The capital city of the Vaeloria Kingdom, Aethelgard, was a sprawling metropolis of towering white stone and crimson-tiled roofs, a stark contrast to the grim reality of the war raging in the East.
Inside the cavernous main hall of the Adventurers Guild, Rina and her classmates sat huddled around a heavy oak table in the living quarters. They had draped themselves in simple, unassuming woolen cloaks and plain leather tunics over their high-tier gear, deliberately dressing down to avoid drawing unnecessary attention. They were supposed to be looking for a standard, low-risk subjugation quest to safely grind their levels.
Suddenly, the heavy double doors of the guild burst open. A bloodied, breathless adventurer stumbled into the hall, his armor dented and eyes wide with panic.
"Emergency report!" the man gasped, collapsing to his knees as guild staff rushed to his side. "The Obsidian Chasm... Sector Four... It's a massacre! The high-tier monsters are frenzied!"
The Guild Receptionist, a stern woman with a scar over her eye, rushed forward. "Who is trapped down there? We need a party composition to send rescue!"
"There is no party!" the adventurer coughed. "It’s one kid! The new Rank A! Tatsuya Minato! He went into the deepest sector completely alone!"
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the bustling guild hall. The Obsidian Chasm was one of the most perilous labyrinths on the Western Continent, a place where even veteran parties of Rank S adventurers treaded carefully. For the guild, Tatsuya wasn't just a high-ranking rookie; his unprecedented growth rate made him a beacon of hope for eventually eliminating the Demon Lord. Losing him was strategically unacceptable.
At her table, Rina stood up so fast her chair clattered to the floor. "We're going."
Her classmates, pale and trembling, didn't argue. Despite his terrifying behavior in the forest, Tatsuya was still one of them. He was a classmate, a boy from Earth, and they categorically refused to lose him to this nightmare world.
Rina marched straight to the Receptionist. "Tell us where the Chasm is. We are his party."
The Receptionist looked at Rina’s glowing golden eyes, recognizing the unique mana signature of the summoned heroes. "The Guild will not give up on him. I am authorizing the immediate dispatch of our top Vanguard teams," the woman said grimly. "But they need time to assemble. You can go ahead, but do not push too deep! If he is lost to the frenzy, you cannot save him by dying yourselves."
As the group sprinted out of the guild and into the cobblestone streets of Aethelgard, Rina bit her lip, her heart pounding against her ribs. Why didn't my bird warn me? she thought desperately. I asked it to watch him. Why didn't it come back? She had no way of knowing that the gentle little creature she had befriended was already dead—vaporized by an errant arc of black lightning in the Whispering Woods.
Location: The Obsidian Chasm - First Floor
The entrance to the dungeon was a gaping, jagged maw in the side of a dead mountain.
The moment Rina and the others stepped inside, the stench of copper and voided bowels hit them like a physical wall. The stone floor was slick with fresh, dark blood. Dozens of mutilated Goblin Assassins and Hobgoblins were strewn across the corridor, their bodies scorched by dark magic and ripped apart by brute force.
Some of the girls gagged, covering their mouths, while the boys drew their weapons with trembling hands.
"Keep moving," urged Daiki, a tall boy wielding a heavy broadsword. Back on Earth, Daiki had been Tatsuya's closest friend. They had spent hundreds of hours in voice calls, grinding levels in MMOs until the sun came up. "Tatsuya's an idiot, but he's tough. We just have to snap him out of it."
Deep within the subterranean abyss, Tatsuya was not fighting for his life. He was putting on a concert.
His HP and MP bars in the corner of his vision barely flickered. His Ultimate Skill, [Unstoppable Frenzy], converted all pain and fatigue into pure, unadulterated adrenaline, while his cursed title, [Battle Lover], violently accelerated his mana regeneration with every drop of blood he spilled.
His lips peeled back into a grotesque, ear-to-ear grin, completely shattering the quiet, lethargic demeanor he had worn on Earth. His grey hair was matted with gore, his eyes wide and glowing with a terrifying, manic light.
He was a walking calamity. The ambient bloodlust radiating from his body was so dense that some of the lower-level monsters were actively throwing themselves against the dungeon walls to escape him. The System identified him as the true monster.
"More..." Tatsuya whispered, his voice vibrating with a sinister echo. "I need more EXP. Spawn faster!"
The overwhelming scent of blood and the dense concentration of dark mana finally triggered the dungeon's defense mechanism. The shadows warped, and the heavy hitters arrived. Massive Iron Golems lumbered out of the darkness, accompanied by a pack of three-headed Hellhounds wreathed in abyssal fire, and two floating, skeletal Liches.
Instead of fear, Tatsuya felt a euphoric high. He laughed—a broken, jagged sound—and launched himself directly into the jaws of the Hellhounds.
It was into this chamber of absolute carnage that Rina and her group finally arrived.
"Tatsuya-kun!" Rina screamed, her voice echoing over the roar of the monsters.
Tatsuya didn't even flinch. He casually sidestepped a Hellhound's lunge, grabbed the beast by its middle head, and channeled a lethal burst of black lightning through its skull, popping it like a gruesome balloon.
He slowly turned his head toward the entrance. His grey eyes were totally devoid of recognition. He looked at his classmates as if they were just another wave of annoying, low-level mob spawns.
"Why..." Tatsuya tilted his head, his smile stretching until it looked painful. "Do... You... Want... To... die?..."
A suffocating wave of killing intent exploded from his body. It hit the classmates like a physical blow. Several students collapsed to their knees, gasping for air, their minds paralyzed by sheer terror.
Only Rina remained standing, her high-tier Holy mana acting as a natural buffer against the dark pressure.
"Tatsuya-kun, above you! Watch out!" Rina shrieked.
Dropping silently from the cavern ceiling directly behind Tatsuya was a massive Arachne—a grotesque fusion of a giant spider and a woman, her bladed legs poised to decapitate him.
Tatsuya didn't even look up. He jumped backward with inhuman agility, twisting in mid-air. A massive, complex black magic circle materialized in front of his outstretched palm.
"Vanish."
A blinding, roaring torrent of dark lightning erupted from the circle. It struck the Arachne point-blank. The detonation was catastrophic. A shockwave of pure concussive force and thick, toxic smoke blew through the cavern, shattering the remaining Golems and sending the students flying backward.
Rina shielded her eyes. As the smoke slowly cleared, she saw the charred, unrecognizable remains of the Arachne.
But she also heard a wet, horrific gasping sound.
"No..." Rina breathed.
Lying on the ground, ten feet away from the blast radius, was Daiki. He had stepped forward to try and block the shockwave for the girls behind him. His leather armor was melted, and terrible, spider-webbing black veins were rapidly spreading up his neck.
Rina sprinted to his side, throwing herself onto her knees. Her hands glowed with blinding golden light. "[High Heal]! [Purify]! Please, work!"
She poured her mana into Daiki's chest. But the golden light violently hissed and fizzled out the moment it touched the black veins. Tatsuya’s magic wasn’t just physical lightning; it was highly concentrated, corrosive dark magic mixed with the Arachne’s ambient poison.
Rina gritted her teeth, tears streaming down her face as she forced half of her total MP into a single, desperate healing wave. But it was like trying to put out a forest fire with a glass of water. Nothing affected the boy.
Daiki’s eyes rolled back. His breathing rattled in his chest, and then, slowly, stopped entirely.
Rina’s golden aura shattered. She slumped forward, her vision going black at the edges from mana depletion. Saki, another girl in the class, scrambled forward, catching Rina by the shoulders to keep her from collapsing completely.
"I'm sorry," Rina sobbed, staring at Daiki’s lifeless face. "I'm so sorry... I couldn't..."
"You..." one of the boys stammered, pointing a shaking, furious finger at Tatsuya, who had landed gracefully amidst the rubble. "You killed him! You killed Daiki!"
Tatsuya turned slowly, the manic grin finally fading into a mask of cold, unfeeling apathy. He glanced at Daiki’s corpse with dead eyes.
"That’s not my fault," Tatsuya said, his voice flat. "He shouldn't have been standing in the AoE zone. That’s because you are all weak. Weaklings die in the labyrinth. There is no place for weaklings in this world. It's just the meta."
"He was your friend!" Rina screamed, her voice cracking with raw agony. "He wasn't an NPC, Tatsuya! He was your closest friend!"
Tatsuya froze.
"My... friend? Is he Daiki?"
The System's curse suppressing his emotions violently clashed with a suppressed memory. He looked down at Daiki again. Suddenly, it wasn't just a dead body in a dungeon.
The glow of a dual-monitor setup. Empty energy drink cans. Daiki's voice laughing through the headset. "Come on, Tatsuya, one more raid! Don't leave me hanging, bro!"
Then, an echo of a sound reached Tatsuya's ears. It was a fragment of a whisper Daiki had managed to choke out just before the lightning had consumed him.
"Hey...Tatsuya... You are changed... Did you lose your mind...?"
The cold mask on Tatsuya's face shattered. His pupils dilated in absolute, unadulterated horror.
"Ah..." Tatsuya choked, taking a step back, dropping his blood-stained sword. "Ah... AHHHH!"
He clutched his head as his cognitive dissonance violently tore his mind apart. Without his conscious control, the colossal reservoir of dark mana churning inside him went completely berserk.
Massive, uncontrollable waves of black lightning and raw kinetic force erupted from his body. The cavern walls cracked and groaned. Stalactites plummeted from the ceiling. Any surviving monsters that dared to approach were instantly vaporized by the localized storm of uncontrolled magic.
But bizarrely, amidst the chaotic maelstrom, not a single spark of lightning or falling rock touched Rina, Daiki's body, or the other classmates. Some deep, buried sliver of Tatsuya's humanity was desperately bending the destructive magic around them, protecting them from his own power.
For three agonizing minutes, the dungeon tore itself apart around him.
Then, abruptly, the storm ceased.
The notification [MP: 0] flashed in Tatsuya's mind. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed onto the blood-soaked floor, utterly unconscious.
The cavern fell into a dead, ringing silence.
Rina slowly crawled over the rubble, her knees bleeding, and pulled Tatsuya’s unconscious head onto her lap. She didn't look at his face. She just stared blankly at the dark cavern wall.
A few moments later, the heavy sound of armored boots echoed down the corridor. The top-tier Vanguard adventurers from the Aethelgard Guild burst into the chamber, their weapons drawn, only to stop dead in their tracks at the sheer scale of the destruction.
The Guild Leader, a massive man with a great-axe, slowly lowered his weapon as he surveyed the crying teenagers, the unconscious Rank A prodigy, and the dead boy on the floor.
He took off his helm and bowed his head deeply. "I am... so deeply sorry we were too late."
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