Eryon remained hanging from the rotten tree, half-floating in the swamp, his body barely swaying with the sluggish rhythm of the murky water. His fingers were numb, his arms burned with pain, yet he made no effort to move.He stared into the void.
He thought of nothing.He felt nothing.
It was a heavy, suffocating apathy, as if something inside him had shut down along with the screams, the blood, and the deaths in that treasure hall. For a few brief moments, there was no fear and no pain—only an uneasy, dangerous stillness.
Then something changed.
His unfocused gaze sharpened.His teeth clenched tightly.
The apathy shattered, replaced by anger.
A bitter, sticky anger—almost as foul as the swamp surrounding him.
"Damn… tower…" he murmured soundlessly.
With what little strength he could gather, Eryon began dragging himself along the trunk, pulling one arm free, then the other. Each movement tore a muffled groan from his throat. When he finally managed to pull himself out of the murky water, he collapsed sideways into the mud, gasping, his body trembling from cold, pain, and rage.
Blood was still flowing from his shoulder.
He forced himself upright, swaying, and the first thing he did was scan his surroundings with near-animal paranoia. He slowly turned his head, peering between the rotting trees, twisted shadows, and greenish pools of water. He expected to see eyes, claws—something moving.
Nothing.
Only the swamp… and the silence.
That did not calm him.
Seeing no immediate threat, he lowered his gaze to his wounded shoulder. The bite from that thing was worse than he had felt at the time. Its fangs had left jagged holes in skin and flesh, torn patches where blood still poured thick and hot. Every beat of his heart sent pain radiating down his arm.
He frowned.
The strange thing was that, despite the bleeding, the flow seemed to have slowed somewhat.
He didn't stop to think about it.
Clumsily, he tore off his soaked, filthy shirt. The fabric resisted, stuck to the wound, and when he pulled it free, more blood spilled out, drawing a low growl of pain from him. Without wasting time, he ripped the cloth into strips and, with trembling hands, improvised bandages.
He tightened them hard—too hard—until his fingers turned white.
It wasn't a cure.It was survival.
When he finished, he took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling unevenly. Mud covered his legs, blood stained his torso, and fear still lurked there, crouched and waiting… but it no longer ruled him completely.
Eryon stood up with difficulty. The mud seemed determined to hold him back, as if the swamp itself refused to let him leave. His legs shook—not just from exhaustion, but from something deeper.
He didn't know where to go.
But standing still meant becoming dinner for the wretched creatures that lived in this place.
So he walked.
He moved without direction, driven more by instinct than will. Every step was clumsy, every movement cautious. The swamp did not forgive mistakes. He didn't know how much time passed—minutes, hours, maybe more. Time there felt thick and warped, like the air he breathed.
More than once, he came within a breath of dying.
Once, the ground trembled, and when he looked up, he found himself facing a grotesque orange serpent the size of a truck. Its scales glistened with moisture, its massive body sliding with impossible weight. Eryon froze, his heart threatening to burst from his chest… and only by sheer luck did the monster lose interest when something even larger burst nearby.
A giant frog, covered in warts and mud, leapt from the water with a thunderous splash, and the two beasts crashed into each other. Eryon didn't wait to see the outcome. He ran. He ran until his lungs burned and his legs threatened to give out.
The farther he went, the colder the swamp became. The dampness seeped into his bones. Hunger twisted his stomach, thirst scraped his throat raw, and his mind… his mind was exhausted.
Thinking hurt.
Covered in wounds, mud, and dried blood, Eryon kept walking—staggering, directionless, without clear hope.
And at some point, as he moved mechanically between rotting trees and stagnant waters, a silent question formed in his mind, heavy as stone:
Why was he still walking?
He found no answer.
Still, he took another step.
...
Eryon lay sprawled in a pool of murky water.
He didn't know how long he had walked before collapsing there. Hours? Days? The very concept of time had dissolved somewhere in the swamp. His body had simply given up. His strength left without ceremony, and he fell like a broken doll.
He no longer felt pain.
Or at least, that's what anyone might have said—if not for the sharp sensation, like thousands of needles being driven straight into his brain, pulsing with each weak beat of his heart. Even so, he made no real attempt to get up. There was no hurry. No reason.
With a lazy, almost indifferent effort, he rolled onto his back. Muddy water soaked into him, cold and unpleasant… but he no longer cared.
Eryon's mind drifted in a strange limbo, unfocused and aimless. Useless thoughts came and went, like trash carried by a slow current.
Maybe it would have been better to die quickly… like them.Maybe I never should have tried to enter the tower.It would've been better to get some mundane job. Something simple. Something safe.
A trail of hatred surfaced, thick and heavy, directed at his missing father. At the stupid debt he had left behind. At the emptiness that had forced them into desperate choices.
For an instant—brief, almost nonexistent—his mind searched for a closer culprit.
His younger sister.
The thought was fleeting… and brutal.
The moment it appeared, it was crushed by a wave of disgust and self-hatred more violent than any creature in the swamp. His fingers twitched slightly in the mud.
What kind of person would even think something like that?
Eryon let out a silent, broken laugh that never became sound. His lips curved into something resembling a pathetic smile as he stared up at the sky, obscured by rotting branches and shadows.
Or at least… that was how it seemed.
His eyes were open, empty, reflecting an existence he no longer knew if he wanted to keep holding onto.
Eryon blinked.
Once.Twice.
Something stirred deep within his mind, like a memory finally rising to the surface after being crushed again and again.
The skill.
That blurred fragment of the system window he had barely glimpsed before the blow came down on him.
Until now, he hadn't had the time—or the strength—to think about it. His mind had been too busy surviving, hating, crawling forward. But now, lying in that filthy puddle, his body on the verge of collapse, that memory returned with unsettling clarity.
Eryon frowned. Concentrating hurt, as if every thought were a nail twisting inside his skull, but he gathered what little lucidity he had left.
"…Status window," he murmured, his voice dry and broken.
The world before him trembled slightly.
Then it appeared.
A translucent interface floated before his eyes. Even in his miserable state, he could recognize the basic sections: his name, age, class, rank. Below that, the physical stats he already knew… though several were alarmingly low.
A new section immediately caught his attention.
Health: CRITICAL CONDITION
He didn't need the system to tell him that. Every breath was heavy, and his shoulder still burned with a dull ache. Just below it was another field.
Mental State:
Eryon didn't manage to read it completely… but he didn't need to. If the system were honest, it would probably be filled with warnings.
He swallowed.
His eyes moved downward through the window until they reached what truly mattered.
Skills.
There it was.
Comprehensive Physical Reinforcement — Rank B.
The skill he had activated on instinct again and again. The only reason he was still breathing.
But beneath it…
There was something else.
Something that hadn't been there before.
A new line, dark, as if even the system hesitated to display it clearly.
Skill: ??? Rank: ???
A chill ran down Eryon's spine.
His breathing quickened slightly—not from fear, but from a dangerous mix of confusion and anticipation.
"…So it wasn't a dream," he whispered.
The swamp still reeked of decay. His body was still broken. His situation was still desperate.
But for the first time since he had awakened there…
Something had changed.