Breaths came in short, staccato gasps, desperately searching for air. Knuckles clenched a tight white raised above my head, and the monster beneath me squirmed and jerked so hard that I felt my limbs ache. My fingers dug into its neck, holding it in place as my thoughts went blank for a second.

I swung my fist in that moment; a hammerblow without much more than the need to survive. Something gave way as my fist rammed into its beady black eye, and the squeals of pain and agony rang in my head, taking any remnant thoughts away with them.

Sharp claws cut furrows into the chest and arms of my leather armor, and it was only the fact that the quality of it was much better than my last one or else I would have to worry about it clawing out my heart. Still, while it was quite a daunting image to fist fight a monster with claws that gouged stone easily, I wasn’t trembling anymore. My armor and team assisting me held my confidence up high.

I wasn’t going to die here.

My fist rose and fell in another breath. It jerked, cried out so loud that my ears constantly rang and then my fist slammed into its skull again. Once again, its body jerked underneath me, but I continued on till its struggles came to an end and my own fist was bloody.

Adrenaline left my body as numb weakness took my body. I looked left and right, searching for another enemy before releasing a heavy sigh as I found none. With that done, I finally let my body relax.

“Good job, Glen. You finally got rid of your shakes.” I looked over to the man who spoke, finding a clean cut human leaning against the Dungeon’s illuminated walls.

He was dressed in similar armor to me, but sported a crossbow and quiver of arrows on his back. His black hair was tied into a ponytail with an ever-present grin carved onto his face. After I had talked to Gilcrest and Wayland, I had begun to think everyone was some kind of monstrous fighter, but this man didn’t fit any motif of strength I had set. Instead, he reminded me of someone who seemed content.

“Are we finally done?” I asked.

“Hmmm, I guess…” the man hummed, turning his head to the side to yell down the Dungeon’s tunnel. “Hey, stop funnelling the Featherkin here! We’ve done what we came here for!”

“Right now? I was just beginning to break a sweat.” A woman with a long brown tail came slinking around the corner with a massive axe. The armor she wore clinked with every step, and I breathed a sigh of relief at the limb Featherkin she had in her grip. I was certain if we didn’t finish she would have forced me to fight that one.

“Relax, Helen, you’re always so testy.” Another woman said, slinging an arm over the beastwoman’s shoulders. Her free hand was busy poking the Featherkin with a knife, and I involuntarily shivered at the two crazy women before looking at the man who was in a relationship with both of them.

The ranger laughed awkwardly at my look. “Please don’t look at me like that. Helen and Charlotte have always been a little… anyways, we’re helping you after your recommendation by the old man.”

I sighed, standing up on shaky legs as I worked to strip the Featherkin I had brutalized of all its easily transported bits. “Thanks for that, again.”

“No problem, no problem, if old man Thunderclaw took an interest in you, its either because you’re like us or one of the special ones.”

I already had an idea about being ‘one of the special ones,’ and I was still not sure if that actually applied to me, so I never really took it to heart. Instead, I asked, “Like you guys?”

“So its the other one, huh,” the man’s grin slipped a bit. “Well, its not really a secret, but I don’t like broadcasting it all the time. The three of us are Dungeonborn, and our parents kind of just gave us up in order to go to higher numbered floors.”

I flinched at his admittance. “I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“No worries, its actually more common than you think. We’re lucky that the woman didn’t feel we were too much of a burnden and just kill us before we came out.”

For once, I felt that the grin on his face was more melancholy than anything. Admitting that you were purposefully left because you were a burden, and then continuing to smile despite growing up in the Dungeon. Honestly, he was much stronger than me in all aspects.

“Still, I’m pretty thankful for your help, Dean. I never meant to bring up anything bad.”

“Its not all bad,” Dean grinned again, motioning for the other two to stop messing with the corpses lying on the floor around us. “The old man basically is the grandpa for all of us; he takes his time to gather all the orphans around the Dungeon and moves them to the second floor. Which, by the way, is the best floor.”

“I feel like that’s a heavily biased opinion.” I smiled back at him. Dean’s playfulness seemingly rubbed off on me.

Damn it, I won’t be added to your harem you playboy!

He slung an arm over my shoulder as Helen and Charlotte began picking the corpses clean of materials. “Hear me out, Glen. The City of Flowers is the place to go to. Beautiful sights, safe travels, literally the only place you can find someone from the fifth floors on a lower floor… did I mention the fact that pretty much all the elves go there. Let me tell you,” he leaned in, peeking at the other two members of the part who were smiling at him. I caught his grimace as he hid it. “They’re the ugliest people I’ve seen. No doubt in my mind.”

I chuckled a bit, shrugging off his hand. “Alright, anyways, what are we going to do with all these bodies? I don’t think leaving them here is a good idea.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Ah, right,” Dean pulled out a piece of paper from one of the pockets he hid in his armor. Carefully, his finger traced a line around it before he marked a spot. “There, I marked the place so scavenger volunteers can clean them up. Still, Featherkin meat is rather tame compared to some of the nasty stuff further in.”

“Meat? Don’t they just transport them somewhere to dump them?”

Dean laughed a bit. “Where do you think they get the meat for the food everyone back in the Town goes through?”

The information hit me harder than I liked to think. My stomach turned a bit as I stared at the corpses at my feet, finding a broken handle stuck in the skull of one nearby. I felt a bit green as I found the other half of my spear inserted in the chest of another corpse rather close to the last one.

For some reason, I had always assumed we had been eating something else, but the answer was rather simple yet equally savage. After all, Featherkin at least resemble humans to a degree.

“Come on, don’t get squeamish because of that!” Dean complained in my ear. “It’s not like we have the space for farms on the first floor. That stuff is reserved for the second floors, and its not like we can transport enough to make up for that between floors.”

I sighed, relenting. “Yeah, sorry. I guess its a bit hard to… adapt to the norms here.”

“Well, you’re certainly doing better than most Newbies I’ve seen.” Dean grinned as we finally started to leave. “I’m having a good time relaxing in the Newbie areas, but still,” he looked at the bloody tunnel behind us. “What did you say you did back in your world again?”

“I was an office worker. A little cubicle and a computer were all I had, but most of the time I was off doing jobs for my boss.” I answered easily, remembering the times that I was simply a yes-man to my boss. In some ways, my life hadn’t changed despite the massive overhaul in scenery.

“Huh,” Dean patted me on the shoulder while his gaze trailed behind us. I caught that his eyes landed on the Featherkin I had fought after my spear had broken, and I winced at the sight of its caved in skull and blood leaking onto the floor. “You could have fooled me. Right, you have your spear? Go get it.”

“I found it!” Charlotte called over to us, holding half of my spear that was covered in blood and gore. It seemed she had gotten it stuck on something inside the corpse as the body on the floor had its chest torn open in order for her to get it out. “But its broken…”

Helen, the beastwoman, hummed as she inspected the broken weapon. Her fluffy tail languidly tossed back and forth as she turned an inquisitive eye in my direction. “Why didn’t you say your weapon broke? We would have stopped the exercise.”

“I did say that.” I said with a bit of annoyance. “And you sent three more right after.”

Helen, for her part, didn't even look fazed by my answer. She just gave me a look that seemed to say ‘they weren’t much, why are you complaining?’

“Helen’s sorry, Glen!” Charlotte chimed in, a sharktooth grin met my gaze, and I flinched away from her forked tongue as she pouted in the beastwoman’s direction. “Right? We can’t be too mean to him since the old man told us to train him.”

Helen finally sighed, hefting her massive axe to her shoulder as it clinked against her shoulder plates. “Yes, I’m sorry for my oversight. I’m used to people having the durable descriptor to their body trait, so I forgot about your unreasonable squishiness compared to most. Dean, make sure he has updated his equipment before we make plans for his descriptor rooms.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man waved, earning a grunt of annoyance from his female teammate. “Come on, Glen, we gotta get back before the canteen stops serving regular human food. I tried to eat some of what demons consider delicacies, but honestly, I don’t know how Charlotte ever stomachs them.”

I turned back to the other two and found Charlotte laughing as she stabbed another corpse and watched it bleed. While I was certain she was messed up somewhere upstairs, I didn’t know if that was because it was her personality or just something that all demons share. She certainly looked like a normal human at first glance.

“So,” Dean started again as we were finally making progress to leave. “What weapon are you thinking about when we get back? Another spear, or are you going to try something else?”

Sighing, I didn’t spare the man an answer. The words he so easily spoke were something of a sore spot recently as I inquired about other Newbies like myself. Where I had easy meals, plenty of training and ludicrously cheap armor and weapons, everyone else was scrambling to make something.

Normally, materials obtained from the Dungeon could be traded in for marks that could be used as a sort of proxy for money here, but feathers and beaks gained from Featherkin were nowhere close to sufficient unless you killed at least thirty a day. And considering the fact that I was only able to take care of seven on my own, despite being practically spoon-fed them by a stronger team, every Newbie was facing a serious dilemma.

Which eventually led them to one of two things: try to join a veteran team or volunteer. Where the former happened seldomly, almost everyone else opted for the latter. You could volunteer for the canteen or scavenging team and earn a meal for your work, or you could volunteer to help in the forges to get a weapon or piece of armor. It was basically a labor system that made sure the Newbies weren’t always challenging the Dungeon.

Of course, there were inevitably those that did just that. They practically walked along a blade’s edge to bring in enough to support their endeavors, get stronger and get better equipment all to challenge harder places. Sometimes I wondered if they were simply mad, but I’d remember that I was basically doing the same thing. There was a sort of thought that maybe I could just constantly volunteer for the canteen so I wouldn’t have to risk my life all the time.

However, with so much support and effort being thrown my way, I felt a little obligated to continue the Dungeon

The old man and these three teammates I had gotten all wanted something from me. I had my ideas on what that could be, but I didn’t want to assume random things that weren’t my business. There's a sort of unwritten rule around here that you’d learn the things you needed as you went on. At least, that’s what I told myself whenever the answer wasn’t given to me.

In any case, I felt a little needed by them. In addition to a sort of belonging to a group of weirdos who only existed for the purpose of going through the Dungeon. It was a stupid feeling, I knew it deep down, but I was allowed to delude myself for the purpose to waking up and cave in the skull of a monster with my bare hands.

Silently, those thoughts bubbled in the back of my head as we left the Dungeon to the Room of Beginnings. My feet met the dirt trodden path, and I took a moment to look at my hands. They weren’t shaking anymore, yet I could still feel it. The sensation of an eye bursting as its skull bounced against the floor.

“Like I thought,” I whispered. “What am I doing here?”

“Did you say something?” Dean asked.

“No, I was just thinking about what weapon I wanted to use now.” I lied. “Maybe something ranged.”

Dean paused to think that over. “I dunno, there’s quite a bit of descriptor rooms that offer better stuff, and I’m sure Helen has been trying to make you use your fists more often. The old man offered to train you later, and inner energy doesn’t really mesh well with bows and arrows or crossbows. I don’t really know the specifics myself, though.”

“Oh, thanks for the information.” I said quietly.

“No problem. Hey, hurry up!” He grabbed my arm and I allowed myself to follow as he dragged the two of us straight to the canteen. “I don’t want to eat demon food again! Move those feet Glen! Don’t think I don’t know you’re trying to slack off!”

I laughed, feeling a bit better as Dean’s worries seemed to eclipse mine. Throughout the whole sprint to the canteen, I almost forgot to view the Dungeon as a makeshift graveyard. One that might hold my cooling corpse just like those monsters I had killed.

Almost.