The rusted hatch groaned shut above him with a heavy metallic clang.
The last silver of daylight vanished.
Darkness Swallowed everything.
For a brief moment, Dylan simply stood still.
The difference was immediate.
Even without any special detection ability, he could feel it.
The mana in the tunnel was denser than it had been outside.
It clung to the air like Invisible mist, brushing faintly against his skin with every breath.
“…Closer to Ashveil Summit already.” His voice sounded strangely small.
The tunnel answered with a hollow echo.
As if responding to him, a faint blue window suddenly unfolded before his eyes.
[Warning]
[Ambient Mana Concentration exceeds the host’s current tolerance.]
[Prolonged exposure is not recommended.]
[Exercise extreme caution.]
Dylan stared at the notification and dismissed the window with a flick of his finger.
“Well, I was planning on being cautious anyway.”
He looked up at the sealed hatch overhead.
“No turning back now.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his phone and switched on the flashlight.
A pale beam sliced through the darkness.
Concrete walls stretched into the distance, stained black by decades of moisture.
Thick pipes ran along the ceiling, their once-white paint peeling away in long strips of rust.
Water dripped steadily somewhere farther ahead, each drop echoing through the abandoned passage with unsettling clarity.
The Air was cool, Too Cool.
Beneath it lingered another scent.
Rotting flesh, Faint, Old, Yet Unmistakable.
Dylan instinctively wrinkled his nose.
“.. That’s Unpleasant.”
His stomach churned, he had fought monsters.
He infact killed one, dragged a corpse through the forest.
Yet somehow, a dark tunnel that smelled like something had died inside it bothered him far more than any of those things.
He let out a slow breath and rubbed his temples.
“Get a hold of yourself.”
The words sounded more like a reminder than encouragement.
He adjusted the strap of his backpack and continued deeper underground.
The only sound accompanying him were the steady tapping of his books and the occasional drop of water somewhere beyond the reach of his flashlight.
After several minutes of walking, he hears faint laughing sounds somewhere in the passages.
Dylan stopped in his tracks, clearing his throat.
“I’m just saying,” His voice echoed through the tunnel.
“If I heard children laughing…”
He nodded to himself.
“… I’m leaving.”
Silence answered him.
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“Seriously, that’s exactly why I hate tunnels.” It wasn’t because of they were dark.
Nor because they were abandoned, It was because of his own teenage mistake.
Years ago, back in his previous life, he’d made the mistake of convincing himself that reading horror novels before bed was a brilliant idea.
It wasn’t, The stories eventually blurred together in his memory, Abandoned tunnels, Forgotten sewers.
Things waiting just beyond the reach of a flashlight.
Most of them ended with the protagonist making a very poor life decision.
“…Which, admittedly, I’m doing right now.”
He glanced at the endless corridor ahead.
“I swear horror writers all share one brain,” he said.
“Same as us progression fantasy writers.”
“They find the darkest, most cursed place imaginable, then ask, ‘What if something lived here?'”
“Like, why? Just once, give me a horror novel set in a clean, boring mansion. No basement. No secrets. Just vibes.” He scoffed.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, haunted mansion’s cliché. So’s the tunnel thing.”
“Tunnel horror writers are the actual worst.”
He said it with such conviction, it took him a second to remember something.
He did wrote a secret tunnel that is an abandoned former base of Bureau which is also filled with wierd creatures and is a damn maze surrounding the forests around Ashveil Summit on top of that.
“…Fuck you, old me.”
“I’d take a haunted mansion any day over crawling through tunnels again.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and kicked a rock down the path.
“Ever since then, I’ve had a perfectly healthy distrust of anything underground.”
He held up one finger.
“Things that laugh when nobody’s around.”
A second finger.
“Things that smile too much.”
A third.
“And anything with an unreasonable number of tentacles.”
He considered it for a moment.
“…Actually, I think that last one’s completely justified.”
As he continued walking, the tunnel gradually widened before splitting into several intersecting passages.
Dylan slowed.
“…Right.”
His younger self had apparently looked at a perfectly functional maintenance tunnel and decided it wasn’t confusing enough.
The result was an underground maze stretching for kilometers beneath the forests surrounding Ashveil Summit.
Maintenance corridors branched into evacuation routes.
Evacuation routes connected to supply tunnels.
Supply tunnels linked to abandoned checkpoints.
If someone entered without a map, they’d almost certainly wander into the main network.
Which usually ended badly.
He took the third passage from the left without hesitation.
The only safe route.
At least, safe by comparison.
Several minutes passed in silence then faint laugh drifted through the darkness.
It was distant, childlike, gone almost as soon as it appeared.
Dylan immediately stopped walking.
“…Nope.”
He remained perfectly still.
A few seconds later, another sound echoed through the tunnels.
Not laughter this time.
Something…
Wet.
A low clicking noise, followed by what sounded disturbingly like teeth scraping against concrete.
His grip around the saber tightened.
“…Still there.”
His expression darkened.
Buried somewhere within this labyrinth slept one of the most dangerous monsters he’d ever created.
Not because it was the strongest.
Because it was patient.
Years later, it would escape these tunnels and slaughter an entire Bureau research facility before anyone even understood what they were dealing with.
He knew exactly where it was.
He also knew exactly how suicidal it would be to go anywhere near it.
“…Not today.”
Saving future victims sounded admirable.
Actually surviving long enough to do it sounded considerably more practical.
He quietly continued along the predetermined route, making a conscious effort not to scrape his boots against the concrete.
The tunnel walls gradually began to change, deep gouges scored the reinforced concrete.
Some looked like claw marks.
Others resembled explosions.
Chunks of collapsed ceiling still littered the floor, decades later.
Dylan slowed as his flashlight swept across the tunnel wall.
The concrete here was different.
Long black scorch marks stretched across the reinforced surface, while deep gouges carved through the steel supports as though something unimaginably sharp had torn them apart.
Pieces of twisted metal still lay scattered across the floor, untouched despite the passing years.
He crouched beside one particularly large burn mark, brushing away a thin layer of dust with his fingertips.
“…Morningstar.”
The name alone was enough to darken his expression.
Morningstar was one of the Bureau of Authority’s greatest enemies, an international terrorist organization founded by the Visitor Vampire Lord, Vladimir Von Noctis, alongside several powerful Visitors and rogue Hunters who believed humanity had no right to govern the new world alone.
Dungeon outbreaks, political instability, civil unrest, anything capable of shaking humanity’s fragile order was another step toward their vision of the future.
This forgotten checkpoint had been one of their earliest targets.
Back then, the Bureau had still been finding its footing.
People often imagined it as an omnipotent organization capable of solving every crisis on Earth.
It wasn’t.
It had corrupt officials, bureaucratic inefficiency, infiltrators hidden within its own ranks, and nowhere near enough manpower to monitor an entire planet constantly reshaped by mana.
Every week new dungeon portals appeared, landscapes shifted, and disasters demanded immediate attention.
The Bureau wasn’t winning because it was perfect.
It was winning because it refused to stop trying.
His flashlight drifted farther down the corridor before settling on a row of rusted storage lockers against one wall.
“…Huh.”
Most of them had already been forced open years ago, their doors hanging crookedly from broken hinges.
Only one remained firmly shut, its rusted handle refusing to yield.
Dylan knelt in front of it and wrapped both hands around the handle.
“Before I open this…”
He grunted, pulling with all his strength.
“…I should probably pray to God or something.”
“Hmm”
“Nah, whatever I never believed in god anyways.” The mere thinking about God made his blood boil with inexplicable anger as it made him remember the god who brought him into this world.
The locker didn’t move instead his muscles ached in pain.
“Bloody Fuck!!”
He planted one foot against the wall for leverage and pulled harder.
Metal groaned in protest.
Still nothing.
“I guess it was made by some visitor artificer.” As he stumbled backwards for eleventh time.
Visitors.
“After the Dungeon Emergence, Earth wasn’t the only world affected.”
He strained again.
Entire civilizations were destroyed.
Some managed to survive and the fortunate ones found their way here.
Refugees from worlds that no longer existed, elves, dwarves, vampires, dragons, orcs, and dozens of races forced to abandon their homes after their own worlds fell to catastrophe.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
“When I first wrote them…”
He pulled once more.
“…I just wanted fantasy races in my story.”
With a loud metallic crack, the handle finally gave way.
Dylan stumbled backward, nearly landing on the floor.
He stared at the locker in disbelief before checking the timer on his phone.
“…Three hours.”
He let out a tired sigh.
“For one locker.”
Inside, there were no legendary weapons, hidden fortunes, or forgotten relics.
Only an old brass compass rested quietly on the dusty shelf.
Despite spending decades beneath the earth, faint strands of mana shimmered across its worn surface.
Dylan carefully picked it up.
“…Well.”
He turned it over in his hand, watching the blue glow pulse softly beneath the tarnished metal.
“It seems you’ve awakened.”
The moment his fingers fully wrapped around the compass, a familiar translucent blue window unfolded before him.
[System Notification]
Armament Detected
Name: Bureau Survey Compass (Prototype)
Grade: F
Classification: Natural Armament
Description: A standard Bureau-issued surveying compass that remained within a high-density mana environment for decades.
Prolonged exposure to ambient mana has awakened latent magical properties.
Effect — Wayfinder: While held, the compass instinctively aligns itself toward the nearest stable path through unfamiliar terrain, slightly reducing the chance of becoming lost.
Remark: “Not every treasure is forged. Sometimes, time itself is the greatest craftsman.”
Dylan blinked once before a satisfied smile spread across his face.
“…I’ll gladly take that.”
As he stood up, the compass aligned exactly with the route he’d already been taking, and the sight of it left Dylan feeling quite relieved and it made him take a step further to reach his destination.
Ashveil Summit.