---
[Successful!]
---
Relief hit so hard that I nearly staggered.
It worked.
The answer was correct.
At the sa mont, the blue barrier sealing the dungeon entrance shattered into countless fragnts and vanished.
I didn’t hesitate.
The instant the path opened, I threw myself toward the portal.
Just before I reached it, a sword ca flying through the air.
The blade grazed my neck, leaving behind a shallow cut. A sharp sting shot through , but I never turned around.
I didn’t need to.
I already knew who had thrown it.
The next instant, the portal swallowed whole.
As soon as I passed through, a sharp pain exploded inside my head. My stomach twisted violently, and an overwhelming sense of nausea washed over .
Before I could understand what was happening, several ssages appeared in front of my eyes.
[Aftereffects of using the Teleportation Skill detected!]
[Please prepare yourself!]
Almost imdiately, a wave of dizziness crashed into .
My vision blurred.
The world spun around .
Then, in the next mont, I erged outside the dungeon.
The instant my feet touched the ground, my legs gave out beneath .
I collapsed without resistance.
As consciousness slowly slipped away, I caught one final glimpse of the people standing in front of .
Allen, Miri, Julian.
And behind them stood dozens of journalists.
Then everything faded into darkness.
***
**Three days later.**
The lights in the stairwell flickered weakly as slow, uneven footsteps echoed upward.
The space was completely silent, which only made the sound of each struggling step that much louder.
Soone was climbing the stairs. Very slowly. Very carefully.
They were gripping the railing tightly, using it to pull themselves up one step at a ti.
Their breathing was heavy and labored. Each breath ca out in short, ragged bursts.
They looked utterly drained.
That person was .
I should probably explain how I ended up in this situation.
Earlier this morning, around 7 A.M., I got a call from Eden Garcia. Yeah. The main character of the novel.
He told he’d just gotten his hands on a limited edition ga. It was brand new, released today. A multiplayer ga.
He wanted to co over so we could play it together.
I didn’t give him a straight answer. I told him I’d think about it.
After hanging up, I’d already made my decision. I wasn’t going. I was feeling way too lazy to drag myself out of bed for a video ga.
That should’ve been the end of it.
But then my phone buzzed again.
This ti, it was a ssage. From Eden’s mom. Miss May.
The text read: "Co to our ho. I have a present for you. A present you will like very much."
The mont I saw that ssage, I practically jumped out of bed.
I went straight to my wardrobe and started pulling out clean clothes.
Why the sudden change of heart?
Because I wanted that present.
My dirty mind was already running wild imagining what it could possibly be.
I quickly threw on so clothes, left the mansion, jumped into one of the parked cars, and plugged all the necessary instructions into the automated system. The car lifted smoothly into the air and flew directly to Eden’s apartnt building.
This ti, I’d told Allen not to co with . I explained I was just going over to hang out and play so gas with Eden. Nothing serious.
Allen had agreed, though I could tell he wasn’t thrilled about it. He clearly wanted to co along, but I’d shut that idea down imdiately.
Once I arrived at Eden’s building, I headed straight inside.
The security guards and the receptionist greeted as I passed through the lobby. There was actually a receptionist stationed there because Eden’s building operated as a rental property. People stayed there regularly. Mostly tourists.
Right now, though, the entire place was empty. Eden had ntioned he was renovating the building, which ant all the floors were currently vacant. The work had been going on for around seven months. According to him, they were almost finished.
After exchanging quick greetings with the staff, I walked over to the elevator and pressed the button for the fiftieth floor. That was where Eden lived, all the way at the top.
The doors closed and the cabin started moving upward. But then it stopped on the tenth floor. The doors opened even though I hadn’t pressed that button.
Confused, I stepped out and found one of the security guards nearby. I asked him what was going on.
He told the elevator had malfunctioned.
Perfect.
I imdiately pulled out my phone and called Eden. The second he picked up, I told him to just teleport down here and bring up to the fiftieth floor himself.
He flat-out refused.
He said I should use my own teleportation skill and get up there on my own.
Then he hung up.
I froze, staring at the screen in disbelief.
That bastard.
Muttering curses under my breath, I turned toward the stairwell and started climbing.
Now, two questions likely co to mind.
Now, you’re probably wondering two things. First, why didn’t I just use my teleportation skill like he’d suggested? And second, how the hell did Eden even know I had that ability in the first place?
Well, there’s a whole story behind both of those questions.
But right now, I needed to focus on the present.
I was making my way up the stairs slowly, each step more painful than the last.
I was absolutely exhausted. Completely drained. I felt like I’d been climbing forever.
Hold on. Let actually check how long it’s been.
I checked my watch and glanced at the ti.
---
Na: Michael Frostburne
Total Rules Broken: 0
Ti: 9:17 PM
Date: 20th February
Year: 2130
---
9:17 PM.
So I’d been climbing stairs for a full thirty minutes. And I still hadn’t reached Eden’s floor.
Damn it.
I turned my head toward the wall and checked the floor marker posted there. My heart sank slightly when I saw the number.
Fortieth floor.
A long, heavy sigh escaped .
Ten more floors to go.
I couldn’t do it anymore. Not without a break. I stopped right where I was and sat down on one of the steps, leaning my back against the cool wall.
While I tried to catch my breath, I looked down at my own body.
It was still weak. Embarrassingly weak.
Under normal circumstances, a bronze-rank hunter could easily climb fifty flights of stairs without needing to stop even once. But I clearly wasn’t normal.
My rank had increased to bronze, sure, but my body hadn’t caught up yet. It was still lagging far behind where it should have been.
Then Eden’s earlier words echoed in my head.
He’d been right. Absolutely right. Sotis, hard work really was the only way forward.
Now that I actually stopped to think about it, I realized sothing uncomfortable. Ever since I’d arrived in this world, I’d done nothing but rely on shortcuts to survive and get stronger. I’d used Allen to clear dungeons for . I’d used the twin blood effect to neutralize monsters without fighting them. I’d used gold coins to scare off the Dullahan.
Every single ti, I’d found so way to avoid actually putting myself in danger.
And even now, sitting here on these stairs, completely worn out, the first thing my mind wanted to do was pull a recovery potion or stamina potion from my inventory so I could skip the exhaustion and keep moving.
My brain was completely hardwired to look for shortcuts.
While I wallowed in that realization, my phone suddenly vibrated in my pocket.
Huh? A ssage?
I pulled it out and checked the screen to see who had contacted .
***
(From Unknown: 99 ssages)
***
Not this again.
The second I saw it, I switched my phone off completely and set it down beside on the step.
I leaned my head back against the wall and stared blankly at the ceiling above.
How the hell had my life turned into this?
Here’s what happened.
It all started the day I entered that special-rank dungeon. Or mirror dungeon, depending on what you wanted to call it.
I’d grabbed the teleportation skill book, made it out of the dungeon in one piece, and then promptly collapsed the mont I stepped outside.
That’s where everything started to go sideways.
Right before I passed out, I rember catching a quick glimpse of the people standing nearby. Allen was there. So were Miri and Julian. And scattered all around them were dozens of journalists.
I still had no clue why that many reporters had been gathered in one place to begin with.
But the second they saw hit the ground, they all rushed over.
Allen got to first. He picked up imdiately and had transferred to a hospital without wasting any ti.
Now, while I was lying there unconscious, sothing happened outside the dungeon.
The journalists, Miri among them, gathered around the spot where I’d fallen. That’s when they noticed sothing lying on the ground next to . Sothing none of them had been expecting.
Even Julian, who rarely looked rattled, had apparently been caught completely off guard. At least that’s what he told afterward.
What they saw was a skull.
Not a human skull.
It was the Dullahan’s skull.
And the eyes, which should have been glowing with cursed energy, were completely dark. That ant the creature was dead.
Every single person there, Allen included, ca to the exact sa conclusion.
They all assud I had fought the Dullahan by myself and killed it.
Now, like I’d ntioned before, Dullahans were supposed to be extinct. The last confird sighting in any dungeon had been over fifteen years ago.
So when those journalists saw a Dullahan’s skull lying right there on the ground, they lost their minds. Caras ca out instantly. Live streams went up. Photos started getting sent to every major news outlet within minutes.
And naturally, they all assud the Dullahan had been the dungeon boss.
Which, to be completely fair, it actually had been.
While I was stuck in the hospital recovering, the news about began to spread. Fast.
According to what Miri had told during our elevator conversation, my public reputation had been absolutely terrible up to that point. Most people knew as the useless son of the Frostburne family. A zero-rank nobody who couldn’t accomplish anything without help.
But now, suddenly, that perception had flipped overnight.
The story circulating everywhere, across TV broadcasts and social dia feeds alike, was that I had not only survived a special-rank dungeon entirely on my own but had also sohow managed to kill a Dullahan in the process.
Single-handedly.
My public image went from "useless" to sothing entirely different almost overnight. My fa surged for one simple reason: Dullahans weren’t weak monsters. Nearly all of them, in fact, were Elite-rank. Finding a Dullahan below that rank was incredibly rare.
And I’d gotten lucky.
The problem was that everyone, the public included, assud the Dullahan I’d supposedly killed had also been Elite-rank.
But I need to clear sothing up right now.
I didn’t kill that Dullahan.
I knew that for certain because not a single essence point had been added to my character interface. If I’d been the one to kill it, the system would have registered it imdiately.
So no, I had nothing to do with its death.
Still, when the governnt learned about a Dullahan sighting after fifteen years of nothing, they moved quickly. They put together a small committee composed of HUNTER agency mbers to investigate.
The day after I exited the dungeon, I was interrogated by those mbers while still lying in a hospital bed.
The interrogation covered everything. How the dungeon had turned out to be a mirror dungeon. How I’d received a teleportation skill book as a reward.
A few details got left out, though. Like the fact that I hadn’t actually killed the Dullahan. Or my experint with the twin blood effect.
I also made sure to correct their assumption. I clarified that the Dullahan had been Rare-rank, not Elite.
After that, the interrogation wrapped up without issue.
The following day, I was discharged. That’s when I discovered that the reward I’d obtained from the special-rank dungeon had leaked to the public.
My fa, which had already been rising, absolutely exploded once people found out I’d acquired a teleportation skill. My social dia account got leaked—I still don’t know how.
Since yesterday, I’d been getting an endless stream of ssages from complete strangers. So sent love and support. Others sent hate. I even received ten marriage proposals from random girls I’d never t in my life.
Because of all this, I’d seriously been thinking about ditching my phone entirely and deleting all my social dia accounts.
Honestly, I’d never wanted to be famous. Not like this.
Why?
Because fa brought pressure. Constant, suffocating pressure.
Society would start putting expectations on . They’d make assumptions about who I should be, what I should do, how I should act.
And I hated that. I’d always despised it when people placed expectations on .
I just wanted to be left alone.
I sat there on the fortieth-floor landing, weighing my options.
Anyway, should I use the teleportation skill?
---
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