It was dark. The humidity was high, and water streamed down the cave-like walls. There you are, I thought, spotting something out of the corner of my eye. I quickly equipped my dagger. And, with one rapid motion, I threw it at the moving target in front of me.

[467 Damage Dealt]

The familiar screen popped up in front of me, telling me how much damage I had done. I found it annoying at times, especially when you attacked a horde of monsters. Then you really just wanted to close your eyes and hope for the best. That strategy wasn’t the best, though. I had tried.

Okay, enough about that. I needed to check if the ogre I hit actually died. It wouldn’t be good if I suddenly got attacked from the back, would it?

But what did I expect? I looked at a corpse on the ground only a few meters away, and seeing a dagger protruding out of its head, I could safely assume it was dead. Bull’s eye, though! I reached down and retrieved the dagger. The corpse slowly dispersed into a white fog, leaving behind no evidence of it ever existing.

I might have been bashing the system about how annoying I found the damage notifications, but that fog thing left behind only the item drop and nothing else, making cleanup very easy. I liked that. Not because I was lazy; I just liked it when things were easy. But screw that; what did it drop? That was the interesting part.

I looked at where the corpse once lay. Useless! I didn’t know why my expectations were so high. Since I had already been killing ogres all day, I should have come to expect what it would drop. But who knew? It might’ve dropped a legendary item. Nah, who was I kidding? These dungeons sucked.

But who am I? That was probably everyone’s question after meeting such an arrogant guy.

My name is Sung-Jin. I’m a bold, stupid, twenty-year-old man who wouldn’t hesitate to risk his life. No matter the gain. But why? You can ask, but to be honest, I myself don’t know. I’ve always had—how can I say it—a completionist mindset! It’s probably the best way to describe me. I had played many games in the past, and no matter how bad the game was when I first started playing it, I always completed it. No matter what!

But what does that have to do with me risking my life in a dangerous dungeon filled to the brim with monsters? It’s a long story. In fact, it’s a nearly five-year-long story, so pardon me for not having time to tell it to you. I needed to clear this dungeon in a hurry. I was hungry, and my stomach was complaining.

Looking at my surroundings, I noticed that I already killed the last ogre in this room. Nice! I needed to proceed quickly, then. There was no need to contemplate life more than necessary. I hastened my mind into battle mode again as a notion came to me.

Why didn’t I speedrun the dungeon? I might as well. This dungeon wasn’t even close to my level, and I one-shotted everything, so I didn’t have to worry about any threats. Probably. I pondered for a moment, but because speedrunning meant I would clear it quickly, my mind was already made up.

I was ready to take up the challenge of beating the dungeon as fast as possible. No more wasting time; I wanted to break a record! My hands filled with black mist that left behind two blood-red daggers.

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Woosh—!

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[454 Damage Dealt]

I ran across the dungeon as fast as I could. I threw my daggers, hitting the ogres in the head every time. The damage indicator updated multiple times as I quickly took care of every ogre in every room with one hit. My impeccable accuracy was on display once again. I retrieved the daggers right after I threw them, not wasting time waiting for the ogre corpses to hit the ground.

True, I was not taking care of my mana, and my stamina was running low too. But damn, was it fun to just run amok and kill everything in one shot! I don’t have a problem, I promise. But I will soon—I think.

[443 Damage Dealt]

I killed the last enemy in the room and retrieved my dagger so I could continue quickly.

“Huh…” I groaned after running for that long without a single break. My lungs began to hurt. But what’s this? A small stitch suddenly persisted at my sides, and it surprised me a great deal. It was unusual for me to be this tired after fighting some mere ogres, but then again, I hadn’t taken any breaks yet. I stopped as the pain became unbearable.

I was not in shape. Note to self: eat healthily, don’t sleep the day away. Get some exercise. Doing that would make my life so much better, or something like that. I wasn’t good at motivating myself.

However, this dungeon was nearly done. So, I was just going to laugh it off since I knew that this dungeon’s difficulty wasn’t on par with my skills. It was reassuring to know that, and it helped me a little when coping with the fact that I was way out of shape. But let’s not talk about my body too much. It is a little embarrassing.

Smiling with confidence, I knew that a door to the boss room would soon be in sight. I went around the next corner, following the straight path that had led through the whole dungeon so far.

In these low-level dungeons, the paths were straightforward, making them quite beginner friendly. But when you got to higher levels, like C, B, or A-ranked dungeons, the paths began to split, and you had to decide which one to take. And let’s not talk about S-ranked dungeons; they were straight-up mazes. Luckily, only a few of those existed— Huh!

A menacing feeling struck me out of nowhere as I went around the last corner of the dungeon.

This feeling… I looked at the big door leading to the boss room in front of me, and something sinister seemed to ooze out of it. The door was made of wood reinforced with metal in a cross pattern. The wood was rotting away, and the metal was rusting. With cracks and holes everywhere, the door seemed like it couldn’t contain what was inside of it.

I kept staring at the door; I couldn’t make myself look away. Somehow, I was scared that something would attack me from behind if I turned my back to it. This is definitely my imagination messing with me, right? I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. I wouldn’t have been scared in a typical scenario, but a disquiet took deep root in my mind. When I opened my eyes again, everything seemed to have gone back to normal.

Why? Am I too tired? Did I eat something bad? Oh, wait, I haven’t eaten in a while. But that feeling… It was the same one I felt when I came across this dungeon earlier today. My mind kickstarted back to its original self, and the ominous feeling faded away. It seemed like it was now only contained behind the big door.

I’d never been this afraid to open a door in my entire life. And to be honest, the reason why I had even decided to clear this dungeon in the first place was only by a mere coincidence.

Normally, a D-ranked dungeon like this was cleared by a group of players around the same rank. And I was not a D-ranked player. I actually didn’t even have a rank. But if I did, I wouldn’t have a D-rank, I think…

But I had come across this dungeon on my way to one of the major cities, and the same ominous feeling had struck me then. I decided to go in and see what was up. Sure enough, my gut feeling wasn’t wrong! However, could I really have called my decision good? Maybe I should have just stayed out.

I did regret that I decided to go into a dungeon that felt that eerie, and without even getting anything out of it. Like, no loot had been worth the effort so far, and the monsters were way too weak to give me any kind of experience. The trip hadn’t been successful in the slightest. And now, a big menacing door was staring me down! What’s a man to do in such a whirlwind of a world?

My mind drifted off to an easier time when everything was a game and there were no real consequences for my actions. Then I became an adult. And everything went downhill from there.

But sure, you reap what you sow. And I was going to reap a whole lot that day.

Yet, despite me accepting the fact that I had bitten off more than I could chew, I couldn’t stop thinking about what was behind that door. It made me regret more and more the longer I stared at it.