The first floor proved that the System possessed a cruel sense of humor.
The tall grass ahead of them didn't just rustle with the wind. It moved with intent. Jacob spotted the disturbance first as low, steady lines cutting across the field like sharks through water.
"Jackals," Carlos called out, his voice low. "Bigger than they should be. Standard pattern. Hold the line."
The pack broke cover in a ripple of tawny fur and bared teeth.
These were not the scavenging wild dogs Jacob had seen skirting the edge of the woods near the farm. These things were scaled up until their shoulders reached his chest. Their claws dug deep furrows in the dirt, and their eyes shone with a manic, unnatural brightness.
Carlos stepped forward. He lifted his shield just as the first jackal lunged. The beast hit the metal with a snarl, but the impact meant nothing to the veteran. Carlos didn't even blink as his sword came down in a short, brutal chop. The jackal collapsed and did not rise again.
To the left, the dwarf set his feet. His shield absorbed a dual strike, and his axe rose and fell with the rhythmic precision of a woodcutter. Behind them, the elf murmured a string of syllables in a language Jacob did not know. She pointed her wand, and a jackal stumbled mid-stride as its legs suddenly became too heavy to lift. Carlos used the opening to end it.
Tamsin was a blur of motion. He slipped in and out of the gaps in the formation, his daggers flashing. He never met the beasts head-on. He turned their flanks, hamstrung them, and slit exposed throats before vanishing back into the shadow of the tanks.
Jacob stayed where he had been told. He held the rear, his sword ready, scanning for leakers.
Two of them broke through.
They came in low from the right, circling past the dwarf to test the weak side. Jacob stepped forward to meet them. His heart hammered against his ribs, but his hands were steady.
The first jackal lunged for his throat. Jacob swung. The guidance rune etched into his blade hummed, nudging his cut into a tighter, more efficient arc. Steel met bone. The jackal's head snapped sideways with a yelp as the edge carved a ruinous line along its muzzle. It wasn't a kill shot, but the pain made the beast recoil.
The second went for his legs. Its jaws clamped onto his greave with a metallic clank that jarred his shin bone.
Pain flared, but there was no crunch of bone. The armor spread the kinetic energy across the entire plate. Jacob pivoted on his heel, using the force of the bite to spin his body. He brought the flat of his blade down on the jackal's skull with a sickening crack.
It dropped, twitching once before going still.
By the time Jacob looked up, the rest of the pack was dead. The entire engagement had taken less than a minute.
"Clean," Carlos said. He nudged a corpse with his boot. "But there are more of them than last time."
"How many before?" Jacob asked, wiping his blade.
"Half that," Carlos replied. "Maybe a little more spread out. This is busier."
The elf shrugged, lowering her wand. "Dungeons breathe. Sometimes you enter and get a thin run. Other times it feels like someone kicked the nest. As long as the mana density stays in the F rank range, it is still just a starter hole."
"Starter hole," Tamsin echoed with a smirk. "Cute phrase for a place that eats the unprepared."
They moved on.
The second pack was worse. They were not jackals this time, but long-bodied, low-slung nightmares that reminded Jacob uncomfortably of feral pigs mixed with lizards. Patches of scales glinted between coarse bristles. Their snouts were broad and flat, armed with tusks that jutted out like jagged knives.
"They did not do that last time," the dwarf grumbled, raising his shield.
"Same base type," Carlos noted. "Just a little thicker. Focus."
The fight followed the same rhythm. The shield wall took the hits, the axe and sword did the heavy work, and the elf controlled the tempo.
Jacob claimed one of his own. A boar-lizard charged him when the line shifted, its eyes fixated on the smallest target. Its tusks slammed into Jacob's coat. The plates sewn into the lining rang like a bell. The impact staggered him back a step, but the armor drank the force greedily.
Jacob didn't panic. He let the sword's braking curve control his swing, utilizing a quick, tight cut to the neck rather than a wild stroke. The steel slid along the scales until it found a gap and bit home.
Blood steamed in the cold dungeon air.
Jacob swallowed hard, forcing his hands to stop shaking.
"Still breathing," Tamsin said, appearing at his shoulder. "That is a good sign."
They pressed deeper. The grass grew patchy, revealing bare dirt and rocks that jutted up like broken teeth. Every so often, they passed the remains of other monsters that were already fading into colorless husks as the dungeon reclaimed its biomass.
Ahead, voices rose in panic.
"Hold," Carlos said quietly. He lifted a fist.
Around a shallow dip in the terrain, they found the source.
Three adventurers stood in a loose, desperate triangle around a mangled jackal corpse. One clutched an arm to his chest where blood soaked through a torn sleeve. Another leaned heavily on a spear that had snapped in half. The third, a woman with a bow, had an arrow nocked but her hands trembled so badly she couldn't draw it.
They looked young. Not Jacob young, but barely out of their teens.
Carlos stepped into view. "You lot look like you are having a time."
The archer jumped, then sagged with relief when she saw Carlos's heavy plate. "C rank," she breathed. "Thank the gods."
"We have it under control," the spear carrier lied quickly, then winced as his injured arm spasmed.
"Looks like it," Carlos said dryly. "Packs hitting harder than you expected?"
The bowwoman nodded. "There were only three of us. We have cleared this floor before. It was never like this. Fewer packs, weaker monsters. Today it is like they doubled the spawn rate. More teeth, more claws. It feels like someone cranked the difficulty knob."
"It varies," the spear carrier insisted, his pride fighting a losing war with his fear. "We knew it varied."
"That is how you end up dead," the third adventurer muttered, clutching his bleeding arm.
Carlos listened, his eyes flicking over their battered equipment. Jacob could see him weighing the risk.
"Dungeons fluctuate," Carlos said at last. "Sometimes they are generous. Sometimes they wake up cranky. If it feels like too much, you leave. Nothing in an F rank is worth your first funeral."
"We can push a little further," the spear carrier argued. "We need the cores."
"You need to live long enough to spend the coin," Tamsin said, stepping out from the shadows. "You are bleeding. Go home. Patch up. Try again another day."
The three exchanged looks. Reluctance warred with relief.
"Consider it advice," Carlos added. "Not an order. But if you go on, I will not be there to pull anything off your neck when it goes wrong."
That decided it. The bowwoman exhaled. "Fine. We will pull back. Thanks for the warning."
They watched the trio limp back toward the entrance gate.
"They did not see those numbers last time," Tamsin murmured. "You believe them?"
"I believe that if it feels thicker to us and heavier to them, then the floor is hot," the elf replied. "The System is pushing more mass through the pattern."
"Which means?" the dwarf asked.
"Which means someone lit a fire under this dungeon," she said. "Could be random. Could be an anomaly."
Carlos's eyes slid toward Jacob, then away. "Regardless, we clear it. Eyes open."
The monsters came in two more waves before the end of the floor. Packs of six instead of three. Mixed types, jackals and boar-lizards working together in a way that made Jacob's tactical mind itch. The fights were not desperate, not for a party of this caliber, but they were work. By the time the grass thinned to show the open ground of the boss room, even Carlos was breathing harder.
Jacob's arms ached. His shoulders burned. His armor bore fresh scuffs, but nothing had punched through. His coat throbbed against his chest, the runes warm from constant activation.
"End of the floor," the dwarf said, wiping his axe.
The open ground resolved into a slight rise. At the top, two stones jutted out of the earth like the pillars of a gate, framing a hollow space where the air shimmered.
In front of it, pacing back and forth, was the Gatekeeper.
Jacob stared.