The First Step

The air inside the red gate tasted like copper and rust. Han Sol-Mi pressed her palm against the sealed exit, the stone cold and impossibly smooth, as if the dungeon itself had swallowed the door whole. Behind her, someone coughed—a wet, rattling sound that made her shoulders tighten. “It’s not opening,” she said, her voice flat. She’d known it wouldn’t. But saying it aloud made it real. Park Doyun limped over, his left knee clicking with every step. He’d wrapped it in a compression bandage before they entered, but the swelling was already visible through the fabric. “Then we go forward.” He didn’t look at her. He was staring down the corridor ahead, where the pale blue light of their torchlight dissolved into absolute black. “Standard red gate protocol. Find the boss room, kill the boss, get out.” “Standard protocol,” Sol-Mi repeated, and the bitterness in her throat was older than this dungeon. “We’re E-rank. We don’t have standard protocol for red gates. We have ‘pray and die.’” Doyun finally turned to face her. His eyes were bloodshot, and there was a tremor in his jaw that he couldn’t quite hide. But his voice was steady. “Then we write a new protocol. You’re the healer. I’m the tank. We’ve got Cho behind us with a dagger that’s sharper than his brain, and Mi-Young’s got that flame staff she never uses because it’s ‘too expensive to repair.’ We’re not helpless.” “We’re not prepared,” Sol-Mi shot back. “I’ve got enough mana to heal maybe three serious wounds before I collapse. Cho’s dagger can’t pierce A-rank hide. And Mi-Young’s staff is a glorified lighter.” Doyun’s jaw tightened. He planted his cane—a battered thing with a rubber tip—firmly on the stone floor. “Then we don’t get hit. We don’t waste mana. We work together.” He paused, and the silence stretched between them like a frayed rope. “That’s why I formed this guild, Sol-Mi. For people who needed a second chance. This is ours.” She wanted to argue. To remind him that second chances meant nothing when you were dead. But the others were watching—Cho, a wiry man in his forties with a nervous twitch; Mi-Young, a young woman whose flame staff trembled in her grip; and three more hunters huddled near the back, their faces pale. They were all looking at Doyun. At her. Waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Sol-Mi let out a slow breath. “Fine. We move. But we don’t take risks. We scout, we conserve resources, and if anything looks like a trap, we pull back.” She turned to Doyun. “You stay in front. I’ll cover your flank.” He nodded, a flicker of gratitude crossing his face. Then he raised his cane and began to walk. The corridor wound downward, the walls slick with moisture. Strange symbols were carved into the stone—runes that seemed to writhe in the torchlight. Sol-Mi kept her hand on her staff, the healing crystal at its tip glowing faintly. Every sound was magnified: the drip of water, the shuffle of boots, the uneven breathing of the hunters behind her. Twenty minutes in, they found the first body. It was a woman, her armor rent open as if by claws. The blood had dried black, but the body was fresh—no more than a day old. She carried a B-rank hunter’s badge. Sol-Mi knelt beside her, checking for any sign of life. There was none. “B-rank,” Doyun said quietly. “And she didn’t make it.” “Then we don’t fight whatever killed her,” Sol-Mi said, standing. “We find another route.” But the corridor split ahead into two tunnels, both equally dark. Before anyone could decide, a low growl echoed from the left tunnel—deep, resonant, the sound of something large waking up. Cho’s hand went to his dagger. Mi-Young’s staff flickered with orange light. Everyone looked at Doyun. He wiped sweat from his brow. “Right tunnel. Quietly. No lights.” They extinguished the torches. Darkness swallowed them whole. Sol-Mi felt her way along the wall, her fingers tracing cold stone, her heart hammering against her ribs. She could hear Doyun’s labored breathing ahead of her, the slight hitch in his step when his knee buckled. Then the growling stopped. And something else began: a skittering, like many legs moving fast over stone. “Run,” Doyun said. They ran.