I opened my portable UI and checked my friends list.

Ambrosia and Anja were both offline. Kevin was still logged in, but his status had been set to Busy, which probably meant he was either filling orders or had fallen asleep beside the forge after spending most of the day making my equipment.

Either way, I had the entire night ahead of me.

“Iris, is PvP damage enabled inside the dungeon?”

“It is not,” she answered. “However, other players may still collect unclaimed items dropped upon death.”

“So it follows the same rules as the city and the surrounding regions.”

“Correct.”

That confirmed what I had suspected. If the first dungeon allowed open PvP, the player chatrooms would already have been filled with reports of spawn camping, guild fights, and groups ambushing exhausted parties on their way out.

Instead, most of the complaints were about roaches.

Other players could still lure monsters toward me or deliberately lead me into a bad situation, but that was easier to avoid as a solo player. Late Sunday night was probably the best time for a scouting run. Fewer players meant fewer people shouting, fighting, or dragging half the dungeon behind them. I could move at my own pace, test my new equipment, and leave before the larger groups returned in the morning.

The apparent objective was simple enough: enter, kill roaches, and push deeper. Somewhere inside, there was probably a larger roach controlling the infestation. A queen, a king, or whatever else the developers had decided counted as the final pest.

Before heading for the Tower, I stopped at the general store one last time to see whether I had overlooked anything. Health potions, first-aid kits, food, and everything else I thought I might need were packed inside. It was more than enough for a scouting run. I even bought a pack of heavy black trash bags for storing any hazardous or contaminated materials I might collect inside the dungeon.

By the time I reached the Tower, players were moving steadily through the main gate in both directions. Groups gathered near the entrance to trade supplies, compare maps, or look for one last party member before entering.

The people coming out looked noticeably better prepared than the survivors I had seen the previous day. Iron armor had become common, along with larger shields, spears, and torches.

There were still a few nearly naked players among them, wearing only the plain underclothes provided after respawning. Most hurried through the crowd with their heads lowered.

The larger parties seemed to be doing better. Groups of six or more returned carrying damaged equipment, and injured companions instead of appearing alone in their underwear.

That was probably encouraging.

The tunnel through the Tower’s main gate rose into a wide staircase players had already begun calling the Stairway to Heaven. I followed it upward with the others, checking my inventory one final time as the dungeon gate came into view.

Its surface resembled a sheet of swirling darkness contained within an ornate frame. Players vanished into it one after another without slowing.

I stepped into the abyss.

The city disappeared.

For one suspended second, there was no sound, smell, or sensation beneath my feet.

Then everything returned at once.

Voices echoed somewhere ahead. Water trickled over concrete. The air smelled of damp stone, stagnant runoff, smoke, and something faintly rotten.

My first thought was that I had spawned inside a sewer.

The tunnel was an enormous circular conduit made from smooth gray concrete, its curved surface darkened by moisture and streaked with old water stains. A shallow channel of black runoff flowed along the bottom, leaving narrow maintenance ledges on either side. Metal pipes and electrical conduits followed the walls and ceiling before disappearing into the darkness, while rusted brackets and access panels broke up the otherwise continuous concrete.

A maintenance ladder climbed the wall on my right toward a sealed manhole.

A player resting nearby noticed me looking at it. “Don’t bother. We already tried it. The cover at the top is sealed.”

“So that isn’t the exit?”

He pointed behind me.

Two armed players stood in front of a waist-high barricade built from heavy planks, sharpened logs, and sections of metal fencing secured with wire. Several torches had been fixed to the walls around it, casting warm pools of light across the entry chamber. Beyond the barricade stood another abyssal gate, its swirling darkness contained within an ornate frame.

“Exit gate is behind them,” the resting player said.

One of the guards tapped the barricade with the end of his spear. “Roaches can’t pass through the exit gate, so we built this in case they wander toward the spawn.”

“Not yet, they can’t,” the other guard said.

“There are more barricades farther down,” someone else added. “This one is just the last line.”

A man seated beside a stack of empty potion bottles shook his head. “You should’ve seen this place yesterday. No barricades, no torches, and roaches everywhere.”

“Fighting them in the dark was miserable,” another player said.

“We cleared most of the spawn tunnel,” the first guard replied. “At least people can walk through now without stepping over bodies.”

Roach corpses still lay along the edges of the shallow water channel, but someone had dragged most of them away from the main path. Dark shells, severed legs, and long antennae protruded from several piles against the walls.

Players had already transformed the entry chamber into a crude forward camp.

A few temporary vendors had spread tarps across the dry ledges. Their inventory consisted mostly of basic food, potions, torches, rope, and replacement weapons. Nothing looked permanent, but they had clearly found customers.

I opened my portable UI and pinned the minimap to the edge of my vision.

Most of it was still black.

A player beside one of the tarps noticed. “Want map data? One hundred credits. My group cleared almost half the dungeon today.”

“As much as I’d love to, I’m out of money.”

He stared at my armor. “Out of money? Look at you.”

“This is why I’m out of money.”

He laughed. “All right. Free tip, then. If you hear a strange sound, run the other way.”

“What kind of sound?”

“No idea. Someone told me, so now I’m telling you.”

“That’s incredibly useful.”

“Just listen for it.”

Coming on the second day had been the right choice. Entering an unlit tunnel filled with giant roaches sounded less like exploration and more like volunteering for a nightmare.

The stale air already felt unpleasant in my lungs, and knowing that hundreds of meters of stone might be resting above me did not help.

“So you all sit here and wait for roaches to wander in?” I asked.

The spear user shrugged. “Better than wandering out there and waiting for them to find us.”

Before I could answer, a player appeared beside the gate wearing nothing except the standard underclothes.

“Fucking hell!” he shouted. “A dozen of them came out of nowhere!”

Someone near the barricade laughed. “I told you not to go alone. You never listen.”

“I’m getting a refund. This game sucks.”

He opened his menu and vanished.

A plain stone marker appeared where he had been standing.

I stared at it.

“You can’t log out inside the dungeon,” the resting player explained. “The system counts it as another death.”

That made sense. Otherwise, players could disconnect whenever they became trapped, ask for help, and log back in after the danger had passed.

The tombstone remained for only a few seconds before fading away. I guessed that meant he had logged off for the night.

I checked the minimap again.

Anja’s group had apparently gone straight through the main tunnel during their earlier run. Player-placed torches continued in that direction, creating a chain of light that faded into the distance.

Farther ahead, another cluster of torchlight marked a second player-built checkpoint. A makeshift barricade narrowed the passage there, with several players stationed behind it. The torch line and patrols had made the route safer, but they had not cleared every side tunnel, or maintenance space between the two positions.

The safest mapped route was obvious.

I passed through an opening in the entrance barricade and followed it.

Two patrolling players were walking ahead of me toward the next checkpoint, one carrying a bow and the other a short spear. I was about to call out when the archer glanced back and looked above my head.

“Watch out!”

Metal scraped overhead.

A loose maintenance hatch swung open above me, and a black shape dropped from the narrow service passage behind it.

My shield came up before I had time to think.

Something heavy slammed into it, driving me back half a step. Mandibles snapped shut around the black-iron rim with a metallic crack.

The extra strap held the shield firmly against my forearm.

My health had not moved.

The creature landed on the walkway, nearly a meter long from head to abdomen. Its body was low and flattened, covered in dark reddish-brown plates that shone beneath the torchlight like wet lacquer. Overlapping wing cases protected most of its abdomen, while six barbed legs scraped rapidly against the concrete. Two antennae longer than my arms swept across the floor and walls without ever becoming still.

Its black compound eyes reflected the torchlight.

I used the Assessment skill on it.

[Lv5. Cistern Roach]

[Species: Arthropod]

[HP: 30/30]

It lunged again.

I angled the shield instead of meeting the attack straight on. Its head slid across the curved surface, exposing the narrow seam behind its neck plate.

I drove the fang dagger into the opening.

The point punched through with almost no resistance.

[HP: 17/30]

The roach twisted violently, nearly wrenching the dagger from my hand. I pulled the fang free and stepped back as one of its legs scraped across my armor. The claw skidded over the layered carapace without reaching the leather underneath.

Kevin and Zamira had done their jobs.

The roach rushed low, trying to pass beneath the shield. I dropped my weight, caught it with the lower rim, and forced its head against the walkway.

Keeping the shield pressed down with my left arm, I drove the fang into the head.

[HP: 0/30]

The roach flipped onto its back, its legs curling inward.

I lowered my dagger and reached for the corpse.

Its legs suddenly began moving again.

“What the hell? Isn’t it dead?”

The body rolled onto its side, mandibles snapping as it tried to pull itself upright.

An arrow shot past my face and buried itself in the roach’s head.

The legs stopped.

“Yeah, they don’t die easily even when their HP reaches zero,” the archer said as he lowered his bow.

“Just like real roaches?”

“Unfortunately.”

Notifications appeared.

[Dagger XP +50]

[Shield XP +50]

[Physical Resistance XP +50]

I crouched beside the body and checked it carefully before touching anything.

The specimen was small enough to fit inside my inventory intact, saving me from dragging another giant arthropod through the city.

I stored it for later analysis.

The two patrolling players remained nearby.

“You going deeper alone?” the spear user asked.

“Just scouting.”

The archer snorted. “That’s what the naked guy said.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

I continued anyway.

The torchlight became less frequent as I moved deeper. Soon the voices from the entry camp faded behind me, replaced by dripping water, the soft current in the shallow channel, and the occasional scrape of something moving beyond the light.

In the darker stretches, the Night Vision skill thinned the shadows enough to reveal the nearby concrete, pipes, and larger movements ahead, but anything farther away remained indistinct.

I switched on the headlamp mounted to my helmet. It had originally been designed for mining equipment, but adapting the clip had not been difficult.

The beam revealed more of the tunnel.

Branching passages and recessed maintenance alcoves appeared at irregular intervals along the tunnel. Rusted pipes crossed overhead, while uneven water stains marked the concrete walls far above the shallow runoff below.

Whatever this place had originally been built to handle, it involved a lot more water than was moving through it now.

The smell worsened with every step.

Old water, mold, and roach waste blended into something I was beginning to regret having full sensory settings for.

The tunnel seemed to continue forever.

Discarded shells and dead roaches became more common. Some had been cut apart by players. Others had been picked clean by smaller roaches, leaving cracked carapaces and scattered legs behind.

I reached a four-way junction.

The passage directly ahead had partially collapsed. Broken concrete slabs, loose rubble, and twisted metal supports filled most of the tunnel, mixed with roach bodies and several player tombstones. The markers still glowed faintly, which meant their owners were probably online and attempting to recover whatever they had dropped.

I checked my minimap.

The mapped torch route stopped right in front of me.

Before I could move, something struck the back of my left calf.

I spun and brought the shield down.

Another Cistern Roach had climbed from the shallow channel behind me. Its mandibles had caught the reinforced leather above my boot rather than flesh.

[HP: 95/100]

My earlier block had absorbed the attack completely. The armor reduced anything that slipped past, but positioning the shield correctly was still much better than getting hit.

The roach surged forward. This time, I knew where to strike.

I knocked its head aside with the shield, stepped around its legs, and drove the fang beneath the edge of its wing case. The point entered deeply, but the natural curve caught when I tried to pull it free.

The roach twisted.

Instead of fighting the movement, I followed it, rotated the handle, and freed the fang before its legs could close around my arm.

A second thrust pierced the neck joint.

It collapsed.

I crushed its head immediately this time.

One roach was easy enough now that I understood it.

Movement stirred among the rubble ahead.

Four more crawled into the headlamp’s beam.

I counted them carefully.

One, two, three, four.

Still manageable.

The first charged along the curved wall while the others spread across the walkway and the shallow water channel. I backed toward the narrowest section of the junction, forcing them to approach from the front.

The shield caught the first bite. I released the grip, seized one antenna with my free hand, and pulled its head sideways before driving the fang underneath it.

A second roach struck my hip.

The carapace plate absorbed most of the impact, but the force still knocked me against the wall.

[HP: 89/100]

I shoved it away with the shield and kicked another into the shallow runoff. The first roach continued twitching at my feet, but I ignored it and stabbed the one scrambling back onto the ledge.

Two down.

The other two hesitated.

For a moment, I thought I had intimidated them.

Then more antennae appeared inside the collapsed passage.

Three roaches crawled over the rubble.

Another emerged from the right tunnel.

Several more rushed through the shallow channel on my left.

I used the Assessment skill on each shape moving through the junction. Name tags appeared one after another.

More were approaching through the collapsed route.

More from the right.

Within ten seconds, at least twelve would reach me from three directions.

My armor had solved the problem of fighting one roach.

It had not solved the problem of fighting twelve.

I needed fire, explosives, or someone with an attack that could hit more than one enemy at a time.

What I had was a dagger.

Time to leave.

I knocked the nearest roach away and ran toward the mapped route back to spawn.

That plan lasted less than five seconds.

The roaches were faster. Their legs struck the concrete in rapid, uneven rhythms as they closed the distance behind me. One climbed the curved wall and ran parallel to my head, while another charged through the shallow channel without slowing.

If they caught me in the narrow tunnel, I would at least be fighting them from one direction instead of three.

That was still better than being surrounded.

Probably.

Then the Night Vision skill picked out faint red eye-shine ahead.

More roaches were coming toward me from the direction of spawn. The collapsed passage ruled out going straight ahead, and more red eye-shine filled the tunnel to my left. Only the right-hand passage remained clear.

I did not have time to wonder why.

I turned into it and ran.

My headlamp swept across pipes, flooded alcoves, and hundreds of scratches along the walls. Whenever I glanced back, the Night Vision skill picked out faint red points moving beyond the edge of the light.

The whole thing felt like a nightmare. No matter how many turns I took, more roaches appeared from the adjoining passages. Some crawled from drainage openings. Others dropped from pipes overhead or scrambled up from the channel.

The faster I moved, the more of them noticed me.

My boots struck the ground hard enough to echo through the tunnel. The armor shifted with every stride. I might as well have been running while ringing a bell.

They were not tracking me through sight alone.

They could feel the vibrations.

Yet there was always one direction without roaches.

At every intersection, three passages filled with movement while one remained empty. For several increasingly desperate minutes, it felt as though something had personally drawn an escape route through the dungeon for me.

I mistook that for luck.

I alternated between sprinting and turning to fight anything that came too close. The shield kept their mandibles away from my body, and the armor prevented lighter strikes from cutting deeply, but my health still dropped whenever one reached my legs or slammed into my back.

I drank potions while running.

I lost track of the turns.

By the time the pursuit thinned to three roaches, my clock said nearly fifteen minutes had passed. I killed the last one at the mouth of a narrow side tunnel and stepped on its head before it could begin moving again.

Then I turned.

Several roaches remained visible at the distant junction behind me, their bodies packed together beneath the headlamp’s beam.

None entered the tunnel.

They crawled along its edge, antennae sweeping toward me, but refused to cross.

That was not reassuring.

I opened the minimap.

The spawn marker was far behind me. Worse, the route back had become a tangled chain of turns, with roaches occupying most of the way. Reaching the spawn point would mean fighting through dozens of them, possibly hundreds.

The messaging system had also stopped working.

Apparently, outside communication was blocked this deep inside the dungeon.

I drank another potion and opened a first-aid kit. While the system tightened a bandage around my calf, I finally had a chance to examine my surroundings.

A wide maintenance passage branched off beside me and ended at a massive steel gate set into the concrete wall. Caged maintenance lights lined the walls and the underside of a raised platform, flooding the area with harsh white light. Most still worked, although one near the gate flickered and buzzed overhead.

The platform ran along one side above the highest water stains, with a ladder connecting it to the tunnel floor. Behind its safety railing stood a large iron wheel attached to a shaft that disappeared into the wall.

It clearly controlled something, although there was no readable sign explaining what.

I placed a marker on the minimap.

Then I took out one of the slime buns and ate it. The food effect would last two hours. Better to use it now than save it until I was too dead to appreciate it.

For several seconds, I considered switching off the headlamp.

The roaches already navigated perfectly in the darkness. Turning off my light would remove the only advantage I had over them.

I left it on.

The tunnel had become completely silent. There was no skittering or splashing, only my heartbeat and the slow drip of water.

Then I noticed the smell.

My adrenaline had probably been suppressing it during the chase. Now it struck all at once: something sharp and oily, almost like gasoline, mixed with ammonia.

Underneath both was the unmistakable smell of something cooking.

I followed it.

The tunnel continued for another hundred meters before ending at a concrete wall that had been smashed outward. Broken slabs, chunks of concrete, and twisted metal supports covered the ground as though something enormous had punched through from the other side.

The opening was wide enough for a transport truck.

I moved to the edge of the broken wall and peered through.

An enormous limestone cavern stretched beyond it. Feathers and discarded roach parts littered the uneven floor, while black scorch marks stained the pale stone around them. Far overhead, a narrow opening admitted a faint shaft of light, but it was so high above the cavern floor that I could barely make out its edges.

My first thought was that I had somehow found the dungeon boss.

My second was that marking its location might be worth dying for.

My third was that I had received this armor less than an hour ago and did not particularly want to donate it to the dungeon.

Curiosity won by a narrow margin.

I moved closer, keeping one hand near the fang dagger. The glow inside the cavern grew brighter, allowing me to switch off the headlamp before it announced my arrival.

The oily smell became almost unbearable.

So did the heat.

Something moved beyond the broken wall.

At first, all I saw were golden feathers.

Then the creature raised its head.

It resembled a pheasant enlarged into a dragon. Brilliant gold feathers covered its body, broken by black markings around its neck and wings. A long crest swept backward from its skull in thin, curved plumes that glowed orange beneath the firelight.

Even folded against its body, the wings made it look enormous. Spread fully, they would have measured close to ten meters from tip to tip.

Birdlike talons gripped the stone beneath it.

Behind the feathered body extended the thick tail of a scarlet kingsnake, its scales patterned in vivid rings of red, black, and pale cream. The tail coiled around a broken stone pillar before disappearing beneath one wing.

Pinned beneath the creature’s talons was a freshly molted Roach.

Its new shell was still pale and soft, making it resemble a massive white grub from a distance.

The golden creature lowered its beak.

A short stream of fire washed across the roach’s exposed abdomen.

That explained the smell.

The roach thrashed and tried to pull free.

The creature lifted its head and released a single sharp note.

It was not a normal birdcall.

The sound cut through the cavern with enough force to make the concrete rubble beneath my boots vibrate.

The roach’s movements immediately slowed. Its frantic twisting became clumsy, then weak, allowing the creature to pin it without effort.

So that was the strange sound.

A sonic slowing effect.

Extremely useful for catching fast prey.

I used the Assessment skill on the creature.

A name tag appeared above its head, accompanied by a small golden crown.

[Lv25. Aureophis - the Last Song]

[Species: Unknown]

[HP: ???/???]

I did not need the Assessment skill to identify the species.

A chicken with a snake tail?

That was a freaking cockatrice.

Aureophis stopped feeding.

One golden eye turned toward the broken tunnel.

Toward me.

I immediately lowered my gaze to its talons. I had fought plenty of cockatrices in other MMOs, and while the details changed from game to game, the whole “don’t stare directly at the monster that might petrify you” rule appeared often enough that I was not testing Babel’s version here.

At the edge of my vision, both wings spread across the cavern at once. Their golden feathers scraped against the stone, making Aureophis appear twice as large.

Without raising my eyes, I placed a marker on the minimap.

Aureophis inhaled.

“Nope.”