I woke to find Kazike already dressed, armor buckled, bag half-packed. "You're up early," I mumbled, rubbing sleep out of my eyes.
He flashed a thumbs-up. "Ready when you are."
I sat up slowly, remembering the stone I'd pocketed the night before while he slept. "Kazike — that glowing stone I picked up. My status called it a Rune Stone."
His hands went still on the bag straps. "Let me see it."
I handed it over, and his expression shifted from curiosity to something close to disbelief as he turned it in the light. "How did you get this? This is a Combat Rune — one of the two rarest types that exist. The other's the Defender Rune. There are adventurers who've spent their entire careers combing the lower floors for one of these and never found it. Whatever you do — don't sell it. Ever."
"What does it actually do?"
"Binds permanently into a weapon or piece of armor, if you find someone skilled enough to forge it in. Makes whatever it's bound to something close to legendary."
I glanced down at my plain, dungeon-worn clothes. "I don't have a weapon to put it in, though. You want it? You've got the sword."
He shook his head fast enough that I laughed. "No, no — keep it. You'll find a use for it. Actually — once we're done here, there's a smithing shop in the city I want to take you to."
"What for?"
"You'll see," he said, with a knowing look that told me I wasn't getting anything more out of him. "For now, let's finish the quest."
We broke camp and kept moving through the winding tunnels, and it wasn't long before a faint blue glow caught my eye up ahead. "Kazike — there! That's the circle down to Floor 26, right?"
He watched me jog ahead, something soft and a little wistful crossing his face. Under his breath, I caught just enough to wonder what it meant. "…reminds me of Hisuke."
"Kazike, come on — let's go down together!"
Floor 26.
The light of the teleportation faded to reveal a cavern lined with gemstones, veins of them catching the crystal-light like something out of a dream. "This place is incredible," I breathed.
"It is." Kazike's voice carried a mix of admiration and caution. "Those gems are brutal to extract, though. Takes a real Mining skill — most low-level adventurers never bother learning it. Usually falls to S-rank support classes or Alchemists."
"I have Mining," I said, surprised to remember it. "Level 1, though. Probably not much use."
"Alchemists make good coin off it, among other things — extraction work, healing, brewing potions for status effects. Solid trade, if you've got the patience for it."
"Can I try, at least? Just to see."
He shrugged. "Try if you want, but you'll need real tools. My sword's not going to cut it."
I stepped up to a glittering vein anyway. "Fire Pierce." The flame left a scorch mark and nothing else — the crystal didn't budge. "Guess that answers that."
"Steel pickaxe is what this floor needs, from what I've heard. Not cheap, either."
"We'll come back for it," I decided.
We'd barely gone another twenty paces when the ground shook hard enough to throw me off balance.
"Kazike — the cavern's coming apart!"
He grabbed my arm to steady me as rubble ahead shifted and a massive shape rose out of it — stone and crystal fused into something roughly humanoid, towering well over both of us.
"It's huge," I managed.
"Crystal Golem," Kazike said grimly, sword already drawn.
I threw everything I had at it out of instinct. "Fire Pierce!" The flame splashed harmlessly against its stone hide. "That did nothing!"
"Magic doesn't touch golems!" Kazike dodged a sweeping fist that took out a chunk of wall behind him.
An idea surfaced through the panic. "If it won't work directly—" I aimed up instead, at the stalactites overhead. "Fire Pierce!"
The ceiling gave way, and a boulder the size of a cart crashed down on the golem's head, staggering it.
"That worked!" I shouted.
Kazike grinned, dropping his sword to heft a jagged chunk of stone instead. "Brute force it is, then! Fist Strength Enhance!" He hurled the rock with everything he had, cracking a section of the golem's face wide open.
"There — its core!" A pulsing blue light glowed through the crack.
"That's the weak point. I'm going for it!"
"I'll pin its legs — go!" I brought down another section of ceiling, burying its lower half in rubble. "Now, Kazike!"
He closed the distance with a roar and drove his blade straight through the exposed core. The golem froze mid-motion, then detonated outward in a spray of shattered stone.
I stared at the debris settling around us. "Are any of these crystals worth anything?"
"Broken ones, not really," Kazike said, wiping his brow. "Only whole, cleanly mined crystals fetch a price — and only Alchemists know how to refine them into anything more useful."
"Shame." I nodded toward the far wall, where a fresh circle had begun to glow. "There — the floor's clear. We can move on."
Floor 34.
Hours of descending later, my stomach announced itself loudly enough that I couldn't ignore it any longer. "Kazike — can we stop? I'm starving."
He dropped his pack with obvious relief. "Good a time as any. Dried meat, bread — not much, but it'll hold you."
I tore into the bread like it was a feast. "This is amazing, thank you."
He settled against the cavern wall, looking as tired as I felt. "No sun down here, so you never really know the hour. Your stomach's the only clock that still works."
"Good thing you thought to pack food. I had no idea how big this place actually was."
While I ate, I checked my status out of habit.
[STATUS] Level: 76
Unique Skills: Exploration (Level 87), Assassin (Level 86), Cooking (Level 8), Mining (Level 1), Smithing (Level 1)
Kazike passed me a canteen. "Six years I've been doing this. You learn what to pack and how to pace yourself, eventually."
"Thank you." I drank gratefully, then let a question I'd been holding onto slip out. "Is there somewhere in the city I could study magic properly? I'd like to actually understand what I'm doing, not just guess."
"There's a Magic Academy in the capital — exclusive, though. Worth looking into once we're done here." He paused. "First stop when we're back is that smithing shop. You're Assassin class, right?"
"Right."
"Assassins usually can't handle a heavy sword well — you'll want something lighter. Daggers, short blades, wire, that kind of thing. Keeps your speed intact."
"That makes sense." I stood, stretching out the stiffness. "I'm ready to keep going. Floor 35, and then the scroll."
Kazike groaned, hauling himself upright. "How are you already recovered? I need another ten minutes at least."
We pressed on, the rough stone gradually giving way to smoother, older masonry the deeper we went.
"Kazike," I asked quietly, "what exactly is Murderous Intent Detection?"
"High-level passive, usually only Assassins get it. Lets you sense when someone genuinely wants you dead. Why?"
"Mine's maxed out. And right now — I can feel someone. Close. It's strong."
He stopped dead. "Maxed? That's supposed to be impossibly rare." He shook it off, expression hardening. "That explains the vampires earlier, then."
I froze mid-step, eyes locking on a dark archway ahead. "Someone's watching us. Right now."
"Where?" Kazike's sword was already half-drawn.
"There. In the dark. It's not a monster." The realization settled cold in my stomach. "It's a person."
A figure stepped out of the shadow, cloaked in black, twin daggers glinting faintly under his hood. "Sharp senses, kid. Assassin, I'm guessing."
"Who are you?"
Kazike's face had drained to gray. "Cloyde," he breathed. "S-rank Assassin. Kazu — we need to leave, now. He works for the underground guild. Ambushes weakened adventurers this deep and doesn't leave witnesses."
I held my ground anyway. "We're only after a lost scroll on Floor 35. Let us pass, and there won't be any trouble."
Cloyde pulled a rolled parchment from his cloak, grinning wide. "This scroll? Bad luck, kid — I got here first."
"That's exactly the one," I said evenly. "I can trade for it. I found something valuable a few floors up." Better to negotiate than fight — he's human, after all.
"And what would that be?" His grin sharpened. "What's your name, first."
I gave a small, automatic bow. "Kazu Gonomiya. I'd offer you my Combat Rune Stone. My friend tells me it's quite rare."
"Kazu, are you insane?" Kazike hissed. "Don't you dare give that to him."
Cloyde laughed until he doubled over. "Generous offer. But why trade when I can just take both the stone and the scroll off your corpses?"
I sighed. "Kazike, step back."
"YOUR END IS HERE!" Cloyde vanished into the dark, reappearing behind Kazike a heartbeat later, daggers already rising.
He's fast, I thought, watching him anyway — every motion of it landing clean in my vision, easy to follow.
"You're dead," Cloyde whispered into Kazike's ear.
"Sorry, Cloyde." I blinked.
I appeared in front of him before he'd registered me moving, lifted the scroll from his cloak with two fingers, and was back at my starting point before he'd finished turning. "Kazike — got it."
Cloyde stared down at his empty pocket like it had personally betrayed him. "How did you — I'm S-rank! You shouldn't be able to track me at all! Are you mocking me?"
"Dodge, Kazu!" Kazike shouted.
"Give it back! RAIN OF BLADES!" A dozen knives came at me at once.
"BLADE STRIKE!" Kazike threw himself in front of me, deflecting every one with his sword.
Cloyde blinked to the ceiling, laughing down at us. "You're too slow for this, washed-up A-rank." His wrists flicked, and near-invisible threads shot out —
— and closed around Kazike's arm.
The sound it made was small and wet, and then Kazike's arm was on the cavern floor, and Kazike was screaming, and I was staring at both without any thought at all in my head.
Something dark broke free of me in that silence. The temperature in the cavern dropped hard enough that I saw my own breath.
Both of them froze — Cloyde and Kazike alike — pinned in place by whatever had just come off me.
"Ka—Kazu," Kazike managed, clutching the ruin of his shoulder. "It's happening again… that pressure…"
Cloyde's grin had vanished entirely. "What's the matter, kid — going to cry to your—" He cut himself off, every instinct he had screaming at once. This pressure is wrong. I need to be gone. "LURK!" He tried to fold into the shadows.
"Cloyde." My own voice came out strange to my ears, too calm, carrying further than it should have. "I told you. We only wanted the scroll. But you took his arm."
Blink.
I was in front of the dark before he'd finished vanishing into it, hand closing around his throat and dragging him back into the light. I lifted him clear off the ground, fire already gathering white-hot in my other palm.
"Fire… Pierce."
"W-wait!" Cloyde's voice cracked entirely. "WAIT!"