The oppressive darkness was gone. Torches lit the caverns with human-made oil flame, not the eerie bioluminescence of the deeper levels. The walls were worked stone rather than organic surfaces. Most importantly, the monsters were weaker. Much weaker.
[STONE GOLEM — LEVEL 38]
Nozomi dispatched it with Salamander alone. The fire-lizard reduced the construct to rubble in seconds.
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 2,100]
She moved through floor 120 methodically, killing everything she encountered. Golems. Ghosts. Corrupted undead. Each fell to her magic, each granted experience, and each brought her incrementally closer to the surface.
By the time she found floor 120's exit staircase, she had reached level 35.
Floor 119. Floor 118. Floor 117.
The pattern repeated. Clear the floor. Find the stairs. Ascend. Kill monsters. Gain experience. Allocate stats. The grind became meditative in its simplicity, no complex tactics required, no life or death struggles. Just efficient extermination.
She reached level 36 on floor 115.
The monsters were becoming trivial now. Level 35 enemies died to her basic spells. She was outleveling the content, growing stronger faster than the dungeon could scale to match her. It felt good.
Every level was proof that she was more than the disposable healer they had tried to murder. Every stat point allocated was another step toward the strength she would need to survive. Every monster killed was practice, refinement, mastery.
By floor 110, Nozomi had developed a rhythm. Enter floor. Clear monsters. Collect drops. Find stairs. Ascend. Repeat. The drops alone — mana crystals, monster parts, rare materials — would be worth millions of yen on the surface. Enough to pay for Yui's treatment for years.
If she survived.
The thought of her sister was what kept Nozomi moving even as exhaustion began to set in. Yui, waiting at home, believing the lie that her sister would return. Yui, who had maybe eighteen months left without consistent treatment. Yui, who deserved better than to die alone because Nozomi had been stupid enough to trust the wrong people.
She would survive.
She would climb out of this hell.
She would save her sister.
And then, only then, would she allow herself the luxury of revenge.
By the time Nozomi reached floor 100, night had fallen. Or what passed for night in the dungeon. The torches dimmed, ambient mana shifted, and exhaustion finally caught up with her.
She found a defensible alcove in floor 100's corridors, a small chamber with only one entrance that she could monitor. She gathered some of the dried wood scattered throughout the level and used Salamander to ignite it, creating a campfire that provided both warmth and light.
The fire crackled and popped, filling the chamber with familiar sounds. For a moment, Nozomi could almost pretend she was somewhere safe. Camping in the wilderness on a training expedition with a party that did not hate her.
The illusion lasted exactly as long as it took her to check her status screen.
[NAME: NOZOMI HAYASHI]
[CLASS: ABYSSAL WITCH (UNIQUE)]
[LEVEL: 36]
[HEALTH: 3,920/3,920]
[MANA: 10,600/10,600]
[STRENGTH: 65]
[DEXTERITY: 53]
[CONSTITUTION: 68]
[INTELLIGENCE: 104]
[WISDOM: 72]
[CHARISMA: 67]
[SOUL INTEGRITY: 87%]
Level 36. Her stats had more than doubled since her transformation. She was stronger now than she had been in her entire life as a cleric. Stronger than most B-rank delvers. And still eleven levels below Daichi.
Nozomi stared into the flames, Nightbane resting across her lap, the Celestial Aegis a comforting weight around her shoulders. The fire cast dancing shadows on the walls, and in those shadows she saw faces.
Daichi's sneer. Akane's cruel amusement. Kenji's mocking grin.
"Even you cannot screw that up," she said to the silence.
Her hand tightened on the staff until her knuckles went white.
They had made a mistake. A fundamental, catastrophic mistake born of arrogance and cruelty. They had assumed she was weak because she had been forced to play a support role. Assumed she was worthless because the system had given her a healing class. Assumed she would die quietly in the dark and no one would care.
They had assumed wrong.
"I'm coming," Nozomi whispered to the flames, her layered voice making the words sound like a promise and a threat. "I'm climbing out of this abyss you threw me into. I'm getting stronger with every floor, every monster, every level."
The fire crackled in response.
She pulled up her quest log. The daily quest had been completed hours ago, granting her the promised five stat points and skill experience. Another notification sat beneath it.
[QUEST AVAILABLE: RETURN TO THE LIGHT]
[OBJECTIVE: REACH THE SURFACE (FLOOR 1)]
[CURRENT PROGRESS: FLOOR 100/200]
[REWARD: CLASS EVOLUTION OPPORTUNITY]
[SPECIAL REWARD: VARIABLE (BASED ON COMPLETION TIME)]
Class evolution. The system dangled another transformation in front of her, another opportunity to transcend her limits. Most delvers reached level 50 before unlocking their first class evolution. Those who did typically gained access to advanced versions of their starting class. A Warrior might become a Berserker or Paladin. A Mage might evolve into an Archmage or Elementalist.
Nozomi's class was already unique. What would an Abyssal Witch evolve into? Something stronger. Something deadlier. Something those three would regret creating.
She allowed herself a small smile, cold and sharp as a knife's edge, and settled back against the alcove wall. Sleep would come whether she wanted it or not; her body demanded rest after the marathon of combat and climbing.
Before she closed her eyes, Nozomi made a mental calculation. One hundred floors climbed in roughly sixteen hours. If she maintained that pace, she could reach the surface in another sixteen hours. Thirty-two hours total from her transformation to returning to the light. Thirty-two hours from victim to predator.
She wondered if Daichi's party was still on floor 35, still looting the boss they had supposedly come to fight. Probably not. They had likely completed their contract by now, collected their payment, split the rewards she was supposed to share.
Were they celebrating? Drinking in some expensive bar, toasting their successful hunt, laughing about how easy it had been to dispose of the dead weight? Or had some small voice of conscience begun to whisper in the back of their minds? Some nagging doubt about whether what they had done was actually justified?
Nozomi hoped not. She hoped they had forgotten her entirely. Hoped they felt no guilt, no remorse, no hesitation. Because when she found them, and she would find them, she wanted them completely unprepared. Wanted to see the recognition dawn in their eyes as they realized the girl they'd murdered was standing in front of them, very much alive. Wanted to watch their confidence crumble as they understood how badly they had miscalculated.
The fire burned lower, embers glowing red in the darkness. Nozomi's eyes drifted closed as exhaustion finally claimed her.
Her last conscious thought was of Yui—small and fragile, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for a sister who would come home.
I'm coming, Yui. Just a little longer. I promise.
Then sleep took her, and in her dreams she burned.
Nozomi woke to the system's notification chime.
[NEW DAY DETECTED]
[DAILY QUEST AVAILABLE]
She sat up, blinking away the remnants of sleep. The fire had burned down to ash, but she felt surprisingly refreshed. The alcove had been secure. No monsters had disturbed her rest, and her health and mana had fully regenerated overnight.
She checked the timestamp on the notification. She had slept for roughly six hours. Efficient. Her body was adapting to the demands she placed on it, recovering faster and requiring less downtime. The Celestial Aegis probably helped with that too.
She stood, stretched, and felt her joints pop satisfyingly. Then she pulled up the new daily quest.
[DAILY QUEST: PATH OF THE WITCH]
[OBJECTIVE 1: CAST SALAMANDER 5 TIMES (0/5)]
[OBJECTIVE 2: DEFEAT 5 MONSTERS (0/5)]
[OBJECTIVE 3: WALK 15,000 STEPS (0/15,000)]
[OBJECTIVE 4: ASCEND AT LEAST 10 FLOORS]
[TIME LIMIT: 24 HOURS]
[REWARD: +5 STAT POINTS, SKILL EXPERIENCE, RANDOM SKILL BOOK]
[FAILURE PENALTY: -50% ALL STATS FOR 48 HOURS]
The requirements had increased. More casts. More kills. More steps. More floors. The system pushed her harder as she grew stronger.
Good. She needed to be pushed. Needed to be forged. Every challenge was another opportunity to grow, and growth was survival.
Nozomi dismissed the notification and began her morning routine, or what passed for morning in the timeless depths of the dungeon. She checked her equipment and found it in perfect condition, as usual with legendary gear. She verified her inventory—spider drops and various monster parts collected during yesterday's ascent—and reviewed her status.
[LEVEL: 36]
[NEXT LEVEL: 14,200/55,000 EXP]
She needed forty thousand more experience to reach level 37. At her current rate of roughly two thousand experience per monster killed, that meant twenty more kills. Easy enough — floor 100 and above would provide plenty of targets.
Satisfied with preparation, Nozomi extinguished the remains of her campfire with a gesture and left the alcove. Time to continue the ascent.
Floor 100 proved to be a milestone in more ways than one.
The first difference Nozomi noticed was the architecture. The rough-hewn caverns of the deeper levels had given way to something more deliberately constructed. Smooth stone blocks fitted together with obvious skill. Faded murals depicted battles between humans and monsters. Proper corridors branched at regular intervals, and the ceiling was high enough that footsteps echoed.
Someone had built this long ago, before the Advent or perhaps in its immediate aftermath. Someone had descended to floor 100 and carved out a structure.
The second difference was the monsters.
[ARMORED KNIGHT — LEVEL 42]
[TYPE: ANIMATED CONSTRUCT]
The knight stood at a corridor intersection, its armor pristine despite obvious age. Its head turned toward her with a grinding of metal joints. Then it drew its sword, a massive two-handed blade glowing with enchantments, and charged.
Fast. Faster than the golems she had fought on higher floors. The knight closed the distance in seconds, sword swinging in a horizontal arc designed to decapitate.
Nozomi stepped back, read the attack's trajectory, and cast.
"Chains of Imprisonment."
The dark bindings wrapped around the knight's legs, halting its charge. Unlike the Cyclops, the construct did not have the physical strength to break free. It struggled, sword swinging wildly, but remained bound.
"Salamander."
The fire-lizard struck the knight's chest and exploded. When the flames cleared, Nozomi expected scrap metal.
The knight was still standing. Scorched, yes. Its armor blackened and glowing red-hot in places. But intact. Still struggling. Still dangerous.
[ SALAMANDER PARTIALLY RESISTED: FIRE RESISTANCE ]
"Of course you have fire resistance," Nozomi muttered. "Because that would be too easy."
She raised Nightbane again and cycled through her mental catalog of spells. Fire did not work. Chains alone would not kill it. That left her other options.
"Fracture."
The spell targeted the knight's joints, weak points where armor plates met. Reality cracked at those junctures. Metal split along lines of structural failure. The knight's right arm fell off, still clutching its sword. Then its left leg gave way.
The construct collapsed in pieces, the enchantments animating it finally failing as the body lost cohesion.
[ARMORED KNIGHT DEFEATED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 3,400]
Better. She was learning to adapt her tactics to different enemy types. Fire for flesh. Fracture for armor. Chains for control. The variety in her spell list gave her options, and options meant survival.
Nozomi continued through floor 100, encountering more knights, more constructs, and occasionally other monster types that had wandered in from adjacent floors. Each fell to her magic. Each granted experience.
By the time she found the floor's exit, she had completed the daily quest's combat objectives and was halfway through the step requirement.
Floor 99. More knights, but also ghosts—spectral figures that phased through walls and attacked with life-draining magic. She dispatched them with Unravel, the spell that disrupted magical cohesion proving effective against incorporeal targets.
Floor 98. A mix of undead and constructs, their levels ranging from 40 to 45. Nozomi moved through them like a reaper, her magic precise and efficient.
She hit level 37 on floor 97.
[LEVEL UP!]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 37]
[STAT POINTS AVAILABLE: 3]
The allocation was becoming routine: +1 Intelligence, +1 Dexterity, +1 Constitution. Balanced growth, no weak points. Her mana maximum was now 11,100, her health 4,160.
She was becoming formidable.
Not invincible. The Cyclops fight had proved that a sufficiently powerful enemy could still threaten her. But within her level range, she was dominant. The monsters that spawned on these floors could not match her combination of high stats, legendary equipment, and diverse spell list.
And she was still climbing.
Floor 96. Floor 95. Floor 94. The grind continued. Nozomi fell into rhythm, her mind going quiet as her body executed familiar patterns: detect enemy, engage at optimal range, cast appropriate spell, confirm kill, collect drop, continue forward.
Meditation through violence.
On floor 92 she encountered something different.
The chamber was large, easily the size of a gymnasium, and its walls were lined with alcoves. In each alcove stood a statue, and each statue held a weapon: swords, spears, axes, bows. Hundreds of weapons arranged with ceremony.
An armory? A memorial?
Nozomi approached carefully, her witch-senses extended, feeling for threats. The room radiated old magic—not hostile, but present and waiting.
She examined the nearest statue. It depicted a warrior in full plate armor, face obscured by a closed helm, holding a spear in both hands. Craftsmanship was exquisite, every detail rendered with precision.
At the statue's base was a plaque. The text was in a language Nozomi did not recognize, but as she focused on it the words shifted, translating themselves through some property of the dungeon or perhaps her own enhanced intelligence.
"HERE RESTS TAKESHI YAMAMOTO, FIRST DELVER TO REACH FLOOR 92. HE FELL SO THAT OTHERS MIGHT CLIMB HIGHER. MAY HIS SACRIFICE BE REMEMBERED."
Nozomi's breath caught.
This was not just an armory. It was a graveyard. Each statue represented a delver who had died at this depth, their weapons preserved as monuments to their sacrifice.
She walked among the alcoves, reading plaques.
"Akiko Tanaka, Mage of the Crimson Tower."
"Robert Chen, Shield of the First Expedition."
"Yuki Nakamura, who gave her life to save her party."
Hundreds of names. Hundreds of stories. Each one ending the same way: in death, in the dark, far from home.
How many of them had families waiting on the surface? How many had people who never got closure, never learned what happened in those final moments? How many had been forgotten entirely?
Nozomi stopped in front of a statue depicting a cleric—the only one she had seen so far. The figure was small, female, holding a staff not unlike the one Nozomi had carried in her previous life. The plaque read:
"Hana Yoshida, Cleric of Mercy. Level 31. She died healing those who would not heal her. Beloved by all who knew her. Floor 92, Year 47 of the Advent."
Level 31. Close to what Nozomi had been when they threw her into the abyss.
She stood there for a long moment, looking at Hana Yoshida's stone face. Wondering what her story had been. Whether she had been underpaid and overworked like Nozomi. Whether she had someone waiting on the surface. Whether her death had been quick or slow.
Whether anyone had avenged her.
"I will not end up like you," Nozomi whispered to the statue. "I will not be another name on a plaque, another sacrifice forgotten by history."
She turned away from the memorial chamber and continued toward the exit.
"I'm going to survive. I'm going to climb out of here. And when I do, the people who put me down here are going to learn that some debts cannot be written off."
The chamber's exit led to a staircase, and Nozomi ascended without looking back.
Behind her, in the silence, the statue of Hana Yoshida almost seemed to smile.
Floor 90. Floor 85. Floor 80. The climb continued relentless and grinding. Nozomi's daily quest reset twice more as she ascended, each time with increased requirements. The system pushed her harder, and she met each challenge with cold determination.
She reached level 38 on floor 86. Level 39 on floor 81. Level 40 on floor 77.
Each level brought new power. Her stats climbed steadily.
[STRENGTH: 71]
[DEXTERITY: 62]
[CONSTITUTION: 77]
[INTELLIGENCE: 119]
[WISDOM: 72]
She was approaching the levels of her betrayers. Daichi at 47, Akane at 44, Kenji at 45. The gap had shrunk from over twenty levels to single digits.
Soon. Very soon she would be their equal in raw power. Shortly after that she would exceed them.
The thought brought a cold satisfaction that kept Nozomi moving even when exhaustion threatened. Every monster killed was a step closer to revenge. Every level gained was insurance against failure.
She would not fail. Could not fail.
Yui was depending on her. Beyond her sister's survival, there was the simple, fundamental fact that Nozomi Hayashi refused to die like Hana Yoshida: forgotten, a memorial gathering dust in the dark where no one would ever see it.
If she died, it would be on her own terms.
But she would not die. She was going to live. And everyone who underestimated her was going to regret it.