The shop was strangely quiet that day,quiet enough to feel wrong after the last few. Roland sat at the counter with an open ledger, filling in the morning entries, and kept glancing at the door as if expecting someone to burst in any second, breathless, demanding fire cores or anything that offered even minimal protection against extreme heat. But aside from a few passersby peeking through the window, nothing happened.
After a long stretch of silence,long enough that the scratch of his pen on parchment sounded louder than it should,Roland cleared his throat and looked toward Edgar, who was sorting documents at the side table.
"Can I ask something stupid?" he said cautiously. Edgar's mood could swing depending on the day.
Edgar looked up and snorted once.
"If you have to ask whether it's stupid, it probably is," he said, but there was no bite to it. "Go on."
Roland hesitated, then blurted it out.
"How do dungeons actually… work? I mean, going into them. I always hear about squads and shifts and rotations, but nobody ever explains it in a normal way."
Edgar set the papers down and leaned his hip against the table, like he welcomed the distraction.
"Because there's nothing 'normal' about it," he said. "A single dungeon only lets ten people in at a time. If you try to shove in an eleventh… either it won't let them through, or they just disappear."
Roland frowned.
"Disappear?"
"Disappear," Edgar confirmed. "Or get spat out somewhere random. Or torn apart by space itself."
Roland swallowed hard.
"So that's why the Guild sends so many people?"
"Exactly," Edgar went on. "One team goes in, does what it can,kills what it can, maps what it can,and when they're exhausted or wounded, they come out and the next ten go in. Sometimes you rotate every thirty minutes, sometimes every ten, depending on conditions inside. The dungeon doesn't close all at once. It gets… worn down. Piece by piece."
Roland was quiet for a moment, then asked with open fascination:
"Wouldn't it be better to just send one really strong team? Like… the best of the best?"
The answer didn't come from Edgar.
It came from Pan Klein, who had just emerged from the back room carrying a crate of documents.
"No," he said dryly, without even stopping. "That's the dumbest and most dangerous move you can make."
Roland straightened.
Klein set the crate down and gave him that calm, tired look of a man who'd seen too much.
"Dungeons from Beast rank and up aren't 'places' in the normal sense," he said, bracing his hands on the counter. "They're other dimensions, Roland. Spaces that only pretend to have walls and corridors and borders. One dungeon can be the size of several cities stitched together,layered sections that shift depending on the time of day and how much magic gets used."
Edgar nodded.
"I heard on the road," he added, "that Catastrophe-rank dungeons are so big that if you could 'unfold' one into the normal world, it'd cover the entire planet. Maybe more. Nobody even knows where they end."
Cold crawled up Roland's spine despite the warmth in the shop.
"That's why one team isn't enough," Klein continued. "Even if they're strong. Even if they're mages. Fatigue, focus, mana burn… it all stacks. And a dungeon doesn't care. It doesn't fight fair, and it doesn't end when you want it to."
"There are exceptions," Edgar cut in. "The absolute top-tier squads,nothing but mages, perfectly matched so they cover each other's weaknesses. Ten people, each specializing in a different branch of magic. Sometimes they can close a dungeon in one run."
"Sometimes," Klein emphasized. "And even then, they're balancing on the edge of death."
Edgar hesitated, then added more quietly:
"There's also a rumor… that there's only one person in the world who goes into dungeons alone."
Roland lifted his head.
"That mage?" he asked, almost whispering.
"That one," Edgar said. "They say he closes Catastrophe-rank dungeons by himself. No team. No rotations. He goes in… and comes out when he decides it's done."
Klein didn't deny it.
"Even the Archmages of the greatest houses in the capital," he said slowly, "have never dared to enter an Arch-Dragon rank dungeon alone,let alone anything above that. It's not about courage. It's about sanity."
Roland lowered his gaze to the ledgers, but his mind was already far away.
Running through the dungeon, Rethan felt the air thicken,dense and abrasive,until every breath took more effort than it should have. Even with the cooling amulet kicking in immediately, sending a cold pulse across his skin to blunt the temperature shock, the heat still pressed at his lungs like a hand.
The first beasts hit them almost at once, crawling out from between rocks and fissures as if the dungeon itself had shoved them forward. They were squat, massive creatures,part lizard, part bull,with armor like cracked black stone, ember-glow leaking through the seams. Their mouths gaped wide, belching tongues of flame and bursts of searing air.
"Contact," someone barked from behind,completely unnecessary.
Caelan Halven reacted first without even slowing down. He lifted a hand. The air in front of him seemed to compress for a split second, then erupted into a narrow, focused jet of fire with a bright white core. It didn't splash or spread,it cut through space like a blade, striking the first beast in the head. Its rocky armor blew outward from within, and the creature collapsed into itself, slumping to the ground as a pile of cracked, cooling stone.
Rethan registered it automatically. That wasn't a crude fireball or some primitive ignition. It was pure, controlled energy,talent and training you couldn't fake.
Before any of the adventurers even had time to move, Dorian Halven flicked his arm sideways. A series of semi-transparent, spinning blades of superheated air shot out,nearly invisible until they started cutting. They punched into the next beasts and tore through limbs, armor, muscle with surgical precision. The monsters went down before they could even close into striking range.
Lysand Halven completed the picture by slamming his fist into the ground. Columns of glowing stone burst upward beneath the beasts, crushing them from below, then sank back down again,like the dungeon itself had become his weapon.
For a heartbeat, Rethan stood still, watching with a mix of professional admiration and rising dread. The effectiveness was unquestionable. The speed was the problem. The way the mages moved left no room for tactics, for backline security, for controlling the space.
"Spread out,hold formation," he snapped at last, knowing he was calming his own people more than influencing the fight.
The adventurers surged forward, finishing anything still moving. Rethan took in every detail,the way the beasts attacked from lava cracks, how their bodies reacted to different damage types,because even if the mages were turning everything into paste, he knew this was only the beginning.
The environment started biting fast. Waves of hot wind rolled through, warping visibility. Sweat ran down his back despite his protective gear. His hands stung where his wrist band barely managed to keep up with the minor burns.
Two hundred meters deeper, another wave came from the right. These were slimmer, faster things,skittering along walls and ceiling on long limbs tipped with glowing claws that left molten trails wherever they touched.
Caelan didn't even look. He flicked his hand. A thin, pulsing aura flared around him,and then surged outward like a shockwave. It hit the beasts with raw thermal force so intense they ignited from the inside before they could make a sound.
"Too slow," he said lightly, more to himself than anyone else.
The mages pushed forward as if the dungeon was just a corridor to their goal, not a living, hostile place that had to be read and respected. Caelan's laughter bounced off the heated walls as he tossed something to his "brothers" about a warm-up.
Rethan ran a few steps behind with the rest of the team, tracking every movement, every mana pulse, every unnecessary display.
"Rethan," Garrik murmured, falling into step beside him. One of the veterans. Brow tight. Eyes flicking nervously toward the mages' backs. "This can't keep going."
Rethan didn't answer right away. In his head, he counted recovery time after Caelan's last spell, compared it to the rhythm of energy around Dorian's blades.
"They're not even checking the dungeon's reactions," Garrik continued, leaning closer. "No scouting. No rear security. It's like they want something to bite them."
"I know," Rethan said at last. His voice stayed even, but his jaw was locked. "I see it too."
"This is more than bravado," Garrik snorted. "It's begging for disaster. We're just here to clean up after them, aren't we?"
Rethan slowed half a step, letting the others slip past. For a moment he watched the mages' backs,their ease, the way they moved without a hint of hesitation.
"If we don't say something now," he said quietly, "there won't be anyone left to say it later."
He nodded,more to himself than to Garrik,then sped up, catching the Halvens.
"Caelan," he called, not raising his voice, but clearly enough that all three would hear. "We need to slow down."
Caelan didn't stop immediately. He went a few more steps, like he was doing Rethan a favor. Then he turned with a faint smile that held no curiosity at all.
"Slow down?" he repeated. "Why?"
"Because it's a Beast-rank dungeon," Rethan said bluntly. "And you're treating it like a training field. We don't know how it reacts to this much energy. We don't know,"
"We do," Dorian cut in, folding his arms. "It reacts exactly like you've seen. The monsters die in one hit."
Lysand's crooked smile deepened.
"Or rather, they fall apart," he added. "There's a difference."
Rethan drew in a breath, ignoring the burn in his lungs.
"What we've seen so far is not the front line, its a Cannon fodder," he said. "Understand this: if you keep going like this, you're provoking death,not just for yourselves, but for everyone with you."
"Provoking?" Caelan lifted an eyebrow. "Do you hear yourself?"
He stepped closer. The glow around him pulsed slightly,instinctive, casual.
"You're counting monsters, Rethan. We're counting threats. And so far, none have shown up."
"The fact that none have shown up yet doesn't mean they won't," Rethan shot back.
A brief silence followed his words.
Dorian laughed.
"That's actually adorable," he said. "How badly you want to believe your sword experience and your little protective band give you insight into what we're dealing with."
"This isn't belief," Rethan said, hard. "It's patterns. Dungeons learn, and more importantly, they adapt. And you're leaving a magical trail behind you like someone throwing a torch into a dry forest."
"And what, exactly, is supposed to happen?" Lysand asked with mock curiosity. "The dungeon gets offended?"
Caelan waved a hand, like he was dismissing a pointless argument.
"Listen," he said, colder now. "I get it. For you, this must look… overwhelming. A lot of power. A lot of speed. But that's the difference between us and you."
He looked Rethan straight in the eyes.
"You survive because you're careful. We survive because we're stronger."
Something in Rethan set like stone, but his voice stayed level.
"Strength without caution isn't an advantage," he said. "It's ignorance."
Dorian rolled his eyes.
"Enough," Caelan snapped. "We're done talking. If you want to crawl along and plant warning flags, go ahead. We're moving."
He turned without waiting for an answer and headed deeper into the dungeon. Dorian and Lysand followed at once.
Rethan stood there for a moment, watching them go.