"Shit!"
The first thing Constantine did was swipe his arm through the wall of crimson notifications.
Every [SYSTEM NOTICE] blinked out at once, clearing his vision just in time to see the Ghost Hellhound that had been lurking behind them.
It was already in the air.
'Of course it is.'
He threw himself sideways, not quite far enough. The jaws closed on his shoulder and dragged him violently sideways before he could break free. He felt his Level drop in that specific hollow way—not quite pain, not quite numbness, something worse than both.
Level 6.
Constantine planted his feet, gripped his sword with both hands, and drove it through the Ghost Hellhound's skull.
[You Have Leveled Up!]
[You Have Leveled Up!]
Level 8. The loss recovered and then some. Ghost Hellhounds gave considerably more EXP than the lesser pack, and right now he was grateful for every increment he could earn.
There was no time to appreciate it.
The remaining Hellhounds had regrouped in the seconds he was occupied. Fifteen of the smaller creatures converged from multiple directions at once, moving with the single-minded aggression of their kind. Constantine immediately reached for his pouches and swallowed two Minor Ability Boost Potions without breaking stride, feeling the familiar surge of sharpened reflexes settle into his body.
He swiftly moved.
Sidestep left, slash. Block with his shield, slash. Retreat two paces, sidestep again, slash.
A Hellhound lunged from his left—he redirected it off the face of his Ordinary Sturdy Shield and finished it cleanly on the follow-through. Another swept at his legs from below—he leapt back and swung downward in the same motion.
[You Have Leveled Up!]
Then two of them struck simultaneously from behind.
The impact drove him forward and he felt his Level drop twice before he recovered his footing.
Level 7. Then Level 6.
'Down again,' Constantine noted, without particular surprise.
This was the shape of the fight.
Kill something, rise. Take a hit, fall. The battle had locked itself into a brutal seesaw rhythm—relentless and ugly—completely unlike any fantasy he had harbored about his second chance in this world. There was no elegance here. No clever mechanic to exploit, no notification offering something useful. Just endurance.
What surprised him was how manageable it became once he stopped fighting against the rhythm and leaned into it.
He was never going to win through raw offense alone. He had to whittle, dodge, and survive long enough to ensure the EXP outpaced the damage. It was the most unglamorous combat strategy he had employed in his decade of playing this game.
It was also working.
He burned through his Minor Recovery Potions steadily as injuries piled up—a bite on his forearm, a tail whip across his chest, a messy tangle with two Hellhounds at once that left his lower body badly scored. Each time, he drank and stabilized, refusing to let the degradation outpace his gains.
The Ghost Hellhounds were his real concern.
Their Presence Concealment Skills made them invisible until the precise moment they struck, and they chose their moments with the infuriating timing of seasoned predators. The first ambush caught him mid-engagement with the lesser pack and cost him two Levels instantly. The second, just as he had clawed back to Level 8, sent him plummeting again.
The second ambush also claimed his shield.
The Ghost Hellhound clamped its jaws around the Ordinary Sturdy Shield and simply crushed it. Rare-ranked metal buckled and split as though it were made of pottery, leaving him with nothing but an empty left hand.
Constantine discarded the shattered remains without a word and drew his Basic Longsword.
If he had lost reach, he would compensate with aggression.
He drove into the remaining Ghost Hellhounds with both blades working in tandem, sacrificing defensive stability for relentless forward pressure that denied the creatures any opportunity to slip into concealment. It was reckless by every conventional measure. But it kept them visible, and visible enemies could be killed.
The fifth Ghost Hellhound snapped his Basic Longsword in half.
He killed it with his dagger.
The sixth came at him while he was still recovering, and the exchange that followed was the closest he came to genuine catastrophe. He dropped to Level 4. His remaining Minor Ability Boost Potions were burned entirely. His torso absorbed damage that would have stopped a living person cold.
But the sixth Ghost Hellhound died.
[You Have Leveled Up!]
[You Have Leveled Up!]
[You Have Leveled Up!]
'Level 7. Getting there.'
The remaining Hellhounds were drastically fewer now.
Constantine moved through them methodically, conserving energy, spending the last of his Minor Recovery Potions at careful intervals. His movements had grown mechanical—block, sidestep, slash, repeat—but within the rhythm of it, he found something close to steadiness.
When the final Hellhound dissolved into EXP, the cavern fell into a quiet that felt almost unnatural after so much noise.
Constantine stood in the middle of it all.
Every pouch at his waist was empty. His shield was destroyed. His Basic Longsword was in pieces somewhere behind him. His Rare sword was chipped in multiple places. His outfit was torn in at least four locations. He had nothing left except his cracked blade, two daggers, and a single Full Recovery Potion.
He checked his Status Window.
—Level 10.
Ghost Iron Fragments, two Gem pouches, and a scattering of Common items glittered on the cavern floor from the Ghost Hellhound drops. He left them where they were.
Because at the far end of the cavern, the Dark Ghost Hellhound had finally risen from its haunches.
The Boss Monster's full height was something else entirely at close range—over three meters of dense muscle, ancient malice, and a dark aura that radiated outward like heat radiating off a forge. The lazy amusement it had worn earlier was completely gone.
Something colder had replaced it.
"I watched that entire performance," it said.
"Did you enjoy it?" Constantine replied flatly, raising his cracked sword.
"You handled insects." The Dark Ghost Hellhound lowered its massive head—that familiar, terrible motion. "Skillfully, perhaps. But insects nonetheless."
Constantine shifted his footing and steadied his breathing.
He had one Full Recovery Potion. His Rare blade. Two daggers.
He also had something no Status Window could quantify.
'I know exactly what you're going to do before you do it,' he thought, watching every micro-movement of the enormous frame before him with the practiced eyes of a veteran who had spent a decade memorizing these patterns.
At first, he was worried that the real-life mechanisms of this world would prevent his expertise from taking effect, but he had become pleasantly surprised that this wasn't the case.
Monsters moved exactly as they did in the game—thankfully.
This discovery gave him a profound burst of confidence despite his immensely bleak situation.
Crouching carefully and brandishing his blade, he whispered shakily.
"Come on, then. Let's finish this."