The adrenaline that had carried me through the kill evaporated the moment the Floor Guard hit the ground. My shoulder was a mess of white-hot pain, and every breath felt like a jagged blade in my lungs. I stood there in the oppressive silence of the dungeon, staring at the twelve surviving rats of my swarm as they scurried back to my feet. Their fur was matted with black gore, and their tiny hearts were racing so fast I could see their ribs vibrating. We had won, but it was a hollow victory. If there had been another Guard around that corner, I wouldn't be standing here.
I didn't let myself rest. I knelt by the massive, cooling corpse and reached into the mess of its chest. My fingers slipped against the hot, viscous black blood as I searched for the prize. Finally, I closed my hand around the Boss Heart. It was heavy and cold, pulsing with a faint, dying violet light—the only physical proof that I had successfully closed this Gate. I tucked it into a scavenged plastic bag and began the long, limping trek back through the weeping halls of the factory.
The exit portal flickered like a dying lightbulb. As I stepped through the shimmering violet film, the transition hit me like a physical wall. The humid, blood-scented air of the dungeon was replaced by the dry, smog-filled breeze of the industrial district. Behind me, the Gate dissolved into the brickwork of the abandoned warehouse, leaving the basement empty and silent as if the nightmare had never happened.
I made my way to the Hunter Association office, my clothes torn and my body aching. The walk was a gauntlet of judgment; higher-ranked Hunters in polished gear gave me a wide berth, their eyes lingering on the bloodstains on my face with open disgust. I didn't care. I reached the payout counter and handed over the heart, expecting a payday that would justify nearly dying.
The clerk didn't even look at me. He scanned the heart with a handheld device that beeped with clinical indifference. "K-Rank yield. Minimal essence. ¥15,000," he muttered, sliding a small stack of bills across the scratched laminate counter.
I stared at the money. I had faced death, lost the majority of my swarm, and nearly shattered my collarbone for a week's worth of groceries. Because I was K-Rank, the system's "Low-Yield" penalties and administrative taxes stripped away almost everything. I stuffed the cash into my pocket and walked out into the cold night air, the neon signs of the city blurring in my vision.
My apartment was in a building that looked like it was being held together by hope and rust. From the outside, the concrete was stained with decades of acid rain and graffiti; inside, the hallway smelled of boiled cabbage and damp wood. My room was even worse—a cramped box where the wallpaper peeled in long, yellowed strips and the single window looked out onto a brick wall.
I collapsed onto my bed, not even bothering to take off my shoes. My side was stinging, a constant reminder of the Floor Guard's reach. I pulled out my laptop, the screen's harsh glow stinging my tired eyes, and started scrolling through the Hunter forums. It was a joke. Everything worth having—reinforced vests, serrated daggers, or endurance-boosting rings—was priced in Skill Stones or Energy Crystals.
These weren't things you could just buy with yen at a shop. Stones and Crystals only dropped in N-level Gates or higher. The ranking system for these drops was a wall designed to keep people like me at the bottom. It started at O1, the lowest tier, and climbed through V-tier up to J5, the absolute peak of power. Energy Crystals were used for forging, while Skill Stones could boost specific powers.
The problem was my Skill. Most gear was made for clear categories—Fire, Water, or Physical Enhancement. But Rat-King was a weird hybrid. Finding an artifact to enhance a "vermin" skill was next to impossible. Even an O1-grade stone, the weakest of the weak, would cost me months of grinding.
I leaned back, staring at a water stain on the ceiling that looked vaguely like a skull. I had the Skill, and I had the drive, but I was being suffocated by the economy of this world. If I wanted the V-tier or J-tier drops that actually changed your life, I had to stop playing it safe. I needed to find a way to get stronger, and I needed to do it before the city chewed me up and spat me out.