Capítulo 11: Safety net
Inside the cramped, dark truck, we sit shoulder-to-shoulder with a ragtag group of people. Some are green as grass, like this kid barely twelve sitting across from me. I catch his eye, and a flicker of memory sparks—a much younger version of me, twelve and wide-eyed, ready to prove myself by diving headfirst into a dungeon. I wonder if this kid will make it. Odds are, half of us won't. This isn't the kind of work that spares you for being young or hopeful.
The truck jerks as it leaves the fortress gate, grinding over rough terrain, and I settle back against the cold, rusted wall. The fees for this transport are steep—practically extortion. That's why I can only afford one dungeon trip a month, which is barely enough to scrape by but at least keeps us alive. Out here, beyond the fortress, survival is on us. Any monster could be lurking, and you'd never see it coming. A wrong step, and you'd be gone in an instant.
I think of the fortress itself, the way the nine sectors are protected by layers of powerful spells, designed to keep dungeon monsters from breaking through. Most of the inner sectors are stable, with enough spells to keep even the tougher monsters out. But Sector Z, where I'm from, barely has any protection. Just a few weak enchantments that fail every few years, leaving us scrambling to fight back. It's like we're left out here to rot, forced to fend for ourselves. The inner sectors thrive, sending out well-equipped teams to the dungeons and coming back stronger each time, but Sector Z? The system is designed to keep us weak, keep us at the bottom.
But they don't know me. If they think I'll stay down and accept this, they're wrong. I'll break out of this predetermined fate, and I'll make damn sure of it.
The truck stops, the driver shouting for us to get off. We pour out into the open air, and the driver reminds us, with little care, that we have three days. Three days, and then he leaves. Doesn't matter if we're back or not.
Around us, a fallen city stretches, overgrown and reclaimed by nature. Towering skyscrapers are covered in vines, and crumbling cars are scattered along the streets, rusted and abandoned. I wonder what this place was like before the dungeons appeared. Now, it's a haunting ruin.
Ahead, there's a glowing crack in the air—a dungeon gate, the flickering entrance to a world of monsters and madness. This one's an A-class dungeon, far more than we're equipped to handle. The fact that we're even attempting this is borderline suicidal. I've only recently broken into B-class, Tristan's still an F-class healer, and the twins are C-class, but we've survived this long, somehow. We have to make this work.
I steel myself, my hand brushing the small crystal in my pocket. It's a last-resort escape crystal, capable of transporting five people out of a dungeon in an emergency. Crystals like this are priceless. 100,000 dollars each, at minimum, and she's sent me a batch of them. Ten escape crystals. It's almost absurd, the security these bring me, the certainty I never had before. If we hadn't had these, we'd still be scraping by with E and F-class dungeons, barely making enough to stay alive. But now, this… this gives us a chance.
"Alright, let's go," I say, glancing at Tristan and the twins. The crystal's a silent promise that we'll make it out, but it doesn't erase the danger waiting inside.
We step through the shimmering gate, and the air shifts, thick and heavy with an unnatural chill. I barely have time to register the change when something lunges at me—a creature with sickly green skin, standing upright on webbed feet, its eyes wide and bulging, and a tongue flicking out like a snake's. It's a humanoid frog, and it's got a blade in one hand, slashing toward me.
"Disgusting," I mutter, sidestepping just in time. I pull my daggers from their sheaths, the familiar weight steadying me. This thing may be revolting, but it's nothing I haven't handled before. The frog-man lunges again, and I meet it head-on, dodging low and slicing upward, carving a deep gash across its torso.
But the moment it falls, I hear more. A croaking chorus echoes from deeper in the dungeon. I glance back at Tristan and the twins, seeing the flicker of fear in their eyes, but I nod, signaling that we're moving forward. No turning back now.
The walls around us pulse with a sickly, mossy glow, as if the dungeon itself is alive, watching us. Every step echoes, the silence broken only by our breathing and the faint dripping of water from the ceiling. It's damp, cold, and reeks of rot, but we press on, navigating through winding corridors lined with strange symbols that seem to shift and change when you're not looking.
"Stay close," I whisper, glancing back to make sure Tristan and the twins are keeping pace. We need to conserve our strength, not just for the monsters but for whatever else is waiting deeper inside.
As we push further, I can feel the weight of the dungeon pressing down on us, the eerie sense that we're being watched, stalked. I grip my daggers tighter, every nerve on edge. Whatever's in here, it's not going
to give us an easy way out.
Regalos
-- Regalo
recibido Estado de energía semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Piedra de
Poder