep it up."
Aiden drank water, ate one of his cereal bars without really tasting it, then left again.
The second rotation was worse than the first. Fatigue was beginning to set in – not just physical, but mental. The constant weight of the dungeon's atmosphere, the permanent tension, the incessant sight and smell of blood and death. It was exhausting in a way no normal job could match.
Min-ho was barely standing. His hands trembled so violently he could barely hold his knife. The ponytail woman had to help him with almost every cut.
The elderly man, for his part, seemed on the verge of collapsing. His injured leg was clearly causing him pain, and his breathing had become wheezing, labored. But he continued, stubborn, filling his bags gram by gram.
They gradually descended into the dungeon. From the first level to the second. The chambers became larger, the corridors more complex. The phosphorescent moss gave way to crystals that grew directly from the walls, casting a bluish, icy light.
And the corpses were different here. Bigger. More dangerous before their death. Aiden saw a goblin the size of an adult man, its muscles abnormally developed, its body covered in battle scars. An alpha goblin, probably. Its head had been cleanly severed, but its body still exuded an unsettling presence even in death.
"Don't touch that one," the ponytail woman warned when she saw Aiden approach it. "Alphas are often trapped. The Hunters handle them themselves."
Aiden nodded and moved on.
At the second break, he had collected eleven kilos in total. He was four kilos short of the quota. Four kilos to get full pay. Four kilos to go home with eight hundred thousand won.
So close.
"Last rotation," the coordinator announced. "The Hunters are on the lower level. They'll engage the Boss in about thirty minutes. That gives you time to make one last pass on level two, then you come back up. Understood? When you hear the evacuation signal – three siren blasts – you drop everything and run. No discussion."
The Cleaners nodded, exhausted but determined.
They descended one last time.
It was in a chamber on level two, about twenty-five minutes later, that everything changed.
The chamber was larger than the previous ones, almost a cavern, with a ceiling that disappeared into the darkness above. Crystal stalactites hung like teeth, casting dancing shadows in the light of their headlamps. The floor was covered with a layer of something that looked like ash but crunched underfoot like broken glass.
There were corpses here. Many. A real battle had taken place – at least twenty goblins, some in pieces, others simply cut down with brutal efficiency.
The Cleaners dispersed, beginning their usual work.
Aiden moved away from the main group, drawn to a corpse in a darker corner of the chamber. A medium-sized goblin, but something in its posture – the way it had died, curled up against the wall – suggested it had tried to flee. Perhaps the materials would be better preserved.
He knelt, took out his knife, and began to work.
That's when he heard the crack.
A dry sound, like breaking wood. Followed by a deep, dull rumble that seemed to come from the walls themselves.
Aiden looked up, his heart suddenly beating faster.
"What the..." someone began.
And then the world exploded.
The ceiling collapsed in a deluge of stone and crystal. An entire section of the vault detached, crashing into the middle of the chamber with a deafening roar. Dust and debris filled the air, transforming everything into blinding, suffocating chaos.
Screams. Howls. The continuous sound of crushing stone.
Aiden was thrown backward by the shockwave, his back hitting the wall hard. He coughed, trying to breathe through the dust that filled his lungs. His headlamp had been torn off, plunging him into almost total darkness, only pierced by the agonizing glow of broken crystals.
When the rumbling finally stopped, the silence that followed was almost worse.
Aiden painfully straightened up, every muscle in his body protesting. He fumbled for his headlamp, miraculously found it intact a few meters away, and turned it on.
What he saw chilled his blood.
The rockfall had cut the chamber in two. A wall of stone and debris, several meters high, now completely blocked the main passage. On the other side, he could hear voices – distant, muffled, panicked.
"AIDEN!" The ponytail woman's voice. "AIDEN, CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
"I'M HERE!" he yelled back. "I'M ALIVE!"
"THE PASSAGE IS BLOCKED! WE CAN'T REACH YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME?!"
Aiden's heart pounded in his chest. No. No no no.
"WE HAVE TO FIND ANOTHER WAY!" he cried.
A silence. Then: "WE'RE GOING TO GET THE HUNTERS! STAY WHERE YOU ARE! DON'T MOVE! WE'LL COME BACK FOR YOU!"
"WAIT!" Aiden screamed, but there was no answer.
He found himself alone in the oppressive silence of the collapsed chamber.
For a long minute, he just stood there, back against the wall, trying to control his breathing, not to give in to the panic rising in his throat like bile.
Stay calm. They'll come back. They'll find the Hunters. They'll get me out of here. Stay calm.
And then he heard the sirens.
Three blasts. Long.
Shrill. Piercing.
The evacuation signal.
The Boss. They killed the Boss.
For a fraction of a second, Aiden didn't understand. His brain refused to connect the information. Then reality hit him like a punch to the gut.
Thirty to forty minutes. That's what the coordinator had said. Thirty to forty minutes between the Boss's death and the complete closure of the portal.
And he was trapped. Alone. On the other side of a rockfall.
"NO!" he screamed, rushing towards the wall of debris. "NO, WAIT! I'M STILL HERE! WAIT FOR ME!"
He began to scratch at the stones, trying to move them, to create a passage. His hands hit the rock, his nails broke, but the blocks were too big, too heavy. He couldn't move even a single stone.
On the other side, the voices were already fading.
"COME BACK!" His voice broke. "PLEASE! DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!"
But no one answered.
Silence fell again, absolute, crushing.
Aiden collapsed against the stone wall, his breathing becoming erratic, his heart beating so hard he could hear it in his ears. His hands trembled violently, stained with blood where he had scraped them against the rock.
They left me. They abandoned me.
No. No, they would come back. They had to come back. They couldn't just... leave.
But the portal is closing. In thirty minutes. Maybe less now.
The beacon. He had the distress beacon.
Aiden frantically fumbled in his pocket, his clumsy fingers closing over the cold cylinder. He pulled it out, found the red button, and pressed it.
A beep. A green light that flashed once.
The signal was sent.
Aiden waited, his eyes fixed on the beacon, praying for something to happen. A response. A sign. Anything.
Nothing.
The minutes ticked by. One. Two. Five.
No one came.
They can't reach me. The passage is blocked. And they don't have time. The portal will close.
The truth settled in his mind like molten lead, burning and relentless.
He was trapped.
Alone.
In a dungeon whose portal would close any minute now.
A sob escaped his throat, which he immediately stifled with his hand. No. He couldn't afford to panic. Not now. Think. Think, damn it.
There had to be another way. Dungeons were labyrinths, but they always had multiple passages, multiple exits. If the main passage was blocked, maybe there was another. He just had to find it.
Aiden straightened up on trembling legs, sweeping the chamber with his headlamp. The wall of debris blocked the main passage, but there were other openings – three secondary corridors that branched off from the chamber in different directions, narrower passages that the Cleaners and Hunters had probably not explored.
One of them had to lead somewhere. Had to lead him back to the portal.
Or deeper into the dungeon.
Aiden stifled that thought. He had no choice. Staying here meant waiting for the portal to close and... and what? He didn't even know what happened when someone was still in a dungeon when it closed. No one knew, because no one had ever survived that.
He chose the widest corridor, the one that seemed to go slightly uphill – upwards, towards the surface, towards the exit. It had to go up.
Aiden bolted.
His feet pounded the uneven floor, his breath whistling in his ears. The light from his headlamp danced wildly before him, illuminating walls of damp stone, hanging roots, crystals that shone like eyes in the darkness.
The corridor turned, divided. He took a left. Then a right. Then another left. He had no idea where he was going, if it was the right direction, but he kept going, driven by pure, animal terror.
How much time? How much time has passed? Fifteen minutes? Twenty?
He had no way of knowing.
The corridor suddenly opened into another chamber – smaller, circular, with a low ceiling covered in stalactites. And in the center, something glowed.
A crystal. Huge, the size of a man, planted in the ground like a glass tree. It pulsed softly, casting a blue-white light that filled the entire chamber.
Aiden stopped, panting, confused. This wasn't the portal. This wasn't the exit. It was just... a chamber. With a crystal.
Wrong way. I took the wrong way.
He turned to go back, but stopped dead.
In the opening of the corridor he had come from, something stood.
A silhouette. Small. Hunched.
Aiden's eyes adjusted, and his blood ran cold.
A goblin.
Not dead. Alive.
It was alone, visibly wounded – a long gash ran along its left arm, dripping black blood. But it was standing. And it was looking at Aiden.
For a long moment, neither moved.
The goblin tilted its head to the side, its yellow eyes fixed on Aiden with an intensity that was anything but animal. It was intelligence. Recognition. It knew what Aiden was.
Prey.
The goblin opened its mouth, revealing its rows of sharp teeth, and let out a scream – high-pitched, piercing, that echoed throughout the chamber and beyond.
A call.
Aiden heard the answer almost immediately. Other screams, coming from several directions at once. Scrapes. Footsteps. Heavy. Multiple.
They were coming.
Run.
Aiden rushed towards the only other available passage – a narrow opening on the other side of the chamber, barely wide enough for him to squeeze through. He didn't have time to think, no time to weigh his options.
He plunged into the passage just as the first goblin entered the chamber.
The corridor was narrow, claustrophobic, the walls brushing his shoulders on each side. Aiden ran awkwardly, stumbling on the uneven floor, his hands scraping the walls to keep his balance.
Behind him, he heard the goblins pursuing him. Their screams. Their growls. The sound of their claws scraping the stone.
The corridor went down. No. Not down. Up. It has to go up.
But there was no other choice. Just forward. Just survive.
The passage suddenly widened, and Aiden found himself in another chamber – larger, deeper. The air here was different, thicker, laden with an overwhelming presence that made his knees buckle.
The lower level. Damn, I'm on the lower level.
And in the center of the chamber, there was something.
A body. Huge. Lying on the ground.
The Boss.
Aiden approached despite himself, his headlamp illuminating the dead creature.
It was a goblin, but monstrously deformed, three times the size of a man. Its skin was covered in bony plates, its muscular arms ending in dagger-long claws. Its head had been half torn off, the fatal blow from the Hunters visible in the shredded flesh and broken bone.
Black blood still flowed from the wound, forming a pool that spread across the floor.
It was over. The Boss was dead. The dungeon would close.
How much time? How much time is left?
Five minutes? Ten?
The goblins' screams behind him grew closer.
Aiden looked around frantically, searching for an exit, a passage, anything. There were several corridors leading from this chamber, but which one led upwards? Which one led to the portal?
He had no way of knowing.
And then he felt it.
A change in the air. A pressure that increased, as if the atmosphere itself was contracting. The crystals on the walls began to pulse faster, their light becoming more intense, almost blinding.
The dungeon. It's closing.
Aiden heard a deep, dull rumble that seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth. The ground trembled beneath his feet.
And in his head, a clear, icy, definitive thought:
I'm not getting out. I'm going to die here.
The first goblins emerged into the chamber, their yellow eyes fixed on him.
Aiden backed away, back against the wall, his hands searching for something – a weapon, a tool, anything.
His fingers closed over the handle of his small Cleaner's knife.
Ridiculous. Derisory. But it was all he had.
The goblins advanced, fanning out in a semicircle, surrounding him. Four. No, five. Maybe more in the shadows.
The rumbling intensified. The walls began to crack, fissures forming in the stone. The light from the crystals became strobe-like, casting dancing, mad shadows.
The dungeon is tearing itself apart.
One of the goblins lunged forward.
Aiden raised his knife, his heart beating so hard he thought it would explode.
Emy. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
The last thing he saw before everything plunged into chaos was the goblin's open maw, its teeth ready to close on his throat.
Then the world exploded with light and pain, and Aiden knew nothing more.
[END OF CHAPTER 2]
In the absolute darkness of the closing dungeon, as reality itself tore and rebuilt itself, Aiden Park – student, brother, survivor – ceased to exist.
What would emerge, two months later, in a reset and silent dungeon, would be something different.
Something new.
Something monstrous.