Marcus left the ruined chamber quietly.
The shop terminal dimmed behind him as the corridor swallowed the blue glow. Soon only the faint crystals embedded in the dungeon walls provided light.
He moved steadily upward.
The tunnel curved slowly, rising through jagged stone passages and narrow choke points. Every few minutes Marcus paused to listen.
The dungeon was not silent.
Far away something roared.
Somewhere else metal clanged against stone.
Human voices echoed faintly through distant corridors.
Marcus frowned slightly.
"So people are already fighting."
That was not surprising.
Nearly ten thousand people on a single floor meant chaos. Panic alone would kill a large percentage of them before monsters even became a problem.
Marcus slowed as the tunnel widened ahead.
A faint orange glow flickered against the stone.
Firelight.
Marcus immediately extinguished the instinct to walk forward casually. Instead he pressed himself against the wall and approached carefully.
The passage opened into a large cavern.
A small campfire burned near the center.
Five people sat around it.
Marcus stayed hidden in the tunnel entrance and studied them quietly.
Three men.
Two women.
They looked exhausted. Their clothes were dirty and torn just like his own.
One of the men held a spear made from a broken metal pipe. Another had a long kitchen knife.
Improvised weapons.
One of the women noticed something.
Her head suddenly turned toward the tunnel.
Marcus stepped forward slowly with both hands visible.
"Relax," he said calmly. "If I wanted to attack you I wouldn't announce myself."
The group reacted instantly.
The man with the pipe spear stood up.
"Stop right there."
Marcus stopped.
The spear pointed directly at his chest.
The man looked nervous but determined.
"State your class."
Marcus blinked.
"...You open conversations like that?"
The man did not lower the weapon.
"Everyone here has a class," he said. "We just want to know what yours is."
Marcus considered lying.
But the system might show classes openly later anyway.
"Error," he said.
Silence fell over the campfire.
The group exchanged confused looks.
"What?"
"That's not a real class," one of the women said.
Marcus shrugged slightly.
"Tell that to the system."
The woman closest to the fire narrowed her eyes.
"Show us your status."
Marcus almost laughed.
"No."
The spear moved slightly closer.
"You expect us to trust you?"
Marcus tilted his head.
"You are five people with improvised weapons who clearly met each other in the last hour," he said calmly. "If I wanted to fight you this conversation would already be over."
The statement hung in the air.
Not aggressive.
Just factual.
The spear wielder hesitated.
Then slowly lowered the weapon.
"...Fair point."
Marcus stepped closer to the fire.
Warmth spread across his hands as he extended them toward the flames.
One of the women spoke.
"My class is Healer," she said cautiously. "His is Knight."
She nodded toward the man with the spear.
Another man lifted his knife slightly.
"Assassin."
Marcus nodded.
"Classic setup."
The Knight frowned.
"You sound pretty calm for someone who woke up in a monster dungeon."
Marcus stared into the fire.
"Let's just say," he said quietly, "I suspected something like this might happen."
None of them noticed the faint fracture lines crawling across the cavern walls behind them.
Marcus did.
And the largest crack pointed directly toward another hidden passage leading upward.
The fire crackled softly between them.
Marcus sat on a loose stone while the group studied him with obvious suspicion. None of them relaxed completely. Hands stayed close to weapons.
That was good.
People who relaxed too quickly in a place like this usually died first.
The man with the pipe spear finally sat down again, though he kept the weapon across his lap.
"I'm Daniel," he said. "Knight class."
Marcus nodded slightly.
Across the fire the woman who had spoken earlier adjusted the sleeve wrapped around her arm.
"Elena. Healer."
The man with the knife leaned back against a stone pillar.
"Victor. Assassin."
The last two members of the group introduced themselves quietly.
Sarah. Alchemist.
Tom. Mage.
Marcus listened while glancing around the cavern.
The glowing fractures were everywhere now that he knew what to look for.
One of them stretched across the far wall like a long crooked scar in reality.
And behind that fracture was the hidden path he had noticed earlier.
Marcus returned his attention to the group.
"So," Daniel said, "you said your class is Error."
Marcus nodded.
Victor snorted.
"That sounds fake."
Marcus shrugged.
"It might be."
Tom leaned forward.
"What skills do you have?"
Marcus tilted his head slightly.
"...You planning to write them down?"
Tom frowned.
"I'm trying to understand if you're dangerous."
Marcus thought about that for a moment.
Then he answered partially.
"One skill lets me see anomalies in the dungeon."
That much was safe to reveal.
Daniel frowned.
"What does that mean?"
Marcus gestured vaguely toward the cavern walls.
"Structural weak points. Hidden paths. Things the system didn't build perfectly."
The group exchanged glances.
Sarah spoke next.
"That sounds useful."
Marcus smiled faintly.
"It is."
Daniel rubbed his chin.
"We've been wandering for hours," he said. "We killed a few goblins but the tunnels keep splitting."
Victor nodded.
"This place is a maze."
Marcus already knew that.
Most dungeon layouts relied on confusion to slow progression.
But hidden cracks bypassed that structure.
He stood up slowly.
"Follow me."
The group looked surprised.
"Why?" Victor asked immediately.
Marcus walked toward the far wall.
"Because you're trying to climb three hundred floors without a map."
He pointed at the cracked section of stone.
"But the dungeon made a mistake here."
Daniel stood.
"What kind of mistake?"
Marcus pressed his hand against the fracture.
The wall flickered.
Stone shimmered and vanished like a broken image.
Behind it a narrow staircase appeared.
Leading upward.
The entire group stared.
"...Holy shit," Victor whispered.
Elena stepped closer.
"That wasn't there before."
Marcus nodded.
"Exactly."
Daniel turned to Marcus slowly.
"You can see things like that everywhere?"
Marcus did not answer directly.
Instead he stepped onto the hidden stairs.
"Are you coming," he asked, "or do you want to keep fighting goblins for the next two weeks?"
The group quickly grabbed their weapons and followed.
None of them realized something important.
The staircase Marcus had just revealed bypassed nearly half of Floor 300.
And the system was already beginning to notice that someone was breaking its intended path.
The staircase was steep.
Rough stone steps spiraled upward through a narrow shaft barely wide enough for two people to stand side by side. The air grew slightly cooler as they climbed.
Marcus led the way.
Behind him Daniel followed carefully with the pipe spear ready. The rest of the group moved in a tight line behind them.
No one spoke for the first few minutes.
Footsteps echoed softly in the confined space.
Victor finally broke the silence.
"How did you even notice that wall?"
Marcus kept climbing without turning.
"I told you," he said calmly. "My class lets me see structural problems in the dungeon."
Tom sounded skeptical.
"So you're basically saying the dungeon has bugs."
Marcus nodded slightly.
"Every system has bugs."
The words slipped out almost automatically.
He had said the same thing dozens of times during development meetings years ago.
No code was perfect.
No simulation was flawless.
And if this dungeon truly ran on a system architecture then somewhere inside it thousands of tiny errors had to exist.
The group climbed for several more minutes before the staircase finally ended.
Marcus slowed as they approached the top.
A heavy stone door blocked the exit.
Daniel stepped closer.
"You think this opens normally?"
Marcus activated Glitch Vision.
The door lit up with distortion lines.
Several cracks crawled across its surface.
Marcus studied them carefully.
"Stand back," he said.
The others moved away from the door.
Marcus pressed his hand against one of the glowing fractures.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then the stone vibrated.
The entire door flickered like a broken hologram before sliding sideways into the wall.
The corridor beyond stretched forward into darkness.
Daniel stared at Marcus.
"You just opened that without touching any mechanism."
Marcus shrugged slightly.
"Glitches."
Victor let out a quiet whistle.
"If that works on bigger doors we might actually survive this place."
Marcus stepped into the corridor.
A new notification appeared in his vision.
Floor Transition Detected
Current Floor: 299
Marcus paused.
"So that staircase skipped the rest of the floor," he said quietly.
Daniel looked surprised.
"Already?"
Tom laughed nervously.
"We just cheated an entire level."
Marcus continued forward.
The corridor on Floor 299 looked different.
The walls were smoother. Strange blue crystals glowed brighter here, casting cold light across the stone.
And the dungeon sounded different.
Far deeper roars echoed through distant tunnels.
Marcus stopped suddenly.
His Glitch Vision flickered.
A massive fracture stretched across the ceiling ahead.
Bigger than anything he had seen before.
The distortion pulsed slowly like a heartbeat.
Marcus frowned.
"...That's not a normal glitch."
Daniel stepped closer.
"What is it?"
Marcus did not answer immediately.
He stared at the fracture.
Something moved inside the distortion.
Like a shadow behind broken glass.
Then the dungeon itself reacted.
Warning
Environmental instability detected
Victor looked around nervously.
"Did anyone else get that message?"
Marcus nodded slowly.
Whatever that fracture was, it was not a simple shortcut.
The ceiling trembled.
Stone dust fell from above.
And something large began pushing its way through the glitch in the dungeon structure.
Marcus tightened his grip on his dagger.
"...Well."
He took a slow breath.
"I think we just found the first real problem on this floor."