The call came in less than twelve hours after the accord was finalized.
An unstable dungeon.
Category: fluctuating mid-tier.Location: industrial outskirts, partially evacuated.Response level: A-rank containment with S-rank oversight.
Routine—on paper.
Joon-seok read the report twice, not because it was alarming, but because it wasn't.
"That's fast," he said.
Se-rin glanced at the screen from across the table. "They want to see if you behave differently now that there are terms."
"Or if the terms behave differently around me," Joon-seok replied.
She didn't smile.
The site was already sealed when they arrived. Temporary barriers hummed with mana suppression fields, and drones traced lazy arcs overhead, mapping fluctuations in real time.
Too clean.
Unstable dungeons were messy by nature—spikes, erratic spawns, sudden collapses. This one felt… disciplined.
Joon-seok stood just outside the perimeter, hands in his pockets, eyes unfocused.
He didn't need to look directly.
He never had.
Inside, the strike team moved with practiced efficiency. An A-rank vanguard, two supports, one scout.
Their movements synchronized almost immediately.
Joon-seok frowned.
That wasn't his doing.
Not yet.
"Anything?" Se-rin asked quietly.
"Nothing obvious," he replied. "That's the problem."
She followed his gaze. "You're not influencing them?"
"No."
The scout paused suddenly, adjusted his path by half a step, and avoided a mana sink that hadn't appeared on the map yet.
The support behind him mirrored the movement a second later.
Joon-seok's brow creased.
He focused.
Carefully. Gently. The way he always did.
A nudge. A suggestion. A probability made slightly more favorable.
The response was immediate.
Too immediate.
The vanguard shifted formation—perfectly compensating for a threat that hadn't fully manifested. Spawns emerged and were neutralized before their patterns stabilized.
Clean. Efficient.
Predictive.
Se-rin noticed his stillness. "Joon-seok."
"I know," he said.
"What?"
"They're not reacting to me," he said slowly. "They're moving as if they already accounted for my input."
That got her full attention.
Inside the dungeon, the mana density spiked.
Normally, that caused hesitation. A moment of recalibration.
This time, the team pushed forward.
Straight into it.
"Pull them back," Se-rin ordered into her comm.
The reply came instantly. "Negative. We've already adjusted."
Adjusted how?
Joon-seok's gaze sharpened.
He widened his perception—not influence, just observation.
Threads of intent. Decision pathways. Micro-adjustments in posture and timing.
That's when he saw it.
A gap.
Not an absence.
A blind spot.
Where his perception slid off instead of anchoring.
His breath slowed.
That had never happened before.
"Se-rin," he said quietly, "there's something inside the dungeon that isn't reacting to observation."
She stiffened. "Say that again."
"It's behaving as if—" He stopped.
As if it knew when it was being watched.
Inside, the dungeon shifted.
Walls reconfigured with surgical precision. A corridor sealed behind the team, not trapping them—guiding them.
Leading them somewhere.
"This isn't instability," Se-rin said flatly. "This is structure."
Joon-seok nodded. "Adaptive structure."
The worst kind.
He reached again—not to influence, but to understand.
The blind spot moved.
That's when it clicked.
"It's not the dungeon," he said.
Se-rin turned sharply. "Then what is it?"
Joon-seok swallowed.
"It's something using the dungeon the way I use people."
Inside, the strike team stopped at the same moment.
All of them.
As if waiting.
Joon-seok felt it then.
Not pressure.
Not hostility.
Attention.
Focused. Curious.
Patient.
For the first time since his awakening, Joon-seok did something instinctively.
He pulled back.
And somewhere deep within the dungeon—
Something adjusted its plan.
Joon-seok forced himself not to move.
Whatever had taken notice of him inside the dungeon—whatever had adjusted when he pulled back—wasn't reacting to panic. It was reacting to intent.
He kept his breathing steady and did the one thing he'd learned to do better than anyone else.
He observed himself.
Inside the dungeon, the team remained frozen.
Not paralyzed.
Waiting.
The mana density flattened, smoothing out into something unnaturally stable. Even the ambient noise—the low, grinding hum that always accompanied unstable dungeons—fell silent.
Se-rin's hand tightened around her weapon.
"This isn't a trap," she said quietly. "It's a stage."
Joon-seok didn't answer.
He was staring at the blind spot again.
It had shifted—slightly closer this time.
He extended his perception with deliberate restraint, peeling back layers the way he always did. Decisions. Intent. Probability.
Where he should have found resistance…
There was anticipation.
Like someone finishing his thoughts before he completed them.
"Command," Se-rin snapped into the comm. "Full withdrawal. Now."
Static.
Then: "Negative. Route sealed. We're… not under attack."
Her jaw clenched. "Explain."
A pause.
"…It feels like we're expected to continue."
Joon-seok felt a chill crawl up his spine.
Expected.
That word didn't belong in dungeon reports.
He tried something else.
Instead of reaching outward, he traced the effects backward—following the ripple of influence to its source.
Normally, that led to people.
Or systems.
This time, it led nowhere.
Then—
Something noticed him tracing.
The blind spot sharpened.
Joon-seok staggered half a step back.
Se-rin caught him instantly. "What happened?"
"There's a feedback loop," he said, voice tight. "Every time I observe, something refines itself."
"To counter you?"
"No," he said. "To learn me."
Inside the dungeon, the first entity appeared.
Not a monster.
A construct.
Humanoid in shape, smooth and unfinished, like a sketch waiting for details. It didn't attack. It tilted its head—mirroring the angle Joon-seok had unconsciously taken moments earlier.
The strike team didn't move.
They were watching it.
And it was watching… past them.
"That thing," Se-rin said slowly, "is looking at you."
"I know."
Joon-seok's heart pounded—not with fear, but with something colder.
Recognition.
He felt it then.
Not from the dungeon.
Not from the construct.
From behind his own perception.
A presence he had never questioned because it had always been there.
"…System," Joon-seok said softly.
No alert.
No text.
Just a pause.
Then a voice—lower than usual. Stripped of its practiced neutrality.
"You should disengage."
Se-rin's head snapped toward him. "What?"
Joon-seok didn't take his eyes off the dungeon feed. "That's the first time you've said that."
Another pause.
Longer.
"Yes."
"Why?" Joon-seok asked.
The construct inside the dungeon took one step forward.
So did his answer.
"Because the deviation has been identified."
Joon-seok's fingers curled slowly. "Identified by who?"
The system hesitated.
Not processing delay.
Choice.
"By an external observer."
The words settled heavily.
Se-rin's voice was sharp. "Explain. Now."
Joon-seok swallowed. "The system isn't just helping me."
The construct's surface rippled, features refining—eyes forming with unsettling familiarity.
"It's been watching me."
"Correction," the system said quietly."I was assigned to you."
Assigned.
Not born.
Not awakened.
Assigned.
Joon-seok felt something in his understanding fracture and realign.
"You're not my ability," he said.
"No."
"You're not even my system."
"I am an interface."
The construct inside the dungeon raised its head fully now.
And smiled.
Se-rin took a step forward. "Joon-seok, pull out. Now."
He couldn't.
Not because he was trapped.
Because something fundamental had just become clear.
"Since when?" he asked the system.
Another silence.
Then—
"Since the first anomalous probability curve," it replied."Which occurred before your awakening."
Before.
His.
Awakening.
The dungeon shook—not violently, but deliberately. Like a breath being taken.
The construct spoke for the first time.
Its voice didn't echo through the dungeon.
It echoed through Joon-seok.
"Observer."
Not hostile.
Curious.
Joon-seok exhaled slowly.
"So," he said, eyes never leaving the feed, "I was never the only one."
The system didn't deny it.
"No."
A beat.
Then the truth it had avoided.
"You were simply the first to notice."
The construct took another step forward.
And this time—
Joon-seok felt himself being understood.
— End of Volume 1