The Minotaur's fist looked less like a hand and more like a biological siege engine.
I saw it coming. I calculated the trajectory. I realized, with the calm clarity of a man about to be turned into paste, that I had exactly zero options.
No armor. No sword. No dignity.
"Inventory!" I screamed, my voice cracking like a cheap plate.
The blue holographic window snapped open in front of my face. Time slowed—a perk of the System's panic mode.
[INVENTORY: EMPTY]
"Oh, come on!" I kicked off the dungeon wall, narrowly avoiding the stone pillar the Minotaur pulverized a millisecond later. Dust exploded. Shards of granite sliced my cheek.
My name is Hiro. I am an F-Rank Porter. My job is to carry bags for real Hunters. Today, the real Hunters died five minutes ago. Now, I was running laps in a Boss Room with nothing but a torn shirt and a credit card debt I'd never get to pay off.
The Minotaur roared, a sound that smelled like sulfur and rotting meat. It charged again, horns lowered, intent on making me a stain on the floor of Floor 1.
I rolled under a swinging club, my stamina bar flashing red.
[STAMINA: 5/100]
"System!" I yelled, scrambling backward through the dirt. "Starter Pack! Open the Starter Pack! Give me a weapon! A dagger! A spoon! Anything!"
A golden notification chimed, blissfully unaware that its user was wetting his pants.
[OPENING STARTER GACHA...][DETECTING CLASS: WEAPON MASTER...][ROLLING...]
Please be a sword. Please be a sword.
The spinning wheel in my vision blurred. Common (White). Uncommon (Green). Rare (Blue).
Then, the world stuttered.
The blue screen flickered. Static noise blasted through my skull. The spinning wheel didn't stop on a color. It shattered.
[ERROR. ERROR. VARIABLE OVERFLOW.][DROP RATE MODIFIER CORRUPTED: ∞%][CONVERTING ASSET ID: "SWORD" >>> "SWORD_SPIRIT_01"]
"What?" I gasped.
A pillar of golden light—the kind reserved for SSS-Rank divine items—erupted from the ceiling. It didn't land in my hand. It crashed into the floor between me and the Minotaur, cracking the bedrock.
The dust settled.
There was no sword.
Standing in the crater was a girl.
She had silver hair that defied gravity, eyes like sharpened diamonds, and a dress made of white silk and ethereal armor. She looked like she had walked out of a high-budget fantasy movie, bringing the budget with her.
She looked at the Minotaur. She looked at me. She blinked.
"Are you..." She tilted her head, her voice sounding like wind chimes. "Are you my Master?"
The Minotaur didn't care about anime intros. It swung its tree-trunk club down at her head.
"Look out!" I lunged forward.
My instinct was to grab a weapon. The System told me I had a weapon. My brain short-circuited.
[SYSTEM HINT: TO USE ITEM, PLEASE EQUIP.]
"Equip!" I shouted.
I grabbed her hand.
[EQUIPPED: SSS-RANK SWORD SPIRIT - SYLVIA][PASSIVE ACTIVATED: "SHARPNESS OF THE GODS"]
The moment my skin touched hers, I didn't feel flesh. I felt steel. Not cold, hard metal, but the metaphysical concept of cutting.
The girl—Sylvia—gasped, her cheeks flushing a violent shade of crimson. "M-Master? Not in public!"
"Block it!" I screamed, yanking her arm.
I didn't swing a sword. I swung the girl. Well, I tried to. Instead, she pirouetted. It was graceful, terrifying, and completely lethal. She raised one delicate, manicured finger toward the descending club.
BOOM.
The sound wasn't a clash. It was an amputation.
The Minotaur's club—and the arm holding it, and the shoulder attached to the arm, and the dungeon wall behind the shoulder—split in half. Cleanly. As if they had simply decided to stop being whole.
The upper half of the Minotaur slid off the lower half with a wet thud.
Silence.
The dust swirled. The massive boss monster dissolved into black smoke, leaving behind a pile of loot I was too shocked to look at.
I stood there, panting, my hand still gripping the hand of a silver-haired girl who could apparently cut physics in half.
[ENEMY DEFEATED][EXP GAINED: 5000]
I looked at my hand. I looked at her.
"You..." I stammered. "You're a sword?"
Sylvia smoothed her dress, looking everywhere except at me. She was steaming. Literally. Little hearts were floating above her head in the UI.
"I am the Spirit of the World-Severing Blade, yes," she murmured, squeezing my hand back with enough force to nearly crush my metacarpals. "But... to hold my hand so boldly... on the first date..."
"It was a combat maneuver!"
"You have bold technique, Master." She looked up, her diamond eyes swirling with a terrifying intensity. "I accept. I will cut down anyone who looks at you. Anyone. Even your mother."
"Wait, don't cut my mother."
"Too late. My devotion is eternal."
I pulled my hand away. "Okay. Time out. System, what is this?"
I pulled up the Inventory screen again. I expected to see the "Sword" icon gone, replaced by "Sylvia."
But the screen was blinking.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION][GACHA BATCH COMPLETE][ITEMS PENDING IN INVENTORY: 99+]
"Batch?" I whispered. "I only rolled once."
[GLITCH DETECTED. ROLL REPEATED UNTIL INVENTORY FULL.]
I tapped the inventory tab.
My stomach dropped through the floor.
Usually, an inventory is a grid of boxes. Mine was a list. A list of names.
Slot 1: Sylvia (Sword Spirit) [ACTIVE]Slot 2: Ignis (Dragon Empress) [WAITING]Slot 3: Elara (Saintess of Life) [WAITING]Slot 4: Roxanne (Shadow Assassin) [WAITING] ... Slot 100: [ERROR_ENTITY_UNKNOWN]
I scrolled down. And down. One hundred names. One hundred SSS-Rank entities.
"Master?" Sylvia stepped closer, her voice dropping an octave. The air temperature plummeted. "Why are you looking at a list of other women's names?"
I froze.
I looked at Sylvia. She was summoning a spectral blade the size of a bus. Her eyes had lost their shine. They were dark. Dead dark.
[WARNING: JEALOUSY DEBUFF DETECTED][DURABILITY OF MC'S SPINE: CRITICAL]
"I..." I swallowed dryly. "I can explain."
"You have an inventory," she whispered, pointing the bus-sized sword at my nose. "Are there... hussies inside your inventory, Master?"
"They're items! Just items!"
"Then take them out," she smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "So I can break them."
My phone—which miraculously survived the Minotaur—buzzed in my pocket. A text message from the bank.
I looked at the dead Minotaur. I looked at the yandere sword spirit. I looked at the 99 other problems waiting in my pocket dimension.
I just wanted a rusty iron sword.
"System," I whispered. "Log out. Please."
[SYSTEM ERROR: YOU ARE IN COMBAT.]
"The monster is dead!"
[CORRECTION: THE SOCIAL COMBAT HAS JUST BEGUN.]
Sylvia grabbed my collar. "Master? Who is Ignis? Why is she in Slot 2? Is she better than me?"
I closed my eyes.
This wasn't a dungeon anymore. It was a minefield. And I had just stepped on the first click.