Live Dungeon!

”Haaah… S-So tired…”

Daryl slumped down onto the ground inside the great tree, chest heaving, hair drenched in sweat. His eyes never left the little Fenrir cub who, after running amok for what felt like an eternity, had finally collapsed nearby in a heap of spent energy. Playing with a monster, even one not yet fully grown, was far more grueling than any routine fight. It reminded him of Garm’s brutal training sessions.

And yet, even while near his limit, Daryl hadn’t let the cub out of his sight for a moment. A creature like this, no matter how small, could die from a stray accident or unlucky blow. That vigilance had paid off; now that the cub was finally too tired to move, he could finally breathe easy.

*…Woof.*

It seemed even the cub hadn’t expected Daryl to outlast her. Ears twitching, she regarded him now with a faint glimmer of respect, her posture shifting subtly to reflect it. Daryl couldn’t help but feel a bit proud. Within the Clan, he was always the one being looked after. It almost felt like gaining a junior of his own.

”You hungry?”

Feeling generous, Daryl rummaged through his Magic Bag and pulled out something even a Fenrir might enjoy: dried fruits Ollie had made. At the sight of them, the cub perked up and trotted over, ears forward with interest.

She sniffed a piece of dried apple curiously, gave a tentative lick, then snapped it up and crunched it between her teeth. The subtle sweetness seemed to suit her; no sooner had she swallowed than she was nudging her head against Daryl’s hand for more.

”Easy now. Too much and you might upset your stomach.”

Despite the warning, Daryl’s face had softened into a warm, indulgent smile, the kind of expression that felt almost out of place inside the Dungeon. And the cub, sensing his mood, grew bolder. Before long, she’d scored herself an impressive pile of the high-grade dried fruit, and was nibbling through it with dainty satisfaction.

Daryl settled in beside her, unwrapping a sandwich of teriyaki chicken. The rich, salty-sweet flavor soothed his weary body. He wolfed it down and followed it with a swig of water from his canteen.

The cub looked up at him again with bright eyes.

”Want some too, huh?” he murmured.

He retrieved a shallow container, filled it with water, and placed it before her. She lapped it up eagerly. The two of them, monster and man, shared a meal in peace. The cub, now completely at ease, flopped over onto her back as if she’d forgotten all her wild instincts.

[Still… once we leave the Dungeon, that’s the end of this, isn’t it?]

Daryl gazed down at the little Fenrir with bittersweet eyes, watching her roll about lazily. He sighed, thinking how nice it would be if she just followed him home on her own. Maybe then they could adopt a pet at the Clan House. The odds of Tsutomu allowing that were slim, of course, but the thought had a certain allure.

[Maybe… if I bought another bottle of that wine, he’d agree?]

Daryl chuckled at himself. Sure, if Tsutomu was in one of his softer moods, he might say yes. But if Daryl just showed up with a ten million Gold bottle of wine, Tsutomu would be far too suspicious to drink it. If anything, it would probably be better to get Xeno involved again and recreate that little get-together. It had been one of the only times Daryl had seen Tsutomu truly open up. Not even Garm and Amy had seen him that loose before.

Daryl was still mulling over various schemes, like getting Tsutomu to drink and loosen his lips, when he noticed the Fenrir cub had recovered her energy. Her tail flicked idly in the air, clearly growing bored again. Daryl noticed and quickly stood, offering her another play session inside the Safe Zone of the great tree.

Earlier, she had kept eyeing the exit, clearly tempted to dash outside when Daryl’s back was turned. But now, she seemed to have accepted him. No longer testing the boundaries, she stayed nearby, even allowing him to pat her head. Her white-furred ears stood tall like radar dishes, and then suddenly, she barked once and turned toward the exit, trotting that way purposefully.

”Miss Diniel’s arrow?” Daryl murmured.

He had heard it too, the soft thunk of a shaft embedding in wood. His ears, while less fluffy than the little Fenrir’s, had still caught the sound. He followed her at a calm pace and checked carefully for any monster ambushes. Once he reached the arrow lodged in the trunk and confirmed the area was clear, he gave a hand signal.

Not long after, he heard approaching footsteps. Identifying them as his four teammates and the mother Fenrir, relief broke over his face.

[Looks like things went well on their end, too. Thank goodness… I don’t want to see anyone walk into the next layer with that sick feeling in their gut. Especially not Miss Korinna, not for her first time.]

He had been through the ninety-second layer four times before, and every single time had been hellish, always leaving a sense of guilt or failure. But not this time; they had done it right. Smiling softly, he reached out and gave the cub a gentle pat.

She blinked up at him, surprised. Then, with a quiet rumble as if saying ‘well, I suppose I’ll allow it’, she let out a soft growl.

”Oh! The little one’s safe too!” Hannah said.

”Which means we don’t need to search for another Safe Zone,” Korinna added, visibly relieved.

Everyone had made it back in one piece. Daryl felt his tension drain at last, though he kept a watchful eye on the cub. Fortunately, she didn’t bolt for her mother; if anything, she seemed to be going through a mild rebellious phase, pretending not to care at all.

”Daryyyl!”

Hannah sprinted toward him, face radiant with joy. But just behind her, Korinna froze. Every hair on her body seemed to bristle at once, her eyes blown wide in primal terror.

Daryl, too, caught the blur of something else, a jolt of something that didn’t belong.

”H-Hann–”

Before he could get the warning out, a white blur erupted from behind Hannah. It streaked past her, claws gleaming with frost. In one blink, the claws slashed through her.

”…Huh?”

Hannah’s upper body hit the ground with a sickening thud, her face twisted in confusion. Before her mind could even register what had happened, her body dissolved into clusters of light.

Daryl didn’t think; he reacted. He kicked the Fenrir cub out of harm’s way and threw himself forward, just as the white blur barreled into him. The force lifted him off his feet, sending him tumbling end over end until his back slammed into the tree’s inner wall with a bone-rattling impact.

The breath left him in a rush. And in front of him, panting with wild, ragged gasps, stood the mother Fenrir. She let out a crazed, guttural roar that shook the very air.

▽▽

[Looks rough down there…]

Tsutomu, out alone for the first time in a while and dressed inconspicuously, sat on his usual bench, practicing skills while watching Monitor #2. It displayed Korinna’s party, locked in a desperate struggle against a rampaging Fenrir that had lost all sense of self, much like the Rampage Elephant from earlier. He watched it all as if it were someone else’s problem.

The Rampage Elephant, true to its name, was a berserking beast in combat. But normally, it was actually quite docile. It only ever became aggressive when protecting its young. So in the first place, why had it rampaged through the forest on the ninety-second layer?

The answer lay in the parasitic monster infesting it.

A thin, inchworm-like creature, no thicker than a human hair, it never even had a name in Live Dungeon. It was the only organism that existed outside the layer’s natural hierarchy. If its host died, the parasite would immediately seek out the nearest, healthiest monster and infest it.

That was what had happened to the Fenrir. It had become unknowingly infected, and by the time it reached the Safe Zone, its mind was no longer its own. Just like the Rampage Elephant, it was now a beast driven by madness.

Tsutomu had more or less expected this. As he chewed leisurely on a meat bun from a nearby food stall, he jotted down notes while observing Monitor #2.

[The ninety-second layer’s already a nightmare in the game, but in this world, the hassle’s gotta be cranked up to eleven. Everything’s just that much more grounded and realistic, so I bet the events’ trigger conditions are different too.]

After a major content and balance patch, the ninety-second layer had become one of the most infamous segments of Live Dungeon. A full narrative arc centered around the Fenrir and its cub had been woven into the game, but unless players went out of their way to change the course of events, the cub would almost always die. The game would move on, rendering this particular story arc completely inconsequential, but not without leaving behind a bitter taste.

Of course, Tsutomu hadn’t been satisfied with that. There had to be another way. An alternate route, something that could save both parent and cub. And with the faint hope of a unique item or reward, he and the rest of his team at the time had dug into the layer’s mechanics. But finding that hidden path had been hell.

Traps that required absurd attention to detail. Riddles that looked important but meant absolutely nothing. Mechanics seemingly designed to waste the player’s time rather than reward cleverness. There were systems influenced by real-time events, layers of luck-based checks… It was exhausting. Tsutomu, operating as one of the leaders of the search group in those days, had grown increasingly bitter with every passing hour.

And yet, within a week, the community had cracked it. The rescue route was discovered, and not long after that, an optimized run was formulated and shared widely.

And as it turned out, the reward was… a single title. No gear, no consumables; just a badge of honor. For the average player, the route remained prohibitively complex. So most sighed in frustration and left it be. The entire ordeal had proven to be nothing more than a massive time sink.

Still, Tsutomu had kept at it for years. Testing every patch, poking every mechanic, searching for something new. His reason was simple: he just love the game.

[Hahaha… Look at them panic!]

He watched the figures on and around the Monitor: his Clan members, the panicked onlookers, even the Dungeon Maniacs and information brokers, all scrambling to process what was happening. A berserk Fenrir wasn’t in any of the known data. Eyes were glued to the screen.

And Tsutomu… he watched them watching and basked in the chaos. Those reactions, that thrill of knowing something no one else did, were something he would always enjoy. Even back in junior high school, he’d loved being the one who knew which classmates were secretly dating. That love for secrets, for information, had only intensified when Live Dungeon entered his life.

In an MMO, information spread fast; there was no hiding anything. But for a fleeting moment, an hour, maybe a day, he could be the only one who knew. That brief window, where he held the truth in his hands and watched the world catch up to it, was what kept him going. The joy of revealing it, the anticipation of everyone’s reaction… It was addictive.

Even so, today’s case didn’t quite hit the same. The information had not been hard-earned. The thrill was not as sharp. And besides… Hannah had just died. That fact dulled the edge of his usual detachment.

[Man, I’m such an asshole…]

Still, at the end of the day, it wasn’t his problem. It truly wasn’t. Tsutomu watched the flailing party with a calm, almost idle gaze, like a man watching a dumpster fire on the other side of a river.

The party had barely recovered from the Rampage Elephant when the mother Fenrir turned berserk. Their resources were low, their focus fractured. And if they managed to kill the parent… the cub would be enraged. Then, with the scent of blood in the air, scavenging monsters would start circling. He figured they had a decent chance of surviving, but the situation was undeniably terrible.

Still, things were not entirely hopeless. If the logic of Live Dungeon held true, then Pico might have been right about one thing: the mechanics of the monsters’ deaths. If her hypothesis applied here, it could be their thread of salvation. A faint thread, granted. But a thread nonetheless.

[You’ve got this, Korinna. Hang in there.]

Even as chaos unfolded on and around the Monitor. Screaming spectators, floundering allies, a rampaging beast. Yet, Tsutomu remained composed. He murmured an empty encouragement toward the screen’s Healer and continued watching with the faintest smile tugging at his lips.

A smile that said, more than anything, why he preferred to watch alone.