The train was too normal for what she was about to do.

  Suzume stood by the doors, gear bag slung over one shoulder, watching salarymen scroll through their phones. A group of high school girls gossiped about some drama at cram school. An elderly woman dozed in the corner seat, her shopping bags nestled between her feet.

  [Just another Tuesday afternoon.]

  Except she was heading to save three people who were probably already dead.

  The automated voice announced Koto station. The doors hissed open. Suzume stepped onto the platform and broke into a jog, weaving through the afternoon crowd. Her tactical boots drew a few glances, but this was Tokyo. People had seen weirder.

  The office building sat between a convenience store and a ramen shop that advertised "authentic Hakata-style" noodles. Seven stories of glass and steel that looked exactly like every other mid-tier corporate building in the district. The evacuation must have been subtle. No police tape. No Player Response Officers. Just a security guard by the entrance checking his phone.

  Suzume pulled her cap lower and walked past him like she belonged there.

  The elevator dinged. Fourth floor. Fifth. The modulator sat heavy in her jacket pocket, but she'd wait until the last second to turn it on. Battery life was precious.

  Seventh floor.

  The doors opened to an empty hallway. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Three of them flickered. At the far end, she could see it, that telltale green shimmer bleeding through the air where reality had torn itself a new hole.

  [C-rank. Green portal.]

  Suzume clicked the modulator on. Her voice would come out distorted now, pitched lower and rougher. She approached the portal and pressed her hand against it. The surface rippled like disturbed water. Energy crackled against her palm, not quite painful but not pleasant either.

  She pushed through.

  The temperature dropped fifteen degrees instantly. Her breath came out in small clouds. The office building's generic carpet gave way to rough stone. Dungeon moss clung to the walls, emitting that sickly green phosphorescence that made everything look like it was dying.

  The first goblin corpse lay three meters from the entrance.

  Its head had been caved in. Brain matter and blood painted the stone wall behind it. A rusty sword lay beside its three-fingered hand.

  [They made it past the entrance guards at least.]

  Suzume stepped over the body and continued down the tunnel. Two more goblins sprawled across the path ahead. One had been cut nearly in half at the waist. The other had multiple stab wounds in its chest. The blood was still wet. Maybe twenty minutes old.

  [They're fighting. That means they're alive.]

  Or they had been twenty minutes ago.

  The tunnel branched. The left led deeper, following a gradual downward slope. The right stayed level but narrowed considerably. Fresh scratches marked the stone on the left path. Claw marks from something being dragged.

  She went left.

  More corpses littered the path. Not just goblins now. Two wolves with matted fur and too many teeth. One had its throat torn out. The other had been burned, its fur still smoking slightly.

  [The mage definitely made it this far.]

  The smell hit her then. Copper and shit from spilled intestines. She'd gotten used to it in the simulations, but reality always hit different.

  And there, on the stone floor, a streak of red that wasn't monster blood.

  Human blood. Fresh. Still glistening under the moss light.

  The trail led deeper into the tunnel.

  The blood trail led to a chamber that opened up like a wound in the earth.

  Forty meters wide, ceiling lost in darkness. The walls were covered in that phosphorescent moss, casting everything in sick green light. Suzume could hear water dripping somewhere far above.

  Three figures huddled against the far wall.

  Two boys and a girl, all probably university age. Their equipment screamed "rental gear"—the basic stuff guilds loaned to rookies for qualification runs. One boy had his arm bent at an ugly angle. The girl pressed a blood-soaked cloth against a gash in her thigh. The third sat with his head between his knees, staff loose in his grip.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  [Still breathing. That's something.]

  She clicked her modulator twice to get their attention.

  "Don't scream."

  They screamed anyway.

  "I said don't—never mind." She held up her hands. "I'm here to get you out."

  "Who the hell are you?" The girl's voice cracked. Her hands shook as she tried to stand.

  "Does it matter? Can you walk?"

  "I... I think so."

  "Good. What about—"

  A sound echoed through the chamber. Not quite a roar, not quite a scream. Something between the two that made Suzume's teeth ache.

  The boy with the staff scrambled to his feet.

  "They're coming back."

  "How many?"

  "I don't know. Five? Ten? They keep changing."

  "Changing?"

  The first one emerged from a tunnel to their left. Suzume's Danger Sense screamed at her before she even saw it clearly. When it stepped into the moss light, her brain took a second to process what she was looking at.

  A Void Wraith. Level 67.

  She froze.

  [That's A-rank.]

  It moved like smoke given form, edges constantly shifting between solid and vapor. Where its face should have been was just a void instead.

  "That's not supposed to be here," the mage whispered.

  [No shit. C-rank dungeons capped at level 40. This thing could solo a team of experienced Players.]

  Two more shapes emerged behind it. Stone Golems, but scarier. Their bodies had extra arms growing from their torsos. Level 52 floated above their heads.

  [We're going to die.]

  "Can you run?" Suzume kept her voice steady despite the modulator.

  "My leg—"

  "Can. You. Run?"

  The girl nodded.

  "Then we run. Now."

  The Void Wraith tilted its head. The motion was too smooth, like it had no bones to restrict the movement. It took a step forward.

  Suzume grabbed the nearest rookie, the one with the broken arm, and shoved him toward the opposite tunnel.

  "MOVE!"

  They moved.

  The girl limped but kept pace. The mage dragged his staff behind him. Broken-arm boy stumbled but didn't fall. Suzume stayed at the back, watching the monsters.

  They weren't following. Not yet.

  [Why aren't they—]

  The Void Wraith screamed. Every piece of moss in the chamber went dark for a heartbeat. When the light returned, all three monsters were moving. Fast.

  The tunnel ahead branched in two directions. Left went up. Right stayed level but narrowed.

  "Which way did you come from?"

  "I don't remember!" The mage's voice pitched high with panic. "Everything changed when the portal destabilized!"

  Of course it did. The System's little seizure had probably rearranged the entire dungeon layout.

  Behind them, stone scraped against stone. The Golems were too wide for the tunnel. They were tearing through the walls to fit.

  [Escape Route.]

  She activated the skill. Golden threads appeared in her vision, leading left. The path to safety. Or at least, the path with the highest chance of not dying.

  "Left! Go left!"

  They ran. The girl's blood left a trail behind them. The broken-arm boy wheezed with each breath. The mage kept looking back.

  The Void Wraith flowed through the tunnel like water, no longer constrained by physical form.

  [We're not going to make it.]

  But they kept running anyway.

  The mage died first.

  He'd been lagging behind for the last thirty seconds, staff dragging against stone. The Void Wraith flowed up behind him like spilled ink. One moment he was there. The next, shadow poured into his mouth, his nose, his eyes. He dropped without a sound. Just meat hitting stone.

  [Keep running.]

  The girl with the wounded thigh screamed. Suzume grabbed her arm and pulled her forward. The golden threads of Escape Route flickered in her vision, leading them through a narrow passage that opened into another chamber.

  This one had crystals growing from the walls. Each one the size of a person, glowing with internal light that pulsed like a heartbeat.

  "Where are we?" The boy with the broken arm wheezed.

  "Deeper than we should be."

  The room had three exits. Her skill pointed left, but movement caught her eye from the right tunnel. Stone grinding against stone. The Golems had caught up.

  They ran left.

  The passage twisted upward at a forty-five degree angle. The girl's leg gave out halfway up. She hit the ground hard, blood seeping fresh through the makeshift bandage.

  "Get up!" Suzume pulled at her arm.

  "I can't—"

  A Golem's fist punched through the wall beside them. Four arms reached through the hole, grasping blindly. One caught the girl's ankle.

  She didn't even have time to scream properly. The Golem yanked her through the wall. The sound of breaking bones echoed back through the hole. Then wet tearing. Then nothing.

  [... Two down.]

  Suzume ran with wide eyes. The boy with the broken arm stayed close behind her, his breathing ragged. The tunnel opened into a massive cavern. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like teeth. Water dripped steadily, forming pools that reflected the moss light.

  Her Escape Route skill pointed straight across.

  They made it halfway before the Void Wraith materialized in front of them.

  The boy tried to dodge left. The wraith's arm extended like pulled taffy, wrapping around his throat. It lifted him off the ground. His feet kicked uselessly as his face turned purple, then blue, then gray. When the wraith dropped him, his head hit the stone.

  [Just me now.]

  The wraith tilted its head at her. She could feel it considering her, like a cat with a mouse that wasn't running quite right.

  Suzume backed toward the far wall.

  She realized then, her bodycam would be catching all of this. Yumi would see everything. Would see her die.

  [Sorry, Yumi. Guess you'll need a new exclusive.]

  The wraith moved closer. She could see through its chest to the cavern wall behind it. Its edges constantly shifted between states of matter.

  She turned and ran.

  The chamber ahead looked different from the others. The walls were smooth, almost polished. Strange symbols covered every surface, glowing faint blue. The floor had a geometric pattern that hurt to look at directly.

  Her skill's golden thread led straight through the center.

  [What?]

  She took three steps in.

  The floor crumbled.

  Not cracked, not broke. Crumbled, like sugar dissolving in water. One second she was running, the next she was falling through empty air. The wraith's scream echoed from above, growing fainter as she plummeted.

  [... Yumi just watched me die.]

  The thought hit harder than the approaching ground would. Her friend, sitting in front of her laptop, watching the feed cut to black. Having to make that call to Suzume's parents. Having to explain—

  She hit water.