The campfire continued crackling softly. The four trainees sat around it, talking and laughing. The atmosphere felt peaceful.

Nobody was listening to Ethius explain how he once accidentally poisoned himself during an assassination mission. "...and then I spent three days vomiting."

Mayra stared. "How are you alive?"

"I ask myself that every morning."

Julias burst out laughing.

Nobody shook his head. "You people are insane."

Then something unusual happened.

Nobody smiled. It was a genuine smile. A visible smile.

For a brief second, a mouth appeared on his otherwise blank face.

The others froze.

"DUDE!!!"

Nobody nearly jumped. "What?!"

Ethius pointed dramatically. "YOU HAVE A MOUTH!"

Mayra nearly fell backward. "I SAW IT!"

Julias looked equally shocked. "It was there!"

Nobody blinked. "Oh. That." The mouth disappeared again. Returning his face to its usual blank appearance.

Ethius stood up. "THAT IS NOT A NORMAL RESPONSE!"

Nobody shrugged. "My facial features appear sometimes."

The others stared. "...Sometimes?"

"Yeah. I’m made like that."

Mayra placed a hand over her chest. "My heart stopped for a moment."

Ethius pointed again. "Bro. You seriously scare the hell out of me sometimes."

Julias laughed. "Stop teasing the guy."

"I’m not teasing!" Ethius shouted. "He literally gained a mouth and then lost it!"

Nobody folded his arms. "You’ll get used to it."

"No..No I won’t."

The conversation continued.

Then....

the system appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[NOTICE]

Current Rest Period Complete

Preparing Transfer To Next Area

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Everyone immediately groaned.

"Oh come on...! We just sat down."

The system ignored them.

Blue particles suddenly appeared around their bodies.

FWOOOOOSH.

Mayra sighed. "Here we go again."

Ethius stood. "I hate teleportation."

Julias smiled. "I think it’s fun."

Nobody pointed. "Lol bro."

The blue particles intensified. Their bodies began breaking apart into countless pixels.

The jungle disappeared. The campfire vanished and the night sky dissolved.

Then...

FLASH.

The group reappeared somewhere else.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

The four landed on solid stone.

Nobody immediately looked around. Cold air, stone walls. Dark corridors. The smell of damp earth. His eye twitched. "...Not a dungeon again."

Ethius blinked. "You hate dungeons?"

Nobody pointed aggressively. "Those centipedes traumatized me."

Mayra immediately froze. "...Centipedes?"

Nobody nodded. "Giant ones."

Mayra’s face lost all color. "Giant....centipedes?"

Ethius looked concerned. "Why does that sound personal?"

"Because it is. I hate bugs." Mayra said.

Julias sighed. "Let’s focus."

The goblin warrior stepped forward. Weapons ready.

The dungeon stretched endlessly ahead. Ancient stone pillars lined the hall. Strange green crystals glowed along the walls.

The place felt abandoned. But not empty.

Ethius narrowed his eyes. "Something feels wrong."

Nobody immediately answered. "Everything feels wrong."

The group slowly advanced.

Their footsteps echoed throughout the dungeon.

CLACK.

CLACK.

CLACK.

Then....

Mayra suddenly stopped. "...Guys."

Everyone froze. "What?"

Mayra pointed upward slowly toward the ceiling.

The others followed her gaze. Then their expressions changed.

Hundreds.

No..Thousands of tiny red dots covered the darkness above. Glowing and watching.

Ethius whispered. "...Those aren’t decorations."

Nobody swallowed. "Nope."

Julias immediately drew his sword. "Combat positions."

The red dots began moving. The ceiling itself seemed alive.

Then the system window suddenly appeared before Nobody.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[SUB-STAGE 3 MONSTER DETECTED]

Entity Type:

Dino Spider

Class:

Predator-Class Monster

Threat Level:

HIGH ⚠︎⚠︎

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Dino Spider]

Description:

A hybrid monster possessing the hunting instincts of a predator dinosaur and the mobility of a giant spider.

Highly aggressive. Hunts in swarms.

Prefers overwhelming prey through numbers.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Skills:

■ Wall Runner

Allows movement on walls and ceilings.

■ Pounce Strike

Leaps at prey with explosive speed.

■ Razor Fang Bite

Can inflict severe bleeding wounds.

■ Swarm Coordination

Nearby Dino Spiders become stronger when hunting together.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody stared. "...Oh."

Ethius looked over. "What does it say?"

Nobody slowly lowered the screen. "...Bad news. Very bad news."

Then...

the creatures dropped.

SKREEEEEEEEEE!!

Dozens of monsters leaped from the ceiling.

The trainees finally saw them clearly.

Their upper bodies resembled miniature tyrannosaurs. Sharp teeth, glowing red eyes, predatory jaws. But beneath them..eight spider legs.

Mayra pointed. "WHAT IS THAT?!"

Nobody immediately answered. "A mistake of having two dads!"

Julias raised his sword. "Incoming!"

The first Dino Spider lunged.

SKREEE!

Pounce Strike activated. The monster shot forward like a bullet.

CLANG!

Julias blocked it. The impact pushed him backward. "...Strong."

Then another attacked.

And another and another.

The ceiling erupted with movement. Hundreds of red eyes descended.

Ethius pulled both daggers. "WHY ARE THERE SO MANY?!"

Nobody activated Zigzag Teleportation.

FLASH!

He vanished.

FLASH!

Appeared beside a Dino Spider.

SLASH!

Its head flew off.

SKREEEE!

Another jumped.

FLASH!

Nobody teleported away just before its jaws snapped shut. "NOPE!"

Mayra raised her staff. "Wind Blast!"

FWOOOOOSH!

A powerful gust launched several Dino Spiders into a wall.

CRASH!

The creatures screeched angrily. But more kept coming. The ceiling looked endless like a living ocean of monsters.

Julias cut through two at once.

SLASH!

Stone fragments scattered. Blood splashed. Yet dozens immediately replaced them.

Ethius stabbed another through the skull.

CRACK.

The monster collapsed.

Then three more appeared. "...This is getting ridiculous!"

Nobody pointed upward. "It’s literally raining spiders and dinosaurs!"

The system appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Correction]

The line is ’Raining cats and dogs’

Not spiders and dinosaurs

"( – ⌓ – )

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"This is not the time!"

The Dino Spiders continued pouring down from the ceiling in waves.

SKREEE! SKREEE!

The dungeon echoed with their screeching as the swarm tightened around the group.

Nobody immediately activated Zigzag Teleportation.

FLASH!

He appeared behind one Dino Spider mid-air.

SLASH!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[KILL CONFIRMED]

Dino Spider Eliminated

EXP +12

Kill Count: 1

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Nice," Nobody muttered.

Another lunged from the wall.

FLASH!

He teleported sideways.

The monster’s jaws snapped empty air.

Julias moved in front. "Don’t bunch up!" He raised his sword. "Cross Slash!"

X-shaped energy cut through two Dino Spiders at once.

SLASH! SLASH!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[KILL CONFIRMED]

Dino Spider Eliminated x2

EXP +24

Kill Count: 3

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Mayra stepped back, staff glowing. "Wind Blade Burst!"

WHOOSH!

Compressed air blades sliced through the incoming swarm.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[KILL CONFIRMED]

Dino Spider Eliminated x5

EXP +60

Kill Count: 8

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ethius was moving like a shadow. His daggers flashed repeatedly.

SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!

Each strike was precise....always aimed at the core of the creature’s skull.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[KILL CONFIRMED]

Dino Spider Eliminated x4

EXP +48

Kill Count: 12

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ethius smirked. "Finally something I can actually handle."

A Dino Spider dropped from above. He didn’t even look.

Stab.

CRACK.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[KILL CONFIRMED]

Dino Spider Eliminated

EXP +12

Kill Count: 13

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody teleported through the battlefield again.

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH!

Each blink meant another monster dropped.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[KILL CONFIRMED]

Dino Spider Eliminated x6

EXP +72

Kill Count: 19

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

His breathing stayed steady. "This zigzag skill is actually insane..."

Another wave rushed him.

FLASH!

He appeared above them.

SLASH! SLASH!

Two fell instantly.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[KILL CONFIRMED]

Dino Spider Eliminated x2

EXP +24

Kill Count: 21

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Mayra shouted. "They’re adapting! They’re coordinating more tightly!"

Julias grunted. "Then we break them faster!" He charged forward again.

BOOM!

One Dino Spider was crushed under his blade impact.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[KILL CONFIRMED]

Dino Spider Eliminated

EXP +12

Kill Count: 22

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Ethius looked around. "There’s still too many!"

Nobody narrowed his eyes. "Then we farm faster."

FLASH!

He teleported directly into the densest cluster.

SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[KILL CONFIRMED]

Dino Spider Eliminated x7

EXP +84

Kill Count: 29

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The system chimed rapidly.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[USER PROGRESSION]

Zigzag Teleportation Mastery: +3%

Crowbar Dual Handling: +2%

Battle Awareness: +4%

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody smirked. "Yeah... keep coming."

"WHO DISTURBED ME!" The entire dungeon suddenly echoed with a monstrous feminine voice. Every Dino Spider stopped moving. The swarm froze. Even the ones attacking.

Then all of them slowly turned their heads toward the same direction deeper within the dungeon.

Nobody immediately disliked that. "...Why did they stop?"

Ethius swallowed. "...I think something bigger is coming."

The dungeon trembled.

BOOM.

BOOM.

BOOM.

The dungeon started to shake as if there was a big earthquake.

Mayra gripped her staff tighter. Julias raised his sword.

Nobody looked toward the black corridor ahead. And now he wished the Dino Spiders had continued attacking instead.

"Oh man!! Come on!"