The blood-red light of the system sharpened the shadows on Haruki's face in the dark room.
If a normal hunter saw the words "B-Rank Demon Dungeon" and "Penalty: Death" while only at Level 13, they would likely fall to their knees, lose their mind, or succumb to sheer despair. But there was no room for panic in Haruki's mind. The horrific hours he spent in the worm dungeon and the moment of absolute death he felt beneath the Alpha Wolf's jaws had already flipped the "fear" switch in his brain.
He narrowed his eyes, focusing on the red panel floating in the air.
"If I enter that dungeon right now, with this level, I'll die in seconds," Haruki thought with cold logic. "The System knows this better than I do. If it wanted to kill me, it wouldn't have let me wake up in that hospital room. Which means it doesn't want me to commit suicide."
He looked at the flashing text on the screen: [Time Limit: 1 Month].
This wasn't an execution order; it was a command to prepare. The System was giving him exactly 30 days to transform from a Level 13 weakling into a monster capable of facing a B-Rank threat.
However, what truly caught Haruki's attention was the glitched line at the very bottom of the panel.
Reward: To be calculated by the System !?1:. [CALCULATION ERROR - SYSTEM RECALIBRATING...]
Haruki frowned. Whatever this 'System' was, it seemed like a god-like, flawless entity. Yet right now, it was literally throwing an error, struggling as it tried to calculate the reward it would give him. Had he created an equation that exceeded its own limits? This mystery only fueled the cold determination building inside Haruki.
He took a deep breath and got up from the edge of the bed. He opened his cheap laptop with the cracked screen. His mind was now entirely in strategy mode. Before entering the Demon Dungeon, he needed three things: non-stop dungeon clearing to level up, a massive amount of Yen for better equipment and medical supplies, and most importantly... Information.
He opened the browser and connected to the Association's public database, accessible to lower-tier hunters. In the search bar, he typed: "Demon Dungeon".
The loading icon spun for a few seconds. Then, the results poured in. Haruki's face fell. 90% of the search results were blacked out with the warning: [ACCESS DENIED - A-RANK AND ABOVE CLEARANCE ONLY]. The remaining 10% consisted of fragmented, incomplete reports and meaningless forum rumors.
There were very few survivors, and most of those who did survive were recorded as having lost their sanity.
As he rapidly scrolled through the pages, he stumbled upon a makeshift report from ten years ago, likely overlooked by the Association's scrubbers, written by a heavily wounded B-Rank Tank who had barely escaped. The final lines of the report ended with a blood-curdling description:
"Don't call it a dungeon. It wasn't a cave or an underground tunnel... It had architecture. An architecture that strained the eyes and broke the mind. It was... an inverted tower, descending not toward the sky, but into the depths of the earth, straight down to hell."
Haruki stared blankly at the laptop screen. "A tower descending into the earth?" As the weight of this sentence etched itself into his mind, a familiar, calming blue window suddenly popped open over the blood-red system light in the room.
[NEW FUNCTION UNLOCKED]
[ANATOMY ARCHIVE]Description: The User can permanently record the biological data of entities they have slain or deeply analyzed with 'Weak Tissue Analysis'. Knowledge is the sharpest scalpel.
Haruki eagerly tapped the new tab. A massive, empty digital library materialized in his mind. On the first two shelves of the library stood two faintly glowing holograms: one was a tiny Worm, and the other was the massive Alpha Wolf. The millimeter-sized nerve ganglion on the wolf's jugular was clearly marked as a red dot in the archive.
"Perfect," Haruki whispered, a thin smile playing on his lips. It was a skill perfectly tailored to his class. Now, he wouldn't just grow stronger; he would permanently engrave the weaknesses of every monster he killed into his mind like an encyclopedia.
Around the same time, far from the city's Association headquarters, heavy jazz music played in a dark underground bar controlled by crime syndicates and illegal hunters.
The air inside smelled of cigar smoke and cheap alcohol. In the dimmest corner of the bar, Liam sat on a leather sofa. Across from him sat an information broker with a sly gaze, half of his face covered in burn scars.
Liam pulled a thick stack of Yen from his pocket and threw it onto the table in front of the broker. The bags under his eyes were bruised from stress and lack of sleep, and his fake smile was completely gone.
"Answer me," Liam hissed through his teeth. "How did that loser... how did that scrawny Level 13 brat survive the Boss room I personally locked him in? Who hauled the corpse of a Level 30 Alpha Wolf out of there? Did the Association intervene?"
The information broker grinned, revealing his stained teeth as he greedily pocketed the cash. "The Association didn't even step foot in that dungeon, Liam. According to the internal signals, the wolf was annihilated instantly by an off-system, unidentifiable damage type. I don't know who's protecting the kid, but he must be backed by a massive ghost."
Liam gripped his whiskey glass so hard that the sound of the glass cracking could be heard over the music. "I don't care who's protecting him," he said in a dark, lethal whisper. "That kid tore down the kingdom I built with Kenji. He was the bait that filed that complaint to the Association. I'll cut his throat with my own hands."
Back in Haruki's apartment, the night had reached its darkest point.
Haruki was sitting on his bed, examining the Anatomy Archive, when the air in the room suddenly shifted. The red window hovering in the air began to tremble. Haruki's eyes immediately darted to the glitched "!?1:." text.
The error code vanished from the screen. The System seemed to have finished its calculation, or perhaps made its decision. A short digital chime echoed in the room.
[MAIN QUEST ACTIVATED: DEMON DUNGEON]
Time Remaining: 29 Days 23:59:59 Time Remaining: 29 Days 23:59:58 Time Remaining: 29 Days 23:59:57...
The countdown on the red panel began to melt away the seconds with a ruthless rhythm. Every single one of those seconds struck like the approaching footsteps of death.
Haruki gripped the needle in his pocket tightly. As he watched the digital flow of the countdown, the dark and sharp focus in his eyes didn't waver for even a moment.
"So..." he whispered into the dark room. "The countdown begins now."