Chapter 40: First Floor Only

Jinhae

My boot came down on the last step.

The world flickered.

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[DUNGEON ENTERED]

THE CATACOMB

Floor ................... 1 / 10

Restriction ............. First Floor Only

Boundary Seal ............ Active

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*— Containment vault. Forty years of captured stock.

*— Exits unmarked. Navigation is the test.

*— Descent past Floor 1: fail.

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Ahyun’s fingers hooked the back of my robe.

Seolhwa had already taken the first pace into the dark.

The second box hit before I finished the breath.

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[WARNING]

Demonic Energy Detected

Proximity ............... Near

Classification .......... Low-tier

Signatures .............. Multiple / moving

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“Stay alert,” I said. “All of you.”

I rolled the cane and drew. The scholar’s blade came free in a short, clean pull, narrow and double-edged.

Seolhwa’s swords were already out.

She slid to the front without being told. The exact spacing we had burned into the courtyard dirt for three mornings.

Ahyun pressed herself to my back.

Seorin made a small sound.

“Kang Jinhae.” Her voice stayed soft. The Good Girl Mask held, but her eyes were on the blade. “Since when did you have a weapon in that cane?”

“Since the night we arrived,” I said. “A smith sold it to me.”

“I thought—” She caught herself. Started again, polite. “I thought you would remain a strategist. Call openings. Read the field. The way you did with the ogre.”

“I am a strategist.”

I tipped the blade so the nearest wall-sconce caught the edge.

“Strategy works better when the strategist can also protect the rear.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Formation,” I said. “Same as the yard. Seol in front. Seorin, seals ready, my mark. Ahyun stays on me until I call healing. We do not chase. We do not split.”

“Yes, Young Master,” Ahyun whispered into my back.

Seolhwa did not waste a yes.

The first-floor corridor ran low and wide. Rough-hewn walls. Iron sconces held fat, slow torches. Seal-script crawled faintly around each bracket, containing the fire so it would not eat the oxygen and kill the candidates.

We advanced.

It was almost instinctive. Three mornings of drills had sanded the thinking off it. Seolhwa took the point. I took the center line. Seorin kept to my right with two fingers already inside her cloak, paper ready. Ahyun stayed so close that every time I slowed, her chest bumped my spine.

I knew this floor. I had walked it hundreds of times.

The Catacomb was a tutorial dressed as a tomb. Twenty gates. One looping first floor. The scoring wanted speed, clean fights, and no injuries.

Most parties hugged the right wall and prayed.

Seorin’s amber-gold eyes kept cutting to my face, then to the turns I took without pausing.

“How are you guiding us?” she asked. “We have not seen a mark. The official said the exits were unmarked.”

“They are.”

“Then—”

“The torches.”

She looked. Head tipping. Pink hair sliding forward.

“The torches,” she repeated.

“The seal corps hung them when they first contained this floor,” I said. “They’re a map.”

Seorin studied the nearest sconce.

She frowned.

The pattern was a developer tell that speedrunners discovered.

Ahyun’s mouth brushed my shoulder.

“Young Master,” she whispered. “Something's close.”

“I know.”

Seolhwa’s back tightened. “Contact.”

Demonic Rats.

Beaver-sized, heavy in the shoulder. Matted black fur gone greasy with cave water. Black horns jutted from the brows, short and ridged, crusted at the roots. Demonic Qi sat in them the way rot sat in meat.

Seolhwa went in low.

The first rat died before it finished the squeal. Left blade through the palate, right blade opening the throat on the way out. Black-red sprayed the wall in a short fan. She was already past it, turning, both edges writing a second death across a spine.

“Mark,” I said.

Seorin’s fingers flew.

Yellow paper left her hand like a thrown coin. It slapped the lead rat’s horn. Seal-script flared. The beast locked mid-lunge, paws skidding, jaws open on a scream that had nowhere to go.

I stepped in off Seolhwa’s right and drove my blade into the bound rat’s eye. The horn scraped my knuckle. The skull gave with a wet click. I ripped free and let the body drop.

Ahyun made a tiny sound against my back and did not let go.

“Stay,” I said.

“Y-yes—”

Seolhwa moved one blade high, one low. A horned skull parted. A spine unzipped. A third rat leapt for her throat and met the flat of a sword that turned into an edge at the last inch, and the thing hit the floor in two arguments instead of one.

I caught a straggler that broke past her hip.

“Left,” I said.

Seolhwa was already there.

The last two tried to flee into the cleft they had come from. She did not permit it. The whole pack went still.

Silence came back.

Seorin stared at the yellow paper stuck to a dead horn.

“That was—” Seorin started.

“Low-tier,” Seolhwa said. “Do not write a poem about it.”

Color rose in Seorin’s cheeks.

“I was not going to write a poem.”

I wiped the scholar’s blade on the driest patch of fur I could find.

Ahyun’s forehead pressed between my shoulder blades.

“Are you hurt, Young Master?”

“No.”

“You’re sure? I can—”

“If I need a flame, I will ask for a flame.” I reached back without looking and squeezed her wrist once, hard enough to seat the order. “Until then you stay on me.”

“Y-yes, Young Master.”

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[RELATIONSHIP UPDATE]

AHYUN

Affection ............... 100 / 100

Lust .................... 109 / 109

Trust ................... 99 → 100 / 100 ↑

Submission .............. 100 / 100

Fear .................... 8 / 100

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*— Master-trust: confirmed

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Seorin’s gaze flicked to that contact. I watched the thought move behind the eyes. Young masters and maids. Shared rooms. Shared backs.

She was imagining more than she should, and she knew I could see it.

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[RELATIONSHIP UPDATE]

LEE SEORIN

Affection ............... 6 / 100

Lust .................... 8 → 18 / 100 ↑

Trust ................... 11 / 100

Submission .............. 3 / 100

Fear .................... 14 / 100

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She looked away first.

“The official said they could kill us if we were careless,” she said. “Those did not seem…”

“They kill stragglers,” I said. “Or the ones that chase the last rat into a second pack.”

Seolhwa had already taken point again.

We stepped over the bodies and took the left fork.

Seorin’s head turned toward the wider right-hand dark.

“Kang Jinhae,” she said. “That way is—”

“Longer,” I said. “I know.”

“The scoring includes time.”

“It also includes what we find.”

Ahyun’s fingers tightened.

Seolhwa glanced back once. Blade Honor liked a decisive stroke more than it liked a clean ranking.

“You are not hunting the exit yet,” Seolhwa said.

It was not a question.

“Not yet.”

“Are you sure?” Seorin asked. “If the scoring includes time, every extra corridor is a risk.”

“Trust me.”

Her mouth closed.

“I am not here for a time score,” I said. “I want first. The exit can wait until we have enough points.”

Seolhwa faced the left fork. The measuring look from the courtyard came and went in one blink.

“Good,” she said. “I prefer it that way.”

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[RELATIONSHIP UPDATE]

SEOLHWA (Disguised)

Affection ............... 44 / 100

Lust .................... 52 / 100 (residual)

Trust ................... 88 → 92 / 100 ↑

Submission .............. 22 / 100

Fear .................... 19 / 100

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*— Respect: Increased

*— Blade Honor: satisfied

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