Holy drew his knives in the quiet of the labyrinth with twin schiks. His GoPro was running, and there was a dripping sound deep within the cavern. He nervously bounced from toe to toe before he proceeded down the cavern, the glow stones marking the way. The men in the retinue of hunters were all in front of him, and he was nervous and more than a little scared. He’d been doing this for a while now, but he was afraid. Even so, the money he got from HunterWatch monetizations more than paid the bills. He was a rising star, despite being D-rank, but the paranoia was higher than normal today. He always felt like someone was watching him when he was out here. There were always eyes on his back, and his aripiprazole wasn’t doing a dent in it.

That was fine. All hunters were a little cracked, anyway.

The GoPro continued to run, and he nervously rotated the knives in his grip. This was a D-ranked dungeon, and it was supposed to be just in and out. He was sure he would be fine. This was going to be fine, right?

He wiped at the sweat beading up on his cheek with the back of his hand.

“Hey, Holy, why don’t you come to the front instead of live streaming us all dying from the back?” Thomas called, and there was a ripple of laughter from the other men.

“It’s not a live stream, and if you were gonna die, I would edit it out,” Holy called cheerfully, but he moved up to the front nonetheless. In a few weeks, he would be out of work for four weeks, though it should be two months, but he healed faster than regular humans. He needed to rack up as much money as possible in the meantime.

“Gives me the heebie jeebies when you’re in the back like that,” Thomas muttered, and Holy rolled his eyes.

“You’re just superstitious---” he started to say, but there was a low growl in the darkness. Every hair in Holy’s body stood up, and he froze at the sight of the Nightfang prowling close to them. A fucking Nightfang? No wonder this felt wrong; it was a C-rank gate, not D-rank. The Hunter Association got it wrong?

“Oh, yeah, fuck that,” Thomas said and turned right around. “Pack it up, boys, it’s a C-rank. We’re gonna---”

The Nightfang leapt, but Holy was faster. The twenty-year-old lunged forward with his knives bared and they clashed against the wolf’s long fangs, and the wolf vanished like smoke, which only led to Holy turning and bracing for its textbook attack from the back. The wolf lunged at him, appearing milliseconds before impact, and his knives clashed off his fangs.

“Holy! Stop playing around with the wolf and run!” Thomas hollered, and Holy turned and bolted up the cavernous hallway. The team was already far ahead, having left him behind, and all Holy could think was he needed to pick up at least one more dungeon. The eyes were boring into his back, and he whirled at the last second, stumbling back and falling on his ass to brace his knives against the wolf’s snarling maw. Spit dripped onto his pants crotch, and he pulled one knife free and plunged it into the creature’s neck. Blood splattered his face, and he wrenched the knife just in time to rip it free and off the creature. The body slumped over his lap, and he looked back. The party was already a fair distance away, and he was alone.

Fantastic. He didn’t even have time to reclaim a single mana stone. Holy stumbled to his feet and turned to run, but---

The world swam around him and he staggered, collapsing on the ground. The last man made it through the exit, and he watched in horror as the color of the portal changed from blue to red. The world spun around him, and he vomited up his insides as the face of the dungeon changed.

A hidden dungeon? Why trap a single D-rank in it?

Grass grew up around him, and he finished vomiting up his insides. His hands shook, and he fell back on his ass in the clearing.

Oh. He was going to die, he realized as he stared up at the night sky.

He didn’t want to die.