Nozomi's eyes snapped open.
The ceiling above her was wrong. Not the water-stained plaster of her apartment, but smooth black stone that seemed to drink in light. For a disorienting moment, she couldn't remember where she was or why her body felt like it had been shattered and hastily reassembled.
Then memory crashed back with the force of a physical blow.
The betrayal. The fall. The spider. The Witch.
She sat up too quickly, and her head exploded with pain. The world tilted sideways, nausea churning in her stomach. Her hands flew to her temples as if pressure could somehow contain the throbbing agony that threatened to split her skull open.
The altar beneath her was cold. Not the normal cold of stone, but something deeper, more fundamental. It leached warmth from her body and made her bones ache. Around her, the cavern stretched into shadow, lit only by the faint bioluminescence of fungi clinging to distant walls. The air was thick and oppressive, carrying the weight of hundreds of floors of dungeon pressing down from above.
She was alone.
The Witch of Miracles had vanished as if she had never existed. The grimoire on the altar lay closed and inert. Even the spider's corpse had dissolved entirely, leaving only the three items she had collected: the venom gland, spider silk, and abyssal crystal, sitting in a neat pile beside her.
For a moment, just a moment, Nozomi wondered if she had hallucinated the entire encounter. If the fall had simply broken her mind along with her body, and everything that followed had been a dying dream.
Then she looked down at herself.
The Celestial Aegis gleamed in the dim light, its black surface threaded with veins of gold and crimson that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. Nightbane lay across her lap, the staff's crystal containing that miniature galaxy that slowly, impossibly rotated. Her hands, once calloused from cheap equipment and hard labor, were now encased in elegant gauntlets that moved like liquid.
Not a dream.
Not madness.
Real.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
The text appeared in her vision, sharp and intrusive:
[DAILY QUEST AVAILABLE]
[WARNING: FAILURE TO COMPLETE DAILY QUEST WILL RESULT IN PENALTY]
Nozomi blinked, and the notification expanded:
[DAILY QUEST: PATH OF THE WITCH]
[OBJECTIVE 1: CAST SALAMANDER 3 TIMES (0/3)]
[OBJECTIVE 2: DEFEAT 3 MONSTERS (0/3)]
[OBJECTIVE 3: WALK 10,000 STEPS (0/10,000)]
[OBJECTIVE 4: BEGIN ASCENT FROM FLOOR 200]
[TIME LIMIT: 24 HOURS]
[REWARD: +5 STAT POINTS, SKILL EXPERIENCE]
[FAILURE PENALTY: -50% ALL STATS FOR 48 HOURS]
Floor 200.
The number sat in her mind like a lead weight. She had fallen from floor 35, which meant the malfunctioning teleport spell had carried her down one hundred and sixty-five floors. One hundred and sixty-five floors deeper into the Abyssal Dungeon than any registered delver had ever survived.
The Guild's deepest recorded expedition had reached floor 97 before being wiped out to the last man.
Nozomi was twice that deep.
And the system expected her to climb back.
She pulled up her status screen with trembling fingers:
[NAME: NOZOMI HAYASHI]
[CLASS: ABYSSAL WITCH (UNIQUE)]
[LEVEL: 28]
[HEALTH: 2,840/2,840]
[MANA: 8,600/8,600]
[STRENGTH: 34]
[DEXTERITY: 41]
[CONSTITUTION: 56]
[INTELLIGENCE: 89]
[WISDOM: 72]
[CHARISMA: 67]
[AVAILABLE STAT POINTS: 9]
[SOUL INTEGRITY: 87%]
She had recovered. The hours spent unconscious on the altar had allowed her health and mana to regenerate fully. But that 87 percent soul integrity glowed like a warning, a permanent reminder of what Longinus had cost her.
Nine stat points available. The remnants of her level gains from the spider fight.
Nozomi's hand tightened on Nightbane. She needed to allocate them carefully. Every point could mean the difference between survival and death. And down here, one hundred and sixty-five floors below any help, any rescue, death was very close.
But first.
Memories flooded back unbidden. Daichi's condescending sneer. Akane's casual cruelty. Kenji's mocking grin. The feeling of his boot slamming into her chest, launching her backward into the void.
Their faces. Their voices. The way they'd discussed her death as if it were nothing more than an inconvenient expense to be optimized.
"Even you can't screw that up."
"Poor bastard. Probably didn't see it coming."
"Nothing personal. Just economics."
Rage ignited in Nozomi's chest. Not the hot, explosive anger that burns itself out quickly, but something colder. Deeper. The kind of fury that crystallizes into purpose.
They thought she was dead. Thought they had gotten away with murder. Were probably already spending her share of the imaginary loot, laughing about the stupid healer who had trusted them.
Nozomi's lips pulled back from her teeth in something that was not quite a smile.
"I will survive," she whispered to the empty cavern, her voice layered with those strange harmonics that had come with her transformation. "I will see Yui. I will climb out of this hell."
Her reflection stared back at her from Nightbane's polished surface. No longer the exhausted, half-starved cleric who had accepted scraps and abuse as the natural order of things, but something else. Something dangerous.
"And when I do," she continued, "I will find them."
The crystal atop Nightbane pulsed with light, as if responding to her resolve.
"I will make them understand exactly what they created when they threw me into the abyss."
Nozomi pulled up her stat allocation screen and studied it with the cold calculation of someone who understood that every decision mattered.
Nine points. Not enough to dramatically shift her capabilities, but enough to sharpen her edge.
She considered her options. Strength would increase her physical damage and carrying capacity. Useful, but as a witch, she was not meant for melee combat.
Dexterity affected her movement speed, reaction time, and evasion. Critical for survival when facing monsters that could kill her in one hit.
Constitution determined her health pool and resistance to status effects. Important, but her Celestial Aegis already provided substantial protection.
Intelligence directly increased her mana pool and spell power. Her primary stat as a caster.
Wisdom improved mana regeneration and spell efficiency. Valuable for extended combat.
Charisma influenced social interactions and certain class-specific abilities. Worthless down here where the only conversations were with monsters that wanted to eat her.
The choice was obvious.
She allocated the points:
+3 Strength (34 → 37)
+3 Dexterity (41 → 44)
+3 Intelligence (89 → 92)
[STATS UPDATED]
[NEW HEALTH MAXIMUM: 2,990]
[NEW MANA MAXIMUM: 8,900]
The changes washed through her body immediately. Her muscles felt denser, more responsive. Her reflexes sharpened, the world seeming to slow fractionally. And her mana, already vast by her old standards, expanded further. The channels throughout her body widened to accommodate the increased flow.
Better.
Not good enough to face down Level 75-plus monsters with confidence, but better.
Nozomi stood from the altar, testing her body's responses. The Celestial Aegis moved with her like a second skin, redistributing its weight perfectly with each motion. Nightbane felt lighter in her grip despite its size. The weapon's balance somehow adjusted to match her strength.
She glanced at her skill list.
[ACTIVE SKILLS]
[LONGINUS - LVL 1: Ultimate penetration spell. Cost: 13% Soul Integrity]
[UNRAVEL - LVL 2: Dispels magical cohesion. Cost: 200 Mana]
[FRACTURE - LVL 2: Shatters solid matter. Cost: 250 Mana]
[ABSOLUTE ZERO - LVL 1: Flash-freezes target. Cost: 400 Mana]
[CORRUPTION - LVL 1: Inverts biological processes. Cost: 350 Mana]
[SALAMANDER - LVL 1: Explosive fire magic. Cost: 300 Mana]
[CHAINS OF IMPRISONMENT - LVL 1: Binding dark magic. Cost: 250 Mana]
Two new spells had appeared. Salamander and Chains of Imprisonment. Gifts from the Witch or perhaps simply manifestations of her new class unlocking as she leveled. Either way, they expanded her arsenal.
She needed to test them. And conveniently, the daily quest required her to cast Salamander three times and kill three monsters.
Nozomi picked up the spider drops and secured them in the dimensional storage pouch at her waist. Another feature of the Celestial Aegis that she discovered instinctively. The items vanished into an extradimensional space, their weight disappearing entirely.
Useful.
She turned toward the illusory wall that had led her to this floor, then paused. The daily quest specified she needed to "begin ascent from floor 200," which implied there was a proper exit somewhere, not just the hidden passage she'd stumbled through.
Nozomi closed her eyes and reached out with her witch-senses, feeling for the flow of mana through the dungeon's architecture. The ability came naturally now, as instinctive as breathing. She could perceive the currents of energy that powered the dungeon's systems, the ley lines that connected floors, the nodes where teleportation circles existed.
There.
On the far side of the chamber, hidden behind a pile of bones and old equipment, a teleportation panel pulsed with dormant power. The exit Boss Rooms always had them. A way for victorious delvers to bypass the need to climb back through floors they had already cleared.
But Boss Rooms also had guardians.
Nozomi's eyes snapped open, and she scanned the cavern with new understanding. This was not just some random chamber deep in the dungeon. This was a Boss Room, which meant somewhere in this space, a Floor Guardian waited.
As if summoned by her realization, something moved in the shadows.
sound started as a low rumble, stone grinding against stone, or perhaps bones shifting beneath immense weight. Then came the breathing: deep, rattling inhalations that echoed through the cavern like wind through a cave system.
Nozomi's hand tightened on Nightbane as a shape emerged from the darkness at the chamber's far end.
It was massive.
The creature stood at least fifteen feet tall, its body a grotesque fusion of human and beast. Thick, corded muscles covered arms the size of tree trunks. Its legs were bent backward like an animal's, ending in cloven hooves that cracked stone with each step. Matted fur covered most of its torso, and from its back sprouted wings. Vestigial things, too small to grant flight, but covered in membrane that glistened wetly.
But it was the head that made Nozomi's breath catch.
A single eye. Massive and yellow, sitting in the center of a brutish face dominated by tusks and a mouth full of grinding teeth.
[CYCLOPS BERSERKER - LEVEL 76]
[TYPE: FLOOR GUARDIAN]
[WARNING: EXTREME THREAT]
Level 76. Two levels higher than the spider she had barely survived killing.
And standing directly on top of the teleportation panel she needed to activate.
The Cyclops's single eye focused on her. Recognition flickered in its gaze. Not intelligence, but predatory awareness. It knew she was prey.
The creature raised one massive arm, and Nozomi saw what it held: an iron club the size of a telephone pole, wrapped in chains and studded with spikes of blackened metal. The weapon's surface was stained with old blood and scored with tally marks.
A kill count.
The Cyclops roared, a sound that shook loose rocks from the ceiling and made Nozomi's bones vibrate in sympathetic frequency. Then it charged.
But not yet.
Nozomi dove to the side, rolling behind a pile of bones as the Cyclops's charge carried it past her position. The creature's hooves struck stone with enough force to crack it, leaving craters in the floor.
She needed to complete the daily quest first. Three monster kills, three Salamander casts, and ten thousand steps. The Cyclops was a guardian. Killing it might complete the quest, but she could not afford to waste soul integrity on Longinus again so soon. Not when she had one hundred and sixty-five floors to climb.
She needed to get stronger the normal way: grinding levels through systematic monster hunting.
Nozomi sprinted toward the illusory wall, the Cyclops's roar of frustration echoing behind her. The creature was powerful, but it was also bound to its Boss Room. A limitation built into Floor Guardians to prevent them from decimating the entire dungeon. It would not follow her beyond the chamber's boundaries.
She hoped.
The wall rippled as she passed through it, and suddenly she was back in the blue-lit corridor of floor 200. The deepest point in the known Abyssal Dungeon, where monsters spawned at levels that would terrify even veteran delvers. Perfect for grinding experience.
Nozomi's grip on Nightbane tightened as she moved down the corridor, her enhanced senses alert for threats. The daily quest required three kills, but she intended to exceed that minimum. Every monster slain meant experience. Every level gained meant a better chance of survival.
The first encounter came quickly.
A section of wall simply opened. Not like a door, but as if the stone itself had decided to birth something terrible. From the aperture crawled a creature that made Nozomi's stomach clench with instinctive revulsion.
[DUNGEON CRAWLER - LEVEL 52]
[TYPE: ABERRATION]
It was insectoid in structure but wrong in every detail. Too many legs, jointed in places that should not bend. A segmented body covered in chitinous plates that wept some kind of acidic fluid. And the head. Multiple faces, human and animal and something else, all fused together in a screaming mass.
The Crawler fixed its attention on Nozomi and shrieked, a sound that bypassed her ears and resonated directly in her skull.
She raised Nightbane and spoke the incantation that rose unbidden to her lips.
"Chains of Imprisonment."
Dark energy erupted from the staff's crystal, coalescing into physical chains of shadow and purple light. They wrapped around the Crawler like living things, binding its legs, torso, and that horrific head. The creature struggled, its acid eating at the chains, but for the moment it was immobilized.
Nozomi did not hesitate.
"Salamander."
The spell manifested differently than her other magics. Instead of a beam or projectile, Salamander created a creature. A lizard formed entirely of flame sprang from Nightbane's crystal and launched itself at the bound Crawler.
The salamander struck the insect-thing's torso and exploded.
Fire engulfed the Crawler, temperatures spiking so high that the surrounding stone began to glow red. The creature's shriek became something more, a sound of genuine agony as its chitin blackened and cracked. The acid on its carapace boiled away. Its multiple faces twisted in individual expressions of suffering.
Then it collapsed, the chains dissolving as there was nothing left to bind.
[DUNGEON CRAWLER DEFEATED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 5,800]
[DAILY QUEST PROGRESS: SALAMANDER (1/3), MONSTERS KILLED (1/3)]
Nozomi stared at the charred remains, breathing hard. The spell had been more effective than she had expected and far more brutal. The Crawler had not just died. It had been incinerated, reduced to ash and twisted metal in seconds.
She glanced at her mana: 8,350/8,900. The combination of Chains and Salamander had cost her 550 mana total. Expensive, but sustainable. She could cast that combination sixteen times before running dry. More than enough.
The next monster came from above, a ceiling-dwelling ambush predator that dropped on silk-thin strands. It was spider-like but with a human torso where the head should be, its face frozen in a rictus of rage.
[WIDOW STALKER - LEVEL 49]
Chains. Salamander. Explosion.
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 4,200]
[DAILY QUEST PROGRESS: SALAMANDER (2/3), MONSTERS KILLED (2/3)]
The third emerged from the floor itself, a gelatinous thing that tried to dissolve her boots before she noticed it.
[ACID SLIME - LEVEL 47]
Chains to hold it in place. Salamander to boil it from within.
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 3,900]
[DAILY QUEST PROGRESS: SALAMANDER (3/3), MONSTERS KILLED (3/3)]
[DAILY QUEST OBJECTIVES COMPLETE: CASTING AND KILLS]
But Nozomi did not stop.
The fourth monster. The fifth. The tenth. She moved through floor 200's corridors like a force of nature, and where she passed, nothing survived. The combination of Chains and Salamander proved devastatingly effective. Bind the target, then incinerate it before it could break free.
Her mana regeneration kept pace with her expenditure. The Wisdom stat she had neglected was still high enough that she recovered roughly fifty mana per minute. She could maintain a steady rhythm of engagement without exhausting herself.
After the twentieth kill, the notification she had been waiting for appeared.
[LEVEL UP!]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 29]
[STAT POINTS AVAILABLE: 3]
She allocated immediately: +1 Strength, +1 Dexterity, +1 Intelligence. The familiar wash of power, the feeling of her body transcending its previous limits.
The monsters kept coming.
Floor 200 seemed to have an endless supply of horrors. Creatures that defied taxonomy, that violated the natural order, that existed only to kill and consume. And Nozomi met each one with chains and fire, her movements becoming more efficient with each engagement.
She was learning.
Learning the timing of her spells, the optimal distance for Salamander's explosion, the durability of her Chains against different enemy types. Learning to read monster behavior, to predict attacks, to dodge rather than tank hits when possible.
Her cleric training, seven years of keeping parties alive by predicting danger, translated surprisingly well to combat magic. She had always been good at pattern recognition, at understanding threat vectors. Now she simply applied those skills to killing rather than healing.
[LEVEL UP!]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 30]
The notification brought a savage smile to Nozomi's face. Level 30. She had gained more levels in the past few hours than she had in the previous six months of cleric work.
This was power. Real power. Not the marginal gains of supporting others, but direct, personal strength.
She checked her step counter: 8,247/10,000. Almost there.
By the time she completed the walking requirement, Nozomi had cleared what she estimated to be half of floor 200. Her kill count had exceeded fifty. Her experience bar was creeping toward level 31.
And she felt good.
Not just physically strong, though that was certainly true. But mentally clear. Focused. The fear and desperation that had plagued her in the Boss Room had crystallized into something harder. Something useful.
Down here, one hundred and sixty-five floors below help, surrounded by monsters that could kill her in seconds, she was not thinking about the water damage in her apartment or her sister's medical bills or the casual cruelty of parties who saw her as disposable.
Down here, survival was simple.
Kill or be killed.
And Nozomi was very, very good at killing.
She made her way back to the Boss Room entrance, her mana fully regenerated, her health at maximum. The daily quest was complete except for one objective: begin the ascent.
Which meant dealing with the Cyclops.