It felt like a haze. An all-encompassing fuzziness in her body and mind.

There were monsters that affected you like this. Hana had fought against a few herself when she was fighting through dark dungeons. The last time had been with Johann, Seah, and Cyrus.

They came across a group of wispy, ghost-like monsters. They shot out pin darks, not bigger than thorns you’d find on a vine.

She remembered she’d been careless. A pin barely scratched her cheek, but it had been enough. The venom took effect quickly and slowed her movements.

The rest of the party had to stop and make camp. It took a few hours for her to recover from the effects. Cyrus started a small fire and boiled tea while Johann told funny stories. All the while, Hana lay down on the cavern floor with her head in Seah lap.

“Hana?”

Seunghyo entered the room carefully. There wasn’t much here besides the bed Hana had slept on, a chair, and a table. They’d been lucky to find a place to stay after most of the area had been evacuated. Most of the people in the area had fled once word of the Outbreak got out with only a handful choosing to stay behind.

By the time he was able to get Hana out of the battlefield, word had already begun to spread. But so too had word about the two young players who had been lost in the field. And their connection to the Cha Bell Corporation.

Hana’s voice was hoarse. It sounded so unlike her that it caught him off guard.

“I know one of them made it out. But the others… They’re dead, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

The Society’s intel on the dungeon had been simple. A recently formed dungeon with the potential for resources and, in all likelihood, low-risk monsters. And while there were plenty of resources, the dungeon had been years old and filled to the brim with high-level monsters.

“You couldn’t have known…"

There was no way for Hana to have known the danger involved. Seunghyo tried his best to explain it to her, but she waved him off.

“They were my responsibility, Seunghyo. And they’re dead.”

Hana sighed. She could feel the ache in her muscles. With every passing second, the fogginess in her head grew stronger and it felt like her limbs had only grown heavier.

She rubbed her hands together and winced in pain. Hana looked down in surprise to see wounds on her hands and fingers. The ones on her palms were grip burns, usually from holding on to weapons for long periods of time. Most players called them “newbie cuts” because younger players were most prone to these injuries. Older players either grew calluses to prevent these small injuries or wrapped their hands and fingers with tape before entering battle.

Hana hadn’t wrapped her hands because she hadn’t expected a fight. Not during an expeditionary quest like the one she’d started two days ago. And she hadn’t prepared her party for the same reason.

And now two people are dead.

So lost in thought was she that she didn’t notice Seunghyo put her hands in his. She only noticed because of the warmth of his skin on hers.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

He tried to sound as reassuring as he could. “I’m here, Hana. And I’m not going anywhere.”

***

Seunghyo tried not to look at Hana while he spoke. He felt enough shame as it was, to look at her would only cause him to stop or apologize. And he knew well enough that he had no right to do so.

“The barony was interested in opening gates in order to create dungeons,” he said. “And they succeeded for a while. Their success led to more ambition until their ambition led to everything you’ve seen so far.”

Initial tests had created short lived gates that disappeared with time. Occasionally, there would be slight incursions or some low-level monsters, but as the gates closed on their own, the danger was low.

The barony had built a foundation for future experiments as well as confidence in their work.

Subsequent tests created large gates that opened for longer periods of time. The longest had been for five weeks and the barony tasked multiple players with dealing with the monsters that emerged from its depths. But, then there came a monster that was able to infect other monsters.

“Frostbite,” Jinyoung ventured.

Seunghyo nodded. “The research we found says that the barony encountered a human-like monster from a gate. They killed the monster, but not before it bit one of their players. When the player started to exhibit symptoms that matched the monster, they started studying him.”

“‘Bites’?” Willow asked. “But none of the facilities we passed through had signs of a struggle.”

Youngho grunted. “We had the same thought. But we found the emergency bunkers.”

The emergency bunkers were designed to be long-lasting and well-hidden. Only citizens of the barony had access and when the barons themselves realized how far reaching the infection had gone, they ordered their citizens to take shelter.

“What they didn’t realize was that the infection has a long incubation time,” Youngho explained. “These emergency bunkers were warm beds for the infected until they were ready.”

Jinyoung winced at the thought.

“Then, like any good government,” Seunghyo continued. “They made it worse.”

Researchers tried to create a cure. And when they couldn’t, they opened gates to dungeons to look for a cure. Eventually, they happened across another symbiotic creature that showed great resistance to the Frostbite infection.

The pathfinder continued, “They found the sin wraiths.

“The reports say they lost eight players taking down one sin wraith, but the scientists realized they needed to take a sample from a living sin wraith. And that’s where they lost control.”

“Lost control?” Willow retorted. “That thing nearly killed the four of us!”

“And there’s four more where it came from,” Youngho revealed. “They hunt around this area at night which is why we can’t get out of here.”

The party thought back to the survivors. Most of them had been players, but some had been civilians not to mention any injured. While the healthy ones would be able to make the trek out before the sun set, the others wouldn’t make it.

Seunghyo bit his lip. It all led to this and if they refused to help him, everything would be for naught.

“From what we can tell, the dungeon gate is still open in the research facility under Pyong-gang. We’re on the upper floors of it now. But the longer the gate is open, the more likely it is to let something else through.”

Seunghyo took a deep breath. “I’ve been tasked with making my way down to the gate, closing the gate, retrieving a sample, and then returning to the surface.”

Willow spoke up first. “Well, we’d have to close the gate if we want to evacuate the survivors, don’t we?”

Hana’s voice cut through the conversation like a knife. “Willow can’t come with us, can we?”

Jinyoung and Willow cast a sideways glance at Hana before looking at Seunghyo who nodded. “The Cha Bell Corporation will not allow it.”

“The Cha Bell Corporation?” Jinyoung asked with disdain dripping from every word. “What the hell do they have to do with this?”

Youngho sighed. “They were the ones funding the barony, weren’t they?”

“Yes.”

Hana spoke up again, her voice laced with venom. When Seunghyo heard her question, he closed his eyes. It was the question he had hoped she would never ask.

“Seunghyo, you work for the Cha Bell Corporation, don’t you?”

“Yes.”