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She nodded. “Indeed. I’ve heard rumors of a demon attack there.”

My eyebrow raised in curiosity. “I take it you’re an Awakener, then.”

Was she just after some experience or quests?

“Something of the sort.” She shrugged, the cloak around her shoulders subtly shifting.

The small stone hut was almost stiflingly warm, yet the skin on her face showed not the slightest bit of perspiration, and she looked almost relaxed.

Flickering shadows danced over her face.

“Then you also must have heard of the missing caravans,” I said.

“A surprisingly unimportant issue for the central cities,” she starkly replied. “Can you tell me why?”

She turned her head from the fire to look into my eyes, her pupils dilated, the green irises around them flickering with bits of orange.

“Huh.” I sighed. “I’m wondering that myself. We both made it halfway, so what happened to the caravans?”

As if in answer, a system message flickered before me.

[You’ve entered the ‘Dungeon of Fallen Travelers’.]

Following the blue system message, reality flickered for a moment, and the dusty, relatively bare interior of the hut suddenly filled with dried bloodstains splattered haphazardly along the walls and floor.

The remnants of the caravans and travelers attempting to travel between the two cities, if I were to hazard a guess.

The elf woman, Eve, sighed.

“You were expecting this?” I asked, casting glances around the hut, still flickering with the same firelight.

“The place reeks of demons,” she replied, leaving it at that.

‘Demons have a smell?’ I wondered.

I certainly hadn’t smelled anything amiss. Maybe it was a class characteristic?

A faint scratching sound echoed from the other side of the rotting wooden door. No doubt, even a somewhat relaxed kick could knock the door in, and it wasn’t like it was locked to begin with.

“What do you see?” Eve asked me.

“What do I see?”

“The system message. What does it say?”

“We’ve entered a dungeon…” Surely, she could see the same window. What was the point in asking?

“What are you?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Your class. Is it close-range, long-range?”

“Close-range…” I muttered.

She nodded and pointed to the doorway. “Then I suggest we head outside before whatever’s out there decides to come in here. I’ll support you from behind.”

It was the best course of action, but it felt a bit odd to be commanded around in such a way by someone I’d just met. Finally, she looked toward the fire and reached out her hand.

Streaks of red and orange heat wrapped around her hand and sank into her skin.

For the first time, I saw her start to sweat.

***

Aizen approached the door and cautiously swung it open, ready to confront whatever was making the clawing sound outside.

With only faint embers left behind them, the moonlight outside cast silvery light over Aizen’s form, and Eve noticed his hands. She’d already seen the rectangular metal device strapped over one of his forearms, but the earth swirling around his other arm was new.

‘An Awakener ability, then.’

From what she’d seen, it wasn’t too uncommon for human Awakeners to receive classes themed after a certain element. His must have been earth-based.

He stepped through the doorway, and she followed shortly after.

More dried blood splattered the dirt-packed ground outside the hut. The moon overhead showed the remains of a grisly scene, but only that. As for the corpses she would’ve expected, they were nowhere to be seen.

The scratching on the side of the hut stopped the moment they set foot outside.

They had other worries, though. Clearly, they were in a sort of limited dungeon. The faint purple, hazy bubble over the clearing was proof of that.

She knew from experience that the bubble wouldn’t let them out until they cleared the dungeon. If she were to guess, it was some variant of ‘survive’ or ‘defeat the enemies’.

From the look on the Awakener, Aizen’s, face, another system message appeared.

She didn’t have to bother asking about it. From the edge of the clearing, at the border of the purple bubble hanging over them, figures lurched forward, pulling themselves from the bushes.

The term ‘undead’ wouldn’t have quite fit what she saw. No, rather than undead, were they possessed?

Adventurers clad in whatever armor they’d been in at the times of their death approached them in a mad frenzy—mages in flowing robes, archers and assassin-types in form-fitting leather, and hulking brutes in full armor of metal and chain.

Odd, purple growths extended from their faces like tumors, and their eyes glinted with madness.

There was a silver lining to the attack, at least—the madmen rushing toward them were heated, sweating with whatever was afflicting their bodies.

That meant there would be more heat for her to use.

The rectangular device on Aizen’s arm let out a dull ‘clank’ as a blade emerged from the end of it.

‘Neat trick,’ Eve idly thought to herself.

I activated the blade on my wrist and felt the recoil of the blade’s spring mechanism shoot through my arm.

The Awakeners, hopefully maddened beyond saving, rushed toward us from all sides. I could only hope Eve knew how to handle herself.

The following flares of heat I felt behind me only reassured me more.

Rushing forward, I met the first of the corrupted Awakeners—a woman in leather armor wielding a slender longsword.

I slipped to the side as she swung her blade and countered with a smooth cut into her neck with my gauntlet’s blade.

Unexpectedly, I met with more resistance than I otherwise would have expected from the soft-looking flesh.

‘Did the corruption toughen their skin?’

I couldn’t use «Strike» or «Eruption» on each of the enemies—I would run out of energy long before the twenty-something corrupted Awakeners were dealt with.

I pulled the blade back from the thing’s neck and backpedaled away from another sword strike. The slash itself would’ve been easy enough to dodge, but I was more worried about the others quickly catching up and surrounding me.

Flares of heat hit the back of my neck, followed by the crackling of flames.

The corrupted attackers might have been toughened, but at least it didn’t seem like they could use their abilities. They were completely reliant on base stats and their toughened skin.

That meant the corrupted mages were pretty much a non-issue.

‘Should I hit and run?’ I wondered to myself. What would be the best strategy for taking down the corrupted Awakeners?

“Gather them together!”

A shout reached my ears—Eve. I glanced back briefly to see her standing in front of a few burning corpses. Even their toughened skin stood no match for whatever skills she was using.

“Got it!” I yelled back, circling around the enemies and doing my best to group them up.

Finally, Eve raised her hand and yelled at me again. “Bring them here!”

I ran toward her. Oddly enough, the closer I ran, the colder the air became. I would’ve thought the air would be warmer near someone using fire.

“Move!” She yelled when I was only meters away.

I dodged to the side.

The next moment, a surge of concentrated fire, blue in color, streamed past me in a slowly widening cone. Rolling on the ground, I regained my footing and turned to look.

‘…’

The blue fire streamed through the corrupted Awakeners.

Flesh boiled; streams of fat and melted tissue splashed onto the ground. Flesh, muscles, bone, and organs fused together in the melting heat and evaporated altogether.

Armor made of cloth, leather, and metal all melted within mere moments, and the corrupted were neatly bisected, falling into two halves beneath the fiery onslaught.

The air chilled even more, and frost built up on the dirt beneath me. Each breath I exhaled created little wisps of vapor.

Finally, just as suddenly as it’d started, the fire went out in a last puff of light and sound.

“Haa… Haa…” Eve panted, exhausted by her attack.

All of the corrupted Awakeners were dead, though. Still, the dungeon persisted.

There was one final question we needed to see the answer to: how had the first Awakener been corrupted anyway?

“Hey…” Eve panted out between breaths, “What’s the quest anyway?”

I frowned. Again, she was asking about the quest.

‘Is she worried the window is corrupted somehow?’

I’d never heard of the system giving two Awakeners in the same dungeon a different clear condition before, but that didn’t mean it was impossible.

Recalling the window I’d seen at the start of the attack, I said, “We just have to defeat the enemies.”

She fell to her knees and placed her hands on the ground, looking deathly pale, with a blue hue coloring her lips.

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

That meant there was one more enemy left.

As if on cue, it emerged from the trees at the far end of the clearing, a writhing, worm-like humanoid monstrosity with writhing tentacles. It was easily six meters in height.

Despite the fearsome size of the thing, I grinned. Finally, something I could use all of my skills on.

The small fry corrupted hadn’t been worth it, but the boss? I wouldn’t have to be concerned about saving my resources anymore.

“Don’t worry,” I said as the thing made its approach. “You’ve done your job. Just sit back and enjoy the show.”