The morning mist in the Aurelian Reach didn't smell like blood; it smelled of damp earth, blooming lavender, and the home-cooked bread Verdinand's mother had pressed into his shaking hands.
"You don't have to go, Verd," his younger brother, Leo, whispered, clinging to the hem of Verdinand's travel-worn tunic.
Verdinand Dexon, eighteen years old and barely standing five-foot-six, looked down at his brother with a smile that was far too wide and far too innocent for the world he was about to enter.
He ran a hand through his messy brown hair, his D-tier fire mana flickering weakly in his palms like a dying candle—a warm, comforting glow.
"The Reach is beautiful, Leo, but I can't protect it with D-tier sparks," Verdinand said, his voice soft.
"If I join the guilds in the capital, I can send money home. Maybe I can find a catalyst to help my mana grow. I'll be back before the winter harvests, I promise."
His mother wept, and his father, a man of few words and calloused hands, simply gripped his shoulder.
"The world outside the Reach isn't like the stories, son. People don't always want what's best for you."
Verdinand laughed, a bright, clear sound. "I'm a mage, Father. I'll be fine."
He turned away then, his pack heavy with dreams and dried meat, beginning the long trek toward the Kingdom of Solmere.
He walked for twelve days, sleeping under the stars, his heart fluttering with every rustle in the bushes.
He was a boy who still believed that kindness was a currency, and that the "D" rank etched into his copper identification plate was just a starting point, not a sentence.
-
Solmere was a city of jagged obsidian spires and shadows that stretched longer than they should.
By the time Verdinand reached the Great Guild Hall, his boots were falling apart and his belly was hollow.
The hall was a chaotic hive of armored giants and mages draped in silk, all of them looking at him as if he were an insect to be stepped on.
He stood before the quest board, his eyes scanning the notices.
Every decent-paying job required a C-rank or higher, or a balanced party.
He was a solo D-rank fire mage with no combat experience.
Despair began to itch at the back of his throat.
"You look like a boy who's lost his way, or perhaps one who's just found his destiny."
The voice was like honey poured over velvet.
Verdinand turned and felt his breath catch.
Standing before him was a woman who seemed to defy the grim atmosphere of the hall.
She was tall—at least 5'8"—towering over him with an effortless, predatory grace.
Her hair was a river of spun silver, and her armor was fashioned from white scales that hugged every curve of her voluptuous frame.
Her breasts were encased in a polished breastplate that seemed barely able to contain them, the swell of her cleavage drawing Verdinand's innocent eyes before he blushed furiously and looked at his boots.
"I... I'm Verdinand," he stammered. "I'm looking for work."
"I am Isolde Riversong," she said, tilting his chin up with a gloved finger. Her eyes were a piercing, unnatural blue.
"My party is headed to the Sunken Ossuary. We're short one caster. Fire-aligned, preferably. Are you a fire mage, Verdinand?"
"I am! D-tier, but I'm very diligent!"
Isolde smiled, and for a moment, the world felt warm.
"D-tier is perfect for what we need. Come. Meet the boys."
She led him to a corner table where four men sat.
They were massive, scarred, and wore the heavy plate of veteran mercenaries.
"This is Garrick," Isolde said, pointing to a man with a jagged scar running from his temple to his jaw.
He looked like he'd been chewed by a wolf and spat out.
"Aurelian Reach, eh?" Garrick asked, his voice a low rumble as he looked at the crest on Verdinand's cloak.
"I've spent time there. The villages are... quiet. Plenty of soft targets."
"It's a beautiful place," Verdinand said, heartened by the connection.
"I'd love to meet your family one day, kid," Garrick said, a strange, yellow-toothed grin spreading across his face.
"I bet they're just as soft-featured as you."
Isolde ran a hand over Verdinand's shoulder, her thumb grazing his neck.
"He does have sharp features, doesn't he? Very typical of the Reach bloodline. Such a handsome little spark."
Verdinand beamed. He felt like he had finally found his place. He agreed to join them without even asking about the split of the loot.
The journey to the Sunken Ossuary took three days.
Along the way, the party treated Verdinand with a strange, intense focus.
They fed him well, and Isolde spent the nights sitting close to him by the fire, her body heat radiating through her thin gambeson, whispering stories of the riches they would find.
Verdinand, in his innocence, felt a crush developing—a deep, aching longing for this goddess who had plucked him from obscurity.
As they reached the yawning maw of the dungeon—a hole in the side of a blighted mountain—Isolde turned to the group.
"Listen well," she said, her voice dropping its honeyed tone for something sharper.
"The Ossuary has three layers. We clear the first two, we reach the sanctum, and we take the Heart of the Dragon. Do not stray. Do not hesitate."
They entered.
The first layer was easy.
Skeletons with brittle bones rose from the dust, only to be crushed by Garrick's mace or shattered by the other three men.
Verdinand tried to cast his firebolts, but the men were so fast they barely left him a target.
"Stay back, little spark," Isolde whispered, shielding him with her own body.
"We need your mana full for the end. Don't waste it on these husks."
They descended into the second layer.
The air grew thick with the smell of ozone and rot.
Here, the shadows birthed Goblins—vicious, green-skinned runts with jagged daggers—and lumbering Stone Golems that shook the floor.
A goblin leaped from a ledge, its blade aimed directly at Verdinand's throat.
He froze, his hands trembling as he tried to summon a flame.
Before the blade could bite, Isolde's sword flashed, decapitating the creature in a spray of black ichor.
She pulled Verdinand into her side, the cold metal of her armor pressing against his cheek.
"I told you, I'll protect you," she murmured. "You're far too precious to lose yet."
Verdinand felt a surge of gratitude so strong it almost made him cry.
He followed them deeper, past the wreckage of stone and flesh, until they stood before a massive door of tarnished gold.
Ancient script was carved into the metal, glowing with a faint, sickly purple light.
Isolde stepped forward, tracing the runes with her fingers.
She read them in silence, a slow, dark smile spreading across her lips.
"Exactly as the reports said," she whispered. She turned to Garrick and nodded.
"Is something wrong?" Verdinand asked, stepping forward. "What does it say?"
Isolde turned to him.
The warmth in her eyes had vanished, replaced by a cold, predatory vacuum.
"It says that the path to the Core is barred by a Guardian of Hunger. A dragon of the old world, sleeping in a state of eternal fury. If it wakes in anger, the entire mountain collapses, burying the treasure forever."
"How do we get past it?" Verdinand asked, his heart beginning to thud against his ribs.
Isolde stepped closer, her hand reaching out to stroke his cheek one last time.
"The script is very specific, Verdinand. The only way to calm the Guardian's fury is to provide a 'Satiation of Flesh.' A blood sacrifice. A human soul to dull its hunger while we take the Heart."
Verdinand blinked, his mind struggling to process the words.
"A... sacrifice? But... we can find another way..."
"We already found the way, Verdinand," Isolde said, her voice dropping to a hiss.
"Why do you think we picked a D-tier brat from the Reach? No one will miss you. No guild will investigate the disappearance of a low-rank nobody with no connections."
Verdinand turned to run, but a hand like an iron vise clamped onto his shoulder.
Garrick sneered down at him, his other hand covering Verdinand's mouth to stifle his scream.
"Don't worry, kid," Garrick whispered into his ear.
"I'll remember what you said about your family. Maybe I'll go pay them that visit after all."
Isolde pushed the golden doors open.
The room beyond was gargantuan, a cathedral of bone and gold.
In the center lay a mountain of scales—a dragon, its hide the color of dried blood, its breath coming in long, rattling heaves that smelled of sulfur.
The party moved with practiced silence, Garrick dragging the struggling Verdinand toward the center of the chamber.
Verdinand kicked, he clawed, his fingernails tearing against Garrick's leather bracers, but he was nothing against the veteran's strength.
Suddenly, one of the other men tripped over a loose pile of coins.
The metallic clatter echoed like a thunderclap in the silent chamber.
The dragon's eyes snapped open. They were vertical slits of molten gold.
"NOW!" Isolde screamed.
Garrick didn't hesitate.
He swung Verdinand by the collar and threw him with all his might directly at the dragon's head.
Verdinand hit the cold, gold-strewn floor with a bone-jarring thud.
He scrambled to his feet, but the dragon was already upon him. It didn't roar; it simply struck with the speed of a viper.
The beast's jaws clamped down on Verdinand's left side.
CRUNCH.
A sound like a tree branch snapping echoed through the vault.
Verdinand didn't scream at first—the shock was too great.
He looked down to see his left arm severed at the shoulder, disappearing into the dragon's gullet.
The beast bit again, lower this time, its teeth shearing through his hip and thigh.
His left leg was torn away in a spray of hot, arterial red.
Then came the agony.
It was a white-hot explosion that erased the world.
Verdinand fell back, the dragon's teeth grazing his groin, tearing away his reproductive organs along with a massive chunk of his lower abdomen.
His intestines began to spill onto the gold coins like glistening pink snakes.
"PLEASE!" he finally found his voice, a pathetic, gurgling shriek.
"ISOLDE! HELP ME!"
Isolde didn't even look at him.
She was sprinting toward the pedestal at the back of the room.
Verdinand tried to crawl.
He used his one remaining hand to drag his mangled torso across the floor, leaving a thick, wide trail of gore behind him.
Every movement sent waves of neurological fire through his brain.
"Finish him, he's making too much noise!" Isolde yelled over her shoulder.
Garrick pulled a heavy javelin from his back.
He took aim and hurled it.
The spear didn't kill Verdinand; it hit him square in the center of his back.
The steel tip punched through his spine, shattering the vertebrae and pinning him to the stone floor like a butterfly in a display case.
Verdinand's lower body went numb, but the pain in his chest and head intensified.
He lay there, his face pressed into the cold stone, watching his own blood pool around his eyes.
The dragon, however, was still agitated. It turned its head away from the mangled boy, its nostrils flaring as it looked toward the party.
"It's not enough!" one of the men yelled. "The boy is too small! It's still hungry!"
Isolde's eyes darted around. She looked at the man who had tripped earlier. "Garrick. Him."
"What?! No! Isolde—"
Garrick and the other two men didn't hesitate.
They knew the dragon's temper.
They grabbed their own comrade, a man who had laughed with them only hours ago, and threw him into the dragon's open maw.
The man's screams were cut short by a wet, sickening gulp.
The dragon, finally satiated by the larger meal, let out a long puff of smoke and settled back onto its hoard, its eyes drifting shut.
Isolde grabbed the Heart—a pulsing red gem—and began to lead the survivors toward the exit.
"What about the brat?" Garrick asked, glancing at Verdinand's pinned, twitching body.
"Leave him," Isolde said, her voice bored.
"The spear hit the trap trigger tile. He's going down into the disposal pits. The wolves will finish what the dragon started."
As she spoke, the floor tile beneath Verdinand's torso groaned.
It flipped downward like a trapdoor.
Verdinand fell, the spear ripping out of the floor but staying lodged in his back, through a dark chute.
He hit the bottom of a damp, filth-ridden pit with a wet thud.
He was barely conscious.
His vision was a hazy red blur.
He could hear a sound—the low, hungry growling of Scavenger Wolves.
He felt their cold noses against his exposed entrails.
He felt a sharp tug as one of them began to pull on his loose intestines, dragging them across the dirt.
Another wolf began to gnaw on the stump of his shoulder, the sound of teeth scraping bone vibrating through his entire skull.
He wanted to die.
He prayed for the darkness to take him.
He thought of Leo.
He thought of his mother's bread.
He thought of the way Isolde had looked at him before she threw him to the beast.
I hate you, he thought, though he no longer had the breath to speak.
I hate everything.
I want to tear the world apart.
I want to hear them scream like I am screaming.
Suddenly, the world froze.
The snarling of the wolves went silent.
The agony in his nerves didn't vanish, but it was pushed aside by a cold, mechanical weight that descended upon his mind.
A flickering blue light ignited in the darkness of the pit, reflecting in his one remaining, tear-streaked eye.
[Welcome, Verdinand Dexon.]
The text hovered in the air, crisp and uncaring.
[Condition Detected: Total Physical Ruination.]
[Condition Detected: Extreme Psychological Trauma.]
[Condition Detected: Heartbeat 12 BPM... 10 BPM... 8 BPM...]
[Criteria Met for Emergency Protocol Initiation.]
[Congratulations on being selected as the user of the HUMILIATION PROTOCOL.]
[The world looked at you and saw a footstool. We expect great things from you.]
[Initialization... 1%... 5%...]
Verdinand watched the screen, his fading consciousness clinging to the blue light as the wolves began to tear a fresh hole in his throat.
[PROTOCOL ACTIVATED: SURVIVE.]