---

[Successful!]

--- 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Relief hit me so hard that I nearly staggered.

It worked.

The answer was correct.

At the same moment, the blue barrier sealing the dungeon entrance shattered into countless fragments and vanished.

I didn’t hesitate.

The instant the path opened, I threw myself toward the portal.

Just before I reached it, a sword came flying through the air.

The blade grazed my neck, leaving behind a shallow cut. A sharp sting shot through me, but I never turned around.

I didn’t need to.

I already knew who had thrown it.

The next instant, the portal swallowed me whole.

As soon as I passed through, a sharp pain exploded inside my head. My stomach twisted violently, and an overwhelming sense of nausea washed over me.

Before I could understand what was happening, several messages appeared in front of my eyes.

[Aftereffects of using the Teleportation Skill detected!]

[Please prepare yourself!]

Almost immediately, a wave of dizziness crashed into me.

My vision blurred.

The world spun around me.

Then, in the next moment, I emerged outside the dungeon.

The instant my feet touched the ground, my legs gave out beneath me.

I collapsed without resistance.

As consciousness slowly slipped away, I caught one final glimpse of the people standing in front of me.

Allen, Miri, Julian.

And behind them stood dozens of journalists.

Then everything faded into darkness.

***

**Three days later.**

The lights in the stairwell flickered weakly as slow, uneven footsteps echoed upward.

The space was completely silent, which only made the sound of each struggling step that much louder.

Someone was climbing the stairs. Very slowly. Very carefully.

They were gripping the railing tightly, using it to pull themselves up one step at a time.

Their breathing was heavy and labored. Each breath came out in short, ragged bursts.

They looked utterly drained.

That person was me.

I should probably explain how I ended up in this situation.

Earlier this morning, around 7 A.M., I got a call from Eden Garcia. Yeah. The main character of the novel.

He told me he’d just gotten his hands on a limited edition game. It was brand new, released today. A multiplayer game.

He wanted me to come over so we could play it together.

I didn’t give him a straight answer. I told him I’d think about it.

After hanging up, I’d already made my decision. I wasn’t going. I was feeling way too lazy to drag myself out of bed for a video game.

That should’ve been the end of it.

But then my phone buzzed again.

This time, it was a message. From Eden’s mom. Miss May.

The text read: "Come to our home. I have a present for you. A present you will like very much."

The moment I saw that message, I practically jumped out of bed.

I went straight to my wardrobe and started pulling out clean clothes.

Why the sudden change of heart?

Because I wanted that present.

My dirty mind was already running wild imagining what it could possibly be.

I quickly threw on some clothes, left the mansion, jumped into one of the parked cars, and plugged all the necessary instructions into the automated system. The car lifted smoothly into the air and flew me directly to Eden’s apartment building.

This time, I’d told Allen not to come with me. I explained I was just going over to hang out and play some games with Eden. Nothing serious.

Allen had agreed, though I could tell he wasn’t thrilled about it. He clearly wanted to come along, but I’d shut that idea down immediately.

Once I arrived at Eden’s building, I headed straight inside.

The security guards and the receptionist greeted me as I passed through the lobby. There was actually a receptionist stationed there because Eden’s building operated as a rental property. People stayed there regularly. Mostly tourists.

Right now, though, the entire place was empty. Eden had mentioned he was renovating the building, which meant all the floors were currently vacant. The work had been going on for around seven months. According to him, they were almost finished.

After exchanging quick greetings with the staff, I walked over to the elevator and pressed the button for the fiftieth floor. That was where Eden lived, all the way at the top.

The doors closed and the cabin started moving upward. But then it stopped on the tenth floor. The doors opened even though I hadn’t pressed that button.

Confused, I stepped out and found one of the security guards nearby. I asked him what was going on.

He told me the elevator had malfunctioned.

Perfect.

I immediately pulled out my phone and called Eden. The second he picked up, I told him to just teleport down here and bring me up to the fiftieth floor himself.

He flat-out refused.

He said I should use my own teleportation skill and get up there on my own.

Then he hung up.

I froze, staring at the screen in disbelief.

That bastard.

Muttering curses under my breath, I turned toward the stairwell and started climbing.

Now, two questions likely come to mind.

Now, you’re probably wondering two things. First, why didn’t I just use my teleportation skill like he’d suggested? And second, how the hell did Eden even know I had that ability in the first place?

Well, there’s a whole story behind both of those questions.

But right now, I needed to focus on the present.

I was making my way up the stairs slowly, each step more painful than the last.

I was absolutely exhausted. Completely drained. I felt like I’d been climbing forever.

Hold on. Let me actually check how long it’s been.

I checked my watch and glanced at the time.

---

Name: Michael Frostburne

Total Rules Broken: 0

Time: 9:17 PM

Date: 20th February

Year: 2130

---

9:17 PM.

So I’d been climbing stairs for a full thirty minutes. And I still hadn’t reached Eden’s floor.

Damn it.

I turned my head toward the wall and checked the floor marker posted there. My heart sank slightly when I saw the number.

Fortieth floor.

A long, heavy sigh escaped me.

Ten more floors to go.

I couldn’t do it anymore. Not without a break. I stopped right where I was and sat down on one of the steps, leaning my back against the cool wall.

While I tried to catch my breath, I looked down at my own body.

It was still weak. Embarrassingly weak.

Under normal circumstances, a bronze-rank hunter could easily climb fifty flights of stairs without needing to stop even once. But I clearly wasn’t normal.

My rank had increased to bronze, sure, but my body hadn’t caught up yet. It was still lagging far behind where it should have been.

Then Eden’s earlier words echoed in my head.

He’d been right. Absolutely right. Sometimes, hard work really was the only way forward.

Now that I actually stopped to think about it, I realized something uncomfortable. Ever since I’d arrived in this world, I’d done nothing but rely on shortcuts to survive and get stronger. I’d used Allen to clear dungeons for me. I’d used the twin blood effect to neutralize monsters without fighting them. I’d used gold coins to scare off the Dullahan.

Every single time, I’d found some way to avoid actually putting myself in danger.

And even now, sitting here on these stairs, completely worn out, the first thing my mind wanted to do was pull a recovery potion or stamina potion from my inventory so I could skip the exhaustion and keep moving.

My brain was completely hardwired to look for shortcuts.

While I wallowed in that realization, my phone suddenly vibrated in my pocket.

Huh? A message?

I pulled it out and checked the screen to see who had contacted me.

***

(From Unknown: 99+ messages)

***

Not this again.

The second I saw it, I switched my phone off completely and set it down beside me on the step.

I leaned my head back against the wall and stared blankly at the ceiling above.

How the hell had my life turned into this?

Here’s what happened.

It all started the day I entered that special-rank dungeon. Or mirror dungeon, depending on what you wanted to call it.

I’d grabbed the teleportation skill book, made it out of the dungeon in one piece, and then promptly collapsed the moment I stepped outside.

That’s where everything started to go sideways.

Right before I passed out, I remember catching a quick glimpse of the people standing nearby. Allen was there. So were Miri and Julian. And scattered all around them were dozens of journalists.

I still had no clue why that many reporters had been gathered in one place to begin with.

But the second they saw me hit the ground, they all rushed over.

Allen got to me first. He picked me up immediately and had me transferred to a hospital without wasting any time.

Now, while I was lying there unconscious, something happened outside the dungeon.

The journalists, Miri among them, gathered around the spot where I’d fallen. That’s when they noticed something lying on the ground next to me. Something none of them had been expecting.

Even Julian, who rarely looked rattled, had apparently been caught completely off guard. At least that’s what he told me afterward.

What they saw was a skull.

Not a human skull.

It was the Dullahan’s skull.

And the eyes, which should have been glowing with cursed energy, were completely dark. That meant the creature was dead.

Every single person there, Allen included, came to the exact same conclusion.

They all assumed I had fought the Dullahan by myself and killed it.

Now, like I’d mentioned before, Dullahans were supposed to be extinct. The last confirmed sighting in any dungeon had been over fifteen years ago.

So when those journalists saw a Dullahan’s skull lying right there on the ground, they lost their minds. Cameras came out instantly. Live streams went up. Photos started getting sent to every major news outlet within minutes.

And naturally, they all assumed the Dullahan had been the dungeon boss.

Which, to be completely fair, it actually had been.

While I was stuck in the hospital recovering, the news about me began to spread. Fast.

According to what Miri had told me during our elevator conversation, my public reputation had been absolutely terrible up to that point. Most people knew me as the useless son of the Frostburne family. A zero-rank nobody who couldn’t accomplish anything without help.

But now, suddenly, that perception had flipped overnight.

The story circulating everywhere, across TV broadcasts and social media feeds alike, was that I had not only survived a special-rank dungeon entirely on my own but had also somehow managed to kill a Dullahan in the process.

Single-handedly.

My public image went from "useless" to something entirely different almost overnight. My fame surged for one simple reason: Dullahans weren’t weak monsters. Nearly all of them, in fact, were Elite-rank. Finding a Dullahan below that rank was incredibly rare.

And I’d gotten lucky.

The problem was that everyone, the public included, assumed the Dullahan I’d supposedly killed had also been Elite-rank.

But I need to clear something up right now.

I didn’t kill that Dullahan.

I knew that for certain because not a single essence point had been added to my character interface. If I’d been the one to kill it, the system would have registered it immediately.

So no, I had nothing to do with its death.

Still, when the government learned about a Dullahan sighting after fifteen years of nothing, they moved quickly. They put together a small committee composed of HUNTER agency members to investigate.

The day after I exited the dungeon, I was interrogated by those members while still lying in a hospital bed.

The interrogation covered everything. How the dungeon had turned out to be a mirror dungeon. How I’d received a teleportation skill book as a reward.

A few details got left out, though. Like the fact that I hadn’t actually killed the Dullahan. Or my experiment with the twin blood effect.

I also made sure to correct their assumption. I clarified that the Dullahan had been Rare-rank, not Elite.

After that, the interrogation wrapped up without issue.

The following day, I was discharged. That’s when I discovered that the reward I’d obtained from the special-rank dungeon had leaked to the public.

My fame, which had already been rising, absolutely exploded once people found out I’d acquired a teleportation skill. My social media account got leaked—I still don’t know how.

Since yesterday, I’d been getting an endless stream of messages from complete strangers. Some sent love and support. Others sent hate. I even received ten marriage proposals from random girls I’d never met in my life.

Because of all this, I’d seriously been thinking about ditching my phone entirely and deleting all my social media accounts.

Honestly, I’d never wanted to be famous. Not like this.

Why?

Because fame brought pressure. Constant, suffocating pressure.

Society would start putting expectations on me. They’d make assumptions about who I should be, what I should do, how I should act.

And I hated that. I’d always despised it when people placed expectations on me.

I just wanted to be left alone.

I sat there on the fortieth-floor landing, weighing my options.

Anyway, should I use the teleportation skill?

---