Arthur closed his eyes for a brief moment.
Fear pressed against his chest, heavy and tight, but he forced it down. Panic led to bad choices. Bad choices got people killed. He had learned that lesson long ago, back when mistakes had names and faces attached to them.
He had climbed up from nothing once before.
He could do it again.
"I'll live," he murmured under his breath. "No matter what."
The explorers didn't wait.
They began shoving the non-awakeners toward the portal. Anyone who hesitated was pushed harder. One boy tried to pull away, eyes wild with terror, and earned a kick to the back that sent him tumbling straight into the shimmering distortion.
"Fight for your place!" an explorer shouted. "Awaken and prove you're worth keeping!"
Arthur felt a rough hand slam between his shoulder blades.
The world twisted.
The dungeon swallowed him whole.
Cold rushed over his skin, sharp and sudden, stealing his breath.
Then came darkness.
The moment Arthur passed through the dungeon gate, everything changed.
It wasn't colder, not exactly. The air felt heavier, like the weight of the world had pressed closer, clinging to his skin. The light dimmed into a dull gray glow that seemed to come from nowhere at all. Shadows stretched strangely, bending at angles that made his eyes ache if he stared too long.
Around him, people reacted instantly.
One boy stumbled forward and dropped to his knees, hands shaking as he gagged. Another backed away on instinct, only to slam into someone else and snap at them in blind panic. Near the entrance, a girl stood frozen in place, eyes wide, lips moving silently as if she were praying to something that no longer listened.
Others forced themselves to move.
A tall teen with sharp eyes stepped forward and raised his voice, trying hard to sound confident. "Listen up! Don't panic. If we stick together, we'll survive. This is just an F-rank dungeon."
A few heads turned toward him. For a moment, hope flickered across their faces.
"We move in groups," he continued. "Watch each other's backs. No one goes alone. Monsters like picking off stragglers first."
Someone nodded quickly. "He's right. We'll last longer together."
Arthur watched them without stopping.
He had seen this play out before. Not in a dungeon, but the pattern was the same. Back on Earth, whenever things fell apart, someone always stepped up and talked about unity and survival. People clung to those words like they were life preservers.
It never lasted.
The first scream always shattered it. The first death turned unity into blame, and fear into selfishness.
People were predictable that way.
Arthur adjusted his grip on the dagger and walked past them.
"Hey!" someone called after him. "Where are you going?"
He didn't turn around. "Away."
"That's stupid," the tall boy snapped. "You'll die alone."
Arthur gave a faint smile. "Maybe. Or maybe I won't."
He kept walking.
His boots crunched softly against stone, mixed with the sound of old bone fragments scattered across the dungeon floor. The passage ahead widened into several branching tunnels. The rough walls were scarred with claw marks and dark stains that were easy to recognize even without looking too closely.
The dungeon smelled like damp earth and rot.
Every step echoed just enough to remind him how empty it was. How exposed.
From the memories of the body he now wore, Arthur knew the basics.
A hundred years ago, the world had cracked open. Rifts appeared without warning, spewing monsters into the streets. Cities burned. Nations collapsed. Humanity came close to disappearing altogether.
Then people awakened.
Mana flowed into the world, bringing power with it. Classes. Skills. Strength. The endless rifts were replaced by dungeons, contained threats that could be managed instead of disasters that wiped everything away.
That was the story everyone learned.
What people didn't talk about was how the number of dungeons kept increasing. How dungeon breaks happened more often. How frontier strongholds like Grimwatch were stretched thin, burning through lives just to keep the walls standing.
That was why programs like this existed.
Emergency Awakening.
A clean name for something ugly.
Throw non-awakeners into low-rank dungeons and hope some of them survived long enough to awaken. Anyone who didn't was written off as a necessary loss.
Arthur let out a slow breath.
He understood the logic.
He still didn't accept it.
But anger wouldn't help him here.
This was an F-rank dungeon. That meant skeletons, dire rats, maybe goblins if things went wrong. Weak monsters, as far as dungeons went.
But he wasn't awakened.
To creatures made of mana, he was prey.
There was only one way out. Either the dungeon was cleared, or he survived long enough for someone else to do it. Running forever wasn't an option. Monsters roamed freely. Encounters were unavoidable.
Arthur chose paths that bent and twisted instead of wide, open chambers. He moved carefully, keeping his steps light and his breathing controlled. He listened more than he looked.
He had fought before. Not like this, but violence followed the same rules everywhere. Distance. Timing. Intent. A blade didn't care what world you came from.
Even so, his chest felt tight.
He wasn't foolish enough to believe courage made him strong.
A non-awakener facing an F-rank monster was like a child standing in front of a knife.
He felt the fear and let it stay. Panic wasted energy. Fear sharpened focus if you didn't let it take control.
"I won't die here," he muttered.
The dungeon answered him with a scream.
The sound echoed from somewhere behind him. High. Sudden. Then it cut off far too quickly.
Arthur stopped and pressed himself flat against the wall.
More sounds followed. Shouting. Metal scraping against stone. Then the dry, unmistakable clatter of bones moving together.
Skeletons.
He closed his eyes for a brief second and pictured what he knew. Groups of three or more. Rusted weapons. Hollow eye sockets glowing faintly with mana.
They didn't feel pain.
They didn't feel fear.
And they didn't get tired.
The noise grew closer, mixed with desperate cries.
"Hold the line!"
"Don't let them surround us!"
A wet crunch followed, then a scream that ended abruptly.
Arthur moved again, slower now, skirting the edge of the sounds. He didn't want to be near that fight. Not yet. Not until he understood how the dungeon flowed and where the monsters moved.
But the dungeon didn't care about his plans.
As he passed a narrow corridor, a group of non-awakeners burst into view, running blindly toward him. Panic twisted their faces.
One tripped and fell.
Another tried to help and was dragged down with him as skeletal hands clawed out of the darkness. Rusted blades rose and fell with jerky, precise movements.
Arthur watched for half a heartbeat.
Then he turned away.
Charging into that fight with the idea of saving them would only get him killed.
And that was the simple truth.