The Fang Dungeon stank of rot and copper, and Kurt was three hundred credits short of eviction.
F-rank dungeons barely paid, but Raven's Crow didn't turn down contracts, not when the guild's reputation hung by a thread in the D-rank slums.
Kurt kicked a goblin corpse aside and lit a cigarette. The stale air made the smoke taste like shit, but he'd smoked in worse hellholes. Hell, he'd lived in worse.
"Those'll kill you one day," Emma called from ahead. She moved like a predator through the tunnel, twin holsters strapped high on her ribcage just below her bust, and a third on her hip. The first two sat empty, some tactical quirk Kurt had never figured out. The hip holster however, held a handgun.
"We're in a dungeon full of things actively trying to kill me," he said. "At least the cigarette's honest about it... only honest thing in my life really," he stared at the lit cigarette like it was alive.
Rook snorted up front, his broad shoulders scraping the walls. The big bastard moved like a reluctant soldier, moral compass intact but bent by necessity. "Honesty's overrated. Ask the goblins how honest their trap placement was."
"Speaking of traps," Lizzie said with a voice sweet, yet dangerous. She dusted off her baggie joggers and crouched near a suspicious floor tile. "This one's new. Pressure plate, looks like. And they look too big to be for humans."
Kurt moved closer, cig dangling from his lips. "How new?"
"Wasn't here last week." She glanced up at him, green eyes sparkling with mischief. "Someone's been redecorating. You think they're getting smarter?"
"Great." Emma's grey eyes narrowed as she scanned the tunnel ahead. ""F-rank dungeon, new traps? Something's fucked."
"Everything's wrong in these shitholes," Kurt ran his hand through his messy, spiky dirty-blonde hair. He had on a trench coat, hung loose on his wiry frame, and tattoos of pandas peeking at the cuffs when he lifted his arm. "That's why they pay us."
Rook grunted in agreement and hefted a huge gauntlet that settled into his fist with a soft hiss and click. The weapon was nearly as tall as Lizzie and probably weighed more. "Let's clear the last chamber and get out. I want a beer and a bed, in that order."
"Mm... I can think of a better sequence to that order," Lizzie teased with a playful voice and sly grin as they moved deeper.
Kurt checked his watch. Three hours in this shithole, and they'd found maybe two hundred credits worth of cores. At this rate, his landlord would be changing the locks by morning.
Four years of dungeon diving, and he always barely scraped together rent on time.
The only good thing he had going for him was the fact that his landlord was in fact a landlady, and he knew a thing or two about making women happy. Plus if it didn't work out, he could always live in the guild with the rest of his mates.
They moved through the tunnel in practiced formation. Rook led, his form alone made him the obvious tank. Emma flanked right, her C-rank combat abilities more than enough to handle whatever F-rank trash this dungeon could throw at them.
Kurt took left, which was generous considering his stats were barely above a normal human's and Lizzie hung back, her C-rank healing keeping them topped off should they need it.
The chamber ahead opened into a wider space. Stone pillars jutted from the floor at odd angles, and the walls were covered in old bloodstains with fresh goblin corpses littered across the ground from their earlier sweep.
"Clear," Rook said. "Let's grab the core and—"
The floor exploded suddenly, stone erupting upward in a shower of rock and dust as something massive and wrong burst from below, all teeth and claws, looking like a worm with limbs.
"Cave Horror!" Emma screamed and pulled out her gun. "What the fuck is a D-rank monster doing in an F-rank dungeon?"
"That would explain the trap," Lizzie answered and leapt back to take her position.
Unfortunately, Kurt didn't have time to drop a response of his own. The thing's tail whipped around faster than he could track, and he felt the impact before he saw it.
Something cracked in his chest. Then he was airborne, flying backward through the chamber as his back hit a pillar hard enough to snap something else, and the cigarette fell from his lips.
He slumped to the ground as the world tilted sideways in his vision. Blood filled his mouth and he couldn't speak. Breathing felt like his lungs were filled with nails and everything hurt.
Through the haze of pain, he could hear Emma shouting while unloading shots, filling the creature with lead, Rook actually saying nothing and Lizzie screaming his name.
The Cave Horror's shriek echoed through the chamber, high and piercing before collapsing, completely riddled with bullet holes.
Kurt's vision tunneled as the sounds of combat faded. Someone was running toward him, but they'd never make it in time. Lizzie's healing was good, but not "fix catastrophic internal injuries in three seconds" good.
And he felt darkness begin to creep in from the edges.
'Stupid way to go,' Kurt thought. Four years diving, dodging demons and debts, only to be taken out by a fluke tail from a monster that shouldn't even be in this shithole. His mum would've called him a right idiot if she were still alive.
Kurt spat blood onto the grimy floor, a bitter laugh bubbling up. Rent unpaid, guild on the brink... why did it have to go down like this? No epic boss fight, no grand finale. Just bad luck and worse timing, like a crappy hand he'd been dealt.
The last thing he saw was Emma's face above him, her grey eyes wide with something that might have been fear or fury, and her lips moved, forming words he couldn't hear.
Then nothing.
***
There was nothing but silence.
Suddenly, sound rushed back all at once as Kurt's eyes snapped open and he sucked in air with a ragged gasp.
"HUUAAAGH!"
His whole body jerked upright like he'd been shocked and his hands flew to his chest, clawing at his shirt, expecting shattered ribs and torn flesh, but there was nothing. Just smooth skin and a racing heartbeat that felt too loud in his ears.
He blinked hard, trying to focus on his surrounding. A gray sky overhead, tall buildings on either side, trash scattered around him. There was the smell of piss, rotting food, and syringes glinted amid newspapers dated wrong.
It appeared to be an alley.
It wasn't the dungeon or the chamber with the Cave Horror. It wasn't anywhere he recognized. To be fair, he wouldn't even be able to recognize his own reflection if he looked in the mirror.
"Where the hell am I?"
His voice came out rough and confused as he looked down at his hands, turning them over like they belonged to someone else. Same calluses. Same scars on his knuckles. Same panda tattoos on his wrist. But something felt fundamentally wrong, like he was looking at a stranger's body.
Name? Blank. Age? Nothing. Guild? Raven's Crow flickered, then slipped. Mum's face, gone.
Panic clawed up his chest when the dungeon's death replayed briefly and vivid in his head: crack of ribs, taste of blood, beast's shriek. And suddenly it was all gone.
The wrongness intensified, creeping up his spine and into his skull as Kurt caught his breath to steady himself. Then a blue screen flickered into existence before his eyes.
[SYSTEM ACTIVATION]
[Welcome, User. Identity Reboot Complete.]
"Bloody hell," Kurt whispered, staring at his unfamiliar hands. "Who the fuck am I?"
***
A/N: I hope you're enjoying this so far. Add to Library and send a power stone or two if you're. Thank you and peace!