"I wish I was," Kael said as he glanced all over the place.
His eyes noted who watched him, who looked away, who leaned subtly toward weapons. He saw tiredness, hunger, fear wrapped in bravado. He saw a few faces that were too blank, like they had already decided they would kill again if needed. He also saw the silent man standing behind the group, still not speaking, still too still.
"Now, you see here, we can't just simply trust any random guy and accept them in our little base…" he said as he pointed the knife at Kael, "So what can you do for me, to prove you're not one of those Snakes?"
"Snakes?" Kael asked.
The word had weight here. It wasn't just an insult. It was a category. A faction. A threat that had become familiar enough to deserve a name.
The boss realized that Kael's lack of knowledge felt pretty sincere. If he didn't know who the Snakes were, then he probably wasn't a member.
But sincerity didn't mean innocence. It just meant ignorance, and ignorance got you killed quicker than malice sometimes.
"Where did you spend your first night?" The boss asked.
"Some rundown building," Kael said, and in his mind the images came back immediately. Dark rooms. The thud of a door. The smell of goblin guts. The feeling of his heart slowing down until the world sharpened like a blade, and the deadly hidden piece. He swallowed the memory and kept his voice even. "For a bit before I had to run away, goblins came charging in."
"You ran outside? At night?" The boss asked.
The tone changed. That wasn't just disbelief. That was a man measuring whether Kael was suicidal or lying.
Kael's mouth twitched. He wanted to say something snarky, something like No, I took a stroll for fun, but he kept it contained.
"I didn't have a choice," he said instead.
"How many floors you climbed before you died?"
"I died on the first floor…"
"That's even less believable than you surviving a first night outside. How does one die on the damn tutorial floor?"
"Shit luck," Kael said.
The boss smirked, and for a second Kael saw a flicker of something human in him. Bitterness. Humor. The kind that came from having been beaten down enough times that you started laughing at the blows.
"Still, I can't trust you, you gotta do something for me to trust you," he said.
"Like?"
"Kill one of the snakes, bring me their head, then I'll believe that you can join our Sun Clan."
"You're a member of the Sun guild?" Kael asked.
"You at least know about us," the man smiled. "I was a former lieutenant of the Sun guild, made it to the fortieth floor, but died to a damn trap. Could have still been climbing if it wasn't for…shit luck, like you said."
Kael's eyes narrowed slightly. Fortieth floor. That was not small. That was real climbing. That meant this man had been through enough to see the tower's true cruelty, not just its first taste.
"I see…" Kael said.
His mind raced. A lieutenant from the Sun guild didn't end up here by coincidence. That meant the tower had thrown experienced climbers into this reverse hell too.
Kael said as he turned around, "I haven't killed anyone before though…"
He didn't want to say it, but it mattered. Killing monsters was one thing. Killing people was another. Even if the tower wanted to blur that line. Even if "Snakes" were enemies.
"But, how about I do you the next best thing?" he asked.
"And what is that?" the boss asked as he withdrew his weapon.
Kael pulled his sledgehammer.
The familiar weight settled into his grip like a handshake. Reliable. Honest. It didn't pretend to be anything other than what it was.
"You know what this is?" Kael asked.
"Looks makeshift, the shaft at least. You made that?" the boss asked.
"Yeah," Kael said. "I used to be a mechanical engineer but was forced by life to do construction."
A few of the people around them shifted at that. Some looked amused, some unimpressed, but Kael caught the way one man's posture loosened slightly. Utility mattered in a place like this. Food mattered. Weapons mattered. Repairs mattered too.
"Also you guys need to get better planks, those will crumble with a touch," Kael turned toward the gate.
A quiet murmur ran through the nearby people, not loud enough to be a reaction, but enough to show the remark hit. Kael didn't say it to insult them. He said it because it was true. But truth in front of insecure men often sounded like mockery.
The boss's eyes narrowed.
"So you're saying you can do menial work? That's not enough to con…"
The boss's words were however simply cut off mid sentence as Kael swung his hammer as fast and as cruelly as possible at the unassuming and still dazed looking silent man.
The decision was instant. A clean snap in Kael's mind. He didn't hesitate, because hesitation was how a hidden monster's jaws would end up in someone's neck later, when everyone was comfortable.
The hammer met the man's jaw with a sickening impact, the sound like wet wood splitting. Flesh and bone gave way, and the lower jaw tore off from its hinges.
Blood sprayed.
But the silent man did not scream.
He did not even fall the way a human fell.
"FUCKER! HE IS A TRAITOR! KILL HIM!" one of the men howled.
The camp exploded into movement. Chairs scraped. Stone weapons rose. People charged at Kael with fear in their eyes and fury in their throats.
Kael's chest tightened. For half a heartbeat, the worst possibility flashed through him. That they would kill him first, and realize the truth after. That he would die for doing the right thing.
"WAIT!" Kael said as he raised both hands up.
The boss who was about to stab Kael in the chest hesitated when he saw his defensive posture.
The knife hovered inches from Kael's tracksuit.
The boss's eyes were locked onto Kael's face, searching for panic, for guilt, for the twitch of a liar.
"You fucker better have a good reason for what you did!"
Kael swallowed, forced his voice steady. "Yeah, have you ever seen a human with his lower jaw torn off like that, stand still as if nothing happened?" Kael said as he pointed with the hammer toward the man who seemed to not even realize that half his face was missing.
The creature's head tilted slightly.
Its ruined mouth gaped, blood pouring down its neck.
And it still didn't scream.
The boss's eyes widened. The recognition hit him like a punch.
"That… Doppelganger!"
Immediately, the whole base turned to chaos.