The cavern floor was slick with something that wasn’t water.

Yujin swung his rusted shortsword, the blade vibrating with a dull, hollow ring as it glanced off the chitinous hide of a Cave Crawler. His lungs were burning. Every breath felt like he was inhaling hot sand, the stagnant mana of the illegal dungeon clogging his throat. Beside him, Francis was screaming, his shield braced against a second monster that looked like a mass of centipede legs and teeth.

“Push it back!” Yujin yelled.

He didn’t have a cool skill name to shout. He didn’t have a flashy aura. He just had the weight of his own desperation and the terrifying knowledge that if he fell here, Mina would be evicted before his body even went cold.

He drove the sword into a gap in the monster’s armor. A thick, translucent fluid sprayed across his face, smelling of ammonia and rot. The crawler shrieked, its legs twitching in a frantic, dying rhythm before it finally went limp.

They didn't celebrate. There was no time for that in a place that didn't exist on any map.

They moved quickly, their hands shaking as they used dull knives to pry the mana stones from the carcasses. The stones were a deep, pulsing amber, the kind of quality you’d never see in a safe, Association-regulated E-Rank. These were raw. They were dangerous. And they were worth a fortune on the street.

When they finally climbed back out of the hole in the shipyard, the rain was still falling. Arslan was waiting for them under his black umbrella, the tip of his pipe glowing like a miniature star.

He took the bag of stones, weighed it in his hand, and tipped ten percent of the haul into a smaller pouch.

“Your cut,” Arslan said.

Yujin looked at the small pile of amber shards. In a legal raid, after the Association fees, the guild taxes, the equipment insurance, and the porter unions took their share, he would have walked away with barely enough to buy a new pair of boots. This ten percent—this tiny, illegal fraction—was more than he had earned in the last six months combined.

It was enough to pay the back rent. It was enough to buy medicine. It was enough to breathe.

That night, they didn't go home immediately. They found a small, hidden restaurant in a basement that stayed open for the people who didn't want to be seen.

The table was sticky with grease. The light was a single, flickering bulb. But the bowl of hot pork bone soup in front of Yujin was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He picked up his chopsticks, his fingers still stained with the black blood of the dungeon, and took a bite.

The salt. The fat. The heat.

“We can do this, Yujin,” Francis said, his voice muffled by a mouthful of rice. “We don't have to be ghosts anymore. We can actually live.”

Yujin didn't answer. He just kept eating, the warmth of the soup spreading through his chest, quietening the scream of his tired muscles. He told himself it was just until they were stable. Just until things were okay.

But things are never just okay.

They became regulars. The shipyard became their office. They went deeper, into gates that smelled of ancient dust and copper. They saw people die. A porter they’d shared a cigarette with was crushed by a falling rock. A scout was snatched into the dark by something with too many eyes. They’d feel the depression for a day, a heavy cloud that made their hands heavy, but then the money would hit their palms.

The money made the grief move faster. It bought better gear. It bought Mina a new coat. It bought Francis a hope that was starting to look like a future.

Until the goat-headed monster happened.

It wasn't supposed to be an A-Rank gate. Arslan had called it a routine clear. But as they reached the heart of the cavern, the air didn't just turn cold. It turned heavy.

A shadow detached itself from the wall. It was a massive, bloated thing with the torso of a fat troll, its skin a sickly, mottled gray. But where a head should have been, there was the skull of a giant goat, its horns curved like sickles. Its arms were the worst part. They were long, spindly things that moved with three distinct joints, clicking and popping as they reached out.

—CRACK.

The sound was the only warning.

Yujin tried to raise his sword, but the creature was too fast. One of those three-jointed arms snapped forward, the movements jagged and impossible to predict. It didn't punch. It didn't claw. It simply grabbed Yujin’s left arm and twisted.

The pain was a white-hot explosion that erased the world. He heard the bone snap, a wet, sickening crunch that echoed off the cave walls. He didn't even have time to scream before the monster’s grip tightened, the jagged bone spurs on its palm tearing through muscle and sinew like they were wet paper.

He was thrown back, hitting the stone floor with a thud that knocked the breath from his lungs.

When he looked down, the world started to tilt. His arm was gone from the elbow down. There was just a jagged, bloody mess and the terrifying sight of his own bone sticking out of the red.

Francis was there, dragging him away, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated terror.

The hospital was a blur of antiseptic smells and the rhythmic beeping of machines. Yujin woke up to find Mina sitting by his bed. She wasn't angry. She wasn't screaming. She was just crying.

She held his remaining hand, her tears falling onto the sterile white sheets. She looked at the stump of his arm, then at his face, and Yujin knew. He couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't keep selling bits of himself until there was nothing left for her to hold onto.

“I’m done, Mina,” he whispered. “I’m stopping. I promise.”

He meant it. He really did. He felt a strange kind of peace as he made the decision. He was alive. He had enough saved to start something small, something safe.

A week later, he was discharged. He walked with a limp, his balance still off from the missing limb, but his head was clear. He headed straight for Francis’s apartment. He wanted to tell him. He wanted to pull his brother out of the web before the shipyard claimed him too.

The street was crowded.

An ambulance was parked at the curb, its blue and red lights painting the gray concrete in rhythmic flashes. A small crowd had gathered, their murmurs a low, static hum in the air.

Yujin pushed through them, his heart starting to do a frantic, uneven beat against his ribs.

He saw Francis.

His friend was standing on the sidewalk, his shoulders hunched, his gaze fixed on the ground. He looked smaller than he had in the dungeon. He looked like the ghost he’d tried so hard to stop being.

Behind him, two paramedics were sliding a gurney into the back of the ambulance. A white sheet was draped over the body, but it wasn't tucked in tightly enough. A thin, pale hand slipped out from the side, a hand that Yujin recognized from a dozen dinners and a thousand shared stories.

Francis didn't look up as Yujin approached.

“She’s gone, Yujin,” Francis said, his voice hollow and flat. “The medicine... the treatment. It didn't matter. She died while I was at the shipyard.”

Francis finally looked at him. His eyes were empty. There was no grief there. There was just a cold, dark void that was being filled by the same shadows that lived in the gates.

“I did it all for nothing,” Francis whispered.

The rain started to fall again, cool and quiet, as the ambulance doors clicked shut.

HotChickenCheerios

Patreon is still 20 chapters ahead! +Steamy illustrations >.<