Some men adapt to hell. Marcus just stopped pretending he wasn't already home.
Steel bit through flesh, hot spray kissing my cheek.
Another goblin fell, twitching at my boots. I yanked the blade free, rolled my shoulder, and kept moving. In a fight like this, you stop or hesitate, and you die. I must keep moving. I will not die here—not to these things.
Five days. That's all it's been since the world cracked open.
Five days since people screamed under the lights of this very mall, trampling each other toward exits that didn't exist.
Now I'm here, knee-deep in goblins that replaced them. It feels right in a way—at least goblins fight, not run like cowards.
I used to come here on weekends: Cabela's, third floor. The place had a range tucked in the back. I'd spend hours teaching suburban dads how not to blow their thumbs off while pretending I gave a damn.
Hunting and guns were the only language I ever spoke. Didn't have many friends and didn't want them. My ex used to say I liked the smell of gun oil more than people. She wasn't wrong.
When the announcement came, I was standing by the camping aisle, staring at a cooler I didn't need.
Then the voice hit—too calm, too clear. "The Tutorial Dungeon will begin in five minutes."
Everyone panicked. Some cried. Some prayed. I just watched the chaos and retrieved a weapon..
The first monsters crawled out of the broken escalator. Looked like a green child that learned how to hate.
I remember the first one I killed. Didn't think, just swung the hatchet I'd been holding. Split its head like kindling.
Pop-up window. +10 EXP.
It was the cleanest dopamine hit I'd ever felt.
I didn't stop after that. Why would I? Everyone else ran. I stayed.
Nadia found me on day three. I was setting traps near the pharmacy, picking off stragglers that wandered too close.
She walked up calmly, gun in one hand, that stupid braid still perfect.
"Marcus Veil?" she said, like she already knew me. "You're the one killing everything on the east wing."
"Maybe," I told her. "Depends who's asking."
"Someone who appreciates efficiency."
That was her pitch.
She wasn't strong in the way I respected, but had something rarer: people who listened. She'd smile, talk softly, and before you knew it, you were halfway through loading her mags. Like a politician, she spun sweet lies for her own benefit.
I didn't trust her, but I didn't have to. Trust was a luxury. She had numbers. I had force and experience hunting anything and everything.
We needed each other in this mall.
We made an agreement that day without ever saying it out loud: she points, I kill. When this is over, we will go our separate ways.
Her voice snapped across the chaos: "Kneel!"
And they did. Every single goblin in front of her dropped like their strings got cut.
I'll give her that, when she uses that voice, even the air listens.
I grinned, not because I liked her, but because it made killing easier.
I spun, blade wide, carving through green flesh until the floor was slick. The hobgoblin in front of me tried to block. I broke its arm, crushed its throat, and used the corpse to knock down three more.
Blood painted the tiles in red arcs.
My people were holding, but barely. Nadia's group wasn't faring better. She relied too heavily on control, and her group lacked sufficient grit and power.
That's the difference between us. She leads with her mouth. I lead with the blade.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her: Jasmine.
She stood back with her group, waiting, watching. Calculating. I could feel it. She was the kind who doesn't move until she knows exactly where to attack. Smart. Dangerous.
I've met many different hunters before: the kind who enjoy it, the kind who justify it, and the kind who do it because it's all they know. She's the last kind.
Her people listen to her the same way Nadia's listen to words; the difference is, Jasmine's have seen her fight to protect them from goblins and others. That earns real loyalty.
Still, she hesitates. Always thinking and waiting. That's how leaders and people die. We need actions and, specifically, help, since we are drowning in goblins waiting for this shaman.
I wonder if she realizes how similar she, Nicole, and Nadia are.
They are all commanding and are used to being obeyed. One manipulates; the others inspire. Neither will last forever. This world eats people like them unless they're willing to get their hands filthy.
And from the look in Jasmine's eyes when she watched me gut that hobgoblin, maybe she already has.
The smell of this place is thick with iron, smoke, and something sweet and wrong.
Every breath tasted like rot.
My men were starting to buckle under the press of bodies. Nadia's voice cut through the din again, but her control wouldn't last long. You can't talk monsters to death.
I slammed a goblin's face into the floor and turned just in time to see the next wave crawling from the darkness. Dozens more.
The others' morale was falling, and they were hesitating, waiting for Jasmine's signal. Of course they were. Waiting for permission to live. Cowards.
Then I heard it. A slow thump of wood on stone.
The chant came next: low, rhythmic, vibrating under the skin.
The crowd of goblins parted like a tide, and there he was: the Shaman, robes stitched from skin, eyes burning that sickly green glow, staff crowned in bones.
At last.
Sweat slid down my neck, blood dripping from the edge of my blade as the goblins drew back. The air thickened, every breath heavy with rot and smoke.
I rolled my shoulders, let the tension settle in my grip, and stepped forward through the bodies.
"About time," I muttered, smiling as the chant deepened and the floor itself began to hum.