So Many Ways to Suffer in a Tutorial (Part I)

Nathan cracked one eye open.

It was still dark outside.

Lamplight drifted in from the street, illuminating the ceiling above him.

Smooth white. The inn. The same ceiling he’d woken up to for weeks.

Woke up early. Again.

It had been happening more often — this unsettling, rested feeling. No weight pinning him to the mattress. No post-dungeon soreness clamping his shoulders. No faint knee throb from twelve hours of sprinting, dodging, and trying not to die in creatively humiliating ways.

Just… lightness.

He rolled his head on the pillow, waiting for the familiar chorus of pops.

Nothing.

He felt wide awake. Might as well get ready for another day of dungeon torture. He sat up in one smooth motion.

Still nothing. No protesting muscles. No bone-deep fatigue hanging on him like wet laundry. He stood, half expecting reality to catch up.

It didn’t.

“Okay,” he whispered to the empty room. “Weird. Maybe the skills really are kicking in.”

He bounced on the balls of his feet. His body absorbed it easily.

Last night he’d practically face-planted onto the mattress, brain ringing with Kieran nagging him, monster roars, CHIMEs, and timer beeps. Now he felt like he’d slept a whole week.

He absolutely had not.

Nathan flicked his fingers. The blue panel snapped open like a reflex.

Tutorial Progress: 60%
Overall Progress: 0.0061%

“Still sixty,” he muttered. “Still pathetic decimals. Cool.”

He swiped to the skills tab.

Skills:
Basic Footwork I
Dodging I
Digger I
Improved Grip
Basic Balance I
Sturdy Knees

The same grab-bag of participation trophies. Except his knees didn’t hurt. And the last few levels he’d dodged more death-traps on purpose than by luck.

“God, I hate that these might actually be working,” he said, narrowing his eyes at Sturdy Knees like it had personally betrayed him.

The room stayed quiet.

Outside, faint voices drifted through the window. NPC chatter. Morning routines. The kind of scripted friendliness that should’ve creeped him out more than it did. He hated how used to it he was already. He didn’t want to be used to it. He wanted out of here just as much as Kieran did.

More skills would be nice. But did any of this work outside this place? Was all of it going to be meaningless?

He grabbed his boots, shoving his feet in without bothering to lace them properly. Shirt, cloak. Good enough. He didn’t check the mirror. His face didn’t matter here.

He headed down the hallway, then down the stairs into the inn’s common room. It was mostly empty. A maid wiped tables with the same fixed smile she always wore, like someone had painted it on.

“Good morning, traveler!” she chimed as he passed.

“Sure,” Nathan said. “We’ll go with that.”

At the bottom of the stairs, the innkeeper stood behind his counter as usual.

“Have a great day, traveler!”

“Uh-huh. Thanks.” Nathan muttered as he slipped through the doors. Lamps still burned along the street, casting soft pools of light on the cobblestones.

The restaurant only opened after they returned at night, but the square usually had merchants setting out their wares. The bakery opened early. He’d started grabbing breakfast there the last week. No money was ever exchanged for anything here.

I suppose that’s nice.
He hated that it was nice.

Not that he could bring anything into the dungeon. The tutorial ate whatever he tried to carry down. But Kieran always refused to stop for food, and sometimes Nathan grabbed an extra roll just to see if the man would cave one day. He never did.

He was crossing the square toward the bakery when he heard a sharp, irritated “Tch,” followed by the bubbling, eager chorus of NPC greetings.

Nathan stopped mid-step.

Kieran.

He was standing just outside the village entrance, staring up at the sign.

Oh yeah. I never asked him about that.

Several NPCs stood just inside the village, baskets on their arms and smiles perfectly in place.

“Would you like a flower, traveler?”
“How about a pastry, dear?”

Another soft, annoyed “Tch.”

Nathan stifled a laugh as he headed toward him. They must have mobbed him on his return from his perimeter walk.

Did he even sleep?

“Morning, sir.”

One of the NPCs shifted her basket and chirped at Nathan, “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes. We don’t need anything.”

They smiled and moved along. “Have a lovely day!”

Nathan nodded politely. He couldn’t help it, even though the reflex irritated him.

Kieran didn’t look away from the sign.

“Draegor,” he said, low and cutting. “I finally remembered where I’ve seen these glyphs.”

“Oh. Yes.” Nathan stepped beside him and looked up at the carved message.

Step forward only if your spirit stands unwavering. Beyond this gate all are weighed without mercy. Those who seize the power will inherit our legacy. May Aevandor be avenged.

Kieran shot him a cold, sideways look. “The ones from your book. The relic. You can read this.”

“Oh. Right. My… book.”

His stomach dipped.

More like Mason’s relic book I’ve only seen once because Nyx handed me that illusion copy to show you.

“Go on.”

“Huh?”

“Read.”

Nathan swallowed. “Right.” He read it aloud, carefully avoiding the detail that every sign here was translated into English for him.

Kieran absorbed the message in silence.

“What do you think? Anything sound familiar to you?”

After a moment he said, “No.”

Figures.

But he didn’t walk away. He kept staring at the sign like it might suddenly make sense.

“Aevandor,” Kieran said, testing the syllables. They sat strangely in his mouth. “You said Aevandor.”

“Yep. Aevandor.” Nathan glanced at the carving again to be sure.

“Does it remind you of anything?” Kieran asked.

Nathan’s brain did a panicked scramble.

“It’s a weird word,” he said quickly. “Lots of weird words out there.”

Kieran held his gaze.

“Nothing,” he pressed. “Think.”

Nathan made himself huff. “Sir, I woke up five minutes ago. My thinking capacity is at, like, ten percent.”

“Tch,” Kieran said — almost absently.

He didn’t look away from Nathan.

For a second, Nathan thought he might actually push. Demand. Drag the truth out by force.

Instead, Kieran’s shoulders eased by a fraction.

He tipped his head back toward the sign one last time. When he spoke, his voice was softer. Rough.

“Aevandor,” he repeated quietly. “It sounds like Aevor.”

The word landed between them like a drop of ink in clear water.

Aevor.

Nathan’s heart gave a hard, ugly kick. Aevor?
… I’m sure I’ve seen that somewhere.

“What’s Aevor?” he asked, too quickly.

Kieran stilled—just a small tightening in his jaw, a flicker of disbelief—before he forced it down. “What’s… Ae—” He cut himself off. His eyes lingered on Nathan a heartbeat longer, searching.

Nathan waited.

Kieran’s mouth pressed into a hard line.

He watched Nathan in taut silence for a moment that felt like it might stretch forever. Nathan could see the calculation in his eyes. The weighing. The not-quite-trust and not-quite-hatred, the whole mess of whatever lived in Kieran’s head.

“You truly have no idea,” Kieran said at last.

It wasn’t accusation.

It sounded almost like he was talking to himself.

Nathan’s throat closed.

Probably something Mason would know. Probably something the real owner of this face could have recited in his sleep.

Kieran looked away first.

He set his jaw and walked down the cobblestone toward the square.

“Come, Draegor,” he said. “Let us begin another day in this cursed place.”

He didn’t say tutorial.

Nathan’s feet moved automatically, falling into step a pace behind.

Behind Kieran’s broad shoulders, the village unfurled in its fake, charming perfection. Early vendors setting up stalls. A cart rattled by. Lanterns being snuffed one by one as the sky lightened.

His heart was still hammering.

Aevor. Aevor.

The syllables rolled through his skull as they walked, bouncing off memories buried under panic and exhaustion and almost two months in this world.

FLASH.

Mason’s manor. The study. A desk buried in papers. Maps spread across a table, ink lines tracing borders.

Ronan’s brisk, brutal crash course in how not to get exposed as an imposter of Boss Draegor during introductions.

He saw himself again, sitting numbly while Ronan tapped a map with his knuckles.

“Aevor,” Ronan had said, “encompasses seven countries and many territories. Memorize at least some of these before you open your mouth in public without knowing this much.”

At the time, Nathan had stared at the sweeping letters and thought: Wow. Fantasy Earth with bonus vowels. Cute.

He’d meant to memorize it. There had been too much to learn in too little time.

Now the memory snapped into focus so sharply it almost hurt.

Aevor is the name of this entire world.
And I just asked Kieran, out loud,
What’s Aevor?

He’d spent weeks terrified of slipping. And here he’d faceplanted off the biggest cliff of all without even noticing.

His heart dropped to his boots.

Mason would definitely know that.

Fuck.

He watched Kieran’s back as they walked, waiting for the explosion that never came. No accusations. No interrogation.

What is he thinking right now?

Kieran just marched — purposeful, controlled, a little too stiff.

Nathan dragged a hand over his face.

He didn’t even yell at me. What does that mean?

Kieran reached the obelisk and placed his hand on it. Glanced at Nathan.

“Let’s go… Draegor.”

That tiny pause made Nathan’s stomach drop.

“Another day in hell, huh?” Nathan chuckled nervously.

Kieran’s mouth twitched.

“Try not to fall behind today.”

Nathan swallowed a smile that felt too shaky to risk.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

I guess we’re both pretending that never happened. Fine. Safer for now. Still forty percent to go… whatever that actually means. And that damn overall percentage? Where would they end up when they cleared the tutorial?

***

CHIME
CHIME

He never did find a mute button. There probably wasn’t one. He was damn sick of that sound.

The days that followed turned into a strange kind of rhythm.

The dungeon did not ease up.

It just stopped feeling quite so impossible.

Even without possessing mana. Or having it locked. Or whatever the hell his situation actually was.

The days blurred together into floor after floor—undead, wolves, goblins, puzzle rooms.

Even the bizarre ones—like that floor full of goblins stacked three high trying to ambush them from doorframes.

Nothing stayed the same, but everything started making sense faster than it should have. Nathan’s feet were reacting quicker than his fear. His timing cleaner. His decisions sharper.

The next disaster involved skeletons.

Floor forty-six was an entire maze of skeletons and slow, dragging undead. Not impressive ones either. Rusted armor. Chipped swords. The kind of enemies that should have been embarrassing to struggle against.

The whole thing was becoming incredibly predictable.
Not the floors—never the floors. Just me finally keeping up.

He’d been decent with a sword since he arrived.
Mason’s body came preloaded with skill, and the Calvesset women and Ronan had drilled the rest into him until his arms felt like wet noodles. He could parry, riposte, pivot at the right angles—none of that was new.

What was new was doing it without mana.
Without Bob at his back.
Without the comforting hum of power that used to fill in the gaps when his instincts lagged.
He’d gotten used to wrapping mana around his sword and—boom—problem solved.

His problem had never been technique.
It was the half-beat delay, the moment where his brain tried to catch up to a threat he used to brute-force with mana.

The dungeon moved faster than his brain.

Now, as skeletons lurched out between broken pillars, something felt different. A prickle ran up the back of his neck a heartbeat before one of them swung. His feet shifted without conscious thought. His sword met bone exactly where it needed to.

Skull. Collar. Wrist.

Three quick movements and the thing hit the ground in a clatter. His balance barely shifted.

…Huh.

Okay. Calm down. Don’t look smug. You’re still one bad step from dying like an idiot.

His breathing stayed even. His thoughts didn’t immediately turn into static.

We are moving through floors more quickly now.

CHIME

He ignored the panel until they were in the safe room, then flicked it open with a sigh.

Tutorial Progress: 61%
Overall Progress: 0.0061%

Skills:
Basic Footwork I
Basic Balance I
Dodging I
Digger I
Evasive Recognition I
Peripheral Awareness I
Sturdy Knees
Improved Grip

“Evasive Recognition,” he muttered.

That sounds promising?

A tiny blue pop-up he’d never seen before blinked into existence.

Reward Acquired: Cracked Stamina Gum (texture questionable)
His inventory flickered.

Nathan squinted. “Huh. That’s new. And I’m definitely not eating dungeon gum.”

Kieran glanced over from where he was checking his armor. “Your reflexes are cleaner.”

“Your nagging is louder,” Nathan said.

Kieran made a quiet sound that might have been a very judgmental laugh.

After the skeletons came the things that pretended to be wolves… and then everything else the dungeon felt like throwing at them.

Sometimes it was spiders.
Sometimes goblins.
Sometimes something that looked like an orc if someone had described orcs badly and the dungeon tried to improvise.

Every monster type they’d fought before showed up again in some variation—remixed, rearranged, upgraded. The dungeon didn’t recycle so much as reinterpret.

The creatures were always a little wrong.
Legs a little too long.
Eyes that glowed in the dark.
Jaws that opened wider than any normal anatomy should allow.
Movements that were more smoke and teeth than flesh and bone.

Who designed this place? A twelve-year-old on three cans of Monster?

They hunted in coordinated packs, slipping into flanking angles like they’d studied escape routes between ambush attempts.

Nathan hated them.

Not because he couldn’t hit them—he could.

But because there were too many decisions to make at once.
Which lunge to block.
Which angle to pivot.
When to trust Kieran to intercept.
How not to freeze when three attacks came at different heights.

And now there were puzzles layered into nearly every level.

Tripwires hidden under rubble.
Pressure plates disguised as loose stones.
Patterns in the walls disguised as decorative carvings.

The kind of things his panicked brain used to skip right over.

CHIME

Map Synchronization Update
Enhanced sensory parallelism detected.
User reflex alignment now within acceptable latency range.

Nathan blinked.

“…I’m sorry—acceptable what?”

Even the system was judging his reaction time now.

Weren’t we synchronized already?
Or was I just too panicked to notice?

The map didn’t reveal new territory—just updated faster, sharper, like it had finally decided to keep up with him. Path lines pulsed clearer. Threat markers blinked sooner. Details snapped into place before he consciously understood why.

Almost like his senses and the map were finally speaking the same language.

That’s nice. Just… more synced than before. Cool.

Somewhere around floor fifty, the noise in his head finally quieted.

They came at him in a rush, claws scraping stone. He dropped into stance out of habit. The difference was that his mind didn’t scramble.

The lead beast feinted left.
A second shape gathered on his right, just inside the edge of his vision.
Something in his chest whispered, There.

He pivoted before it moved. His blade caught the second attacker in the shoulder instead of his throat. He rolled with the impact, feet landing where he meant them to instead of wherever gravity dumped him. A third creature lunged for his legs and he hopped back—just enough, not too far.

His body and his intentions finally matched.

Holy hell… is this what competence feels like? This is illegal.

When the pack lay in pieces and the corridor fell silent, Kieran gave him a long look across the bloody stones. Not surprise. Not quite.

Assessment.

“Better,” he said.

Do NOT smile. Do not. It was barely a compliment. Micro-compliment.

Nathan pretended his heart didn’t do a stupid little lurch at that one bored word. “Told you the skills were doing something. Sturdy Knees.”

Kieran might've smirked.

The floors shifted in small, cruel ways. The undead started mixing with goblins that set simple tripwires and used rusted crossbows. Then goblins with armor. Then goblins that attacked in pairs, one throwing oil and the other striking sparks.

At first it just felt unfair.

Then something clicked.

On one corridor, dart holes lined the walls at chest height. There was nowhere to hide. Old Nathan would have taken a breath and sprinted, praying to literally any higher power that was listening.

New Nathan stared at the stone for a moment. Every third tile on the floor had a faint scuff. A soft hiss sounded from the walls, regular and even.

Don’t overthink it. Don’t choke. You are a man, not a Roomba.

Once he noticed one sequence, the others started showing themselves.

“Two seconds,” he said under his breath. “Left, skip, right, center. Repeat.”

“What?” Kieran asked.

“The darts. They’re firing on a set beat.”

“You are guessing.”

“Only a little.”

He waited, counting in his head. One, two, hiss. A volley of darts cut through the air and clattered against the far wall.

“Step on my mark,” Nathan said. “If this is wrong, you have my full permission to yell at me forever.”

“That is already my intention,” Kieran said.

They moved when he told them to. Three quick steps, a hold, another step. Darts sliced the air where they had just been. They reached the end of the corridor intact, except for one new scratch on Kieran’s bracer.

Kieran looked at him in that unnerving way again.

“That was not luck,” he said.

Please don’t start expecting things from me. I’m fragile.

***

CHIME
Skill Progress: Logic Recognition I → Logic Recognition II

“Yeah,” Nathan admitted. “I’m noticing things more.”

“Do not get reckless.”

“Sir, I have never been further from reckless in my entire life.”

Kieran didn't respond.

The dungeon started to move with patterns he wasn’t missing anymore.
Skeletons that swung in repeating rhythms.
Goblins that attacked on predictable beats.
Wolf-things that circled twice before committing.

Not easy—never easy—but readable now.

Hint: Trainee reaction patterns accelerating.

Cool cool cool, so the dungeon is watching me improve in real time. No pressure.

***

On floor sixty-two, Kieran lunged forward to intercept a charging monster. Nathan grabbed the back of his cloak and yanked him down just as a pendulum blade swept through the space where his head had been.

Kieran hit the ground with a grunt. The blade whooshed overhead and slammed into the opposite wall.

They both stared at the deep gouge in the stone.

“How,” Kieran said slowly, “did you know that.”

Nathan’s heart hammered. “I heard a hitch in the chain.”

Kieran’s brows drew together. “Just once?”

“It was enough.”

Hint: Trainee hazard anticipation improving

He didn’t mention the way his skin prickled a moment before the blade moved—like the dungeon itself inhaled.

The loot drops got stranger.

He still got normal things sometimes—bandages, oil, rope.

Then the system started throwing nonsense at him.

A brass bell no bigger than his thumb.
A stack of three cloudy marbles.
A wooden toy top.
A tiny mirror.

He didn’t know why he kept them—only that the dungeon didn’t do anything without a reason. Even nonsense had patterns here.

And since everything vanished straight into his inventory the moment he touched it, he couldn’t exactly not take them.
If he didn’t want something, he’d have to drop it on purpose—which somehow felt ruder.

Kieran clearly noticed the disappearing act.

“You decided to keep that one as well,” he said, watching the tiny mirror flicker out of existence in Nathan’s hand.

“They dropped,” Nathan said. “I feel rude leaving them on the floor.”

Kieran’s eyes narrowed. “And you believe… these are useful?”

“They might be,” Nathan said defensively. “Sometimes weird items are traps. Sometimes they’re puzzle pieces. Sometimes they’re both.”

Kieran did not look convinced.

Until Nathan shook the brass bell behind a pillar on a later floor. Half a cluster of skeleton archers snapped toward the sound instead of toward his skull.

“See?” Nathan said as bone fragments scattered. “Bell.”

Kieran didn’t look impressed…
but he didn’t tell him to stop collecting things, either.

Their nights changed most of all.

Nathan had expected coldness, or interrogation.
Instead, Kieran simply… started sitting at Nathan’s stolen table.
No announcement. No explanation.
Just silently claiming the seat across from him.

Kieran had stopped doing his nightly perimeter marches—stopped breaking lampposts, stopped denting walls, stopped terrifying NPCs who absolutely did not deserve it.

Nathan still stole a table and two chairs from the restaurant each night; it was nicer eating outside.
And Kieran never commented on the theft.
He just sat.

So they ate together.

The silence wasn’t comfortable.
But it wasn’t hostile.

A strange middle ground.

After a few nights, Kieran began to talk while they ate.

Not about himself—obviously not.
About the dungeon.

“What did you notice about the undead on floor forty-eight,” Kieran asked one night, scooping a spoonful of stew.

“They didn’t rush us right away,” Nathan said. “They… checked positioning first.”

Kieran’s brow twitched. “Positioning.”

“Yeah,” Nathan said. “They always angled themselves toward whoever looked more exposed. Like… little undead tacticians.”

Kieran considered that, silent for a beat.

“What changed when we killed the one with the breastplate.”

“The others adjusted,” Nathan said. “Faster. More direct.”

Kieran’s eyes narrowed. “Why.”

Nathan exhaled. “Because it was leading them. The armor wasn’t just for show—every time it moved, the others mirrored it. Once it was gone, the rest stopped coordinating and just… lunged.”

Kieran watched him for a long moment, expression unreadable.

He gave a single, assessing nod.

Another evening, Kieran tapped the map Nathan had been sketching on scrap parchment. They couldn’t bring notes into the tutorial, but planning in the village was allowed—and Nathan had started tracking anything that felt useful.

“Here,” Kieran said. “You said you sensed something before the wall opened.”

“Yeah. The stones were colder there.”

“You tested it.”

“I had a hand free.”

“…Of course.”

Maybe questions were safer than interrogations.
Maybe this was Kieran’s version of trust.

And once he started, the questions didn’t stop.

“What did you hear on floor sixty-two?”
“How did you know the goblin would dodge left?”
“What made you choose the center path instead of the right one?”

They were real questions now.
With real pauses.
Real question marks.

Nathan tried not to overthink it.

He also caught Kieran staring at him sometimes when Nathan pretended to focus on the map. Not suspicion anymore—evaluation. Comparison. Trying to match Nathan to a version of Draegor that didn’t quite line up.

Nathan always broke the eye contact first.

Tutorial Progress: 72%
Overall Progress: 0.0063%

Nathan squinted at the microscopic number.

“…Still? Seriously?”

He flicked the corner of the panel like it might change its mind.
It didn’t.

Right.
Because of course clearing sixty-nine death-floors meant absolutely nothing to the real system. The Founder layer only cared about… whatever cryptic nonsense it cared about. Not monster slaying. Not puzzles. Not panic attacks survived.

Nathan muttered. “I love arbitrary grading scales.”

By the time they were deep into the sixties, Nathan’s body felt… different.
Not his body—never truly his—but he was finally in tune with it in a way that made all of this feel unfairly real.

He still got tired.
His shoulders still burned.
His ribs still ached where a wolf-thing had clipped him yesterday.

But it took longer for exhaustion to hit.
His breathing settled faster.
The shakes took more to trigger.

And his thoughts stayed clearer in the middle of chaos—
which somehow felt more terrifying than the chaos itself.

Thinking about it wouldn’t save him from whatever the next level had planned.
Moving would.

He dismissed the panel and, a short walk and an obelisk touch later, light swallowed them once more.

CHIME

Environment Initialized:
Hazard parameters updated

Nathan blinked at the panel.

Hint: Time allocation parameters will adjust beyond this point

“Time allocation? …and I’m sorry—environment what now?”

Great.
Fantastic.
The system was inventing new vocabulary just to stress him out.

“What does that even mean,” he muttered. “Were we… un-initialized before? Was everything up till now the warm-up demo mode? Cool. Love that.”

The floor unfurled around them: a long, dim stone corridor that smelled like dust and wet parchment.

Nathan exhaled once, steadying himself.

His shoulders didn’t sag.
His knees didn’t wobble.
His breath didn’t hitch like it used to.

He was adapting.
Against his will, obviously.

But adapting.

***

Kieran scanned the hall, jaw tight. “Something is ahead.”

Nathan didn’t argue. He felt it too—that faint pressure behind his eyes that had started appearing somewhere around Floor fifty-eight. Not danger exactly. More like the world taking a breath before doing something stupid.

They approached a bend—slow, cautious, blades ready.

A sound drifted toward them.

A hum.

A… rhythm?

Nathan frowned. “Is that—”

He paused.

The rhythm wasn’t random.
It had a tempo.
A structure.
A pattern.

The dungeon had been doing this for floors now—enemies moving in beats, attacks firing on cues.
Skeletons in three-count swings, goblins striking on the fourth step, wolf-things circling twice before committing.

Great. If the next floor has a drum solo, I'm uninstalling this world. If only it were that simple.

Kieran shot him a side look. “What?”

“Nothing,” Nathan said. “Something stupid. Let’s… go.”

They turned the corner.

And stopped.

A procession of skeletal figures marched down the corridor in eerie, perfect formation. Bone hands clutched rusted, ancient instruments—horns, cracked drums, crooked flutes. Sick green light flickered in hollow sockets. Torn banners hung from their ribs.

Orchestra of the undead?
Because of course that was a thing now.

Nathan blinked once.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Nope. Absolutely not.”

Kieran didn’t react. “Do they engage?”

Nathan watched the bone-drummer tap out a steady beat with unsettling precision.

“I’m going to guess yes,” he said. “But maybe not yet.”

They stepped forward—and the entire formation shifted, still in perfect rhythm, blocking the path.

Nathan glanced down.

Tiles.
Faint marks.
Line. O. X. Blank.

Oh no.

A musical puzzle.

“Draegor,” Kieran said quietly, “the symbols.”

Nathan stared at them. Something in his mind clicked into place—not translation, not language, more like instinct threaded through weeks of listening to the dungeon breathe.

“It’s a beat,” Nathan said. “If we step wrong, they’ll attack.”

Kieran eyed the orchestra. “You are sure.”

“No,” Nathan said honestly. “But it feels right.”

He pointed. “Line is one step. O is two. X means don’t move. Blank means wait.”

Kieran’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t argue.

Nathan waited.

The skeletal conductor raised its baton.

“Now,” Nathan whispered.

He stepped to a Line tile.
Kieran mirrored him.

The orchestra shifted, opening a path.

Nathan swallowed. “Okay. That’s promising.”

They followed the pattern as the baton moved, weaving between rows of skeletal violinists that twitched in perfect sync. The wrong tile made the nearest skeleton’s skull twitch sharply toward them, bow-arms lifting.

Nathan’s heart hammered—but his brain stayed steady.
He could see the pattern.
Predict the shifts.
Feel the dungeon’s rhythm.

On the final beat, the conductor dipped its baton—

—and the orchestra parted.

CHIME

Hint: Pattern recognition confirmed. Proceed with caution.

Kieran cast him a long, heavy look. “Your instincts continue to evolve.”

Nathan shrugged, breath shaking. “Guess all those participation trophies are finally paying off.”

Kieran didn’t smile.

But something in his face… eased. Just slightly.

CHIME

Reward Acquired: Copper Noise Charm (faint, unreliable jingle)
His inventory flickered once—like a brief static skip.

Nathan sighed. “Sure. Great. Another… whatever that is.”

The next two floors blurred together in Nathan’s memory as one escalating trial.

First came the wolves.

Not wolves. Not exactly.

Their bodies were wrong—too many joints, elongated limbs, a lattice of hardened bone showing through patches of gray fur. Their jaws hinged farther than they should have.

“Oh yeah,” Nathan sighed when the first one stepped into view. “These assholes again.”

The pack moved as one.

Kieran stepped forward. “Left flank. I will intercept the main—”

The lead creature feinted right instead.

Old Nathan might have frozen for half a beat and taken a hit.

This Nathan didn’t think. Didn’t freeze. Didn’t choke.

He moved.

A twist of his spine, a shift of weight, and he slid under the snapping jaws, catching the thin plating under its throat. Sparks burst in a bright arc.
The plating was hardened bone the dungeon liked to grow over its creatures.

Behind him, a second wolf lunged. He pivoted before it fully committed—as if he’d seen it coming. His blade caught the joint clean. The creature collapsed in a heap of twitching limbs.

Kieran dispatched two more with brutal efficiency, but his gaze kept flicking back to Nathan—watching, recalibrating.

When the last monster fell, oozing something foul, Kieran said, “Your reactions are… not Draegor’s.”

Nathan blinked. What? He’d never fought like Draegor in front of Kieran. Not once.

“I told you. Sturdy Knees is cracked.”

Kieran didn’t respond.

But he didn’t look away for a long time.

CHIME

Hint: New behavioral parameters active on this floor.

They materialized into a cavernous room washed in green light.

Dozens of goblins stood frozen mid-movement—daggers drawn, bodies poised, eyes blank. They weren’t breathing.

“Oh hell,” Nathan whispered. “Synchronized goblins.”

Kieran grimaced. “Explain.”

“I will. When I understand what I’m looking at.”

Tiles again.
Line. O. X. Blank.
Arranged in uneven rows.

The goblins blinked.
All at once.

The formation shifted.

“We have to match their movement,” Nathan murmured. “Tile to tile. If we copy them exactly, they stay in sync. If we don’t…”

The nearest goblin’s dagger twitched toward his ribs.

Before Kieran could comment, Nathan stepped onto the tile that mirrored the nearest goblin’s stance.

The goblin stepped in unison.

Kieran stepped on the wrong one—an O when it should’ve been Line.

Nathan grabbed his cloak and yanked him back just as a dagger sliced through where he had been standing.

He’s going to murder me for grabbing his cloak again, but also I’d like him not stabbed.

Kieran’s movement halted—not shock, just a sharp reorientation as he recalculated the threat. His hand shifted toward a counterstrike before the goblin’s attention slid away again.

Nathan didn’t release the cloak until he was certain the creature had reset.

They moved again, Nathan calling positions, Kieran matching each one without hesitation.

Left—
pause—
two steps—
center—
right.

On the final synchronized step, the formation broke.

The goblins dissolved.

Nathan blinked. “Okay—did not expect that. Where’s the usual… mess?”

He scanned the space where one had stood. No blood. No scraps. No stench. Just clean stone tiles.

Kieran’s gaze swept the room. “The transport object,” he said quietly. “It still must exist.”

“Right.” Nathan forced his feet to move, checking between the tiles, behind broken pillars, under a collapsed banner. “Because of course the one time they don’t leave guts everywhere, they also hide the exit key.”

He found it tucked beneath a slightly raised tile: a small, tarnished medallion stamped with the same symbols the goblins had stepped through.

Of course it’s under the tile. Why wouldn’t it be under the tile.

CHIME
Skill Progress: Digger I → Digger II

Nathan sighed. “Great. I’m being rewarded for snooping under floor tiles now.”

He picked it up.

FLASH

CHIME

**Level 69 Cleared**
Tutorial Progress: 75%
Overall Progress: 0.0065%

Hint: Movement synchronization improving. Good job, trainee!

“Yeah, thanks,” he muttered. “Love the encouragement.”

Kieran watched him with unsettling quiet. “You saw the danger before it happened.”

Nathan forced a shrug. “The dungeon’s patterns are getting predictable.”

Kieran’s expression said he didn’t believe that for a second.

Silence.

CHIME
Hint: Time limit reduced. Remaining allocation: 8 hours.

Nathan blinked. “Wait—why? What happened to twelve?”

The system did not care.